Seminar: Experiential Signs - Spiritual Experiences & Finding the Truth (2021-10-10) #

0:00:12 [Music]
0:00:15 so i wanted to welcome everyone here
0:00:17 to
0:00:18 this
0:00:19 uh
0:00:20 the sapience live
0:00:23 session
0:00:24 we're going to be inshallah speaking
0:00:25 about the topic of experiential signs
0:00:28 how to use people's spiritual
0:00:29 experiences to help them find the truth
0:00:34 now this particular topic uh it's
0:00:37 it uh it's of interest to me
0:00:39 specifically because
0:00:41 um
0:00:42 you know recently i was with someone and
0:00:44 i asked them i said you know if someone
0:00:46 came to you
0:00:47 and asked you to define or to explain
0:00:51 uh islamic spirituality how would you do
0:00:53 it
0:00:54 and
0:00:55 i got a and this is a room full of what
0:00:58 i would say uh you know
0:01:01 practicing muslims who are passionate
0:01:04 about their faith and so on
0:01:06 and they really had a diverse range of
0:01:08 answers
0:01:09 um
0:01:11 whereas when i presented the question
0:01:13 how would you introduce islam to someone
0:01:15 just as a general principle
0:01:17 uh you know they had kind of your
0:01:19 standardized you know taheed starting
0:01:21 with allah allah's worthy worship and so
0:01:23 on and so forth
0:01:24 so that kind of led me to
0:01:28 uh to really think deeper about the
0:01:30 concept of spirituality within islam and
0:01:33 then how
0:01:34 we can use spirituality or spiritual
0:01:37 experiences
0:01:39 as a tool to invite people to encourage
0:01:42 people to think about the truth of islam
0:01:46 so
0:01:47 with that said what are we going to be
0:01:49 speaking about today well
0:01:52 what we're going to be covering in this
0:01:53 topic in today's session we're going to
0:01:55 be looking at why this particular topic
0:01:57 and why now
0:01:59 why is it more important than ever that
0:02:01 we understand this topic
0:02:04 um
0:02:05 in a way that we're able to articulate
0:02:07 it properly that we ourselves understand
0:02:10 it
0:02:10 and that we're inviting humanity
0:02:13 to
0:02:14 islam as it is as the normative
0:02:17 understanding of islam and we'll get
0:02:18 into that in a second because
0:02:20 one of the things that i'll be reasoning
0:02:22 what i'll be speaking about is that a
0:02:24 normative understanding of islam devoid
0:02:27 of a concept of spirituality
0:02:30 is in fact not really an appropriate
0:02:33 method
0:02:35 because it is only giving someone a
0:02:37 piecemeal understanding of islam it's
0:02:39 not holistic okay but i'll get into that
0:02:41 so we're going to start off with
0:02:42 understanding uh why this topic and why
0:02:46 now so we'll look at it we'll look at
0:02:48 our contemporary world we'll look at
0:02:50 specifically spirituality and spiritual
0:02:52 experiences
0:02:53 um how people are craving uh deeper
0:02:56 spirituality and so on then the second
0:02:58 part we will move on to or the second
0:03:00 section we're going to be looking at
0:03:01 our current approaches
0:03:03 when we
0:03:04 um as as muslims or people that are
0:03:07 interested in
0:03:09 inviting people to the truth inviting
0:03:12 people to islam
0:03:14 what are the current approaches that
0:03:15 occur that are being used and how
0:03:19 are they you know how do they compare
0:03:22 with a more holistic
0:03:24 understanding of islam and where can we
0:03:26 perhaps improve in that
0:03:28 we're then going to move on to the
0:03:29 concept of islamic spirituality itself
0:03:31 like i mentioned i had um i had a
0:03:34 conversation with uh with a group of
0:03:36 people and
0:03:37 and i asked them what islamic
0:03:38 spirituality was and there was such a
0:03:39 diversity of answers
0:03:42 that it was a bit taken aback even
0:03:44 though you know if i ask some of you
0:03:46 what is islamic spirituality you might
0:03:49 actually be able to give a pretty uh
0:03:52 succinct pithy answer and say well this
0:03:55 is islamic spirituality but nevertheless
0:03:58 i think it's important that we ourselves
0:04:00 if if it's true that we can use
0:04:02 spirituality
0:04:04 uh and spiritual people's spiritual
0:04:06 experiences
0:04:07 as a way to call people to the truth to
0:04:09 to invite people to islam
0:04:12 then it's very important that we
0:04:14 ourselves
0:04:15 have a good understanding of what
0:04:17 islamic spirituality is so that that's
0:04:20 what we'll cover in the third section
0:04:22 now
0:04:23 after understanding what islamic
0:04:25 spirituality is we're going to look at
0:04:27 the ontology of the soul
0:04:29 and what i mean here in fact is more
0:04:31 perhaps it should be better titled the
0:04:33 ontology of the human being because
0:04:35 while we understand we may understand
0:04:37 a
0:04:38 uh conceptually what islamic
0:04:39 spirituality is if we don't understand
0:04:42 the nature of the human being and it's
0:04:44 and it's in his connection with the soul
0:04:46 and the body and so on and so forth
0:04:49 our
0:04:50 excuse me our understanding
0:04:52 may be
0:04:54 uh
0:04:54 one that is not we're not able to
0:04:57 articulate islamic spirituality as it
0:04:59 should be articulated so we'll get into
0:05:01 that uh in in the fourth section the
0:05:04 fifth section we're gonna take an
0:05:05 example of a spiritual experience
0:05:07 in the sense that
0:05:09 one of the when we'll look at a couple
0:05:11 of approaches of how to use spiritual
0:05:13 experiences one of those approaches is
0:05:15 going to be
0:05:16 how can we
0:05:18 uh invite people
0:05:20 to
0:05:22 spiritual acts that we as muslims do
0:05:25 and
0:05:26 to partake in those acts and particu
0:05:29 partake in some of those acts
0:05:31 with a good understanding of islamic
0:05:33 spirituality so we'll have an example of
0:05:35 one of those spiritual experiences
0:05:37 or spiritual acts let's say uh that are
0:05:40 inside the islamic paradigm islamic
0:05:42 worldview
0:05:43 the second thing would be what about
0:05:45 someone that has
0:05:46 their own spiritual experience a
0:05:48 christian has their spiritual experience
0:05:49 or buddhist has their spiritual
0:05:50 experiences how do we then deal with
0:05:53 that and how do we use that as a means
0:05:56 to call people to the truth or invite
0:05:58 people to islam so that's in general
0:06:01 that's the that's where we'll be going
0:06:03 in this particular presentation
0:06:04 inshallah so i ask allah subhanahu
0:06:07 wa'ta'ala to
0:06:08 make it a means uh to our our betterment
0:06:12 both in this dunya and the akhirah uh
0:06:14 and ask allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala to
0:06:16 accept it from all of us and all of you
0:06:18 that are out there inshallah okay
0:06:20 so why this topic
0:06:22 and why now
0:06:24 well one of the things that we see that
0:06:26 within the modern world
0:06:29 you find that
0:06:31 people have a multiple
0:06:35 have have have many many distractions
0:06:39 uh have many things that
0:06:41 ha that are part and parcel of the
0:06:43 modern world
0:06:45 that cause the human being to almost
0:06:48 live a type of insulin insular
0:06:52 cerebral cold
0:06:55 life
0:06:55 right so we in the modern world we have
0:06:58 access to a lot of information right at
0:07:01 our fingertips we have access to
0:07:04 comforts and
0:07:06 uh things that we would consider you
0:07:07 know uh very you know
0:07:09 certain eases within the modern world
0:07:12 that we could never imagine you know 50
0:07:14 60 100 200 years ago
0:07:16 so
0:07:17 a lot of those aspects of the modern
0:07:20 world
0:07:23 many would argue that that causes the
0:07:26 human being
0:07:27 a type of discomfort
0:07:30 so
0:07:31 you could be on your cell phone and you
0:07:33 could be you know let's say
0:07:35 looking for that that particular text or
0:07:37 you receive a certain text you put your
0:07:39 phone down but then you get a
0:07:40 notification
0:07:42 and you know research is research has
0:07:45 shown
0:07:46 that
0:07:46 that notification
0:07:48 is somewhat more or less equivalent to
0:07:51 getting
0:07:52 uh you know to the it's it's the
0:07:54 phenomena of getting a notification is
0:07:57 is sim somewhat similar
0:07:59 to
0:08:00 taking a type of drug or having a type
0:08:02 of high
0:08:03 so
0:08:04 um you know the same phenomena occurs
0:08:06 within the the the the chemicals within
0:08:09 the the brain
0:08:10 and so when you get that text you're
0:08:12 looking for the next text or the next
0:08:14 email or the next and the notifications
0:08:16 prompt that so you're constantly looking
0:08:18 from
0:08:19 one social media outlet to another one
0:08:21 email account to another and so this
0:08:24 process keeps on going but the reality
0:08:26 is is that while you get that first
0:08:28 dopamine shot that
0:08:30 again is
0:08:31 some research many researchers would say
0:08:33 that's equivalent to
0:08:35 certain drugs that also give dope you
0:08:36 know that that excrete dopamine um
0:08:40 that it's not satisfying
0:08:43 and so i think uh the researcher and so
0:08:46 you can see here within the images
0:08:48 you've got obviously the gaming on the
0:08:50 cell phone
0:08:51 uh that's a cause for this insular you
0:08:54 know atomized
0:08:56 lifestyle in the modern world but not
0:08:58 only that just the phenomena of the
0:09:00 modern world as well in the sense that
0:09:02 you have things that happen around the
0:09:04 world
0:09:05 uh that can also cause a person to be
0:09:08 unstable internally in the sense that
0:09:11 they're looking for something deeper
0:09:13 when it comes to their life meaning and
0:09:15 so on and so forth so you have wars
0:09:17 around the world for instance that are
0:09:19 proliferating and and you know that are
0:09:22 happening all the time you have certain
0:09:24 social causes
0:09:26 that uh that add to this type of anxiety
0:09:30 where a person is looking for a deeper
0:09:32 meaning or deeper um you know
0:09:34 understanding of themselves and the
0:09:36 world that they live in
0:09:38 and just the phenomena of
0:09:40 the the the environment of us having
0:09:43 a type of consumer mentality where it's
0:09:45 going from one product to the next
0:09:47 buying one thing to the next and i think
0:09:49 it's summarized really well just the
0:09:51 phenomena of modernity with this
0:09:53 statement from uh lawrence shammies and
0:09:56 he writes in the hunger for more
0:09:58 searching for values in an age of greed
0:10:00 he says
0:10:01 consumption without excuses and without
0:10:04 the need of justification
0:10:06 and so here he's talking about if a
0:10:09 certain phenomena of the modern world
0:10:10 and that has to do with consumption
0:10:12 and so he says consumption without
0:10:14 excuses and without the need for
0:10:15 justification
0:10:18 the beauty part was that it finessed the
0:10:21 irksome question of values and purpose
0:10:25 so
0:10:26 during the past decade
0:10:28 during the past decade many people
0:10:31 came to believe
0:10:33 that there didn't have to be a purpose
0:10:35 the mechanism didn't require it in other
0:10:38 words the consumer mechanism
0:10:40 didn't require that you needed a
0:10:42 teleology you didn't need a purpose and
0:10:44 meaning and all these deeper things like
0:10:46 the the the idea of consumerism or the
0:10:49 idea of the modern world you could do
0:10:52 away with any concept of you know what
0:10:55 happens next what are what are things
0:10:57 are things meaningful is there a purpose
0:10:59 to my existence my life and so on and so
0:11:01 forth so what he's stating is during the
0:11:03 past decade many people came to believe
0:11:05 that there didn't have to be a purpose
0:11:07 the mechanism
0:11:09 didn't require it
0:11:11 consumption kept the workers working
0:11:13 which kept the paychecks coming
0:11:15 which kept the people spending which
0:11:17 kept the investors investing which meant
0:11:20 that there was more to consume
0:11:21 the system properly understood was
0:11:24 independent of values and needed no
0:11:27 philosophy to prop it up
0:11:28 it was a perfect circle
0:11:31 uh it was a perfect circle complete in
0:11:33 itself
0:11:34 but empty in the middle
0:11:36 and i think it's very profound how he
0:11:38 how he explained that because in our
0:11:41 you know in our day and age we see more
0:11:44 and more people
0:11:46 feeling that emptiness and feeling that
0:11:49 idea that yes i can go to work and come
0:11:51 back and and and and you know and eat my
0:11:54 tv dinner and sit in front of netflix
0:11:56 and chill and whatever it might be but
0:11:58 all of this is just a rat race that goes
0:12:00 round and round every day
0:12:02 is you know just another day
0:12:05 and so
0:12:06 that emptiness starts to now gnaw at the
0:12:09 human being
0:12:11 now because that emptiness starts to
0:12:13 knot the human being
0:12:14 um
0:12:15 we have to ask like well what is that
0:12:17 thing that's gnawing at the human being
0:12:19 what is it that you know what is that
0:12:21 dissatisfaction
0:12:22 and the uh
0:12:24 the ninth century scholar of um uh ibn
0:12:27 hazem uh
0:12:28 uh al andalusi he was a muslim
0:12:32 theologian he was a uh you know you
0:12:34 would say a polymath
0:12:36 a very erudite scholar who comes out of
0:12:38 muslim spain in the in the ninth century
0:12:41 and he has this statement which i
0:12:43 thought was very profound he said i have
0:12:45 tried to find
0:12:46 one
0:12:47 goal
0:12:48 which everyone would agree would be
0:12:50 excellent and worthy of being striven
0:12:52 after
0:12:53 i found only one
0:12:55 it's what was that goal he says to be
0:12:58 free of
0:12:59 and hum i've given i've given a brief
0:13:02 translation here anxiety but i'm going
0:13:04 to speak about that in a second as well
0:13:06 so he says dispelling ham
0:13:08 is a goal upon which all nations agree
0:13:12 in the case of every other objective
0:13:15 there will always be some people who do
0:13:17 not desire it for example there are some
0:13:19 who have no interest in amassing a
0:13:21 fortune fortune preferring abstinence to
0:13:24 ownership
0:13:25 so his
0:13:27 uh understanding and his uh prognosis of
0:13:30 the problem is that that thing that's
0:13:33 needed that hole within the human being
0:13:36 is and that the problem that that people
0:13:39 are feeling feeling is the problem of
0:13:41 ham so what does he mean by hammer what
0:13:44 does the word
0:13:45 mean
0:13:46 so um lane's lexicon
0:13:49 defines it as follows
0:13:51 that hum is anxiety that's kind of a
0:13:53 one-word answer or
0:13:55 disquietude
0:13:56 or trouble of mind
0:13:58 and this is very important because
0:14:00 uh what we're going to see as we move
0:14:02 forward is that
0:14:04 one of the things that islamic
0:14:06 spirituality provides
0:14:09 is a type of freeing from a trouble of
0:14:12 the soul and a trouble of the mind and
0:14:14 what exactly speaking about so coming
0:14:16 back to the definition of ham he says
0:14:18 ham
0:14:19 is
0:14:20 anxiety or disquiet
0:14:22 trouble or trouble of the mind
0:14:24 solicitude care or grief or sorrow
0:14:28 distress or disquietude affecting the
0:14:31 heart or mind
0:14:33 by reason of some harm or annoyance that
0:14:36 is expected to happen and this is a
0:14:38 really important uh distinction between
0:14:41 uh
0:14:43 so he says and he actually mentions that
0:14:44 next he says differing from ram which
0:14:48 signifies distress or disquiet affecting
0:14:50 the heart or mind by reason of what has
0:14:53 happened
0:14:54 so we notice that you have this concept
0:14:56 of certain occurrences that are
0:14:58 happening or what have happened in the
0:15:00 past let's say that is what you will
0:15:02 call ram when you're you know you feel
0:15:04 something about things that happen
0:15:06 happened in the past
0:15:07 but what hum really is is this idea when
0:15:10 you start reflecting upon
0:15:12 what's happening to now and what's going
0:15:14 to happen in the future and we start
0:15:15 looking at the future and saying it's
0:15:17 all just empty i'm just a cog in a
0:15:19 machine
0:15:20 right and i personally think that in in
0:15:23 the in the covet environment where many
0:15:26 of us were truly atomized in the sense
0:15:28 that we had this existence that became
0:15:31 extremely um insular and and and
0:15:36 solitary we were very alone in many
0:15:38 cases that this this idea of ham became
0:15:42 exacerbated we felt more of it right and
0:15:46 so ham as opposed to
0:15:48 hum is related to that which is about
0:15:51 your current situation or the future
0:15:53 when you look to the future and
0:15:55 it's bleak you're just day in day out so
0:15:58 where does a person go and where's the
0:16:00 deeper uh satisfaction and deeper um you
0:16:04 know
0:16:05 like where is this all going
0:16:07 and like i said as opposed to ram which
0:16:09 is
0:16:10 things that happen in the past or
0:16:11 occurrences that happen the death of a
0:16:12 loved one whatever it might be
0:16:14 so
0:16:15 you have we have this problem it's it's
0:16:18 it's it's reached uh you know a very
0:16:20 extreme level in the modern day and age
0:16:23 right
0:16:24 so now enter the modern gurus
0:16:28 obviously if there's a problem you're
0:16:29 going to find people rushing to give a
0:16:32 solution to that problem
0:16:33 and truth and so what i have here is a
0:16:36 picture of a number of prominent you can
0:16:38 say modern gurus so you know and i'm
0:16:41 sure you'll recognize
0:16:42 some of them at least right um here in
0:16:45 here in houston you've got joel olsteen
0:16:48 he's a christian preacher but a lot of
0:16:50 his talk is all about you know you and
0:16:54 hope and you know that you can do it and
0:16:56 you can you you can get there by the
0:16:58 will of jesus and so on and so forth and
0:17:00 so you know he he's he's he's giving
0:17:03 this deeper solution
0:17:05 which what you'll notice is when you
0:17:07 hear when he when he's speaking he's not
0:17:11 necessarily giving
0:17:12 very
0:17:14 robust
0:17:16 uh deep academic
0:17:19 arguments or deep academic um
0:17:22 dissertations about how to solve this
0:17:25 emptiness but a lot of it is almost you
0:17:28 can say super superficial superficial
0:17:30 talk you know just calam folly as they
0:17:33 say right but yet it kind of inspires
0:17:36 people so every sunday people would come
0:17:37 to the church or tune in on tv and he
0:17:40 would have these messages of hope and
0:17:42 the future and it's bright and jesus is
0:17:44 with you and so on and so forth
0:17:46 for with what goal or what understanding
0:17:49 the understanding that humans in our in
0:17:52 in modernity
0:17:53 are craving that
0:17:55 similarly you have a a a youtube
0:17:58 sensation i would say sadhguru now he's
0:18:00 coming from uh an indian
0:18:04 paradigm or let's say hindu paradigm and
0:18:06 so but yet what is he presenting it's
0:18:08 all about the self and sitting still
0:18:11 solitude and all of these various ideas
0:18:14 again it's there because he understands
0:18:17 uh like joel osteen understands that
0:18:20 there is this human need and human
0:18:23 beings are craving this especially in
0:18:26 modernity of course the last one is tony
0:18:28 robbins so you're talking about you know
0:18:31 someone that is outside the context of a
0:18:33 religion or a specific philosophy but
0:18:36 it's just more of that you know
0:18:37 self-help feel good you can do it and
0:18:39 the future is yours and so on and so
0:18:41 forth
0:18:42 now
0:18:43 that being the case
0:18:45 um
0:18:47 what we want to ask
0:18:49 is
0:18:51 what where does islam fit into all of
0:18:53 this
0:18:54 like when we want to invite people
0:18:56 to islam
0:18:58 there is a deeper
0:19:00 spiritual need
0:19:02 there is a deeper spiritual calling that
0:19:05 people have there is a disquiet to
0:19:07 there's anxiety there is a
0:19:10 a hum
0:19:12 and what
0:19:14 is very unfortunate is that within our
0:19:16 tradition we have a deeply spiritual
0:19:19 tradition
0:19:21 but when we look at our own approaches
0:19:23 to how we
0:19:25 uh deal with the concept of da'wah or
0:19:28 inviting people to the truth or
0:19:30 encouraging people or helping someone to
0:19:32 find the truth
0:19:34 we find that many times it's almost cold
0:19:37 and clinical
0:19:38 because we are so focused on the
0:19:41 argument or we're so focused on you know
0:19:44 a type of uh that we we want to make
0:19:47 islam just
0:19:48 be very rational
0:19:51 and so we're going to now employ various
0:19:53 means of discursive reasoning to say
0:19:55 look you have you know premise a premise
0:19:56 b therefore c
0:19:58 that sometimes we miss out on the fact
0:20:01 that we're not talking to a machine
0:20:04 but we're talking to a human being
0:20:06 that has a multitude of emotions and
0:20:10 psycho-spiritual states
0:20:12 and um opinions and and world views
0:20:16 paradigms
0:20:18 cultures and so much that goes on
0:20:21 within the human project
0:20:24 and we tend to hyper focus many of us
0:20:27 tend to hyper focus on one element that
0:20:30 almost makes islam seem just again cold
0:20:33 cerebral
0:20:35 clinical so therefore we have this human
0:20:38 machine
0:20:39 uh and we're going to input certain
0:20:42 information so we have information allah
0:20:45 is one the only one worthy worship
0:20:46 muhammad saw
0:20:48 proofs of prophethood
0:20:51 right now they've been guided
0:20:53 when in reality
0:20:54 we may be missing the bigger picture
0:20:57 so what i wanted to look at next was
0:21:00 comparing our or in many circles the
0:21:04 current environment or the current
0:21:06 understanding of what people generally
0:21:08 think dawah is or what people think
0:21:11 sharing islam is or or or sharing the
0:21:14 truth or inviting someone to the truth
0:21:16 or helping someone finding the truth
0:21:19 what is
0:21:20 somewhat prevalent and perhaps this has
0:21:22 to do with the modern age itself that we
0:21:24 ourselves are affected by that sort of
0:21:27 consumer
0:21:28 uh you know cold cerebral
0:21:31 you know view of the world that we've
0:21:33 been kind of put into the position where
0:21:35 we
0:21:36 we have limited
0:21:38 the invitation to islam to just debate
0:21:41 and just you know kind of being able to
0:21:43 show the superiority of islam
0:21:46 by putting down another person or
0:21:48 whatever it might be and again you're
0:21:49 going to see this and i'm not knocking
0:21:51 uh debate in its entirety obviously it
0:21:54 has a benefit it has a you know there's
0:21:57 certain times when when when debate is
0:21:59 is is necessary
0:22:01 but a lot of times we have now become
0:22:03 myopic in how we understand inviting
0:22:06 someone to the truth so it goes from
0:22:08 this kind of uh caring
0:22:10 warm uh
0:22:12 you know
0:22:13 welcoming phenomena
0:22:15 to one that becomes almost cold
0:22:18 obtruse
0:22:20 uh almost
0:22:21 you know that that it's it's it's it's
0:22:23 just full of
0:22:25 uh debate right it's full of kind of
0:22:27 just argumentation
0:22:29 right
0:22:30 yet when we look at it
0:22:32 we're actually inviting a complete human
0:22:34 being so so the two approaches we can
0:22:37 you have one that's quite prevalent
0:22:39 which we would call functionalism right
0:22:42 so functionalism it's more it's
0:22:44 represented by that robot that's on the
0:22:46 my right side of the screen so
0:22:48 functionism is a view of the human being
0:22:50 that has a type of understanding of the
0:22:53 person you're speaking to to be like a
0:22:55 robot so what is a robot it's programmed
0:22:57 right so there's an input there's an
0:22:59 output there's no sort of reflection or
0:23:02 contemplation it's there's no feeling no
0:23:04 emotions it's just you have you know a
0:23:07 certain input certain premises certain
0:23:09 conclusion deductive reasoning you know
0:23:12 discursive reasoning whatever it might
0:23:13 be and then boom you have an output
0:23:16 but in reality the human being
0:23:18 is not just pre-programmed and does not
0:23:22 lack reflection contemplation feelings
0:23:24 and emotion rather the human being is a
0:23:27 complex
0:23:28 uh network of the akal right the
0:23:31 intellect the nufs the desires and um
0:23:34 you know that bass bass desires the
0:23:38 the the the spirit or the soul within
0:23:40 the human being that consciousness the
0:23:43 the the heart the fitra as we're going
0:23:46 to speak about and that this human being
0:23:48 is
0:23:49 extremely
0:23:51 deep and extremely multi-varied and and
0:23:54 and it has a
0:23:56 it's very complex
0:23:58 so
0:23:59 when we look at
0:24:00 these the human being
0:24:02 even when we look at our tradition
0:24:05 allah when describing the human being
0:24:08 doesn't just say that this is a thinking
0:24:10 being now i'm not saying allah subhana
0:24:12 wa doesn't mention that we are thinking
0:24:14 beings of course we're always encouraged
0:24:16 to think to ponder
0:24:19 do they not use their reasoning but
0:24:21 allah describes a human being in in many
0:24:23 ways and some of those ways have to do
0:24:25 with that hum with that disquietude and
0:24:28 the reasons for that disquiet so for
0:24:30 example how does allah describe the
0:24:32 human being he says in in one
0:24:34 in that first ayah that i mentioned here
0:24:40 the human being loves to argue
0:24:44 you know in another uh another place in
0:24:46 the quran
0:24:48 allah subhana wa says
0:24:53 we've only given you a just a minuscule
0:24:56 little bit of knowledge
0:24:58 and so with that little knowledge how
0:25:01 does allah describe a human being well
0:25:02 he loves to argue right a little bit of
0:25:05 knowledge but based on that little bit
0:25:07 of knowledge
0:25:08 loves to argue that's just you know
0:25:10 whether the person
0:25:11 you know
0:25:13 do they know the entirety of the other
0:25:15 human being they're speaking to do they
0:25:17 know their complete background do they
0:25:19 know that this person was abused as a
0:25:21 child whatever it might be all the
0:25:22 background the human being loves to
0:25:24 argue right
0:25:26 the human being is in haste
0:25:30 right that the human being is constantly
0:25:31 in a hurry that rat race i was speaking
0:25:34 about that's you know something that we
0:25:36 we you know that that things we want
0:25:38 things done quickly and immediately and
0:25:40 so now it's just we're always in this
0:25:42 rat race
0:25:43 this idea of just taking some time out
0:25:46 and
0:25:47 calming oneself
0:25:48 to think deeper when someone is in that
0:25:51 circle that i was speaking about earlier
0:25:53 or that lawrence chamise was speaking
0:25:54 about earlier that being caught up in
0:25:56 that circle
0:25:58 it's part of the human condition
0:26:00 uh the human being is anxious again
0:26:02 anxiety hum right
0:26:08 indeed the human being is created
0:26:10 anxious right mankind is in
0:26:13 in greek indeed created anxious
0:26:17 and when some sort of evil touches him
0:26:19 right this goes back to ram versus when
0:26:21 some sort of evil touches him he's
0:26:23 impatient oh man this is like my world's
0:26:26 about to be destroyed i don't know
0:26:27 what's going to happen and all of these
0:26:29 you know my my rules come crumbling down
0:26:32 but then what happens when good comes
0:26:38 but when that good comes
0:26:40 they withhold it they get greedy with it
0:26:42 right
0:26:44 and such is the human being right little
0:26:46 bit of knowledge
0:26:47 and making conclusions arguing
0:26:50 argumentative um you know being
0:26:52 impatient being anxious
0:26:55 uh withholding good you know being very
0:26:58 impatient when evil touches the human
0:26:59 being the human being is complex right
0:27:04 okay so coming to these two uh
0:27:07 these two concepts we're talking about
0:27:09 tao of functionalism so a functional
0:27:11 approach to the dao addresses the human
0:27:13 being with uh with a mind that functions
0:27:16 as a series of inputs and outputs so you
0:27:18 basically approach the human being as a
0:27:20 computer
0:27:21 what's the assumption here the
0:27:22 assumption is is that dao is based on
0:27:24 abstract rational arguments
0:27:26 and that they're sufficient to produce
0:27:27 the results all right so it's similar to
0:27:29 an algorithm so you have these you know
0:27:31 algorithms that you basically put out
0:27:34 and so or you have algorithms you know
0:27:37 much like how the internet works today
0:27:39 right there's a series of algorithms and
0:27:41 that's how they kind of give a
0:27:44 uh an avatar
0:27:46 so social media works by making avatars
0:27:49 and then they basically look at your
0:27:50 your your buying preferences uh where do
0:27:53 you live what is your age uh you know
0:27:56 what is your political affiliation what
0:27:58 are some of your opinions and all of
0:27:59 that
0:28:00 data data is gathered together
0:28:04 and then it there is an avatar that's
0:28:06 created so and so therefore and then you
0:28:08 have
0:28:09 algorithms you have uh information that
0:28:12 comes together with this avatar to then
0:28:14 target you as a human being but this is
0:28:18 a very again cold cerebral approach
0:28:21 um
0:28:22 and much of the time when we are
0:28:23 inviting people to islam our approach is
0:28:25 very similar right so this approach
0:28:27 fails to address the human in a holistic
0:28:29 way human beings are not only rational
0:28:32 in fact they are a dynamic interplay
0:28:34 between emotions psychology cognitive
0:28:36 faculties you know and i would add to
0:28:38 that spirituality where psycho spiritual
0:28:41 emotive beings
0:28:42 um let's compare that now looking at
0:28:45 that and comparing that and juxtaposing
0:28:47 that with dawah holism
0:28:49 thou holism a holistic approach to the
0:28:51 tawa that addresses the human being as
0:28:53 he is as the human being is allah knows
0:28:56 the human being better than we know the
0:28:58 human being right so he created us that
0:29:01 being said
0:29:02 we understand that the human being has
0:29:04 an intellect it has a heart it has a
0:29:06 fitrah as we'll get into in a second it
0:29:08 has enoughs a body and so on and so
0:29:10 forth okay
0:29:11 so
0:29:13 let's now start so if that's the case
0:29:15 if we understand that that
0:29:17 that the human being is a complex
0:29:20 interplay of emotions and
0:29:22 psycho-spiritual states
0:29:24 and culture and background
0:29:27 and cognition so i don't want to
0:29:30 you know basically say that cognition
0:29:32 has no part to play
0:29:33 obviously the human being is cognitive
0:29:35 faculties
0:29:36 and using those cognitive faculties will
0:29:39 become very important especially when we
0:29:41 get to the end of today's live seminar
0:29:44 and we speak about the various
0:29:47 understandings of spiritual experiences
0:29:50 because we can't just do away with
0:29:51 cognition but at the same time we cannot
0:29:54 just hyper focus
0:29:55 on cognition itself
0:29:58 with and and leave off
0:30:00 the the rest of the of the the human uh
0:30:04 emotive psycho spiritual interplay so
0:30:07 let's let's take a brief look at the
0:30:08 human being and i say brief because
0:30:11 we have covered a lot of these topics
0:30:13 and other
0:30:14 uh
0:30:15 other courses that that are that are
0:30:17 available on youtube and other safety
0:30:20 and thought series that i know myself
0:30:22 i've done so i'm going to briefly look
0:30:24 at
0:30:25 the construct of the human being to give
0:30:27 us a good idea about what is
0:30:30 the human being
0:30:31 right what what do we mean by the human
0:30:33 being
0:30:34 from an islamic uh paradigm
0:30:38 so the first thing we understand
0:30:40 the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi
0:30:42 wasallam
0:30:43 said
0:30:47 there is no child that is born except
0:30:50 that they are born upon the fitrah his
0:30:54 parents then make him a jew a christian
0:30:56 or magian
0:30:57 as an animal delivers a child with limbs
0:30:59 intact do you detect any flaw
0:31:02 and so one of the first things we
0:31:03 understand
0:31:04 about the human being when we're
0:31:06 speaking about what or who is the human
0:31:08 right you can even say that we're
0:31:10 talking about the anthropology not
0:31:12 anthropology as we understand it in
0:31:14 western academia but who or what is the
0:31:16 human so from that perspective
0:31:18 understand one of the first things
0:31:20 is that every single human being
0:31:24 is born upon the fitrah
0:31:26 now what do we mean by the term fitra so
0:31:28 if you've heard
0:31:31 you know any sort of
0:31:33 talks or live uh streams from
0:31:36 sapiens
0:31:38 you know you know and if you've been
0:31:39 following sapiens you know that we speak
0:31:40 about this very often so that's why i
0:31:42 don't spend too much time on it but for
0:31:44 purposes of today's live stream i'm just
0:31:47 going to present a working definition
0:31:49 i've actually presented this in a lot
0:31:51 more detail in uh in the sap thought
0:31:53 series called the human project so if
0:31:55 you'd like more information you can you
0:31:56 can check it out there but for today's
0:31:58 for today's purposes the working
0:32:00 definition we'll say is the original
0:32:02 what is the fitrah it is the original
0:32:05 normative disposition and i'm using
0:32:07 three words there original
0:32:09 normative disposition so the fir what
0:32:12 this hadith tells us is that it is
0:32:14 original it is the original
0:32:16 way in which allah created the human
0:32:19 being the term fitra is what we call um
0:32:24 in terms of if you study arabic grammar
0:32:26 which
0:32:26 signifies how something is or the way
0:32:30 something is so you have similar terms
0:32:32 like you have obviously fitra you have
0:32:36 the way something is created jinsa the
0:32:38 way the sitting how someone sits or the
0:32:41 sitting or the gathering then you have
0:32:42 the one that many muslims are familiar
0:32:44 with qibla the way you turn the
0:32:46 direction you turn qibla fitra
0:32:49 you know
0:32:50 and so on so these terms
0:32:53 are about the way
0:32:54 the original state and the original
0:32:56 normative disposition so here what we're
0:32:59 saying when we're looking at the hadith
0:33:00 of the prophet that originally this is
0:33:03 how allah created the human being was
0:33:06 upon the fitra it is an original state
0:33:08 okay
0:33:09 second
0:33:10 so we talked about original
0:33:12 uh original normative disposition
0:33:15 allah says
0:33:19 so direct your face towards the religion
0:33:21 inclining to truth hear hanifa or hanif
0:33:24 it's just it's it's it's this idea of
0:33:26 inclining towards the truth
0:33:28 uh the term hanif it's a bit difficult
0:33:30 to translate and then allah says
0:33:34 it is the fitra right of of the fitra of
0:33:38 allah or the fitra that allah created
0:33:41 all people
0:33:42 and then allah says
0:33:46 there is no
0:33:47 uh
0:33:48 no change should there be in the
0:33:49 creation of allah in other words
0:33:51 this
0:33:52 uh
0:33:53 this state or this original uh
0:33:57 primordial
0:33:58 state of the human being
0:34:00 that it doesn't it cannot be replaced
0:34:02 with something altogether
0:34:04 so the word here just very quickly uh
0:34:06 for those who might be interested the
0:34:07 word here is tabdi
0:34:09 so had the word been uh
0:34:11 in other words to change then we would
0:34:13 say that the that the fitra itself
0:34:15 cannot be changed cannot be corrupted
0:34:18 but the means to take something and
0:34:20 completely replace it
0:34:22 and so therefore the fitrah
0:34:24 there can be changes it can be affected
0:34:26 as we're going to see it can be clouded
0:34:29 but it can never be completely
0:34:32 replaced there's no tab in the hulk of
0:34:34 allah right it's not the deal in the
0:34:36 fitrah so
0:34:38 so this is the way that allah created
0:34:40 the human being like i said the fit
0:34:42 right the self the term itself is
0:34:46 means
0:34:46 you know it is the way the direction how
0:34:48 allah created something
0:34:50 the second term there which i mentioned
0:34:52 was normative
0:34:53 and when we say normative what we're
0:34:55 speaking about here we can we can
0:34:57 compare it to the term descriptive okay
0:35:00 so just bear with me for a minute
0:35:02 when we talk about something normative
0:35:04 we're saying how something should be
0:35:07 how um how is it in let's say reality
0:35:10 what is the normal
0:35:12 way of understanding something
0:35:14 descriptive is how others
0:35:17 may describe that particular thing so if
0:35:19 we let's say we want to take a normative
0:35:21 understanding of islam
0:35:23 it's basically how islam describes
0:35:25 itself
0:35:26 what does islam say about itself if we
0:35:28 want to take a descriptive
0:35:30 understanding of islam that would mean
0:35:32 well let's present islam to someone in
0:35:35 let's say midland texas and what is
0:35:37 their perception of islam they may say
0:35:39 oh you know islam is just a whole bunch
0:35:41 of rules and there's people that uh you
0:35:44 know that commit terrorist acts or
0:35:46 whatever it might be that's a
0:35:47 descriptive way of looking at it but
0:35:49 what does islam say about itself what is
0:35:51 the normative normal
0:35:53 understanding right so you have
0:35:55 normative that which is kind of the the
0:35:58 reality or kind of the normal way
0:36:00 something is and then you have that
0:36:02 which is away from that so the way the
0:36:05 human being is as it was originally
0:36:07 created to be the normative state
0:36:10 right as it is as allah created it this
0:36:14 is the second part of our definition so
0:36:15 the original
0:36:16 normative and then we'll move on to the
0:36:19 third point
0:36:20 and that is disposition
0:36:22 so in other words there is a certain
0:36:24 disposition that the human being has
0:36:26 that there's it was original it's
0:36:29 normative as it should be right and by
0:36:31 the way this term um just to maybe
0:36:34 elucidate it a little more
0:36:36 the term normative is quite prevalent in
0:36:39 our current culture as well at least
0:36:41 within uh current western culture when
0:36:44 we are dealing with
0:36:46 um you know things like gender issues
0:36:49 uh things like the lgbtq issues and
0:36:51 things like that because they speak
0:36:52 about normative so if you said your cis
0:36:56 normative for instance cis-normative
0:36:59 means that you believe that there are
0:37:01 two genders you believe that is normal
0:37:03 that is the normative normal way that
0:37:05 the human being is that there are two
0:37:06 genders similarly you may say that you
0:37:09 are heteronormative you believe that the
0:37:11 normal state of the human being is one
0:37:12 of heterosexuality as opposed to
0:37:14 homosexuality and so on and so forth so
0:37:17 from that perspective it just kind of
0:37:18 elucidates the point of what we mean by
0:37:20 normative the normal way in which allah
0:37:23 subhanahu wa'ta'ala created and that
0:37:25 normal way has a disposition
0:37:27 now there's two main views related to
0:37:30 this particular disposition and that is
0:37:32 number one
0:37:33 that this fitra it contains primary
0:37:37 inborn knowledge of allah's existence
0:37:40 and that he deserves to be worshipped
0:37:41 right and it includes some basic morals
0:37:44 as well that we are born with this right
0:37:47 the second
0:37:48 opinion amongst our theologians is that
0:37:50 the fitrah does not contain knowledge
0:37:52 itself
0:37:53 but it contains the the you can say it
0:37:55 is the means by which you can get to
0:37:58 knowledge you can get to truth it
0:37:59 directs one towards the truth right
0:38:01 there's a potency that one has that's
0:38:04 disposed towards a recognition of allah
0:38:06 and that he alone is worthy worship so
0:38:08 the fitra itself has a potency within it
0:38:11 to recognize god and a propensity or
0:38:14 that it's primed to worship
0:38:18 so now whichever opinion
0:38:21 one takes
0:38:22 we can understand that
0:38:24 that fitra the original normative
0:38:26 disposition
0:38:28 uh when it comes to
0:38:30 you know the the the world that we live
0:38:32 in when it comes to modernity when it
0:38:34 comes to uh being brought up in a
0:38:37 household that's let's say of a
0:38:38 different
0:38:39 uh world view
0:38:41 this fitnah can become clouded
0:38:44 and so when that fitra is clouded
0:38:48 you find that the objective of the
0:38:51 person
0:38:53 of the one who's interested in guiding
0:38:55 the person back to the truth
0:38:56 is to deal with those clouds to remove
0:38:59 those clouds
0:39:00 to have the person that they've moved
0:39:03 away from that original
0:39:05 uh normative disposition and bring them
0:39:08 back
0:39:09 to that true normative
0:39:11 original normative disposition that
0:39:13 primordial state of theirs that is true
0:39:16 and how allah
0:39:18 how allah subhana wa
0:39:20 created the human being
0:39:21 so
0:39:22 how is this done what is the process by
0:39:24 which we do this and this is at its core
0:39:27 this is what dawa is about this is what
0:39:30 you know helping someone find the truth
0:39:31 is about it's about unclouding the feta
0:39:34 so
0:39:36 that being said there are a number of
0:39:38 ways that one can uncloud the fitra
0:39:41 one of those is revelation being exposed
0:39:45 to the quran being exposed to the beauty
0:39:47 of the quran the uh
0:39:50 you know the auditory beauty of the
0:39:52 quran the the cadence of the quran the
0:39:54 words of the quran the deeper meanings
0:39:56 of the quran reflecting upon the quran
0:39:58 and so on and so forth
0:40:00 or even just the you know the acoustics
0:40:02 of the quran can also have
0:40:04 a an effect on removing the clouds or
0:40:07 removing these type of clouds on the
0:40:08 fitrah
0:40:10 rational arguments and this becomes
0:40:12 really important so when really
0:40:13 important when we're speaking about
0:40:15 daoaholism versus tawa functionalism
0:40:18 rational arguments
0:40:19 again we're not just throwing them on
0:40:21 the side but we're saying they are not
0:40:24 uh they are a a a a a a way to remove
0:40:28 the clouds upon the fitrah right one of
0:40:31 them but it's not the end all and be all
0:40:33 right so rational arguments we're not
0:40:35 putting them aside but they can be a
0:40:37 means to removing the removing the
0:40:39 clouds upon the fitrah uh spirituality
0:40:41 is what we're going to be speaking about
0:40:42 today are spiritual um experiences uh
0:40:45 one's character how you approach the
0:40:47 person you're speaking to critical
0:40:49 thinking
0:40:50 how a person can you know kind of think
0:40:52 critically about things experiences
0:40:55 experiencing the natural world
0:40:56 experiencing beauty positive experiences
0:40:59 negative experiences and so on
0:41:01 all of that
0:41:02 can be
0:41:04 ways to uncloud the fitrah and the
0:41:06 reason these clouds come upon the fitrah
0:41:09 or these barriers come upon the fitra or
0:41:10 the fitras is kind of moved from its
0:41:13 original normative disposition to
0:41:15 somewhere else
0:41:16 the reason that happens a lot you know
0:41:18 there's a number of reasons so number
0:41:20 one it can be one's upbringing one's
0:41:22 environment it can also be sins as we're
0:41:25 going to see when we speak about the
0:41:26 ontology of the soul and there's a
0:41:28 number of reasons these clouds form
0:41:30 point being is that one of the ways in
0:41:33 which these clouds can be taken off that
0:41:35 you can
0:41:36 guide a person or help someone find the
0:41:37 truth
0:41:38 is by spiritual experiences
0:41:42 is by understanding spirituality and
0:41:45 and inviting people to experience
0:41:47 certain spiritual practices
0:41:49 and also giving the person an
0:41:52 explanation of spiritual experiences
0:41:53 that they've had which may be an
0:41:56 alternative
0:41:57 to the explanation that they think is
0:41:59 um
0:42:01 that they that they think is the correct
0:42:03 explanation and we'll get into that a
0:42:04 little bit later
0:42:06 okay so let's start off with this what
0:42:08 is islamic spirituality
0:42:11 all right so now
0:42:14 i wanted to ask you guys to make it
0:42:15 somewhat interactive if someone asked
0:42:17 you what is islamic spirituality what
0:42:19 would you say
0:42:22 give me some uh on youtube here
0:42:24 uh what are some of the uh
0:42:27 what like how do you define islamic
0:42:29 spirituality someone says okay does
0:42:31 islam have spirituality what does islam
0:42:33 say about spirituality
0:42:35 what do you think
0:42:44 maybe i
0:42:49 okay
0:42:54 okay
0:42:56 so
0:42:58 that's very good
0:42:59 actually someone hit the nail right on
0:43:01 the head i'm not gonna say who
0:43:03 but all you guys are you guys have the
0:43:04 right idea definitely right
0:43:07 so the person
0:43:08 who said the right thing they're gonna
0:43:10 find out in a few minutes that they were
0:43:12 right
0:43:14 inshallah
0:43:15 okay
0:43:16 so let's take a look what is islamic
0:43:18 spirituality what do we mean by that
0:43:20 now
0:43:22 islamic spirituality just
0:43:24 very briefly um
0:43:27 it's something that's defined by the
0:43:29 prophet saw islam himself in the very
0:43:31 famous hadith of jibril al-islam
0:43:34 uh if you remember that it's very
0:43:35 extensive so i'm not going to go into
0:43:36 the entire hadith and nor am i going to
0:43:38 get into a deep explanation of the
0:43:40 hadith but we understand that in this
0:43:43 what many scholars would would consider
0:43:45 a foundational hadith
0:43:47 um the prophet expounds upon three
0:43:50 things islam
0:43:52 iman and asan so just briefly
0:43:56 you know the hadith and it's got various
0:43:58 narrators and you know in any way so
0:44:01 the hadith mentions that someone comes
0:44:03 into a gathering where the companions
0:44:04 are sitting with the prophet sallam this
0:44:06 person is wearing white clothing black
0:44:09 hair comes right up to the prophet
0:44:10 sallam walks up to the prophet sallam
0:44:12 sits down puts his hands on the legs or
0:44:15 the thighs of the process and starts
0:44:17 asking questions
0:44:18 and so one of those questions
0:44:20 is islam tell me about islam the prophet
0:44:24 salaam expounds upon the five pillars of
0:44:26 islam as we know uh right and so again
0:44:29 i'm not going to get into too many
0:44:30 details and then
0:44:32 the person says
0:44:33 you spoke in the truth
0:44:35 and then the narrator one of the
0:44:37 narrators
0:44:38 says i found it very strange that he's
0:44:39 asking the question and yet he's saying
0:44:41 that you're right and then
0:44:44 ask the prophet salaam about iman
0:44:49 tell me about iman the prophet saws
0:44:50 mentioned the six pillars of you man
0:44:52 right to believe in allah the angels the
0:44:53 prophets the books and so on and so
0:44:55 forth
0:44:55 okay and then again
0:44:59 or you know the person says
0:45:02 you've spoken the truth and then he asks
0:45:04 him about ask the prophet sallam about
0:45:07 essa tell me about assange what is asan
0:45:10 and the prophet saw sallam says that
0:45:12 hassan is to worship allah as if you see
0:45:15 him for even though you do not see him
0:45:18 you know that he sees you okama called
0:45:20 sallah
0:45:21 and so
0:45:22 when we speak about islamic spirituality
0:45:25 we see that it's in this area of what we
0:45:27 would call asan
0:45:30 is quite it's a quite it's a very deep
0:45:32 concept
0:45:33 but let's try to at least scratch the
0:45:35 surface inshallah so we'll start before
0:45:37 we get to assan let's start with the
0:45:39 concept of iman first
0:45:42 okay
0:45:43 iman
0:45:44 if we look at the etymology of the word
0:45:46 where the word comes from what is the
0:45:47 background of the word what is the
0:45:49 source of the word it comes from the
0:45:50 tri-ladder amana
0:45:53 and so when we go to like lane's lexicon
0:45:55 yet again
0:45:56 uh amanda refers to
0:45:59 he was or became or felt secure
0:46:02 safe in a state of security
0:46:04 or safety originally he was or became
0:46:07 quiet
0:46:09 tranquil
0:46:10 in heart or mind
0:46:12 so i want us to take a moment here and
0:46:14 think about that for a second
0:46:16 when we look at the word iman
0:46:18 we understand that iman is this internal
0:46:22 what we may call belief right even
0:46:23 though belief is a very loose
0:46:25 translation which i'm not very fond of
0:46:27 but it has to do with things about like
0:46:29 obviously the six pillars of belief
0:46:31 right believing in allah the angels the
0:46:33 books and so on and so forth
0:46:35 but from a linguistic point of view when
0:46:37 we look at the etymology of the word we
0:46:39 see that it comes from this idea of
0:46:41 stability
0:46:43 security
0:46:44 tranquility
0:46:45 and peace
0:46:47 when we were speaking about the concept
0:46:49 of ham the concept of this disquiet to
0:46:52 this anxiety
0:46:54 what we find is that what iman does is
0:46:57 it's giving
0:46:58 the appropriate medicine for that
0:47:01 right it exactly what iman is is to take
0:47:04 away
0:47:06 is to settle ham it's to say it's to get
0:47:08 you know is to take that person that's
0:47:10 in that state
0:47:11 that they're you know that that they
0:47:13 have this state of anxiety they have
0:47:15 this state of
0:47:16 you know that they're disquieted uh
0:47:19 and so on
0:47:20 and
0:47:21 gives and and kind of solves that issue
0:47:23 right
0:47:24 so
0:47:25 iman
0:47:26 is a person when they have this eman
0:47:29 when they have this type of internal
0:47:32 belief
0:47:33 um
0:47:34 the six pillars that the prophet saw
0:47:35 mentioned and what we understand about
0:47:37 iman
0:47:38 you find that there is a type of
0:47:40 tranquility and peace
0:47:42 that enters into the human being now
0:47:44 that tranquility and peace could be due
0:47:46 to understanding deeper existential
0:47:48 questions why am i here where am i going
0:47:52 and uh you know how did i get here right
0:47:54 so you know how did i get here like what
0:47:56 is my purpose what you know
0:47:58 why do why do i exist
0:48:00 the end having the answers those
0:48:01 questions and having iman in those
0:48:03 answers gives one a sense of stability a
0:48:06 sense of security a sense of tranquility
0:48:09 thus when someone is faced with let's
0:48:11 say challenges in one's life when we
0:48:13 move from ham to rum you find that they
0:48:15 can deal with those challenges
0:48:18 uh in a way that a person that does not
0:48:21 have that iman
0:48:22 can can deal with right so so
0:48:25 you know iman what it does is it gives
0:48:27 this sense of stability security safety
0:48:30 tranquility and peace and really the
0:48:32 whole idea of spirituality itself has to
0:48:35 do with this idea of tranquility and
0:48:36 peace okay
0:48:38 so when we say iman we say we're talking
0:48:41 about tranquility peace security safety
0:48:43 on this kind of spiritual
0:48:45 uh you know in the spiritual notion of
0:48:49 peace and tranquility but it's not
0:48:51 limited to to to just a spiritual notion
0:48:53 of peace and tranquility
0:48:55 and this is where the distinguishing
0:48:57 quality of islam comes up the distinct
0:49:00 distinguishing quality of islam as a
0:49:02 world view in other words
0:49:04 you have your modern gurus whether
0:49:07 you're talking about sadhguru whether
0:49:09 you're talking about you know tony
0:49:10 robbins or you know whoever it may be
0:49:13 that what they're trying to do is
0:49:15 they're trying to give this amina
0:49:18 this state of peace and security by
0:49:21 various means you know by you know
0:49:23 giving them hopefulness about the future
0:49:25 and you know you can conquer it all and
0:49:27 so on and so forth
0:49:28 but where the islamic paradigm the
0:49:30 islamic worldview differs is that when
0:49:32 we think of iman it's not just this
0:49:36 spiritual type of stability peace and
0:49:37 tranquility but it's it's a much deeper
0:49:40 type of
0:49:42 peace tranquility security and safety
0:49:44 and what do i mean
0:49:46 when we think about it it's two types of
0:49:50 stability and tranquility and and then
0:49:52 peace
0:49:53 you have
0:49:54 that spiritual stability that spiritual
0:49:57 tranquility peace but you also have a
0:49:59 rational component
0:50:01 so remember i was saying that we while
0:50:03 our approach should not be
0:50:05 tao of functionalism where we're now
0:50:07 looking at the human being as a robot
0:50:08 but we cannot be devoid of rationality
0:50:11 either right it must work in tandem
0:50:14 because imagine someone that they now
0:50:17 feel like uh so for instance i was
0:50:19 watching a certain youtube video and
0:50:21 someone was asking about how christian
0:50:23 spirituality helped them
0:50:24 and you know the person was mentioning
0:50:26 that you know i used to be i used to be
0:50:27 very addicted to to a certain drug
0:50:31 and um you know and i would constantly
0:50:33 need this drug and so every time i would
0:50:36 take this drug every time i would i
0:50:38 think he was mentioning heroin i would
0:50:39 get this warm feeling
0:50:41 but i kept on needing it over and over
0:50:43 and over again until i found jesus
0:50:47 and then that warm feeling that blanket
0:50:50 that i needed was just jesus right
0:50:53 now
0:50:54 from that person's experience
0:50:58 we understand that he experienced that
0:51:00 like you one of the things is we're not
0:51:01 going to deny that individual's
0:51:03 experience we're not going to say oh you
0:51:05 know that experience itself is wrong or
0:51:07 that experience is fake
0:51:09 but the perp the point is is that what
0:51:13 is the interpretation of that experience
0:51:15 was it jesus
0:51:16 was it allah what was the interpretation
0:51:20 and how do you tell which interpretation
0:51:23 a person is going to make of that
0:51:24 experience that's very real that we do
0:51:26 not deny how are we going to understand
0:51:28 it what what is the other aspect that
0:51:30 you need to this and that's where
0:51:32 rational stability comes in
0:51:34 because you could have that spiritual
0:51:36 experience
0:51:38 and you experienced it it's very real
0:51:41 but let's say
0:51:42 the rational aspect of like you know the
0:51:44 trinity for instance
0:51:46 that's gonna cause instability it's it's
0:51:48 it's gonna be you know you're going to
0:51:49 have disquiet from that perspective a
0:51:51 rational perspective
0:51:53 and so you know you can take it and put
0:51:54 it in a box called you know unsolved
0:51:56 problems and lock it away and hang it in
0:51:58 abandons the problem is it's still there
0:52:01 though
0:52:02 and so are you really stable
0:52:04 from the point of view of like what we
0:52:05 said amanda
0:52:07 having that stability and having that
0:52:09 true deeper peace and deeper tranquility
0:52:12 so when we talk about iman we say that
0:52:14 it's related to the term or comes from
0:52:16 the term amina which has to do with not
0:52:19 only spiritual tranquility but also
0:52:22 having to do with rational stability
0:52:24 this is going to be very important
0:52:25 moving forward okay
0:52:27 so that being said
0:52:29 um
0:52:33 so i just wanted to actually highlight
0:52:35 that this concept of rationality and
0:52:37 spirituality
0:52:39 you find this throughout our tradition
0:52:41 throughout the islamic sources
0:52:44 and so when we look at the quran for
0:52:46 instance you find whenever allah
0:52:49 mentions knowledge and i would urge you
0:52:51 to look through the quran and see for
0:52:53 yourself
0:52:54 whenever allah mentions
0:52:58 or mentions knowledge or mentions you
0:53:01 know knowing something mentions
0:53:03 epistemological principles or something
0:53:05 of this nature
0:53:06 you will always find something connected
0:53:09 to spirituality around the ayah or
0:53:12 within the eye itself so a very famous
0:53:14 ayah that's usually quoted in books
0:53:17 uh you know so for instance
0:53:19 books about like
0:53:21 imam al-ghazali mentions this uh
0:53:24 actually there's a
0:53:25 by uh
0:53:27 who also mentioned this and they
0:53:28 mentioned this very ayah that you see on
0:53:30 the screen
0:53:31 but
0:53:32 they mentioned part of the ayah
0:53:35 the part that they mention because their
0:53:36 speed their their focus is on knowledge
0:53:39 they mentioned the last part of the ayah
0:53:44 is the one who knows
0:53:46 equal to the one who doesn't know
0:53:48 but you see
0:53:50 right before that in the very same ayah
0:53:53 allah mentions something else that's as
0:53:56 if it's kind of coupling two things
0:53:58 together
0:53:58 allah says
0:54:04 and you know is the one who is uh
0:54:07 devoutly obedient
0:54:11 you know throughout the night sajdan
0:54:12 wakayama standing
0:54:14 uh sorry prostrating and standing right
0:54:16 so is the one who's devoutly obedient
0:54:18 you know at night who's standing and
0:54:20 prostrating
0:54:21 uh uh
0:54:28 he's hoping or sorry he's fearing the
0:54:30 hereafter
0:54:31 actually the translation is right there
0:54:33 he's fearing
0:54:35 and he's
0:54:36 fearing or sorry he's hoping in the
0:54:39 mercy of allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala mercy
0:54:40 of his lord okay so in other words is
0:54:43 the one who is devoutly obedient
0:54:45 standing and prostrating at night all
0:54:48 right
0:54:50 you know
0:54:52 fearful of the hereafter the
0:54:53 consequences of their morality and moral
0:54:55 actions and things like that well
0:54:58 and hoping
0:55:01 for the mercy of their lord
0:55:03 is that person equivalent to the one who
0:55:04 doesn't do this and then allah says
0:55:10 this is the one who knows equivalent to
0:55:12 the one who doesn't know in other words
0:55:15 you have a spiritual reality these are
0:55:17 all spiritual concepts spiritual acts
0:55:20 for instance and both external acts and
0:55:22 internal acts so
0:55:24 the first part
0:55:28 of
0:55:29 the one who's standing the one who's
0:55:31 prostrating and standing these are
0:55:33 physical acts but these are physical
0:55:35 spiritual acts
0:55:37 and then you have internal acts
0:55:42 fearing that's an internal state of the
0:55:44 heart that you understand you as a human
0:55:47 being that you fall short and you have
0:55:49 you know certain things that you didn't
0:55:51 you know you you weren't the best in and
0:55:52 you didn't worship allah as you should
0:55:54 have worshiped and so on and so forth so
0:55:56 you have a you're fearful you wronged a
0:55:58 person all those things come inside that
0:56:01 person's heart this internal spiritual
0:56:03 state
0:56:05 that you're fearing the hereafter
0:56:09 and that you're hopeful
0:56:11 for the mercy of allah those are all
0:56:14 spiritual ass there's all spiritual acts
0:56:18 and spiritual emotions and spiritual
0:56:20 psycho spiritual states
0:56:23 that allah ties with knowledge
0:56:25 so again
0:56:26 what the reason i'm bringing this up and
0:56:28 we can see this over and over again the
0:56:30 prophet sallam says there's a dua that
0:56:33 the prophet salaam teaches he says
0:56:39 oh allah show me truth as truth
0:56:42 here we go we're talking about truth
0:56:43 knowledge rationality whatever might
0:56:45 show me truth as truth and allow me to
0:56:48 follow it let me follow it and show me
0:56:49 false it is falsehood and keep me away
0:56:51 from it okama calls for
0:56:53 but
0:56:54 interestingly enough
0:56:56 it's a dua he's asking allah for that
0:56:59 there's a spiritual component dua is you
0:57:03 know a spiritual act that's both you
0:57:05 know an act external act and an internal
0:57:08 act and so on and so forth there's many
0:57:10 examples that you know we don't really
0:57:11 have the time to expound upon all of
0:57:13 them the point being
0:57:15 is that when it comes to one
0:57:18 understanding iman that there is a deep
0:57:20 connection between rational stability
0:57:24 and spiritual tranquility and these are
0:57:26 constantly connected in our tradition in
0:57:28 the quran and in the sunnah and so on
0:57:30 and so forth so
0:57:32 now moving on
0:57:35 uh so we talked about iman we talked
0:57:37 about that sort of internal tranquility
0:57:40 stability on a rational level on a
0:57:42 spiritual level
0:57:43 so now let's speak about kind of the
0:57:45 crux of the matter
0:57:46 and that is
0:57:48 essen
0:57:49 so the term itself
0:57:52 just very quickly it comes from the
0:57:54 trilateral root uh tri-literal root uh
0:57:57 hasana
0:57:58 which means good or to beautify
0:58:00 and you can you can compare it to the
0:58:02 term uh jamil for instance because jamil
0:58:05 is another word that is used in in
0:58:07 arabic to say that something is
0:58:09 beautiful right so if you want to say
0:58:10 something nice uh to your wife you can
0:58:13 say anti jamilah right and i encourage
0:58:15 all the husbands to say that to their
0:58:16 wives
0:58:18 right so the concept of but
0:58:21 generally
0:58:22 when we talk about uh the term hassan
0:58:25 and we talk about and we compare to the
0:58:26 term jamil
0:58:28 uh something is you know um that's it's
0:58:31 beautiful versus beautiful of a nature
0:58:34 that's that's these are two different
0:58:35 concepts all right now how are they
0:58:36 different
0:58:38 the term hastana not only talks not only
0:58:40 refers to like an external beauty
0:58:44 but
0:58:44 would also refer to an internal beauty
0:58:47 so it's not only just beauty of um
0:58:50 like a physical beauty one that is seen
0:58:53 one that is delightful to the eyes but
0:58:55 it also refers to a beauty that's deeper
0:58:58 inside a person right so that beauty can
0:59:00 come from a good moral character of a
0:59:03 person
0:59:04 the person is truthful and honest and
0:59:07 loving and caring and so this person has
0:59:10 hasana like they're they're hasan right
0:59:12 they're just they're beautiful inside
0:59:13 and out
0:59:14 yeah
0:59:15 um
0:59:16 and so that's why the concept of asan
0:59:19 can also refer to excellence
0:59:21 that that ex that there's a spiritual
0:59:23 excellence
0:59:24 and this spiritual excellence has to do
0:59:26 with the very idea of that you're not
0:59:29 only that that you have this in not only
0:59:32 this external beauty
0:59:33 that's manifest when that internal
0:59:36 spiritual struggle is kind of is is
0:59:39 constantly happening you're constantly
0:59:41 going higher and higher in uh in in
0:59:43 levels up and closer and closer to allah
0:59:46 that that becomes manifest externally so
0:59:48 you see someone and they pray
0:59:51 but when you see them pray it's just
0:59:54 it's beautiful right
0:59:56 but there's a sound there right there's
0:59:59 excellence in that particular prayer or
1:00:00 in that particular act of worship or
1:00:02 when you see a person you know they say
1:00:04 that that person knew it on their face
1:00:05 or whatever it might be that might be
1:00:07 because of the night prayers and so on
1:00:08 and so forth so asan
1:00:11 is a concept that
1:00:13 is you know it's quite
1:00:15 multifaceted in the sense that it's
1:00:16 referring to a type of
1:00:18 beauty
1:00:20 um
1:00:21 and that's by the way that's why you can
1:00:22 do asan to other people or asan to allah
1:00:25 right is that you can treat like asan to
1:00:27 your parents right that that term is
1:00:28 used for that particular uh for that
1:00:30 particular purpose that's why it's multi
1:00:33 it has that uh ability to use in
1:00:35 different contexts and in different ways
1:00:38 so
1:00:39 that being the case
1:00:41 um when we talk about asan
1:00:44 coming from the point of view of
1:00:45 spirituality it includes the concept of
1:00:48 beauty and kindness and love and so on
1:00:51 and so forth right the type of asan when
1:00:55 the prophet islam says
1:00:56 it is to worship allah as if you see him
1:00:59 for even though you do not see him he
1:01:01 sees you
1:01:02 if that's the case
1:01:04 what did the prophet mean
1:01:06 to see allah
1:01:09 now obviously he says even though you
1:01:11 don't see him we're not talking about
1:01:13 uh ocular vision we're not talking about
1:01:16 you know seeing allah like you like you
1:01:18 can like you can see something like like
1:01:20 you know i can see the camera or i can
1:01:22 see the screen
1:01:23 but yet the prophet system uses that
1:01:26 phraseology uses those terms it's to
1:01:28 worship allah as if you can see him and
1:01:30 this is where i wanted to move on to the
1:01:32 concept of islamic spirituality from
1:01:35 understanding what do we mean by seeing
1:01:37 allah because we're not talking about
1:01:39 ocular vision there's something much
1:01:41 deeper that we're speaking about
1:01:46 okay
1:01:47 so let's move on to very quickly the
1:01:48 ontology of the soul
1:01:50 and this is when we're gonna start
1:01:52 speaking about what does it mean to to
1:01:54 in a sense see allah obviously we don't
1:01:56 see allah uh we only
1:01:59 physically see allah by way of our
1:02:01 ocular senses boy seeing allah is a
1:02:03 phenomena of the hereafter not of this
1:02:05 dunya anyway
1:02:06 so i wanted to touch upon the ontology
1:02:09 of this soul
1:02:10 very briefly from an understanding of
1:02:12 what's known as ayato nur
1:02:14 and this particular ayah allah subhanahu
1:02:16 wa'ta'ala says
1:02:18 allah allah is the light of the heavens
1:02:21 and the earth
1:02:24 the example of his light is like a
1:02:27 mishka now a mishka is
1:02:30 like a niche that's in a wall right so
1:02:32 back in the olden days they would put a
1:02:33 lamp in a kind of an
1:02:36 an indent in the wall or an engraved
1:02:38 indent in the wall
1:02:40 to basically focus the light so if you
1:02:42 have a lamp the light's going everywhere
1:02:43 if you put it in the indent it's going
1:02:45 to focus it in a certain place right so
1:02:48 this particular um so the example of his
1:02:52 light is like a niche with which
1:02:54 within which
1:02:56 is and the translation says which is a
1:02:58 lamp but
1:02:59 really what it's speaking about is a
1:03:00 misbah misbah comes from the term
1:03:04 which that which means like morning it's
1:03:06 that which emulates the morning
1:03:09 right so here speaking about the flame
1:03:11 in fact not about the lamp and we know
1:03:13 this because right after that allah says
1:03:18 that the misbah is in a class
1:03:21 okay
1:03:22 uh and this
1:03:26 that it this this zuja is like a star
1:03:30 that's a pearly white star that's a
1:03:32 glittering star
1:03:34 and that it is uh it is lit by a tree
1:03:38 that is neither of the east nor the west
1:03:40 okay
1:03:41 uh and it's a blessed tree so a blessed
1:03:45 tree neither of the east nor of the west
1:03:47 and allah subhana wa tala says
1:03:49 and
1:03:50 and the the oil that's lighting this
1:03:52 flame is blessed olive oil of a blessed
1:03:55 olive tree
1:03:56 and
1:03:57 that oil itself it's as if it itself is
1:04:00 going to catch on fire
1:04:02 right so it has a certain shimmer a
1:04:04 certain shine that if like it could just
1:04:06 catch on fire itself
1:04:08 and then allah says
1:04:11 light upon light and allah guides his
1:04:13 light even whomever he wills and allah
1:04:16 presents examples
1:04:20 examples for people
1:04:22 um and allah is the knower of all things
1:04:25 so what does this refer to and again i'm
1:04:27 going to move through this relatively
1:04:28 quickly so i want you to take a look at
1:04:30 this diagram okay
1:04:32 uh
1:04:34 so when we talk when we're looking at
1:04:35 ayato nur we see that that particular
1:04:38 flame that was being referred to
1:04:41 that is the rua that is the soul that is
1:04:44 the spirit of the human being
1:04:46 the
1:04:47 glass is referring to the heart of the
1:04:50 human being
1:04:51 the niche right that that
1:04:54 indentation in the wall where you put
1:04:55 the lamp that is the the the torso the
1:04:58 upper torso of the human being this area
1:05:00 right here the chest
1:05:01 okay
1:05:02 the olive oil is referring to the fitra
1:05:05 which we spoke about
1:05:06 okay and when allah says
1:05:11 he's referring to the nur of your ruach
1:05:14 which is fueled by the fitra
1:05:16 fueled here in quotations
1:05:20 and the light of revelations
1:05:23 okay
1:05:23 when this human construct that we've
1:05:26 been given an example of by allah
1:05:29 it's very profound because when we think
1:05:31 about the concept of the ruach it is
1:05:33 something that allah
1:05:37 in other words there are two types of
1:05:39 creative processes so allah creates by
1:05:42 way of his amer right by his you know
1:05:44 whenever he decrees a matter whenever he
1:05:46 says
1:05:49 whenever he decrees a matter he merely
1:05:52 says to it
1:05:54 right so then
1:05:55 it's x nilo it happens it's created out
1:05:56 nothing
1:05:57 as opposed to
1:06:00 other creations that have a time element
1:06:03 and that there's let's say pre-existing
1:06:04 material
1:06:05 that is used to create a particular
1:06:07 being right so for instance the human
1:06:10 being itself you have the component of
1:06:12 the rua
1:06:13 which as allah says
1:06:17 and when we breathed and when we put
1:06:19 then we breathed the spirit into adam
1:06:20 alaihissalam
1:06:22 then the pr we were taught we told the
1:06:23 angels to prostrate to uh adam
1:06:25 alaihissalam so there's the component of
1:06:27 the
1:06:28 component of the body
1:06:30 in the very famous hadith that you can
1:06:32 find in um in most hadith collections
1:06:35 where uh the prophet mentions the
1:06:37 creation of the baby you mentioned that
1:06:39 there the prophet mentions this you know
1:06:42 various creative stages from
1:06:44 uh from
1:06:47 and describe certain number of days 40
1:06:49 days and so on and so forth and that all
1:06:51 has a time process
1:06:53 but when it comes to the rua
1:06:55 it's the angel that comes and puts the
1:06:57 into the body right so these are two
1:07:00 different kind of
1:07:01 uh
1:07:02 different kind of
1:07:04 creative processes that are part and
1:07:06 parcel of the human being you have the
1:07:08 external body
1:07:10 and you have the internal rua now this
1:07:13 external body
1:07:14 is is just like any other
1:07:16 animal's body okay in other words just
1:07:19 like animals have the desire to eat to
1:07:21 sleep to to to to fornicate and so on
1:07:24 and so forth the human being has those
1:07:26 as well that's part of our animal or
1:07:29 bodily constitution right our material
1:07:32 constitution
1:07:34 at the same time because we have a rua
1:07:38 that is fueled again fueled by the fitra
1:07:40 we also have a moral component we have a
1:07:44 spiritual component right
1:07:46 so
1:07:46 comparing the two when you look at the
1:07:48 animal kingdom you don't see a lion
1:07:51 uh you know chasing down a gazelle and
1:07:53 the gazelle says you know in the middle
1:07:55 of the chase saying stop to the line and
1:07:57 saying i find what you're doing morally
1:07:59 reprehensible right because there's no
1:08:00 concept of morality when it comes to the
1:08:04 animal kingdom
1:08:05 desires
1:08:07 and their uh you know they they
1:08:09 basically obey what their desires tell
1:08:12 them to do right and that's how allah
1:08:14 created them
1:08:15 however when it comes to the human being
1:08:17 there is a rouhani constitution there is
1:08:20 a spiritual constitution
1:08:23 in addition to a bodily constitution and
1:08:25 that rouhani constitution that spiritual
1:08:27 constitution is what gives the human
1:08:29 beings limits because desires of
1:08:32 themselves are blind
1:08:34 you know i mean a desire is a desire you
1:08:35 have a desire to eat or a desire to have
1:08:38 marital relations or desire to do this
1:08:40 that desire itself is blind what gives
1:08:43 it its limitations is the moral
1:08:45 component or the component the rouhani
1:08:47 component
1:08:48 so this rua that is in every single
1:08:51 human being
1:08:52 it is trying to connect with allah
1:08:54 subhana wa so you can see this kind of
1:08:56 like an outward force on the heart
1:08:58 itself
1:08:59 right
1:09:00 and this outward force is trying to
1:09:01 connect with allah and that connection
1:09:03 happens by way of revelation so
1:09:06 the rule is having this outward push on
1:09:08 the heart and it can connect with
1:09:10 revelation
1:09:11 however there is an opposing force on
1:09:14 the heart and that has to do with one's
1:09:16 nufs that is related to their desires
1:09:18 their bodily base animal desires which
1:09:21 is having the opposite push on the heart
1:09:24 and so therefore you find that the heart
1:09:26 is constantly in a state of motion right
1:09:30 that's why the heart is known as
1:09:34 it is always in the state of overturning
1:09:36 right
1:09:38 right like to overturn in fact the word
1:09:40 for revolution
1:09:41 uh in arabic one of the words for
1:09:43 revolution is
1:09:45 to you know overturn right so the heart
1:09:48 is always in the state and even the
1:09:49 physical heart is always in a state of
1:09:51 motion right always beating and so the
1:09:53 heart is sometimes expanding contracting
1:09:56 expanding contracting right and so too
1:09:58 is a spiritual heart because you have
1:10:00 this outward push by the rule and then
1:10:02 you have this kind of you know external
1:10:04 factors that are pushing upon the the
1:10:07 heart and that comes from the person's
1:10:09 bodily desires or animalistic desires
1:10:11 that a person has
1:10:13 now here's the
1:10:14 thing
1:10:16 there is an effect on the heart
1:10:19 that is that when a person sins because
1:10:23 remember we said
1:10:24 what are the things that take a person
1:10:26 away from their original normative
1:10:28 disposition so we said one is one's
1:10:30 environment so we could see it right off
1:10:32 the bat
1:10:33 the environment has an impact on you
1:10:35 know your
1:10:36 uh you know your your nufs your bodily
1:10:39 desires
1:10:40 your culture your world view if you
1:10:42 think like you know sexual relations
1:10:44 with anyone and
1:10:45 everyone is okay that's going to have an
1:10:47 effect on the heart
1:10:48 um
1:10:50 similarly sins
1:10:52 has an effect on the heart and we know
1:10:53 this because the prophet islam says that
1:10:55 when the son of adam sins a black dot is
1:10:57 placed on the heart so remember
1:10:59 the in in our diagram here we said that
1:11:01 the heart was the the the glass that
1:11:04 surrounds the the flame
1:11:06 we we attached that to the heart we said
1:11:08 that that was the heart
1:11:09 think of that in the sense that if a
1:11:11 black dot is placed upon a glass
1:11:14 and you have revelation that's coming in
1:11:16 if enough black dots are upon this glass
1:11:19 you cannot have the light of the ruach
1:11:22 connecting with the light of revelation
1:11:25 and that's why the recommendation for
1:11:26 many scholars is that if you are finding
1:11:28 a hard time connecting with the quran or
1:11:31 spiritual acts in general it's a good
1:11:33 time to make dhaba to clear away those
1:11:36 sins right anyhow so
1:11:39 that being the case we have um
1:11:42 we have an understanding hopefully i'll
1:11:44 albeit a bit briefly of the human
1:11:46 constitution the ontology of the soul
1:11:49 okay
1:11:50 now let's come back to the concept of
1:11:51 worshiping allah as if you see him right
1:11:53 because
1:11:54 this idea of the
1:11:57 and its connection with revelation
1:11:59 notice it's not a you're not watching
1:12:02 the revelation
1:12:04 but it's something that's attracting the
1:12:05 heart directly in fact the very concept
1:12:07 of an ayah is a sign
1:12:10 and so a sign points out something
1:12:13 that's already there right your fitrah
1:12:15 the rule
1:12:16 you know that
1:12:18 we already have the truth either we have
1:12:20 the disposition for the truth or we have
1:12:22 the truth within us as knowledge or
1:12:24 perhaps proto-knowledge so that
1:12:27 particular truth
1:12:29 like
1:12:30 when we think about this particular
1:12:32 truth that it's going to
1:12:34 um it's going to be inclined towards
1:12:38 something outside of itself like
1:12:39 revelation or whatever it might be
1:12:40 anyway so um
1:12:43 so how exactly is it that we worship
1:12:45 allah even though we don't see him right
1:12:47 it's to see allah
1:12:49 sorry to worship allah as if we see him
1:12:51 because there is the concept of ocular
1:12:54 sight
1:12:55 and then there's a concept of spiritual
1:12:57 sight what we may call insight and this
1:13:00 comes
1:13:01 from the rua itself it's the ability to
1:13:05 see things right
1:13:06 and imam al-ghazali he says
1:13:09 and this is where it kind of ties in the
1:13:11 concept of asan and single you know the
1:13:13 idea of seeing allah he says now man is
1:13:15 composed of a body which perceives with
1:13:17 ocular vision what in arabic is called
1:13:19 basal
1:13:21 and a spirit rua and the soul nufs which
1:13:23 perceive with inner sight vasira or we
1:13:26 can also say sapience right
1:13:29 each of these things has an aspect and a
1:13:31 form which is either ugly or beautiful
1:13:34 right
1:13:35 furthermore and this is important why
1:13:36 does he mention ugly versus beautiful
1:13:39 because you can see certain things that
1:13:41 you immediately recognize to be ugly or
1:13:42 beautiful that's hazy with ocular sight
1:13:44 but you can also feel certain things in
1:13:46 other words your ruach will testify to
1:13:48 certain things as being ugly or
1:13:49 beautiful and hence the concept of asan
1:13:51 comes in
1:13:52 so um so he says that each of the things
1:13:55 has an aspect
1:13:57 and a form which is either ugly or
1:13:58 beautiful furthermore the soul which
1:14:01 proceeds with inner sight
1:14:03 is of greater worth than the body which
1:14:06 sees with ocular vision and that's
1:14:08 really the point here is that what
1:14:10 spirituality and what we're talking
1:14:13 about here has to do with something
1:14:14 that's deeper and more
1:14:18 uh
1:14:18 more inclined towards a person
1:14:21 uh kind of seeing the truth and here i'm
1:14:23 saying in quotation marks
1:14:25 then something that maybe just distinct
1:14:27 discursive reasoning or something you
1:14:29 can just prove right out of the bat
1:14:30 right
1:14:31 okay
1:14:33 so we've taken a look at that um
1:14:36 we've taken a look at the
1:14:38 rua
1:14:39 uh one let me just touch on something
1:14:41 just to elucidate the point
1:14:43 so when we speak about
1:14:46 the rua um i'm trying to
1:14:48 see how to express this in the best form
1:14:51 um
1:14:53 we're speaking about a
1:14:56 a a certain um
1:14:59 like a
1:15:00 so let's let's take a look at the
1:15:02 concept of ayat
1:15:04 when you
1:15:05 look at
1:15:06 uh let's say a beautiful sunset
1:15:10 now
1:15:11 you're gonna let's say be with with your
1:15:13 loved one and you might say okay well
1:15:15 that's beautiful look at that beautiful
1:15:16 sunset
1:15:17 and your loved one imagine they say
1:15:20 that's the ugliest thing i ever saw
1:15:22 prove to me rationally that that is
1:15:24 beautiful
1:15:26 the point is is that there's no rational
1:15:28 proof of that right that's something you
1:15:30 kind of sense internally okay
1:15:34 it's an ayah now one of the function of
1:15:36 ayat is that it they are
1:15:40 attracted or they are they're targeted
1:15:42 towards the fitrah
1:15:43 and so that's why the natural world can
1:15:46 be a sign
1:15:48 the quran has signs or ayat and what a
1:15:52 sign does there's two kind of functions
1:15:54 of a sign two functions of an ayah
1:15:56 number one
1:15:57 or two or two phenomena that go together
1:15:59 with an ayah number one
1:16:01 is that there is no time element
1:16:04 like with an ayah you don't you know
1:16:07 you're not going to take time to like
1:16:09 ponder upon and then
1:16:11 then it's like okay now no it happens
1:16:13 immediately right that's number one and
1:16:15 number two it touches on something
1:16:17 that's already there so to give an
1:16:19 example and i've given this i've given
1:16:20 an example many times that is that
1:16:23 imagine now that you know after 10 20
1:16:26 years after my graduation from from
1:16:28 college
1:16:29 10 20 years later i'm unpacking some of
1:16:31 my boxes and i find my gown my
1:16:33 graduation gown the one i wore for my
1:16:35 graduation
1:16:37 now immediately when i see the gown i'm
1:16:40 taken back to the day i graduated
1:16:43 i remember you know the look on my
1:16:45 parents face right that they were proud
1:16:48 i remember you know the the place i was
1:16:50 sitting i remember the fact that my last
1:16:52 name starts with a t and i had to wait
1:16:54 for 200 people before i was able to go
1:16:56 up and get my degree
1:16:58 all of those things come back
1:16:59 immediately
1:17:01 because of something that was already
1:17:02 there that memory that that that you
1:17:04 know that that that
1:17:06 whatever memory was there
1:17:08 and that
1:17:09 gown becomes an ayah so there's no time
1:17:12 element and there's no information
1:17:14 transfer i didn't just learn something
1:17:15 new it was something that was already
1:17:17 extent it was already there it was
1:17:18 already present right
1:17:20 and so too when it comes to the fitrah
1:17:23 the fitra that knowledge or
1:17:24 proto-knowledge of allah is already
1:17:26 there and so when you see an ayah it's
1:17:29 not just a rational argument that
1:17:32 therefore now there is but it has a
1:17:34 direct
1:17:36 type of connection
1:17:37 right and hence the
1:17:40 and and you can say like by extension
1:17:42 the fitra has a type of perception that
1:17:45 is a better and greater perception than
1:17:47 just ocular perception
1:17:49 i'm not sure if i actually expounded
1:17:50 upon that
1:17:51 in a way that was understandable but uh
1:17:54 hopefully we can look we can expound
1:17:56 upon that more in the q a inshallah but
1:17:58 i thought this was very powerful from
1:18:00 imam al-ghazali
1:18:01 all right so we're going on i want to
1:18:04 make sure that we leave some time open
1:18:05 for q a
1:18:07 let me give you an example of a
1:18:08 spiritual experience so all of this this
1:18:10 whole discussion
1:18:11 has to do with when you
1:18:14 uh are calling someone or inviting
1:18:16 someone to the truth to islam
1:18:20 and so one of the ways we can do that is
1:18:22 by way of inviting people to spiritual
1:18:25 experiences or spiritual uh acts that we
1:18:28 may that someone may do you know one of
1:18:30 the most popular ones at least on
1:18:31 colleges college campuses here in the us
1:18:34 is the fastathon i don't know if you
1:18:36 guys have a fastathon or you do
1:18:38 fastathons and you know so non-muslims
1:18:39 are always invited to fast with the
1:18:41 muslims
1:18:43 but what i find
1:18:45 missing in those is that while they may
1:18:47 experience the fast
1:18:49 they may not understand the spiritual
1:18:51 significance of the fast
1:18:53 and usually when we explain the fast we
1:18:56 do it in
1:18:57 somewhat of a superficial way or a way
1:19:00 that doesn't really highlight the
1:19:02 reality of the fasting itself right so
1:19:04 an explanation we might give is
1:19:06 we fast to feel what it's like to be
1:19:10 poor
1:19:10 to increase us in our compassion
1:19:13 um
1:19:14 yeah that that is
1:19:16 that's one of the the outcomes of
1:19:18 fasting inshallah although i would argue
1:19:20 that sometimes and maybe you may have
1:19:22 you know you may not have that
1:19:24 that may not be the uh the outcome of
1:19:26 fasting because you know at the end of
1:19:28 the day when you open your fast you have
1:19:30 a meal you have your samosas and pakoras
1:19:32 and
1:19:32 allah knows what right that are waiting
1:19:34 for you whereas someone is truly poor
1:19:37 does not have that so yes while you're
1:19:39 fasting
1:19:40 maybe that might be the experience that
1:19:43 you have and maybe that would increase
1:19:44 your compassion but there's a deeper
1:19:47 spiritual
1:19:48 uh understanding that one needs to have
1:19:51 when they're fasting especially if
1:19:53 you're coming from a uh a paradigm
1:19:55 outside of islam so i wanted to give an
1:19:58 example of that and that is the fasting
1:20:00 itself
1:20:01 um
1:20:03 so what is the spiritual significance of
1:20:05 fasting allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala says
1:20:08 so here we're talking about the talking
1:20:10 about spirituality they ask you
1:20:12 concerning the rua
1:20:14 say the
1:20:19 of allah the command of allah okay
1:20:22 and so one thing we understand that the
1:20:24 rule is from the um of allah from the
1:20:26 command of allah and i was touching upon
1:20:28 this a bit earlier when i was speaking
1:20:30 about
1:20:31 the different processes of creation
1:20:33 right so the rua comes from an amer from
1:20:36 a command
1:20:37 okay
1:20:38 what is the command
1:20:40 right as allah says
1:20:49 that he is the originator and it's
1:20:51 interesting that he uses the term
1:20:54 because
1:20:55 comes from origination origination out
1:20:57 of nothing right that's why the term
1:20:59 bida is an innovation like it wasn't it
1:21:02 didn't exist before and now you just
1:21:03 came up with it right so allah is
1:21:06 he creates out of nothing
1:21:08 and he mentions what how does that
1:21:10 creative process happen
1:21:11 right so he says that uh
1:21:14 when he decrees a matter okay
1:21:21 that in he only says to it but in nama
1:21:24 with significance which signifies
1:21:26 exclusivity
1:21:30 he merely says to it
1:21:31 in other words
1:21:33 when you're going to have a creative
1:21:35 process ex nilo in other words creating
1:21:37 out of nothing creating by the um of
1:21:39 allah he merely says to it be and it is
1:21:42 in other words by way of his
1:21:45 kalam by way of his word
1:21:47 so the
1:21:49 is by the command of allah and that
1:21:52 command happens by way of
1:21:54 the speech of allah the kalam of allah
1:21:56 right
1:21:57 so
1:21:58 that being the case
1:22:00 um
1:22:02 so why is that significant
1:22:04 what happens in ramadan well number one
1:22:07 remember we said that you have an
1:22:09 animalistic reality a bodily material
1:22:12 reality and it has its own desires and
1:22:13 so on and so forth
1:22:15 and then you have the
1:22:16 okay
1:22:17 so the animal body that allah created
1:22:20 remember we said that it came it went
1:22:22 through a process
1:22:23 and much like animals go through a
1:22:25 process and so on and so forth so
1:22:27 and yet the ruach that allah puts in the
1:22:29 human being is by way of his other
1:22:32 here's the thing in ramadan
1:22:35 it's as if
1:22:36 allah wa'ta'ala is saying 11 months out
1:22:39 of the year
1:22:40 you eat and you drink and you do
1:22:42 whatever you want right
1:22:44 and
1:22:45 if we were to take a horse motif in
1:22:47 other words like a an analogy based on a
1:22:50 horse and a rider that's why this is in
1:22:52 the picture
1:22:53 your body
1:22:55 your material body with its desires is
1:22:58 like the horse
1:22:59 the rue is like the rider the one that's
1:23:01 riding the horse and trying to control
1:23:02 the horse 11 months out of the year the
1:23:05 horse because you've been feeding it
1:23:08 like all the food right so when you
1:23:10 think about your material body where
1:23:11 does the food come from the food comes
1:23:14 from where it came from the material
1:23:16 body was created from earth dean
1:23:18 uh etc
1:23:19 the but body was created from the earth
1:23:21 it gets its food from the earth right so
1:23:23 you know you're gonna get you're gonna
1:23:25 get vegetables and fruits and all that
1:23:26 is from an earthly material so when it
1:23:28 needs sustenance when it needs support
1:23:31 it's gonna be taken from the place that
1:23:33 it came from which is the earth right so
1:23:35 it gets its sustenance from the earth
1:23:38 and so 11 months out of the year this
1:23:39 horse that has been fed all 11 months
1:23:41 out of the year it's running wild like
1:23:43 crazy
1:23:44 why
1:23:46 because of the rider perhaps isn't that
1:23:47 strong
1:23:48 because the rider needs to be
1:23:50 strengthened
1:23:51 so how do you strengthen the rider well
1:23:54 you give the rider
1:23:56 food from its source the rider here
1:23:58 being the rua
1:23:59 where does the rider get its source
1:24:01 where does the rua get its
1:24:03 get its
1:24:04 sustenance
1:24:06 from its source what is the source
1:24:09 the um of allah and how does allah issue
1:24:12 a woman how does allah issue commands
1:24:16 do we have access to that kalam yeah the
1:24:19 quran
1:24:20 so how do you strengthen the writer it's
1:24:22 by way of quran
1:24:24 right so the quran remember
1:24:27 light upon light so you strengthen the
1:24:29 rider by way of quran so what happens in
1:24:31 ramadan
1:24:33 you take food away from the horse
1:24:34 because you're fasting
1:24:36 and you're spending the day
1:24:39 weakening the horse and you're spending
1:24:41 the nights in tarawih strengthening the
1:24:43 writer
1:24:45 right and so we find that the very
1:24:47 purpose of fasting isn't just to feel
1:24:50 how the poor feel but rather it has a
1:24:52 deep spiritual significance because it's
1:24:54 supposed to elevate
1:24:55 so
1:24:56 if we were to say as an example
1:24:58 inviting someone to fast it's not only
1:25:01 inviting someone to fast but connecting
1:25:03 the idea of fasting spirituality what is
1:25:05 the phenomena here what are we trying to
1:25:07 do right when we're fasting we
1:25:09 understand that there's a bodily
1:25:11 component there's an animalistic reality
1:25:14 and then there you can say is an angel
1:25:15 angelic reality right the rua and
1:25:18 strengthening the rua and so really
1:25:20 highlighting the concept of that uh that
1:25:23 dynamic uh that interplay between the
1:25:25 rua and the body and so and so forth
1:25:27 so one way would be
1:25:29 to expose someone to fasting right
1:25:32 invite them to fast
1:25:33 expose someone to the quran because we
1:25:36 understand that the quran is
1:25:37 multi-faceted multi-layered
1:25:39 and not only it's
1:25:41 it's it's um not only it's it's wording
1:25:45 and the arguments that it presents but
1:25:47 it's multi-layered in the sense that its
1:25:49 acoustics
1:25:51 are something that are attractive to the
1:25:52 heart to the rua right nuru nalanur
1:25:55 the right of revelation the light of
1:25:57 revelation
1:25:58 upon the light of the
1:26:00 the uh
1:26:02 so its acoustics are attractive its
1:26:04 meaning is attractive its um structure
1:26:06 is attractive uh its recitation is
1:26:09 attractive the prayer one does by
1:26:11 reciting the quran is attractive and so
1:26:12 on and so forth attractive to the rule
1:26:14 so having someone exposed to the quran
1:26:16 witnessing the taraweeh prayers
1:26:19 um
1:26:20 now here's the thing and this is the
1:26:21 last point i'll make
1:26:22 so we spoke about the human being
1:26:25 spirituality hopefully we gave
1:26:27 uh a good understanding of islamic
1:26:29 spirituality
1:26:31 now what if someone comes and says well
1:26:33 i've had spiritual experiences
1:26:36 up to this hopefully we've now
1:26:37 understood that spiritual experiences
1:26:41 can you can have them
1:26:43 but that doesn't mean that will lead to
1:26:45 true spirituality true
1:26:48 iman in a sense or even asan because
1:26:50 asan is based upon iman which we said
1:26:53 was stability what kind of stability
1:26:56 spiritual tranquility and stability but
1:26:58 also rational stability and security so
1:27:01 if someone says i've had a spiritual
1:27:03 experience we're not going to deny that
1:27:05 experience you don't say like no you
1:27:07 didn't experience it because they did
1:27:09 you can't deny someone's personal you
1:27:11 know
1:27:12 first person experience that they've had
1:27:14 but what you would encourage the person
1:27:16 to do
1:27:17 is to stand in the possibility
1:27:20 that there's a different interpretation
1:27:23 one that is more holistic
1:27:25 that gives you tranquility
1:27:27 rationally and spiritually
1:27:29 by way of your knowledge and by way of
1:27:31 your heart mind and soul right and body
1:27:34 from one perspective right and so
1:27:38 having the person
1:27:39 saying look you have this particular
1:27:41 experience like someone like i was
1:27:43 mentioning about the the person who said
1:27:45 i was addicted to drugs and so on and so
1:27:46 forth um by saying like look is it
1:27:49 possible
1:27:51 that that spiritual experience you had
1:27:53 has more to do with the one true god
1:27:56 and that that one true god is the one
1:28:00 who brought you that tranquility
1:28:03 and also it's very clear about who that
1:28:06 one god is right that he's
1:28:09 one and he's not three and one and so on
1:28:11 and so forth right
1:28:13 so
1:28:14 encouraging the person to stand in the
1:28:16 possibility that there's a different
1:28:19 explanation
1:28:20 or there's a different meaning
1:28:22 to the spiritual experience that they
1:28:24 might have had right so someone says i
1:28:26 experience jesus right
1:28:28 standing in the possibility that there's
1:28:30 a different meaning to their spiritual
1:28:31 experience right
1:28:33 understand understanding that they're
1:28:35 coming from a specific world view
1:28:37 and that their uh
1:28:39 paradigm is going to have an effect on
1:28:42 how they understand something so just
1:28:44 having the person stand in the
1:28:45 possibility the explanation that they've
1:28:47 given their spiritual experience um it
1:28:51 there may be another explanation right
1:28:53 so that basically is what i wanted to
1:28:57 um
1:28:58 wanted to to basically cover
1:29:00 we can look and see if there's any sort
1:29:02 of questions
1:29:04 um let's see
1:29:07 it looks like a lot of questions as i
1:29:09 was speaking so
1:29:13 all right
1:29:19 let's see here
1:29:23 so someone said
1:29:25 uh you're actually refuting the
1:29:26 attribute of allah
1:29:29 so i don't really see how i'm
1:29:30 refuting that
1:29:32 are you saying i'm refuting that or
1:29:34 you as the daiya is refuting that i
1:29:37 don't follow
1:29:42 let's see
1:29:43 so
1:29:46 so someone asked can you say that the
1:29:47 experience was just merely a dream
1:29:50 i think that would be kind of difficult
1:29:52 to say you know because people
1:29:54 understand dream states they know when
1:29:55 they go to sleep and they're they're
1:29:57 dreaming
1:29:58 i think it might be difficult i think uh
1:30:00 a better explanation would be to
1:30:03 to say that
1:30:05 you know that that the interpretation is
1:30:07 something else right i mean i have to
1:30:09 have more of a specific example
1:30:11 um you know because
1:30:12 some experiences which people consider
1:30:14 to be spiritual
1:30:16 in fact
1:30:18 are not really
1:30:19 spiritual from
1:30:21 from a true spirituality understanding
1:30:23 right so someone say look uh you know i
1:30:25 i took a mushroom and i had these crazy
1:30:27 experiences i saw aliens and things like
1:30:28 that
1:30:29 okay but perhaps
1:30:32 you know that short experience that you
1:30:34 had has a different explanation it has
1:30:36 more to do with the neural chemicals or
1:30:39 whatever it might be and that things
1:30:40 that you're seeing are just
1:30:42 not really the explanation that's
1:30:44 correct right or what explanation that
1:30:46 you've given it i'm not sure what
1:30:47 explanation they would give it but it
1:30:49 would depend on what they would say the
1:30:50 explanation is we're taking something
1:30:52 like
1:30:53 um
1:30:55 i don't know
1:30:56 ghosts i saw ghosts even though that's
1:30:58 not really a spiritual experience
1:31:00 experience
1:31:01 but if someone says i saw a ghost be
1:31:02 like yeah okay and so what sort of
1:31:04 interpretation do you give that
1:31:06 particular experience well someone who
1:31:08 came back from the dead and so on and so
1:31:09 forth
1:31:10 okay
1:31:11 um but is it possible that that can be
1:31:14 explained by the islamic paradigm and
1:31:17 then you can speak about jinn and so on
1:31:18 and so forth but i don't know if that
1:31:20 would cost you as a spiritual experience
1:31:22 i think a spiritual
1:31:23 experience is more of something that's
1:31:24 very personal
1:31:26 who knows best
1:31:30 so any other questions
1:31:40 let's see
1:31:42 so if you did ask some questions go
1:31:43 ahead and repost them if you could i'd
1:31:45 appreciate it
1:31:47 souls is consciousness nufs is body
1:31:50 um
1:31:51 a very very very simplified way of
1:31:54 looking at it yes
1:31:56 but the issue is that the term nufs
1:31:59 uh
1:32:00 within islamic source material is used
1:32:02 in different ways
1:32:03 right so nuts can include the entire
1:32:06 human personality right so like the
1:32:09 concept of i like it's an ontological uh
1:32:13 statement right so when you say ana
1:32:15 or you know nafsi like that's myself
1:32:18 it's not referred like we ask like what
1:32:20 do you mean by yourself your nufs so
1:32:22 nufs can refer to the self itself right
1:32:24 like
1:32:25 yourself itself it can refer to the
1:32:27 entire personality uh in fact allah uses
1:32:31 that term to refer to himself right but
1:32:35 here we're not going to say that he's
1:32:37 some sort of a body right obviously he's
1:32:39 referring to the idea of him being a um
1:32:44 you know like a being right so uh why
1:32:46 you had the lahu nafsa so allah warns
1:32:49 you
1:32:50 uh from himself here we're talking about
1:32:53 self as a separate construct than what
1:32:56 we were speaking about so depending on
1:32:58 the context of where we're using the
1:33:00 term nafs in arabic you're going to have
1:33:03 to interpret it like that right and
1:33:04 allah knows best
1:33:08 so someone said what is your thought
1:33:09 what are your thoughts on reciting quran
1:33:11 in public spaces in the west
1:33:13 i think it would depend on where you're
1:33:15 reciting it and
1:33:17 uh you know if the occasion calls for a
1:33:20 recitation right um sometimes it can be
1:33:23 quite um
1:33:25 it can be quite it can have the opposite
1:33:27 effect meaning that
1:33:29 you know that if if if you're in a busy
1:33:31 place and
1:33:32 um
1:33:33 you know maybe it might people might not
1:33:36 appreciate it right especially if people
1:33:37 are in the middle of something they're
1:33:38 doing something trying to listen to
1:33:39 something
1:33:40 but you know if it's um a public place
1:33:44 i don't know again i think it'd be very
1:33:45 situational it depend allah knows best
1:33:49 any other questions can we have a
1:33:51 seminar on philosophy of islam
1:33:54 it seems like a very big topic but what
1:33:56 i'll recommend is that our
1:33:59 our brother muhammad hijab is
1:34:02 doing a series called landonia
1:34:04 which he's written a poem
1:34:06 uh and he's explaining
1:34:08 from that poem
1:34:10 uh theo philosophical points related to
1:34:12 islam and its comparison to
1:34:15 uh other you know philosophies that are
1:34:18 out there that run antagonists to islam
1:34:19 so i think the recent one he did was on
1:34:22 feminism
1:34:23 etc so
1:34:28 do we have priorities in terms of which
1:34:30 methodology choose from when giving
1:34:31 da'wah like the ones you gave which do
1:34:33 we prioritize
1:34:36 so again it's going to be very
1:34:37 situational um
1:34:40 uh you know i don't know if you could
1:34:42 say you prioritize one obviously you're
1:34:44 going to prioritize taheed
1:34:47 uh that's not necessarily taheed in the
1:34:49 sense that
1:34:51 um
1:34:52 as a rational argument because when we
1:34:54 understand tahit we understand that
1:34:55 there's a certain concept of tahiti
1:34:57 right that that is the bare minimum that
1:35:00 you need to present to someone at least
1:35:01 give them the understanding of what
1:35:03 tahid is
1:35:05 um
1:35:06 and this is and and really that's what
1:35:08 you're obligated to do now that the case
1:35:12 there's gonna be different ways of how
1:35:13 you present what taheed really is what
1:35:16 does it mean like we just got done
1:35:18 speaking about iman
1:35:19 um
1:35:20 but essentially we're tying it to tahit
1:35:24 so it's gonna depend on the person like
1:35:27 you know are they a spiritual person you
1:35:29 know some people they are very
1:35:31 kind of uh
1:35:33 analytical in how they look at the world
1:35:35 and things like that and for them
1:35:36 rational arguments might be the way to
1:35:38 go
1:35:38 some people are are less analytical some
1:35:40 people need more spiritual experiences
1:35:42 so it really is going to depend upon the
1:35:45 person themselves how much you know
1:35:46 about them
1:35:47 their own culture and background
1:35:50 you know what i think is really
1:35:50 fascinating i was
1:35:53 reading a little bit about
1:35:55 um
1:35:56 uh
1:35:58 al-birnuni right i think that's how you
1:36:00 say no and he was the one that
1:36:02 accompanied
1:36:04 mahmoud
1:36:06 when they went and they you know went
1:36:08 and took over india
1:36:10 at the time if you know the lesnar he
1:36:12 did 17 excursions deep in the heart of
1:36:14 india so he had a scholar with him and
1:36:16 that scholar wrote wrote a a quite an
1:36:18 extensive tract
1:36:20 on
1:36:21 uh
1:36:22 what you would call like the the hindu
1:36:25 practices
1:36:26 of that time period but what's
1:36:28 interesting is that he wrote it in such
1:36:30 a way to understand that these people
1:36:31 have x y and z ideas like they have
1:36:34 certain
1:36:35 they have certain symbols and to
1:36:37 understand what their symbols are
1:36:39 it means to understand how to make tawa
1:36:41 to them the best and so a lot of the
1:36:43 dawah that was done
1:36:45 sometimes it went to some extremes but
1:36:47 had to do with more of a spiritual
1:36:50 type of presentation of islam right for
1:36:52 the idea that understanding that that's
1:36:54 where the the background was of the
1:36:56 people that they're addressing so it
1:36:58 really depends i mean you're gonna have
1:37:00 to kind of see what the background of
1:37:02 the person is where they're coming from
1:37:03 what culture they're from and so on and
1:37:05 so forth
1:37:06 milano's best
1:37:08 um
1:37:11 let's see
1:37:13 any other questions i think we have a
1:37:14 few more minutes
1:37:16 if there are any
1:37:23 oh this is a good one can experiential
1:37:25 signs be objective
1:37:28 right
1:37:29 um
1:37:30 i think that's that's that that that's a
1:37:32 tough call right
1:37:34 i would say certain signs can be
1:37:36 objective but objective in what sense so
1:37:39 i would argue and i've argued this in
1:37:41 the seminar which i did on beauty and
1:37:42 the recognition of god
1:37:44 that the natural world
1:37:47 a recognizing beauty in the natural
1:37:49 world is most definitely objective
1:37:51 however
1:37:52 beauty in the hands of human beings like
1:37:54 art and things like that that's
1:37:55 definitely going to be subjective right
1:37:58 and we know this not necessarily through
1:38:00 some sort of uh discursive reasoning
1:38:03 uh we know this by way of experience
1:38:05 right so the objectivity of nature is
1:38:09 something we see all around us when
1:38:10 people are trying to sell a cereal they
1:38:12 say it's all natural right or you know
1:38:14 they're selling us whatever right
1:38:15 protein powder all natural whatever it
1:38:17 might be
1:38:18 but why
1:38:19 like it's almost as if all natural or
1:38:21 nature
1:38:22 is a type of uh
1:38:25 meta phenomena right so you know they
1:38:28 have the concept of the the true the
1:38:29 good and the beautiful so you can't say
1:38:31 something is you know
1:38:33 true is your baseline right uh
1:38:37 uh toshiko zutsu in his book the er
1:38:41 ethical
1:38:43 what do you say the the something
1:38:45 ethical something concepts in in
1:38:48 in islam or in the quran
1:38:50 um he mentions that there are certain
1:38:52 terms that are like that their their
1:38:54 their meta terms
1:38:56 and they are secondary and you have
1:38:58 primary terms that are built upon it
1:38:59 right and so you have for instance good
1:39:02 now
1:39:04 you use good as your starting point you
1:39:05 build terms upon it so you say okay so
1:39:08 um you know a massage would be good okay
1:39:11 well would good be good okay but that's
1:39:13 that's your lowest point you can't go
1:39:15 beyond good right similarly truth
1:39:18 you know i believe
1:39:19 x because it's true well is true true
1:39:23 you see how so then you also have beauty
1:39:25 you can't say like oh i look at
1:39:27 something because it's beautiful is
1:39:29 beautiful is beauty beautiful
1:39:32 so you understand that so from that
1:39:34 perspective i would say you could say
1:39:35 natural beauty would be
1:39:37 objective like you experience natural
1:39:39 beauty and that's an objective
1:39:40 experience
1:39:42 right whereas
1:39:43 human-made beauty it has certain um
1:39:46 certain things that make it
1:39:48 intrinsically subjective so for instance
1:39:51 it's subjective from the point of view
1:39:52 that when someone is painting even if
1:39:54 they're painting a mountain
1:39:56 it's going to be framed
1:39:57 so you're looking at it from the
1:39:59 subjective view of the person that's
1:40:02 doing the painting
1:40:03 right because it's got framing whereas
1:40:05 in the natural world there is no framing
1:40:07 it's just vast
1:40:08 right the vastness of nature is there's
1:40:11 no framing there's no kind of human
1:40:13 perspective with the exception of your
1:40:15 own right so from that perspective i
1:40:17 would say it's it's object it can be
1:40:19 objective and allah knows best
1:40:28 so you like the word order better
1:40:31 maybe you're more analytical man i don't
1:40:33 know
1:40:33 [Laughter]
1:40:35 i look at it and say wow it's uh it's
1:40:37 beautiful jameel
1:40:40 i don't know if i would go to my wife
1:40:41 and say you look very orderly today
1:40:43 [Laughter]
1:40:45 anyway
1:40:48 okay
1:40:50 all right any other questions i'm trying
1:40:52 i'm going to try to scroll up here
1:40:55 and see
1:41:06 okay so i you've got a question but i
1:41:07 think it's outside the scope of what
1:41:09 we're speaking about right so you said
1:41:10 how can you prove to an atheist the
1:41:12 existing
1:41:13 the existing of
1:41:15 consciousness
1:41:17 uh where would it go and how it's
1:41:19 related to the soul and nufs
1:41:21 well see again when we come to this
1:41:23 whole concept of trying to prove
1:41:25 something to someone
1:41:26 um i think that sort of discourse
1:41:30 it's
1:41:31 you know it becomes
1:41:33 um sometimes it can be
1:41:36 counterproductive right
1:41:38 because the very idea of okay i'm going
1:41:40 to prove this to a person or prove that
1:41:41 to a person
1:41:43 um
1:41:44 try to transcend that try to transcend
1:41:46 that sort of verbage i'm going to prove
1:41:47 consciousness or improve that
1:41:49 consciousness is something that
1:41:50 yani you know a person who's conscious
1:41:52 they know they're conscious right it's
1:41:54 not
1:41:54 it's not really a phenomena that you're
1:41:56 going to sit there and say let me prove
1:41:57 consciousness to you because you're
1:41:58 going to you're gonna enter into a
1:42:00 rabbit's hole trying to do that right
1:42:02 as far as the soul and the nufs and
1:42:04 things like that i mean
1:42:06 you know to be very honest the type of
1:42:10 uh certainty you would get by way of
1:42:12 experience is at a higher level
1:42:14 than what you may get as a as a rational
1:42:16 endeavor like i'll give an example so
1:42:18 you know in the islamic framework
1:42:20 we know that there are three levels of
1:42:23 japin three levels of certainty right
1:42:26 you have um
1:42:27 you have
1:42:28 uh elmo
1:42:33 is a rational certainty right so just to
1:42:36 take the quintessential example
1:42:38 everyone knows they're gonna die
1:42:40 like death you you know that you
1:42:42 understand that that's a reality you're
1:42:44 gonna die right very few people think
1:42:45 okay well i'm gonna live forever
1:42:47 you know
1:42:48 especially when you get older right
1:42:50 maybe as a young person you might think
1:42:51 that you might not even think about it
1:42:53 at all but you have that as a not you're
1:42:55 certain about that
1:42:57 now
1:42:58 when the angel of death is knocking at
1:43:00 your door and you see the angel of death
1:43:02 you have either
1:43:04 you can see the angel of death right
1:43:07 and so now you're even more sure
1:43:10 and then when you have the experience of
1:43:13 your soul being pulled out of your body
1:43:16 you are you can't be any more sure
1:43:18 because of the experience you directly
1:43:21 had
1:43:22 right
1:43:27 right and this is kind of
1:43:28 a kind of a nice construct of
1:43:30 understanding certainty as well that you
1:43:32 can give someone knowledge like ibm
1:43:34 mentions um something really interesting
1:43:37 he says
1:43:38 imagine if you never tasted
1:43:41 sugar
1:43:42 now you have a good friend you trust him
1:43:45 you know him he is like your best friend
1:43:48 he's the most honest person you know and
1:43:49 he tells you
1:43:50 sugar tastes great it's very sweet
1:43:54 right
1:43:55 and um
1:43:56 you say okay well that's that's good so
1:43:58 now you have a certain knowledge of
1:43:59 sugar being sweet like because you have
1:44:01 testimonial knowledge he told you and
1:44:03 you trust him and so on and so forth
1:44:04 and then you see that sugar is used in
1:44:08 certain desserts so you see that this
1:44:09 person's putting sugar in cake or
1:44:11 whatever it might be so now you're like
1:44:13 okay so your certainty is increased
1:44:15 they want to use sugar unless
1:44:17 you know unless they're gonna make
1:44:18 dessert right
1:44:20 and then you taste sugar
1:44:23 now that direct experience of tasting
1:44:26 sugar has increased your your pain to it
1:44:29 its apex right
1:44:31 so
1:44:33 my point in mentioning that is that you
1:44:35 know it's the whole kind of uh verbiage
1:44:38 that we use
1:44:40 about proving this or proving that i
1:44:42 think it's time we kind of transcend
1:44:44 that and we try to have a more holistic
1:44:46 approach inshallah right because frankly
1:44:48 trying to prove the consciousness i
1:44:50 don't know that's a tough one
1:44:53 let's see so let's do one more question
1:44:55 inshallah if anyone has one and if not
1:44:58 uh
1:44:59 let's see
1:45:07 uh let's see so quite you mean that okay
1:45:10 so
1:45:12 okay good deal all right i think that's
1:45:14 good um
1:45:16 so
1:45:18 we'll go ahead and end it here inshallah
1:45:20 subhana allah bless all of you bless all
1:45:23 of you for attending
1:45:24 uh if it got a bit monotonous and boring
1:45:26 in between my apologies about that
1:45:28 uh you know i i tried to
1:45:31 uh you know present the material as best
1:45:34 as i could so if there was some fault or
1:45:36 some um
1:45:37 you know some some mistakes or
1:45:40 whatever it might be that's all for
1:45:42 myself or from shaitaan any sort of
1:45:44 benefit it's all from allah may allah
1:45:46 bless you and bless all your families