Seminar: Peace, Love & Jihad — Understanding the Prophet Model for Change (2021-08-10) #

0:00:15 so welcome to this uh sapience institute
0:00:18 live stream live session
0:00:20 uh i am fat this inshallah we're going
0:00:23 to be
0:00:24 covering
0:00:25 a topic that i find very interesting and
0:00:28 in fact after having kind of gone
0:00:30 through it
0:00:31 i realized that we can actually do a
0:00:34 series
0:00:35 of uh of live streams on this particular
0:00:38 topic now the topic is entitled peace
0:00:42 love and jihad understanding the
0:00:43 prophetic model for change
0:00:46 now the thing is
0:00:47 like i mentioned that we could actually
0:00:49 do a number of
0:00:51 uh live streams on this topic but we're
0:00:53 going to be focusing on a certain area
0:00:56 now before we get into what i'll be
0:00:58 covering in this live stream i think
0:01:00 it's very important that we
0:01:02 um understand a few
0:01:05 uh or make a few uh disclaimers here
0:01:08 first of all because of the nature of
0:01:10 the topic because we're mentioning the
0:01:11 term jihad in the title and we will be
0:01:14 talking about issues of war and peace
0:01:17 it's very important that we understand
0:01:20 that according to the islamic
0:01:22 framework
0:01:24 that we are
0:01:25 according to our orthodox islam
0:01:28 we are very very clear and specific that
0:01:31 there is supposed to be no extremism
0:01:34 uh within the islamic framework and this
0:01:37 comes not just because we're saying it
0:01:39 or just because you know of the current
0:01:42 climate that we're in it's part and
0:01:44 parcel of our tradition so for instance
0:01:46 the quran itself allah subhanahu
0:01:48 wa'ta'ala himself says
0:01:51 do not go to extremes in your deen
0:01:54 and as we're going to see in a little
0:01:55 bit by dean here it's not only just
0:01:58 religion in fact we're going to see that
0:02:01 that can be expanded
0:02:03 to include world views in general but
0:02:05 more on that later at this point we
0:02:08 understand that um
0:02:10 we as muslims as someone who holds the
0:02:13 islamic worldview as to be true
0:02:16 absolutely true we understand that
0:02:18 extremism is not part of that and yet
0:02:20 there is a reality that muslims do go to
0:02:22 extremes in their religion yet
0:02:24 part and parcel of the teachings of
0:02:26 islam specifically and clearly
0:02:29 unequivocally uh show and and and
0:02:32 and demonstrate that extremes are not to
0:02:35 be um not to be not not to be partaken
0:02:38 in in other words you find that things
0:02:40 that are outside of the islamic
0:02:42 framework those in fact are defined as
0:02:44 extremes
0:02:46 and so when people go into extremes
0:02:48 that's actually
0:02:49 against the islamic paradigm uh the
0:02:51 prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
0:02:53 mentions beware of extremism in your
0:02:54 religion here the term is deen and we're
0:02:56 going to get into that in a little bit
0:02:58 because the only thing that destroyed
0:03:00 those before you
0:03:02 was extremism in religion in deen here
0:03:04 specifically so first disclaimer is that
0:03:08 we are not people and when our tradition
0:03:10 is not one that encourages towards
0:03:12 extremism whether we're talking about
0:03:14 extremism in matters of our religion in
0:03:17 the sense of acts of worship or it ha
0:03:19 when we talk about issues of warfare and
0:03:22 things like that
0:03:24 um in addition to that
0:03:26 we see that from the prophetic tradition
0:03:29 uh the
0:03:30 overriding overarching principle
0:03:33 of the islamic paradigm is that the
0:03:36 muslim who adopts this paradigm as a
0:03:39 worldview that is true and absolutely
0:03:40 true is committed to the wellness and
0:03:43 good ping of all people
0:03:45 and so like i said because of the nature
0:03:47 of the topic we're going to be talking
0:03:49 about
0:03:50 war we talk about peace that's not you
0:03:52 know problematic but when we do speak
0:03:54 about war
0:03:55 um and we are speaking about briefly we
0:03:57 will briefly mention jihad get into that
0:04:00 more in a later live stream but
0:04:02 because of the nature of these topics
0:04:03 it's really important that we understand
0:04:04 this and again
0:04:06 this is not to capitulate based on a
0:04:10 certain circumstance that we find
0:04:11 ourselves in within the modern world but
0:04:14 rather it is deeply rooted within our
0:04:16 tradition so for instance the prophet
0:04:18 muhammad peace be upon him says
0:04:25 none of you will truly believe and here
0:04:28 what's very interesting is that it's as
0:04:31 if the prophet muhammad is negating
0:04:34 belief iman
0:04:36 by saying
0:04:39 right that there's none of you will
0:04:40 truly believe none of you will have iman
0:04:42 in its true form until you love for your
0:04:45 brother what you love for yourself right
0:04:48 in another narration until he loves for
0:04:49 his neighbor what he loves for himself
0:04:51 and of course this you know this is not
0:04:54 just uh
0:04:55 you know empty platitudes but we see
0:04:57 this in the example of the life of the
0:05:00 prophet muhammad himself sallallahu
0:05:01 alaihi wasallam one example that comes
0:05:03 to mind is when the young man comes to
0:05:06 the prophet muhammad and he says i want
0:05:09 to commit adultery i want to commit zina
0:05:13 and so give me permission to do that now
0:05:14 the prophet peace be upon him
0:05:16 interestingly enough he didn't say oh
0:05:18 well don't do that that's that's haram
0:05:20 that's forbidden that's not allowed in
0:05:23 our tradition
0:05:24 uh because god does not allow that
0:05:26 rather he posed that young man a
0:05:28 question would you want that for your
0:05:30 sister for your mother
0:05:32 in essence what he was doing was
0:05:34 exemplifying and trying to
0:05:36 uh
0:05:37 trying to introduce this young man to
0:05:39 the concept of
0:05:41 love for you love for your you know love
0:05:43 for your brother what you love for
0:05:45 yourself
0:05:46 and so we see that that it's not they're
0:05:47 not just empty platitudes but rather
0:05:49 they are being taught in a way to
0:05:51 actualize them similarly the prophet
0:05:53 muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam he
0:05:55 says love for the people lin nas
0:05:58 what you love for yourself so the
0:06:00 overarching
0:06:01 idea again because of the nate the
0:06:03 sensitive nature of the topic is that
0:06:06 the islamic paradigm and the prophetic
0:06:08 tradition
0:06:09 at the the paramount the main focus here
0:06:13 is that we are committed the islamic
0:06:15 tradition is committed to the well-being
0:06:17 goodness and guidance
0:06:18 of all people this term guidance is
0:06:21 going to be very important later on as
0:06:22 well
0:06:23 um so with that disclaimer
0:06:26 made let us start with in earnest and
0:06:29 what we're going to do is we're going to
0:06:30 look at what we're going to be covering
0:06:32 today
0:06:33 so the first thing we're going to do is
0:06:35 we're going to present the central
0:06:36 thesis and here it's what i would what i
0:06:39 call the insider and outsider problem in
0:06:41 fact i don't call it that but we'll get
0:06:43 into that um and that thesis will
0:06:45 expound upon that then we will have a
0:06:48 brief discussion on the prophethood of
0:06:51 the prophet muhammad in other words who
0:06:53 was the prophet muhammad
0:06:56 and we'll talk about how one can
0:06:59 interpret who or the status or or or the
0:07:02 the the personality the shaksiya and all
0:07:05 of that of the prophet muhammad if they
0:07:07 are outside of the islamic framework and
0:07:10 hence you know the thesis you know we'll
0:07:12 get into that in a second the second
0:07:13 part we're going to be looking at who
0:07:14 was
0:07:15 the prophet muhammad
0:07:17 then what we're going to see is we're
0:07:19 going to see that in fact when someone
0:07:21 wants to make an interpretation
0:07:23 of who the prophet muhammad is and they
0:07:25 are not within the islamic framework
0:07:28 they will have to resort to something
0:07:29 known as special pleading and we'll
0:07:31 speak about it as well and the end of
0:07:34 this presentation and in fact this is
0:07:35 why i'm saying that this presentation
0:07:37 should be in fact be a series is that
0:07:39 we're going to be looking at the purpose
0:07:41 of prophethood in other words
0:07:43 um we're going to be looking at you know
0:07:46 whenever a person sets out to do
0:07:48 something they have a certain goal or
0:07:50 certain purpose in mind generally
0:07:52 and so specifically when it comes to
0:07:53 prophet muhammad if
0:07:55 the idea is that you know that that
0:07:58 people have purposes in what they do
0:08:00 we're going to be looking at the purpose
0:08:02 of prophethood
0:08:03 and we're going to be looking at that
0:08:04 from by juxtaposing two verses of the
0:08:07 quran one of these is from surah the
0:08:09 suff which is 619 and the other one is
0:08:11 57-25 and we're going to be looking at
0:08:14 this in terms of
0:08:15 the purpose of prophethood as the
0:08:17 prophet muhammad being the final
0:08:19 prophet and messenger
0:08:21 as compared to prophets and messengers
0:08:23 that came before the prophet muhammad
0:08:25 and then
0:08:26 we're going to be looking at that in the
0:08:27 context of a case study and that case
0:08:29 study is going to have is going to be
0:08:31 related to what's known as the treaty of
0:08:33 hudaybiya or the
0:08:36 okay now i've said a lot
0:08:39 and maybe some of this makes sense maybe
0:08:41 some of it doesn't but let's go ahead
0:08:42 and start in earnest with the central
0:08:43 thesis
0:08:45 the central thesis is as follows the
0:08:47 insider slash outsider muslim approach
0:08:50 is the only way to make sense
0:08:53 of peace and war in the sita sita here
0:08:56 being the life
0:08:57 story or the life history of the prophet
0:08:59 muhammad
0:09:01 so the insider slash muslim approach
0:09:04 is the only way to make sense of peace
0:09:06 and war incidents of when the prophet
0:09:08 muhammad chose
0:09:10 peace and when he chose to go to war
0:09:12 sallallahu alaihi
0:09:14 in his life story
0:09:16 the only way to understand that that
0:09:18 makes sense
0:09:19 is the insider muslim approach
0:09:23 without resorting to special pleading
0:09:24 and we'll talk about what special
0:09:25 pleading is in a bit
0:09:27 when you compare the insider muslim
0:09:28 approach and we'll define that in a
0:09:30 minute as well and you compare that to
0:09:32 the outsider approach someone who's
0:09:33 outside of the islamic paradigm or this
0:09:35 outside the islamic world view you find
0:09:38 that this leads to more problems and
0:09:41 questions when trying to interpret the
0:09:43 choice of going to war or or or or
0:09:46 having relations of peace
0:09:48 those choices of the prophet muhammad
0:09:50 sallallahu islam
0:09:52 because the outsider western approach
0:09:54 you by necessity
0:09:56 uh have to resort to special pleading
0:09:59 and we'll get into what that means in
0:10:00 just a second
0:10:01 so
0:10:03 let's now
0:10:04 move on
0:10:06 uh and like i said i will talk about
0:10:07 insider outsider approach and what we
0:10:09 mean by special pleading in a second but
0:10:11 we want to
0:10:12 start off this discussion
0:10:14 and ask a certain question
0:10:16 the question was who was or the question
0:10:19 is who is the prophet sallallahu alaihi
0:10:21 wasallam
0:10:22 in other words was he an ambassador of
0:10:25 peace
0:10:26 in the sense that the main
0:10:29 mission of the prophet muhammad
0:10:31 sallallahu alaihi
0:10:32 was peace
0:10:34 and by peace we mean that there should
0:10:36 be no warfare was he a pacifist
0:10:40 that preferred peace in all
0:10:41 circumstances in all conditions at all
0:10:43 times
0:10:44 or was he a war mongerer
0:10:47 someone who
0:10:48 you know just preferred violence and war
0:10:51 and you know bloodshed and killing and
0:10:53 so on and so forth now the thing is
0:10:55 there's some hyperbole in this question
0:10:57 meaning that you know obviously you're
0:10:59 going to have shades in between each of
0:11:01 these
0:11:02 but if someone wants to now paint a
0:11:04 picture of the prophet sallam being an
0:11:06 ambassador of peace
0:11:07 in the sense that his entire mission
0:11:09 sallallahu alaihi wasallam was just on
0:11:12 the concept of being something like of a
0:11:14 pacifist you could find evidence for
0:11:16 that
0:11:17 within the islamic tradition
0:11:20 on the flip side of that if someone
0:11:22 wanted to say that the prophet muhammad
0:11:24 saw sallam was a war monger in other
0:11:26 words that he by his um by his his by
0:11:30 his message and his purpose was all just
0:11:33 violence and warfare
0:11:34 you could potentially find evidence for
0:11:37 that although i would argue
0:11:39 that when it comes to the personality of
0:11:41 the prophet muhammad you'd be very hard
0:11:43 pressed to find evidence for that the
0:11:45 main evidence for that you would find in
0:11:46 the fact that there were battles and
0:11:49 warfare that were engaged in within the
0:11:52 sita of the prophet muhammad so when we
0:11:55 ask this question we can look at it from
0:11:56 the pro from the point of view of his
0:11:59 personality his shaktiya
0:12:01 uh sallallahu or we can look at it from
0:12:04 the
0:12:05 the the life history of the prophet
0:12:06 muhammad right and so here we're talking
0:12:08 about the sita in other words when we
0:12:11 analyze the choices of going to war
0:12:14 versus peace and so on and so forth and
0:12:16 we look at it across the timeline from
0:12:18 the beginning of uh what the muslims
0:12:20 would call the beginning of revelation
0:12:22 to the death of the prophet muhammad
0:12:24 when we analyze this you could find
0:12:26 evidence whether you want to say he was
0:12:28 an ambassador of peace in this sort of
0:12:30 absolute pacifistic way
0:12:33 or and so and he encouraged a type of
0:12:37 pluralism religious pluralism to some
0:12:39 sort of extreme degree or he was a
0:12:41 warmonger there's a type of evidence you
0:12:44 could potentially find
0:12:46 related to his personality
0:12:48 and related to his
0:12:50 way to the sita of the prophet muhammad
0:12:51 saw islam
0:12:53 okay so let's take a look at his
0:12:54 personality if someone said that he was
0:12:56 a warmonger
0:12:57 then no doubt
0:12:59 uh within
0:13:00 the sita literature you have examples of
0:13:02 his personality while he was in a state
0:13:05 of war while he was in the battlefield
0:13:08 so for instance during the battle of
0:13:10 hunain which is a very fierce battle
0:13:13 al-baran reports that he says by allah
0:13:15 if the fighting became hot meaning
0:13:17 became difficult and it was it was rough
0:13:19 we would seek a barrier or protection
0:13:22 the word that he uses here is not
0:13:25 right which for the muslims who are
0:13:27 listening to this it's comes from taqwa
0:13:28 that you have a barrier of protection
0:13:30 we would seek we would
0:13:32 in the prophet saws we would seek a
0:13:34 barrier and protection the process of
0:13:36 meaning the prophet sallallahu alaihi
0:13:38 was
0:13:39 you know what's being signified here is
0:13:41 that he was a person that led from the
0:13:43 front in terms of being a military
0:13:45 commander tactician strategist it was
0:13:48 something that leading from the front
0:13:50 it's not like you know he's sitting in a
0:13:51 room and just doing all the plans and
0:13:53 everyone else is fighting he's got this
0:13:55 this shaksi and this personality that he
0:13:57 is leading from the front putting
0:14:00 himself in harm's way even before
0:14:02 everyone else and is showing this type
0:14:03 of shuja this type of bravery which
0:14:06 exemplifies his personality and such
0:14:09 al-bara is saying that when it became
0:14:11 too difficult the fighting became too
0:14:13 difficult we would find ourselves behind
0:14:15 the prophet sallam because he would be
0:14:17 in front and he said that the most brave
0:14:20 amongst us meaning amongst the sahaba
0:14:22 was the one who stood next to the
0:14:24 prophet sallam so most people if the
0:14:27 fighting got too hot too vicious too and
0:14:30 too difficult they would find shelter in
0:14:32 the prophet sallallahu whereas the brave
0:14:34 ones would be next to the prophet
0:14:36 sallallahu so in terms of a personality
0:14:39 no doubt the prophet sallam partook in
0:14:41 battles and took part took in warfare
0:14:44 so if someone wanted to say that i said
0:14:45 look he part took you know he he was
0:14:48 part of this battle and in fact his
0:14:50 bravery and his being a military
0:14:52 commander and tactician and so forth is
0:14:55 exemplified in narrations like this
0:14:57 which reflect someone could argue his
0:15:00 personality again i would say that the
0:15:01 argument is very weak
0:15:03 nevertheless someone could make an
0:15:04 argument like that okay
0:15:07 now let's look at the opposite side and
0:15:09 what i'm saying here is that if we if
0:15:12 someone was to say that the sole mission
0:15:15 of the prophet muhammad sallallahu
0:15:16 alaihi
0:15:17 was one of an ambassador of peace and
0:15:20 the hyperbole here and the extreme here
0:15:22 is what we're saying is that
0:15:24 the prophet muhammad chose peace in all
0:15:28 places all circumstances again we know
0:15:30 factually from the islamic tradition and
0:15:33 the islamic narrative that that's not
0:15:34 true but if someone wants to make that
0:15:36 as a claim
0:15:38 then they would they could look at
0:15:40 aspects of his personality and in fact
0:15:42 you have so many
0:15:44 that there you know you you could you
0:15:47 would lose count about the personality
0:15:48 of the prophet muhammad being one of a
0:15:50 prophet of mercy of peace of caring of
0:15:54 love of compassion in fact the quran
0:15:57 itself you know allah himself
0:16:00 subhana wa ta'ala says that we have sent
0:16:02 you as
0:16:04 we have sent you as a mercy to all of
0:16:06 humanity so
0:16:08 uh if we're looking at his personality
0:16:09 abu hurairah radhiallahu reports that
0:16:14 saw the prophet sallam and sallallahu
0:16:17 salaam kissing his grandson al-hasan so
0:16:19 this just as a background this person
0:16:25 he's a he's a bedouin so he's kind of
0:16:27 more of a
0:16:28 a desert dweller who's coming from a
0:16:30 very rough
0:16:32 background right so the desert
0:16:33 conditions you know you kind of tend to
0:16:36 tend to tend to be influenced by that
0:16:38 and kind of that that environment that
0:16:40 rough desert environment has an effect
0:16:42 on you and it has an effect on your
0:16:44 emotion and how you are so this bedouin
0:16:47 comes to the prophet muhammad and he
0:16:49 sees the prophet sallam kissing his
0:16:50 grandson al-hasan
0:16:52 rather
0:16:54 and this bedouin says i have 10 children
0:16:57 and i don't kiss any of them right
0:17:00 because from his perspective he's seeing
0:17:02 this type of compassion and mercy to be
0:17:04 a type of weakness
0:17:05 the prophet muhammad
0:17:07 is
0:17:08 is remember he is
0:17:10 the you know he was his mercy to all of
0:17:13 mankind so he says verily whoever does
0:17:15 not show mercy will not receive mercy
0:17:19 so if we're looking at the perspective
0:17:22 to say that okay the prophet muhammad
0:17:24 was someone who
0:17:26 peace for the sake of peace right
0:17:29 this was how you know we can interpret
0:17:31 his life and interpret his personality
0:17:33 again you would find evidence and you
0:17:35 would find ample evidence almost
0:17:37 overbearing evidence to show that that
0:17:40 would be the case okay
0:17:42 now
0:17:44 uh what about from the sita itself so if
0:17:46 we looked at the personality to say okay
0:17:49 can we find evidence if we want to take
0:17:51 a type of extreme view of him being a
0:17:53 more warmonger
0:17:55 or an ambassador of peace right in the
0:17:57 sense that that was the only purpose
0:18:00 that it was just peace
0:18:02 so you can find it not only in his
0:18:03 personality but in the sita literature
0:18:05 as well
0:18:06 so when you look at the sita literature
0:18:09 um
0:18:10 him in terms of being a let's say a
0:18:12 warmonger
0:18:16 you can find that that this image
0:18:19 of muslims in general being people who
0:18:22 are just violent by their nature because
0:18:24 of some sort of basis for this in their
0:18:26 religion
0:18:27 it's not a new phenomenon
0:18:29 in fact you can we can trace it back in
0:18:32 terms of um a polemic that's used
0:18:35 against islam meaning the idea that
0:18:38 muslims by nature because of their
0:18:39 tradition and religion are violent all
0:18:42 the way back to john of damascus you
0:18:44 could say he was the first one to
0:18:46 publish a polemic
0:18:47 um and this and who died in 749
0:18:51 you can say that he is the kind of the
0:18:52 source of your modern day anti-muslim
0:18:54 bigotry right
0:18:56 and john of damascus he focuses his
0:18:59 critique of islam right so remember we
0:19:01 said the first polemic against islam can
0:19:03 be traced back to john of damascus 749
0:19:06 he was actually
0:19:07 he had a position in the muslim
0:19:09 government at the time so he was he was
0:19:11 familiar with the arabic language and so
0:19:13 on and so forth and he was a christian
0:19:15 now one of the things before i kind of
0:19:16 mention
0:19:17 the kind of the four areas of critique
0:19:19 that john of damascus put forth what we
0:19:22 have to understand
0:19:23 is that when john of damascus being a
0:19:26 christian is putting this together
0:19:28 his understanding of what a prophet is
0:19:31 and much like the christian world the
0:19:33 byzantine empire so remember the muslims
0:19:36 are now kind of overtaking lands within
0:19:38 the byzantium empire who are by and
0:19:40 large christian
0:19:41 so when they see this
0:19:43 and the muslims are coming in and
0:19:45 they're you know taking over lands and
0:19:46 so on and so forth
0:19:48 they are asking the question okay well
0:19:51 what where where did these people come
0:19:53 from first of all right they were you
0:19:55 know these people who people you know no
0:19:57 one really paid much attention to these
0:19:59 desert dwellers that you know alexander
0:20:01 the great pass them by all these people
0:20:03 just pass them by because what value and
0:20:05 all of a sudden it's like they're coming
0:20:07 out of the desert why are they what is
0:20:09 the purpose why are they coming
0:20:11 so
0:20:11 when it when when the muslims would say
0:20:13 well this is something that's part and
0:20:15 parcel of our religion in the sense that
0:20:18 that we are coming to bring you to a
0:20:20 higher state of spirituality and love
0:20:23 and connection with the creator and that
0:20:25 this is based upon
0:20:27 the the prophetic advice is to bring
0:20:30 people to this higher state and
0:20:31 sometimes when it comes to the time and
0:20:34 age that they're living in that this has
0:20:36 to do with
0:20:37 you know expanding the muslim territory
0:20:39 right
0:20:40 what they would interpret this to say
0:20:42 like wait a minute our view of what a
0:20:44 prophet is
0:20:45 is one
0:20:47 uh of jesus
0:20:49 peace be upon him
0:20:51 and so
0:20:52 from that perspective when you look at
0:20:53 the biblical narrative of who jesus was
0:20:56 you find that jesus according to the
0:20:58 biblical narrative is someone who is an
0:21:01 ambassador of peace someone who if you
0:21:04 know someone you know slaps you on one
0:21:05 sheet give them the other cheek if
0:21:06 someone wants your lower garment giving
0:21:08 your upper garment or something to this
0:21:10 effect and so the entire idea of someone
0:21:13 coming in and that they're that warfare
0:21:16 or battles or you know these type of
0:21:18 things would be anything to do with
0:21:20 religion or spirituality was completely
0:21:23 outside of the the purview of someone
0:21:25 who's coming with this view of what
0:21:26 prophet is
0:21:28 even though the bible itself has
0:21:31 examples of this and you would have to
0:21:33 negate some of those examples so one
0:21:36 clear example david and goliath
0:21:38 obviously there is a battle there's
0:21:39 warfare there is violence that's being
0:21:41 done
0:21:42 and so putting that aside you'd have to
0:21:45 basically put that aside and say okay
0:21:46 well you know dave and goliath has
0:21:48 nothing to do with god or spirituality
0:21:49 or anything like that
0:21:51 again because of this world view that
0:21:54 they're coming from terms of what is a
0:21:55 prophet they now have to give an
0:21:57 explanation and so john of damascus is
0:21:59 the first one to come with this polemic
0:22:01 or this explanation and he focuses on
0:22:03 four areas number one
0:22:05 when it comes to the prophet muhammad
0:22:07 sallam who was he well he was the first
0:22:10 area that he focused on he was an
0:22:12 imposter and an opportunist in other
0:22:14 words
0:22:14 it wasn't about a true message but it
0:22:17 was about expanding the muslim territory
0:22:20 because of power prestige and money and
0:22:23 all the other objectives of war which
0:22:24 we'll talk about in a second so that's
0:22:26 number one
0:22:28 number two that his message was stolen
0:22:30 in fact john damascus didn't view islam
0:22:33 as a separate religion
0:22:35 right and religion is a loaded term like
0:22:37 i said we're going to talk about the
0:22:38 term religion and deen a bit later but
0:22:40 didn't view it as a separate
0:22:42 religion or let's say world view
0:22:44 but he viewed it as an aberration of
0:22:47 christianity in other words it was a
0:22:49 type of you know piecemeal christianity
0:22:52 that someone had used to
0:22:55 you know increase in his power and his
0:22:56 prestige and so on and so forth so from
0:22:59 that we see point number two is that he
0:23:01 brings this idea of that the message was
0:23:03 stolen in fact it was copied from
0:23:06 judeo-christian sources number three the
0:23:09 third area of polemic that he that that
0:23:11 he that he expounds upon is that
0:23:14 because of the nature of let's say how
0:23:16 muslims uh conduct or were able to get
0:23:19 married because as you know one of the
0:23:21 the highest areas or the highest
0:23:24 um spiritual concepts within
0:23:26 christianity not of today
0:23:28 but you know in in early christianity
0:23:31 you would find is that this idea of
0:23:32 being an aesthetic where you would not
0:23:35 engage in marriage and sex and sexual
0:23:38 relations were considered very taboo and
0:23:40 unethical and wrong and so even to this
0:23:43 day you find you know catholics uh you
0:23:45 know catholic priests and things like
0:23:47 they don't get married for that reason
0:23:48 so when you have a tradition that
0:23:50 encourages
0:23:51 marriage and multiple marriages you find
0:23:54 that genre mask interprets this to say
0:23:56 okay well there's a sexual deviancy here
0:23:58 and there's just they're just lustful by
0:24:00 their nature maybe they're coming out of
0:24:01 the desert and so therefore they just
0:24:03 that's how they're they are the fourth
0:24:05 point and this is the point that i
0:24:06 wanted to highlight
0:24:08 is that
0:24:09 because in their tradition and the idea
0:24:13 of what they deem as a prophet should be
0:24:16 again using
0:24:17 jesus as the archetype or the biblical
0:24:19 jesus of the archetype of that they said
0:24:22 that this prophet and this message and
0:24:25 the people of this message basically
0:24:27 they're violent fanatics
0:24:29 violence is part and parcel of their
0:24:31 message okay so what is the evidence for
0:24:34 that well the fact that there were war
0:24:37 that warfare happened the fact that you
0:24:39 know the prophet muhammad sallallahu
0:24:40 went to war
0:24:42 now again this is a very myopic view of
0:24:45 the sita and the personality but
0:24:47 nevertheless if that's the case one
0:24:49 wants to build this is how evidence can
0:24:52 be brought forth and john of damascus
0:24:54 indeed does try to do that and to this
0:24:56 day
0:24:57 uh that you know a lot of that evidence
0:25:00 that john damascus initially came up
0:25:01 with uh in any one of these areas so you
0:25:04 know number three the sexual deviant
0:25:05 slash lustful the example he gives in
0:25:08 from the sita of the prophet
0:25:13 of zaid and muhammad if you know about
0:25:14 this uh about this issue that he
0:25:16 highlights this interestingly enough he
0:25:19 doesn't highlight uh the marriage age of
0:25:21 aisha because that came up much later
0:25:23 around 1918 or something when age became
0:25:27 an issue but anyhow
0:25:28 so
0:25:29 in other words evidence is then taken
0:25:31 from the sita and so for that fourth
0:25:32 point you know that idea of violence
0:25:34 being part and parcel of the islamic
0:25:36 paradigm uh evidence was presented for
0:25:39 that and what was the evidence well the
0:25:40 fact that muslims engaged in warfare
0:25:45 okay
0:25:46 so if one wanted to find evidence for
0:25:47 that they could do that by citing
0:25:49 battles you can cite the battle of badr
0:25:51 this the battle of uh khandak you can
0:25:53 cite the battle of ahad and so on and so
0:25:55 on and so forth okay so
0:25:57 so from the a a
0:26:00 the perspective of saying he was a war
0:26:01 monger salah-salem that that you could
0:26:04 find evidence for that
0:26:06 now if you wanted to take the opposite
0:26:08 and here we're talking about the sita if
0:26:10 you wanted to take the opposite of that
0:26:11 and say he was ambassador of peace
0:26:13 from the sita remember we were talking
0:26:15 earlier about personality which there's
0:26:17 overwhelming
0:26:19 uh kind of uh you know evidence if
0:26:21 someone wanted to make the case that he
0:26:23 was a pacifist uh ambassador of peace
0:26:26 and that was the only thing that was
0:26:28 only you know reason why you know his
0:26:31 very purpose for his existence you could
0:26:33 do that by way of personality you could
0:26:35 also do that by way of the sita
0:26:38 and by way of the life history of the
0:26:40 prophet muhammad sallallahu islam
0:26:42 obviously one of those areas would be
0:26:46 one of those areas or hold on a second
0:26:48 so one of those areas would be the
0:26:50 hosting of the christians from najib
0:26:52 so one area that we could look at in the
0:26:54 life history of the prophet muhammad
0:26:56 sallam is the fact that he when the
0:26:58 christians of najrana came
0:27:01 they stayed and they had discussions
0:27:02 with the prophet muhammed and he invited
0:27:06 them to pray because they had to pray he
0:27:09 said pray in the mosque
0:27:11 now this is not
0:27:12 a mosque that's you know in your
0:27:14 neighborhood this is the the nabi right
0:27:17 this is the masjid of the prophet
0:27:19 now we'll get into a little more details
0:27:21 about the christians
0:27:23 we say that one could say that look
0:27:25 you know a a only a person who is
0:27:27 interested in religious pluralism
0:27:30 would have made such a gesture that to
0:27:33 allow a foreign religion let's say one
0:27:36 that you've had a disagreement with to
0:27:38 allow them to pray in the mosque now by
0:27:40 the way this is true the prophet system
0:27:41 did allow them to pray in the mosque and
0:27:43 this says
0:27:44 volumes upon his character and upon the
0:27:47 fact that he you know that he had these
0:27:50 discussions
0:27:51 um so one could look at that and say all
0:27:54 right so indeed peace was his main
0:27:56 objective um and that in some sort of
0:27:59 absolute ideal there
0:28:01 also the fact that he sent many of the
0:28:04 sahaba early on in the meccan phase to
0:28:06 abyssinia
0:28:08 so
0:28:09 as you may or may not know within the
0:28:11 within the meccan phase
0:28:13 um
0:28:13 during the time of you know during the
0:28:16 time when the muslims were being
0:28:17 persecuted in mecca
0:28:19 um
0:28:21 the the prophet says sent some of them
0:28:23 to the king of abyssinia
0:28:26 and um najashi
0:28:28 and and he sent them there and someone
0:28:30 could then argue well look uh because
0:28:33 the prophet muhammad believed in
0:28:34 religious pluralism that you know he was
0:28:36 an ambassador of peace he wanted just
0:28:38 religious plurality in the sense you
0:28:40 know maybe even someone could extend
0:28:41 that and say this type of release
0:28:43 perennialism you know you know it
0:28:45 doesn't matter what you believe but
0:28:46 you'll enter paradise whatever someone
0:28:48 wants to make that argument uh they
0:28:50 could cite this uh action of the prophet
0:28:54 muhammad in his sita where he sends some
0:28:56 of the sahaba because of the persecution
0:28:58 to the king of abyssinia because of
0:29:01 how
0:29:02 you know you know what he understands
0:29:04 about the king of abyssinia what he
0:29:06 understands about the christian king of
0:29:07 abyssinia here being najashi
0:29:10 finally the last point that i'll mention
0:29:11 here in terms of evidence from the sita
0:29:14 is that
0:29:15 if you know if we just define the
0:29:18 prophet sallam as a war monger how does
0:29:20 one explain the treaty of hudaibiyah and
0:29:22 we'll get into some more details about
0:29:23 this but just very briefly the treaty of
0:29:25 hudaibiyah was one
0:29:28 that was
0:29:29 put into effect when the muslims were
0:29:32 you could say at the apex of their power
0:29:34 in the arabian peninsula or very close
0:29:36 to it right and a treaty was signed so
0:29:38 someone who was saying okay well if if
0:29:41 peace is the you know kind of absolute
0:29:43 here this is why the street of hudeibio
0:29:45 was signed okay
0:29:47 however
0:29:50 um
0:29:51 when someone wants to categorize you
0:29:54 know the prophet muhammed you know in
0:29:56 his mission and that okay he was a
0:29:58 warmonger or they want to categorize him
0:30:00 with some sort of absolute quality of
0:30:02 peace pluralism and
0:30:04 uh uh this type of uh you know religious
0:30:07 pluralism and that's it
0:30:09 and limited to that
0:30:10 um they would have to make certain
0:30:12 concessions now before we get to those
0:30:14 certain concessions let's look at on the
0:30:16 side of war
0:30:18 um what are the objectives of war
0:30:20 typically
0:30:21 so you know theorists have said that you
0:30:23 know when it comes to war and you think
0:30:25 of when you analyze you know wars across
0:30:28 history you find that there are certain
0:30:30 motivations that come about for warfare
0:30:33 one of them has to do with money or
0:30:34 property so when we look at for instance
0:30:38 the two superpowers at the time when
0:30:40 islam came onto the scene which was the
0:30:42 byzantium empire and the persian empire
0:30:46 you find that a lot of this had to do
0:30:47 with an expansion of territory and money
0:30:50 and and property basically and so you
0:30:52 know you had these two massive
0:30:54 civilizations superpowers of the age and
0:30:56 each one is trying to expand its
0:30:58 territory okay now a lot of that has to
0:31:01 do with the idea that the more territory
0:31:03 you have the more you can tax the people
0:31:05 of that territory the more money you can
0:31:06 make and so on and so forth so money and
0:31:09 property
0:31:10 you know expanding the territory that
0:31:12 can be one of the motivations for war
0:31:14 it's there in other words it's financial
0:31:16 even to this day many would argue that
0:31:18 modern warfare
0:31:20 has to do with the bottom line the the
0:31:22 the agenda the financial agenda of those
0:31:25 who are partaking in war
0:31:27 a second objective or might be just the
0:31:29 sheer expansion of power and dominance
0:31:32 when you're able to have sway over a
0:31:34 community
0:31:36 over a people
0:31:37 then you can again
0:31:40 and maybe this is related to the first
0:31:41 point
0:31:42 you know
0:31:43 extract from them money finances and so
0:31:46 forth but
0:31:48 aside from that an expansion of power
0:31:50 and dominance related to that is the
0:31:51 idea of an expansion of a world view
0:31:54 so for instance
0:31:56 if one has dominance over a people
0:31:59 by way of a physical dominance
0:32:02 that can translate to having an effect
0:32:05 on
0:32:06 people's worldview how they understand
0:32:09 concepts of reality what is good what is
0:32:11 fair what is unjust and so on and so
0:32:13 forth and this can have implications on
0:32:16 when someone wants to expand their world
0:32:18 view when they want to expand a certain
0:32:20 religious idea or philosophical idea
0:32:24 ideas of law and justice and so on and
0:32:26 so forth
0:32:28 finally the last one might have to do
0:32:29 with ego and honor and in fact i would
0:32:31 say
0:32:32 many
0:32:33 battles that were done
0:32:34 can start at the concept of ego and
0:32:37 honor so tribes and nations fighting
0:32:39 each other have to sometimes and in fact
0:32:42 the islamic paradigm one of the
0:32:43 interesting aspects of this
0:32:45 is that when we look at the term for for
0:32:48 the time before islam it is
0:32:51 uh that's what it's called so jahil so
0:32:53 typically when you ask someone what do
0:32:55 you what is the term jaahil mean what is
0:32:57 what is johal right what does this mean
0:32:59 they say it means ignorance
0:33:01 so you have
0:33:02 ignorance and then you have knowledge
0:33:05 so the the the antonym to the to the
0:33:07 word jahil or jahilia
0:33:13 but in fact
0:33:14 what we find is that there's not only
0:33:16 one antonym to the word
0:33:19 in fact that word what we say ignorance
0:33:22 in english has two antonyms one is
0:33:24 knowledge
0:33:26 and one is
0:33:28 which means what what hell means is
0:33:30 forbearance the ability where you can
0:33:33 hold yourself back and not let someone
0:33:35 push your buttons
0:33:36 and so when we talk about
0:33:38 i mean the days before islam they say
0:33:40 those are ayam al-jahelia the days of
0:33:43 jahilya the days of jahl and the days
0:33:45 after islam are the days that follow the
0:33:48 days of islam islam comes with knowledge
0:33:52 and
0:33:53 encouraging people to transcend their
0:33:55 egos
0:33:57 such that it's not about my tribe my
0:33:59 race my people versus your people but to
0:34:01 transcend that and so him has to do with
0:34:04 that so the very islamic project
0:34:06 has to do with doing away with one's ego
0:34:09 and and going to war because
0:34:11 you know when islam comes to see the
0:34:13 arabian peninsula people would fight
0:34:15 over the smallest of matters based on
0:34:17 their tribe and these would last for
0:34:18 generations so anyhow
0:34:21 the objectives of war one of them could
0:34:23 be and is in fact ego and honor whether
0:34:26 that's related to your tribe your people
0:34:27 your nation your culture your race
0:34:29 whatever it might be
0:34:30 all right what are the objectives of
0:34:32 peace because we are talking about peace
0:34:34 and war here well
0:34:36 any human being
0:34:38 prefers peace
0:34:39 for first stability they prefer comfort
0:34:41 and tranquility nobody uh you know you'd
0:34:44 be very rare to find uh or or you it
0:34:47 would seem an aberration it would seem
0:34:50 something outside of the the the idea of
0:34:54 a a you know a human normativity
0:34:57 to say that someone prefers war prefers
0:35:00 going out to battle prefers putting
0:35:01 their life on the line and dying rather
0:35:03 human beings by nature prefer a state of
0:35:05 tranquility and peace and comfort so
0:35:09 one could say that the objectives of
0:35:11 peace is just that
0:35:13 maintenance of human comfort tranquility
0:35:17 and peace and stability okay so now
0:35:19 that's objectives in brief
0:35:22 let's come back to
0:35:24 how do we understand the sita all right
0:35:26 we're going to tie all this together in
0:35:27 just a second i know it may seem a bit
0:35:29 piecemeal uh but just bear with me
0:35:31 inshallah so
0:35:33 how do we understand the sita well
0:35:35 taking kind of a bird's eye view you
0:35:38 find that if you look at the life
0:35:40 uh history of the prophet muhammad
0:35:42 specifically from when he started
0:35:45 his preaching sallallahu sallam started
0:35:47 the message uh started his prophethood
0:35:49 from the muslim worldview to his death
0:35:52 you can say that that spans about 23
0:35:54 years right so from his age of 40 to 63
0:35:58 this is about 23 years the meccan phase
0:36:00 in other words this is before the
0:36:02 prophet muhammad makes a migration to
0:36:06 medina this is what's known as the
0:36:08 meccan phase in this last 13 years
0:36:10 now in these 13 years
0:36:12 you do not find any sort of warfare in
0:36:14 fact the quran makes it clear that even
0:36:18 if
0:36:19 you are being tortured and persecuted
0:36:21 and um you know put to the sword or
0:36:23 whatever it is
0:36:24 uh you are just you're not supposed to
0:36:26 retaliate
0:36:28 like hold back your hands there's no
0:36:30 sort of concept of you know this is a
0:36:32 passive resistance you have a message
0:36:35 but you cannot raise your hands and you
0:36:37 cannot fight back basically you can't
0:36:39 fight so this lasts for 13 years then
0:36:42 the prophet muhammad
0:36:45 or migrates to medina and here is where
0:36:48 you find that now
0:36:50 you have a muslim army that comes to the
0:36:52 fore you have battles that are being par
0:36:54 that are being taken that are that are
0:36:56 that are being part took in and so you
0:36:58 have like badar and ahad and khandak and
0:37:00 so on and so forth
0:37:01 now the thing is
0:37:03 a simple
0:37:04 you know a simple analysis if someone
0:37:06 were to cast the prophet system as a
0:37:08 warmonger would be like meccan phase
0:37:11 well they were being tortured and
0:37:12 persecuted and they were weak so
0:37:14 obviously you're not gonna go to war the
0:37:16 medina phase now they have power now
0:37:19 they can just start go to start going to
0:37:20 war but
0:37:22 there are instances within the medina
0:37:25 phase
0:37:26 which kind of throw a monkey wrench in
0:37:27 this narrative right which kind of
0:37:29 causes narrative to take a to take a
0:37:32 turn and one of those incidences is the
0:37:35 treaty of hudaibiyah
0:37:36 where in the midst of all this so you're
0:37:38 talking about the medina phase being 10
0:37:40 years after the battle of badr which was
0:37:42 won by the muslims then ahad which you
0:37:45 know there you know that was not one by
0:37:46 the muslims then you have khandak and
0:37:48 khandak was it was a major battle in
0:37:50 which you know its victory was something
0:37:52 that you know the the arabs of the iran
0:37:54 principle
0:37:55 heard about far and wide
0:37:58 at the almost you can say at the
0:37:59 pinnacle of power for the muslims you
0:38:02 have this treaty that's signed which is
0:38:04 just an anomaly if you think about
0:38:07 the objectives of war and and and you
0:38:10 know that you would keep moving you'd
0:38:11 keep this momentum and then you sign a
0:38:13 peace treaty in the midst of of of your
0:38:16 apex of power it seems like an anomaly
0:38:19 so
0:38:20 how do we how are we supposed to
0:38:21 understand that anomaly well
0:38:23 first of all
0:38:24 um
0:38:25 what we need to understand
0:38:27 is that
0:38:29 this anomaly can only be explained
0:38:32 from an insider framework now what do i
0:38:35 mean by that now let's have a brief
0:38:36 discussion on insider and outsider
0:38:38 framework
0:38:40 um insider what we're referring to here
0:38:43 is a framework that is the islamic
0:38:45 worldview or the islamic paradigm and
0:38:48 just as a reference here uh our some of
0:38:51 our
0:38:52 sapient thought series we talked about
0:38:54 world views and their importance and how
0:38:55 everyone has a worldview so i'll refute
0:38:57 i'll refer you to those sapient thoughts
0:38:59 series to have a good understanding of
0:39:01 worldview and paradigms
0:39:03 but
0:39:04 here specifically when we're talking
0:39:05 about an insider versus outsider
0:39:07 framework an insider framework is
0:39:08 someone that adopts
0:39:10 the islamic worldview and what does that
0:39:13 mean it means that a person adopts the
0:39:16 world view that there is a god there's a
0:39:18 creator this creator should be
0:39:20 worshipped alone
0:39:21 that there is a prophet and the prophet
0:39:23 muhammad is the last and final prophet
0:39:25 that there is a day of judgment there's
0:39:27 accountability
0:39:28 and a person's
0:39:30 purpose in this life is to worship
0:39:32 submit and love the creator of the
0:39:35 heavens and the earth so this is a
0:39:37 worldview
0:39:38 now
0:39:39 that's the insider framework when we're
0:39:41 speaking about you know looking at the
0:39:43 ceta and understanding um
0:39:46 that you know kind of uh you know
0:39:48 anomalies that occur within that second
0:39:51 phase of the ceta so there's an insider
0:39:53 framework then there's an outsider
0:39:54 framework someone that does not adopt
0:39:56 this worldview they can adopt a
0:39:57 worldview of let's say secularism
0:40:00 modernism postmodernism christianity but
0:40:03 outside of this worldview
0:40:05 someone has to then give an
0:40:06 interpretation of
0:40:09 the incidents and those anomalies like
0:40:11 the treaty of hudaibiyah okay so again
0:40:14 when we are talking about the thesis
0:40:17 the insider slash muslim approach is the
0:40:19 only way to make sense of peace and war
0:40:22 in the sita without resorting to special
0:40:25 pleading whereas the outsider western
0:40:28 approach only presents more problems and
0:40:29 questions
0:40:30 if the prophet muhammad is not a prophet
0:40:34 then explaining
0:40:36 things like the treaty of hudibia become
0:40:39 i want to say actually they are
0:40:40 basically impossible right you can try
0:40:42 to give an explanation of anomalies like
0:40:44 that but it becomes very difficult
0:40:47 and the only way to do that is by way of
0:40:49 special pleading now what do i mean by
0:40:52 special pleading well special pleading
0:40:55 what special pleading is is that when
0:40:56 you
0:40:57 make when you want to
0:40:59 present a certain case and you want to
0:41:02 substantiate a certain thesis or certain
0:41:04 argument you present evidence
0:41:07 but you present just enough evidence
0:41:11 to substantiate your case so you don't
0:41:13 give the entire evidence but you give
0:41:16 just enough to make your case
0:41:18 render to render your case as being true
0:41:21 or seemingly true
0:41:23 this is what's known as special pleading
0:41:24 so you give just enough information
0:41:26 without presenting all the information
0:41:28 to bolster your case and to make it true
0:41:31 right this is what we call special
0:41:32 pleading so what my argument here is
0:41:35 that
0:41:36 when we look at the seed of the prophet
0:41:38 muhammad
0:41:39 that and when we look at events within
0:41:41 the sita and specifically in relation to
0:41:43 war and peace you will find that
0:41:46 you know times and elements and and
0:41:48 instances like the treaty of hudibia
0:41:51 unless you resort to special pleading
0:41:53 you cannot explain them right
0:41:55 uh in other words an outsider approach
0:41:57 so an outsider
0:41:59 or slash western approach
0:42:01 is by default or you can say not by
0:42:03 default but
0:42:04 is you know it it that you by necessity
0:42:08 have to resort to special special
0:42:10 pleading if you want to make a case for
0:42:12 who the prophet sallam was
0:42:14 outside of the islamic framework
0:42:16 okay so in other words if you want to
0:42:18 say that the process was a war monger
0:42:20 that the islamic religion is just
0:42:21 violent and so on and so forth you have
0:42:23 to resort to special pleading you have
0:42:25 to present evidence just say look he
0:42:26 went to war here and so on and so forth
0:42:28 and you don't present the evidence of
0:42:30 the personality of prophet sallallahu
0:42:32 being merciful and you know good to
0:42:34 human beings and animals and all these
0:42:36 other things you you have to negate all
0:42:38 of that
0:42:39 on the flip side if the prophet is only
0:42:41 an ambassador of peace and peace and
0:42:44 religious plurality
0:42:46 uh and perhaps religious uh perennialism
0:42:48 in the sense that you know no matter
0:42:50 what your religion is you will enter
0:42:52 paradise this perennial this type of
0:42:53 perennialism if you want to present this
0:42:55 you also have to resort to special
0:42:58 pleading in other words you present
0:43:00 evidence and focus on evidence without
0:43:02 giving all the evidence
0:43:04 if someone wants to take into
0:43:05 consideration all the evidence
0:43:07 and for all of the evidence to make
0:43:09 sense
0:43:10 you have to take an insider approach and
0:43:12 you have to say that the prophecy
0:43:13 settlement was none other than a prophet
0:43:15 right so that's basically the thesis and
0:43:17 the argument that i'm trying to present
0:43:19 here in today's session
0:43:20 so let's take a look at the outsider
0:43:22 framework and we'll look at it from the
0:43:24 point of view of religious pluralism and
0:43:27 peace and and we'll also look at uh
0:43:30 perennialism
0:43:31 so uh correct dr craig constantine and
0:43:34 by the way these authors that i'm
0:43:35 presenting i don't mean any you know i
0:43:38 don't what they present i'm not assuming
0:43:40 that they're doing it as some sort of
0:43:41 male intent
0:43:43 um you know for as as far as i can tell
0:43:46 uh dr konstanen is is a is a good
0:43:48 individual and you know i'd love to have
0:43:50 a conversation with him one day i think
0:43:51 it would be my honor but uh and you know
0:43:54 frankly he lives in houston so maybe
0:43:56 inshallah but anyhow so i don't mean any
0:43:58 sort of i don't mean that this is done
0:44:00 on purpose or some sort of male intent
0:44:02 nevertheless
0:44:03 when presenting a view of the prophet
0:44:06 sallam as being a religious pluralist or
0:44:08 religious pluralism and that you know
0:44:10 the main idea is not that there's some
0:44:12 sort of absolute truth to the
0:44:14 prophethood of the prophet muhammad but
0:44:16 rather it has more to do with working
0:44:18 for things like
0:44:20 racial equality and economic justice and
0:44:23 things like this
0:44:24 um
0:44:25 the idea that's presented is that
0:44:28 there are examples that are given to
0:44:30 show how the prophet sallam uh imbued
0:44:33 religious pluralism okay and so dr
0:44:36 constantine mentioned he says going
0:44:37 beyond religious tolerance the prophet
0:44:39 in fact advocated for religious
0:44:41 pluralism now there's a definition a
0:44:43 four-point definition that he gives i'm
0:44:44 not going to expound upon that you can
0:44:46 check that out in in the book itself if
0:44:48 you like but he talks about religious
0:44:50 pluralism now the evidence that he gives
0:44:52 for that is the christians of najran as
0:44:55 we mentioned earlier
0:44:57 so
0:44:58 what you find is that the prophet
0:44:59 muhammad sallam writes a letter to the
0:45:03 the world leaders right so he writes
0:45:06 letter letters to the byzantium empire
0:45:09 to the christians of um the you know
0:45:12 north africa uh to the assassinated
0:45:15 empire the persian empire and of course
0:45:17 the christians of najidan
0:45:19 who were in the south of yemen or yemen
0:45:21 basically south of arabia
0:45:23 now the christians of naziran they get
0:45:25 this letter
0:45:26 and they consult with each other what
0:45:27 should we do
0:45:29 and they are convinced to actually go
0:45:31 and meet the prophet's islam
0:45:33 and so when they go they they take a
0:45:35 trip and they're leaders and there's a
0:45:37 large uh entourage that actually goes
0:45:39 with them right maybe you know 30 40 50
0:45:41 60 people and they're all decked out in
0:45:43 their religious garb and just looking
0:45:45 very erudite very proper very religious
0:45:48 very
0:45:48 ornate
0:45:50 and so they come to medina and they they
0:45:53 you know they approach the prophet salam
0:45:54 and the sahaba the companions of prophet
0:45:56 muhammad are you know almost taken aback
0:45:58 like there there's this kind of like
0:46:00 they're clearly there they are you know
0:46:02 uh someone to be contended with in a
0:46:04 sense because of how they're portraying
0:46:06 themselves how they've come
0:46:08 now the prophet muhammad you know uh
0:46:10 greets them and they have discussions
0:46:12 about uh you know certain elements about
0:46:14 who islam was who jesus was they have
0:46:17 certain discussions about that
0:46:18 the point that dr constantine mentions
0:46:21 is that
0:46:23 after that
0:46:25 that the prophet muhammad invited them
0:46:27 to pray in the mosque
0:46:29 and this is true right that the prophet
0:46:31 muhammad uh you know invited them like
0:46:33 they said we have to pray and he said
0:46:35 you don't have to leave and you just you
0:46:36 can pray here in the mosque right
0:46:39 um
0:46:40 which by some narrations some of the
0:46:42 sahaba
0:46:43 may have also been surprised at this
0:46:44 right but the point is
0:46:46 is that in order to give evidence for
0:46:49 religious pluralism
0:46:52 this narration is cited
0:46:55 now i was talking about special pleading
0:46:57 but what's left out in the book
0:47:00 is what follows
0:47:02 so once you have all of these
0:47:04 discussions that happen and and the
0:47:06 image that's given is that they were
0:47:07 done in a very uh
0:47:10 that that discussions happen and and
0:47:12 and and the christians prayed in the
0:47:14 mosque
0:47:15 um
0:47:16 discussions didn't just finish there
0:47:17 though the story actually continues
0:47:19 and in fact the quran
0:47:21 uh you know in surah al-imran
0:47:24 mentions
0:47:25 what kind of happens after that and
0:47:27 that's what's known as the mubahala
0:47:29 in other words the prophet muhammad has
0:47:30 these discussions and they're not easy
0:47:32 discussions they're theo philosophical
0:47:33 discussions about the nature of jesus
0:47:35 nature of god you know the afterlife uh
0:47:37 original sin so on and so on there's
0:47:38 many you know it's outside the scope of
0:47:41 of this presentation those discussions
0:47:43 happen but in the end the prophet system
0:47:44 doesn't just leave it there so if we
0:47:46 talk about religious pluralism
0:47:48 and we say that we're just going to
0:47:49 leave it there and let's say by
0:47:50 extension we're talking about um you
0:47:53 know the the idea of uh perennialism
0:47:56 that your religion is good my religion
0:47:57 is good and we're all good and nothing
0:47:59 really matters
0:48:00 the next step
0:48:02 uh which again was left out when dr
0:48:05 constantine mentions this story uh in
0:48:07 his book
0:48:08 is the mubahala which which the ayah
0:48:11 states in surah al-imran that whoever
0:48:13 argues with
0:48:14 with you about it after this knowledge
0:48:16 has come to you say
0:48:18 so here allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala is
0:48:20 telling the prophet sallam and much of
0:48:22 the ayat in surah al-imran are sent down
0:48:26 during this discussion right with the
0:48:28 christians of najaran
0:48:30 so after these discussions happen after
0:48:32 the the the christians and the john pray
0:48:35 in the mosque um
0:48:37 it's not this is what's left out and
0:48:39 that is the mubahala so what is this
0:48:41 basically allah tells the prophet
0:48:43 muhammad to say
0:48:45 to tell the christians these christian
0:48:47 dignitaries that have come the bishops
0:48:49 and the leaders of the christians of
0:48:51 najiran he says come let us call our
0:48:54 sons and your sons
0:48:56 right let's now now let's now so it says
0:49:00 uh
0:49:03 right so let us call our
0:49:05 sons our children and your children
0:49:12 let's call our women and your women
0:49:14 right
0:49:18 let's call our selves and yourselves
0:49:21 and then what we should do is let us
0:49:24 then supplicate earnestly right so we
0:49:26 call all of these people you call your
0:49:28 family members we'll call our family
0:49:29 members and so let us then supplicate
0:49:32 earnestly and this is what the kind of
0:49:34 the harshness kind of comes in
0:49:36 in you know from from a certain
0:49:38 viewpoint let us then
0:49:40 have the invoke the curse of allah upon
0:49:43 the liars amongst us
0:49:45 okay
0:49:46 so again
0:49:47 if the idea was just religious pluralism
0:49:50 then
0:49:51 you know this kind of this kind of
0:49:52 negates that idea of
0:49:54 perennialism or pluralism that's trying
0:49:57 to be presented you have a type of case
0:49:59 of special pleading here you're
0:50:01 presenting evidence but not all the
0:50:02 evidence because at the tail end this
0:50:04 happens
0:50:05 and what happens after this is that the
0:50:08 prophet muhammad the next morning brings
0:50:10 his family brings his wives children so
0:50:13 on and so forth and then says okay let's
0:50:14 do it
0:50:15 the christians of the jedi when they see
0:50:17 this they have an internal discussion
0:50:18 say okay this is we're talking about the
0:50:20 curse of allah we don't want to engage
0:50:22 with this we'll just agree to pay the
0:50:24 jizya attacks right and so because the
0:50:27 prophet sallam basically said like look
0:50:29 you can either pay the jizya attacks you
0:50:30 can accept the message of islam pray
0:50:32 play the jizzy attacks uh or we'll have
0:50:34 to allow to fight you you know
0:50:37 and after all those discussions there is
0:50:39 a concept that's now being put forth
0:50:42 again when it comes to the idea of
0:50:44 da'wah however and just to go back to my
0:50:47 uh disclaimer
0:50:49 the idea wasn't just because you know
0:50:51 we're gonna have the curse of god that's
0:50:52 not the that's not the starting point of
0:50:54 the discussion the starting the point of
0:50:56 discussion is the compassion of the
0:50:58 prophet muhammad in the sense that if
0:51:00 these people if they're not true to
0:51:02 themselves and they know that this is
0:51:04 the truth and if they die in that state
0:51:06 they could enter the hell fire forever
0:51:08 because of that compassionate nature of
0:51:10 the prophet sallam who doesn't want to
0:51:12 see them enter the fire of hell
0:51:14 this some sometimes a kind of a a harsh
0:51:18 stance is taken right but this is not
0:51:19 the beginning of the tawa this is kind
0:51:21 of at the end anyhow
0:51:23 so we find that if one wants to say that
0:51:26 there's a religious pluralism or
0:51:28 religious uh you know perennialism then
0:51:31 you would have to have special pleading
0:51:32 you have to present some information and
0:51:34 not all information okay
0:51:36 um similarly uh juan cole he writes um
0:51:41 you know the quran insists on liberty of
0:51:42 conscience and forbearance towards
0:51:44 enemies which is true it prohibits
0:51:46 unprovoked aggressive warfare it
0:51:49 promises salvation to all righteous
0:51:52 monotheists and not just followers of
0:51:54 the prophet muhammad
0:51:55 now
0:51:57 this is true from one perspective but
0:51:59 totally false another perspective it's
0:52:01 true in the perspective that whoever
0:52:03 followed like historically when you had
0:52:06 prophets and messengers that came and
0:52:07 whoever followed those prophets and
0:52:09 messengers that came
0:52:10 um you know like the people of moses the
0:52:13 people of jesus and so whoever followed
0:52:14 them they were true monotheists and that
0:52:16 they would have salvation
0:52:18 but when we talk about true monotheist
0:52:21 outside the scope of islam and someone
0:52:24 that's heard about islam
0:52:26 knows about it
0:52:27 and then rejects it and they claim to be
0:52:29 monotheist this doesn't apply to that
0:52:31 that category of people because they
0:52:33 have in effect rejected that monotheism
0:52:36 and part of that rejection has to do
0:52:38 with rejecting the prophet muhammad
0:52:40 sallallahu alain so any sort of concept
0:52:43 of of south phific exclusivity when it
0:52:46 comes to what happens when a person dies
0:52:48 is completely negated in this in this
0:52:50 type of statement because the picture
0:52:52 that's trying to be presented is this
0:52:54 type of uh perennialism no matter what
0:52:56 you believe you can enter paradise
0:52:59 again this has a degree of
0:53:01 truth to it in the sense that if a
0:53:02 person doesn't have knowledge about
0:53:04 islam
0:53:05 and they're never presented with islam
0:53:07 their fate in the hereafter
0:53:09 there's a different there's a different
0:53:10 idea and the different context behind
0:53:12 that but someone that's been presented
0:53:14 with islam that has been given all the
0:53:16 information and they begin the
0:53:17 opportunity to accept it that's a
0:53:19 different paradigm that's a different
0:53:20 context and that's a different idea and
0:53:23 that wouldn't we wouldn't really
0:53:24 consider the outside people righteous
0:53:25 moletius however
0:53:27 if one is to
0:53:28 push this narrative forward again you'd
0:53:31 have to refer to special pleading
0:53:33 presenting evidence but not all of the
0:53:35 evidence okay
0:53:37 so
0:53:38 um
0:53:39 and the same is true for a presentation
0:53:41 or just to present the prophet system as
0:53:43 a warmonger again like i said
0:53:45 you could present some evidence just by
0:53:47 the fact that he went to war but then
0:53:49 you'd have to negate all of the
0:53:51 instances of the mercy generosity
0:53:54 uh nature of the prophet sallam right
0:53:57 the prophet says sallam they said
0:54:00 he was the most generous of people you
0:54:02 know this is a man who had literally
0:54:04 nothing
0:54:05 and yet any sort of money or anything
0:54:07 like that he would just give it away to
0:54:09 the poor on every single instance all
0:54:11 the way to his death i shall
0:54:13 not says that you know the the the fire
0:54:15 in our house was not lit for
0:54:17 two or three consecutive months and we
0:54:20 only survived on the two black things
0:54:22 right in other words water because it
0:54:23 wasn't clear like we have nowadays in a
0:54:25 tap which was black in color and dates
0:54:29 so they wouldn't even have like meat or
0:54:31 a meal they would just survive on dates
0:54:32 and water for months
0:54:34 because of the idea of the generosity of
0:54:36 the prophet muhamm and again we're
0:54:38 talking about generosity mercy love
0:54:41 compassion
0:54:42 racial equality economic justice all of
0:54:45 those things you'd have to put on the
0:54:47 side in order to cast that so again
0:54:49 there's special pleading whichever case
0:54:52 you're going to make so let's review the
0:54:54 thesis now
0:54:55 the insider slash muslim approach is the
0:54:58 only way to make sense of the sita
0:54:59 without resorting to special pleading
0:55:02 if you're going to take an outsider
0:55:04 approach whether it's one of benevolence
0:55:06 to say okay the prophet muhammad was
0:55:07 peaceful and so on and so forth or it's
0:55:08 one of antagonism to say that the
0:55:11 prophecism was a war monger etc either
0:55:13 one of those approaches you have to
0:55:15 resort to special pleading okay and this
0:55:18 is very true when it comes to the treaty
0:55:20 of hudaibiyah now
0:55:23 that being said
0:55:24 let's now understand the insider
0:55:26 approach with a little more detail and
0:55:28 what i mean by this is you know when we
0:55:30 say that there's no we that an insider
0:55:33 approach does not
0:55:34 one does not need to
0:55:36 uh resort to special pleading because
0:55:39 when one understands what the purpose of
0:55:41 prophethood is then all of kind of the
0:55:44 the sita the character the choice of war
0:55:47 and peace all makes sense
0:55:49 only if one considers the islamic
0:55:52 paradigm right outside of that again
0:55:54 you're going to run into problems and
0:55:56 questions and issues so
0:55:59 now when we want to present the the the
0:56:02 purpose of prophethood um there's a
0:56:05 couple of assumptions we're going to
0:56:06 make and these are based upon one
0:56:08 adopting an insider approach or an
0:56:10 islamic worldview
0:56:12 the first assumption
0:56:13 is that we're going to take a
0:56:15 teleological view of history now here
0:56:17 what i'm talking about
0:56:19 is not what's known as wig history and
0:56:21 wig history
0:56:23 um that's a bit has a bit different
0:56:26 um
0:56:27 has a bit has a different connotation so
0:56:30 typically when you talk about a
0:56:31 teleological view of history what we
0:56:33 mean here
0:56:34 is
0:56:35 that teleology in a historiographical
0:56:38 sense is a form of historical inquiry
0:56:41 which attempts to construct a narrative
0:56:43 view of history
0:56:44 as a progressive march in one direction
0:56:46 towards an inevitable endpoint so
0:56:49 tediology has to do with purpose
0:56:51 and so when we look at history
0:56:54 and we look at kind of you know time
0:56:55 flowing and things like that what we're
0:56:57 saying is a technological view of
0:56:59 history is a view in a direction of
0:57:01 progression
0:57:03 so you have people kind of starting from
0:57:05 a point which is lower and they're
0:57:06 progressing upwards to a better society
0:57:10 a better community
0:57:11 a better technology whatever it might be
0:57:14 now one of the issues that historians
0:57:16 pointed out was that the one who
0:57:17 introduced this concept of a
0:57:19 teleological view of history was a man
0:57:22 by the name of herbert butterfield and
0:57:24 he brings this idea forth in his what's
0:57:26 known as the whig interpretation of
0:57:28 history in 1931
0:57:30 and
0:57:31 but
0:57:32 the reason why this is critiqued and
0:57:35 many historians don't accept a
0:57:36 teleological view of history well
0:57:38 there's a number of reasons why uh one
0:57:40 of the reasons is because his view of
0:57:43 the teleological view of history is that
0:57:45 we are making progress to reach the
0:57:48 utopia of liberal democracy
0:57:51 right so the sense that that is the apex
0:57:54 that is the the where we're progressing
0:57:56 towards now obviously that gets debunked
0:57:58 by you know post-modernist that gets to
0:58:01 because you know in many different areas
0:58:03 and so that sort of concept of a
0:58:05 teleological view becomes problematic
0:58:08 because that
0:58:09 that means that liberal democracy is the
0:58:11 apex of
0:58:12 uh progress
0:58:14 which is problematic for an islamic
0:58:15 worldview and so hence muslims don't
0:58:17 accept that or rather the islamic
0:58:19 worldview doesn't accept that
0:58:20 um another problem with the
0:58:23 technological view of history
0:58:25 is that there's a purpose
0:58:27 and when one kind of understands
0:58:29 ontology
0:58:31 uh in terms of like what exists and what
0:58:33 doesn't exist what is what is not um and
0:58:36 one adopts a world view that is let's
0:58:39 say
0:58:40 uh
0:58:41 a world view that's based upon
0:58:43 um let's say secularism or evolution an
0:58:47 evolutionary worldview
0:58:49 the idea is that processes happen in a
0:58:51 random fashion to say that there's a
0:58:54 historical purpose negates that
0:58:56 worldview right negates that ontological
0:59:00 uh
0:59:01 that ontological idea right that there
0:59:03 is or or rather technological idea that
0:59:06 there is a purpose so if there's because
0:59:08 how can we say there's a purpose to
0:59:09 history when there's no purpose even to
0:59:12 how physical functioning happens right
0:59:14 which is very problematic by the way
0:59:16 because even in terms of biological
0:59:17 functions uh if you don't assume a
0:59:20 tediology a purpose in your organs you
0:59:22 can't make medical progress so but
0:59:24 that's a separate issue so our first
0:59:26 assumption here when i say teleological
0:59:28 view of history is that there is a
0:59:30 progress and
0:59:32 in terms of the historical narrative you
0:59:35 know how human beings started and where
0:59:37 they end up okay so that's my first
0:59:39 assumption
0:59:40 the second assumption
0:59:42 uh when we're looking at an insider
0:59:43 approach is that the quran is a source
0:59:45 of knowledge in fact the quran and the
0:59:47 sunnah and the hadith are sources of
0:59:49 knowledge right
0:59:51 an outsider approach does not accept
0:59:53 this right outside of approach says
0:59:54 there's only one source of knowledge and
0:59:55 that is the natural world for the
0:59:57 insider approach sources of knowledge
0:59:59 include the quran
1:00:01 the sunnah basically revelation
1:00:03 and the natural world so we don't negate
1:00:06 the natural world but we're saying
1:00:08 uh you know one of the assumptions we're
1:00:09 making being an insider is that the
1:00:11 quran is a source of knowledge
1:00:13 so let me talk about the teleological
1:00:15 view of history just for a second here
1:00:17 and give a little more detail related to
1:00:19 that
1:00:20 um
1:00:21 when we say a teleological view of
1:00:22 history what we're saying is that from
1:00:24 the quranic narrative we find that there
1:00:26 is a first man and a first woman right
1:00:28 adam and eve or adam and hawa
1:00:30 and this is quite clear in the quran and
1:00:33 then you have
1:00:35 from there
1:00:36 human beings start to expand right and
1:00:39 so you have a population growth
1:00:41 now um even today you can measure
1:00:44 population growth population is growing
1:00:47 even as a statistical reality you have
1:00:50 you know more people exist today than
1:00:51 existed let's say 50 years ago and so on
1:00:53 and so forth so this is a a kind of a a
1:00:57 you know a clear reality that we can
1:00:59 find
1:01:00 now
1:01:01 that being the case from an islamic
1:01:03 worldview or an islamic paradigm you
1:01:06 find that
1:01:07 when you had early societies you had
1:01:11 less people right in fact remember if
1:01:13 you're looking at the islamic narrative
1:01:15 islamic worldview you had two people and
1:01:17 you had you know a few children and so
1:01:19 on and so forth and so when it comes to
1:01:23 a type of um
1:01:25 sociological progress
1:01:27 you find that as
1:01:29 the population grows
1:01:31 it
1:01:32 you know the the the human beings by
1:01:35 necessity
1:01:36 need to grow
1:01:39 in a type of in the stage at which
1:01:41 they're at okay so let's to take this as
1:01:43 an let's not give an analogy
1:01:45 if we understand the human project and
1:01:47 compared to like a child
1:01:50 right that grows up to to become a
1:01:52 full-grown adult
1:01:54 you find that a child in their early
1:01:56 stages
1:01:57 doesn't have the intellectual maturity
1:02:00 to understand certain things
1:02:01 so if you wanted to teach a child
1:02:04 um
1:02:05 you know let's say some sort of
1:02:07 complex area of
1:02:09 i don't know i'm going to throw
1:02:10 something as a multi-variable calculus
1:02:12 right
1:02:13 that child will not be able to
1:02:15 understand that they don't have the
1:02:16 means to be able to understand that
1:02:18 right because of the context that
1:02:20 they're in because of the reality of
1:02:22 their their intellectual maturity and so
1:02:24 on and so forth it's only when they
1:02:25 become intellectually mature enough to
1:02:28 understand things like algebra cal
1:02:30 pre-calculus calculus uh you know a
1:02:33 variable you know and eventually they
1:02:35 get to multi-variable calculus right
1:02:37 but that takes a progression
1:02:40 so just like that
1:02:42 human beings in the human project have a
1:02:45 progression like this and that's
1:02:46 necessitated by a number of things first
1:02:49 the intellectual maturity having to deal
1:02:52 with situations when the population is
1:02:54 is is less
1:02:56 um you're not going to have the same
1:02:58 degree of having to deal with things
1:02:59 when populations are you know you know 6
1:03:02 mil 6 billion right it's two different
1:03:04 dynamics and so you find that even
1:03:07 within the human project the collective
1:03:10 intelligence
1:03:12 grows or progresses over time
1:03:15 okay and this has to do when we talk
1:03:16 about collective intelligence related to
1:03:18 society so society's form once you have
1:03:21 let's say you have a family structure
1:03:23 you have a husband and a wife or a male
1:03:25 and a female and children and then you
1:03:27 have two of them and then three and so
1:03:29 now they come together and they form a
1:03:31 type of tribe but then you have other
1:03:33 tribes that are formed on certain base
1:03:35 on certain other bases and basis and so
1:03:38 once you have tribes that come together
1:03:39 now you have nations and between those
1:03:42 nations they have to come to some sort
1:03:43 of um some sort of agreement how we're
1:03:46 going to function right one of those
1:03:47 things that we can just go to war the
1:03:49 entire time or we set down rules and
1:03:51 regulations right and so those rules and
1:03:54 regulations the more
1:03:56 population expands the more you know
1:03:58 greater tribes and greater nations that
1:04:01 are built and so on and so forth
1:04:03 that has become more sophisticated
1:04:06 so
1:04:06 looking at this sort of technological
1:04:08 view of history we see that there's a
1:04:10 collective intelligence that you know is
1:04:13 progressing over time based on society
1:04:15 based on economics based on um just
1:04:18 sheer numbers and so on
1:04:20 uh that grows over time
1:04:23 with this view what we find is that when
1:04:25 we talk about prophethood
1:04:27 that allah is sending prophets
1:04:31 to guide people back to certain
1:04:33 ontological
1:04:35 realities right certain spiritual
1:04:38 realities
1:04:39 and so those spiritual realities based
1:04:41 on the community at the time period
1:04:43 they're at
1:04:45 they're going to be given
1:04:46 uh certain information and they may not
1:04:48 be given other information because they
1:04:51 are not
1:04:52 collectively intellectually mature
1:04:54 enough
1:04:55 so for example if we look at the time of
1:04:57 moses you have rules and regulations you
1:05:01 have the ten commandments you have very
1:05:04 distinct a distinct law that that is
1:05:06 sent down right in a very legalistic
1:05:08 tradition
1:05:10 why because if you think about a child
1:05:12 that's growing up and this child is is
1:05:14 maturing uh in the beginning they may
1:05:17 not understand
1:05:18 why certain why you want them to do
1:05:20 certain things and not do other things
1:05:21 so you set down rules for them to follow
1:05:24 right they may not understand like you
1:05:26 know why is it that you don't touch the
1:05:28 stove right and unless they burn
1:05:30 themselves then they'll know immediately
1:05:32 right but as a rule don't touch the
1:05:34 stove don't turn touch the iron and
1:05:36 things like that they may not understand
1:05:37 it but for you it's your responsibility
1:05:39 to set down rules so in the beginning
1:05:42 you find these type of rule-based
1:05:44 uh this kind of rule-based revelation
1:05:46 that's coming down
1:05:48 in a sense
1:05:49 it's not complete because the human
1:05:51 project is not complete
1:05:53 right in terms of complete revelation
1:05:56 but anyway
1:05:57 so
1:05:57 as prophets are being sent down in
1:06:00 certain epochs of time and specific
1:06:02 places each profit
1:06:04 based on the context the maturity level
1:06:07 of the society and the community they're
1:06:08 in they're sent to specific people
1:06:11 in a specific time
1:06:13 now if we take this technological view
1:06:15 of history we find that human beings
1:06:17 mature up to a level where now that
1:06:19 they've become fully matured
1:06:22 and so now the time is ripe for a final
1:06:25 prophet and messenger okay so when i
1:06:27 talk about the teleological view of
1:06:29 history when we talk talk about making
1:06:31 sense of why you have prophets and
1:06:33 messengers that were sent at specific
1:06:35 epochs to specific peoples
1:06:38 this is what we call the technological
1:06:39 view of history this is what i'm talking
1:06:41 about all right so we talked about the
1:06:42 theological view of history we talked
1:06:44 about the quran as a source of knowledge
1:06:46 now let's dig in a bit deeper and
1:06:48 juxtapose two verses of the quran to
1:06:50 expound upon this let's see how we're
1:06:52 doing on time
1:06:54 okay not
1:06:56 not too bad okay
1:07:00 all right um
1:07:02 okay so these two verses one of them is
1:07:05 uh in uh in the 61st chapter
1:07:08 allah subhana wa says
1:07:17 it is he who is sent down he referring
1:07:19 to allah this he was sent his messenger
1:07:22 with guidance
1:07:24 and the religion of truth to manifest it
1:07:26 over all religion although those who
1:07:28 associate others with allah dislike it
1:07:30 here it's mushrikun which refers to
1:07:32 those who
1:07:33 do shirk
1:07:35 now
1:07:36 in the 57th chapter allah says
1:07:48 we have already sent our messengers with
1:07:50 clear evidences and sent down
1:07:53 with them the scripture
1:07:55 the balance that the people may maintain
1:07:57 their affairs and justice
1:07:59 so remember when we were talking about a
1:08:01 teleological view of history
1:08:03 you find that the second verse there 50
1:08:06 from the 57th chapter the 25th verse is
1:08:09 speaking about
1:08:10 the sending of messengers and that these
1:08:13 messengers they've been sent down
1:08:15 with uh here the verse mentions
1:08:19 clear evidences
1:08:20 uh and a scripture a book and a mizan
1:08:24 and a scale right and what's the purpose
1:08:26 of the scale is so that people can
1:08:28 maintain justice
1:08:30 so
1:08:32 from this viewpoint throughout history
1:08:35 you find that justice in based on the
1:08:39 the the collective intellectual maturity
1:08:41 of the society has to be maintained and
1:08:43 so prophets and messengers would bring
1:08:45 a revelation
1:08:47 a book right and they would bring a
1:08:50 standard by which to know like okay how
1:08:52 do you know what is right now what is uh
1:08:53 how is wrong a mizan a scale a balance
1:08:56 now this
1:08:58 idea has to do with messengers in the
1:09:00 past
1:09:01 right when it comes to the the final
1:09:03 message of the prophet muhammad you find
1:09:05 that that's being referred to in the
1:09:06 61st chapter in the ninth ayah which
1:09:14 so
1:09:15 when we juxtapose both of these
1:09:17 you find that there are some things we
1:09:18 can see that are
1:09:20 interesting all right
1:09:22 first of all
1:09:23 when
1:09:24 allah speaks
1:09:26 about sending down the prophet muhammad
1:09:28 first of all the sending down of the
1:09:30 prophet muhammad here who allah
1:09:36 he it is he will send down his messenger
1:09:39 uh with guidance all right rasulullah
1:09:42 when you go when you span the quran this
1:09:44 is an interesting feature of the quran
1:09:47 is that the term rasul rasulihi rasul
1:09:51 all of these refer to the prophet
1:09:53 muhammad his messenger
1:09:55 just like when you look at the term
1:09:57 abduhu
1:09:58 right
1:10:00 right
1:10:01 and so on
1:10:02 my slave is specifically referring to
1:10:04 the prophet muhammad when it comes to
1:10:07 other messengers
1:10:09 those have different referential points
1:10:10 now this is just an interesting feature
1:10:12 of the quran that when you look at the
1:10:13 term rasulahu
1:10:18 with the pronoun attached his messenger
1:10:20 it's always referring to the prophet
1:10:22 muhammad we know that from context and
1:10:23 so on and so forth i think this term
1:10:25 occurs
1:10:26 um a number of times i believe it's 83
1:10:29 times
1:10:30 in the quran with the attached pronoun
1:10:33 nevertheless
1:10:35 it occurs 83 times and each one of those
1:10:37 times is referring to the prophet
1:10:38 muhammad just an interesting feature of
1:10:40 the quran
1:10:41 again rasulullah so he is the one who
1:10:43 sent down his messenger with guidance
1:10:46 bill huda and this al-huda here which is
1:10:50 as opposed to just huda
1:10:53 here we're talking about guidance
1:10:55 and guidance the term in arabic is
1:10:57 hidayah
1:10:58 now there's
1:10:59 because of the structure of how the word
1:11:02 has been put forth it's here in this
1:11:04 context it is
1:11:06 as opposed to just huda
1:11:08 the english equivalent would be saying
1:11:10 the guidance versus
1:11:12 a guidance
1:11:14 okay so the alif lam or the al here is
1:11:17 gives you in the sense of a definitive
1:11:19 and like when you when you're comparing
1:11:21 the english language that which is
1:11:22 definite which is versus that which is
1:11:24 indefinite or when you look at it from
1:11:26 the viewpoint on taxonomy like
1:11:28 categorizing category you know people
1:11:31 and you say uh the human being versus a
1:11:34 human being right the human being is
1:11:36 referring to you know like the archetype
1:11:39 human being versus a human being is just
1:11:42 kind of any human being right and so
1:11:45 similarly when you're talking about
1:11:47 al-huda versus huda you had huda in the
1:11:50 past you had guidance in the past
1:11:52 but you don't have al-huda you don't
1:11:55 have the guidance right and so here it's
1:11:59 as if there's a reference to guidance
1:12:02 being completed
1:12:03 now that doesn't mean that the messages
1:12:05 of the past had some sort of deficiency
1:12:09 but based on their context they had the
1:12:12 guidance that they needed a guidance to
1:12:14 that specific people and that specific
1:12:16 place whereas when it refers to the
1:12:18 prophet muhammad and we're talking about
1:12:20 the quran being a source of knowledge
1:12:22 here
1:12:22 the fact that al-huda is mentioned is
1:12:25 significant because allah is referring
1:12:28 to the guidance
1:12:30 any sort and this is another interesting
1:12:32 feature of of how we understand the
1:12:34 quran any sort of blessing
1:12:38 nirma that comes from allah
1:12:41 without guidance
1:12:43 is not what we call a muthalak
1:12:46 an absolute blessing right so you could
1:12:48 have money or children
1:12:50 all of these things but
1:12:52 if there's no guidance there's no
1:12:53 hidayah
1:12:55 then
1:12:56 that's not really an absolute blessing
1:12:58 yes from from a let's say a naturalistic
1:13:01 materialistic worldview maybe it's a
1:13:03 blessing from one perspective but
1:13:05 without hidayah nothing actually has
1:13:08 value from that sort of absolute
1:13:09 perspective so the fact that you have
1:13:12 al-huda in this case is referring to
1:13:14 this sort of completion of that guidance
1:13:17 now this al huda
1:13:19 here you can say it's referring to a
1:13:20 number of different things number one it
1:13:22 could be referring to the messenger
1:13:23 himself al-huda and he's referred to uh
1:13:26 you know as as guidance himself but more
1:13:29 specifically it is referring to the
1:13:31 quran
1:13:33 numerous places in in the quran self the
1:13:36 quran is referred to as
1:13:38 given the term huda so just as an
1:13:41 example if i can pull it up here
1:13:43 for instance when the quran is being
1:13:44 referred to in the second chapter of the
1:13:46 quran
1:13:52 that this is the book where there is no
1:13:54 doubt a guidance for those who are with
1:13:57 so the idea that the quran is huda
1:14:00 is
1:14:01 you know exemplified there similarly
1:14:03 when the when allah talks about uh in
1:14:05 again this the second chapter again
1:14:12 so he sent down in the month of ramadan
1:14:14 is the month in which was revealed the
1:14:16 quran a guidance
1:14:18 for human beings
1:14:20 other texts are referred to as well the
1:14:22 torah the injeel as huda
1:14:25 again with the quran
1:14:30 indeed this quran guides that which is
1:14:33 most suitable
1:14:34 so the quran being labeled as
1:14:37 very significant here okay
1:14:39 okay
1:14:40 so the first term is al-huda then so he
1:14:44 is the one who sent down his messenger
1:14:46 uh the prophet muhammed with al-huda so
1:14:50 i have highlighted the term guidance
1:14:53 so when we talk about the term deen
1:14:56 oops i'm like
1:15:00 when you talk about the term deen i know
1:15:02 it's translated as the religion of truth
1:15:05 but the term itself is actually much
1:15:07 more expansive than that
1:15:08 so the term and when we look at this the
1:15:11 etymology of the of the term deen itself
1:15:14 we find that its tri-literal root
1:15:17 um
1:15:18 is uh is is dalya noon in other words
1:15:22 it's it's
1:15:23 um it refers to
1:15:25 what you can say is like an exchange
1:15:28 right a buddha
1:15:29 so dean
1:15:31 is can mean judgment
1:15:33 um it can mean that sort of system by
1:15:36 which you understand a reward and
1:15:38 punishment
1:15:39 it can refer to for instance in the
1:15:42 quran
1:15:44 allah mentions the idea of maliki
1:15:46 yomideen the master of the day of and is
1:15:49 translated there as judgment because if
1:15:51 the purpose of life is to submit onto
1:15:54 allah
1:15:55 via love and submission and so on and so
1:15:57 forth there has to be some sort of a
1:15:58 standard by which you're judged and that
1:16:01 standard is what you call your deen it
1:16:04 could also be referring to a world view
1:16:06 but the but but the term deen itself
1:16:09 when you look at its uh triliteral root
1:16:12 uh it's referring to this idea of
1:16:13 exchange and that's why with the same
1:16:16 triangle root you get the word dain
1:16:18 which means debt
1:16:19 you can compare the term debt
1:16:21 with sadaka with charity so when you
1:16:24 have
1:16:25 dean or sorry when you have dain when
1:16:27 you have debt there's an expectation of
1:16:29 return
1:16:30 right so there's a two-way
1:16:32 concept here where as when you give
1:16:34 charity it's a one-way process so debt
1:16:37 is called dain the same trade trilateral
1:16:40 route and so the idea is is that there
1:16:42 is a type of like rebounding like you do
1:16:44 good deeds you're rewarded for that
1:16:46 right and this has a very broad
1:16:48 perspective because in the quran it's
1:16:51 also mentioned that it can be a system
1:16:53 by which you have like a governmental
1:16:56 system basically right and so in the
1:16:58 story of
1:17:00 joseph or yusuf in the quran at the end
1:17:02 of that story
1:17:04 allah mentions
1:17:07 yusuf and that thus did we plan for
1:17:09 joseph he could not have taken his
1:17:11 brother
1:17:22 so he could not have taken his brother
1:17:24 with a dean without the dean of his
1:17:27 malik in other words joseph or yusuf is
1:17:31 not the is not the king he's not the
1:17:34 sovereign king
1:17:35 and so without
1:17:37 uh submitting to the rules and
1:17:38 regulations
1:17:40 of the the the the dean of the of the of
1:17:44 the king
1:17:45 that he couldn't just take his brother
1:17:46 from there right here dean is not
1:17:48 referring to the religion of the king
1:17:50 it's referring to the fact that the king
1:17:52 is sovereign and that he establishes
1:17:54 rules and regulations that if you submit
1:17:56 to those rules you get rewarded if not
1:17:58 then you can be punished if you go if
1:18:00 you run antagonists to those rules so
1:18:02 here dean is now referring to religion
1:18:05 it's referring to a system of you know
1:18:08 a reward and punishment and so
1:18:10 that being the case when we talk about
1:18:12 religion we can say that
1:18:14 it is tied to the concept of a world
1:18:17 view
1:18:18 because in one's world view
1:18:20 why do people do things people do things
1:18:23 because there is a concept of i will
1:18:26 have some sort of benefit
1:18:27 and if i don't do something there'll be
1:18:29 a type of you know a a non-benefit or
1:18:32 you know or i'll get punished in some
1:18:34 sort of way right like this so i'll have
1:18:35 a negative consequence to my actions but
1:18:38 actions having results there's this idea
1:18:41 of reward and punishment when you take
1:18:43 that from a theo philosophical viewpoint
1:18:46 and the islamic worldview that reward
1:18:49 and punishment has to do with the
1:18:50 afterlife
1:18:51 actions that you do and actions that you
1:18:53 don't do right there all have to do with
1:18:55 war and punishment and so that when we
1:18:56 call dean we can say that that is the a
1:18:59 world view
1:19:01 um and for more on this you can check
1:19:03 out the sapient thoughts uh
1:19:05 you know series that we did on world
1:19:07 views because we talk about the
1:19:08 components of a world view the fact that
1:19:10 there's ontology epistemology teleology
1:19:13 and so on so forth we go through all
1:19:15 those and then eventually you have a
1:19:16 legal system based on a moral code that
1:19:19 moral code again
1:19:21 where you get a legal system
1:19:23 is based on the idea that reward and
1:19:25 punishment
1:19:26 deen in other words right so
1:19:29 here so he is the one who sent his
1:19:30 messenger with guidance and the religion
1:19:32 of truth the true deen the true world
1:19:35 view okay
1:19:37 to make manifest over all religions
1:19:40 that's now we're talking about the
1:19:41 prophet muhammad let's compare that to
1:19:43 the next verse that i talked about so we
1:19:45 have
1:19:46 salna
1:19:48 not
1:19:52 we have already sent our messengers here
1:19:54 referring to messengers of the past with
1:19:56 clear evidences
1:19:59 and sent down with them right
1:20:02 now
1:20:03 and sent down with them al-kitab and
1:20:06 al-mizan okay and the balance so that
1:20:09 people maintain their affairs and
1:20:10 justice clear evidences
1:20:13 when we look at the prophets of the past
1:20:15 and the messengers of the past
1:20:17 what you find is that in order to
1:20:19 establish the veracity of their message
1:20:22 that they were indeed messengers from
1:20:23 god that what they're bringing about
1:20:25 worshiping god alone and submitting on
1:20:27 to him and that their
1:20:29 they have a correct worldview in that
1:20:31 world view being one of truth
1:20:34 how did they do that they did that by
1:20:35 way of miracles
1:20:37 and miracles in the particular context
1:20:40 that they were in so if we think as an
1:20:42 example the the time of moses uh what
1:20:46 was prevalent at the time of moses was
1:20:48 the idea of magic
1:20:50 magicians were very uh you know were
1:20:53 very well known and they could they
1:20:55 could they could they could they could
1:20:57 they have um
1:20:58 they could basically uh use their magic
1:21:01 in order to
1:21:02 uh you know sway people and things like
1:21:04 that so magic was at its you know was at
1:21:07 his heyday at the time of moses so when
1:21:10 he comes with a miracle
1:21:11 it completely stumps the other magicians
1:21:14 and here i'm talking about the staff he
1:21:16 throws the staff down and becomes an
1:21:17 actual snake as opposed to magicians who
1:21:19 are using perhaps optical illusions or
1:21:21 something like that
1:21:22 and their snakes can't and so
1:21:25 his staff becoming a snake and then you
1:21:28 know devouring the other you know staffs
1:21:30 or snakes of the other magicians you
1:21:32 find the quranic narrative says that the
1:21:34 magicians recognize that and they
1:21:36 immediately immediately submitted and
1:21:38 said we believe in the lord of moses
1:21:40 again
1:21:41 here there's a there's a bayina there's
1:21:44 a clear sign this is a clear sign from
1:21:47 moses and there's other miracles that
1:21:48 are mentioned at the time of moses
1:21:50 similarly with jesus at his time you had
1:21:53 uh the idea of medicine being quite uh
1:21:56 widespread
1:21:58 people you know were healers and things
1:22:00 like that so he comes with a miracle
1:22:01 where he's you know able to uh give life
1:22:04 to a bird for instance you know you know
1:22:06 by the permission of allah and so on and
1:22:08 so forth so these are being these are
1:22:11 evidences that we're talking about
1:22:12 people of the past
1:22:15 now in addition to that when you think
1:22:16 about messengers they're sent down with
1:22:18 a scripture so moses is sent with the
1:22:21 torah
1:22:22 and it's not just the tota in terms of
1:22:24 information about you know who is allah
1:22:26 and so on and so forth but also with
1:22:28 rules and regulations and then how do
1:22:30 you implement those rules and
1:22:31 regulations right so
1:22:33 that being the case um you have these
1:22:36 miracles you have a book and then you
1:22:39 have a
1:22:40 a mizan a standard by which you know
1:22:42 truth and falsehood okay this is the
1:22:44 second verse
1:22:46 when we juxtapose both of these verses
1:22:48 what you'll find
1:22:49 is that when it comes to al huda
1:22:53 it's referring to the quran
1:22:55 but the quran is not only
1:22:58 a
1:22:59 scripture
1:23:01 it's not only a book that's telling you
1:23:03 do this and don't do that right or a
1:23:05 book that's telling you about you know
1:23:06 people of the past
1:23:08 but it's also a miracle
1:23:10 so it's combining al-bayinat
1:23:13 and al-kitab into one
1:23:16 that's why when you're juxtaposing them
1:23:20 is clear evidence and plus scripture
1:23:21 because why
1:23:23 the final messenger is the one that
1:23:25 needs a miracle that's going to
1:23:28 uh
1:23:28 that's going to that's going to be able
1:23:30 to last across time right if he's the
1:23:33 last and final messenger and so here the
1:23:36 linguistic feature is that it's only
1:23:38 al-huda that's mentioned which is the
1:23:40 quran where in essence it is the be not
1:23:44 plus al-kitab right and then of course
1:23:46 we juxtapose the religion of truth with
1:23:48 the balance al-mizan
1:23:50 and so on and so forth in the sense that
1:23:52 islam being true has been true from the
1:23:54 very get-go okay
1:23:56 now that's just a quick
1:23:58 uh reference and there's more that we
1:23:59 can say about this but we're kind of
1:24:00 running out of time so i don't want to
1:24:02 kind of
1:24:03 clarify so
1:24:05 what is the purpose of the prophet
1:24:06 muhammad sallallahu islam in essence
1:24:08 that he is the last and final messenger
1:24:10 so we looked at evidences from the quran
1:24:12 linguistic evidences from the quran
1:24:14 we looked at the narrative directly
1:24:17 the idea that that's part of the islamic
1:24:18 paradigm
1:24:20 we looked at a teleological view of
1:24:22 history to say why we have messengers at
1:24:24 certain points and then that culminate
1:24:26 and that final perfection of that
1:24:28 message comes with the prophet muhammad
1:24:30 and if that's the case
1:24:32 it's only from the viewpoint
1:24:34 that he is the final messenger to all of
1:24:37 humanity
1:24:38 from god with the religion of truth the
1:24:41 worldview that can that is part of that
1:24:44 salvation that salvific exclusivity that
1:24:46 salvation that can save people
1:24:48 then when you look at the sita you can
1:24:51 make sense of that why
1:24:53 because
1:24:54 it's
1:24:55 when the prophet muhammad is coming with
1:24:57 a message and he's coming with a purpose
1:25:00 that purpose is now understood
1:25:02 it's to guide people to the truth it's
1:25:05 to encourage people to reach higher
1:25:08 spiritual states by way of adopting the
1:25:11 true dino the true
1:25:14 world view okay
1:25:16 sometimes that happens and that is at
1:25:18 its apex and that it's best achieved by
1:25:21 way of peace
1:25:23 sometimes
1:25:24 when there is oppression in the land and
1:25:26 that religion of truth and that religion
1:25:30 that that there's injustice that runs
1:25:32 antagonists to dino
1:25:34 because it becomes
1:25:36 like a a
1:25:37 an oppressive legal system or oppressive
1:25:40 system by which people are measuring
1:25:42 things and that certain people get
1:25:43 oppressed and certain ideas become more
1:25:46 prevalent that cause more economic
1:25:49 social and spiritual injustice that
1:25:51 sometimes that requires warfare just to
1:25:55 be very blunt so let's take a look at
1:25:57 our question when we start off initially
1:25:59 the meccan phase 13 years you take a
1:26:02 world view to say or a viewpoint that's
1:26:04 an outsider approach and say okay the
1:26:06 prophet system was just a war monger how
1:26:08 do you explain who they be
1:26:09 it becomes difficult similarly if it was
1:26:12 just peace for the sake of peace because
1:26:14 there's some sort of uh
1:26:16 perennialism that you know religion
1:26:18 really doesn't matter and it's just
1:26:19 about you know relations and peace is
1:26:22 the only reason again who they be it
1:26:24 doesn't doesn't really fit into the this
1:26:26 kind of
1:26:27 this kind of bifurcation of times of
1:26:30 peace and times of war
1:26:31 why is that
1:26:33 because when we look at hudaibia when
1:26:35 you look at the treaty of hudaibiyah
1:26:36 what we find is that it is occurring
1:26:39 after battles have occurred where
1:26:40 muslims are establishing their supremacy
1:26:44 now
1:26:45 how this is established is that one
1:26:47 night the prophet muhammad has a dream
1:26:50 and from the islamic framework from the
1:26:51 islamic paradigm the you know that
1:26:54 muslims believe that the dreams of
1:26:55 prophets are true so he has a dream that
1:26:58 he's going to make umrah means he's
1:26:59 going to go for the minor pilgrimage to
1:27:01 mecca
1:27:02 now it's been you know over you know
1:27:05 let's say you know uh 15 20 years
1:27:08 since the people that were that had left
1:27:10 mecca
1:27:11 um
1:27:12 are able to go back to mecca now because
1:27:14 he had this dream and that they should
1:27:15 now go back and do this pilgrimage
1:27:17 because they had been effectively they
1:27:18 had to leave their homeland
1:27:20 similarly for the people who are
1:27:22 residents of medina the os and the
1:27:24 khazraj this is exciting and this is
1:27:26 something really this is good news for
1:27:28 them because now they can actually go
1:27:30 and do this religious obligation or this
1:27:32 religious act and they can do it with
1:27:34 the prophet muhammad so there is a lot
1:27:37 of excitement
1:27:39 i'm sorry about that there's a lot of
1:27:41 excitement that's around this idea that
1:27:43 now we're going to go back and and go to
1:27:46 mecca
1:27:47 now however they're not going to go into
1:27:49 mecca to attack mecca but they're going
1:27:50 to simply go there and
1:27:53 go there and to make the the pilgrimage
1:27:55 now one of the things one of the customs
1:27:57 of that time was that you generally
1:27:59 couldn't stop people from making the
1:28:00 pilgrimage
1:28:02 but because of the animosity because of
1:28:04 the
1:28:05 uh you know the the the meccans and
1:28:08 their defeats and so on and so forth
1:28:09 when they to make a long story short
1:28:11 when they get close to mecca
1:28:14 the meccans the polytheists of meccans
1:28:16 the mushrikeen of mecca of mecca
1:28:19 excuse me come out and say that you're
1:28:21 not we're not going to do that we're
1:28:22 going to allow that
1:28:23 now if you think about it in terms of
1:28:26 power muslims are at the apex of their
1:28:28 power at this point they could easily
1:28:29 just say well too bad we're going to
1:28:31 come in we're going to basically attack
1:28:33 and we're going to just do what we want
1:28:34 to do what ends up happening though is
1:28:36 that a treaty a peace treaty is signed
1:28:39 which again makes no sense when just
1:28:42 looking at it from you know a strategic
1:28:44 warfare point of view like why not just
1:28:47 overtake mecca and call it a day
1:28:49 so you have this treaty that's signed
1:28:51 and it's a peace treaty and not only
1:28:53 that the treaty itself seemed very
1:28:55 lopsided
1:28:56 meaning it wasn't just okay we'll have
1:28:58 peace and that's it but you had certain
1:29:00 parts of this treaty that seemed very
1:29:02 unfair
1:29:04 right in the sense that it was unfair to
1:29:06 the muslims even though they were the
1:29:07 ones that were at their kind of apex of
1:29:10 power so for instance one of the aspects
1:29:13 of the treaty was
1:29:15 was that if someone um
1:29:17 if a person in mecca converts to islam
1:29:21 and runs away and goes to medina
1:29:24 that the people of medina the muslims
1:29:27 have to return the person back to mecca
1:29:30 now when this person goes back to mecca
1:29:32 it's basically torture and punishment
1:29:34 and you know they're not going to be in
1:29:35 a safe state but that was part of the of
1:29:38 the peace treaty however the converse
1:29:41 isn't true if someone was to renege on
1:29:43 their faith and leave islam and run away
1:29:45 to mecca the meccans did not have to
1:29:47 send the person back to medina again it
1:29:49 seems very lopsided second aspect here
1:29:53 was all of this excitement that's being
1:29:54 built up that they can now finally make
1:29:56 umrah they can finally visit their homes
1:29:58 for some of them and now the meccans say
1:30:00 you can't make umrah you have to come
1:30:01 back next year again this seems unfair
1:30:04 we're in a position of power and it was
1:30:06 so much so that it affected one of the
1:30:08 companions who was very close to the
1:30:09 prophet muhammad um
1:30:12 that he couldn't understand it so he
1:30:13 goes to the prophet muhammad he says
1:30:16 o message of allah aren't we upon the
1:30:18 truth and thereupon falsehood
1:30:20 meaning the the mushrikeen the
1:30:22 polytheist of mecca and the prophet
1:30:23 muhammad says yes he said aren't you the
1:30:26 messenger of allah and the prophet saw
1:30:28 says yes he goes so then why are we
1:30:29 agreeing with these terms
1:30:31 and the prophet muhammad simply says i
1:30:33 will not do that which is against allah
1:30:35 right meaning that this is from allah
1:30:37 this is revelation this is coming this
1:30:39 is not just a simple human endeavor here
1:30:42 interestingly enough
1:30:44 goes to
1:30:45 another companion abu
1:30:47 who is very close to prophet muhammad
1:30:49 and he gets the same response that the
1:30:50 prophet muhammad gave that the prophet
1:30:52 muhammad is not going to do something
1:30:53 that's going against allah
1:30:55 so
1:30:56 and this is a very arduous difficult
1:30:59 time this treaty um when this treaty is
1:31:02 being signed for a number of different
1:31:04 reasons one of the muslims had escaped
1:31:06 mecca and ended up in the place of
1:31:08 hudaibiyah
1:31:09 and just before the treaty signed
1:31:11 um the prophet muhammad says okay just
1:31:14 let him go because remember if someone
1:31:15 runs away
1:31:16 but the the one who had been sent from
1:31:18 the quraish from the from the meccans
1:31:20 said no we're going to start with him
1:31:22 this is before the treaty signed so it's
1:31:24 very difficult the prophet saws had to
1:31:26 accept it but he didn't have to accept
1:31:28 it right they're at the apex of power so
1:31:30 why did he accept it what was the
1:31:32 benefit what what happens well when
1:31:34 they're on their way back to medina
1:31:36 revelation comes down and part of this
1:31:38 revelation it's
1:31:42 indeed we have given you a clear
1:31:44 manifest victory
1:31:46 now how does one consider that a victory
1:31:49 right how they consider a victory
1:31:51 is as follows and this is one of the
1:31:53 commentators
1:31:55 mentions
1:31:57 no previous victory in islam was greater
1:31:59 than this
1:32:00 really no previous victory you're
1:32:02 talking about the battle of badr the
1:32:03 battle of uh the battle of uh uh um
1:32:07 you know all of these battles no
1:32:08 previous victory
1:32:10 no previous victory in islam was greater
1:32:12 than this why
1:32:14 there was nothing but battle when men
1:32:16 met in other words before this time
1:32:18 period there's just warfare battle back
1:32:20 and forth back and forth back forth but
1:32:21 when there was an armistance there is a
1:32:24 peace treaty and war was abolished
1:32:27 and men met in safety and consulted
1:32:29 together
1:32:31 none talked about islam intelligently
1:32:33 without entering it
1:32:35 and so the benefit here of this peace
1:32:38 treaty at this time doesn't have to do
1:32:40 with just peace
1:32:42 it has to do with the idea of
1:32:45 islam being accepted
1:32:47 and so you you find uh ibrahim another
1:32:50 scholar i'm not sure if i have them on
1:32:52 the slides here but ibn hajj
1:32:54 mentions you know he's another scholar
1:32:56 and he writes
1:32:59 he says that
1:33:00 when you find them the number of muslims
1:33:02 who went to who they bear right numbered
1:33:05 around 13 or 1400
1:33:07 but when and after a few years the
1:33:10 muslims uh overtook mecca their numbers
1:33:13 swelled to ten thousand
1:33:16 why
1:33:17 because if you're thinking about it
1:33:18 fourteen fifteen hundred and you're
1:33:19 talking about you know fifteen years
1:33:21 let's say of this islamic paradigm being
1:33:24 you know put forth and there's war and
1:33:27 so on and so forth but in this you know
1:33:28 these few short years it swells to ten
1:33:31 thousand why
1:33:33 well he mentions much like in minnesota
1:33:35 mentions is that because there was a
1:33:37 victory what was the victory because
1:33:39 before when people were at war they
1:33:41 didn't have a chance to peacefully speak
1:33:43 about islam
1:33:44 and now there's a time for peace they
1:33:47 can intellectually rationally peacefully
1:33:51 engage in conversation and no one that
1:33:54 was presented with islam could help
1:33:56 accept but accept islam
1:33:58 not by force
1:33:59 but just because they have the peace of
1:34:01 mind the security so that islam and the
1:34:05 tawa can move forward so peace in and of
1:34:07 itself is not the objective but peace
1:34:10 for the objective of bringing people to
1:34:12 a higher spiritual state to give them a
1:34:14 chance at salvation and to bring them
1:34:17 into the fold
1:34:18 is what is the victory here
1:34:20 and so it's only when one understands
1:34:23 this from this point of view that the
1:34:24 treaty makes sense because after the
1:34:27 treaty was broken
1:34:28 abu sufyan one of the people of quresh
1:34:31 went to madina to re-establish it but
1:34:33 the prophet saws didn't right and
1:34:35 obviously there was a wisdom behind that
1:34:37 the wisdom having to do with the
1:34:38 prophethood of the prophet muhammad not
1:34:41 a type of
1:34:42 a
1:34:43 a type of kind of black and white peace
1:34:45 or war and that's all we're going to
1:34:46 look at
1:34:47 that's all we're going to compare to now
1:34:50 if you remember i was speaking about the
1:34:51 objectives of war
1:34:52 and we said it's money power dominance
1:34:56 it's an interesting point and i'm going
1:34:57 to conclude on this
1:34:58 uh yusuf karadawi he mentions that when
1:35:02 in his book on zakat which is actually
1:35:04 his uh his dissertation phd dissertation
1:35:07 he mentions that it should be pointing
1:35:08 out for the first time and here we're
1:35:10 talking about after the death of the
1:35:12 prophet muhammad you had many tribes in
1:35:15 the arabian peninsula who had reneged on
1:35:17 their faith who had
1:35:19 who had done what's known as
1:35:21 who had left islam and abu bakr started
1:35:23 to fight them okay now one of those
1:35:26 tribes said we're not going to pay zakat
1:35:28 we're not going to pay the the poor dude
1:35:30 the arms tax that supports the poor
1:35:32 right and so abu bakr had to basically
1:35:34 fight them so what yusuf karadali
1:35:37 mentioned it should be pointed out that
1:35:39 for the first time in the history of
1:35:40 humanity a state that is under abu bakr
1:35:44 fought for the purpose
1:35:46 of protecting the rights of the poor and
1:35:49 the weak sectors of society
1:35:52 why well because remember that zakat
1:35:55 that those funds don't come to abu bakr
1:35:58 they go from the rich of that tribe to
1:36:01 the poor of that tribe and that was the
1:36:04 the the the reason why abu bakr fought
1:36:08 them right because they gave up zagat so
1:36:10 here yusuf kaladaow is mentioning that
1:36:13 fought for the purpose of protecting the
1:36:15 rights of the poor and the weak sector
1:36:16 society most states stand in support of
1:36:18 the rich
1:36:20 and the strong so when we think about
1:36:22 concepts of war and peace and so on and
1:36:24 so forth it's really important to now
1:36:26 kind of transcend those simple
1:36:28 dichotomies and say you know this is how
1:36:30 war and peace happens
1:36:32 because if you don't you're left to
1:36:34 special pleading and you know you
1:36:36 basically have to present a section of
1:36:38 the information that you have
1:36:40 but in order to understand the totality
1:36:42 of information you have to now look at
1:36:45 the insider approach of who the prophet
1:36:47 sallallahu islam is so
1:36:50 with that said that's kind of the end of
1:36:52 what i wanted to speak about
1:36:53 in sha allah
1:36:55 um so if you guys have any questions we
1:36:57 can take some of them
1:36:59 uh
1:37:00 and if not then we can call it
1:37:03 a day inshallah so does anyone have any
1:37:06 questions
1:37:10 and i haven't been checking the messages
1:37:11 so
1:37:25 so no questions i don't really see any
1:37:28 let's see here if i scroll up uh
1:37:37 so
1:37:39 let's see here
1:37:48 let's see here
1:37:50 oh well
1:37:52 okay
1:37:53 got that got that thank you all right
1:37:54 okay well um
1:37:57 okay here's a question
1:37:59 so i didn't understand the distinction
1:38:01 between al hada
1:38:02 for the message in hudan for the quran
1:38:04 okay so al-huda what i was referring to
1:38:07 is that this is referring to the quran
1:38:10 whereas when you look at
1:38:12 hudan in general it can refer to the
1:38:14 quran and it can refer to previous
1:38:17 previous
1:38:18 scriptures right so if we're talking
1:38:20 about the torah the injeel zaboor of
1:38:23 ibrahim et cetera those would be
1:38:26 considered hudan or
1:38:28 right
1:38:30 is specifically for the quran
1:38:32 and so
1:38:33 why is that the case is because it is a
1:38:35 complete it's like a completion of the
1:38:38 human project right
1:38:40 not that
1:38:41 other times and other messengers had
1:38:42 some sort of defects in them they were
1:38:45 appropriate for their time and their
1:38:47 place and that revelation that they were
1:38:49 given was for their time in their place
1:38:51 doesn't mean it was deficient but in the
1:38:55 entire teleology if we have this world
1:38:57 view understand that al-quran refers to
1:39:00 the completion of that favor and in fact
1:39:03 allah even mentions that in the quran
1:39:05 i've completed my favor upon you and
1:39:07 chosen for you al-islam as your deen as
1:39:10 your world view as your
1:39:12 as your dean and allah knows best so
1:39:17 i hope that answered that all right can
1:39:19 you relate to similarity a world view
1:39:21 and the meaning of dean
1:39:23 right so
1:39:24 there was so we did a session um
1:39:28 uh in sapient thoughts
1:39:30 and there were actually a couple
1:39:31 sessions on the concept of world view
1:39:33 but just very briefly
1:39:35 when we look at the term deen and i may
1:39:37 have gone through that a bit a bit quick
1:39:40 just because i noticed the time when we
1:39:42 look at the term deen
1:39:44 usually it's translated as religion
1:39:47 the problem with just making a simple
1:39:49 translation as religion is that when we
1:39:52 think about the concept of religion um
1:39:55 you know many authors write that the
1:39:56 concept of religion doesn't actually
1:39:59 uh
1:40:00 come about
1:40:01 until you until the enlightenment in
1:40:03 fact where you have the concept of the
1:40:05 secular and the religious right and so
1:40:07 even if you were to take the dichotomy
1:40:09 of something that's non-religious and
1:40:11 religious or part of religion and part
1:40:13 of you know one's world or one's you
1:40:15 know habits or whatever
1:40:17 that dichotomy you don't really find it
1:40:20 um before the enlightenment so
1:40:24 you know after the enlightenment you
1:40:25 have okay well this is religion and this
1:40:27 is the secular and so before the
1:40:29 enlightenment what you know some
1:40:31 commentators say is that religion is
1:40:34 what
1:40:35 gave the secular
1:40:36 its borders and its limits
1:40:39 okay
1:40:40 whereas after the enlightenment after
1:40:42 you have secularism secularism gives
1:40:44 religion its borders and its limits okay
1:40:47 so that's why to categorize the term
1:40:49 deen only to mean religion is
1:40:52 problematic from a
1:40:54 you know it may even be considered
1:40:55 anachronistic from a certain point of
1:40:57 view to say that
1:40:59 you know that it just means religion
1:41:01 so from that point of view but even from
1:41:03 the quranic narrative the term deen is
1:41:06 not just what we would consider religion
1:41:08 so like i mentioned dino malik it's not
1:41:10 the religion of the king but rather it
1:41:13 is the system of the king the governance
1:41:15 of the king right and when we're talking
1:41:16 about surah yusuf
1:41:18 uh similarly maliki omidin the day of
1:41:20 judgment
1:41:21 so it's more apt to apply the concept of
1:41:25 deen to world view
1:41:26 because
1:41:27 the components of a world view
1:41:29 eventually come to
1:41:31 a system a some sort of a moral or
1:41:33 ethical system a moral ethical system
1:41:36 where you should do something or you
1:41:38 shouldn't do something but that has to
1:41:40 have an ontological source otherwise it
1:41:43 becomes meaningless what do i mean like
1:41:45 if i said you should be merciful
1:41:48 okay well why should you be merciful
1:41:50 like what's the point
1:41:52 okay well you should be merciful just
1:41:54 because
1:41:55 but why if there's no sort of give and
1:41:57 take there's no deen
1:41:59 then
1:42:00 why be merciful it renders the idea or
1:42:04 the goodness of mercy as meaningless
1:42:07 right unless you have an objective
1:42:08 standard that being allah that being
1:42:11 islam and a worldview that attaches
1:42:13 something that's outside of the human
1:42:15 being then it can actually have meaning
1:42:17 and that's only done when you have the
1:42:19 concept of dean referring to rewards and
1:42:22 punishments so i don't know if that uh
1:42:25 if that ex that helped in that area
1:42:29 but i'd recommend checking out the
1:42:30 sapient thoughts series on world views
1:42:33 uh it'll get into the components of
1:42:35 world view and so on and so forth and
1:42:37 allah knows best all right maybe a
1:42:38 little off topic and unrelated but can
1:42:42 what is different between a nabi and a
1:42:43 rasool oh it is off topic but
1:42:46 so generally when we think about a
1:42:49 rasool and a nubby and if you've gone to
1:42:52 islamic school sunday school whatever it
1:42:54 might be
1:42:55 typically the definition is
1:42:57 that a rasool
1:43:01 is a is is someone that's sent by allah
1:43:04 that has a a kitab or that has a sharia
1:43:08 or that has a law right a scripture of
1:43:10 some sort and a nabi
1:43:12 is someone who follows a rasool but they
1:43:15 don't have a
1:43:16 a new sharia or a new scripture or a new
1:43:19 law okay that's typically
1:43:21 how it's defined the problem is
1:43:24 is that not all
1:43:26 messengers fit into that simple
1:43:28 dichotomy that simple categorization
1:43:30 okay so for instance yusuf al-issalam is
1:43:33 a messenger
1:43:35 but he did not come with a new sharia or
1:43:37 a new scripture in fact he was upon the
1:43:39 scripture or the suff of ibrahim
1:43:43 and so
1:43:44 the definition
1:43:45 a more apt definition or more
1:43:47 appropriate definition is that
1:43:49 a
1:43:50 a rasool is someone who is said to a
1:43:53 disbelieving people
1:43:55 whereas a nabi is sent to a believing
1:43:57 people right
1:43:59 and therefore
1:44:00 all rasools
1:44:02 are anbiya are nabis but not all nabis
1:44:05 are rasools
1:44:06 okay so not so every messenger is a
1:44:09 prophet but not every prophet is a
1:44:11 messenger so a prophet is sent to
1:44:12 believing people to guide them to do is
1:44:15 isla and so on and so forth
1:44:18 but this person is not so
1:44:20 um
1:44:21 and so but a nubby is not sent to a
1:44:24 disbelieving people a rasool is sent to
1:44:26 both a disbelieving and a believing
1:44:28 people
1:44:29 and so when we think about you know
1:44:31 muslim he sent a fair one who's a
1:44:33 disbeliever when you think about nua
1:44:35 salaam he said to also disbelievers that
1:44:37 did shirk of course the prophet sallam
1:44:39 uh you know the prophet muhammad he's
1:44:41 also a rasool and a nabi whereas
1:44:45 just a nabi
1:44:46 why because he's not addressing
1:44:49 he's not addressed he's not the primary
1:44:51 person that's addressing faron rather he
1:44:53 is there to guide bani israel who are
1:44:56 believing people right
1:44:58 now a contention that comes up
1:45:01 is to say well islam is a rasool
1:45:04 but
1:45:06 he didn't his pr his his you know his
1:45:08 address was rasulullah
1:45:10 israel that he was a messenger too but
1:45:12 israel
1:45:13 and so he didn't address a disbelieving
1:45:15 people so how does that how does your
1:45:17 definition
1:45:18 work
1:45:19 and the reality is because we understand
1:45:21 that he said islam is coming back
1:45:24 right we don't believe he died so
1:45:26 because he's coming back and one of the
1:45:28 category of people that he'll be
1:45:30 speaking to or addressing
1:45:32 are the disbelieving people and so the
1:45:34 definition still fits so a rasool
1:45:37 a messenger is someone who is sent to a
1:45:39 disbelieving people and the believing
1:45:41 people a nubby is someone who sent only
1:45:43 to a believing people to rectify their
1:45:45 affairs and so on and so forth and allah
1:45:47 knows best
1:45:49 any other
1:45:50 questions
1:45:56 if not we can call it a day
1:46:05 all right
1:46:07 okay so i think um
1:46:10 i think that's good in sha allah may
1:46:13 allah bless all of you
1:46:15 uh may he uh
1:46:17 accept from all of you all of your
1:46:20 um all of your deeds uh i appreciate you
1:46:23 coming out listening in my apologies for
1:46:25 the for the for the postponement we were
1:46:27 supposed to do this yesterday i was a
1:46:29 bit ill
1:46:30 um so i appreciate your patience in that
1:46:32 uh may allah bless all of you may allah
1:46:34 subhanahu wa except from all of you
1:46:36 and uh may he all make us people who are
1:46:39 calling towards
1:46:41 the goodness and the righteousness and
1:46:43 the the positive aspects
1:46:46 of life and of course that means islam
1:46:50 itself
1:46:51 so with that said i'll go and conclude
1:46:53 here
1:47:00 was
1:47:01 allah