Seminar: "God's Testimony: The Linguistic Miracle of the Quran for Non-Arabs" with Hamza A. Tzortzis (2021-06-16) #

0:00:15 brothers
0:00:16 and sisters and friends and welcome to
0:00:19 today's live academic seminar
0:00:24 entitled god's testimony
0:00:27 so what are we going to be talking about
0:00:29 today well essentially my main objective
0:00:32 is for you to be able to articulate the
0:00:35 linguistic miracle of the quran
0:00:38 without any knowledge of the arabic
0:00:40 language okay
0:00:42 because when one tries to show the
0:00:44 veracity of the quran
0:00:46 using the linguistic miracle there is a
0:00:49 presupposition
0:00:50 there is an assumption and that
0:00:52 assumption is
0:00:54 that one has access to the linguistic
0:00:57 and literary
0:00:58 tools to appreciate the unique
0:01:02 literary form or the unique linguistic
0:01:05 genre
0:01:06 or the peak of eloquence or the
0:01:11 multiple frequency of
0:01:14 rhetorical devices of the quran
0:01:17 and that assumption is a problematic
0:01:20 assumption
0:01:20 especially when you're giving da'awa
0:01:23 when you're
0:01:24 sharing islam academically and
0:01:26 intellectually
0:01:27 with an audience that doesn't know
0:01:29 arabic and if they do know arabic they
0:01:31 frankly may not have the tools
0:01:34 to be able to understand the
0:01:37 intricacies concerning the linguistic
0:01:40 and literary
0:01:41 features of the quranic discourse and
0:01:44 that's why it's extremely
0:01:45 important brothers and sisters for us to
0:01:48 be able to
0:01:50 speak about this argument but to do so
0:01:52 in a way
0:01:55 that we can con or at least we can
0:01:59 show the veracity of the quran without
0:02:02 the person requiring
0:02:04 any knowledge of the arabic language in
0:02:07 actual
0:02:08 fact it doesn't even require you to have
0:02:11 any knowledge of the arabic language and
0:02:12 i think this argument
0:02:14 is a powerful argument if one truly
0:02:16 understands it
0:02:17 and yes today it's going to be
0:02:19 conceptually heavy it's going to be what
0:02:21 you call
0:02:22 theo philosophically heavy
0:02:25 because we're going to be talking about
0:02:27 very important epistemological
0:02:30 stuff epistemological realities such as
0:02:33 the fundamental and indispensable nature
0:02:37 of testimony so we're going to unpack
0:02:40 the epistemology of testimony
0:02:42 and we're also going to be talking about
0:02:44 the inference to the best explanation
0:02:47 and when we when we understand
0:02:50 those areas carefully and we understand
0:02:53 them properly
0:02:54 when we apply them to the quran we'll be
0:02:58 able to make
0:02:59 the best inference the most rational
0:03:01 inference
0:03:02 which is that the quran could could have
0:03:05 only come from
0:03:06 allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but in order
0:03:08 for you to understand this properly you
0:03:10 have to take this intellectual journey
0:03:12 with me
0:03:13 and let's do it insha allah so
0:03:18 i got some slides here so what we're
0:03:21 going to be covering today
0:03:23 is really the epistemology of testimony
0:03:26 as i
0:03:27 just discussed and i think this is going
0:03:28 to be quite a paradigm shift for many of
0:03:31 you
0:03:31 is going to make you see knowledge in a
0:03:33 totally different way
0:03:34 we're going to talk about the inference
0:03:36 to the best explanation
0:03:38 and we're going to articulate an
0:03:41 argument for the veracity of the quran
0:03:43 we're going to articulate an argument
0:03:45 for why the quran is from allah in
0:03:48 using using the epistemology of
0:03:50 testimony and the inference to the best
0:03:52 explanation and we're going to apply it
0:03:55 to the inimitability of the quran and
0:03:58 don't worry if you don't know what
0:03:59 inimitability is we're going to explain
0:04:01 all of these key terms and concepts
0:04:03 um today inshallah so this is the
0:04:07 structure of the argument this is the
0:04:09 summary and we're going to unpack each
0:04:11 premise so don't worry if you don't know
0:04:13 what each premise means
0:04:14 don't worry if you don't believe that
0:04:16 the conclusion follows in any kind of
0:04:18 logical way
0:04:19 don't worry if you don't know certain
0:04:20 key terms such as you know what does
0:04:22 counter scholarly testimonies mean
0:04:25 what does inimitable mean what does
0:04:29 an arab mean i'm kidding you get the
0:04:31 point so if you don't know any
0:04:32 terminology don't worry my job today is
0:04:34 to unpack all of this for you
0:04:36 so don't be scared when i'm talking
0:04:37 about the argument now and summarizing
0:04:39 it and giving you the structure
0:04:41 because the job of myself insha'allah is
0:04:44 to unpack everything for you today
0:04:45 so this is the structure of the argument
0:04:48 number one
0:04:49 the quran presents a literary and
0:04:52 linguistic challenge to humanity
0:04:54 number two the seventh century arabs
0:04:57 were best
0:04:57 placed to challenge the quran number
0:05:00 three
0:05:01 the seventh century arabs failed to do
0:05:03 so number four
0:05:05 scholars have testified to the quran's
0:05:07 inimitability
0:05:09 number five counter scholarly
0:05:11 testimonies are not plausible
0:05:14 as they have to reject the established
0:05:16 background information
0:05:18 and what we mean by counter scholarly
0:05:20 testimonies
0:05:21 is some scholars some orientalists that
0:05:23 do not testify
0:05:25 to the inimitability of the quran
0:05:28 number six therefore from premise one to
0:05:31 five
0:05:32 the quran is inimitable and then we
0:05:34 continue
0:05:35 number seven the possible explanations
0:05:38 for the quran
0:05:39 and inimitability are authorship by an
0:05:41 arab
0:05:42 a non-arab muhammad salim or god
0:05:47 number eight it could not have been
0:05:48 produced by an arab
0:05:50 and non-arab or muhammad sallam
0:05:54 therefore the best explanation is that
0:05:56 it is from god
0:05:57 now what's very important to understand
0:05:59 here is each of these premises when we
0:06:01 unpack them
0:06:03 you have to understand brothers and
0:06:05 sisters that there's going to be
0:06:07 certain academic and popular objections
0:06:10 and we're going to be dealing with these
0:06:11 inshallah so don't worry we're here for
0:06:13 you today and ishala we're going to
0:06:14 unpack all of this
0:06:15 just be patient and patience is
0:06:17 extremely important when we're trying to
0:06:19 learn a new argument
0:06:20 and learn certain concepts or key ideas
0:06:24 and save your questions for the end i
0:06:26 know some questions are coming up
0:06:27 now but save it for the end and
0:06:30 inshallah i will be addressing your
0:06:31 questions
0:06:33 now before we unpack this further i
0:06:36 would like to say
0:06:37 that this argument has been referenced
0:06:40 it's been referenced
0:06:41 in the book that you can see here i've
0:06:43 got it with me i do advise you to buy it
0:06:46 it was translated and annotated
0:06:48 extensively by
0:06:49 our beloved brother and friend dr
0:06:51 safaruk chaudhary
0:06:53 it's a treatise on disputation and
0:06:55 argumentation
0:06:56 and he uses this argument that we've
0:06:58 developed alhamdulillah that actually
0:07:01 was taken from my book the divine
0:07:03 reality and in his book on page 74 and
0:07:06 75
0:07:07 he referenced this argument as a
0:07:10 argument with regards to using inference
0:07:13 to the best explanation
0:07:16 or rather he uses this argument to show
0:07:19 an example of let me just go through the
0:07:21 book right now just to be sure
0:07:23 he's given an example of
0:07:27 what is he giving an example of
0:07:32 yes inference to the best explanation i
0:07:35 believe that's what he's using
0:07:36 this as an example of
0:07:40 inshallah yes so there you go i just
0:07:44 wanted to
0:07:44 put that in there because you know an
0:07:46 established academic like doctor
0:07:47 suffered chowdhury
0:07:48 has referenced this argument and um yes
0:07:51 this is an argument from authority no
0:07:53 problem
0:07:54 but it's just there just to make you
0:07:55 understand that we're not just picking
0:07:56 this out from thin
0:07:57 air it has been reviewed to a certain
0:07:59 degree in actual fact
0:08:01 dr safruk chowdhury he
0:08:04 he actually helped me when i wrote an
0:08:06 essay the essay
0:08:07 or the chapter in my book but originally
0:08:10 was an essay
0:08:11 he actually helped me extensively when i
0:08:13 was dealing with
0:08:14 the contention with regards to which
0:08:17 we're going to discuss in a few moments
0:08:19 if you don't know what that's about
0:08:19 don't worry
0:08:20 so may allah bless him and grant him the
0:08:22 best in this life and
0:08:24 the life to come i mean so let's
0:08:26 continue
0:08:28 now the first thing we under we have to
0:08:30 understand is why are we articulating
0:08:31 this argument because
0:08:33 in the world when we try to
0:08:34 intellectually articulate a positive
0:08:36 case for islam
0:08:38 and in this case the quran we usually
0:08:40 say the quran is a linguistic and
0:08:42 literary miracle you know we reference
0:08:44 it in our pamphlets and our books and so
0:08:45 on and so forth
0:08:46 and we even may even have discussions
0:08:48 using arabic and using
0:08:50 examples of eloquence from the quran
0:08:52 using examples of
0:08:54 of a unique genre literature genre
0:08:57 using examples of a unique literature
0:08:59 reform using examples
0:09:01 of a supernatural
0:09:04 frequency of rhetorical devices and so
0:09:06 on and so forth
0:09:07 but all of this all of this is premised
0:09:10 on the idea that we have the tools to
0:09:12 access
0:09:13 the kind of linguistic literary arabic
0:09:16 technical stuff that we're talking about
0:09:18 right
0:09:18 like you know when we talk about things
0:09:20 like ill-tifact which is
0:09:22 you know grammatical shift or
0:09:24 referencing shifting
0:09:25 you know we have to actually know what
0:09:27 that's about and how it's used in a way
0:09:29 to enhance
0:09:31 the communicative effect of
0:09:34 the the the meaning portrayed by the
0:09:37 book of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but
0:09:38 you need knowledge of that and this is
0:09:40 very deep it's a science
0:09:42 in in in arabic in classical arabic
0:09:45 belera rhetoric eloquence it's a deep
0:09:48 science and
0:09:49 even arabs themselves don't have the
0:09:51 tools to understand this
0:09:52 so it's premised on the fact that you
0:09:54 know you have the tools or the person
0:09:57 you're talking to has the tools to even
0:09:59 understand what you're saying even if
0:10:00 they don't have the tools and they agree
0:10:02 with you
0:10:03 they have to trust you right they have
0:10:05 to actually
0:10:06 trust you that what you're saying is
0:10:07 true that this is the nature of the
0:10:09 arabic language this is how the arabic
0:10:11 language works
0:10:12 this is how the quran produces a
0:10:14 supernatural eloquence for example they
0:10:16 would have to actually believe
0:10:18 you not based on believe what you're
0:10:20 saying not based on for example any
0:10:22 technical expertise that they have
0:10:24 but just by virtue of the fact that they
0:10:25 just trusted you
0:10:27 so it's very important that we in the
0:10:29 hour that we create arguments that are
0:10:31 timeless
0:10:32 that absorbs if you like or transcends
0:10:35 any of the kind of key contentions
0:10:37 and key objections that may come today
0:10:40 or even tomorrow so you know when we say
0:10:44 the quran has supernatural eloquence the
0:10:46 quran's arabic is inimitable the quran
0:10:48 is the best expression of the arabic
0:10:50 language
0:10:50 well that is all premised on what an
0:10:53 assumption and that assumption is
0:10:55 do you know arabic right do you know
0:10:58 classical arabic
0:10:59 do you have the tools at your disposal
0:11:01 to understand what you're saying
0:11:02 or does the person that you're talking
0:11:04 to have the tools at their disposal
0:11:06 to understand what they're saying and
0:11:09 this is very very critical because this
0:11:11 assumption is actually assumption that
0:11:13 defeats the argument
0:11:15 because if you don't have the tools and
0:11:17 they don't have the tools which is
0:11:18 usually the case especially in the
0:11:20 english
0:11:20 western context then well you know
0:11:24 they just have to trust you but if they
0:11:26 have to trust you then it doesn't really
0:11:28 matter what you say
0:11:29 right so this is why it's very important
0:11:31 for us to
0:11:32 future proof the dollar for us to be
0:11:34 able to transcend some of the objections
0:11:36 that come up and first have more
0:11:38 robust robust arguments for the book of
0:11:41 allah
0:11:44 now so the background to this argument
0:11:46 is extremely important the concept that
0:11:48 we're going to be talking about now
0:11:49 before we formulate the argument before
0:11:51 we unpack the premises
0:11:53 is the epistemology of testimony and the
0:11:55 inference to the best explanation
0:11:56 however i really want to mention
0:11:58 something and brothers and sisters
0:11:59 please take this very seriously please
0:12:01 take it very seriously
0:12:03 the book of allah for me
0:12:07 the book of allah if someone is sincere
0:12:10 and they read the book of
0:12:12 allah that is enough i believe that
0:12:15 because the articulation of who allah is
0:12:19 the tawheed of allah the divine oneness
0:12:22 of allah
0:12:23 the oneness of his divinity the wonders
0:12:25 of his creative power the oneness of his
0:12:27 names and attributes
0:12:28 as articulated and expressed in the
0:12:30 quran
0:12:31 if one is sincere if one's fitra innate
0:12:35 disposition is not clouded
0:12:37 they will be able to appreciate the
0:12:40 truth of the quran
0:12:41 without a doubt they need to engage with
0:12:43 the quran we
0:12:44 and people and non-muslims need to
0:12:46 engage with the quran
0:12:48 in a way that is phenomenological
0:12:52 phenomenological meaning have an
0:12:54 experience with the book of allah
0:12:56 subhanallah
0:12:56 ta'ala read the meaning
0:13:00 read the meaning when when we understand
0:13:03 the virtues of reciting the quran
0:13:05 you have to understand that those
0:13:06 virtues were just were describing the
0:13:10 arabs
0:13:10 yani what i'm trying to say here is it
0:13:12 was talking to
0:13:13 the the primary audience which was the
0:13:16 sahaba they already knew arabic so
0:13:18 when we were talking about the virtues
0:13:20 or when the process was talking about
0:13:22 talking about the virtues of reciting
0:13:23 the quran
0:13:24 it was already assumed that they're
0:13:26 going to understand what they recite
0:13:28 so it's very important that we do tata
0:13:30 even allah says in the quran
0:13:34 on their hearts so from this perspective
0:13:36 we could mirror the meaning and the more
0:13:39 we do the more pondering we do our
0:13:40 hearts become unlocked
0:13:42 to receive the guidance and mercy of
0:13:44 allah
0:13:45 this is why brothers and sisters do not
0:13:48 underestimate the power of getting
0:13:50 people just to reflect on the quran
0:13:52 for yourself as a muslim but also
0:13:53 non-muslims if they are sincere
0:13:56 the fitra is not clouded the innate
0:13:58 disposition is not is not
0:13:59 is not clouded then what has to then
0:14:03 and they engage with the quran and they
0:14:04 do they ponder over the quran
0:14:06 inshallah this would be enough for them
0:14:08 because the quran really its main
0:14:10 message
0:14:10 was to announce allah to humanity that
0:14:12 he is worthy of worship
0:14:14 that he is worthy to be known to be
0:14:17 loved
0:14:18 to be obeyed and and to and for us to
0:14:21 direct
0:14:21 all of our internal and external acts of
0:14:24 worship
0:14:25 to allah alone so this is very important
0:14:28 i wanted to mention this because i don't
0:14:29 want i don't
0:14:30 want to you know create a narrative
0:14:32 where the quran has to be proven
0:14:34 philosophically in this way all the time
0:14:36 no not at all
0:14:37 please understand what i've just said so
0:14:40 let's go back to the essential
0:14:42 philosophical conceptual background that
0:14:45 we need to understand which is the
0:14:47 epistemology of testimony and the
0:14:48 influence of the best explanation
0:14:50 in actual fact these things are going to
0:14:52 be amazing tools for you
0:14:53 that you can apply in your intellectual
0:14:56 journey when you're dealing with
0:14:57 with other areas of knowledge especially
0:14:59 dealing with atheists and philosophical
0:15:01 naturalists
0:15:02 and all of these people who claim to
0:15:03 have some kind of truth claims which we
0:15:05 know
0:15:05 are actually false because their
0:15:07 understanding of philosophy and even
0:15:09 theo philosophy and theology
0:15:11 is extremely weak and is not founded on
0:15:14 anything from that perspective so let's
0:15:17 and that's why it's very important these
0:15:18 concepts are going to transcend today's
0:15:20 discussion
0:15:22 so the first thing we need to understand
0:15:23 is about testimony the epistemology of
0:15:26 testimony now
0:15:28 testimony is an indispensable and
0:15:30 fundamental source of knowledge okay
0:15:33 and when it comes to the epistemology of
0:15:35 testimony
0:15:36 which is really questioning
0:15:39 how does testimony yield evidence
0:15:43 is testimonial knowledge based on other
0:15:46 sources of knowledge
0:15:47 is testimony fundamental how do we
0:15:51 ensure that testimony
0:15:54 actually provides
0:15:57 knowledge what kind of other concepts or
0:16:01 ideas
0:16:02 or philosophical criteria must we have
0:16:05 in order to assess if testimony
0:16:09 constitutes knowledge if one's testimony
0:16:11 actually constitutes knowledge
0:16:13 and these are the kind of questions that
0:16:15 the the epistemologists of test
0:16:17 testimony if you like the
0:16:18 epistemologists those who study
0:16:20 knowledge
0:16:21 they ask these questions and what's very
0:16:24 interesting is
0:16:25 that in even western philosophy
0:16:28 testimony is actually one of the sources
0:16:30 of knowledge
0:16:32 and it's this is not controversial and
0:16:35 in the past 30 or 40 years has been a
0:16:37 revival
0:16:38 in the kind of epistemological
0:16:41 assessment
0:16:42 of testimony as a fundamental and
0:16:45 essential source of knowledge
0:16:46 now many people because we live in this
0:16:48 kind of you know metaphysical
0:16:50 naturalistic world and we live in the
0:16:51 age of science we're like testimony what
0:16:53 on earth is that about
0:16:54 i'm not going to just trust what
0:16:56 somebody says now that is a very shallow
0:16:58 response and when we discuss further
0:17:00 today you're going to really understand
0:17:01 that most of your knowledge and my
0:17:02 knowledge and even most of
0:17:04 the knowledge of a scientist is actually
0:17:06 not empirically founded
0:17:07 from the point of view that they
0:17:08 actually have to believe it believe in
0:17:10 it to be true
0:17:11 by virtue of testimonial transmission
0:17:14 because when you read a science book
0:17:15 you haven't done the experiment yourself
0:17:17 they've done it and they've testified
0:17:19 that they've done it
0:17:20 and you believe it no by virtue of you
0:17:21 doing the experiment but you believe it
0:17:23 by virtue of the testimony which is
0:17:25 in the ink and the paper of the
0:17:28 scientific book that you're actually
0:17:29 reading
0:17:31 so let's continue with this idea of
0:17:33 testimony so
0:17:34 professor benjamin mcmillan i think is
0:17:36 an associate professor
0:17:38 he provides a very beautiful summary of
0:17:40 testimonial knowledge
0:17:42 he says here are a few things that i
0:17:44 know
0:17:45 i know that the copperhead is the most
0:17:47 common venomous snake in the greater
0:17:49 houston area i know that napoleon lost
0:17:52 the battle of waterloo
0:17:54 i know that as i write the average price
0:17:56 for gasoline in the us
0:17:57 is 4.10 cents per gallon
0:18:00 all of these things i know on the basis
0:18:03 of what epistemologists call
0:18:05 testimony on the basis of being told of
0:18:07 them
0:18:08 by another person or group of persons
0:18:10 and a lot of the knowledge that we have
0:18:12 is actually
0:18:13 testimonial transmission and this is not
0:18:16 controversial at all
0:18:18 yes there are different criteria and
0:18:20 there's a there's a discussion
0:18:22 in the academic literature on what
0:18:24 constitutes valid
0:18:26 testimonial knowledge but that's not
0:18:28 really our discussion today our
0:18:29 discussion is to show that testimony
0:18:31 is a fundamental and valid source of
0:18:34 knowledge
0:18:34 once we understand this clearly then
0:18:36 we're able to move on
0:18:38 and we're able to understand this
0:18:39 argument properly insha allah
0:18:42 so as i said there's a discussion on
0:18:45 the validity of testimony and i'm going
0:18:47 to discuss briefly about this but the
0:18:49 first thing i want to really
0:18:51 really get you to understand is that
0:18:54 testimony is fundamental
0:18:55 so there was a discussion obviously a
0:18:58 lot of these type of discussions
0:18:59 are you know you could trace them back
0:19:01 to the scottish skeptic david hume
0:19:04 and he spoke about testimony and he
0:19:06 basically said that testimony is useful
0:19:09 so he didn't dismiss it he understood
0:19:12 its instrumental value
0:19:14 we can't dispense away with testimony
0:19:17 and he said testimony is very important
0:19:19 but we only accept testimonial
0:19:21 transmission we only accept it as
0:19:23 knowledge
0:19:24 if it's in line with our collective
0:19:27 experiences
0:19:28 now professor cody many hundred years
0:19:30 later he writes the book
0:19:32 uh testimony i think is called a
0:19:33 philosophical discussion of
0:19:36 philosophical study he and it was
0:19:38 published in 1991 i believe and it was a
0:19:40 it was a it was a landmark book
0:19:42 uh with regards to the discussions and
0:19:44 epistemology of testimony
0:19:46 he basically argues against david hume
0:19:48 he says hold on a second david hume
0:19:50 obviously he doesn't use those words but
0:19:51 i'm just
0:19:52 kind of uh trying to eloquently
0:19:54 summarize his point
0:19:55 he says hold on a second david hume
0:19:58 you agree that testimony is instrumental
0:20:01 you agree that it's very useful and
0:20:04 maybe necessary so
0:20:06 but you say we only accept it as a valid
0:20:08 form of knowledge if it's in line with
0:20:09 our collective experiences
0:20:11 so he turns the table and says how do
0:20:14 you know
0:20:15 what our collective experiences are
0:20:18 you haven't experienced other people's
0:20:20 experiences you haven't seen you haven't
0:20:22 done you haven't experienced the
0:20:24 experiences you haven't done the
0:20:26 scientific date or the empirical stuff
0:20:28 that they have done you have to
0:20:31 find out through their testimonial
0:20:33 transmission
0:20:34 so to understand collective experiences
0:20:37 you have to rely on testimony
0:20:39 which shows the fundamental nature of
0:20:41 testimony it's not just instrumental it
0:20:43 is fundamental
0:20:44 and this is a powerful argument he i
0:20:46 think he refutes david hume and
0:20:49 what's amazing here brothers and sisters
0:20:51 is now if someone says
0:20:53 or if david hume retorts and says well i
0:20:56 could just rely on my own experiences
0:20:58 ha but if you were to rely just on your
0:21:00 own experiences you won't have any
0:21:02 knowledge especially when you're talking
0:21:04 about today's type of knowledge in the
0:21:05 sciences
0:21:06 and in philosophy in mathematics you
0:21:09 can't do everything yourself you have to
0:21:11 rely
0:21:11 on other people's research and
0:21:13 investigation
0:21:14 right so i think professor cody really
0:21:18 shows
0:21:19 that testimony is a fundamental
0:21:23 and indispensable source of knowledge
0:21:25 now there is a discussion on what
0:21:27 constitutes
0:21:28 you know valid testimonial knowledge
0:21:31 because some testimony can be absolutely
0:21:32 wrong of course you know as you know you
0:21:34 know when
0:21:35 when a politician says something we're
0:21:37 not going to believe him just by virtue
0:21:38 of his testimony of course not because
0:21:40 usually politicians unfortunately
0:21:42 they lie so you know just because
0:21:45 someone's testimony is is usually not
0:21:49 true
0:21:49 or it's not founded on on reality
0:21:52 it doesn't mean that we throw the baby
0:21:54 out with the bath bomb because if we did
0:21:55 that with all sources of knowledge you
0:21:56 won't have any knowledge at all because
0:21:58 even experience and empirical data
0:22:00 we could misunderstand it or we could
0:22:02 have illusions for example
0:22:04 or it could be you know theory laden we
0:22:06 could presuppose
0:22:08 an idea onto the experience and it makes
0:22:12 us look at the experience in a way
0:22:13 that's not a representation of reality
0:22:15 so all sorts of knowledge have those
0:22:17 problems anyways you can't throw the
0:22:18 baby out with a bath or otherwise you'll
0:22:20 have no knowledge at all
0:22:21 so there hasn't been a discussion on the
0:22:24 kind of validity
0:22:25 of what kind of philosophical criteria
0:22:28 you have
0:22:29 uh in order to that you need in order to
0:22:33 understand what is valid testimonial
0:22:35 knowledge so dr elizabeth fricker she
0:22:37 makes a really good point
0:22:38 she says look we have to rely on experts
0:22:41 our limitations
0:22:43 you know we have cognitive limitations
0:22:45 epistemic limitations
0:22:47 we can't know everything we have to rely
0:22:50 on the authority of others and this is
0:22:52 quite interesting because when i had my
0:22:53 kind of
0:22:54 you know famous debate many years ago
0:22:56 with
0:22:57 professor lawrence krauss towards the
0:22:58 end we had a discussion
0:23:00 on this issue and i tried to expose that
0:23:02 he had an empirical presupposition
0:23:04 and that empirical presupposition was
0:23:06 what it was you know
0:23:08 all knowledge comes from experience and
0:23:10 i said this is not true
0:23:11 right this is this is a presupposition
0:23:13 that's unfounded and he said well what
0:23:15 other sources of knowledge
0:23:16 do you have and i said testimony then he
0:23:17 almost snicked at me and i said well and
0:23:19 he said i just do the science and i said
0:23:21 well do
0:23:22 this science and i said do you believe
0:23:25 in evolution
0:23:26 he said yes and i said have you done all
0:23:28 the science have you done all the
0:23:28 experiments yourself
0:23:30 he said no people started to laugh
0:23:32 because they exposed what
0:23:33 it exposed the reality that this vast
0:23:36 area of knowledge in science
0:23:37 you can't do everything yourself even if
0:23:41 the experiments are repeatable
0:23:44 that's still testimonial evidence
0:23:45 because you have to believe they're
0:23:46 repeatable by virtue of them saying it's
0:23:48 repeatable
0:23:49 you'll have to repeat yourself to
0:23:51 actually know it's repeatable but you
0:23:52 can't it's too much stuff going on in
0:23:54 this domain of knowledge
0:23:55 and this is why even the berkeley
0:23:57 website when it discusses science
0:23:59 it actually talks about the say-so or
0:24:01 the authority of
0:24:02 the the body of scientists other other
0:24:05 scientists there's a body of knowledge
0:24:07 going on
0:24:07 and you can only access that body of
0:24:09 knowledge by virtue of what by virtue of
0:24:12 the testimonial transmission not by
0:24:13 virtue of you actually doing that
0:24:15 science yourself
0:24:16 because it's practically impossible and
0:24:18 even epistemologically impossible
0:24:20 for you to do all the experiments in the
0:24:21 research yourself so testimony is so
0:24:24 significant
0:24:25 even in science pick up any science book
0:24:27 all the scientific facts that you have
0:24:29 just think about brothers and sisters
0:24:30 the scientific facts that you have
0:24:32 most of them are based on testimony not
0:24:34 empirical data
0:24:36 yes the book that you read claims it
0:24:38 came from research it came from
0:24:40 empirical data
0:24:41 but did you do it yourself no
0:24:44 you had to actually just believe the say
0:24:47 so
0:24:48 of the person who basically
0:24:51 uh wrote the book
0:24:54 now moving on from this you have other
0:24:56 discussions in the epistemology of
0:24:58 testimony by the way epistemology
0:25:00 epistemology for those who don't know
0:25:02 means
0:25:02 actually the study of knowledge so the
0:25:05 the epistemologist
0:25:06 someone who studies knowledge they
0:25:09 actually talk about
0:25:10 trust as you know a concern when it
0:25:13 comes to
0:25:14 valid testimonial knowledge and for
0:25:16 example professor
0:25:18 keith lehrer he basically discusses this
0:25:21 and he says that you know in order for
0:25:23 testimonial knowledge to be
0:25:24 valid we have to be trustworthy in our
0:25:28 assessments of the trustworthiness of
0:25:30 others allahu akbar what am i talking
0:25:32 about here what does this sound like to
0:25:33 you
0:25:34 they're talking about this what in 2006
0:25:38 we've been talking about this for over
0:25:39 1400 years right also
0:25:41 because this is actually articulating
0:25:43 maybe the philosophical basis for what
0:25:47 hadith the science of hadith right
0:25:49 because in the science of hadith
0:25:51 you know we we actually have developed
0:25:55 philosophical theo philosophical
0:25:56 criteria to understand if someone in the
0:25:58 in the snod which is the chain of
0:26:00 transmission if they're trustworthy or
0:26:02 not
0:26:02 what constitutes their trustworthiness
0:26:05 right
0:26:06 and so on and so forth so it's very
0:26:07 interesting that in 2006 because it's
0:26:09 been taken from
0:26:10 uh one of the essays from professor
0:26:12 keith lehrer i think he's an amaretto's
0:26:13 professor
0:26:14 and he talks about that we have to be
0:26:16 trustworthy in our assessments of the
0:26:18 trustworthiness of others
0:26:20 and also the person providing that
0:26:22 testimonial knowledge has to be
0:26:23 trustworthy
0:26:24 too sounds like animal hadith to me the
0:26:26 science of
0:26:27 prophetic narrations to me also
0:26:30 professor benjamin mcmilla he talks
0:26:32 about the right to referral
0:26:34 meaning that you know when someone is
0:26:36 expressing a test
0:26:37 testimonial knowledge he's his his he or
0:26:41 she
0:26:41 is is giving testimony to some knowledge
0:26:44 then there must there must be a right to
0:26:46 refer or meaning that the one who's
0:26:47 giving the testimonial transmission
0:26:49 they have to accept the responsibility
0:26:51 that someone could refer back to them
0:26:52 and say
0:26:53 let me question you further and the
0:26:55 audience themselves they have to accept
0:26:57 also a kind of epistemic responsibility
0:26:59 of responsibility to dr knowledge
0:27:02 in order to to question the person that
0:27:04 is
0:27:05 actually providing that testimonial
0:27:07 knowledge to say hey what do you mean by
0:27:08 that actually do you have evidence for
0:27:10 this can you explain this further
0:27:12 and i think that's what benjamin mcmilla
0:27:13 was actually trying to say which is very
0:27:16 interesting
0:27:16 now there's much more concerning the
0:27:19 testimony
0:27:20 of knowledge much much more it's not the
0:27:22 role of the webinar or the seminar today
0:27:25 to actually unpack this i've just given
0:27:27 you a little taster to understand
0:27:28 that there is a philosophical discussion
0:27:31 on
0:27:31 on what constitutes valid testimonial
0:27:34 knowledge
0:27:35 but our main issue here today is to show
0:27:36 that testimony is fundamental it's a
0:27:38 fundamental
0:27:39 and indispensable source of knowledge
0:27:42 brothers
0:27:43 and sisters now let me unpack this
0:27:46 further i want to give you three
0:27:48 key examples i think you're gonna love
0:27:49 this okay every time i do this when i
0:27:51 sit at universities
0:27:52 when i talk to students even academics
0:27:55 it's it's it's a bit of a laugh actually
0:27:56 because they
0:27:57 they realize that some key key aspects
0:28:00 of knowledge
0:28:01 is not based on on science it's based on
0:28:04 testimonial transmission so let me ask
0:28:06 you a question
0:28:07 is the world flat by the way before you
0:28:10 go crazy i don't believe the world is
0:28:12 flat okay i believe it's
0:28:13 it's spherical all right but let me ask
0:28:16 you a question is the word flat now many
0:28:18 of you may say of course it's not flat
0:28:20 it's spherical now let me ask you
0:28:22 another question
0:28:24 do you have any what's your proof
0:28:27 many of you may say well we have many
0:28:29 pictures that show that the world is
0:28:31 spherical
0:28:33 we have you know it says in the science
0:28:36 books
0:28:37 okay but those two answers
0:28:40 or those pieces of so-called evidence
0:28:42 they're not empirical
0:28:44 they're testimonial because a book is a
0:28:46 testimonial transmission
0:28:48 it's telling you you have to believe
0:28:50 what it says and the photographs
0:28:53 they're not empirical the testimonial
0:28:54 why yes you see an image it's empirical
0:28:57 but fundamentally this testimonial why
0:29:00 i tell you why because when someone
0:29:02 takes a picture of earth they have to
0:29:04 say to you
0:29:05 this is earth so you take
0:29:08 their testimony that this is earth and
0:29:09 you apply it to the picture
0:29:12 i don't care if there's millions of them
0:29:13 i don't care if there's billions of
0:29:14 those pictures on google the point is
0:29:16 fundamentally that evidence that the
0:29:20 world is
0:29:20 round or spherical by virtue of a
0:29:22 picture is not empirical
0:29:24 it's actually testimonial so
0:29:27 what are you guys going to say now many
0:29:29 of you haven't done
0:29:30 the mathematics many of you haven't you
0:29:33 know
0:29:33 done much of the science yourself you
0:29:35 know many of you haven't
0:29:36 gone in a rocket and actually launched
0:29:39 yourself
0:29:40 and actually seen in space the spherical
0:29:43 nature of the earth you haven't done
0:29:44 that yes other people have done that but
0:29:46 you haven't done that so you have to
0:29:47 believe what they said even if they took
0:29:49 a video of it
0:29:50 you still have to believe that that is
0:29:51 earth because one point in time when you
0:29:53 were developing as a child or a young
0:29:55 adult or whatever
0:29:56 they had to basically say this is earth
0:29:58 so that's a testimonial transmission of
0:30:00 being applied
0:30:02 to a picture so the fundamental
0:30:05 essence of this piece of knowledge is
0:30:07 actually testimonial not empirical
0:30:09 now many of you say well if you go on a
0:30:10 read a high mountain you can see the
0:30:11 curvature of the earth
0:30:12 well then again it doesn't mean it's
0:30:14 round maybe it's a flower
0:30:15 maybe it's a semicircle right the point
0:30:19 i'm trying to say here is
0:30:20 that you don't have many of us
0:30:23 at least maybe 80 90 of us we don't have
0:30:26 scientific
0:30:27 direct empirical evidence for the world
0:30:30 being around
0:30:33 right it's testimonial fundamentally
0:30:38 so you know we could unpack this more in
0:30:41 the q a but let me give another question
0:30:43 does japan exist does japan exist
0:30:48 how do you know japan exists many of you
0:30:50 gonna say yes of course it exists okay
0:30:53 now here's a caveat if you haven't been
0:30:55 there
0:30:56 right if you haven't been there
0:31:00 that you haven't experienced it
0:31:02 empirically if you're like
0:31:04 then how do you know it exists well
0:31:05 you're going to say it's on a map i've
0:31:07 met a japanese person before
0:31:09 before you know i've been learning
0:31:11 japanese but that doesn't mean
0:31:13 anything that's all fundamentally
0:31:14 testimonial knowledge because
0:31:16 someone's saying that they're japanese
0:31:18 you have to believe them that they're
0:31:19 japanese
0:31:21 right you know i say to you i'm greek
0:31:23 i'm ethnically greek
0:31:26 i'm british but ethnically greek my
0:31:28 mom's from cyprus my dad's from greece
0:31:30 so i'm ethnic she's greek cypriot my mom
0:31:32 so i'm ethnically greek right
0:31:36 is that empirical evidence no you have
0:31:38 to believe what i said it's it's it's
0:31:39 it's testimonial transmission
0:31:41 many of you won't even believe me anyway
0:31:42 you probably think i look arab or
0:31:44 persian or pakistani right
0:31:45 so there you go so the here the point
0:31:48 here is see
0:31:49 meeting someone who's japanese is not
0:31:50 proof that japan exists from an
0:31:52 empirical point of view it's proved from
0:31:54 a testimonial point of view it's
0:31:55 testimonial
0:31:56 knowledge i'm not dismissing it it's
0:31:57 valid and fundamental but that's why i'm
0:31:58 trying to
0:31:59 show you today even if you look at
0:32:01 things in a map
0:32:02 even if you look at videos of
0:32:04 documentaries and books on history and
0:32:05 you have a library of japanese
0:32:07 cultural studies or whatever the case
0:32:09 may be or you eat lots of sushi and they
0:32:11 say this is a japanese
0:32:12 culture dish that's all testimonial
0:32:15 knowledge because someone told you
0:32:17 right in actual fact even if you went to
0:32:19 japan itself and you went on a plane it
0:32:21 says going to japan you arrive in tokyo
0:32:23 that's still all testimonial really
0:32:26 because
0:32:28 you just have to believe them isn't it
0:32:30 you have to believe that yes you're
0:32:31 you're in japan now
0:32:32 you have to believe them yes that the
0:32:34 people you're speaking to are actually
0:32:35 japanese and they're in this area
0:32:37 that looks like the picture that you're
0:32:39 looking at right now
0:32:41 so it's fundamentally testimonial but in
0:32:44 essence if you've never been there
0:32:45 before
0:32:46 all your evidence that japan exists is
0:32:49 actually testimonial fundamentally even
0:32:51 if you have pictures even you have
0:32:52 videos
0:32:53 again just like the earth being
0:32:55 spherical it's testimonial transmission
0:32:57 because someone has to say
0:32:58 this to you they have to say well we're
0:33:00 in japan right now or this person's
0:33:02 japanese
0:33:03 or what i'm speaking to you is actually
0:33:04 japanese or
0:33:06 uh um this food that you're eating is
0:33:08 called sushi and it's from japan
0:33:10 you know this is testimonial
0:33:12 transmission
0:33:14 right hopefully this is you're going to
0:33:16 understand this now
0:33:18 this one's very powerful brothers and
0:33:20 sisters i'm telling you this one is what
0:33:21 i would call a
0:33:22 smackdown right
0:33:25 a smackdown okay so
0:33:29 this is a smackdown brothers and sisters
0:33:32 how do you know right how do you know
0:33:35 how to pronounce this word that you see
0:33:36 on the screen right now
0:33:38 how do you know how to pronounce love
0:33:40 tell me
0:33:42 how do you know how to pronounce love
0:33:48 why do we say love and we don't say love
0:33:52 why do we say love and we don't say love
0:33:56 e why do we say love and we don't say
0:33:59 lo vi right
0:34:03 why do we say love and we don't say love
0:34:05 and we just have the e
0:34:07 as silent right
0:34:10 why do we do that tell me
0:34:15 the pronunciation the correct
0:34:17 pronunciation of the word love
0:34:19 is through testimonial transmission
0:34:22 there is no empirical reality other than
0:34:26 testimonial transmission so there's no
0:34:28 empirical reality all you have is
0:34:29 testimonial transmission to understand
0:34:31 how to pronounce words
0:34:32 now you may argue no hamza you know in
0:34:34 these special dictionaries
0:34:36 you have the word and you have these
0:34:37 symbols these international type of
0:34:39 symbols that teach you how to pronounce
0:34:40 those words
0:34:41 hold on a second what came first the
0:34:43 pronunciation of the book
0:34:45 that tells you how to pronounce it was
0:34:47 the pronunciation
0:34:48 that didn't you do you know we weren't
0:34:50 revealed from the skies
0:34:51 a book on how to pronounce words in
0:34:54 certain languages
0:34:55 and then we used that and then started
0:34:56 to pronounce the words correctly that
0:34:58 wasn't the case
0:34:59 we learned how to use how to pronounce
0:35:01 words in any language
0:35:03 through testosterone testimonial
0:35:04 transmission so if you deny
0:35:07 testimonial transmission it's
0:35:08 fundamental indispensable nature
0:35:11 u is tantamount equivalent
0:35:13 philosophically logically equivalent
0:35:15 of rejecting
0:35:18 all known languages it's very powerful
0:35:23 so that's testimony brother brothers and
0:35:26 sisters now there's some important
0:35:27 distinctions we have to make
0:35:29 we know in academia there is a
0:35:31 difference between testimonial
0:35:32 transmission of narratives and knowledge
0:35:34 and eyewitness testimonies because
0:35:36 eyewitness testimonies
0:35:37 according to according to research
0:35:41 you know they do suffer with regards to
0:35:44 um you know the testimonial transmission
0:35:47 of a particular event that happened
0:35:49 and you know some of them suffered due
0:35:51 to due to people's imperfect short-term
0:35:53 memories
0:35:54 the psychological influence and so on
0:35:56 and so forth as i write in my book here
0:35:58 eyewitness testimony may suffer due to
0:36:00 our imperfect short-term memories and
0:36:02 the psychological influences and
0:36:03 constraints
0:36:04 on recalling the sequence of a
0:36:06 particular event
0:36:08 the testimony of knowledge ideas or
0:36:10 concepts does not suffer from such
0:36:12 issues because the acquisition of
0:36:14 knowledge is usually a result of
0:36:15 repetition
0:36:16 a relatively longer duration
0:36:18 internalization and study
0:36:19 so it's an important distinction to make
0:36:21 between transmission of narratives and
0:36:24 knowledge
0:36:24 and actually eyewitness testimony as
0:36:27 well
0:36:28 but then again this doesn't mean that
0:36:29 eyewitness testimony
0:36:31 is is not valid there could be some
0:36:33 criteria in place to ensure
0:36:35 especially especially if it's multiple
0:36:38 eyewitness testimony that is actually
0:36:41 uh true and you know what's really
0:36:43 interesting david hume
0:36:45 who was who was
0:36:49 a skeptic right he actually argues
0:36:52 you know when he argued argues against
0:36:54 miracles because
0:36:55 traditionally miracles were only proved
0:36:57 by testimony
0:36:59 he said in actual fact you can believe
0:37:01 in miracles
0:37:02 if there's something called something
0:37:04 called uh recurrent reporting mass
0:37:06 testimonial transmission overnight went
0:37:09 over
0:37:10 over an event that many people witnessed
0:37:12 and i went at a particular event
0:37:13 and there are so many of those people
0:37:15 and they didn't meet and they kind of
0:37:17 came from different places and times or
0:37:18 something like that
0:37:19 that you have to believe in what they
0:37:20 say to be true and this is very
0:37:22 interesting because david hume was
0:37:23 actually
0:37:24 talking about what we understand in the
0:37:25 islamic intellectual tradition
0:37:27 as the mutawatyrat or muttawater
0:37:30 or tawator mass recurrent reporting
0:37:33 because
0:37:34 you know a or hadith or something that
0:37:36 is mutha water
0:37:38 you know there's there's no there's no
0:37:40 doubt about that testimonial
0:37:41 transmission
0:37:42 right because it came from different
0:37:44 places uh
0:37:46 rather it came from people that came
0:37:47 from different places at different times
0:37:50 and many of these people never never met
0:37:51 each other but when you go down the test
0:37:53 testimonial transmissions
0:37:54 they all say the same thing or they all
0:37:56 witness the same thing it's impossible
0:37:59 to say that they actually uh you know
0:38:01 conjured up some kind of massive
0:38:03 conspiracy
0:38:05 in order to uh you know come up with
0:38:08 with a certain claim and david hume look
0:38:10 what he says
0:38:11 look what he says he says the following
0:38:14 i beg the limitations here
0:38:15 may made me remarked when i say that a
0:38:18 miracle
0:38:20 can never be proved so as to be the
0:38:22 foundation of a system of religion
0:38:24 for i own that otherwise there may
0:38:26 possibly be miracles
0:38:28 or violations of the usual course of
0:38:30 nature
0:38:31 of such a kind as to admit a of proof
0:38:34 from human testimony
0:38:36 though perhaps it would be impossible to
0:38:38 find such
0:38:39 in all records of history thus suppose
0:38:43 all authors in all languages agree
0:38:46 that from the 1st of january 1600 there
0:38:49 was a total darkness over the whole
0:38:51 earth for eight days
0:38:53 suppose that the tradition of this
0:38:55 extraordinary event is still strong and
0:38:57 lively among the people
0:38:59 that all travelers who return from
0:39:01 foreign countries bring us
0:39:02 accounts of the same tradition without
0:39:05 the least variation of contradiction
0:39:07 it is evident that our present
0:39:09 philosophers
0:39:10 instead of doubting the fact ought to
0:39:12 receive it a certain
0:39:14 it's very interesting that many of these
0:39:16 atheists who quote hume to reject
0:39:17 miracles
0:39:18 don't read further down and see what he
0:39:21 said about mass transmission
0:39:22 he's saying if there's this type of mass
0:39:24 transmission and there's no difference
0:39:26 in the eyewitness testimony
0:39:27 then we have to believe in what they
0:39:29 said is true and what's very interesting
0:39:31 he said we didn't have an example
0:39:33 well he doesn't know about the quran
0:39:35 because the quran is a tawatur it's
0:39:37 it's based on the mutawwatirat it's
0:39:39 based on the mass
0:39:40 transmission of our scholars and the
0:39:43 sahaba
0:39:43 and the muslim community just like
0:39:47 the way we pronounce words like the word
0:39:49 love has come down to us by this mass
0:39:52 reporting this mass transmission i know
0:39:54 this is a bit of a sight
0:39:55 uh topic but i thought it was important
0:39:57 to discuss
0:39:58 another important distinction to make is
0:40:00 just because that testimony can be wrong
0:40:03 you don't throw the baby out with the
0:40:04 bath wall as we discussed earlier
0:40:06 because even empirical data or
0:40:07 experience could be wrong
0:40:09 and we've known this this is well known
0:40:11 in the philosophy of science this is
0:40:12 well known in
0:40:13 you know in metaphysics when you're
0:40:15 studying empiricism and so on and so
0:40:16 forth
0:40:17 so just because testimony can be wrong
0:40:20 you don't you don't now say it's not a
0:40:22 fundamental source of knowledge now what
0:40:23 you discussed now
0:40:25 is well what constitutes valid
0:40:26 testimonial knowledge
0:40:45 so it's very important for you to
0:40:47 understand as well brothers and sisters
0:40:51 so brothers and sisters let's now
0:40:56 let's now talk about
0:41:00 inference to the best explanation now
0:41:02 brothers and sisters
0:41:03 inference of the best explanation is
0:41:05 what you call
0:41:07 an invaluable way of thinking right it
0:41:09 involves
0:41:10 trying to clearly explain a particular
0:41:12 set of data or background knowledge
0:41:15 and the way to understand this really
0:41:17 well is
0:41:18 a medical diagnosis if you go for
0:41:20 example to a doctor
0:41:22 and you give the doctor your symptoms
0:41:24 they have the background medical
0:41:26 medical academic study the background
0:41:29 medical experiences
0:41:31 the background medical knowledge they
0:41:33 look at the data
0:41:34 which is your symptoms and they
0:41:36 basically
0:41:37 give you the best explanation that
0:41:40 explains your symptoms
0:41:42 what the doctor is basically doing is
0:41:44 inference to the best explanation
0:41:46 they're saying right there are all these
0:41:48 symptoms based on my background
0:41:49 experience
0:41:50 based on my medical knowledge based on
0:41:52 my academic
0:41:53 uh medical academic background
0:41:56 i think there are four possible
0:41:58 explanations then i'm assessing these
0:42:00 explanations and i pick one of them
0:42:02 because this explanation
0:42:04 best explains your symptoms this
0:42:06 explanation
0:42:08 is more comprehensive this explanation
0:42:10 has explanatory sculpting
0:42:12 explains all of your symptoms and he
0:42:14 explains your medical history
0:42:16 as well so what the doctor is actually
0:42:17 doing here is something called
0:42:19 inference to the best explanation um
0:42:23 peter lipton who wrote the book
0:42:25 inference to the best explanation
0:42:27 actually summarizes this and he says the
0:42:29 doctor
0:42:30 infers that his patients patient has
0:42:33 measles since this is the best
0:42:35 explanation of the evidence before him
0:42:37 and then he continues with other sources
0:42:39 of knowledge he says the astronomer
0:42:41 infers the existence of the motion of
0:42:43 neptune
0:42:44 since that is the best explanation of
0:42:46 the observed
0:42:47 perturbations of uranus given our data
0:42:50 and our background beliefs
0:42:52 we infer what would if true provide this
0:42:55 best of the competing explanations we
0:42:58 can generate
0:42:59 of those data and yes there is a
0:43:01 philosophical discussion on
0:43:03 what explanations are the best
0:43:05 explanation out of
0:43:06 a competing set of explanations and
0:43:09 there's this discussion on simplicity
0:43:12 and comprehensiveness and we don't have
0:43:14 to go too much into it because
0:43:16 you know we already understand that
0:43:18 inference to the best explanation is a
0:43:19 valid
0:43:20 way of thinking but just to be a little
0:43:23 bit academically
0:43:24 nuanced from that perspective and i'll
0:43:26 read from my book here
0:43:29 you know when we talk about inference to
0:43:31 the best explanation as with most things
0:43:33 we can have competing explanations for
0:43:35 the data at our disposal
0:43:37 what filters these explanations it's not
0:43:39 only the plausibility
0:43:41 but the ability of other pieces of data
0:43:43 that could help us discriminate between
0:43:45 them and
0:43:46 lipton explains we begin by considering
0:43:48 plausible
0:43:50 candidate explanations and then try to
0:43:51 find data that discriminate between them
0:43:54 an inference may be defeated when
0:43:55 someone suggests a better
0:43:57 alternative explanation even though the
0:43:59 evidence doesn't change
0:44:01 now the accessibility to additional data
0:44:03 is not the only way to
0:44:05 to access which of the competing
0:44:07 explanations is most com
0:44:08 most convincing the best explanation is
0:44:10 one that is
0:44:11 the simplest simplicity however is just
0:44:13 the beginning
0:44:14 as there must be a careful balance
0:44:16 between simplicity and comprehensiveness
0:44:18 comprehensiveness entails that an
0:44:20 explanation must have explanatory
0:44:22 power and scope the explanation must
0:44:24 account for all of the data
0:44:26 including disparate or unique
0:44:28 observations
0:44:29 now another criterion to assess the
0:44:31 comprehensiveness
0:44:32 of an explanation includes explaining
0:44:34 data or observations that were
0:44:36 previously unknown
0:44:37 unexpected or inexplicable an important
0:44:40 principle in assessing the best
0:44:42 explanation
0:44:43 is that it is most likely to be true
0:44:45 compared to competing explanations
0:44:48 given our background knowledge and you
0:44:50 also have the
0:44:51 the academic philosopher from princeton
0:44:54 university gilbert h harman
0:44:56 he assesses this as well now
0:45:00 the point here is i just wanted to
0:45:02 explain
0:45:03 that inference to the explanation is
0:45:04 actually a valid form
0:45:06 of thinking now what's very interesting
0:45:08 is this is that we use it all the time
0:45:10 say you're a mother and you told your
0:45:12 seven-year-old cheeky son
0:45:13 not to have any biscuits and you go
0:45:16 upstairs i don't know to send an email
0:45:18 to someone from your desktop
0:45:20 and your son goes to the kitchen opens
0:45:22 uh
0:45:23 the the cupboard takes a cookie jar or a
0:45:26 biscuit jar
0:45:27 he eats all the biscuits then he's
0:45:28 soulful he falls asleep on the couch
0:45:31 now the jar is empty but you see crumbs
0:45:33 all over his face now when you go
0:45:35 downstairs to see what he's doing
0:45:37 would you conclude you don't conclude
0:45:39 that somehow miraculously
0:45:41 the cookie jar the or or the biscuit jar
0:45:45 came out of the cupboard and and someone
0:45:47 took the cookies and someone crumbled
0:45:49 them over your son's face of course not
0:45:51 you're gonna infer the best explanation
0:45:54 given the background data of your son
0:45:56 and his cheekiness throughout his seven
0:45:58 years of living
0:46:00 and given the fact that he loves
0:46:01 biscuits and he already told him not to
0:46:03 have them because sometimes he's very
0:46:04 cheeky and he wants to have those
0:46:05 biscuits
0:46:06 and given the fact that he's done this
0:46:08 before and given the fact that he has
0:46:10 crumbs all over his face and the biscuit
0:46:12 dries right next to him
0:46:13 then obviously the best explanation the
0:46:16 inference to the best explanation is
0:46:17 what
0:46:19 he ate them right so we use this in our
0:46:22 day-to-day lives
0:46:23 we use this in medicine we use this
0:46:25 everywhere
0:46:26 we use his brothers and sisters
0:46:27 especially in science
0:46:29 as well so let's continue
0:46:32 let's now formulate the argument if you
0:46:35 remember brothers and sisters
0:46:36 we formulated the argument we we
0:46:40 we gave you the premises and now it's
0:46:42 about unpacking the premises so let me
0:46:44 give you the premises again
0:46:46 number one the quran presents a literary
0:46:48 linguistic challenge to humanity
0:46:50 number two the seventh century arabs
0:46:52 were best placed to challenge the quran
0:46:54 number three the seventh century
0:46:55 absolute to do so
0:46:57 number four scholars have testified to
0:46:59 the quran's inimitability
0:47:01 number five count scholarly testimonies
0:47:03 are not plausible as they have to reject
0:47:05 the established
0:47:06 background information which is
0:47:07 important concerning inference to the
0:47:09 best explanation
0:47:10 number six from one to five the quran is
0:47:13 inimitable
0:47:14 number seven the possible explanations
0:47:16 for the quran's inimitability are
0:47:18 authorship by an arab and non-arab
0:47:19 muhammad salem or god
0:47:21 number eight it could not it could have
0:47:23 not been produced by an arab
0:47:24 and non-arab or muhammad sallam
0:47:28 number nine the conclusion therefore the
0:47:30 best explanation
0:47:31 is that it is from god so now we're
0:47:34 gonna unpack
0:47:35 all of these premises together brothers
0:47:38 and
0:47:38 sisters in sha allah so the first
0:47:41 premise
0:47:41 the quran presents a literary and
0:47:43 linguistic challenge to humanity and by
0:47:45 the way when we unpack all of these
0:47:46 premises
0:47:47 we're not going to need to know any
0:47:49 anything about the arabic language and
0:47:51 the way we articulate to people they
0:47:52 won't need to know anything about the
0:47:54 arabic language too
0:47:55 because we've spoken about testimony as
0:47:57 background information we've spoken
0:47:58 about inference to the best explanation
0:48:00 and we're gonna now expand and unpack
0:48:02 some of these premises
0:48:03 and premise number one is the quran's
0:48:06 the quran presents a literary
0:48:07 and linguistic challenge to humanity
0:48:10 this is true you can read it in any
0:48:12 language
0:48:12 the quran chapter 3 verse 23 so the
0:48:15 quran chapter 2 verse 23 allah says
0:48:18 if you have doubts about the revelation
0:48:20 we have sent down to our servant
0:48:22 referring to the prophet muhammad
0:48:25 then produce a single chapter like it
0:48:27 and list whatever supporters you have
0:48:29 other than allah other than god
0:48:31 in kuntum if you are truthful in your
0:48:34 claim
0:48:34 okay so this is the challenge and if you
0:48:37 go to
0:48:38 the the tafasir if you go to the
0:48:40 multiple
0:48:41 exegesis concerning this verse and
0:48:44 there's lots of discussion on this verse
0:48:46 and other verses similar to it you know
0:48:48 you have a suyuti
0:48:49 you have ibn ketir you have to be and
0:48:53 and and so on and so forth they have a
0:48:56 discussion
0:48:56 and they talk about there is something
0:48:58 special about the literature
0:49:00 and linguistic features of the quranic
0:49:02 discourse but yes they mention other
0:49:03 things too
0:49:04 and there are other opinions but they do
0:49:06 mention that there is this
0:49:07 literary intellectual challenge because
0:49:10 the quran was sent down
0:49:11 to a populist to the 7th century arabs
0:49:14 where they had the peak of eloquence
0:49:16 they were the masters ticketing
0:49:18 themselves articulating themselves in
0:49:20 the arabic
0:49:20 language and the quran came to challenge
0:49:23 them in order to show
0:49:25 the quran is from the divine so we have
0:49:28 a literary linguistic challenge that the
0:49:31 quran
0:49:32 presents now this opens a kind of kind
0:49:35 of theological or theo philosophical
0:49:38 development of the inimitability of the
0:49:41 quran or as
0:49:42 is known in the arabic language as uh
0:49:45 the quran the jazz the miraculous
0:49:48 nature of the quranic discourse and what
0:49:52 this basically means is that no one is
0:49:53 able to
0:49:54 imitate or to match the quran's
0:49:56 linguistic
0:49:57 and literary features that's what it
0:49:58 means when we say the inimitability of
0:50:00 the quran
0:50:01 that no one can match or imitate the
0:50:04 quran's literary or linguistic features
0:50:07 now the word jazz is a verbal noun that
0:50:09 means miraculousness and
0:50:12 it comes from the verb which means to
0:50:15 render incapable or to make
0:50:17 helpless you understand here the jazz
0:50:19 the jazz of the quran
0:50:21 the fact that people try to imitate the
0:50:23 quran they they are rendered and capable
0:50:25 they are incapacitated
0:50:26 and they they are they are made helpless
0:50:29 they cannot
0:50:30 match the beauty and the linguistic and
0:50:33 and
0:50:34 literary features of the quranic
0:50:35 discourse now
0:50:39 the kind of linguistic understanding of
0:50:41 jazz you know makes us understand the
0:50:43 kind of theological doctrine
0:50:45 of the inimitability of the quran of the
0:50:47 elijah of the quran
0:50:48 and this was based on the idea that the
0:50:50 linguists or the arab linguists of the
0:50:52 seventh century arabia
0:50:53 the the period of revelation they were
0:50:56 masters
0:50:56 are expressing themselves in the in the
0:50:58 arabic language
0:51:00 and basically what this challenge is
0:51:03 is that the quran came to challenge the
0:51:05 masters
0:51:06 of the arabic language those who reached
0:51:09 the peak
0:51:10 of the language of expressing themselves
0:51:12 in the arabic tongue
0:51:13 the peak of they reached the peak of
0:51:15 eloquence and the quran came
0:51:16 and basically dumbfounded them
0:51:19 incapacitated them
0:51:21 made them helpless and incapable to
0:51:23 produce anything
0:51:24 like the book of allah subhanahu wa
0:51:26 ta'ala now
0:51:28 so yuti the prolific 15th century writer
0:51:31 and scholar he summarizes this doctrine
0:51:33 of the ijazal quran in the following way
0:51:36 he says
0:51:37 when the prophet sallam brought the
0:51:39 challenge to them
0:51:40 and they were the most eloquent
0:51:42 rhetoricians so he challenged them to
0:51:45 to produce the entire likes of the quran
0:51:47 and many years passed and they were
0:51:49 unable to do so
0:51:50 as god says let them then produce a
0:51:52 recitation similar to it
0:51:54 if indeed they are truthful then the
0:51:56 prophet challenged them to produce 10
0:51:58 chapters like it
0:51:59 where god says say bring say bring 10
0:52:02 chapters like it
0:52:03 and call upon whom who met whomever you
0:52:06 can besides god
0:52:07 if you are truthful then he challenged
0:52:10 them to produce a single chapter where
0:52:12 god says
0:52:13 or do they say he in other words the
0:52:14 prophet saslam has forged it
0:52:16 say bring a chapter like it and call
0:52:18 upon whomever you can besides god
0:52:20 if you are truthful and then suti
0:52:22 continues when the arabs were unable to
0:52:25 produce a single chapter like it the
0:52:26 quran
0:52:27 despite their being the most they they
0:52:30 being the most eloquent reterritions
0:52:32 amongst them
0:52:33 the prophet sallam openly announced a
0:52:35 failure in in
0:52:36 inability to meet the challenge and
0:52:38 declared the inimitability of the quran
0:52:41 then god said say if all of humankind
0:52:44 and the jinn gathered together to
0:52:45 produce the like of the quran
0:52:47 they could not produce it even if they
0:52:49 help
0:52:50 one another and this brothers and
0:52:52 sisters is
0:52:53 a summary of the doctrine of their jazz
0:52:56 of the quran and yes i do
0:52:57 understand their differences of opinion
0:53:00 concerning
0:53:01 what type of challenges this is what
0:53:03 this is what is the nature of the
0:53:04 challenge
0:53:05 what is the linguistic and literary
0:53:07 features that this challenge refers to
0:53:09 but this is not needing our discussion
0:53:11 today because remember
0:53:12 we don't need to know anything about the
0:53:14 arabic language you're going to
0:53:15 understand
0:53:16 further why that's the case so
0:53:19 i think we have substantiated the first
0:53:22 the first premise brothers and sisters
0:53:24 that the quran provides a challenge to
0:53:26 humanity a challenge
0:53:28 to the 7th century arabs who reached the
0:53:30 peak of eloquence
0:53:31 the quran provides a literary and
0:53:34 linguistic challenge
0:53:35 so the second premise is very important
0:53:37 to understand the second premise is
0:53:39 the seventh century arabs were best
0:53:40 placed to challenge the quran
0:53:43 now this is so true because when you
0:53:44 study the seventh century arabs
0:53:47 you see that they reached the peak of
0:53:48 eloquence this is affirmed by
0:53:50 western and eastern scholarship they
0:53:52 lived in a social cultural environment
0:53:55 that had all the right conditions to
0:53:57 facilitate the unparalleled expertise in
0:53:59 the use of the arabic language
0:54:01 you know for you to study poetry you
0:54:03 didn't go to university for just three
0:54:05 years
0:54:05 you stayed with a poetic master for 10
0:54:08 years
0:54:09 sometimes in the mountains you
0:54:11 internalized yourself
0:54:12 in these rhetorical sciences you
0:54:14 internalized
0:54:16 these kind of this ability to produce
0:54:19 you know
0:54:20 superior eloquence to anybody else and
0:54:23 what's very interesting
0:54:24 from a social political perspective that
0:54:26 that that
0:54:27 a poet was could start a war and could
0:54:30 end
0:54:30 a war you know they were seen as the
0:54:32 extremely
0:54:34 important uh features of
0:54:37 you know society it's extremely
0:54:39 important you know
0:54:40 people in society you know the scholar
0:54:43 usmani
0:54:44 may allah preserve him he he asserts
0:54:46 that for the 7th century arab
0:54:48 eloquence and rhetoric were their
0:54:50 lifeblood
0:54:52 also the 9th century biographer of
0:54:55 the poets he says
0:54:58 verse was to the arabs the register or
0:55:01 they knew
0:55:01 and the utmost compass of their wisdom
0:55:04 with it they began their affairs
0:55:06 and with it they ended them you have the
0:55:09 14th century scholarly
0:55:11 he highlights the importance of poetry
0:55:13 in arab life
0:55:14 he says it should be known that arabs
0:55:17 fought highly of poetry as form of
0:55:19 as a form of speech they made it in they
0:55:22 made it
0:55:22 in they made it to the archives of the
0:55:24 history the evidence for they considered
0:55:26 right and wrong
0:55:27 and the principle basis of reference for
0:55:29 most of their sciences and wisdom
0:55:31 also you have the linguist that also the
0:55:33 linguistic ability and expertise
0:55:35 of the 7th century arab is highlighted
0:55:37 by the literary critic and historian
0:55:39 ibn rashid he illustrates the following
0:55:42 he says whenever a poet emerged in an
0:55:45 arab tribe
0:55:46 other tribes will come to congratulate
0:55:49 feasts
0:55:49 feasts will be prepared the women would
0:55:51 join together on loots as they do
0:55:53 as at weddings and old and young men
0:55:56 would all rejoice at the good news
0:55:58 the arabs used to congratulate each
0:56:00 other only on the birth of a child
0:56:03 and when a poet rose amongst them
0:56:06 and there's so much more evidences
0:56:08 brothers and sisters to show
0:56:09 and to talk about the importance of a
0:56:12 language in seventh century arabia there
0:56:15 was a socialization
0:56:17 from that perspective you know the ninth
0:56:19 century scholar ibn qutaba
0:56:21 he defined poetry as the arab soy he
0:56:24 says
0:56:24 the mind of the ara the knowledge of the
0:56:27 arabs the book of the wisdom the
0:56:29 truthful witness on the day of dispute
0:56:31 the final proof at the time of argument
0:56:34 also
0:56:34 nabeed karmani who is an academic and an
0:56:38 expert in islamic studies
0:56:39 he explains that the 7th century arab
0:56:41 lived in a world that revered poetry
0:56:43 there was the correct kind of
0:56:45 socialization and environment for this
0:56:47 he says old arabic poetry is a highly
0:56:50 complex phenomenon
0:56:51 the vocabulary grammatical indie
0:56:54 idiosyncrasies
0:56:55 and strict norms were passed down from
0:56:58 generation to generation
0:56:59 and only the most gifted students fully
0:57:02 mastered the language
0:57:03 a person had to study for years
0:57:05 sometimes even decades under a master
0:57:08 poet
0:57:09 before laying claim to the title of poet
0:57:11 muhammad sallam grew up in a world
0:57:13 which almost religiously revered poetic
0:57:18 expression so i think we can say
0:57:21 just from the basic evidence that we've
0:57:23 given you there's much more
0:57:24 and the references are there for you to
0:57:26 to to access
0:57:28 that the seven series since seventh
0:57:31 century arab
0:57:32 was the best at expressing themselves in
0:57:35 the arabic language this is well known
0:57:37 based on eastern and western scholarship
0:57:40 so now we can move to the third premise
0:57:42 the third premise is
0:57:43 the the seventh century arabs failed to
0:57:45 do so
0:57:46 now this is very interesting because we
0:57:48 know that we're incapacitated
0:57:50 okay so for instance linguistic expert
0:57:53 professor hussein abdullah if he asserts
0:57:54 the following he says the arabs
0:57:56 at the time had reached the linguistic
0:57:58 peak in terms of linguistic competence
0:58:00 in sciences
0:58:01 rhetoric oratory oratory and poetry
0:58:05 no one however has been able to produce
0:58:07 a single chapter similar to that of the
0:58:09 quran
0:58:10 even professor of quranic studies
0:58:11 angelica knew worth
0:58:14 argued that the quran has never been
0:58:15 successfully challenged by anyone past
0:58:17 or present
0:58:18 she says no one has succeeded that is
0:58:21 this is right i really think that the
0:58:22 quran has even brought western
0:58:24 researchers embarrassment
0:58:25 who weren't able to clarify how suddenly
0:58:28 in an environment where there was no
0:58:30 appreciable written text appeared the
0:58:32 quran with its richness of ideas
0:58:34 and magnificent wordings and
0:58:37 i think the most powerful argument
0:58:39 brothers and sisters to show
0:58:41 that the seventh century ad was
0:58:42 incapacitated
0:58:44 is in the following statement and this
0:58:45 has been taken from my book
0:58:48 and i really want you to listen to this
0:58:49 very carefully because i think it's a
0:58:51 it's a phenomenal argument you don't
0:58:54 have to even go to the language itself
0:58:56 think about it from a social political
0:58:57 perspective listen to this
0:59:00 a powerful argument that supports the
0:59:02 assertion that the 7th century arabs
0:59:04 failed to imitate the quran relate to
0:59:07 the social political circumstances of
0:59:09 the time
0:59:10 central to the quranic message was the
0:59:12 condemnation of the immoral unjust and
0:59:14 evil practices
0:59:15 of the 7th century meccan tribes these
0:59:18 included the objectification of women
0:59:20 unjust trade polytheism slavery hoarding
0:59:23 of wealth
0:59:24 infanticide and the shunning of the
0:59:26 orphans
0:59:27 the meccan leadership was being
0:59:29 challenged by the quranic message
0:59:31 and this had the potential to undermine
0:59:33 their leadership and economic success
0:59:36 in order for islam to stop spreading all
0:59:39 that was needed
0:59:40 for the prophet sasam's adversaries was
0:59:42 to meet the linguistic
0:59:44 to meet the linguistic and literary
0:59:45 challenge of the quran however
0:59:47 the fact that islam succeeded and
0:59:50 listened to this
0:59:51 in its early fragile days in mecca
0:59:54 testifies to the fact that its primary
0:59:56 audience was not
0:59:57 able to meet the quranic challenge no
1:00:00 movement can succeed
1:00:02 if a claim fundamental to its core is
1:00:05 explicitly proven false
1:00:07 the fact that the meant that the meccan
1:00:09 leadership had to retort
1:00:10 resort to extreme campaigns such as
1:00:13 warfare and torture
1:00:15 to attempt to extinguish islam
1:00:17 demonstrates that the easy method
1:00:20 of refuting islam meeting the quranic
1:00:22 challenge
1:00:24 failed and i think that is enough for
1:00:27 this premise
1:00:29 fourth premise brothers and sisters
1:00:31 scholars have testified to the quran's
1:00:33 inimitability so scholars
1:00:35 have testified to the quran's
1:00:38 inimitability so let's talk about this
1:00:40 well there's many scholars you can't fit
1:00:42 all of this on the presentation slides
1:00:44 but there's so many
1:00:45 you have professor ovirento studies
1:00:47 martin zames he says
1:00:49 notwithstanding the literary exodus of
1:00:51 some of the long pre-islamic poems
1:00:53 the quran is definitely on a level of
1:00:55 its own as the most eminent written
1:00:57 manifestation of the arabic language
1:00:59 you have the orientalist and literature
1:01:01 aj arbury
1:01:02 he says in making the present attempt to
1:01:05 improve
1:01:06 on the performance of predecessors and
1:01:08 to produce something which might be
1:01:09 accepted
1:01:10 as echoing however faintly the sublime
1:01:13 rhetoric of the arabic quran
1:01:15 i have been at pain to study the
1:01:16 intricate and ritual rhythms which
1:01:18 apart from the message itself
1:01:20 constitutes the quran's undeniable claim
1:01:23 to rank amongst amongst the greatest
1:01:25 literary masterpieces
1:01:27 of mankind and there are so many more
1:01:29 arabist
1:01:30 hamilton gibb and so on and so forth and
1:01:33 there's a whole list that you can find
1:01:35 on my book which you could for free on
1:01:37 the sa prince institute website
1:01:39 now moving on from this you have those
1:01:42 some key contentions right
1:01:44 because some people will argue hold on a
1:01:46 second hamza well what about
1:01:48 shakespeare and al-muttanabbi the famous
1:01:52 isn't shakespeare is that shakespeare
1:01:55 inimitable
1:01:55 right is it shakespeare in imitative
1:01:58 inimitable
1:01:59 well there's something that we need to
1:02:00 really clarify here right
1:02:03 so let's first talk about so who was
1:02:07 it
1:02:13 right he was considered an inimitable
1:02:15 poetic genius by
1:02:16 by many arabs right and some have argued
1:02:19 that although
1:02:20 other poets have used the same paneeric
1:02:23 genre and poetic meter as the great poet
1:02:25 they have not been able to match his
1:02:27 level eloquence and stylistic variants
1:02:29 therefore they conclude that
1:02:31 al-muttanabbi is inimitable
1:02:33 because we have the blueprint of his
1:02:34 work and the linguistic tools at our
1:02:36 disposal
1:02:37 but cannot emulate anything like his
1:02:39 poetic expression
1:02:41 if this is true then it undermines the
1:02:42 quranic inimitability however this is
1:02:44 totally false okay
1:02:46 this acclamation of false
1:02:50 firstly there have been many imitations
1:02:54 by jewish poets moses even ezra
1:02:57 and solomon even gabriel interestingly
1:03:00 the andalusian
1:03:02 poet in bin ibn hani al andalusi
1:03:05 was known as the al-mutanabi of the west
1:03:09 and what's very significant is that when
1:03:12 you study medieval arabic poetry
1:03:15 medieval arabic poetry didn't create new
1:03:17 literary genres
1:03:18 right this was due to the fact that it
1:03:19 depended on previous poetic work
1:03:22 and the academics the academic denis e
1:03:24 mcauley writes that medieval poetry
1:03:26 largely hinged
1:03:28 more on literary president than on
1:03:30 direct experience
1:03:32 also in classical arabic poetry it
1:03:33 wasn't unusual it's not unusual for a
1:03:35 poet to attempt to match a predecessor
1:03:37 poem
1:03:38 by writing a new one in the same poetic
1:03:40 meter rhyme and theme and this was
1:03:42 considered a normal practice
1:03:44 so it's not surprising that the
1:03:45 professor of religion emil
1:03:47 hamerin explored the literary expression
1:03:50 of even al-farid
1:03:51 and described his work as very original
1:03:54 improvisations of
1:03:57 and to fight to highlight further that
1:03:59 al-muttanabbi could be emulated
1:04:01 and you you you see that he disclosed
1:04:04 himself i think in his biographical
1:04:06 works
1:04:06 that the another poet abu nawaz
1:04:10 uh he actually borrowed work from abu
1:04:13 nawaz
1:04:14 and many medieval arabic literary
1:04:16 critics
1:04:17 such as even abbad and
1:04:20 abu ali muhammad even
1:04:24 they wrote criticisms right even a bad
1:04:26 for example
1:04:28 he he wrote um stuff against
1:04:32 me for example wrote a biographical
1:04:34 account of his an
1:04:35 encounter with al-muttanabbi in his
1:04:39 allurissala and he basically concludes
1:04:41 that you know
1:04:42 his work wasn't that great and it could
1:04:44 be emulated from that perspective
1:04:46 and and al-hatimi presents a stronger
1:04:48 polemic against alimutanabe and argues
1:04:50 the case that his poetry does not have a
1:04:52 unique style and contains error
1:04:54 even the academic professor sega a
1:04:57 bona backer who studied al-hatimi's
1:05:00 literature criticism of al-muttanabbi
1:05:02 he concludes the following judgement is
1:05:04 often well-founded
1:05:06 and one almost ends up feeling that that
1:05:09 moon
1:05:10 was after all a mediocre poet who was
1:05:13 not only lacking an original
1:05:14 originality but also had insufficient
1:05:17 competence in grammar
1:05:18 lexicography and rhetoric and sometimes
1:05:21 gave evidence of incredibly
1:05:23 bad taste now if you consider
1:05:25 shakespeare as well
1:05:27 sexy is thought to be unparalleled in
1:05:29 his use of
1:05:30 the english language however you have to
1:05:33 understand he's not inimitable
1:05:35 his sonnets are written predominantly in
1:05:37 a frequently used meter called the
1:05:39 iambic
1:05:40 pentameter which is a rhyme scheme in
1:05:42 which each sonnet line
1:05:44 consists of consists of ten syllables
1:05:46 and the syllables are divided in five
1:05:48 pairs called iams or
1:05:49 ambig feet and also since the blueprint
1:05:52 of his work is available it's not
1:05:54 surprising
1:05:55 that the english dramatist christopher
1:05:57 marlowe has a similar style
1:05:59 and that shakespeare has been compared
1:06:00 to francis beaumont john fletcher and
1:06:04 other playwrights of his time
1:06:06 so that you can't use so-called other
1:06:09 instances
1:06:10 of inimitability now one contention is
1:06:12 which is a valid contention
1:06:14 if someone would argue we're holding a
1:06:15 second hamza just because academics
1:06:18 they say that the quran is inimitable
1:06:21 they give you a testimonial transition
1:06:23 that it's inimitable right
1:06:27 it doesn't mean now the quran is from
1:06:28 god because
1:06:31 why do these scholars who say the quran
1:06:34 cannot be imitated
1:06:35 they haven't concluded that the quran is
1:06:38 from the divine
1:06:39 well there's a problem with this
1:06:40 contention it conflates testifying to
1:06:43 the quran's invitability
1:06:44 with inference to the best explanation
1:06:46 there's a conflation the conflation here
1:06:48 because the argument that we're
1:06:49 presenting here today does not conclude
1:06:52 the divinity of the quran from the
1:06:54 statements of the scholars
1:06:55 all it's saying is the quran is
1:06:58 inimitable
1:07:00 in order to now understand that it's
1:07:01 from the divine you have to apply
1:07:03 inference to the best explanation
1:07:05 so whether these scholars accept our
1:07:07 inference or not
1:07:09 is irrelevant we're just using the
1:07:11 scholars to show the inimitability of
1:07:13 the quran not the divine nature of the
1:07:15 quran
1:07:16 to now explain that the quran is from
1:07:18 the divine you have to apply the
1:07:19 inference to the best explanation
1:07:21 so there is a conflation this is a
1:07:23 interesting contention but it's not
1:07:25 a valid contention premise number five
1:07:28 we're almost there brothers and sisters
1:07:30 premise number five is counter scholarly
1:07:32 testimonies are not plausible
1:07:34 as they have to reject the established
1:07:36 background information
1:07:38 remember when it comes to epistemology
1:07:40 of testimony you need to have background
1:07:42 information
1:07:42 specifically with regards to inference
1:07:45 to the best explanation
1:07:46 you have background information that's
1:07:48 very important in order for you to make
1:07:50 the correct inferences so yes i agree
1:07:54 there are some there are some
1:07:57 scholars past and present muslim and
1:08:00 non-muslim maybe specifically rather
1:08:02 non-muslim that they say that the quran
1:08:04 is not inimitable it's
1:08:05 bad arabic it's got grammatical errors
1:08:08 it's got
1:08:09 you know bad prose or whatever the case
1:08:12 may be
1:08:13 now we don't have to take the testimony
1:08:15 seriously
1:08:16 by virtue of the testimonies that we
1:08:18 just discussed that talk about the
1:08:20 inimitability of the quran
1:08:21 but also because of important background
1:08:23 background information
1:08:25 because in order to take the counter
1:08:28 testimonies meaning
1:08:29 in order to take seriously the scholars
1:08:32 who say
1:08:32 the quran is not inimitability
1:08:34 inimitable in order to take them
1:08:36 seriously
1:08:37 you have to conclude some absurd
1:08:40 absurd conclusions there are some absurd
1:08:42 um
1:08:43 implications brothers and sisters
1:08:47 so let me explain what these
1:08:50 absurdities are now
1:08:54 if you adopt the counter testimonies of
1:08:56 these so-called scholars that say the
1:08:58 quran is not inevitable
1:09:01 you need an explanation you what is
1:09:04 required is an explanation
1:09:06 to answer why the 7th century arabs
1:09:09 couldn't produce anything like the quran
1:09:12 you have to provide an explanation
1:09:15 and possible explanations would have to
1:09:18 reject the validity of this established
1:09:20 history that the best arabs couldn't
1:09:22 produce anything like the quran
1:09:26 so therefore these counter-testimonial
1:09:28 claims
1:09:29 don't have a basis they have to remake
1:09:33 or reinvent arabic history or arabic
1:09:37 literature history from that perspective
1:09:41 and one would argue that rejecting the
1:09:43 established history would have to
1:09:44 remake the history of arabic literature
1:09:47 and not only that
1:09:48 they would have to assume these scholars
1:09:50 who provide counter testimony that say
1:09:52 the quran is not inimitable
1:09:53 they would also have to assume that they
1:09:55 are better than their seventh century
1:09:57 lingua
1:09:57 arabic linguists which is ridiculous
1:10:00 because
1:10:01 we're going to explain this later that
1:10:03 today's arabic you know
1:10:04 one is doesn't internalize arabic
1:10:08 in a pure way because of what you call
1:10:10 linguistic boring we live in a
1:10:11 heterogeneous linguistic culture
1:10:13 not a homogeneous linguistic culture
1:10:15 we're going to explain that later so
1:10:16 those who are saying
1:10:18 nothing special about the quran they
1:10:20 have to basically
1:10:22 show that they're better than the 7th
1:10:23 century arabic linguists
1:10:25 again remaking history these are all
1:10:27 absurdities
1:10:29 also they would have to deny the
1:10:30 challenge of the quran because it's
1:10:32 implied
1:10:32 in the previous points that we just made
1:10:36 but what's important is though is that
1:10:37 when we understand and we
1:10:39 go deep into the accusations of some of
1:10:42 these scholars who provide counter
1:10:43 testimonies
1:10:44 and say the quran is not inimitable you
1:10:47 know when we go into the
1:10:49 the accusation we see that they have
1:10:51 very bad arabic in the first place now
1:10:52 you don't have to understand this for
1:10:54 the argument but i just want to bring
1:10:55 this to you
1:10:56 for example take the highly acclaimed
1:10:58 german orientalist theodore nolteka
1:11:00 you know he said that the quran is ugly
1:11:04 it has a perceived ugliness there's all
1:11:06 these grammatical shifts
1:11:08 well with all due respect he didn't
1:11:09 understand bellaga he didn't understand
1:11:11 a deep
1:11:12 science of arabic rhetoric and eloquence
1:11:15 he had a very shallow understanding of
1:11:16 classical arabic
1:11:18 because these shifts in in grammatical
1:11:21 shifts
1:11:21 or these reference shifting in the
1:11:23 quranic discourse
1:11:25 is part of the dynamic nature of the
1:11:26 quran it enhances the communicative
1:11:29 effect of the quranic discourse
1:11:31 and this is known as ill-tifat
1:11:35 in the arabic language i believe means
1:11:37 moving from one direction
1:11:39 to the other moving from one
1:11:42 direction to the other there are many
1:11:45 grammatical shifts and these include
1:11:46 change in person
1:11:47 change in number change in addressee
1:11:50 change in tense
1:11:51 change in case marker using a noun in
1:11:53 place of a pronoun
1:11:54 and many other type of shifts and
1:11:56 changes and the function of these
1:11:58 reference shifting or these grammatical
1:12:00 shifts are there to in
1:12:02 to to to have a change of emphasis to
1:12:05 alert the reader to a particular manner
1:12:07 to enhance the style of the text to
1:12:09 enhance the communicative effect
1:12:11 it also impacts on
1:12:14 the generating rhythm and flow to
1:12:16 maintain the listeners attention and so
1:12:18 on and so forth so
1:12:19 a very powerful example is in the
1:12:21 shortest chapter of the quran
1:12:23 surah al-khalfa when allah subhanahu wa
1:12:25 ta'ala says verily we have given you the
1:12:27 abundance therefore turn
1:12:28 to your to in prayer to your lord and
1:12:31 sacrifice
1:12:32 for he is the one who will be cut off so
1:12:34 in the beginning allah says
1:12:37 verily we have given you the abundance
1:12:40 so the kind of
1:12:41 reference to himself from a grammatical
1:12:43 point of view
1:12:44 the kind of plural the majestic plural
1:12:46 we
1:12:47 that's in the first line then the second
1:12:49 verse allah says
1:12:53 therefore or so turn
1:12:57 to your prayer turn in prayer
1:13:00 to your lord turn to your lord in prayer
1:13:03 rob bicker
1:13:04 your lord in prayer and and sacrifice
1:13:08 for solely therefore pray for sally li
1:13:11 rob bicker
1:13:12 for your lord uh for sullivan
1:13:16 uh one half turn to your lord
1:13:19 and sacrifice
1:13:22 so this is very imp and now there is a
1:13:25 shift here what's the shift
1:13:26 in the first verse allah refers to
1:13:28 himself
1:13:29 from the kind of the the personal use of
1:13:32 the pronoun
1:13:33 the majestic plural we have given the
1:13:36 abundance
1:13:37 then there's a grammatical shift for
1:13:39 salli
1:13:43 yorab so there's a shift from we
1:13:46 to rabb your lord there is a shift in
1:13:49 reference in the referring to allah the
1:13:54 personal pronoun
1:13:56 the kind of shift in terms of majestic
1:13:59 plural
1:14:00 to the more intimate arab now why is
1:14:03 that shift in place this is not
1:14:05 linguistic ugliness
1:14:06 this is illiterate fact it's enhancing
1:14:09 the communicative effect of the message
1:14:11 because in the first verse it's about
1:14:13 ability allah says verily we we have
1:14:15 given you the abundance the al-qaeda
1:14:18 the river in paradise but it also comes
1:14:20 from cathara which you have
1:14:23 and so many things and you could see
1:14:24 this as a form of ellipsis as allah has
1:14:26 given
1:14:27 abundance not only the river in paradise
1:14:29 but many things to the process of
1:14:31 he's the most praised everyone is
1:14:33 praising the prophet
1:14:34 every micro second on this earth because
1:14:36 of the constant of on because the time
1:14:38 changes and people
1:14:39 praising the prophet sallallahu
1:14:43 so we could unpack that later but the
1:14:45 point here is
1:14:46 so allah is saying we have given you the
1:14:48 abundance so the majestic
1:14:50 plural is used for ability and this is
1:14:52 used in european literature as well the
1:14:54 we
1:14:55 kings would say we to indicate power and
1:14:57 ability
1:14:58 so it's enhancing that the meaning of
1:15:01 the first verse
1:15:02 but then it shifts to things like
1:15:04 spirituality and intimacy
1:15:10 to sacrifice prayer and sacrifice these
1:15:12 are intimate spiritual matters
1:15:14 so allah now is saying
1:15:18 therefore pray to your lord and
1:15:19 sacrifice allah is not saying
1:15:21 you know pray to us and sacrifice no
1:15:24 pray to your lord
1:15:25 because rabb is more intimate it means
1:15:27 your master your lord the one who
1:15:29 nurtures you the one who loves you no
1:15:30 one who cares for you
1:15:31 so this is enhancing the communicative
1:15:33 effect of the
1:15:34 second verse so this shift is not hazard
1:15:37 and when you study the quran and we
1:15:39 don't have time to do this
1:15:40 these shifts happen and they're in line
1:15:43 with the meaning
1:15:44 of the co-text the surrounding
1:15:47 linguistic
1:15:48 items around the verses and the
1:15:50 surrounding verses it's there to enhance
1:15:52 the cumulative
1:15:53 communicative effect of the message so
1:15:55 it's not linguistic ugliness
1:15:56 in all due respect theodore nordica
1:15:58 didn't know his arabic very well
1:16:02 so this leads us to their six premise
1:16:04 brothers and sisters the very important
1:16:05 premise brothers this is the sixth
1:16:07 premise so the six premises as follows
1:16:12 therefore from premise one to five the
1:16:14 quran is inimitable because
1:16:16 this is very simple to follow it follows
1:16:18 from points one to five that we just
1:16:19 discussed
1:16:20 premises one to five that the quran's
1:16:22 inimitability is justified
1:16:25 so now we it leads us to premise number
1:16:27 seven
1:16:28 the possible explanations for the
1:16:30 quran's inimitability
1:16:31 are authorship by an arab by a non-arab
1:16:35 by muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
1:16:37 or by allah
1:16:39 okay let's talk about this a little bit
1:16:40 further so these are the plausible
1:16:42 explanations this is what we're saying
1:16:44 to articulate the divine origins of the
1:16:46 quran without referring to specifics
1:16:48 about the arabic language
1:16:50 we're using testimony and inference okay
1:16:53 and we've already established
1:16:55 using testimony epistemology of
1:16:56 testimony that the quran is inimitable
1:17:00 by a valid testimonial transmission and
1:17:02 now
1:17:03 we're trying to infer from the
1:17:06 inimitability of the quran
1:17:07 which is based on valid testimony that
1:17:10 the quran can only be from god
1:17:12 and the possible explanations are that
1:17:14 it came from an arab
1:17:16 it came from another arab and it came
1:17:17 from oh it came from muhammad sallallahu
1:17:19 it came from allah
1:17:21 now however it can be argued there are
1:17:23 other possible competing explanations
1:17:25 but we don't know what they are well
1:17:26 hold on a second this is irrational
1:17:29 because this assertion commits a type of
1:17:31 fallacy that some have called
1:17:33 the fallacy of the phantom option it's a
1:17:35 ghost option
1:17:36 there may be another option we're just
1:17:37 not aware of it this is not rational
1:17:39 reasoning this is not
1:17:40 a valid use of the inference to the best
1:17:42 explanation if you do have another
1:17:44 explanation
1:17:45 bring on the table and let's discuss it
1:17:47 if you don't have a valid explanation
1:17:49 then deal with the explanations at hand
1:17:53 so premise number eight the premise
1:17:55 before the conclusion
1:17:57 it could not have been produced by an
1:17:58 arab it could not have been produced by
1:18:00 non-arab
1:18:01 and it could not have been produced by
1:18:02 muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
1:18:04 let's now
1:18:05 unpack this and get into this into
1:18:08 detail
1:18:09 first and foremost we know it could have
1:18:11 been produced by an arab because the
1:18:12 best linguist the seventh century abbs
1:18:14 of the time
1:18:15 admitted defeat for example al-waleed
1:18:17 ibn morirah
1:18:18 he was one of the famous linguists of
1:18:20 the time he actually admitted defeat
1:18:23 and he says and what can i say for i
1:18:25 swear by allah
1:18:27 there is none amongst you who knows
1:18:28 poetry as well as i do
1:18:30 nor can any compete with me in
1:18:32 composition or rhetoric
1:18:33 not even in the poetry of jinns and yet
1:18:35 i swear by allah
1:18:37 muhammad's speech meaning the quran does
1:18:40 not bear
1:18:40 bear any similarity to anything i know
1:18:44 and i swear by allah the speech that he
1:18:46 says is very sweet and is adorned with
1:18:48 beauty and charm
1:18:49 okay and one would argue why did he
1:18:51 become muslim well from what i remember
1:18:53 he didn't become muslim because he
1:18:55 thought that someone promised him
1:18:56 that him not being a muslim he still be
1:18:58 saved or something to that effect
1:19:00 such was the arrogance of such people
1:19:02 but the point is the best arabs admitted
1:19:04 defeat from that perspective and
1:19:05 remember what we said previously
1:19:07 from the argument that i i refer to that
1:19:11 that's in my book referring to the
1:19:12 chapter god's testimony
1:19:14 and just repeat
1:19:17 no movement can succeed if a claim
1:19:20 fundamental to its core is explicitly
1:19:22 proven false
1:19:23 the fact that the meccan leadership had
1:19:25 to resort to extreme campaigns
1:19:26 such as warfare and torture to attempt
1:19:29 to extinguish islam
1:19:30 demonstrates that the easy method of
1:19:33 refuting islam
1:19:34 which is meeting the quranic challenge
1:19:36 failed they couldn't do it they couldn't
1:19:38 produce it because remember as we read
1:19:40 out the rest of the
1:19:41 passage previously that the quran came
1:19:44 and refute the social political moral
1:19:46 realities of the arabs of the time and
1:19:48 this was affecting their lifestyle
1:19:50 their culture their economic activity
1:19:52 but
1:19:53 all they had to do and this is when
1:19:55 islam was weak
1:19:57 in his early stages all they had to do
1:19:58 is produce three lines like it no one
1:20:00 would have taken it seriously would have
1:20:01 been dismissed
1:20:03 but they know they they couldn't do it
1:20:05 and they knew they couldn't do it so
1:20:06 what did they do they resorted to war
1:20:08 and boycott and torture what does this
1:20:11 say
1:20:12 about the ability of the best hours of
1:20:14 the time that were best placed to
1:20:16 challenge the quran what does it mean
1:20:17 about
1:20:18 the inc that they were incapacitated of
1:20:20 course they were they couldn't imitate
1:20:22 the quranic discourse
1:20:23 so they failed to do so it and we could
1:20:25 argue
1:20:26 from that perspective it couldn't have
1:20:28 come from an arab because these were the
1:20:29 best arabs of the time
1:20:31 now one would argue what about today's
1:20:32 arab well hold on a second just from a
1:20:34 kind of
1:20:35 philosophical linguistic perspective we
1:20:37 can't even take this seriously
1:20:38 today's arab today's arab comes from a
1:20:41 linguistic culture
1:20:42 which is basically called a
1:20:44 heterogeneous culture
1:20:46 you know just as a crude example when
1:20:48 you go to egypt and you say
1:20:50 to uh and you and you you hear like a
1:20:52 mother saying
1:20:53 uh you know where is the phone she
1:20:56 should say something like aina hatif
1:20:58 where is the phone uh
1:21:00 but what she might say is ain't a
1:21:02 telephone
1:21:03 right or any television or where is the
1:21:06 tv
1:21:07 right so there's so much linguistic
1:21:08 boring i don't know wrong there was
1:21:09 linguistic boring of that at that time
1:21:11 as well
1:21:12 but the type of linguistic boring at the
1:21:14 time of the seventh century
1:21:16 was a linguistic boring that didn't
1:21:17 affect the purity of the language
1:21:19 and the internalization of the language
1:21:21 because those though that linguistic
1:21:22 boring
1:21:23 became part of the arabic language and
1:21:25 this is well known because there are
1:21:26 some
1:21:26 you know foreign origin words in the
1:21:29 quran such as jannam i believe in other
1:21:31 words
1:21:31 but those words were already naturalized
1:21:34 there was a naturalization process
1:21:36 but when it comes to today's arabic we
1:21:37 have this kind of
1:21:39 less pure environment linguistic
1:21:40 environment it's not homogeneous it's
1:21:42 heterogeneous
1:21:43 as i've just discussed and therefore
1:21:46 naturally
1:21:46 you know someone's natural expression of
1:21:48 the arabic language is not going to be
1:21:50 anywhere near
1:21:51 the seventh century arabs also what we
1:21:53 said in the beginning about the culture
1:21:55 and the social political linguistic
1:21:57 environment of the time
1:21:58 facilitated people to become masters in
1:22:01 arabic
1:22:01 we don't have that today from that
1:22:03 perspective so to say today's arab
1:22:05 is actually completely unfounded and one
1:22:07 would have to claim
1:22:08 better expression and intuitive and
1:22:11 natural expression of the arabic
1:22:12 language
1:22:13 than the 7th century arabs which is
1:22:14 totally unfounded
1:22:17 so we know it could have come from an
1:22:18 arab what about a non-arab
1:22:20 well the quran mentions this very
1:22:22 clearly in chapter 16 verse 103
1:22:24 and indeed we know that what they that
1:22:26 they that they the politicians and
1:22:27 pagans say
1:22:28 it is only a human being who teaches him
1:22:30 meaning muhammad
1:22:32 the the tongue of the man they referred
1:22:33 to is foreign but this speech is
1:22:37 this is clear arabic now this is so true
1:22:40 and non-arab couldn't produce the quran
1:22:43 because
1:22:44 it had to come from an arab right you
1:22:47 have to know arabic to try and produce
1:22:49 anything like the book of allah
1:22:51 subhanahu wa ta'ala
1:22:53 so this is extremely important for us to
1:22:55 you know
1:22:56 understand now one would argue about if
1:22:58 a non-arab learn the act
1:23:00 learn the language now that would that
1:23:02 would make the person arabic speaker and
1:23:03 therefore would refer
1:23:05 to the previous point we just made
1:23:07 however and this is very interesting
1:23:08 in linguistics there are differences
1:23:10 between native and non-native speakers
1:23:13 of language
1:23:14 as various academic studies and applied
1:23:16 linguistics
1:23:17 and similar fields have concluded for
1:23:19 instance in the english language there
1:23:21 are differences between native and
1:23:22 non-native speakers
1:23:23 in reliably discriminating between
1:23:25 literal and idiomatic speech
1:23:28 differences exist between english
1:23:30 speakers with one non-native parent
1:23:32 and those with native parents the
1:23:34 speakers with one non-native parent
1:23:35 exhibit worse linguistic performance on
1:23:37 certain tasks than those with native
1:23:39 parents
1:23:40 even in cases of non-native speakers
1:23:42 having indistinguishable
1:23:44 indistinguishable linguistic competence
1:23:46 with native speakers there are still
1:23:47 subtle linguistic differences so
1:23:50 research conducted by kenneth
1:23:53 haldensterm and nicholas abrahamson
1:23:56 in who can who can
1:24:00 become native like in a second language
1:24:02 all some or none
1:24:04 concluded that competent non-native
1:24:06 speakers exhibit features
1:24:08 that are imperceptible except under
1:24:10 detailed and systematic linguistic
1:24:12 analysis
1:24:13 therefore to conclude that the quran
1:24:15 with this inimitable features
1:24:16 as a linguistic masterpiece is a product
1:24:18 of a non-arab or non-native speaker
1:24:21 is untenable so the next option maybe it
1:24:25 came from the prophet
1:24:26 sallallahu alaihi was sent them right
1:24:29 well there's a few things to say this is
1:24:31 this is impossible number one he was an
1:24:33 arab
1:24:33 right and the best arabs failed to
1:24:35 produce anything like it
1:24:37 so logically it follows he didn't
1:24:39 produce the quran
1:24:40 secondly after the initial accusations
1:24:43 that
1:24:44 the the arab lingua is after the initial
1:24:46 accusations that he produced the quran
1:24:49 when they started to understand the
1:24:50 literary power of the quran
1:24:52 and the literary inimitability of the
1:24:54 quran the arabic linguist
1:24:55 never accused him of being the author in
1:24:57 actual fact they said it was magic
1:24:59 also we have to understand that the
1:25:00 quran is a literary masterpiece
1:25:03 the quran is a literary
1:25:06 masterpiece and with all literary
1:25:09 masterpieces brothers and sisters
1:25:11 we have to understand that you know
1:25:14 literary masterpieces are not revealed
1:25:17 instantaneously
1:25:19 right they're revealed over a particular
1:25:20 time with careful
1:25:22 amendment careful expression careful
1:25:25 articulation
1:25:27 careful addition careful revision and so
1:25:30 on and so forth
1:25:31 no one produces a literary masterpiece
1:25:34 as sustained
1:25:35 instantaneous eloquence but the quran as
1:25:37 it was revealed
1:25:38 it it it stayed the same it wasn't
1:25:41 edited
1:25:42 it wasn't changed even in abrogation
1:25:44 when we talk about abrogation in the
1:25:46 quranic discourse
1:25:47 the verses the abrogate are still in the
1:25:49 quran and is still part of the literary
1:25:51 excellence of the quranic discourse
1:25:53 there was no there was no stylistic
1:25:56 editing there's no editing with regards
1:25:58 to rhetoric and eloquence
1:25:59 yet it's known to be a literary
1:26:01 masterpiece but literally masterpieces
1:26:03 are developed over time
1:26:04 with addition and revision but the quran
1:26:07 as the literary masterpiece as it was
1:26:08 revealed it
1:26:09 remained how could this be a human being
1:26:12 from a human being
1:26:13 how can it be from muhammad sallallahu
1:26:15 alaihi because
1:26:17 the human reality when it comes to
1:26:18 literary masterpieces that you edit
1:26:20 change revise but the quran
1:26:24 as a literary masterpiece was no
1:26:26 addition no revision
1:26:29 also we have to understand the
1:26:30 psycholinguistic content of the quran
1:26:31 now we can't unpack this right now but
1:26:33 it does require further study
1:26:35 but when you do a psycholinguistic
1:26:36 analysis of the quranic discourse
1:26:38 you see it's in the divine voice how can
1:26:41 this be the case
1:26:43 if it was the words of the process
1:26:44 solemn then you would see from a
1:26:46 psycholinguistic perspective
1:26:48 under careful linguistic analysis you
1:26:50 see subtle
1:26:51 linguistic emotional cues to indicate it
1:26:54 came from a man
1:26:55 to indicate came from the process to
1:26:57 reflect his life
1:26:58 because his life was peaks and troughs
1:27:00 we know he was boycotted and
1:27:02 tortured and abused and his sahaba
1:27:03 passed away his wife passed away his
1:27:05 children died
1:27:06 he went to war and so on and so forth
1:27:08 all of this emotion cannot be found in
1:27:10 the quranic discourse from a human
1:27:12 perspective
1:27:13 when you do a psycholinguistic study and
1:27:15 psycholinguistics is part of
1:27:16 it's a domain of knowledge when you do a
1:27:18 psycholinguistic study of the quran it
1:27:20 remains in the divine voice
1:27:22 how can this be the case how can you
1:27:24 have such a distinction
1:27:25 how can you have such a
1:27:26 psycho-linguistic distinction between
1:27:28 the prophetic statements
1:27:30 and the quran if you claim the quran
1:27:32 came from the prophet sallallahu alaihi
1:27:34 wasallam this is impossible
1:27:36 but finally this is one it's a it's a
1:27:38 defeating argument it defeats this
1:27:40 argument so called that the prophet
1:27:43 actually produced the quran
1:27:46 if the blueprint exists you can imitate
1:27:48 it any form of expression
1:27:50 literary expression artistic impression
1:27:53 expression
1:27:53 if you have the blueprint the tools at
1:27:56 your disposal
1:27:57 you are able to produce it we'd see this
1:28:00 with art
1:28:01 with uh impressionism or
1:28:03 post-impressionism with the art of monet
1:28:05 or whoever the case may be
1:28:06 when you have the blueprint you have the
1:28:10 the tools at your disposal you could
1:28:12 actually
1:28:13 now reproduce reproduce and that's why
1:28:16 many replicas are very very expensive
1:28:19 from an artistic perspective now
1:28:22 we have the blueprint today which is the
1:28:24 quran we have the tools at our disposal
1:28:26 which are the finite 28 letters
1:28:28 and we have the grammatical rules but we
1:28:30 can't put this together to produce
1:28:32 anything like the quadratic discourse if
1:28:34 it was human expression
1:28:35 and if the blueprint exists and the
1:28:37 tools at our disposal exists
1:28:38 we can exhaust those tools or use those
1:28:40 tools to produce
1:28:42 uh that expression but given the fact
1:28:44 that the quran's blueprint exists
1:28:46 and the tools exist namely the grammar
1:28:48 the letters and so on and so forth
1:28:50 we can't use them to produce anything
1:28:52 like the quran and the arabs were best
1:28:54 placed to do so in the 7th century
1:28:56 couldn't do so either so this means it
1:28:58 cannot come from a human being because
1:28:59 if it came from a human being and the
1:29:01 blueprint exists
1:29:02 and the tools exist then we should be
1:29:05 able to replicate it
1:29:06 but it wasn't imitated in any shape or
1:29:09 form
1:29:10 so it couldn't have come from the
1:29:12 prophet
1:29:16 now what's very important for everybody
1:29:19 to understand is
1:29:21 that you know trying to conclude that
1:29:25 well the way to argue this is to show
1:29:26 that the person was like a literary
1:29:28 genius
1:29:29 well how can you make such a claim how
1:29:31 can you say that the person is
1:29:33 is a genius that's like an argument that
1:29:36 doesn't really make sense by virtue of
1:29:37 what we've just discussed
1:29:38 it's unfounded why because remember
1:29:41 literary geniuses
1:29:43 what they do is when they produce
1:29:45 excellent work
1:29:46 they edit amend and improve the work as
1:29:48 we just discussed previously
1:29:50 this was not the case with the quran and
1:29:52 all human expressions can be imitated if
1:29:55 we have the blueprint
1:29:56 and tools at our disposal as we just
1:29:58 discussed and this has been shown for
1:30:00 geniuses such as
1:30:01 shakespeare and al-mutanabbi
1:30:05 if the quran had been a result of
1:30:07 muhammad some genius
1:30:09 it should be able to be imitated by
1:30:10 virtue what we discussed concerning the
1:30:12 blueprint and the tools
1:30:13 at our disposal
1:30:18 so
1:30:20 this is something very important for us
1:30:22 to to to highlight and discuss
1:30:24 so and that's why when you say oh what
1:30:26 about shakespeare what about
1:30:28 well shakespeare didn't have sustained
1:30:31 unedited
1:30:32 and unchanged unmatched eloquence
1:30:36 didn't have sustained unedited and
1:30:38 unchanged unmatched eloquence
1:30:40 but the quran had sustained unedited and
1:30:44 unmatched eloquence or unmatched
1:30:46 superior literary
1:30:47 features and that's why you can't claim
1:30:49 he is a genius
1:30:51 from that perspective because genius is
1:30:54 when they produce a linguistic
1:30:57 expression or linguistic work or
1:30:59 literary work it's
1:31:01 it's it's a sustained effort
1:31:04 but it's edited and amended over time
1:31:07 but with regards to the quran it was
1:31:09 sustained
1:31:10 unmatched eloquence sustained
1:31:13 unmatched and unedited eloquence which
1:31:15 is not a feature of any literature
1:31:17 genius
1:31:18 especially concerning the size of
1:31:21 the book of the the the quran itself
1:31:24 so finally our conclusion brothers and
1:31:26 sisters
1:31:28 god is the only best explanation since
1:31:30 the quran could not have been produced
1:31:31 by an arab
1:31:32 it could not have been used could not
1:31:34 have been produced by non-arab or the
1:31:35 prophet sallallahu alaihi
1:31:37 wasallam it follows that the best
1:31:39 explanation
1:31:40 is that it came from allah
1:31:44 this provides the best explanation for
1:31:46 the quran's inimitability
1:31:47 because the other explanations are
1:31:49 untenable
1:31:50 in light of the available knowledge and
1:31:52 the background knowledge
1:31:54 now why would i get this stage what
1:31:55 about alternative inferences
1:31:58 you know you know alternative inferences
1:32:00 could include
1:32:01 that the quran is best explained by a
1:32:03 higher being
1:32:04 or that it could have come from the
1:32:07 devil
1:32:08 as as some of our christian brothers
1:32:11 and sisters actually say but this is
1:32:14 unfounded brothers and sisters
1:32:16 because the reason it's unfounding is
1:32:19 that look
1:32:20 postulating that the quran comes from a
1:32:22 higher being
1:32:24 seems to be a semantic replacement for
1:32:26 god this is like a good replacement
1:32:27 right also what is meant by a higher
1:32:30 being
1:32:32 is not the best explanation of a higher
1:32:33 being god himself
1:32:35 if higher being implies a greater
1:32:37 linguistic power capacity and ability
1:32:39 than a human
1:32:40 then who can best fit these criteria
1:32:42 than god himself
1:32:44 also if you want what you need to
1:32:46 understand as well
1:32:48 is that you know when we have separate
1:32:50 evidences for god's existence we also
1:32:52 understand that it's very likely that
1:32:53 that god will only communicate with us
1:32:55 this follows from the fact that not only
1:32:57 is allah or god the creator and designer
1:32:59 of the entire cosmos that we inhabit
1:33:01 but he also made it fit for our
1:33:03 existence in addition he created us with
1:33:04 souls or consciousness
1:33:06 and instilled a sense of morality so
1:33:07 clearly god is very extremely invested
1:33:11 in our existence and flourish
1:33:13 so as such it's it's extremely likely
1:33:16 that he would want to communicate to us
1:33:17 in the form of revelation
1:33:19 so this this is very important when you
1:33:21 say high being it's a semantic
1:33:22 replacement of god and high being is
1:33:23 very ambiguous is this another phantom
1:33:25 option
1:33:26 is this the fallacy of the phantom
1:33:27 option okay what is this high being
1:33:29 right we've given you a really good
1:33:31 explanation which is god himself
1:33:33 what is this higher being right or is
1:33:36 this just another phantom option right
1:33:38 which is a logical fallacy as we
1:33:40 discussed in the beginning now there is
1:33:41 a
1:33:42 theistic response to this like many
1:33:44 christians or christian brothers and
1:33:45 sisters would say
1:33:46 that maybe the quran came from the devil
1:33:49 well this explanation is untenable as
1:33:50 well
1:33:51 and listen and i've and i've written
1:33:52 this in the book that you can download
1:33:54 for free on our website the quran could
1:33:57 not have come from the devil or some
1:33:59 type of spirit
1:34:00 because the basis of their existence is
1:34:03 in
1:34:03 the quran in revelation itself not in
1:34:06 empiric not empirical evidence
1:34:08 therefore if someone claims that the
1:34:09 source of the quran and is the devil
1:34:11 they would have to prove that his in
1:34:14 other words the devil's existence
1:34:15 and ultimately would have to prove
1:34:17 revelation in the case of using the
1:34:19 quran as the revelation to establish
1:34:21 that there was existence
1:34:22 then that would already establish the
1:34:24 divine text
1:34:25 it would establish it as a divine text
1:34:27 because to believe in the devil's
1:34:28 existence would presuppose the quran to
1:34:30 be divine and therefore this contention
1:34:33 is self-defeating
1:34:34 if however the revelation that you refer
1:34:36 to is the bible
1:34:37 it must it must be shown to be valid it
1:34:41 must be shown to be a valid basis to
1:34:42 justify the belief in the devil
1:34:45 now with all due respect you can't use
1:34:46 the bible to justify the belief in
1:34:47 anything
1:34:48 in my view because in light of
1:34:50 contemporary studies in the textual
1:34:51 integrity and historicity
1:34:53 and historicity of the bible this is not
1:34:55 feasible
1:34:56 also for a further content analysis of
1:34:59 the quran will strongly indicate that
1:35:01 the book is not the teachings of the
1:35:02 devil as the quran rebukes him and
1:35:04 promotes
1:35:05 morals and ethics not in line with an
1:35:07 evil world
1:35:08 view so in conclusion
1:35:11 brothers and sisters we have formulated
1:35:14 a powerful argument
1:35:16 developed eight premises with a
1:35:17 conclusion
1:35:19 which rests upon the background
1:35:21 information and understanding of
1:35:22 epistemology of testimony and inference
1:35:24 of the best explanation
1:35:25 and we really haven't even referred to
1:35:29 any of the special features linguistic
1:35:32 features in the quranic discourse
1:35:34 and you're able to articulate this to
1:35:38 to non-muslims and and people who don't
1:35:41 have the expertise and even to
1:35:43 to non-arabs and let me just summarize
1:35:45 this argument for you to see how easy
1:35:48 you can summarize this uh with regards
1:35:50 to
1:35:51 the tao with regards to articulating
1:35:53 this to our brothers and sisters
1:35:55 in humanity so
1:35:58 it it could be done just in a couple
1:36:01 couple of paragraphs
1:36:07 the quran was revealed in arabia to the
1:36:08 prophet muhammed
1:36:10 7th century in the 7th century this
1:36:12 period was known as an era of literature
1:36:14 and linguistic perfection
1:36:16 the 7th century arabs were socialized
1:36:18 into being a people who were best
1:36:19 who were the best at expressing
1:36:20 themselves in their native tongue they
1:36:22 would celebrate when a poet was among
1:36:24 them amongst them and all they knew was
1:36:25 poetry
1:36:26 they would start with poetry and end
1:36:28 with poetry the cultivation of poetic
1:36:31 skills and linguistic
1:36:32 mastery was everything for them it was
1:36:34 the oxygen and lifeblood
1:36:37 they could not live or function without
1:36:38 the perfection of the linguistic
1:36:39 abilities
1:36:40 however when the quran was recited to
1:36:43 them they lost their breath
1:36:44 they were dumbfounded incapacitated and
1:36:46 stunned by the silence of the greatest
1:36:48 experts
1:36:48 they could not produce anything like the
1:36:50 quranic discourse it got worse
1:36:52 the quran challenged these linguists par
1:36:54 excellence to imitate
1:36:56 its unique literary linguistic features
1:36:57 but they failed some experts
1:37:00 accepted the quran was from god but most
1:37:02 reported to boycott war murder torture
1:37:05 and a campaign of misinformation
1:37:07 in fact throughout the centuries experts
1:37:09 have acquired the tools to
1:37:10 challenge the quran and they too have
1:37:12 testified the quran is inevitable
1:37:14 and appreciate why the best linguists
1:37:16 have failed however
1:37:18 can a non-arab or non-expert of the
1:37:19 arabic language appreciate the
1:37:21 inimitability of the quran
1:37:23 and to now the role of testimony the
1:37:25 above assertions are based on an
1:37:26 established written oral testimonial
1:37:28 transmission of knowledge
1:37:29 from past and present scholars of the
1:37:31 arabic language if this is true
1:37:33 and the people best place to challenge
1:37:34 the quran failed to imitate the
1:37:36 divine discourse then who is the author
1:37:39 this is where testimony stops
1:37:41 and the use of inference begins in order
1:37:43 to understand the inference of the best
1:37:44 explanation the possible
1:37:46 rationalizations of the quran's
1:37:47 inimitable nature
1:37:48 must be analyzed these include that it
1:37:50 was authored by an arab
1:37:52 and non-arab muhammad considering all
1:37:55 the facts that
1:37:56 that we discussed so far it is
1:37:58 implausible that the quran's
1:37:59 inadmittability
1:38:00 can be explained by attributing it to an
1:38:02 arab and non-arab or muhammad
1:38:04 sallallahu alaihi he was still in for
1:38:06 that reason
1:38:07 god is the inference to the best
1:38:09 explanation and that's a summary of
1:38:10 everything that we've unpacked today so
1:38:12 far
1:38:13 so after 1 hour and 38 minutes and
1:38:17 17 seconds brothers and sisters let's
1:38:20 now take some questions
1:38:31 okay so
1:38:44 there's some really funny questions so
1:38:48 yeah this this this that's uh let's be
1:38:51 um
1:38:52 let's be a mature here right so um
1:38:56 let's get some questions so if you if
1:38:58 you don't mind start asking some
1:38:59 questions now
1:39:23 okay so i'm just waiting for some
1:39:24 questions there seems to be a slight
1:39:26 delay
1:39:30 why does georges rhyme with gorgeous
1:39:32 that's very funny
1:39:33 uh let's keep your professional mature
1:39:38 please
1:39:42 uh okay so muhammad says this argument
1:39:45 this argument
1:39:45 is so watertight i i don't think there
1:39:48 are any questions subhanallah
1:39:50 well there's always questions there's
1:39:52 always questions
1:40:02 okay so there's not many any questions
1:40:05 um okay there's one question here i
1:40:06 believe okay very good so
1:40:09 oh it's disappeared so the question here
1:40:11 is
1:40:12 i recall reading somewhere that the
1:40:13 hadith language is very different from
1:40:15 the arabic language very
1:40:16 similar very few similarities and words
1:40:18 have you heard this as well
1:40:20 in actual fact i have got a video on
1:40:21 this is a very old video with me and
1:40:22 sabor
1:40:23 we cite a actual linguistic a linguistic
1:40:26 study in a paper which was very good it
1:40:28 did like a kind of linguistic
1:40:29 statistical analysis between bukhari and
1:40:32 the quran
1:40:32 and it concluded just based on the kind
1:40:36 of um
1:40:37 statistics that they that they that they
1:40:40 came up with that it shows that it was
1:40:43 completely two different authors
1:40:45 and now obviously like with most
1:40:47 academic studies the reason i haven't
1:40:48 referred to this study because
1:40:50 there were some you know kind of
1:40:51 academic limitations to the methodology
1:40:54 of the study
1:40:55 but yes you're right and when we do a
1:40:57 study of the hadith literature
1:40:59 when you do a study even from a
1:41:01 statistical perspective on the use of
1:41:03 words
1:41:04 and the style and the stylistics of the
1:41:06 particular
1:41:07 hadith literature whether it's in
1:41:09 bukhari or muslim whatever the case may
1:41:10 be
1:41:11 you see there is a clear distinction
1:41:13 between the quranic discourse
1:41:15 and the hadith of the prophet
1:41:20 uh and this is very important to
1:41:22 understand and one would argue well this
1:41:23 doesn't make it
1:41:24 you know from god no we're not saying
1:41:26 that but it's one
1:41:27 it's one of the features it's one of the
1:41:29 criteria of ensuring that it didn't come
1:41:31 from the prophet sallallahu alaihi
1:41:32 wasallam
1:41:33 that that there is that clear
1:41:34 distinction yes we know you know normal
1:41:36 human beings
1:41:37 they have different uh use of language
1:41:40 and statistical
1:41:41 linguistic variants and so on and so
1:41:42 forth when they do when they sing when
1:41:44 they
1:41:45 write songs on when they recite poetry
1:41:47 or when they
1:41:49 um you know if they're rappers for
1:41:52 example there is a distinct style
1:41:54 but yet from a statistical linguistic
1:41:56 point of view there are
1:41:58 you know one would argue many
1:41:59 similarities from their normal speech
1:42:01 and from the speech if they're rapping
1:42:03 or singing or reciting poetry
1:42:05 but you know when when it comes to the
1:42:08 quranic discourse there is a very very
1:42:10 clear distinction
1:42:11 um and that's it doesn't mean it's from
1:42:13 god but it's a very important thing to
1:42:15 mention
1:42:16 because if there was similarities in you
1:42:19 know linguistic
1:42:20 uh in statistical uh
1:42:23 uh use of certain words and there was a
1:42:26 similarity
1:42:27 in stylistic uh variants and style and
1:42:30 so on and so forth
1:42:31 then it'll be very problematic to say
1:42:33 that it came from god because it looks
1:42:35 like
1:42:36 very very similar to the prophet's words
1:42:39 but given the fact that there is a clear
1:42:41 distinction between prophetic narrative
1:42:44 and quranic narrative then this is
1:42:45 extremely helpful and there has been
1:42:47 some research on this um and i ha and i
1:42:50 have
1:42:50 cited that research previously but i
1:42:52 removed it because
1:42:54 an academic uh show to me there were
1:42:55 some methodological issues i i don't
1:42:57 think they were major
1:42:58 but it's always best to be robust but
1:43:00 your point is very true
1:43:01 and it's a very key point which i should
1:43:03 have mentioned and jazakallah bless you
1:43:22 this
1:43:33 yes it's very good very good question so
1:43:36 wouldn't
1:43:37 the method by which the quran was
1:43:39 revealed many times on the spot
1:43:41 to address questions social social
1:43:43 social political issues etc become part
1:43:44 of the chronic challenge
1:43:45 it is part of the chronic challenges and
1:43:48 you know at sapiens institute we're
1:43:49 developing a course
1:43:51 to basically um articulate the veracity
1:43:54 of the quran
1:43:55 this is one argument but we have an
1:43:57 argument concerning its structural
1:43:58 coherence
1:43:59 and this is very important for us to
1:44:01 understand because you know the quran is
1:44:03 revealed many of its verses were
1:44:04 revealed for specific time and place
1:44:06 for specific issues and circumstances
1:44:09 and many of these verses address those
1:44:10 issues yet
1:44:11 the quran has come together in a
1:44:13 coherent literary structural piece in a
1:44:15 structural way
1:44:16 and very very very coherent and you know
1:44:19 for example we have things like
1:44:20 ring composition and other structural
1:44:22 coherent features literary features
1:44:25 and you know one would argue that's not
1:44:27 very special because people have
1:44:28 coherent writing all the time yeah for
1:44:30 sure
1:44:31 but the nature of his coherence is quite
1:44:33 specific i.e
1:44:34 ring ring composition and other aspects
1:44:37 but
1:44:38 it it it was done so with
1:44:41 with you know it's done so you have to
1:44:44 understand it was done so
1:44:45 with the idea or from the perspective
1:44:48 that many of the verses were revealed
1:44:49 for specific time in places yet they
1:44:51 formed a coherent piece a deep
1:44:53 structural coherent piece from a
1:44:55 literary perspective
1:44:56 this is phenomenal why because it means
1:44:58 the author knew the future
1:45:00 that's what it means because
1:45:04 how can you develop a literary
1:45:06 structural piece when you're
1:45:08 addressing specific situations across a
1:45:10 particular period of time
1:45:13 in order for you to be able to do that
1:45:15 it means you already
1:45:16 knew what was going to happen and you
1:45:18 [Music]
1:45:19 provided those verses or those responses
1:45:22 in a way that would create
1:45:24 uh that type of structural coherence
1:45:27 and there's a really good book by
1:45:29 muhammad abdullah draz
1:45:31 it's called the eternal challenge and he
1:45:33 discusses he's got a beautiful quote
1:45:35 a beautiful quote concerning the
1:45:37 structural features
1:45:39 of the quranic discourse i don't know if
1:45:42 i put it in my book i should have
1:45:43 it's just it's phenomenal um let me see
1:45:46 if i can find it
1:45:47 just bear with me it's concerning the
1:45:49 kind of structural features
1:45:51 of uh of the quran and this point that
1:45:54 i've just made and he's made
1:45:55 he made it in a much eloquent way uh
1:45:58 when he talked about
1:45:59 you know how on earth could uh
1:46:02 the the prophet sallallahu alaihi he was
1:46:07 how could on earth the quran be from a
1:46:08 man from a human being
1:46:11 based on on what we just said actually
1:46:13 let me try
1:46:14 let me try and find it online because i
1:46:17 i do believe
1:46:18 i have referenced it on uh in another
1:46:21 essay
1:46:21 or somewhere else uh just bear with me
1:46:25 lot but i really want to read it it's a
1:46:27 beautiful quote
1:46:28 um coherence and
1:46:35 it's it's a beautiful beautiful um
1:46:39 the type of my saying as well because it
1:46:41 might come together
1:46:42 because i have referenced it bear with
1:46:45 me
1:46:46 yes i think it's here there's a pdf
1:46:53 okay so let me just find a few
1:46:56 all right search
1:47:01 yeah here we go are you ready guys
1:47:05 when we consider carefully the timing of
1:47:07 the revelation of the quranic passages
1:47:09 and surahs and the arrangements
1:47:11 we are profoundly astonished we almost
1:47:14 belie what we see
1:47:16 and hear we then begin to ask ourselves
1:47:18 for an explanation of this highly
1:47:20 improbable phenomenon
1:47:21 is it not true that this new passage of
1:47:23 revelation has just been heard as new
1:47:26 addressing a particular event which is
1:47:29 its only concern
1:47:30 yet it sounds as though it is neither
1:47:33 new nor separate from the rest
1:47:35 it seems as if it has been along with
1:47:37 the rest of the quran
1:47:38 perfectly impressed on this man's mind
1:47:40 long before he has recited it to us
1:47:43 it has been fully engraved on his heart
1:47:46 before its composition
1:47:48 in the words he recites how else can it
1:47:50 unite so perfectly and harmoniously
1:47:53 parts and pieces that do not naturally
1:47:54 come together is it a result of an
1:47:57 experiment that follows a spontaneous
1:47:58 thought that could not be the case
1:48:01 when each part was put in his position
1:48:03 the one who placed them
1:48:04 never had a new thought introduced any
1:48:06 modification or rearrangement
1:48:08 how then could he have determined his
1:48:09 player how could he have
1:48:11 made his intention so clear in advance
1:48:13 when we consider such detailed
1:48:15 instructions
1:48:16 on the arrangements of passages and
1:48:17 surahs we are bound to conclude that
1:48:19 there is a complete and detailed plan
1:48:21 assigning the position of each passage
1:48:24 before they are all revealed
1:48:26 indeed the arrangement is made before
1:48:29 the reasons leading to the revelation of
1:48:31 any passage occur
1:48:33 and even before the start of the
1:48:34 preliminary causes of such events
1:48:37 such are the plain facts about the
1:48:38 arrangement of the quran as it was
1:48:40 revealed in
1:48:40 separate verses passages and surahs over
1:48:43 a period of 23 years
1:48:45 what does that tell us about its source
1:48:48 brothers and sisters what else can i say
1:48:49 that was the eloquent words of sheikh
1:48:51 muhammad
1:48:51 abdullah and subhanallah
1:49:02 absolutely boom islam is true that's
1:49:05 what big boss says
1:49:08 maryam says allahu akbar indeed allah is
1:49:12 greater
1:49:26 so
1:49:31 okay so brothers and sisters in order
1:49:32 for you to get all the references in the
1:49:35 slides
1:49:36 all you need to do is go to sapience
1:49:38 institute.org forward slash books and
1:49:40 download the divine reality
1:49:42 and go to chapter 13 i think it's
1:49:44 chapter 13.
1:49:45 and i have an essay called god's
1:49:47 testimony
1:49:49 and it's everything i've mentioned is
1:49:51 mentioned this essay with a little bit
1:49:52 more
1:49:53 and it's got all the references for you
1:49:55 brothers and sisters okay
1:49:57 so without further ado i uh i need to go
1:50:00 now may allah bless you
1:50:03 it's phenomenal i'm going to do more of
1:50:04 these inshallah please give us your
1:50:07 feedback
1:50:07 please share this with people you know
1:50:09 this is we provide this content for free
1:50:12 you know if you you know i think you
1:50:13 appreciate that it's nuanced
1:50:15 it's uh philosophically robust it's well
1:50:17 referenced there's a lot of research
1:50:18 that's gone behind this it is you know
1:50:21 hopefully
1:50:22 uh timeless from the point of view that
1:50:25 it's not based on certain evidences that
1:50:27 we know today
1:50:28 it's based on you know on on concepts
1:50:31 and first principles and evidences
1:50:33 that are not going to necessarily change
1:50:35 in any shape or form
1:50:36 and therefore it's a timeless argument
1:50:38 that we can use today tomorrow and in
1:50:40 the future
1:50:40 our job is to internalize it and be able
1:50:42 to articulate on a popular level and
1:50:44 academic and intellectual and mid-range
1:50:46 level as well
1:50:47 but that's your job to continue the
1:50:48 journey so this is just part of the
1:50:50 journey
1:50:51 please download the book read the
1:50:52 particular chapter
1:50:54 go to the references understand this
1:50:56 argument revisit
1:50:58 this seminar even further again
1:51:01 revisit again brothers and sisters and i
1:51:03 pray you know it's inspired you
1:51:05 in in in some way and uh
1:51:08 you know we're gonna have we're gonna do
1:51:10 these academic webinars
1:51:11 inshallah every week uh the first one
1:51:14 was
1:51:15 on beauty god god
1:51:18 god's beauty and uh the recognition of
1:51:22 god
1:51:22 last week was by that was by far
1:51:26 this week last week was by dr utman the
1:51:28 teeth and he was i can't
1:51:29 i can't breathe on empathy
1:51:31 dehumanization othering
1:51:33 and racism today it was on the
1:51:37 god's testimony articulating the
1:51:39 linguistic miracle of the quran in
1:51:41 in in a way that doesn't require you or
1:51:43 the person that you're talking to
1:51:44 to know anything about the arabic
1:51:46 language and it rests upon
1:51:48 the epistemology of testimony and
1:51:49 inference to the best explanation and
1:51:51 next week we're going to have a special
1:51:52 one for you as well in sha
1:51:54 allah so brothers and sisters may allah
1:51:57 bless every single one of you and
1:51:58 grant you the best in this life and the
1:52:00 best in the life to come
1:52:02 um and you know stay safe
1:52:06 stay peaceful stay
1:52:10 well be good to each other love for
1:52:12 others
1:52:13 for yourself which is a sahih hadith
1:52:15 from the prophet sallam narrated by
1:52:16 bukhari
1:52:18 and and the specific arabic is not it's
1:52:21 not just your brother it says
1:52:23 human beings and we know this means if
1:52:25 you go to the works of anawi
1:52:27 and maliki scholar even this means that
1:52:30 we must be committed to the goodness and
1:52:31 guidance for all people
1:52:33 and that's what muslims should be
1:52:36 should be that's our state of being so
1:52:39 anything i've said that is
1:52:40 good has come from allah anything wrong
1:52:43 or bad it's come from my ego my nose
1:52:50 is