Sapient Voices #1: Dr. Osman Latiff - Singing, Death, Academic Journey, Othering & God's Forgiveness (2022-04-01) #

0:00:00 [Music]
0:00:13 peace and blessings be upon every single
0:00:15 one of you my name is hamza zodzis and
0:00:18 welcome to sapient voices
0:00:21 a podcast by sapience institute that
0:00:25 aims to
0:00:27 facilitate discussion in order for
0:00:29 wisdom and reason to prevail and to give
0:00:32 platform to voices of wisdom and reason
0:00:37 and with me today we have our beloved dr
0:00:40 usman latif i'm just gonna pull out his
0:00:42 bio and just to introduce him to you
0:00:45 then we're gonna ask him
0:00:47 many questions and we're going to
0:00:49 basically unpack a bit of his life and
0:00:52 also about key topics such as othering
0:00:55 dehumanization
0:00:57 islamic theo philosophy theology
0:01:00 christology
0:01:02 allah's maximum perfection forgiveness
0:01:05 and love
0:01:06 and
0:01:06 maybe everything else in between
0:01:08 so dr osman the thief is a senior
0:01:11 research and instructor at sapience
0:01:12 institute he has a ba in history and m.a
0:01:15 in crusader studies and has completed
0:01:18 his phd
0:01:20 he has delivered many papers in the uk
0:01:22 at
0:01:23 renowned academic institutions
0:01:26 and he has written many books one has
0:01:28 been published by academic press brill
0:01:31 and springer and he has written books
0:01:33 for sapience institute such as on being
0:01:36 human and divine perfection now further
0:01:39 to his phd he conducted post doctorate
0:01:43 research in politics and international
0:01:46 relations and dr osman latif
0:01:49 is a regular speaker of various
0:01:51 institutions including uk universities
0:01:54 and religious institutions
0:01:56 so
0:01:57 dr uthman
0:01:59 salam
0:02:03 how are you alhamdulillah how are you
0:02:05 it's always good talking to you because
0:02:07 you know many times when you speak i get
0:02:09 emotional
0:02:11 and
0:02:12 i think a lot what you have to say
0:02:14 is extremely important and people have
0:02:17 to
0:02:18 learn to listen and they have to take
0:02:20 your words very seriously because you
0:02:22 have a lot of wisdom you are a voice of
0:02:24 wisdom especially in our community
0:02:27 and i want to
0:02:28 i want to get the best out of you today
0:02:29 if possible and i'm going to do that by
0:02:31 trying to be myself as as authentic as
0:02:34 possible to ask you questions maybe push
0:02:36 you in a corner see if you could push
0:02:37 back as well
0:02:40 easy in the beginning i want to ask you
0:02:42 i want you to introduce yourself to the
0:02:43 audiences who are you what is your
0:02:45 background
0:02:46 and take us up to your degree and then
0:02:49 i'll probe further from there so
0:02:51 all right so
0:02:52 it's really wonderful being in your very
0:02:54 blessed company allah bless you and
0:02:56 christian oh goodness and prepare you
0:02:58 all for the coming of the great month of
0:02:59 ramadan and all the viewers as well
0:03:00 aloha make it a blessed month for all of
0:03:03 us a month of increase of goodness of
0:03:05 baraka of rahma and allah's divine grace
0:03:07 for all of us allah i mean
0:03:10 it's wonderful being in your companies
0:03:12 one for being here alhamdulillah
0:03:14 uh so i am you know native and i am you
0:03:17 know uk born alhamdulillah
0:03:20 i think if i was look back in my life
0:03:22 and look at
0:03:23 some pivotal moments in my life that i
0:03:25 think were cataclysmic in terms of
0:03:27 affecting change in who i am today and
0:03:31 and what i what i what i ended up what i
0:03:32 ended up doing
0:03:34 uh i'd say that
0:03:36 one of the most important events growing
0:03:39 up as a as a teenager was the passing of
0:03:42 my grandfather
0:03:43 uh now i think i was very close to my
0:03:45 grandfather but
0:03:47 that exposure to the
0:03:50 kind of uh
0:03:51 finality of life cessation of life um
0:03:54 the fragility of human affairs really
0:03:56 was like quite a wake-up call for me
0:03:58 now that in fact was simultaneous to
0:04:02 a series of events that a lot of people
0:04:04 in fact don't know about
0:04:06 uh i don't think you know about them uh
0:04:08 hamza uh you know but those who are very
0:04:11 i mean those who i live i i lived with
0:04:13 and those who are based where i am based
0:04:15 in slough i know a lot about my my early
0:04:17 years i was in fact a lead uh singer and
0:04:21 uh i i played electric guitar yeah so i
0:04:25 don't think
0:04:26 [Laughter]
0:04:35 i was leader of a band yeah i've
0:04:37 prepared i've appeared live on radio
0:04:39 i've appeared in the newspaper i've i've
0:04:41 done like i've prepared i've done three
0:04:44 live performances in cinema you know so
0:04:46 i've done a lot that you don't you're
0:04:49 not familiar with in fact and so that's
0:04:51 my that's my early life so when i was in
0:04:54 school i was the leader of a band i
0:04:57 played electric guitar i was lead
0:04:58 vocalist um and we were doing really
0:05:02 well we we came in fact we performed in
0:05:04 an annual award ceremony we came three
0:05:06 third out of 44 contestants
0:05:08 and then we were selected to play in a
0:05:10 very big event an annual asian academy
0:05:13 award ceremony we had famous actors and
0:05:16 singers from the asian
0:05:18 kind of award scene
0:05:20 and out of eight finalists we came
0:05:21 second
0:05:23 and then uh we were we came in in a
0:05:26 local paper a very big thing a story
0:05:28 about i was called stars in the making
0:05:29 that was that was a that was the heading
0:05:31 stars in the making
0:05:33 and uh and we came live on radio as well
0:05:35 and and i performed i've probably done
0:05:37 like uh you know
0:05:40 a lot like maybe seven eight school
0:05:41 assemblies singing
0:05:43 uh live
0:05:45 and uh and i've done performances in the
0:05:47 cinema three times and from very big
0:05:49 audiences so that was kind of that was
0:05:51 where i was so uh maybe it's the first
0:05:54 time you've heard this in fact about me
0:05:56 but that that was my that was my my
0:05:58 growing up
0:05:59 and um
0:06:00 and then my grandfather passes away so
0:06:02 when i was 15 he passes away
0:06:05 and i was very close to my grandfather
0:06:07 really close and he taught me some quran
0:06:09 and things like that and i was very
0:06:10 close and he passed away in my arms and
0:06:13 in my arms in the hospital and i
0:06:15 remember that day so clearly that it was
0:06:18 a day
0:06:19 the whole family had come in from afar
0:06:21 and
0:06:22 and uh we were all in one room
0:06:24 and um
0:06:26 my my uncle in fact was reciting
0:06:29 the quran
0:06:30 on one side and he said to me just
0:06:32 recite the kalima on the other side and
0:06:35 i've spent like hours just hours just
0:06:36 reciting the kalima uh for him and um
0:06:40 and and then he passes away and i was so
0:06:42 close to him like that but it's just
0:06:44 that moment in fact was so important for
0:06:47 me because i remembered in hindsight
0:06:50 that there were moments when we were
0:06:52 rehearsing in school rehearsing in
0:06:53 school for our performances when my
0:06:55 grandfather was ill he was sick
0:06:58 and i remember so clearly that my family
0:07:00 would go and see him but i wouldn't on
0:07:03 some occasions because i had to rehearse
0:07:05 for those for those events we did we did
0:07:08 annual we did annual events we did
0:07:10 school performances with lots of
0:07:11 different stuff happening
0:07:12 uh and i know that after he passed away
0:07:15 that really cut me it really cut me
0:07:17 thinking that i i was probably absent in
0:07:20 some really important moments in his
0:07:21 life where i could have been there uh
0:07:24 but i wasn't there uh although i think
0:07:26 that maybe his passing me being there so
0:07:29 close may be compensated for that
0:07:32 but in life of course you look back in
0:07:34 your life and think you know what could
0:07:35 it what could i what could what i could
0:07:37 have done better and that's maybe one of
0:07:39 those moments um and so anyway then i i
0:07:42 left the music quite shortly after we
0:07:43 did one more performance big performance
0:07:46 in school uh kind of an annual uh you
0:07:49 know big presentation thing and we did
0:07:51 that and then that we kind of packed it
0:07:53 in
0:07:53 and then i um after finishing school i
0:07:56 did my a levels and then after my levels
0:07:59 and i took two years out in fact i went
0:08:00 to syria to study i did a bit of arabic
0:08:03 there
0:08:04 and uh the the second year i took out as
0:08:07 well went back to syria
0:08:09 and then i did my degree in in history
0:08:14 i always had alhamdulillah a bit of a i
0:08:16 was always better in the humanities than
0:08:17 i was in the science i mean i was never
0:08:19 very very good in the sciences
0:08:20 uh and although i i probably think that
0:08:23 i probably
0:08:24 i probably revised more than anybody i
0:08:28 reckon in my class
0:08:29 uh but i could never go beyond the sea
0:08:32 subhanallah
0:08:35 allah
0:08:36 didn't allow me to get further than that
0:08:38 you know just to ask you some questions
0:08:40 on
0:08:41 the
0:08:42 well the first thing is i've been taken
0:08:43 aback because
0:08:45 many people may not know you know i've
0:08:47 known you for over a decade and i've
0:08:49 never heard this story before that's why
0:08:50 i was like almost rudely interjecting
0:08:53 and i was like shocked
0:08:54 you were a singer you played electric
0:08:56 guitar
0:08:57 i don't think you've ever told me about
0:08:59 your grandfather passing away
0:09:01 and i was quite moved i nearly broke
0:09:03 down now because there's some parallels
0:09:05 because
0:09:06 i used to go to the royal school of
0:09:08 music and then had to play glass
0:09:09 classical guitar
0:09:11 and i went up to grade four i was going
0:09:13 to grade five and i learned how to read
0:09:15 and write music i was learning how to
0:09:16 read and write music and also my
0:09:18 grandfather i was very close when he
0:09:20 passed away well yeah which is very
0:09:22 interesting
0:09:24 now can i hear some pictures of those
0:09:26 days that i have
0:09:28 yeah for sure
0:09:31 absolutely
0:09:34 wow doctor usman latif
0:09:37 was
0:09:38 a star in the making and look how allah
0:09:40 subhanahu wata'ala chooses his people
0:09:47 so we're just waiting for dr usmanativ
0:09:49 to
0:09:50 show us some pictures
0:09:52 yeah this is my my book i've kept for my
0:09:54 memorabilia
0:09:55 you know for for those years wow
0:09:58 just to get a few things just to show
0:10:00 you like uh
0:10:06 this is us uh can you see that
0:10:08 oh wow yeah of course stars in the
0:10:10 making where are you where are you
0:10:12 i'm here let me let me just
0:10:14 make this
0:10:16 let me zoom this in
0:10:18 let me try and get you zoomed in if we
0:10:20 can
0:10:21 [Music]
0:10:26 okay let's see that now bring it bring
0:10:28 it closer that way
0:10:30 okay so where are you
0:10:31 you're like yeah you're at the top
0:10:33 you're the middle
0:10:34 oh my god
0:10:36 yeah oh yeah of course
0:10:38 [Laughter]
0:10:47 so do you think your grandfather's
0:10:49 passing had a transformative effect now
0:10:51 for those people who don't know the
0:10:52 arabic word islamic tradition or
0:10:54 terminology
0:10:56 you were reciting the the kalima
0:10:58 in his ear so maybe you could tell
0:11:00 people what the kalima is it's basically
0:11:02 the declaration of faith and you were
0:11:04 saying this you know to him constantly
0:11:06 of course of course so of course
0:11:09 the whole
0:11:10 objective of the life of a human being
0:11:12 is to be in recognition and to be
0:11:14 cognizant
0:11:15 of the one that created him sustains him
0:11:18 allows him of course life and of course
0:11:20 to be
0:11:21 reflective about the fact that life is
0:11:24 temporal everybody has
0:11:26 their point of determination
0:11:28 and uh and that time came you know for
0:11:30 my grandfather but it is important
0:11:33 because we were there as witnesses to
0:11:34 that and i think that that's supposed to
0:11:36 have a bearing on us and our conscious
0:11:37 states as well
0:11:39 about the fact that it's a reminder the
0:11:40 prophet effect in hadith said that kefaa
0:11:44 will motive what whatever he said that
0:11:45 his death is sufficient as a reminder so
0:11:48 someone's passing is enough you don't
0:11:50 have to give a big talk or lecture when
0:11:51 someone dies because death itself is a
0:11:54 reminder and so it was very i mean i was
0:11:56 i was only i was 15 years old but i was
0:11:59 just very uh
0:12:00 struck i think i think i remember
0:12:01 thinking about the fact that everybody
0:12:03 has a dream
0:12:05 and uh i did performances at that time i
0:12:08 was in elvis presley impersonator
0:12:10 michael jackson
0:12:11 so yeah yeah i did the crazy things yeah
0:12:14 you know i sang love me tender i learned
0:12:16 some tonight i sang all these different
0:12:17 kinds of songs
0:12:18 [Laughter]
0:12:21 you wouldn't believe it i told you i
0:12:22 warned you in the beginning you wouldn't
0:12:24 believe it oh my god
0:12:26 and this is epic
0:12:28 i remember having the sense of
0:12:29 realization that everybody has some kind
0:12:31 of a dream
0:12:33 to be somewhere a musician a football or
0:12:36 something but the greatest the greatest
0:12:39 the greatest of all human ambitions in
0:12:41 life
0:12:42 is to be a servant of the one that
0:12:44 created you
0:12:45 to remember the one that created you if
0:12:47 you can be in that state i mean that's
0:12:50 the most fulfilling state in in human
0:12:52 existence and there is something like
0:12:54 ibm would say that
0:12:57 how poor are the people of this world
0:12:59 they leave the world without tasting the
0:13:01 most beautiful thing in the world which
0:13:03 is the love of allah the love of the one
0:13:05 that created you and therefore in order
0:13:07 to do that you have to give up some
0:13:09 things in life to find better things in
0:13:12 life
0:13:12 and it's like allah gives this example
0:13:14 in the quran about growth
0:13:16 and says that allah wouldn't change a
0:13:18 people's state until they change
0:13:20 something within themselves so it's like
0:13:22 the farmer is that the farmer who is
0:13:24 tilling his ground his land uh he can't
0:13:26 simply you know throw seeds and expect
0:13:29 things to grow without first plowing in
0:13:32 the land upturning the earth allowing
0:13:34 for air and rain to penetrate that earth
0:13:37 and new soil emerges and then new things
0:13:39 can grow and i think that's for all of
0:13:41 us in life in order to to take in order
0:13:44 to find new
0:13:45 a focus in life you have to give up
0:13:47 something
0:13:48 that might have been holding you back
0:13:49 you know in life and i kind of felt that
0:13:52 perhaps you know was true it's true for
0:13:53 me during that time as well wow it's
0:13:55 very profound
0:13:56 so you went to syria to learn some
0:13:58 islamic knowledge and then arabic then
0:14:00 you went to enroll into a ba history
0:14:04 and you completed your history studies
0:14:07 at that level then you decided to
0:14:10 continue and do a masters in crusader
0:14:13 studies
0:14:14 yeah so by the way i'll just by the way
0:14:16 sorry uh i had absolutely zero interest
0:14:19 in the crusades during my degree
0:14:22 i had absolutely no interest at all
0:14:25 to the crusades but this is what
0:14:26 happened this is divine perfection
0:14:28 divine fate uh so what happens is that
0:14:31 in i think 2004 i went to kenya my
0:14:34 parents were born in kenya by the way
0:14:37 and i went there for a month and when i
0:14:38 came back i was late in applying for my
0:14:41 my group my my third year choices
0:14:44 and my ambition subhanallah
0:14:47 so i spent the first two years doing a
0:14:48 lot of work on christianity the early
0:14:50 church i did that i didn't birth of
0:14:52 western christendom that was a big unit
0:14:53 i did as well
0:14:55 but i wanted to end the year doing a
0:14:57 very big unit a very very popular unit
0:15:00 about genocide
0:15:01 about genocide and it was about bosnia
0:15:04 and rwanda and everything else and and
0:15:07 the teacher was really wonderful i never
0:15:08 been taught by him but i was waiting for
0:15:10 that unit to be taught by him
0:15:12 and it's my final year and i was really
0:15:14 i was already doing so well i wanted to
0:15:16 end you know very well
0:15:17 um but i but i was late in applying for
0:15:20 that and when i came back
0:15:22 i i was uh i had no chance the guy said
0:15:24 to me he said it's not just your it's
0:15:27 oversubscribed and you're not even near
0:15:30 the the the the beginning of things and
0:15:33 uh so i had no chance of of enrolling i
0:15:36 was really gutted and then what they
0:15:38 said they put me in the the the
0:15:40 available units still available and one
0:15:43 was like on history of czechoslovakia
0:15:46 and something else and i had i had no
0:15:48 clue about that i thought my god what
0:15:50 just happened
0:15:51 and um
0:15:52 and then the guy really tried hard and
0:15:54 there was a space he found for me in a
0:15:57 unit on the crusades and the eastern
0:15:59 mediterranean by taught by johnson
0:16:01 phillips who's a very close friend of
0:16:02 mine and my supervisor and everything
0:16:05 and um and i ended up in fact doing two
0:16:07 units that year only on the crusades and
0:16:10 i remember the guy are saying to me said
0:16:11 ottoman by the end of the year you're
0:16:13 going to be an expert on the crusade
0:16:14 because that's what in this whole year
0:16:17 and this is this is for your degree
0:16:19 for my degree yeah for my beginning so
0:16:21 my third year was just on the crusades
0:16:24 wow and um and subhanallah and although
0:16:27 i had no intention doing it but this is
0:16:28 how allah just intended you know
0:16:30 subhanallah wanted me to do it
0:16:31 and then after that i applied for the
0:16:33 masters program in the crusade crusader
0:16:35 studies tour at
0:16:37 queen mary university enrolled holloway
0:16:38 and also at scent house iitr in in
0:16:40 russell square
0:16:41 um
0:16:42 and then by the end of the the masters i
0:16:45 did latin paleography reading lecture
0:16:47 manuscripts uh medieval manuscripts as
0:16:50 part of our unit and as you know the
0:16:52 crusades is not just about uh the latin
0:16:55 side of things it's also about the
0:16:56 arabic arab muslim side of things and
0:16:58 there are some great historians uh
0:17:02 western historians who have learned
0:17:03 arabic
0:17:04 uh and they do
0:17:06 they mean they attempt of course to
0:17:07 translate arabic manuscripts and to to
0:17:10 inform us better about history of the
0:17:11 crusades from the muslim perspectives
0:17:13 one of them
0:17:14 is professor carol hillenbrand who i
0:17:16 became you know quite close to she was
0:17:19 in fact my phd uh viva examiner one of
0:17:22 the my examiners and also inspired me a
0:17:24 lot about my phd thesis as well and
0:17:27 always always really helpful in my life
0:17:28 and she even helped me in
0:17:31 in deciding on doing the the post
0:17:32 doctorate so i went to edinburgh to see
0:17:34 her and you know for that decision
0:17:36 anyway um
0:17:38 so after the masters uh i realized there
0:17:41 is uh something lacking
0:17:44 in in in our attention on on the arabic
0:17:48 sources
0:17:49 and it was in consultation with her
0:17:52 that she says well there are units there
0:17:54 are unexplored areas one of them are
0:17:57 books of
0:17:58 the quotes which are merits of jerusalem
0:18:00 meaning that in that century uh muslim
0:18:03 scholars
0:18:05 brought to the fore
0:18:07 uh all the texts uh on the merits of
0:18:09 jerusalem
0:18:11 by people like
0:18:14 in order for them to be used in new
0:18:17 schools madrasas
0:18:20 built by nirvana mulk in his mother's
0:18:22 program in in internal cities of the of
0:18:25 syria like hama on homs and damascus and
0:18:28 albeck but the purpose for that was to
0:18:30 re-inspire muslims to have a love for
0:18:34 jerusalem and therefore they would go
0:18:36 and and fight for its liberation that
0:18:38 was the focus behind it then he had new
0:18:40 books written at that time uh as well uh
0:18:43 you know for that same purpose uh a
0:18:45 famous name ibn asakur in his in his in
0:18:47 his uh history of damascus and kitab and
0:18:50 and books on further in
0:18:51 damascus jerusalem
0:18:53 um so i looked it up i also looked at
0:18:55 poetry as well so my first published
0:18:57 book by braille
0:18:59 is on
0:19:00 is called the cutting edge of the poet
0:19:01 sword muslim poetic response to the
0:19:04 crusades and look at the way that poetry
0:19:05 was used who were the key poets whether
0:19:07 they come from whether they go so what
0:19:10 what what significance
0:19:11 did this have
0:19:13 in a kind of
0:19:15 because sometimes when we do phds
0:19:17 they're great the academic you have a
0:19:19 focus and that's about it and your pg is
0:19:22 collecting dust
0:19:24 but from our
0:19:26 conversations that we've had previously
0:19:28 i remember i raised this question to you
0:19:30 because sometimes you know echoing dr
0:19:31 shubert
0:19:32 who's on the faculty at oxford he says
0:19:35 you know what's the point of you know
0:19:37 doing a phd on i don't know
0:19:39 extremism in a particular village in
0:19:41 morocco it's not going to affect anybody
0:19:43 right and sometimes they're very
0:19:45 ethnocentric but young one's quite
0:19:46 interesting but i want to know something
0:19:48 a little bit more
0:19:49 what kind of
0:19:50 social or social academic and political
0:19:54 impact
0:19:55 does your phd have because you did
0:19:57 mention something to me and i forgot all
0:19:58 about it because you challenged me back
0:20:00 i was like you know what was the point
0:20:01 of doing this phd i was like hold on a
0:20:03 second
0:20:04 i actually changed narrative so tell me
0:20:06 what kind of narrative did you change
0:20:07 yeah it's a good question and i think
0:20:09 that you know when you're at the stage
0:20:10 of post-post graduate stuff you you'll
0:20:13 spend less next four years of your life
0:20:15 doing something has to be meaningful in
0:20:17 some way
0:20:18 um
0:20:19 so poetry
0:20:20 is the is the most rousing literary
0:20:23 vehicle
0:20:24 in the crusades there is nothing that
0:20:27 rows the arabs muslims for the jihad for
0:20:30 the fight by a counter crusade against
0:20:32 crusaders greater than poetry in fact
0:20:35 and because they were people of language
0:20:37 and it's not just the words of the poets
0:20:41 it's also
0:20:42 poets as a network so you had a range of
0:20:45 different kinds you had like sufi poets
0:20:47 you had uh wandering poets you had
0:20:50 refugee poets you had court poets paid
0:20:53 you know by the sultan but the the
0:20:55 voices of these poets kind of coalesce
0:20:58 uh in in terms of emboldening uh the the
0:21:02 stature of the of the sultan lampooning
0:21:05 the crusaders um and these were very
0:21:08 important because remember when
0:21:10 in those 88 years the first
0:21:13 40 odd years were years of some apathy
0:21:16 uh political inability and apathy and
0:21:19 also division sectarian division between
0:21:22 the sultans um and and and the earliest
0:21:26 voices however ironically also voices or
0:21:28 poets so even
0:21:30 for example one of the
0:21:32 uh the very famous lines
0:21:41 very famous lines still memorialized
0:21:43 today
0:21:44 is because
0:21:46 the the voice was still there but the
0:21:48 political response was not there but by
0:21:50 1144 when imadine zengi recaptures a
0:21:54 very important state of odessa which was
0:21:57 a previously a muslim state became a
0:21:58 crusader state
0:22:00 the whole
0:22:01 vocabulary of conflict changes
0:22:04 because now it's focused on
0:22:06 real jihad mean real effort because
0:22:09 the idea was if you could take back
0:22:10 edessa then you could take back
0:22:12 jerusalem
0:22:13 and it was about giving that sense of
0:22:14 belief and therefore even what happens
0:22:17 afterwards after he dies his son uradine
0:22:19 zengi comes to the fore i have i have
0:22:22 written
0:22:23 i have a published chapter in a book
0:22:26 i'll just show you
0:22:29 a public chapter in this book uh
0:22:32 cultural encounters during crusades and
0:22:34 in fact the these these chapters were i
0:22:37 delivered a paper in damascus actually i
0:22:39 was invited by the
0:22:41 danish institute of damascus uh before
0:22:44 the conflict in syria and uh all the
0:22:47 papers were so hugh kennedy was there
0:22:49 robert erwin was there i was there my
0:22:51 professor john office was
0:22:52 about 14 international historians were
0:22:55 there presenting on the crusader all
0:22:56 published in that book but in that
0:22:58 chapter i wrote about
0:23:00 quranic imagery
0:23:02 and
0:23:03 the efforts of of nura dean zengi you
0:23:06 know it was really pivotal in in
0:23:08 creating this kind of a spiritual uh
0:23:11 basis uh of the of the jihad effort so
0:23:14 it wasn't just about fighting it was
0:23:15 about
0:23:16 regeneration regrowth of the human
0:23:19 spirit of the muslims realizing that
0:23:21 really
0:23:22 you're it's like a historical
0:23:26 proof if you like on a historical
0:23:28 basis
0:23:30 to take seriously
0:23:32 narratives that are expressed in
0:23:34 language like today for example and this
0:23:36 is this echoes what you've been doing
0:23:37 with dehumanization and othering
0:23:40 like today the modern day poet really
0:23:42 in in some kind of way is the media and
0:23:45 the media use language which shows
0:23:48 narratives and to evoke emotions so i
0:23:51 see how powerful your phd could be but
0:23:53 wasn't there something about your phd
0:23:54 that countered
0:23:56 objections or the current status quo
0:23:59 from some groups of scholars that had
0:24:01 different views on a particular issue
0:24:03 yeah let me explain that as well
0:24:05 yeah so uh in the first when you're
0:24:08 doing your kind of your critical
0:24:09 bibliographical review in the first year
0:24:11 of your phd when you're writing just
0:24:12 right reading a lot rather than writing
0:24:14 a lot um you encounter
0:24:17 a lot of literature on that field that
0:24:20 you're studying
0:24:21 and i came to learn that the the topic
0:24:24 of
0:24:25 merits of jerusalem studies this is very
0:24:28 big in israel for example a lot of very
0:24:30 famous names have written uh on this
0:24:33 topic from uh from israelis um
0:24:37 joshua prower isaac hassan and others
0:24:40 amicam ilad amikamilad in fact was quite
0:24:42 good amicamilad but there are others
0:24:43 were not very good
0:24:44 and i had to sift through that material
0:24:47 to see what's happening with this with
0:24:48 this discourse and i came to realize
0:24:51 that there is a kind of um
0:24:55 a de-emphasizing you could say a
0:24:57 delimiting the emphasizing of the
0:25:00 importance of
0:25:01 jerusalem
0:25:03 in islam from their perspectives from
0:25:05 the outline
0:25:06 and they're publishing in hebrew in
0:25:08 arabic and in english and that work is
0:25:10 coming into the british libraries and
0:25:13 undergraduate students who don't know
0:25:14 who don't know that much are reading
0:25:16 these as if they're truth and and it's
0:25:18 not and it's not the right picture
0:25:19 because it's not the right picture and
0:25:22 so one of the arguments i content might
0:25:24 in my books the first chapter of my book
0:25:29 uh the um
0:25:32 cutting edge uh is about trying is about
0:25:36 contending these really erroneous
0:25:39 arguments and uh i'm just correcting
0:25:42 that narrative before i before i moved
0:25:43 on well that's very that's very that's
0:25:46 very brave of you because i had yeah i
0:25:48 had to i had no choice because uh who
0:25:50 who else is going to do it you have to
0:25:52 correct the narrative that's very good
0:25:53 and that's why you know there's
0:25:54 something that i i try and say all the
0:25:56 time what's the point of being an
0:25:57 academic or an intellectual if you're a
0:25:59 coward i mean what's the point right and
0:26:02 i'm just echoing the words of dr shabir
0:26:03 akhtar and when he raised that with me i
0:26:05 was like wow that's quite powerful
0:26:07 and this is a very level phd level you
0:26:10 do have a bit more room
0:26:11 uh maybe
0:26:13 you know if it was before that time
0:26:14 you're still kind of bound by some
0:26:16 things but yes phd this is your research
0:26:18 this is your work and you're going to
0:26:20 defend it if i can defend in the viva
0:26:23 that's what makes a difference then it's
0:26:24 going to be published inshallah one day
0:26:26 and that's what happened if you can't
0:26:27 defend it then you can't defend it and
0:26:29 it's not worth whether you're being
0:26:30 there yes so i could do that i could
0:26:32 even show so alhamdulillah even showed
0:26:35 even in
0:26:36 in poetry translations
0:26:38 uh of of a particular i think it's
0:26:41 joshua power the israeli police is
0:26:43 passed away now uh but he mistranslates
0:26:46 uh a very important arabic poem or a
0:26:49 very important line of a poem uh that
0:26:51 gives a very
0:26:52 convoluted message that has a bearing on
0:26:54 islamic theism wow
0:26:57 yeah so i had to uh you know expose him
0:27:00 for that yeah therefore i i even said i
0:27:03 said you know i said surprisingly you
0:27:05 know he he says x y and z then i put the
0:27:07 right translation in there uh you know
0:27:10 so i mean these things that's that's
0:27:12 like a deliberate distortion
0:27:15 yeah i mean he's passed away now so he
0:27:16 can't defend himself okay so maybe we
0:27:18 can
0:27:20 it seems to be a deliberate distortion
0:27:21 or maybe his arabic wasn't very good at
0:27:23 all yeah yeah it could be maybe he had
0:27:25 some non-negotiable um
0:27:27 uh
0:27:28 previous uh political metaphysical
0:27:30 commitments that
0:27:32 transpired through his subconscious
0:27:35 well i think i think the word political
0:27:37 is important there because
0:27:39 because uh there is of course a
0:27:41 political thing happening and and people
0:27:44 are
0:27:45 in particular in that part of the world
0:27:46 in a suede in in their in their outlooks
0:27:50 even on academia because of those
0:27:52 political pressures and and something as
0:27:54 fundamental as the virtues of jerusalem
0:27:56 for muslims is absolutely
0:27:59 absolutely crucial because remember if
0:28:02 they're arguing and this is what they
0:28:03 are that's what they argued um they
0:28:05 argue that
0:28:07 there are old
0:28:08 like uh books of
0:28:10 on on cities like
0:28:12 medina or baghdad even was it but later
0:28:16 ones on city of jerusalem and then they
0:28:19 construct like a straw man they
0:28:21 construct from this and they and they
0:28:23 say therefore
0:28:24 uh jerusalem can't be as important as
0:28:27 muslims think it is today for example
0:28:30 wow it's such a straw man because it's
0:28:32 discounting the the genres that exist
0:28:35 outside of
0:28:37 that completely trump up the importance
0:28:40 of june for example the quran tafseer
0:28:42 for example and the fact that
0:28:46 is in a sham you forget
0:28:49 that sham is one big area jerusalem is
0:28:51 is the center it's like the middle of it
0:28:54 but
0:28:54 but any book on
0:28:57 is going to have a big big section on
0:28:59 the virtues of jerusalem so
0:29:01 if you if you ignore these it's kind of
0:29:03 i think it's just
0:29:04 it's not very it's not very good
0:29:06 scholarship so this is why it's very
0:29:07 important for audiences to know that
0:29:09 it's very important to support
0:29:12 you know believers
0:29:14 people of justice people of fairness in
0:29:17 these academic spheres and circles so
0:29:19 they could
0:29:20 allow reality to speak for itself so
0:29:23 it's important for example for yourself
0:29:25 you've completed the phd alhamdulillah
0:29:27 all praise and and thanks
0:29:30 be to allah
0:29:32 this needs to be supported by the
0:29:33 community because
0:29:35 this can translate into
0:29:38 narratives that affect normal people
0:29:40 because if these books
0:29:42 you know are trying to you know divorce
0:29:44 the kind of
0:29:46 i don't know they're trying to
0:29:49 portray that
0:29:51 jerusalem or
0:29:52 palestine is not as important from a
0:29:54 historical theological perspective
0:29:57 and that gets translated and that gets
0:30:00 promulgated in different languages and
0:30:02 people start reading this it kind of
0:30:03 affect political discourse over time
0:30:06 and people need to realize sometimes
0:30:07 that you know ideas they don't just sit
0:30:09 in ivory towers
0:30:11 ideas they get
0:30:14 kind of distilled and they get
0:30:16 promulgated and propagated across the
0:30:18 kind of academic and public sphere over
0:30:20 time take for example
0:30:22 darwinian mechanism it was you know a
0:30:24 kind of academic idea if you like and
0:30:27 now
0:30:27 everyone's taught this everywhere
0:30:30 and think about and you know take any
0:30:31 type of idea that first started you know
0:30:35 in the ivory towers of academia if it's
0:30:37 powerful and if it makes sense to those
0:30:39 who have power they're going to use you
0:30:41 know certain state structures like or
0:30:44 academic institutions in order for this
0:30:46 to you know become a more of a popular
0:30:49 narrative amongst people so you could
0:30:50 you secretly shake their consciousness
0:30:52 of course
0:30:53 and the muslims did the same in the 12th
0:30:55 century that you've done this and that's
0:30:56 why it's important that other brothers
0:30:58 and sisters and people of fairness they
0:31:01 get involved in this type of work so
0:31:02 they allow you know the truth to prevent
0:31:04 yes yes for sure absolutely absolutely
0:31:07 and what he's saying that the muslims
0:31:09 did the same thing in the 12th century
0:31:10 because they realized
0:31:11 uh
0:31:12 if jerusalem has been taken from us we
0:31:15 have this literature and how would we
0:31:18 use it to instill that sense of yearning
0:31:20 for the muslims to go and live there
0:31:22 settle their fight for its reconquest
0:31:25 and that was that was the effective
0:31:26 thing you know about about that century
0:31:28 in terms of how they used these books of
0:31:31 you moved on now and then you went into
0:31:35 dealing with hegemony dealing with
0:31:36 ideology dealing with othering and
0:31:38 dehumanization
0:31:41 why did you get into that i know there
0:31:42 is a link because you know you're
0:31:44 talking about poetry and poetry is used
0:31:46 to you know invoke feelings and to
0:31:48 create narratives and you know today's
0:31:50 modern day poet is is the media if you
0:31:52 like and they create narratives and
0:31:54 feelings and emotions and even
0:31:55 ideological constructs and and negative
0:31:58 narratives or even positive narratives
0:32:00 against all four a particular people or
0:32:02 peoples so you know expressing yourself
0:32:06 with the word is extremely powerful so i
0:32:09 do see the link but
0:32:11 why it seems a bit of a jump as well at
0:32:12 the same time you went straight to
0:32:14 politics you went straight to othering
0:32:16 and dehumanization why did you go there
0:32:19 and and tell us what your post doctor
0:32:21 research was on okay exactly
0:32:24 yeah so there was an expectation of me
0:32:26 from my my supervisor president phillips
0:32:28 at conrad houston at source university
0:32:31 was my other
0:32:32 phd examiner that perhaps i would end up
0:32:34 doing uh writing a new biography on the
0:32:37 life of an older dean zengi because the
0:32:39 last one was from the 1960s and they
0:32:40 were expecting me to write something
0:32:42 that was their expectation but i tell
0:32:44 you something as an advice to all of my
0:32:46 listeners
0:32:47 um
0:32:48 you know don't ignore sometimes
0:32:52 um
0:32:54 like you might say the the subtleties of
0:32:58 life experiences
0:33:00 that you might think are meaningless at
0:33:02 one particular point in your life
0:33:03 because life is so fast moving that you
0:33:06 can't keep up with things
0:33:08 uh but try not to ignore even the small
0:33:11 ones if you can write things down to
0:33:13 keep a diary or a journal so you can
0:33:15 remember things and i'll tell you why
0:33:16 because
0:33:17 so when i finish my phd um
0:33:20 this is in 2011
0:33:22 i i was doing tutoring i was tutoring
0:33:25 english and i remember and i and i and i
0:33:28 treated this uh this lady one class and
0:33:31 one or two classes with her
0:33:32 and she was doing her
0:33:34 a degree in english lit
0:33:36 okay and she wanted help with some kind
0:33:39 of textual analysis of something
0:33:41 and i said fine so i spent an hour with
0:33:43 her and she was studying a play
0:33:46 uh called burial at thebes i had no
0:33:48 knowledge about the play or anything
0:33:50 by michael sheamus he i knew about him
0:33:52 because of my gcc days we did his poetry
0:33:54 she was he irish poet um but he was the
0:33:58 author of this of this play that she was
0:33:59 studying
0:34:00 and i had to kind of read it through
0:34:02 with her and look at the languaging and
0:34:04 syntax and diction all that kind of
0:34:05 stuff
0:34:06 and um
0:34:07 and i was blown
0:34:09 away like
0:34:11 imagine like you know blown away like in
0:34:13 a typhoon
0:34:14 you know i was
0:34:15 blown away literally and i'll tell you
0:34:18 why because
0:34:21 you know subhanallah i mean so when i
0:34:23 was
0:34:24 so i'll tell you what the play is about
0:34:25 to begin with the play is about the play
0:34:28 by the way is a rendition it's an
0:34:29 addition it's a reworking of an ancient
0:34:32 play for like five bc called antigone by
0:34:35 sophocles
0:34:36 uh
0:34:37 massini rewrites this in i think 2003 or
0:34:40 four
0:34:41 and um you know he names it very let
0:34:43 thebes and
0:34:45 there is an emperor called creon and
0:34:48 the emperor has uh
0:34:51 there's there's a battle taking place
0:34:53 very faced battle
0:34:54 and
0:34:55 there are two
0:34:56 brothers
0:34:57 one fighting
0:34:59 for him one fighting against him and the
0:35:02 one fighting and they both get killed
0:35:04 they kill each other in the battle they
0:35:06 have two sisters antigone and is mean
0:35:09 and
0:35:10 creon and by the way creon is their
0:35:13 uncle
0:35:14 okay that's their uncle these sisters
0:35:16 the brothers their uncle
0:35:17 and he has this now edict and he says
0:35:20 now
0:35:21 the one who died fighting you know for
0:35:23 me is going to be buried at thebes which
0:35:25 is sacred land sacred place is going to
0:35:28 be on it we're going to salute him we're
0:35:30 going to honor him but the one died
0:35:32 fighting against is not allowed to be
0:35:34 buried
0:35:34 anyone trying to bury him will face
0:35:37 death
0:35:38 and uh if you publicly mourn him you're
0:35:40 going to face death and punishment as
0:35:42 well and the first line of this play is
0:35:45 this it's antigone running home saying
0:35:48 is mean is mean have you heard the news
0:35:51 it means her sister and uh and she says
0:35:54 you know like you know they both
0:35:55 our brothers have died
0:35:57 and one of them isn't allowed to be
0:35:59 buried and it's sacrilegious if he can't
0:36:02 be we have to bury him so ismin is
0:36:04 saying well what's the point you're
0:36:06 going to get killed for it trying to
0:36:08 dissuade her sister from attempting
0:36:11 burial of her brother
0:36:12 but antigone is brave she's courageous
0:36:14 and she says no we need to do it because
0:36:16 i mean this
0:36:18 notion of you know the gods weren't rest
0:36:19 and blood and that kind of stuff
0:36:21 and um
0:36:22 so what happens is antigone
0:36:26 manages to to bury her brother right
0:36:30 uh but what happens in that process that
0:36:32 she is punished she's kind of locked in
0:36:34 a tomb until she dies but then she kills
0:36:37 herself before her death and then in the
0:36:40 course of the play um
0:36:42 creon the emperor his wife and his son
0:36:45 also killed themselves so it's one it's
0:36:46 like a loss on all fronts in that sense
0:36:49 but the point is this in in that play
0:36:52 you have what's called bush-isms and a
0:36:55 bush-ism is like sheamus heaney was
0:36:57 trying to
0:36:58 depict creon like president bush
0:37:01 right and the same personality type that
0:37:04 kind of intolerance that kind of
0:37:06 war-hungry nature particularly after 9
0:37:08 11 is is imputed on on the character
0:37:11 here creon you know in that in that book
0:37:14 um what struck me by the way in this uh
0:37:17 is
0:37:18 the idea of
0:37:20 uh
0:37:21 is of
0:37:22 mourning
0:37:23 and the psychology and politics of
0:37:26 mourning because remember uh creon is
0:37:29 permitting mourning for one one brother
0:37:32 but not for the other one so you have
0:37:34 this displacement of human suffering you
0:37:36 have a worthy victim type and an
0:37:39 unworthy victim type and what really hit
0:37:41 me what really hit me was i came to
0:37:43 learn that sheamus heaney rewrote this
0:37:46 wrote this very little thebes because of
0:37:48 the war in iraq you know
0:37:51 and
0:37:52 he said this is what's happening in iraq
0:37:54 because you can't mourn for some victims
0:37:57 right but you can mourn for others you
0:37:59 can mourn for american soldiers who have
0:38:00 died but can you mourn really for iraqi
0:38:03 civilians can you really mourn for them
0:38:05 are those same patterns of mourning
0:38:07 there do they exist
0:38:08 and and i i knew nothing about this but
0:38:11 i just felt i just felt something on my
0:38:14 heart
0:38:15 that this is this seems to be so
0:38:17 important because this is happening now
0:38:19 it's current now
0:38:21 and uh and i think and i knew nothing
0:38:24 and i began to buy all these books
0:38:26 subhanallah i bought so many books on
0:38:28 this and this discourse of human
0:38:30 suffering and and uh genocide and
0:38:32 empathy and i bought susan sontag and
0:38:35 judith butland so many of these
0:38:36 different type of gnome chomsky and
0:38:39 douglas rushkoff so many people who
0:38:41 write around these areas um
0:38:44 that i i fell i said to my mom i said
0:38:45 you know i need to i want to do
0:38:47 something on this but i know nothing i
0:38:49 know nothing about this except just to
0:38:51 interest and then and when i then i
0:38:54 emailed my university or older
0:38:55 university in egypt
0:38:56 and i and i emailed the department of
0:38:59 pir political relations and i said to
0:39:02 the lady um i said i want to come in
0:39:05 just for an informal chat
0:39:07 just to discuss
0:39:08 are there any options for me can i
0:39:10 attend classes or can i attend or
0:39:12 something and uh and i remember
0:39:15 uh when i when i went there for the
0:39:17 informal chat i said look i said i have
0:39:20 no experience in this at all except and
0:39:23 i was quoting some bookstore to kind of
0:39:25 impress it i've read something around
0:39:27 this topic and uh and i said to her i
0:39:30 said i wanna i said can i do a post doc
0:39:32 and i how do you know anything about
0:39:34 what that was and i remember shifting an
0:39:36 american accent she said she said you
0:39:38 wanna do a post doc that is so cool you
0:39:41 want to do a poster okay that's what she
0:39:42 said to me
0:39:44 and then she helped me you know write up
0:39:46 a proposal and uh and then it was given
0:39:49 to my supervisor it was professor ben o
0:39:51 laflin a very acclaimed uh you know uh
0:39:55 you might say historian political
0:39:57 scientist in that area
0:39:59 and uh and then he was my you know
0:40:01 supervisor you know for that post doctor
0:40:03 at that time but what i did then is i i
0:40:06 did i did a work on what's called
0:40:09 syncretism
0:40:11 political syncretism uh looking at the
0:40:13 way that codes of mourning and suffering
0:40:15 um
0:40:16 uh you know come through
0:40:19 uh
0:40:20 uh different
0:40:22 fields of conflict but sometimes they
0:40:25 they emerge they coalesce other times
0:40:27 they're very despair and different i
0:40:28 looked at i looked at ways in which a
0:40:31 human suffering in in conflict is
0:40:34 is is
0:40:36 you know
0:40:37 within that discourse you have modes of
0:40:40 empathy
0:40:41 being projected but sometimes those
0:40:43 empathy empathy are are denied or
0:40:45 restricted what we call empty empathy uh
0:40:48 then you have examples of witness
0:40:50 empathy which is where you have examples
0:40:53 of people trying to rescue people on the
0:40:55 other side of the fence
0:40:57 and so within that study therefore was a
0:40:59 range of different chapters i wrote
0:41:02 initially
0:41:03 one was a chapter on i looked at the war
0:41:05 in iraq specifically but i did it as a
0:41:08 contrast to
0:41:09 an american school shooting and you
0:41:11 might think what's the connection there
0:41:12 it was 2007
0:41:15 that school shooting
0:41:16 in virginia tech
0:41:18 uh in uh in america but the but that
0:41:22 year in iraq was the most it was the
0:41:24 most gruesome year in terms of of deaths
0:41:26 and killings on that particular year
0:41:29 and i did a contrast based upon the way
0:41:31 that
0:41:32 projections of of human suffering
0:41:36 uh have an effect or have a potential
0:41:38 effect on public outlook so i looked at
0:41:42 american and for that chapter looked at
0:41:44 american newspaper
0:41:46 uh front pages uh following a trajectory
0:41:49 of that of the of that news story over
0:41:51 three or four days to see
0:41:53 how and and what ways are images used by
0:41:57 american media estate media uh to
0:42:00 project a sense of worthy suffering in
0:42:03 in those american victims in virginia
0:42:05 tech um but when i contrasted it with
0:42:07 iraq uh you know i couldn't find a
0:42:10 front-page image in any newspaper uh
0:42:13 with an america with an iraqi victim for
0:42:15 example and even when there were victims
0:42:19 the codes of that suffering are
0:42:21 different so you have a kind of a
0:42:23 collectivized framing one is american
0:42:26 victims particularly in school shootings
0:42:28 that americans kind of mourn together
0:42:31 there's a kind of a groupiness
0:42:32 collectiveness a solidarity in that
0:42:35 suffering projecting the idea that the
0:42:37 world is kind of mourning with you but
0:42:39 when it comes to iraqi suffering is
0:42:41 individual
0:42:42 it's like an individual
0:42:44 and and then it's kind of it's uh it's
0:42:47 offset kind of you know with uh other
0:42:49 codes of uh of of chaos or disorder or
0:42:54 burning things are burning in the
0:42:55 background so it kind of projects other
0:42:57 ideas about the fact that that's a as a
0:42:59 country that is prone to conflict and
0:43:02 those things are are always happening
0:43:04 this and you have these
0:43:06 juxtaposing of the uncivil
0:43:08 mourning patterns and then the civil
0:43:10 mourning patterns and and then i wrote
0:43:12 another very important chapter by the
0:43:14 way so this year uh in 2006
0:43:18 this month 19 years ago i think it was
0:43:21 um
0:43:22 a family in iraq was was was just wiped
0:43:27 out from existence
0:43:28 called the mahmudiyah
0:43:30 in a political mahmudi in iraq they were
0:43:33 called the al-janabi family uh a
0:43:36 fourteen-year-old girl called abeer
0:43:37 costume hamza al-jannabi
0:43:45 american soldiers headed by a man called
0:43:47 stephen green had planned the rape of
0:43:50 this 14 year old girl
0:43:52 uh
0:43:53 in their conversations
0:43:54 and what they did is that they they
0:43:56 planned it they went on one particular
0:43:58 day uh abeer the girl was outside of the
0:44:01 house uh with with hadil and the father
0:44:05 and the younger girl and the mother were
0:44:06 inside the house the americans went in
0:44:08 you know with the with their guns and
0:44:09 they kind of pushed these uh family
0:44:12 members inside the house they separated
0:44:14 the family they took a beer into one
0:44:16 room they raped her continuously these
0:44:19 american soldiers
0:44:21 and as they're raping her they shoot the
0:44:24 family dead so she would have heard her
0:44:26 family being shot to death as she's
0:44:28 being raped this 14 year old girl and
0:44:30 then they kill and then they set her
0:44:32 body on fire then they set the whole
0:44:34 house on fire
0:44:35 and then they flee
0:44:37 and then they caught they caught stephen
0:44:39 green
0:44:40 they were all found guilty of this and
0:44:42 he committed suicide and after after
0:44:44 this in prison but this is what happened
0:44:47 so
0:44:48 subhanallah and again this is all about
0:44:50 how allah of course it's a gruesome
0:44:52 story and it's horrific and reading it
0:44:54 really really brought tears to my eyes
0:44:57 but i i was very fortunate in fact to
0:44:59 know a very remarkable woman called
0:45:01 charlotte holdman
0:45:02 charlotte holman was
0:45:04 um
0:45:05 interesting ironically she was a
0:45:06 mitigation lawyer of stephen green
0:45:10 you know she was his defense attorney in
0:45:12 mitigation
0:45:13 because because she is an anti-death
0:45:15 penalty
0:45:16 defense attorney and i had a chance of
0:45:19 meeting through caged prisoners uh
0:45:21 through cage uh her entire legal team
0:45:25 in a very big meeting in london
0:45:27 and i met once two three times you know
0:45:29 with this whole team uh helping them
0:45:32 in their defense case against some of
0:45:34 the victims some of the prisoners of
0:45:35 guantanamo bay and also the boston uh
0:45:38 also the boston uh marathon
0:45:40 bomber because they're just trying to um
0:45:44 they're is trying to work on the on the
0:45:46 death penalty meaning to prevent the
0:45:48 death penalty taking place so therefore
0:45:50 they also defended stephen green and so
0:45:52 she sent me all the court documents
0:45:54 you know of of of their of their
0:45:56 experience with with this individual and
0:45:59 he writes himself stephen green
0:46:01 that i didn't see iraqis as humans
0:46:05 i didn't see iraqis as humans and that's
0:46:07 exactly the whole point and that's
0:46:09 really what dehumanization is that right
0:46:12 you're not seeing those people iraqis as
0:46:14 humans that means their lives are
0:46:16 expendable i mean that their lives are
0:46:18 nothing are meaningless
0:46:20 and so in that chapter which i wrote
0:46:22 which is now published in my book on
0:46:23 navigating water centered empathy
0:46:25 arabia's relations seeing how others
0:46:27 seeing our others in darkened spaces i
0:46:29 have the whole chapter now on on the
0:46:31 life on the life
0:46:33 this the the the the the killing the
0:46:37 suffering of abeer and the entire family
0:46:39 called
0:46:41 the
0:46:42 killings and the framing of abir how
0:46:44 abeer was framed in american media that
0:46:46 was my purpose and i looked and i went
0:46:48 through really i went to hundreds and
0:46:50 hundreds of stories
0:46:52 that even had any any
0:46:54 any connection to the mahmudiyah
0:46:56 killings across
0:46:58 literally hundreds of american papers
0:47:00 local ones bigger ones all sorts of
0:47:02 things
0:47:04 but i just didn't find
0:47:06 that human element in that story in
0:47:08 those stories i didn't find
0:47:10 american media was giving that story in
0:47:12 fact what they did initially is that
0:47:14 they said she was 25 year old she wasn't
0:47:16 14 years old she was 25. so in terms of
0:47:19 public
0:47:20 imaging imagining about the rape of a
0:47:24 woman who's 25
0:47:26 differs from the rape of a girl who's 14
0:47:28 although both of them of course are
0:47:29 travesties but there is a different
0:47:30 there's a different perspective
0:47:32 perspective that you develop
0:47:34 and so
0:47:35 um
0:47:36 as soon as i wrote that chapter you know
0:47:38 on a beer and a killing and i have a
0:47:40 chapter i wrote a chapter on uh
0:47:42 on on palestine and that was also
0:47:44 published in a journal
0:47:46 over here it was published in this based
0:47:48 on polity
0:47:50 called landscaping otherness and
0:47:51 challenging frames of nothingness in
0:47:53 contemporary palestine and again i look
0:47:55 at different codes of
0:47:57 of uh
0:47:58 you know of empathy different codes of
0:48:00 othering and dehumanization in the
0:48:02 different kind of frames of conflict so
0:48:05 that's kind of what i just this is very
0:48:06 interesting doctor because
0:48:09 you know without placing any value
0:48:11 judgment
0:48:13 it's without a doubt that there's been a
0:48:15 form of selective humanizing and
0:48:18 selective
0:48:19 empathy
0:48:21 is come to the current conflict between
0:48:24 ukraine russia nato and russia
0:48:27 depends how you want to see it
0:48:29 and it's been very interesting how this
0:48:30 selective
0:48:33 othering and this selective empathy has
0:48:35 played out and this echoes really if you
0:48:38 want to connect the dots with your
0:48:40 academic career it echoes with poetry
0:48:43 right the poets had the power
0:48:45 to invoke emotions and create narratives
0:48:48 today's media have the power to evoke
0:48:50 emotions and create narratives
0:48:52 and
0:48:53 it's it's been an absolute
0:48:57 i don't know how to frame it how to
0:49:00 put it into language but it's been very
0:49:02 interesting how
0:49:03 the
0:49:04 gross and immense selective
0:49:07 empathy and other don't get me wrong we
0:49:09 should empathize with all victims of war
0:49:11 we should empathize with all victims of
0:49:13 war whoever they are and you know what's
0:49:15 happening is is terrible but if you just
0:49:19 step back a bit and you see what's been
0:49:20 happening
0:49:22 you know i i posted something the other
0:49:23 day is actually motivate from a
0:49:25 conversation i had with yourself
0:49:27 and i said something like selective
0:49:29 othering and selective so selective
0:49:31 humanizing and selective empathy
0:49:34 can be signs of a diseased heart yes yes
0:49:36 of course now so it's very interesting
0:49:38 what you've been saying concerning um
0:49:40 media narratives so moving on from this
0:49:44 obviously you wrote a book it's
0:49:45 downloadable on
0:49:47 our website sapiens institute.org
0:49:49 forward slash books it's called on being
0:49:52 human so
0:49:53 in the book on being human you talk
0:49:56 about othering dehumanization empathy
0:49:58 from an islamic perspective as well so
0:50:01 unpack that for us a bit
0:50:03 okay i'm exactly here so remember i
0:50:05 wrote this book because of uh
0:50:07 the killing in
0:50:09 the killings of all those worshippers
0:50:10 and those mosques in mexico in christ
0:50:12 church i remember i asked you personally
0:50:15 everything i asked you to write the book
0:50:17 and it was a blessing it's a phenomenal
0:50:18 book
0:50:19 bless you i love blessings
0:50:21 i mean i just had an idea
0:50:22 i was honest i thought would be great
0:50:24 for
0:50:25 public narratives because
0:50:27 you know people don't know the power of
0:50:29 islam they don't know the power of the
0:50:30 prophetic character of empathy prophetic
0:50:34 empathy
0:50:35 even on a social political ideological
0:50:38 level if you like and people need to
0:50:39 realize this and understand the power of
0:50:41 islam so
0:50:43 yeah you wrote the book because as a
0:50:44 response to what happened in christ
0:50:46 church so yeah what what does the book
0:50:48 say
0:50:49 so the book therefore it says quite a
0:50:51 few different things i mean different
0:50:53 chapters on different events and some of
0:50:55 them historical looking back in history
0:50:57 uh i speak about different
0:51:00 you know human conflicts um in rwanda
0:51:03 was one last chapter in fact was under
0:51:05 around the genocide i speak about the
0:51:06 holocaust uh what like what's called um
0:51:11 the um
0:51:13 kind of
0:51:14 what's social death and social dying the
0:51:17 fact that you know events preceding
0:51:20 um you know mass killings usually
0:51:24 those victims who are targeted
0:51:26 uh you know for for the for the future
0:51:28 mass killing are victims of social their
0:51:31 social dying meaning they're now
0:51:32 stigmatized they're caricaturized and
0:51:35 really what what how it begins as you
0:51:37 mentioned before about the heart death
0:51:38 of the heart is what i call a
0:51:40 self-effacing so before there is a
0:51:43 characterizing of somebody else there is
0:51:45 a self-reflection because
0:51:47 because othering and dehumanizing is in
0:51:50 fact a projecting of of of the worst of
0:51:54 oneself onto another in order to justify
0:51:57 the murder or the killing of that other
0:51:59 uh so we impute the worst of our traits
0:52:02 on somebody else to to create that kind
0:52:05 of uh
0:52:05 um
0:52:07 juxtaposed of identities between between
0:52:10 the two and so the book therefore looks
0:52:13 at different i also speak about the
0:52:14 crusades because in the crusades you had
0:52:16 a um a long stretch of propaganda
0:52:20 against muslims
0:52:22 as being heathen as being savage as
0:52:24 being barbaric as being murderers of
0:52:27 babies and infants and everything else
0:52:29 and all of these kind of they played
0:52:31 into that narrative of crusading and
0:52:33 killing um you know of muslims and so
0:52:36 therefore these kind of run through as
0:52:39 as currents you know in in conflict
0:52:42 and so
0:52:43 um the book also speaks about the power
0:52:46 of empathy so i have a lot on
0:52:48 dehumanization and othering but i i
0:52:50 wanted to show
0:52:52 the the perfect prophetic character
0:52:55 and and i think that we should do a lot
0:52:57 more in fact in terms of understanding
0:52:59 that the prophet sallam was an empathic
0:53:02 person perhaps the most important the
0:53:04 most empathic person in that he
0:53:07 and empathy it means so empathy is like
0:53:10 an in in suffering
0:53:13 like sympathies like with suffering
0:53:14 empathy is meaning and in suffering you
0:53:17 you can feel that somebody else is
0:53:20 suffering
0:53:21 but to the point where you're seeking to
0:53:22 alleviate that suffering of that other
0:53:24 person
0:53:25 and the prophet saw he showed empathy
0:53:28 not just with human beings but with
0:53:29 animals with the environment with trees
0:53:32 and all sorts of things around him um
0:53:35 and
0:53:36 the way that
0:53:38 a people are dehumanized is when an in
0:53:41 group and an out group are created
0:53:44 so the in group are the group that's uh
0:53:47 moral are civil are
0:53:50 are heralded as being more honorable as
0:53:53 stronger as more beautiful it's like we
0:53:56 mentioned about ukraine for example the
0:53:57 blue eyes and the blonde hair um you
0:54:00 know the more worthy and then the out
0:54:02 group would be the darker ones and so
0:54:05 this is called cultural distancing so
0:54:06 it's not just about the fact that you
0:54:08 can have people who are
0:54:10 physically geographically distant but
0:54:12 also culturally distant they could even
0:54:14 be close to you but mentally they're
0:54:17 culturally distant from you right even
0:54:19 though they're physically close to you
0:54:21 but you've put something in your mind to
0:54:23 create that chasm that distance between
0:54:26 you and them and that's what happens
0:54:28 what happens
0:54:29 in uh
0:54:30 and it's through and through it's like
0:54:32 for example if you look at let's take a
0:54:34 take to kill a mockingbird may come
0:54:36 county happily's uh you know best seller
0:54:40 is the same thing so
0:54:41 macomb county you know you have these uh
0:54:44 white people and and they kind of uh
0:54:47 they have justified in their mind
0:54:50 the savagery of black people that leads
0:54:53 them to the death of uh of uh of an
0:54:55 innocent person you know even though it
0:54:58 was a white person you know
0:55:00 this this this is this is great and one
0:55:02 would argue fluffy right it's you know
0:55:05 we need to be empathic and we can't
0:55:08 you know
0:55:08 we shouldn't partake in othering and say
0:55:11 that there is a group and that group is
0:55:13 distinct and that group is a monolith
0:55:16 and all
0:55:17 our internal negative traits we project
0:55:20 them on that group and
0:55:21 we basically see them as the distant
0:55:23 other i get that
0:55:25 but one would argue doesn't religious
0:55:27 discourse do that to a certain degree
0:55:29 for example doesn't like even you know
0:55:32 islam do that or christianity or other
0:55:35 religions they see disbelievers and
0:55:38 disbelievers may have certain
0:55:39 characteristics or they'll be
0:55:41 you know from a group perspective be
0:55:43 described in a particular way how does
0:55:46 islam in a nuanced way does the quran
0:55:48 you know make those distinctions unpack
0:55:50 that for us and yet still allow us to
0:55:52 have empathy and not to
0:55:55 otherwise
0:55:56 yeah good question exactly
0:55:58 so the quran of course does have
0:56:01 uh does emphasize distinctions which
0:56:03 every people are not the same elena
0:56:05 quran says for example that those who
0:56:07 are
0:56:07 transgressing sinners are not the same
0:56:09 as those who are submitting to allah
0:56:11 subhanahu wa'ta'ala uh allah says
0:56:17 like the criminals for example are those
0:56:19 who submit like those who are criminals
0:56:20 so you have these
0:56:22 juxtaposed identities in the quran
0:56:24 between those who believe those who
0:56:26 disbelieve between those who are
0:56:27 grateful those who are ungrateful and
0:56:29 those who are paisos who are empires you
0:56:32 have those of course distinctions in the
0:56:34 quran
0:56:35 but there is a fundamental point in the
0:56:37 quran it's emphasizing
0:56:39 that
0:56:41 allah says oh people we created you from
0:56:44 a male and a female made into nations
0:56:45 and tribes so that you would recognize
0:56:47 and know one another
0:56:49 and the most pious or the best of you in
0:56:51 the eyes of allah most honorable eyes of
0:56:53 allah are those who have the most
0:56:55 righteousness and piety in you
0:56:57 so that's a fundamental ayah by the way
0:57:00 because what it does is this if allah is
0:57:02 saying that yes in life we're going to
0:57:04 live in different communities we're
0:57:06 going to be in different social
0:57:07 groupings
0:57:08 in different cultural networks we're
0:57:10 going to be have nations and tribes and
0:57:12 that's going to exist that's an
0:57:13 unavoidable thing
0:57:15 but we don't
0:57:16 judge
0:57:17 each other's
0:57:19 goodness greatness value based upon
0:57:22 superficial human identities
0:57:24 that's not that's not worthy but allah
0:57:27 is saying that the best of you in the
0:57:30 eyes of allah and remember taqwa the
0:57:33 prophet of allah says in hadith
0:57:35 he said his hair in the heart and he
0:57:38 pointed to heart three times so even
0:57:39 there's some things that we wouldn't
0:57:40 even recognize about each other because
0:57:42 meaning god consciousness yeah well
0:57:44 exactly
0:57:46 consciousness of allah
0:57:48 and so therefore that's a very important
0:57:49 ayah because it's saying that
0:57:51 allah is not saying you live in
0:57:53 perpetual in a conflict and a muslim
0:57:56 with one another but you you live with a
0:57:58 kind of uh a realization that uh you
0:58:02 know your purpose is to know and and
0:58:04 respect and and so on and so forth you
0:58:06 know one another likewise allah also
0:58:09 says that
0:58:10 between people allah says
0:58:12 they're not all the same
0:58:14 so not all people are the same uh abu
0:58:18 jahl isn't abu talib for example so
0:58:20 you're going to have different people
0:58:22 you have of course those who are
0:58:23 aggressive and hostile to islam and they
0:58:26 have their own obligation obligations
0:58:28 towards them then you have others who
0:58:30 are not hostile or aggressive and then
0:58:32 you have you know our attitude towards
0:58:33 them is going to be different so the
0:58:35 danger is is to put everybody in the
0:58:37 same in the same basket and say they're
0:58:40 all like this that's of course what
0:58:41 leads them to othering and
0:58:43 dehumanization meaning not allowing for
0:58:45 individualizing and so i show you my
0:58:48 book therefore the word of prasadam
0:58:49 would individualize people and the way
0:58:52 that he would sometimes even change
0:58:54 the people's perception of others that
0:58:57 not allowing us to focus on things that
0:59:00 are so obvious as distinctive markers of
0:59:04 people so for example
0:59:06 uh it's not just that people otherwise
0:59:09 uh you know let's say you know in a very
0:59:12 palpable way
0:59:14 or who have palpable differences in
0:59:15 people in in in some ways but we can do
0:59:18 even with with small things in people
0:59:21 you might like for example uh people who
0:59:23 are let's say wheelchair bound and where
0:59:25 we're living now for example they could
0:59:27 also be victims of of othering
0:59:29 otherization
0:59:30 right because
0:59:32 we haven't allowed them into our into
0:59:35 our mental cultural geography they're
0:59:37 not living in our social spaces they're
0:59:39 outside of us they're the out group
0:59:41 we're the in group and whatever is
0:59:43 deserving of us is not deserving of them
0:59:45 and vice versa they're simply out
0:59:47 outside of us
0:59:48 and we can't imagine mentally uh you
0:59:52 know creating a space between us and
0:59:54 them and that's really a process of
0:59:56 othering and so the prophet said what he
0:59:58 would do is that he would break these
1:00:00 barriers and walls and he would build
1:00:02 bridges as opposed to building these
1:00:04 walls uh by showing there for like for
1:00:06 example
1:00:09 uh once and i mentioned this in my thing
1:00:10 with the
1:00:12 in ireland the other day the the the
1:00:14 when the prophet there was one man from
1:00:15 banu walking in medina who was blind the
1:00:17 man was blind literally blind
1:00:20 he couldn't see anything subhanallah and
1:00:22 then the prophet says he said to his
1:00:24 companions he says let us go and visit
1:00:27 the man who has vision
1:00:29 he has he has vision i mean he has
1:00:31 perception that it's not that we
1:00:33 identify him through his physical
1:00:36 impairment his blindness that's not the
1:00:38 way that you read another person's
1:00:40 importance or value in their temporal
1:00:43 human existence you don't read into that
1:00:45 but the prophet is showing therefore
1:00:47 read a different language a different
1:00:50 language of worth and that worth is
1:00:53 embedded in that language meaning you
1:00:56 can see something brilliant in that
1:00:57 person of course allah says it is not
1:00:59 the the eyes that grow blind it is a
1:01:01 heart that go by and that man therefore
1:01:03 his heart was alive and kicking right
1:01:05 alive and kicking right even though he
1:01:07 was physically blind but his heart was
1:01:10 alive so therefore he had perception he
1:01:12 had vision and other people they could
1:01:14 be they could be perfect in their vision
1:01:17 but their hearts are dead that means
1:01:18 they have no perception of vision
1:01:20 likewise there was you know a woman that
1:01:23 who had a mental illness you know and
1:01:24 she came and and so the person he gave
1:01:29 a great beautiful space of uh of
1:01:32 worthiness you know to all people even
1:01:34 those who might have thought nothing of
1:01:36 their own worth like there's a man who's
1:01:38 not called zahir and he came and he was
1:01:39 so poor this man and he had nothing he
1:01:42 would just come and give small bits of
1:01:43 pieces of as gifts to prophesy and he
1:01:45 would come from afar and it wasn't like
1:01:47 the others
1:01:48 and uh and the prophet once came behind
1:01:50 him and he put his hands blessed hands
1:01:51 behind his eyes
1:01:53 and uh
1:01:54 and zahir was confused who is this
1:01:55 person then he smelled the beautiful
1:01:57 scent of the prophet's hand salam and
1:02:00 then he realized it was him and uh and
1:02:02 the prophet says you know in in just
1:02:04 like in ingest and goodness who will buy
1:02:07 this slave
1:02:08 and uh and zarya says yeah but if i'm
1:02:10 sold and i'm going to be cheap
1:02:12 merchandise or messenger of allah and
1:02:14 then probably say but you're not cheap
1:02:16 with allah azza you know you're not
1:02:18 allah and that's the whole point you
1:02:20 know uh so we we should therefore have a
1:02:22 much more encompassing outlook towards
1:02:24 other people even if we notice small
1:02:27 things i think because if we don't do
1:02:28 that that's what creates um you know
1:02:31 discord in human societies it's what
1:02:33 creates alienation is what creates
1:02:35 mistrust of people um because we're
1:02:38 we're focusing on the small things and
1:02:40 they're not really the big things
1:02:42 that we should focus on
1:02:43 that's very powerful almost choked me up
1:02:46 so i just want to summarize what you
1:02:47 said so in terms of you know
1:02:49 seemingly religious discourse that
1:02:52 seems to otherwise
1:02:54 what you're basically saying is well
1:02:56 first and foremost the quran is telling
1:02:58 us that
1:03:00 we were created
1:03:01 we are we have distinctions and that's
1:03:03 natural and we're creating different
1:03:05 tribes of nations in order to know one
1:03:07 another yeah and
1:03:09 the best of you in the sight of god are
1:03:11 those who are the ones who are most
1:03:12 righteous so it's your righteousness
1:03:15 that is key here how do you relate you
1:03:17 know to yourself how do you relate to
1:03:19 others how do you relate to god your way
1:03:20 of being what is your way of being
1:03:23 right not just you know what you look
1:03:25 like or even necessarily you know what
1:03:29 you do in terms of a profession you know
1:03:31 it's how do you relate who are you you
1:03:33 know is your heart connected to god that
1:03:35 is the key thing your righteousness
1:03:37 okay so
1:03:39 that's one element that breaks the kind
1:03:41 of
1:03:42 cycle of othering if you like the other
1:03:43 thing you mentioned was when allah says
1:03:45 in the quran people are not the same and
1:03:47 in this verse in the third chapter is
1:03:48 referring to the christians and the jews
1:03:51 and god is saying that there are upright
1:03:53 people right amongst them so
1:03:56 you know
1:03:57 muslims have bad people and good people
1:04:00 christians have bad people and good
1:04:01 people jews have bad people and good
1:04:03 people you know don't don't create a
1:04:06 monolith you can't say here's a group
1:04:09 and they're all bad this is not part of
1:04:11 the islamic discourse by virtue of this
1:04:13 verse yeah
1:04:14 and
1:04:15 what you also said
1:04:18 yeah that was basically the the nuts and
1:04:20 bolts of it but there's something i
1:04:22 wanted to add to that
1:04:23 which is how you read the quranic
1:04:25 discourse because generally speaking
1:04:27 when god describes these descriptions or
1:04:30 provides these descriptions of for
1:04:32 example the criminals or those who are
1:04:33 ungrateful and so on and so forth
1:04:36 for the believer for the one engaging
1:04:39 with this religious text for the one
1:04:41 engaging the word of allah
1:04:43 you have to first and foremost see that
1:04:46 in you it's about you first of course
1:04:48 of course well why am i being ungrateful
1:04:51 i am i the criminal am i the one who is
1:04:55 moved away from divine mercy because i'm
1:04:58 pushing myself away i've alienated
1:05:00 myself away from god because i have ego
1:05:02 or arrogance i think i'm the best
1:05:04 so we have to inter is you have to
1:05:07 internalize those things which is
1:05:09 extremely important that's right and the
1:05:11 quran tells us in actual fact
1:05:14 god is the one who is the best of all
1:05:15 judges right because he has
1:05:18 the pixel
1:05:19 we can't now point the finger and say
1:05:21 hey you're the criminal hey you're the
1:05:23 bad one fine from a kind of optical
1:05:26 social perspective yes you know
1:05:28 in a legal perspective the
1:05:30 practicalities of life you know
1:05:33 someone gets in trouble they're going to
1:05:35 go to a court and they get judged no
1:05:37 problem we agree that there's those
1:05:39 things in place but when it comes to the
1:05:41 kind of spiritual or to the kind of you
1:05:44 know
1:05:44 how can i call this um
1:05:46 a more holistic understanding you can't
1:05:49 point the thing and say hey this guy is
1:05:51 x y and z generally speaking right
1:05:54 so that's another thing that we need to
1:05:56 realize that we have to actually
1:05:57 understand that these descriptions are
1:05:59 for ourselves
1:06:00 no foreign am i the pharaoh right you
1:06:04 don't have the chronic elements in my
1:06:06 heart
1:06:07 am i you know the one who's the criminal
1:06:09 am i the one who's being ungrateful it's
1:06:11 not necessarily there for us to take it
1:06:13 as a label and throw it at each other
1:06:15 because allah is the best of all judges
1:06:17 we're we're not right and it's a good
1:06:19 point you know the other cycle a good
1:06:22 point and this is this steps into
1:06:24 quran in ramadan how do we interact with
1:06:27 the quran ramadan is the month of the
1:06:28 quran of course so how do we interact
1:06:31 with the quran is the key thing because
1:06:33 like you mentioned when you hear those
1:06:35 verses being recited in the quran about
1:06:38 tyrants and about valian and oppressors
1:06:40 and even people of northern jahannam
1:06:42 the the the first thing
1:06:44 is that your heart should be speaking
1:06:47 your heart should speak your heart
1:06:48 should pray and in your prayers should
1:06:50 be saying
1:06:53 make me amongst them oh allah allah
1:06:55 don't make me like that person oh allah
1:06:57 arrhythmia of that evil tree oh allah
1:06:59 meaning that's how you interact with the
1:07:00 quran so it's not this for for the sake
1:07:03 of creating these initially creating
1:07:05 these dichotomies of those are evil
1:07:07 people those are good people the danger
1:07:10 is of course even the queen says that
1:07:12 in one human soul could be the the pride
1:07:15 of shaytan could be the envy of kaabil
1:07:17 could be the arrogance of tamood uh it
1:07:20 could be all these evil traits in one
1:07:22 human self and the whole point is
1:07:24 therefore that we we we've pushed back
1:07:26 against this allah says one of my
1:07:31 s you know consider the self how it
1:07:34 could be
1:07:35 uh you know inspired by moral
1:07:37 depravities and evil but also by
1:07:38 saintliness and goodness and then
1:07:40 successful is the one that purifies
1:07:42 himself i mean it's itself and that loss
1:07:45 is the one that neglects it and and
1:07:47 buries it so that's kind of that's the
1:07:49 way that we approach our quranic
1:07:51 discourse the fact that i'm i'm weak i
1:07:53 have all these different things
1:07:55 happening in me that you can't even see
1:07:57 but allah knows best my condition and
1:07:59 allah has given me all of these
1:08:00 paradigms in the quran in order for me
1:08:02 to relate to them therefore i can i can
1:08:05 see and by the way look at this
1:08:06 subhanallah what i just mentioned in the
1:08:08 quran right now what what comes right
1:08:10 after that verse allah says
1:08:13 so after allah is saying that allah is
1:08:16 the one that buries it then allah says
1:08:17 and then look at
1:08:18 meaning if you don't do it you're going
1:08:20 to end up like like that person like
1:08:22 those people
1:08:25 throughout the elements of the heart the
1:08:26 the the diseases of the heart
1:08:28 then you're going to end up like
1:08:31 the those people and the descriptions of
1:08:34 the oppressors and the tyrants and so on
1:08:36 and so forth that's right
1:08:38 and and it's important because
1:08:39 distinctions are important when you make
1:08:41 distinctions you're empowered right if
1:08:44 you know i'm not an expert on you know
1:08:46 what is the best type of cow to buy and
1:08:48 i'm in some kind of village somewhere
1:08:51 and for me they just look like all they
1:08:52 all look like brown cows i can't make a
1:08:55 if i don't have the distinctions in my
1:08:57 vocabulary and in my mind to be able to
1:08:59 understand you know which one is best
1:09:02 for eating which one is best for
1:09:04 uh as a riding beast which one is best
1:09:07 for whatever the case may be if i if i
1:09:09 don't have those distinctions for me i
1:09:10 just see brown cows like why likewise
1:09:13 with cars if someone comes and sees a
1:09:15 bunch of cars and never seen cars before
1:09:17 for them yes they're different shapes
1:09:19 and sizes but they're just cars they're
1:09:21 going from one place to the other but if
1:09:23 you have the distinctions of being able
1:09:24 to understand what this car is faster
1:09:26 than this one this one has i don't know
1:09:28 turbo whatever obviously i don't know
1:09:30 much about cars
1:09:33 if you have those distinctions
1:09:34 distinctions are empowering because they
1:09:36 allow you to basically navigate
1:09:39 the way you relate to those things and
1:09:40 how they relate to you which is very
1:09:41 important so having those distinctions
1:09:43 in the quran are not problematic at all
1:09:45 they're actually empowering if they're
1:09:47 used in the right way and plus we
1:09:49 sometimes have to point the finger and
1:09:51 say yes this person is unjust you know
1:09:54 this is part of our religious discourse
1:09:55 we have to command the good of the evil
1:09:58 you know you know then this is part of
1:10:00 actual mercy and being having loving
1:10:03 kindness for the world because if you if
1:10:05 you're able to know that this person's
1:10:07 being uh an oppressor then we're taught
1:10:10 to deal with that oppression as well so
1:10:12 distinctions are very important and so
1:10:13 you definitely know what oppression
1:10:14 looks like you know what it looks like
1:10:16 because
1:10:17 it looks like in the quran so there's
1:10:18 one thing i wanted to mention about what
1:10:20 i mentioned sometimes when i talk about
1:10:21 leadership
1:10:22 i did this um
1:10:24 tour with freshly grounded i gave a talk
1:10:26 on the metaphysics of success i think it
1:10:28 was the subtitle was ten timeless
1:10:30 principles of leadership
1:10:32 and one of them is relate to create and
1:10:34 what you said about the prophet
1:10:35 sallallahu alaihi who's extremely
1:10:37 powerful especially about the blind man
1:10:39 he said let's go to the one who has
1:10:40 vision you know who has true vision
1:10:42 because it's not the eyes that go blind
1:10:44 it's the hearts that go blind so this as
1:10:46 you said this man his heart was live and
1:10:48 kicking right he can see he can see and
1:10:50 appreciate the truth right
1:10:52 now that's one way of relating with
1:10:54 someone to create
1:10:56 that person create the best version of
1:10:58 themselves
1:10:59 and this is very powerful because
1:11:01 this if this is the prophetic way of
1:11:04 dealing with people then these teachers
1:11:06 a lot on how to relate with other people
1:11:07 as well we may have a hater that comes
1:11:09 to us
1:11:10 but we if we assume this person is born
1:11:13 on fitra which in the islamic tradition
1:11:15 means the innate disposition which is
1:11:16 primarily good every human being from a
1:11:19 fitory innate dispositional perspective
1:11:21 is primarily good even if that person
1:11:24 comes to us with hate but we relate to
1:11:27 them we express linguistic utterances
1:11:30 and our way of being is such that we're
1:11:32 we're sincerely believing that that
1:11:34 person is the best version of himself or
1:11:36 herself and we are talking to them and
1:11:39 relating to them in such a way we will
1:11:41 create from that dynamic here yeah
1:11:43 beautiful i mean that that's empathy
1:11:45 means you'll create you're creating an
1:11:47 environment of empathic understanding
1:11:49 so it's like for example when the man
1:11:51 came and he said yo
1:11:53 allow me to commit fornication yes you
1:11:55 know and so of course the prophet's
1:11:57 companions were startled and they were
1:11:59 angry how could he say that
1:12:00 but the prophet used
1:12:03 examples to create empathy you know for
1:12:05 that person that would you would you
1:12:07 like if your mother you know and he says
1:12:09 no but allah would you like it for your
1:12:10 sister allah is going through this these
1:12:13 things
1:12:13 but remember like you mentioned now for
1:12:15 example in in terms of dawah there's two
1:12:18 kinds of things i speak about in my book
1:12:20 on being human that is the verbalizing
1:12:22 actualizing of empathy
1:12:24 because one is that the verbalizing of
1:12:26 it
1:12:27 making someone feel good about
1:12:28 themselves having that sense of uh you
1:12:30 know
1:12:32 what you call like
1:12:33 reassurance between people but the
1:12:35 actualizing of empathy is look at the
1:12:38 prophetic character once upon salem you
1:12:40 know when he came back to i love this
1:12:42 example a lot so i speak about it maybe
1:12:44 i've told you about 100 times but this
1:12:45 is really beautiful i really love it
1:12:48 this is when the prophet zone came to
1:12:50 tomoko in factual makkah and abu bakr he
1:12:54 had his father who was from the
1:12:55 mushrikeen you know
1:12:57 and so what he did is that he uh went to
1:12:59 bring his father out to come and accept
1:13:01 islam and give the bear to wasallam and
1:13:04 so
1:13:05 and as he's bringing his father out you
1:13:07 know and the prophet sees this scene
1:13:09 allah imagine seeing the scene you know
1:13:12 that here's the sun bringing and
1:13:14 dragging the father out to come and
1:13:16 accept islam and drop his hands and the
1:13:17 prophet says to have booker he says he
1:13:20 says
1:13:23 if only you left the old man in his home
1:13:25 i would have gone out to see him myself
1:13:28 and it's so touching subhanallah and so
1:13:30 the worker says no but you rasulullah he
1:13:32 has more need to see an abu bakr of
1:13:33 course he's true what he's saying you
1:13:35 know i'll be pleased with him
1:13:36 uh but then you see i mean the words
1:13:39 therefore are very capturing because
1:13:40 they really signify uh
1:13:43 what profound heart the prophet had
1:13:46 salaam in showing those words and that
1:13:48 character to that person
1:13:50 and then it says
1:13:53 the person sat him down
1:13:55 before him and then the prophet wiped
1:13:57 over his his chest and his heart and
1:14:00 then he said to him you know submit to
1:14:02 allah meaning those those character
1:14:04 traits were part of that dawah of that
1:14:06 he's giving to that to that person it
1:14:08 wasn't just the words it was the whole
1:14:10 behavior whole action the whole kind of
1:14:12 thing happening and that's what was
1:14:14 creating that effect in people like you
1:14:16 mentioned
1:14:17 to create that kind of space for people
1:14:19 to feel a sense of comfort around you
1:14:20 not to feel threatened in your presence
1:14:23 it's like people who were who thought
1:14:25 that they were going to be like you know
1:14:28 enemies i mean they thought the person
1:14:29 was going to kill them
1:14:31 and there was no hope for them but when
1:14:33 they had a change of heart and they came
1:14:35 back and they found the person even
1:14:38 telling companions don't trouble that
1:14:39 person push back push back and just
1:14:41 allow that kind of that space around
1:14:43 them to exist of of comfort around them
1:14:46 and that's what they'll feel the beauty
1:14:48 of islam so it's a very beautiful
1:14:50 example like that yes so that's why how
1:14:53 you relate is what you create i believe
1:14:55 you know khalid bin waleed one of the
1:14:57 companions of the prophet
1:14:59 we know before he became muslim he was
1:15:01 if you want to use these words he was
1:15:03 like the butcher of the muslims right
1:15:05 yeah he was fighting the muslims
1:15:08 and correct me if i'm wrong he told
1:15:10 someone to write a letter to hari
1:15:11 binuali then to the nearest effect he
1:15:14 said how can a wise man not become a
1:15:16 muslim
1:15:17 so this is the butcher of the muslims
1:15:19 right
1:15:20 but he's describing him as a wise man so
1:15:23 he's he's trying to get the best out of
1:15:25 him he's he's sincerely assuming that
1:15:27 there is something about you that is
1:15:29 great and there is a better version of
1:15:31 you yeah and he related to him in that
1:15:33 way and look what happened he became
1:15:35 muslim right and we know the rest of the
1:15:36 story so that's why it's very important
1:15:38 the prophetic character is the way you
1:15:40 relate is what you create
1:15:42 and this is extremely important i
1:15:43 mentioned this all the time in
1:15:45 concerning dawah when allah mentions
1:15:46 sort of
1:15:47 verse chapter 41 verses 33 and 34
1:15:50 verses 33 about the holistic dawah
1:15:53 holistic you know preaching of islam
1:15:55 conveying islam sharing psalm allah says
1:15:58 who is better in speech than the one who
1:15:59 calls to allah so according to affirming
1:16:02 his oneness the fact he's worthy of
1:16:03 worship
1:16:04 does righteousness and says i am one of
1:16:06 the muslims
1:16:07 that's verse 33 so you have the calling
1:16:10 the righteousness
1:16:11 and you're linking your righteousness to
1:16:12 the fact that you submit to god or you
1:16:15 could also argue that this means that
1:16:16 you're just one of the muslims i'm
1:16:18 humble there's nothing special about me
1:16:20 so that creates a sense of humility then
1:16:22 verse 34 what does allah say good and
1:16:25 evil are not the same same
1:16:27 yeah good and evil are not the same
1:16:30 and repel by that which is better and
1:16:33 between people there's any enmity you
1:16:35 would turn to intimate friendship and
1:16:36 this is very difficult except for the
1:16:38 patient now interestingly uh the arabic
1:16:41 word for repel is not followed by a
1:16:43 direct object it's not repel evil it's
1:16:45 repel anything anything yeah from the
1:16:47 perspective so when
1:16:49 in the genocide in rwanda my the last
1:16:50 chapter of my book under human has a big
1:16:53 chapter on chapter 1994
1:16:55 and and i mentioned this verse in the
1:16:57 context of the mufti
1:16:59 mana who was the mufti of rwanda
1:17:01 and and as you might know that
1:17:04 for those 1900 days from april to june
1:17:07 july 1994 up to a million rwandans
1:17:11 were killed and they were killed in a
1:17:12 very
1:17:14 evil way of hacking to death
1:17:16 uh that ratio of enough of death you
1:17:19 know per day is even worse than the
1:17:21 holocaust it means just horrendous
1:17:23 killing
1:17:24 um but the muslims were only like four
1:17:26 percent of that country at that time the
1:17:28 mufti of rwanda gave the the order of of
1:17:31 mosul to stay open
1:17:33 uh for muslims to be engaged in saving
1:17:36 the lives of christians and at the end
1:17:38 of it all
1:17:39 when they asked him how did you guys how
1:17:41 did you do that at a time of bloodshed
1:17:43 and killing that's the eye he mentioned
1:17:46 wow right that good and evil are not the
1:17:48 same and
1:17:49 ability here
1:17:50 show the best show the best in all of
1:17:53 this evil be the best in all of this and
1:17:55 if you do that the one between whom you
1:17:57 and him there is enmity become like
1:17:59 mutual friends and the and the number of
1:18:01 people who embrace islam skyrocketed you
1:18:03 know in those early weeks months years
1:18:05 until today yes so i think rwanda now is
1:18:08 twenty percent muslim
1:18:10 four percent
1:18:12 and this is as a result of the verse
1:18:15 right
1:18:15 good and evil not the same repelled by
1:18:17 that which is better and that's gonna
1:18:18 say repenting by that which is better is
1:18:20 repenting by what is more virtuous and
1:18:22 what is more beautiful yeah absolutely
1:18:24 the muslims had an instrumental role in
1:18:26 actually you know trying to repel the
1:18:28 evil of genocide with what was best and
1:18:30 what was good and this is how we must
1:18:31 become
1:18:32 so and this echoes as well because you
1:18:34 mentioned this in the book is the
1:18:35 prophetic traditions of the prophet
1:18:37 muhammad upon him be peace
1:18:39 which is authentic tradition and it's in
1:18:40 tariq
1:18:41 narrated by bukhari that love for
1:18:43 humanity where you love for yourself the
1:18:45 arabic is
1:18:46 love for the people love for humanity
1:18:49 what you love for yourself and the other
1:18:50 famous prophetic tradition that we're
1:18:51 taught as muslims which is the 13th
1:18:54 prophetic tradition in the collection of
1:18:55 and now we the famous classical scholar
1:18:58 when it talks about
1:19:00 that you won't truly believe unless you
1:19:02 love for your brother what you love for
1:19:03 yourself and now with commentary he says
1:19:05 this means non-muslims too
1:19:07 and what does that mean it means that we
1:19:08 should
1:19:09 love goodness for them and love guidance
1:19:11 for them and even
1:19:13 i think he was a shafi or maleki scholar
1:19:16 one of the the famous scholar of one of
1:19:18 the schools of jurisprudence
1:19:20 he mentioned something very similar that
1:19:21 we should love for all people what we
1:19:23 love for ourselves from the point of
1:19:25 view that we were committed to the
1:19:26 goodness
1:19:28 and we're committed to the guidance yeah
1:19:30 so this is actually look there's so much
1:19:32 more to say about this i just want to
1:19:33 you know before we end the podcast i
1:19:35 want to talk about your your recent
1:19:37 divine perfection
1:19:39 now i want people if they've been
1:19:40 encouraged with these nuances and these
1:19:42 questions to really download the book
1:19:43 it's all free our work is free you can
1:19:46 go to sapience institute.org forward
1:19:48 slash books and you could download on
1:19:50 being human that unpacks this much much
1:19:51 more and i'm going to have you back
1:19:52 again and we'll be more dedicated and
1:19:54 focus on specific topics so we could you
1:19:57 know unpack all of this stuff so
1:19:59 you've moved on from
1:20:01 one woman yeah of course
1:20:05 reminds me of uh
1:20:07 when you wrote the book uh doctor and
1:20:10 then you sent me the final version the
1:20:11 day after
1:20:13 you sent me another version
1:20:14 or was it the essays
1:20:16 i called you the intellectual colombo i
1:20:18 remember
1:20:19 i think he's got now he's not even
1:20:20 listening
1:20:22 how do you do this but for you for the
1:20:23 audience so when uh dr uthman latif
1:20:26 osman the team writes essays so he'll
1:20:28 send the the
1:20:29 kind of
1:20:31 fun quasi-final draft one day and then
1:20:33 the next morning afternoon he sends me
1:20:35 another one saying oh i've just i just
1:20:36 fixed it and uh
1:20:38 and uh
1:20:39 he's the real final version so i've
1:20:41 called him uh
1:20:42 i think i've called him the intellectual
1:20:44 colombo i don't if you know colombo it
1:20:45 was the famous um
1:20:48 kind of detective drama american drama
1:20:51 where he would always say oh one more
1:20:53 thing one more thing
1:20:54 so dr latif reminds me of
1:20:57 colombo the intellectual colombo one
1:20:59 more thing i need to add something else
1:21:01 i need to improve it
1:21:03 so we're just waiting for the doctor to
1:21:04 come back so what we're going to be
1:21:05 talking about now is
1:21:08 his other book
1:21:09 which is called divine divine perfection
1:21:13 and divine perfection and i need to
1:21:15 remember the subtitle now so let me just
1:21:17 quickly go to the website just to
1:21:18 remember the subtitle
1:21:20 which is embarrassing because i should
1:21:21 know this with my heart
1:21:23 yeah so divine perfection christianity
1:21:25 and islam on sin and salvation
1:21:28 so the kind of blurb or summary of this
1:21:30 book is that you know in order to
1:21:33 understand the issues surrounding divine
1:21:35 perfection because in the monotheistic
1:21:36 traditions especially islam we believe
1:21:38 in the perfect nature of god that his
1:21:41 names and attributes are the highest to
1:21:43 the highest degree possible without any
1:21:45 deficiency in any flaw so he has maximal
1:21:48 and pure love and the greatest form of
1:21:50 love
1:21:51 and anything else has lesser form than
1:21:53 it's not pure and it's contingent from
1:21:55 that perspective it's limited
1:21:57 and so what dr usman latif he tries to
1:22:00 understand that in the context of sin
1:22:01 and salvation from looking at
1:22:03 christianity and islam
1:22:05 and he looks into history and he
1:22:06 unearths the roots of the differences
1:22:09 between between between the two
1:22:10 traditions and he focuses on something
1:22:12 which is called he terms it the adamic
1:22:14 conundrum
1:22:15 and this is amazing because uh this this
1:22:18 actually is a very powerful and and
1:22:21 positive
1:22:22 uh narrative in actual fact it's a
1:22:24 conundrum from the point of view that it
1:22:26 presents a problem for mainstream
1:22:27 biblical christianity but actually shows
1:22:29 the maximum love and perfection and
1:22:31 maximal forgiveness of allah of the
1:22:33 islamic conception of the divine
1:22:35 and
1:22:36 he compares both and it's very very
1:22:38 interesting and very powerful and the
1:22:40 reason he goes into history because
1:22:42 there are
1:22:42 age old
1:22:44 kind of christian missionary
1:22:46 misconceptions and misrepresentations of
1:22:48 islam going all the way back to john of
1:22:50 damascus
1:22:51 and and other key figures and even even
1:22:54 aquinas and what dr usman native does he
1:22:57 unpacks all of that and says hey hold on
1:22:58 a second they got it all wrong that
1:23:00 they've misunderstood the quran they've
1:23:02 misrepresented the quran and they've
1:23:04 misquoted the quran and what he does he
1:23:06 highlights three key arguments of the
1:23:09 modern philosopher apologist theologian
1:23:12 um christian theologian dr william craig
1:23:15 who's very popular
1:23:16 and he counters three main arguments
1:23:20 that dr craig has and in my view
1:23:24 demolishes them
1:23:25 annihilates them deconstructs them
1:23:28 and he does it obviously in an academic
1:23:31 and empathic and
1:23:32 intellectual way and it's centered
1:23:35 around this thing called the adamic
1:23:37 conundrum
1:23:38 and when doctor usmanativ comes back
1:23:41 he's going to basically tell us what the
1:23:43 adamic conundrum is about because it is
1:23:45 a very very powerful
1:23:48 chronic perspective on what christians
1:23:51 called the fall of adam but in reality
1:23:53 it was the slip so that's the summary of
1:23:55 the book and perfect timing we finished
1:23:57 the summary of the book and now dr
1:23:58 smallity could talk about what is a
1:24:00 divine perfection
1:24:03 what have the christian mysteries and
1:24:05 apologies been saying
1:24:07 for
1:24:08 for for hundreds of years
1:24:10 how have they misconstrued
1:24:12 misrepresented and misquoting the quran
1:24:15 what has a leading figure of modern theo
1:24:18 philosophical apologetics dr william
1:24:20 craig been saying about islam how does
1:24:22 the quran counter this and how does this
1:24:24 link all to the idea of the adamic
1:24:26 conundrum it's a phenomenal book i
1:24:28 remember you were describing the damage
1:24:30 to me last one
1:24:32 and i broke down in tears if you
1:24:34 remember yeah because it was just
1:24:36 even remembering it actually
1:24:38 actually moves me now it is actually
1:24:40 just shows how maximal the love from the
1:24:43 forgiveness of allah is in contrast to
1:24:45 any other conception of the divine so
1:24:48 talk to us about the divine perfection
1:24:51 bless you thank you so much uh hamza for
1:24:53 all of your help
1:24:54 you know i i don't remember i haven't
1:24:57 helped you you've helped us
1:24:59 community you've helped
1:25:02 tradition all from the will and mercy of
1:25:04 allah of course
1:25:05 i haven't helped you at all
1:25:07 you have you have my love
1:25:09 i've just i don't
1:25:12 i just want to give you a voice that's
1:25:14 what it is sapient voices bro giving you
1:25:16 a platform for voices of wisdom and
1:25:18 reason
1:25:20 wisdom and reason to prevail i'll
1:25:21 increase us
1:25:23 so at the end of 2020 if you remember i
1:25:25 was reading uh
1:25:27 i went i was brows i mean i came across
1:25:30 reasonable faith
1:25:31 website run by uh dr william lane craig
1:25:34 and i was just going through the website
1:25:36 and i came across
1:25:37 some arguments he makes against islamic
1:25:39 theism particularly in a chapter headed
1:25:42 do muslims and christians worship the
1:25:44 same god that was the start of my
1:25:45 interest
1:25:46 and i'd never in fact written anything
1:25:47 ever on christianity ever before
1:25:50 but i just felt
1:25:52 i just felt i mean this is a person
1:25:54 who's getting things so terribly wrong
1:25:57 why why isn't there like why why don't
1:26:00 we have a response to this
1:26:02 and i said to him i've said i'm gonna
1:26:04 write and show an article on this and it
1:26:06 began as an article and then subhanallah
1:26:08 as the weeks and months progressed it
1:26:10 just became more than an article
1:26:12 and more i was finding in this and i
1:26:15 came to realize that this was my first
1:26:17 my first intention that i had was i
1:26:19 wanted to
1:26:21 try and unearth
1:26:23 all of the
1:26:25 academic material written by
1:26:27 christian apologists and missionaries
1:26:29 that speak about the quran
1:26:31 and specifically on the issue of the
1:26:33 trinity
1:26:34 and that is there for my first chapter
1:26:36 in the book uh it's the first chapter
1:26:38 because it's the first thing that
1:26:39 william craig says in his in his uh
1:26:41 chapter uh on the fact that muslim
1:26:44 christians don't receive god because he
1:26:46 says that god is inadequate and is not
1:26:48 omniscient because he's not all-knowing
1:26:51 because he because of growing trinity
1:26:52 wrong that's his kind of his uh his
1:26:55 straw man argument and so as i began to
1:26:57 look into this very closely and i began
1:26:59 to look at what are those verses it's
1:27:01 not just about him william craig and i
1:27:04 do commend him by the way in the
1:27:05 beginning of the book and at the end of
1:27:07 the book because he has done some really
1:27:08 formidable work uh in in the fight back
1:27:11 against atheism and for that of course
1:27:12 you know we we praise him for that we we
1:27:14 benefit from him as well um but when it
1:27:17 comes to islam
1:27:19 there's a big problem in really a lack
1:27:21 of of knowledge of what islam is what it
1:27:23 represents
1:27:24 and
1:27:25 so i began to look at these different
1:27:28 christian missionaries people like who
1:27:31 have published
1:27:33 published on the topic of trinity in the
1:27:35 quran like billy saccone is one of them
1:27:38 james langford is another one of them
1:27:39 the main the main issue that you're
1:27:41 saying that craig is saying that god is
1:27:43 not maximally perfect because he's not
1:27:45 all-knowing because if he was
1:27:46 all-knowing then he would get the
1:27:47 trinity that's right he would get the
1:27:49 trinity right so what is he saying that
1:27:51 the quran gets wrong concerning the
1:27:53 trinity yeah so what i'm saying is it's
1:27:55 not just him it's all these others as
1:27:57 well they're all saying the same thing
1:27:59 samuel dwemer who's worked in the muslim
1:28:01 world for his all his life uh he he died
1:28:04 in the in the 20th century uh he worked
1:28:07 in the muslim world and he's publishing
1:28:09 the same thing but the focus is on the
1:28:10 issue of the trinity
1:28:12 and
1:28:13 so when i began to look at this i began
1:28:14 to to find out that they're all saying
1:28:16 the same thing
1:28:18 and the verse is in question uh from
1:28:20 chapter five of the quran from verse 116
1:28:23 to 118.
1:28:24 now
1:28:25 this is a dialogue it's a discussion
1:28:27 between allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
1:28:29 and his servant
1:28:31 of allah is some jesus christ the son of
1:28:33 maryam
1:28:35 and so this is what happens this is what
1:28:37 happens i quote in the book and i show
1:28:39 you examples of how this happens
1:28:41 so there's three verses in that dialogue
1:28:44 okay three verses sixteen seventeen and
1:28:46 eighteen hundred sixteen eighteen of
1:28:48 chapter five now what they do our
1:28:50 christian friends over there they quote
1:28:53 chapter five verse one one
1:28:55 which says when allah says to israel
1:29:04 did you tell people to take you and your
1:29:06 mother as two deities besides allah okay
1:29:09 now
1:29:10 so people like william and craig they're
1:29:12 gonna mention just that part of it okay
1:29:16 uh others the same don't mention just
1:29:17 that part of it as if that's the whole
1:29:20 dialogue between allah and israel
1:29:22 okay and based upon this they say look
1:29:24 what the quran is saying the the quran
1:29:27 gets it wrong because it's saying the
1:29:28 trinity is maryam
1:29:30 mary jesus and god okay and muhammad
1:29:32 must have misunderstood the whole thing
1:29:34 and and then they make this kind of
1:29:35 straw man think about this and they go
1:29:37 on and on about it uh and and this funny
1:29:39 thing is
1:29:40 uh they all quote i mean they all
1:29:43 they all do this they're all the same
1:29:45 similar thing that i've never found and
1:29:48 i might be wrong but i've never found at
1:29:50 least in writing this book in my
1:29:51 research over that one year and two
1:29:53 three months
1:29:54 anybody
1:29:56 any of them
1:29:57 any christian missionary any apologist
1:29:59 who's mentioned the three verses in full
1:30:01 wow
1:30:02 [Laughter]
1:30:04 you know what i mean it's bizarre it's
1:30:07 absolutely and i'm i'm getting shocked
1:30:09 as i'm going through things this can't
1:30:10 be true this can't be true i mean how
1:30:12 unfair is that in terms of presenting in
1:30:14 other people's faith they'll start
1:30:16 laughing now we'll be here for another
1:30:17 hour
1:30:20 [Laughter]
1:30:23 i remember when we were filming some
1:30:25 recipient thoughts i think about a year
1:30:27 ago uh looking for a teeth but like many
1:30:30 of us when he starts laughing then
1:30:32 that's it we're here for an hour
1:30:33 laughing
1:30:34 so yeah but yeah so it's shocking
1:30:39 it was shocking so the verse is saying i
1:30:42 mean the rest of course i i unpacked the
1:30:44 verse and looked closely at the nuances
1:30:45 and the languaging
1:30:47 within the quranic framework of that
1:30:49 verse yeah
1:30:50 and but it's saying much more than that
1:30:52 so for example i began in my book by
1:30:54 speaking about what is
1:30:55 what is what does deity hair mean
1:30:58 deity
1:30:59 doesn't mean for example in every
1:31:01 instance is spoken of as as the creed of
1:31:04 the heavens and the earth the ila
1:31:06 is anything that ibm says is the one
1:31:09 that the hearts turn towards in
1:31:12 reverence and obedience and fear in hope
1:31:14 in trust and reliance and beseeching
1:31:16 that becomes your illah allah in the
1:31:18 quran says
1:31:21 we've seen him took his own desires as
1:31:23 his elah that his eyes of course are not
1:31:25 the creator of heavens and the earth but
1:31:27 that's where your where your where your
1:31:29 heart turns towards it's yourself your
1:31:31 your infatuation is all that stuff that
1:31:34 makes your desires uh your illah so how
1:31:37 they go wrong here have the christian
1:31:39 missionaries not just today but for
1:31:42 hundreds of years why have they got it
1:31:43 wrong is it because
1:31:45 they've misunderstood the understanding
1:31:46 of iller deity because in reality if
1:31:49 they understand that properly even in
1:31:51 the author of greek background where i'm
1:31:53 from we actually technically worship
1:31:55 mary you could supplicate to mary if i
1:31:58 if if i remember correctly
1:31:59 okay i'll come to that i'll come to the
1:32:01 inshallah in a second yeah sure uh but
1:32:03 that's the thing so of course the quran
1:32:04 has its own framework of understanding
1:32:06 what an ela is other thing can also be
1:32:09 the deity but the deity doesn't have to
1:32:11 be the the god himself as in the
1:32:15 the divine reality or the creator of the
1:32:17 heavens and the earth
1:32:19 uh but
1:32:20 somebody you've taken as
1:32:23 as you should have taken
1:32:24 allah wa
1:32:26 right you've taken other than allah so
1:32:28 allah is saying therefore they've taken
1:32:30 uh allah is saying have you did you tell
1:32:31 people take you and your mother as two
1:32:33 deities besides allah
1:32:35 now uh i'll come to this inshallah in a
1:32:37 second i just want to mention but but it
1:32:39 goes on then it says that uh isa says to
1:32:41 allah
1:32:42 the first word he says to allah is
1:32:44 subhanak
1:32:45 subhan i want us to think deeply about
1:32:47 this yeah because it's so powerful
1:32:49 subhanallah
1:32:51 he says to allah first word subhanak he
1:32:53 says to allah subhan
1:32:55 allah's attribute name it means
1:32:58 free of all imperfections are you and
1:33:02 only you o allah right that's subhanak
1:33:06 meaning
1:33:07 you are glory all glory be to you and
1:33:10 free of all imperfections are you and
1:33:12 only o allah meaning
1:33:14 that whatever
1:33:15 i mean whatever you think whatever you
1:33:18 you're saying that that i said is an
1:33:21 absolute impossibility
1:33:23 not because of me
1:33:24 but because of you o allah right because
1:33:27 you're all free of
1:33:28 imperfections then he says
1:33:34 i had no right to say what i had no
1:33:36 right to say
1:33:37 right i had no right to say what i had
1:33:39 no right to say right what had no
1:33:41 authority i couldn't say what i couldn't
1:33:43 meaning this is subordination isa islam
1:33:45 is just a servant of allah a human being
1:33:48 temporal weak limited like all of us i
1:33:50 mean he's in the b of allah but he's a
1:33:52 human also
1:33:53 and he's saying to allah i couldn't say
1:33:55 what i know i mean he can't say anything
1:33:57 because he's just a prophet of allah
1:33:59 right so therefore the element of him
1:34:00 being submissive subordinated to allah
1:34:03 wa ta'ala then he says to allah so by
1:34:05 the way
1:34:06 maybe if you're lucky you might find one
1:34:09 or two of these missionary apologists if
1:34:12 you're lucky enough if they're being you
1:34:13 know charitable with us they might
1:34:16 mention that verse yeah or half of it if
1:34:19 you're if they're good half of it or
1:34:21 maybe or maybe maybe but then it says
1:34:27 if i said it you would have known i said
1:34:29 it right
1:34:30 if i said it you would have known i said
1:34:32 it
1:34:34 you know what is within me i don't know
1:34:35 what is within you and you are
1:34:38 the knower of the unseen
1:34:40 so he's attributing all that power all
1:34:43 that knowledge all that ability only to
1:34:45 allah subhanahu wa to allah it's like it
1:34:47 reminded me of that verse in the bible
1:34:48 where it says where jesus says
1:34:50 consenting the hour no man knows
1:34:53 not the angels in heaven not the not the
1:34:56 son but only the father and here this is
1:34:58 also connected by the way to the unseen
1:35:00 to the to the left to the the literary
1:35:02 events and that is saying uh only you o
1:35:06 allah know the unseen right
1:35:08 and then he says and by they're never
1:35:10 gonna quote this much this much they
1:35:11 won't quote that much and then it says
1:35:12 subhanallah issa says to allah
1:35:15 says
1:35:16 he says
1:35:22 i never said to them except what you
1:35:24 commanded me to say to them
1:35:29 to worship allah my lord and your lord
1:35:31 and this they're never going to quote
1:35:33 this is never going to occur they won't
1:35:35 quote that much they won't quote this
1:35:37 they won't quote this yeah
1:35:39 then he says to allah and when i was
1:35:42 alive
1:35:43 i was a wit watcher over them
1:35:46 and when you took me
1:35:47 then you were
1:35:49 the watcher and the witness over them
1:35:51 right now that's a very powerful proof
1:35:54 in fact against our christian friends
1:35:56 because it's showing us that isla is
1:35:58 saying that when i was alive these
1:36:01 schisms and these heresies and these
1:36:04 deviations and diversity they didn't
1:36:06 exist when i was there right but when i
1:36:09 left then they must have come but i'm i
1:36:11 had no control
1:36:13 with them coming you know that's what
1:36:15 he's saying he's saying to allah right
1:36:16 that when i was there these things
1:36:18 weren't there you know i was watching
1:36:20 over them but when i went then you were
1:36:21 watching over all things and i wasn't
1:36:23 even there to correct anyone who was
1:36:24 saying anything about me or whatever you
1:36:26 know and uh then he says you know and
1:36:28 you have you are the knower of all
1:36:30 things you're saying to allah subhanahu
1:36:32 wa ta'ala so they never quote this by
1:36:34 the way yeah none of them not william
1:36:36 then craig nobody not james langford not
1:36:39 billy ciccone not tony costa none of
1:36:41 them and i saw it in my book yeah
1:36:44 and then he says this is the last verse
1:36:45 118 and he says
1:36:50 if you forgive them then you're then
1:36:51 they're your servants
1:36:53 uh sorry into adhibhum if you punish
1:36:55 them then they're your servants and if
1:36:56 you forgive them then you are almighty
1:36:58 and all wise and they won't quit this
1:37:00 either yeah and even this is really
1:37:02 powerful because he's saying to allah if
1:37:05 you punish them they're your servants i
1:37:07 mean it's not my capacity or ability to
1:37:09 punish anybody that's your domain of
1:37:11 allah
1:37:12 and if you
1:37:13 forgive them now he doesn't say allah
1:37:15 you're the forgiving and the merciful
1:37:17 one the more frustrating they say why
1:37:19 because allah isn't happy allah is angry
1:37:22 with those people on that day
1:37:23 so he knows
1:37:25 he says something sorry he's not going
1:37:26 to say all the most merciful so
1:37:28 therefore forgive those people he's
1:37:30 saying you are aziz and hakeem you're
1:37:31 almighty and you're all wise so you know
1:37:33 best about all these things you know but
1:37:35 it's just showing therefore isa islam
1:37:37 recognizing the only one that forgives
1:37:39 sins is not him it's only allah
1:37:41 subhanahu wa ta'ala it's a beautiful
1:37:43 dialogue yeah and in so many ways these
1:37:45 nuances in the language are discussed in
1:37:47 my book and everything but that's the
1:37:49 first thing
1:37:51 are you on mute bro sorry so how does
1:37:54 the therefore
1:37:55 the likes of dr craig and others and all
1:37:58 the christian apologists
1:38:00 get the accusation wrong so they're
1:38:02 accusing the quran of misrepresenting
1:38:04 the trinity but what you seem to be
1:38:06 saying here is the quran is not
1:38:07 mentioning the trinity here it's just
1:38:09 mentioning that
1:38:10 that the mother of mary is actually an
1:38:12 object of worship right yeah okay so on
1:38:16 this point therefore this is what's
1:38:17 happening now notice of course this ver
1:38:19 these verses don't mention the trinity
1:38:21 at all there are other verses where
1:38:23 trinity is mentioned and in those verses
1:38:26 maryam isn't mentioned right except as
1:38:29 being the mother of jesus so look at
1:38:31 that look at that in verses where
1:38:33 trinity is mentioned
1:38:35 isn't mentioned except by being jesus
1:38:36 but jesus is the subject not maryam
1:38:38 she's just every time jesus is mentioned
1:38:39 in the whole quran it's always isabel
1:38:42 maryam so therefore by necessity it has
1:38:45 to have maryam's name in there because
1:38:46 jesus is always the son of mary yeah but
1:38:48 maryam is no focus in any of the verses
1:38:50 where trinity is mentioned so if they're
1:38:52 saying therefore that this is the key
1:38:54 verse of the trinity uh
1:38:57 but this is but th but the verse doesn't
1:38:59 mention trinity here so this is kind of
1:39:00 a bit of a paradox happening here
1:39:04 it's an ice so jesus not an exegesis
1:39:06 exactly it's not reading it
1:39:08 it's not allowing the quran to speak for
1:39:10 itself it's reading into the quran
1:39:12 that's right that's what's happening the
1:39:13 other thing is this now however but
1:39:15 remember there is still a charge against
1:39:17 the christians concerning maryam even
1:39:19 though it's not a trinity thing
1:39:20 happening here but mariam is still
1:39:22 problematic here for christians so
1:39:25 what's happening so if allah is saying
1:39:27 that did you tell people take you and
1:39:29 your mother as as two deities besides
1:39:31 allah that means
1:39:33 did it come to pass
1:39:35 that you know people's attention love
1:39:38 remember why is shirik such a problem
1:39:41 and why is why is polytheism
1:39:43 ascribing to allah such a big deal
1:39:46 because everything great allah put
1:39:48 inside of you as a human being your
1:39:51 consciousness your attentiveness your
1:39:53 love your devotion your fair your
1:39:54 happiness your your your trust your
1:39:57 alliance instead of being focused on the
1:39:58 one that created all those things you're
1:40:01 giving it somebody else other than allah
1:40:03 i mean that's the big that's what shirk
1:40:05 is so he's saying did you tell people to
1:40:08 turn all of that attention
1:40:10 to you and your mother
1:40:12 rather than me the one true god that's
1:40:14 what allah is saying to him
1:40:16 so now it came to pass of course in
1:40:18 christian history that mary became
1:40:22 a sticking point
1:40:24 uh between
1:40:26 denominations of christianity so you had
1:40:28 a thing called mariology and mario
1:40:30 lottery so if you look for example in
1:40:32 the
1:40:33 lutheran and protestant reformations
1:40:36 they accused catholics of committing
1:40:38 mario lottery which is like idolatry of
1:40:41 mary mario lottery
1:40:43 because they said
1:40:46 sufficient for us is jesus as our
1:40:48 mediator catholics positioned mary as a
1:40:51 mediatrix as the female version they
1:40:54 called the co-redeemer they said no
1:40:57 sufficient for us to use as a redeemer
1:40:59 we don't need a co-redeemer together
1:41:01 with
1:41:02 so for them they're seeing as you're
1:41:03 making shirk with jesus you're making
1:41:06 with jesus because it's enough to
1:41:08 have jesus now you're making with
1:41:09 jesus because you are ascribing somebody
1:41:11 else with jesus meaning his murmur and i
1:41:13 know what i will lie about
1:41:16 this the ayah really really hit me a lot
1:41:19 subhanallah i got to say because i had
1:41:21 the most
1:41:22 happiness i had the most like um
1:41:24 enjoyment doing this part of the book
1:41:26 yeah because whenever i would look at
1:41:28 this verse
1:41:29 i would say subhanallah the the verse is
1:41:33 such a proof
1:41:34 against their proposition
1:41:36 but they they but they they seek it the
1:41:39 completely the wrong way because
1:41:40 remember
1:41:42 if you're a cr if you're a catholic for
1:41:44 example
1:41:46 okay you might say for example
1:41:49 uh
1:41:50 we we
1:41:51 we okay well let's say for example if
1:41:53 you're let's say if start with the
1:41:54 protestant side yeah the lutheran side
1:41:56 the front sign you might say for example
1:41:58 uh we didn't take mary as a deity
1:42:02 besides god
1:42:03 okay we didn't take it basically we just
1:42:05 take jesus he's the mediator but if
1:42:09 you're a catholic then you're gonna have
1:42:11 jesus and you're gonna have mary
1:42:14 but
1:42:15 each of these sides can't see it can't
1:42:17 see the other side what's happening
1:42:19 there but allah is saying if you step
1:42:21 back from the whole thing like muslims
1:42:23 if you read the quran
1:42:25 we can see both of them are in the
1:42:27 problem
1:42:28 right because one of them is taking
1:42:31 focusing on jesus
1:42:33 and the other one focusing on mary and
1:42:35 jesus and allah is saying
1:42:37 it's like
1:42:39 let me read them to you one second i
1:42:41 made a note of it just a second before
1:42:43 of course and i wanted to just uh read
1:42:45 this to you very quickly and i think
1:42:47 you'll get the point here inshallah just
1:42:48 one second
1:42:50 and you'll get the point right away
1:42:51 inside this i agree and a lot of this is
1:42:53 is is contingent on our understanding of
1:42:56 worship and our understanding of what is
1:42:59 should polytheism yeah and that is what
1:43:02 they misread as well
1:43:04 yeah look at this yeah
1:43:05 now this is where this is from
1:43:08 [Music]
1:43:11 here we are this is from
1:43:13 uh
1:43:14 mjh magos in
1:43:16 article mary among the churches revi
1:43:19 revisiting the ecumenical potential of
1:43:21 vatican second mariology page one he
1:43:24 says while one exalts her as someone
1:43:27 above and over the church the other
1:43:29 diminisher dimitri diminishes her and
1:43:31 places her as a member of the church
1:43:34 can you see that's the exact thing so
1:43:36 one side is lifting her up so much one
1:43:38 side is not giving her
1:43:40 the the credits that she deserves
1:43:42 according to the other side okay
1:43:44 so look at this one second
1:43:45 this is in my book page 63 and 62. all
1:43:48 right so you have this
1:43:50 now
1:43:51 uh
1:43:55 yeah
1:43:56 this is from magos okay magos in his uh
1:43:59 article
1:44:00 marry among the churches so he said some
1:44:03 were very much eager to attribute to her
1:44:05 a new title while still others diminish
1:44:07 her status but the surprising thing is
1:44:10 that within the context of this
1:44:11 eagerness some would readily cross the
1:44:14 dividing line between what is properly
1:44:16 human to that of divine
1:44:19 wow can you see
1:44:20 so the proof i mean so in a nutshell
1:44:23 what you're basically saying is that
1:44:25 they've done an ice jesus they've done a
1:44:27 reading of the quranic text they're
1:44:29 reading into it they're not allowing to
1:44:30 re the quran to to speak for itself
1:44:34 they're assuming that the quran is
1:44:35 talking about the trinity here but
1:44:36 that's not the case trinity is not
1:44:38 mentioned anywhere and every time the
1:44:39 trinity is mentioned in other places in
1:44:41 the quran
1:44:42 mary is mentioned as the mother of jesus
1:44:46 okay
1:44:47 and also what you're saying here is that
1:44:49 in actual fact when you understand our
1:44:51 understanding of divinity
1:44:53 an object of worship is what your heart
1:44:55 reveres and loves the most and wants to
1:44:58 know the most and submits to the most
1:44:59 and his aura of the most and so on and
1:45:01 so forth
1:45:02 and what you're saying is the quran is
1:45:04 actually correct because
1:45:06 that type of worship
1:45:08 has been done to mary mariola tree as
1:45:11 you called it and as you've just given
1:45:12 these references
1:45:14 and
1:45:14 so therefore the quran is actually
1:45:17 correct and craig's kind of uh
1:45:19 misconstrued misconception
1:45:22 misunderstanding the quranic discourses
1:45:24 and isages reading into the text
1:45:27 and he's saying oh look he got the
1:45:28 trinity wrong because he's saying god is
1:45:30 saying or you know allah is saying that
1:45:33 mary is part of the trinity but number
1:45:34 one is not to do with the trinity number
1:45:36 two to do with that mary has become an
1:45:39 object of worship which is the case in
1:45:41 the christian tradition and if you
1:45:43 continue the verses jesus is basically
1:45:45 making a clear narrative that i'm he's
1:45:49 just a servant and god is
1:45:51 free of imperfection right
1:45:54 so
1:45:55 powerful but why why have they continued
1:45:57 this narrative for hundreds of years
1:45:59 i don't get this i really don't
1:46:01 understand how they've continued this
1:46:03 for hundreds of years
1:46:05 i forgot to mention of course william
1:46:07 creek isn't the first one cities the
1:46:09 first one said this was john of damascus
1:46:11 that's terrible yeah yeah so in my
1:46:13 opinion we've got an article we've seen
1:46:15 your book so we've got an article on the
1:46:16 website that talks about thomas
1:46:20 yeah
1:46:22 sure but i haven't as a lot of sub with
1:46:24 some additions inshallah but i show you
1:46:26 therefore even the trinity thing
1:46:28 problem is with jonathan because he says
1:46:30 the same thing and adds even more
1:46:32 strange bizarre things to it as well so
1:46:34 it seems like it's a current it's a kind
1:46:35 of repeated trend amongst our christian
1:46:38 friends uh not really looking at the
1:46:40 quran not giving it full attention not
1:46:42 thinking about i mean the whole thing is
1:46:44 a dialogue you think you'd quote the
1:46:45 whole thing and this is why we can't go
1:46:47 through all of the three arguments now
1:46:48 let's let's focus on the last one
1:46:50 because almost two hours now we've
1:46:52 had a great conversation and what we'll
1:46:54 do is i'll encourage the audiences to go
1:46:56 to
1:46:56 say institute.org forward slash divine
1:46:59 perfection or books uh you can go
1:47:01 straight to forward slash divine
1:47:03 perfection you could download the book
1:47:04 free it's a phenomenal book it's a it's
1:47:06 a narrative changing book i believe
1:47:09 and i think our plan is hopefully after
1:47:11 ramadan that we print it out uh on mass
1:47:13 and we give it to
1:47:15 christians and theologians and christian
1:47:17 academics and even to dr craig himself
1:47:19 because i really want to get a dialogue
1:47:21 uh with dr craig you should have a
1:47:23 dialogue with him and show to him that
1:47:24 actually this is an isa jesus it's a
1:47:27 it's a misrepresentation and so on and
1:47:28 so forth so let's focus on now on one of
1:47:31 craig's arguments against the conception
1:47:33 of god
1:47:34 in islam where he says god is not
1:47:36 maximally perfect cannot be perfect is
1:47:39 deficient because god is not maximally
1:47:42 loving in the islamic tradition
1:47:44 and then you solve this problem from the
1:47:46 beginning because you're saying well to
1:47:47 be maximally loving you have to be
1:47:48 maximally forgiving
1:47:50 and you focus on the adamic conundrum so
1:47:53 just
1:47:54 solve this for us obviously for more
1:47:56 details people are going to go to the
1:47:57 book as well but you know give us enough
1:47:59 to appreciate what's going on here
1:48:01 okay so remember that is two more big
1:48:04 things he says by islamic theism they're
1:48:06 both connected to the theme of love one
1:48:08 of them is that he says the god of islam
1:48:10 is not maximum perfect because
1:48:12 uh
1:48:13 the salvation model of islam compromises
1:48:15 god's holiness that's his point okay and
1:48:18 the third one he says is that the god of
1:48:20 islam is not maximally loving because he
1:48:21 doesn't love sinners so this is this is
1:48:23 these are the arguments if you start
1:48:24 with the second one this is where i have
1:48:27 this big suburban called the adamic
1:48:28 conundrum i call it democratic for a
1:48:30 very very very powerful reason i want i
1:48:32 want us really to take this seriously uh
1:48:35 and i really believe this wholeheartedly
1:48:38 uh and i and i believe it so because
1:48:41 uh even our christian i'll give you two
1:48:43 examples james langford in his very
1:48:45 seminal thesis called some principles of
1:48:48 mission tumors he writes his thesis like
1:48:50 phd about how to convert muslim to
1:48:52 christianity and strategies and stuff
1:48:55 like that yeah and
1:48:56 i've been through it
1:48:57 he says the greatest barrier between
1:49:00 muslims and christians is the concept of
1:49:02 sin those are his words okay
1:49:05 c.r marsh in his book
1:49:08 says that only and until muslims see
1:49:11 themselves as sinners in the eyes of god
1:49:14 will they seek reconciliation between
1:49:16 them and god and seek a savior so
1:49:19 fundamentally in any in any in any
1:49:23 christian
1:49:24 outlook they see us
1:49:26 as deviated because we don't appreciate
1:49:29 sin that's the fundamental thing okay so
1:49:33 what i'm arguing in my book is this
1:49:35 the fundamental
1:49:37 point to begin with is what i call the
1:49:39 adamic conundrum and i'll tell you why
1:49:42 it's a very entirely powerful thing
1:49:44 because everything else i really believe
1:49:47 is secondary and tertiary
1:49:50 this is the beginning point
1:49:51 and i'll tell you why because everything
1:49:54 else is a consequence of what happens
1:49:56 here everything
1:49:58 divinity of jesus christ consequence of
1:50:00 this trinity consequence of this
1:50:02 incarnation consequence of this
1:50:04 atonement consequence everything begins
1:50:06 here so allah corrects the narrative
1:50:09 from here if we don't give this due
1:50:11 attention i think we're missing the mark
1:50:13 and it's we're being sometimes derailed
1:50:15 like we're being led on a goose wild
1:50:17 goose chase because they're taking us
1:50:18 where they want to take us you know in
1:50:20 this and that but if we stop that and
1:50:22 define our own narrative and so you know
1:50:24 we're starting where allah wants us to
1:50:26 start to position it where it should be
1:50:28 right from the beginning of time that's
1:50:30 where it starts
1:50:31 so remember
1:50:32 we agree on quite a lot between us and
1:50:35 our christian friends we believe we're
1:50:36 both theists we believe in god of course
1:50:38 uh we both believe uh that god is
1:50:41 maximally perfect we both believe that
1:50:43 god in his maximum perfection and wisdom
1:50:46 creates
1:50:47 creation adam and his wife and god
1:50:50 places them in the garden in the genesis
1:50:53 the garden of eden they're there they're
1:50:54 told to enjoy themselves live a good
1:50:56 life eat and drink enjoy but don't eat
1:50:59 from a particular tree that's injunction
1:51:01 in the quran and also in the book of
1:51:02 genesis as well in the book of genesis a
1:51:05 serpent comes in the form of the devil
1:51:08 devil conform of serpent and goes to eve
1:51:11 and convinces eve to eat from that tree
1:51:14 she does she takes the fruit to her her
1:51:16 husband adam adam then eats from that
1:51:19 tree and they're both condemned they're
1:51:21 both condemned now i go through
1:51:24 models of hamatiology in my book this is
1:51:27 the concept of sin and so teriology of
1:51:30 salvation i look at the christian models
1:51:33 dr lougan bill who writes a very
1:51:34 extensive thing on hamatoology says that
1:51:38 the christian position is thus that that
1:51:41 adam goes to three types of damnation
1:51:43 physical spiritual and eternal damnation
1:51:46 it's like an end game for adam it's
1:51:49 finished now i'll tell you why i'll tell
1:51:51 you why this is so important if you if
1:51:52 you get this point it will change every
1:51:55 inshallah conversation anybody will have
1:51:58 with a christian inshallah after this
1:52:00 every time you meet a christian friend
1:52:02 in university or college and they speak
1:52:04 to you about god being loved and jesus
1:52:06 died for your sins you'd get it but
1:52:08 don't get derailed and go with them when
1:52:09 they're while goose days start from here
1:52:12 if you do you'll understand and i'll
1:52:14 tell you why in short in a second so
1:52:16 uh that's condemnation now the christian
1:52:19 position is this this is fundamental
1:52:22 the the sin of adam had to be so
1:52:26 cataclysmically damaging
1:52:28 right between god
1:52:30 and man that it creates a rift a chasm a
1:52:34 separation an estrangement between them
1:52:37 that could never be healed restored or
1:52:40 repaired until a blood sacrifice emerges
1:52:42 later on okay but that's the fundamental
1:52:45 beginning point now is this
1:52:47 so because of that uh separation that
1:52:50 means god is not going to be happy god
1:52:52 is not going to accept anything in fact
1:52:54 christians believe that there is nothing
1:52:56 that you could do i could do we could
1:52:59 collectively do to restore and repay
1:53:01 that damage done unto god this is why
1:53:04 this is why and in my book i have a
1:53:05 chapter called
1:53:07 theories of atonement theories of
1:53:09 atonement and they go through all the
1:53:11 models the most important models of
1:53:13 atonement starting with devil ransom
1:53:15 theory of origin and he says that when
1:53:18 adam sins what happens is that uh you
1:53:22 know adam has sinned and that the devil
1:53:25 holds humanity captive right we're all
1:53:28 captive the whole earth is captive this
1:53:31 is why early some early kind of heretics
1:53:34 christians they said there must be two
1:53:35 kind of gods the devil god and and god
1:53:37 the god because of these kind of crazy
1:53:39 theories and and then god sent jesus as
1:53:42 a ransom in the crucifixion that he's a
1:53:45 ransom to the devil right so when he's
1:53:48 when his price is paid then the burden
1:53:50 of sin is lifted you know but then you
1:53:53 had people who were detractors and they
1:53:55 said oh doesn't make no sense because
1:53:57 it's not a price paid to the devil
1:53:59 because he's not the one that's wrong
1:54:00 there's god that's wronged so a price
1:54:01 should be paid to god so you had
1:54:03 different theories you had the the uh
1:54:06 you had the the fish hook theory of
1:54:08 gregory of nissa where he says you know
1:54:10 it's a bit similar to the first one but
1:54:12 the idea is that god sends jesus like as
1:54:16 bait you see the devil thought jesus was
1:54:18 a holy person working miracles and
1:54:21 helping people curing people but he
1:54:23 doesn't know he is incarnate he doesn't
1:54:25 know that he's actually god in the human
1:54:27 form so therefore when god sends jesus
1:54:30 christ as like a bait so he's a dev it's
1:54:32 why it's called a fish hook theory
1:54:34 official theory sorry
1:54:36 he sends him as debate the devil doesn't
1:54:38 know and then
1:54:40 the devil thinks after the crucifixion
1:54:42 he's won the day but then doesn't
1:54:44 realize after three days
1:54:45 it's actually god incarnate and
1:54:48 therefore he writes that the chief
1:54:50 deceiver the devil has been deceived by
1:54:52 god himself that's another theory then
1:54:54 you have anselm's very important theory
1:54:57 he writes a book and some it's a 12th
1:54:58 century and some country he writes a
1:55:00 book called kurdish homa now this is my
1:55:02 point
1:55:03 karadus homer means why god became man
1:55:06 my book is explaining why do christians
1:55:09 think god became man it's not about can
1:55:12 god become man that's i think we get a
1:55:13 bit derailed there and we i have already
1:55:15 kind of philosophically say can god
1:55:17 become man and it's not about that it's
1:55:19 about christians arguing why god became
1:55:22 man you see that's the fundamental point
1:55:24 that's what he writes that's the title
1:55:25 of his book he has interlocuted called
1:55:27 both so he's making his case to him and
1:55:29 anselm writes that when
1:55:32 god was sinned against by adam it
1:55:35 it besmirched the honor of god there's
1:55:37 nothing that you and i could do anyone
1:55:40 could do to have that honor restored
1:55:42 back to god and even if you did it has
1:55:44 to be compensated you have to give more
1:55:47 so no one can do that except the sinless
1:55:49 servant or sin this is not said but
1:55:52 sinners god i mean himself who can pay
1:55:55 that damage back to himself so it's god
1:55:56 therefore taking the price of that
1:55:59 punishment on himself and paying that
1:56:01 price back to himself in order to
1:56:03 forgive humanity that's the christian
1:56:05 model through anselm's but then you have
1:56:07 others saying well that doesn't make
1:56:09 much sense because if god pays the price
1:56:12 back to himself on behalf of humanity
1:56:15 then god can't pay a debt back to
1:56:17 himself because that isn't a god can't
1:56:20 owe a debt to himself there's so many
1:56:23 troubles in all of these theories then
1:56:25 you have others like you have calvins on
1:56:27 subdivision theory that let's leave
1:56:29 let's leave all the other details for
1:56:31 people to read the book otherwise there
1:56:32 won't be no point to read the book but
1:56:33 we're getting the point that okay all
1:56:35 right
1:56:36 these theories of atonement are
1:56:37 problematic but for me doctor and you've
1:56:39 mentioned this in the book
1:56:41 is what does it say about god's maximal
1:56:44 nature that he gets affected by human
1:56:46 sin
1:56:47 even though he created a human being
1:56:50 that is going to be weak and sin yeah
1:56:52 good point oh yeah so i i say this this
1:57:03 what is your impression of the lord of
1:57:05 the worlds okay what is your impression
1:57:08 what do you think about allah what is
1:57:10 your impression of after after all of
1:57:13 these things where is god in this whole
1:57:14 thing what is your impression of god
1:57:16 allah subhana wa
1:57:18 so how does the quran address this
1:57:21 problem of our christian friends it says
1:57:23 this in surah al-baqarah chapter 26 and
1:57:26 chapter 2 verse 26-27 it says this
1:57:30 number one it says allah says
1:57:33 that the devil caused them both to slip
1:57:36 so it positions therefore this
1:57:39 sin of theirs as a slip
1:57:41 stumble which is different conditions to
1:57:43 a fall this shows therefore
1:57:46 it's not exactly as our christian
1:57:47 friends propose it to be yeah but that's
1:57:50 not the most fundamental thing then it
1:57:52 does say then they were both removed
1:57:54 from where they were in the out of the
1:57:55 garden so that's divine justice takes
1:57:57 place and allah did forewarn them in
1:57:59 fact allah says to adam uh this shaytan
1:58:02 is your enemy to you and your wife don't
1:58:04 let him expel you from the gun and
1:58:05 you're going to become wretched and
1:58:06 miserable if that happens and it did
1:58:07 happen so therefore they were expelled
1:58:09 from the garden yeah
1:58:11 but look at the next verse and this next
1:58:12 verse is so powerfully beautiful because
1:58:15 allah says
1:58:22 allah says then adam receives words from
1:58:25 his lord right look at that adam
1:58:28 receives words imagine adam the sinful
1:58:31 one stricken thinking i was in the
1:58:33 garden i'm out of the garden now what do
1:58:35 i do situation i've sinned no other
1:58:37 prophet around to ask i'm just just me
1:58:40 what do i do and allah is saying adam
1:58:42 receives was meaning this is inspiration
1:58:45 allah is aiding and assisting his his
1:58:47 servant here allah subhanahu wa is not
1:58:50 the one who is wrathful and vengeful and
1:58:53 just going to condemn everything allah
1:59:01 allah is allah adam allah is close to
1:59:03 adam allah is assisting and enabling
1:59:05 adam how to get it back on his feet and
1:59:08 so allah says adam receives words from
1:59:10 his lord then allah says
1:59:13 now tabha means to lend to to relent to
1:59:16 allah relented to adam meaning allah
1:59:19 leaned towards adam allah turned towards
1:59:22 adam what did adam turn to allah first
1:59:24 no allah turned to adam first and allah
1:59:27 is accepter of repentance and allah is a
1:59:28 merciful one so it would be to a
1:59:30 paradigm here the power what comes
1:59:32 through in the narrative allah's love
1:59:35 maximum love allah is
1:59:36 in the quran
1:59:38 the loving one allah
1:59:44 all these beautiful attributes of allah
1:59:46 come through this single narrative of
1:59:48 adam so when we speak our christian
1:59:50 friends we should start here because
1:59:51 this is the beginning point of the
1:59:54 separation between us and our christian
1:59:56 friends in terms of narrative it's the
1:59:58 the problem starts here but then look at
2:00:00 continuously for adam is still an actor
2:00:02 in the quran still he still has a role
2:00:05 and function is on the earth and allah
2:00:06 does allah even so allah chose and
2:00:08 selected adam and islam but just for a
2:00:10 moment if our christian friends think
2:00:12 that maybe they might question back and
2:00:14 say you know what that sounds really
2:00:16 interesting that says a beautiful story
2:00:17 of adam you have in the quran but maybe
2:00:19 it's unique to adam maybe god was kind
2:00:22 to adam maybe it's a essential unique
2:00:25 case adam and look at this beautiful
2:00:27 example just to show that this is not
2:00:28 just about adam it's about
2:00:31 all of us as sons of adam it becomes a
2:00:33 paradigm it's like a adamic paradigm as
2:00:36 well it's like an examine archetype the
2:00:38 way that allah was towards adam allah is
2:00:41 towards the sons of adam all of us by
2:00:44 his by his mercy and kindness
2:00:46 subhanallah
2:00:47 so in october with ninth chapter of the
2:00:50 quran allah speaks about three people
2:00:52 who were who made excuses about
2:00:54 partaking in the battle of tabuk in the
2:00:57 prophet's time they should have all been
2:00:58 there they made excuses and it went on
2:01:00 for a long time and they kept
2:01:02 procrastinating and then they were held
2:01:04 back and then the guilt you know is set
2:01:07 in they realize how big their sin was
2:01:09 and then allah says about them and about
2:01:11 the three who stayed behind
2:01:18 until the earth
2:01:20 the earth became so narrow and squeezed
2:01:23 for them even though the earth is so
2:01:25 spacious and wide they felt the
2:01:27 consequences of their sin and allah said
2:01:30 until their souls became so narrow and
2:01:32 squeezed for them as well right they
2:01:34 mean every sin has a consequence we
2:01:37 believe that also but then allah says
2:01:40 and they realize there is no refuge from
2:01:43 allah except by going back to allah
2:01:45 there is no refuge from allah you can't
2:01:48 run from allah except by running back to
2:01:51 allah that's that's the quranic paradigm
2:01:53 allah is saying allah is loving come
2:01:55 back to him allah is forgiven come back
2:01:57 to him as well in the quran so then it
2:01:59 says subhan then he says this so
2:02:05 to them so that they turn to allah
2:02:09 then allah allah attend to them
2:02:12 so that they turn to allah not that they
2:02:14 turn to allah first allah turned to them
2:02:17 first in his closeness mercy love
2:02:19 forgive so that they turn to allah now
2:02:21 there's no better beautiful model of a
2:02:24 loving compassionate god than this one
2:02:25 here subhanallah so i emphasize this and
2:02:28 there's many other things as well it's
2:02:29 very beautiful and i think there's
2:02:32 something that
2:02:33 just you probably just
2:02:35 subtly missed out when allah turned to
2:02:37 adam
2:02:39 he told them words what were these words
2:02:42 these were words of forgiveness yeah
2:02:44 these are words teaching adam how to ask
2:02:46 for forgiveness
2:02:47 muslims have learned those those words
2:02:50 that supplication that turning back to
2:02:53 god to ask for his forgiveness
2:02:55 and we will find him forgiven forgiving
2:02:57 as the famous you know the hadith kutsi
2:03:00 where
2:03:01 allah says that i am as my servant
2:03:03 thinks that i am or
2:03:04 well another deeper translation is i am
2:03:07 as my servant expects me to be actually
2:03:09 subhanallah yeah i'll tell you two
2:03:10 things do you think
2:03:12 allah to be maximally forgiving we will
2:03:14 find him maximum forgiving as sometimes
2:03:16 our state of heart
2:03:18 it how we relate to allah that's going
2:03:20 to come back to us in some ways if you
2:03:22 think
2:03:23 this this like monster that's never
2:03:25 going to forgive you then maybe you'll
2:03:26 find that because it's a reflection of
2:03:27 who you are but this way
2:03:30 three things
2:03:34 is one of the last ones
2:03:37 and believers should have in the world
2:03:39 absolutely i'll tell you three things
2:03:48 so look number one is what was the
2:03:50 prayer that allah taught adam the words
2:03:53 out for him quran says that they said
2:03:57 look at the first one
2:03:58 our lord that means we still have a lord
2:04:01 you know our lord it's our lord
2:04:04 it's not you it's our lord we we we're
2:04:06 still in that kind of a relationship our
2:04:09 lord where we're the servants is our
2:04:11 lord
2:04:12 allah we have wronged our souls that's
2:04:16 responsibility acceptance accountability
2:04:19 we wronged our souls
2:04:21 number three wa
2:04:24 if you don't forgive emotional meaning
2:04:26 the only one who forgives us is you
2:04:27 we're not asking anybody else it's only
2:04:30 you o allah
2:04:31 mercy is only from you forgives only
2:04:33 from me oh allah if you don't forgive us
2:04:35 then we're going to be of the loser i
2:04:36 mean there are consequences of our of
2:04:39 our failure uh if we don't if you don't
2:04:42 forgive and imagine complete dependence
2:04:43 on allah subhanahu wa
2:04:45 now look at this
2:04:47 if you remind something beautiful
2:04:49 i forgot to mention subhanallah and i'm
2:04:51 glad that you brought something up
2:04:52 because it reminded me uh when we spoke
2:04:54 about the atonement theories and it's a
2:04:56 lot of discussion about blood blood
2:04:58 determine blood payment god only accepts
2:05:00 blood payment nothing else to forgive
2:05:02 and it's not anybody it's jesus's blood
2:05:04 payment as the only thing would appease
2:05:06 is by appeasement satisfying god's
2:05:08 soothe god's wrath and anger allah says
2:05:12 it is not their meat or their blood that
2:05:14 reaches allah
2:05:15 this is your piety that reaches him
2:05:18 chapter 22 verse 16 not their meat not
2:05:21 their blood that reaches allah allah
2:05:23 isn't concerned about any anyone's blood
2:05:25 allah is concerned about you
2:05:27 and me and your sincerity and your tears
2:05:29 and your devotion and my testimony allah
2:05:32 concerned about your pride that's what
2:05:33 allah is concerned about is your pride
2:05:34 you know about the blood of anybody
2:05:36 and then look at this look at this now
2:05:38 when our christian friends say for
2:05:39 example
2:05:40 uh yeah but there has to be so william
2:05:42 and craig makes this point it says that
2:05:44 if god doesn't forgive if god doesn't
2:05:47 punish it's going to affect his holiness
2:05:49 as if god is holy
2:05:52 when he punishes but not only when he
2:05:54 forgives so as if
2:05:56 he said university punishment is a
2:05:58 better demarcation of his of his
2:06:00 holiness then forgiveness is a better
2:06:02 demarcation of his holiness it's a
2:06:05 strange thinking but look at this hadith
2:06:07 subhanallah look at this now this hadith
2:06:09 could see when allah says
2:06:12 oh my servants
2:06:13 i have forbidden injustice on myself and
2:06:15 forbidden the same amongst you not
2:06:16 they're not wrong one another it says oh
2:06:18 my servants all of you are astray except
2:06:21 one that i guide to ask for guidance and
2:06:23 i will guide you or myself all of you
2:06:24 are hungry except he that i feed so ask
2:06:27 me for food and i will feed you all my
2:06:28 sons all of you are naked except here
2:06:30 that i close the eye for clothing and i
2:06:31 will clothe you oh my servants you sin
2:06:34 against me by night and by day and i
2:06:36 forgive your sins ask for forgiveness
2:06:38 and i will forgive you then it says this
2:06:39 subhanallah o my servants if the first
2:06:42 of you and the last of you and the human
2:06:44 of you and the gene of you if all of you
2:06:47 all of you were in the heart of the most
2:06:49 wretched and evil one of you that
2:06:51 wouldn't decrease my kingdom in anything
2:06:54 i mean that's maximal perfection
2:06:56 subhanallah and if all of you the first
2:06:59 the last the humanity you were in the
2:07:00 heart of the most past one of you that
2:07:01 wouldn't increase mike in anything
2:07:04 is perfect nothing that we could do that
2:07:07 could impact upon allah's majesty
2:07:09 what impacts us and our honor when we do
2:07:12 sins but it doesn't impact upon allah
2:07:14 subhan this is subhanallah quite a
2:07:15 difference between us in our christian
2:07:16 friends so the adamic conundrum
2:07:18 basically is saying that look the
2:07:20 christians have got
2:07:22 or at least dr lulu named craig and his
2:07:24 predecessors
2:07:26 they've got it all wrong
2:07:27 it's actually the
2:07:30 biblical christian conception of the
2:07:32 divine that is maximally deficient or
2:07:34 rather is deficient with regards to the
2:07:36 perfection of the divine because they
2:07:39 have this constructed holiness of god
2:07:41 that he's supposed to be so holy they
2:07:43 has to punish a blood sacrifice for sin
2:07:46 but what is that what that really is
2:07:48 showing is that he's almost equal
2:07:50 partners with the human being
2:07:52 because the human being has sinned and
2:07:54 that's affected me so much but we
2:07:56 believe no allah transcends all of this
2:07:59 and our small mistakes are not going to
2:08:01 affect his majesty yeah they affect us
2:08:03 but not the divine
2:08:05 that's so there's a false presupposition
2:08:07 they have about the holiness and the
2:08:08 omnipotence if you like of the divine
2:08:10 yeah and the other thing is you're
2:08:12 saying well in order for god to be
2:08:14 perfectly loving you have to be
2:08:16 perfectly forgiving but god is saying i
2:08:19 can't forgive human beings i can't
2:08:21 forgive adam and his progeny and the
2:08:23 whole of humanity because of this one
2:08:26 full
2:08:27 well as we say until a blood payment is
2:08:29 made
2:08:30 payment is made and by the way that is
2:08:33 forgiveness all it is it's just a
2:08:35 repayment of a debt so it's not really
2:08:37 forgiveness yeah for sure so the heat so
2:08:39 the problem is number one it's not even
2:08:41 really forgiveness because you're just
2:08:42 repaying a so-called debt
2:08:43 but also how is that maximally loving
2:08:47 you know imagine
2:08:49 there is a king of a castle and someone
2:08:51 makes a mistake in the castle and then
2:08:53 the king basically says
2:08:55 you've made this mistake
2:08:57 i can't forgive you
2:08:59 i need to
2:09:00 kill my son to forgive you right which
2:09:03 is number one unjust it's not maximum
2:09:06 because there's also anything okay the
2:09:08 sun is also him yeah and the sun has to
2:09:10 be the king as well which is a crazy
2:09:12 thing to unpack
2:09:13 but in islamic tradition saying no allah
2:09:15 is maximum forgiving therefore makes me
2:09:17 loving because it's like obviously we're
2:09:19 not doing analogy with the greatest
2:09:20 analogy is is allah you can't have any
2:09:22 analogies but by greater reason
2:09:25 you know if someone comes to king and
2:09:26 makes a mistake and the king says
2:09:28 thank you for coming you've you've
2:09:30 approached me i forgive you by greater
2:09:32 reason allah turned to us
2:09:36 by virtue of turning or relenting to
2:09:38 adam and saying
2:09:40 here are some words you say these words
2:09:41 with us and say
2:09:42 i forgive you even if your sins
2:09:45 were to reach the mountains
2:09:47 that's maximal perfect forgiveness so i
2:09:50 think what you're saying to our brothers
2:09:52 and sisters in humanity you know our
2:09:53 friends in the christian tradition and
2:09:55 our cousins if you like
2:09:56 i think the jews are more our cousins i
2:09:58 think but whatever you know our fellow
2:10:00 human beings that we care for because
2:10:03 remember as we said before we're
2:10:04 dedicated to the well-being the goodness
2:10:06 and the guidance of course they've got
2:10:07 it all wrong concerning allah allah is a
2:10:10 maximally loving you said he's
2:10:12 he is
2:10:14 the loving the loving one he is
2:10:16 affectionate he is
2:10:17 intensely merciful and and he is the
2:10:20 maximally forgiving and we see this in
2:10:22 the adamic story
2:10:25 and for people to unpack this further
2:10:26 i'm going to repeat this again so people
2:10:27 know
2:10:28 please download the book it's free this
2:10:30 is why we write these books to empower
2:10:31 you so you could share and defend islam
2:10:34 academically intellectually and train
2:10:35 others to do so the same that's our
2:10:37 strategic focus sapience institute.org
2:10:40 forward slash the divine perfection or
2:10:42 go to books and you can get other books
2:10:44 as well for free yes
2:10:46 you know you know you mentioned
2:10:50 they all come from the arabic word
2:10:53 which means womb
2:10:55 womb so there's kind of like a maternal
2:10:58 character then you know to mercy
2:11:00 and if you think about a beautiful verse
2:11:01 look at this allah this is about for our
2:11:04 christian friends to think about all of
2:11:05 us as we want to think about
2:11:06 this is concerning maryam mary
2:11:10 that she's in the chamber she's by
2:11:13 herself she's devout in her worship and
2:11:16 the angel comes to her
2:11:17 and in the quran it says in the form of
2:11:19 a very handsome man and it startles her
2:11:22 and
2:11:23 the first word she says is khaled she
2:11:25 says
2:11:28 i seek refuge with rahman from you if
2:11:31 you have any righteousness piety in you
2:11:35 now it's really really powerful if we
2:11:37 think closely at what allah is saying
2:11:38 here because
2:11:40 remember our christian friends would end
2:11:41 up believing that the one she would give
2:11:43 birth to is a source of mercy now for
2:11:45 the worlds but she's saying she already
2:11:48 has rahman in the in in her life rahman
2:11:51 already exists
2:11:53 and so therefore if you think about the
2:11:54 womb what is a womb a woman is a place
2:11:57 of protection safety preservation
2:12:00 nourishment all of that for the unborn
2:12:02 child its safety that allah allah is
2:12:05 already allah already exists allah is
2:12:08 already rahman in the life of maryam and
2:12:11 so even look at this that's one example
2:12:13 another example when allah says
2:12:15 that the uh
2:12:18 that you've done a terrible thing
2:12:21 monstrous thing right
2:12:24 and so allah says that they they say
2:12:26 that
2:12:27 they say rahman has taken a son
2:12:29 so remember the the presupposition is
2:12:32 wrong here that the christians presume
2:12:35 right that
2:12:36 jesus himself is the source of mercy and
2:12:39 allah is saying they say rahman has
2:12:41 taken a son
2:12:42 but
2:12:43 allah is
2:12:45 the son who they think is
2:12:46 going to be allah already exists as
2:12:50 then allah says that they've done a
2:12:51 monstrous thing it's as if the heavens
2:12:53 you know
2:12:54 break up and the earth splits open and
2:12:57 the mountains crumble again and
2:13:05 everything back to his his own self his
2:13:08 allah is forgiving and allah is merciful
2:13:10 already why are you creating this new
2:13:12 concept of
2:13:14 mercy through somebody else allah says
2:13:19 who forgives sins except allah allah
2:13:22 says nine times in one one page i think
2:13:24 of the quran
2:13:27 is there any deity with allah
2:13:33 [Music]
2:13:35 supreme majestic merciful kind all
2:13:38 powerful
2:13:39 allah is all perfect all kind of
2:13:44 all perfect why would you want to direct
2:13:46 all of that greatness in you to focus
2:13:50 your love and devotion to him alone to
2:13:53 somebody other than him that's what
2:13:54 allah is saying in the quran you know
2:13:57 that's why shirk really is a crime
2:13:59 against reality exactly exactly yes
2:14:01 crime against reality so
2:14:03 i mean to summarize this it's very clear
2:14:05 that allah is
2:14:08 maximally loving his maximally forgiving
2:14:11 the christian conception based on the
2:14:13 whole blood cycle blood sacrifice and
2:14:16 the false understanding of what holiness
2:14:17 means
2:14:18 and the fact that an external black
2:14:20 sacrifice has to happen
2:14:22 and god can't forgive us directly
2:14:24 and yet in the islamic tradition allah
2:14:27 relents to us come leans to us from that
2:14:29 perspective comes to adam comes to
2:14:31 humanity he says here are some words
2:14:33 this is how you gain forgiveness this is
2:14:36 how you
2:14:37 you you you you basically are enveloped
2:14:40 in his maximal forgiveness and mercy
2:14:43 just it's based on that relationship
2:14:45 between the creator and his creation uh
2:14:48 the created and the creator it's a
2:14:51 direct relation we just have to turn to
2:14:53 allah we don't have to have a blood
2:14:55 blood sacrifice that's external to that
2:14:57 relationship
2:14:59 and that's why it just shows how
2:15:00 powerful
2:15:01 um the forgiveness of allah is in the
2:15:03 islamic tradition and there is so much
2:15:06 more to say i know we've been talking
2:15:08 for 2015 minutes there is so much more
2:15:10 to say and there's more depth and
2:15:12 nuances and more you know squeezing out
2:15:15 that kind of
2:15:16 you know the language of mercy and
2:15:18 loving the islamic tradition but i would
2:15:19 have to wait for another time
2:15:20 unfortunately doctor usman's exactly her
2:15:23 free time
2:15:24 time is one of the most important things
2:15:26 ever because
2:15:27 if i if i
2:15:29 gave you one billion pounds now how how
2:15:31 would you react to me
2:15:33 but what would you say what would you do
2:15:35 i mean let's be honest if i give you a
2:15:37 billion pounds what would you do
2:15:41 i don't think i'd live long enough to
2:15:42 spend 1 billion
2:15:44 i'm just saying if i gave you a billion
2:15:45 pounds you'd be happy you'd be grateful
2:15:47 right yeah yeah you'd be ecstatic
2:15:49 wouldn't you i could give someone sadaka
2:15:50 and help so many people and give so much
2:15:52 charity correct of course you'd be
2:15:54 delighted but if i set you if i gave you
2:15:57 the billion pounds right now but
2:15:58 tomorrow morning you won't wake up
2:16:01 would you take
2:16:02 it there's no use
2:16:05 timers of the essence you know so you
2:16:07 know the way that we react to that one
2:16:08 billion pounds we should react like that
2:16:10 every morning when we wake up because
2:16:11 it's far more worth than a billion
2:16:13 pounds right
2:16:14 so you've given me more than a billion
2:16:16 pounds so i love it i'm very grateful
2:16:19 here for your time and it's very
2:16:20 precious
2:16:21 and you know we obviously can unpack
2:16:24 these things much much more further but
2:16:26 you know sometimes we we have these
2:16:27 podcasts and we have these narratives to
2:16:29 encourage you to learn more it's not the
2:16:31 full picture because there's so much
2:16:32 more to say so much more nuances and
2:16:35 also there are more objections that can
2:16:37 be raised by the christians that we can
2:16:39 respond to as well yeah there's just two
2:16:41 more
2:16:42 there's two more big big things we
2:16:43 didn't cover today that's fine you can
2:16:45 read them in the book there's two more
2:16:46 big things that craig raises but they're
2:16:48 both covered alhamdulillah in the book
2:16:49 yes so that's why we encourage you to
2:16:51 continue intellectual spiritual journey
2:16:52 with us at sapience we have a learning
2:16:55 platform we have the divine perfection
2:16:56 course that's available for free on the
2:16:58 laying platform on being human is a
2:17:00 course for free on the learning platform
2:17:03 if you go to
2:17:05 learn.sapienceinstitute.org you could
2:17:06 register for free and engage with the
2:17:08 course material for free and do the
2:17:10 multiple choice questions again
2:17:12 certificate and you'll get all of that
2:17:14 information and you could download the
2:17:15 books for free at sapience institute.org
2:17:18 for slash books today's discussion was
2:17:20 based on othering dehumanization
2:17:23 history divine perfection maximal
2:17:26 forgiveness and all of that has been
2:17:27 written in detail with references uh in
2:17:30 dr usmanathi's books that you can find
2:17:32 in the in the links that i've i've given
2:17:34 you
2:17:34 um and yeah so exactly for your time
2:17:36 i'll leave you with the last words and
2:17:38 uh we'll we'll end it there doctor
2:17:41 bless you for your time also allah and
2:17:42 christian all goodness
2:17:44 again just to remind my the viewers
2:17:46 about ramadan ramadan is the month of of
2:17:49 the harvest and so whatever effort we've
2:17:52 put in inshallah in rajab and shaban it
2:17:54 will inshallah payoff inshallah in
2:17:56 ramadan ramadan is the
2:17:58 is the month uh
2:18:00 i think it was evan jose who said that
2:18:02 the months
2:18:03 of the months are 12 like the twelve
2:18:05 sons of of yakub alaysalam
2:18:08 just like yusuf was the most beloved son
2:18:09 to yaqub in ramadan his most beloved
2:18:11 month to allah so when ramadan comes the
2:18:13 prophet of allah said that the gates of
2:18:15 heaven are open the gates of jannah are
2:18:16 open gates of hell are closed and locked
2:18:19 the shattering are chained and used
2:18:21 maximize your use of time in this month
2:18:24 every second is a potential second of
2:18:27 all
2:18:28 returning back to allah make a lot of
2:18:30 zikr is take far
2:18:32 to be tahamid you know pray your salah
2:18:34 pray your best to pray in the masjid
2:18:35 insha allah and and make good practices
2:18:38 because whatever you whatever you intend
2:18:40 allah and
2:18:42 these that probably said that
2:18:44 uh
2:18:45 whoever makes
2:18:47 the next life his biggest concern in
2:18:49 this life allah places wealth and
2:18:50 richness in his heart
2:18:52 and allah and allah you know helps him
2:18:54 in the dunya by organizing his affairs
2:18:57 but if you if you put if you make the
2:18:59 dunya you're in now the biggest concern
2:19:01 for you in this life allah places
2:19:02 poverty before your eyes meaning you're
2:19:05 always you know on edge you don't know
2:19:07 what you're doing so therefore make the
2:19:09 akhira your goal in this life the
2:19:11 beautiful thing when muslim was going
2:19:13 back to allah and he was in a hurry and
2:19:15 allah says what's the hurry and muslim
2:19:21 so therefore that sense of competition
2:19:23 that sense of striving is very profound
2:19:25 in this month i want to end by saying
2:19:27 this and we didn't come to but it's a
2:19:28 good point to cover it that we also
2:19:30 believe allah is a circuit shakur allah
2:19:34 is the appreciative one right so not
2:19:37 just the one that that the christians
2:19:38 they say that god doesn't accept
2:19:40 anything because not worthy enough until
2:19:42 the blood sacrifices are paid allah is
2:19:44 appreciative and and in
2:19:51 and your labors and efforts in this life
2:19:54 were appreciated and that shows again a
2:19:56 loving maximally perfect loving kind god
2:19:59 i mean allah blessed increase all of us
2:20:01 allah i mean
2:20:04 bless you brothers and sisters thank you
2:20:05 for listening to sapient voices which is
2:20:08 the podcast of sapience institute which
2:20:10 is dedicated to giving a platform to
2:20:13 voices of wisdom and reason and to
2:20:15 facilitate facilitate
2:20:16 discussions in order for reason and
2:20:18 wisdom to prevail we're going to have
2:20:20 different types of guests sometimes
2:20:21 we'll be challenging some people have
2:20:22 debates or discussions but it's all with
2:20:24 the right intention for sound reason and
2:20:28 wisdom to prevail and that's that's what
2:20:31 islam is about we want people to
2:20:32 understand if they use their sound
2:20:33 reason if they're people of heck my
2:20:35 people of wisdom then they'll appreciate
2:20:38 the truth which is
2:20:40 there is no deity worthy of worship
2:20:42 except the deity except allah accept god
2:20:45 almighty okay doctor take care of
2:20:48 yourself and
2:20:49 have you again definitely will unpack
2:20:50 these issues even more
2:20:57 [Music]