From Doubt to Certainty: Rebuilding Iman with Evidence | Shaykh Muhammad Elmarouk

Okay. Welcome everyone to the second major uh seminar that we're offering here with education on from doubt to certainty. And this seminar is going to extend and continue and return to what we covered last year. So there will be some things which are a review, but we're going to we're going to be going a lot deeper into every subject inshallah. And as you can see from the title, we are addressing doubt, its causes, and then certainty and how we can prove these five these four facts on the bottom. Islam is true. The prophetam is a genuine messenger. God exists. How we build an Islamic worldview and build it on evidence inshallah. So let's look at the the schedule for today. Inshallah the what's going on? Okay. The goal is for this not to be a lecture pure lecture form. I want us to engage for you to ask as many questions as you need for you to push back if you feel need the need to do so. Um this is not just me just talking to you in it's a conversation and that's how knowledge is built. It's built through conversations not just through through lectures. Now I'm here with Bas education. I've studied personally and privately overseas for many years, but I do a lot of work with Buler Education, which is an organization that tries to answer all of these questions on the on on the board there, important questions that many Muslims have. And we address these for free with, you know, professional uh slides and seminars and workshops. And the goal is really just to give resources, free and accessible resources to to every Muslim. So today um in from the beginning of July, we are pleased to announce that we're we are have opened up the why Islam is true course. It's a full uh 12-week course for completely free and moving forward. Alhamdulillah, we got to the place where we don't have to charge anymore for it to support our our mission. So really the goal of this thing today is I'll mention a lot of I'll return back to Bud on a lot of the materials we made. Everything I'm mentioning today is completely free, right? So I'm not we're not we're not making any money off of of of this seminar. The goal is really just to share these resources so that as a parent you can use them as a youth you can use them for your children. Um and we've really put a lot of work into these. So today you can go to yslamistru.com and start and and enroll immediately into why Isslam is true for uh completely free and I'll I'll mention the the the website later on in as well. Okay. So if you've ever had any of these questions or you've thought about these before, this is the right seminar to be in inshallah. So let's look at our schedule. We're going to have an intro into doubt into atheism. how doubt arises the history we're going to look at the modern atheist move movement which is a you know a very important uh subject movement to understand then we're going to build our Islamic worldview so God design oneness miracles Islamic history how we can ground all of these things in evidence and not just blind faith and we're going to do this in a way that is very succinct and and deep but not going it's not a whole seminar just on this one on these on these facts. Last year we did an entire two-day thing just on the Islamic worldview. So today we're going to go beyond that and once we've built this world view we're going to defend Islam today or and tomorrow collectively against many of the modern attacks the problem of evil you might have heard that um the age of was the prophetam a warlord how do we understand and reconcile Islam with evolution uh spiritual abuse right we've had maybe there have been uh bad imams or people who have been caught doing things that contradict their message. So, how do we understand this? And and these, as we'll see, are very important issues. And finally, if we have time, the Islamic dilemma. This one's not really a problem as much for Muslims because it's kind of a madeup problem, but and but it takes some time to understand it. So, we'll see if we have time to get that or not, inshallah. And then also, I'll give you uh many resources throughout the class and throughout the seminar to access and use inshallah completely for free. Uh Q&A is going to pop up throughout the the seminar. So if you ever have a question, just raise your hand and you can ask immediately. You don't have to wait. But we will also have designated times for Q&A where you can we can really go back and forth and you can spend a lot of time inshallah. We'll also have breaks. But if you I don't think the breaks are scheduled. So if you um ever need to get up and use a restroom, get some water, please feel free. You don't need to ask me or anything. you can just go ahead and and and and do that inshallah. Okay. So any questions before we begin? Let's go into definitions. So when we talk about certainty and doubt, what do we mean? So if I say I'm a Muslim and I believe in these things, are you do you have certainty in those beliefs? Are you do are you doubtful of those beliefs? What do we mean by doubt and certainty? What do you guys think it means to be certain about something that you're you're absolutely sure? For example, like Islam is true or the prophetam existed. If you say you're certain about that, you know it's true. What does that mean to you? What does certainty mean? Yeah. Anyone can raise their hand. Yeah. Okay. So, a couple things there. You've known it your whole life. You have no reason to question it. And there's no other maybe there's no conflict conflicting evidence. Okay. What else? What else? What else do we understand when we say certainty? Arabic, it's what does that mean to you? You don't have to get it doesn't have to be right. Just let me know what you think. What do you think? You're you're sure of something. Okay. Now, what about doubt? What does doubt mean to you? I know these are like very, but when you say I I'm not sure. I have I have doubt in a certain belief. What does that mean? How would you define doubt? Someone's doubting their belief. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. They're questioning it. Okay. So, let's understand our definitions today and we're going to use these definitions for the rest of the seminar. So, certainty for us today and there are many, you know, definitions of certainty, but we're saying a firm belief. It's it's it's it's firm meaning it's not subject to change based on evidence. So you're not believing this just because someone told you to believe it. So you some people might have firm beliefs but they're not based on evidence. So let's say someone they believe they're sure that the sun orbits around the the the earth. They're positive. That's but and and they don't have any if they don't have any evidence or sufficient evidence that would be a false belief. So it's firm belief based on evidence that settles in one's chest. This aspect here is more of like a a practical meaning of certainty that you find that it's just with you and it's an action of your heart. You can't really ignore it. Like belief is something you don't actually do intentionally because when you see the evidence, your heart either, you know, affirms it and leans towards it or it doesn't. And this is why when the prophet when the Quran talks about the disbelievers, they say that they know it's the truth, but they disbelieve in that. What does that mean? It means that they're there, they their hearts, you know, know it's the truth. They know it's the evidence is there, but they just deny it. They don't they turn away from it and or their hearts aren't even uh uh accepting it. So they either know it without even realizing it. So or they don't realize it at all and Allah hasn't guided them. But it's an action of the heart. So when we say that certainty settles in one's chest, it means that when one knows that Islam is true based off of evidence that's a firm belief, it then starts to become part of who they are. It starts to just settle with them and it's it's it's harder to shake it. It's not just a a mere fact out there that, you know, as soon as something else comes along, it just shakes everything up. Um and that's what that's what we mean when we have someone has like strong iman. It's not just blind faith but it means that the certainty in this evidence has really settled and doubt is not simply asking questions. It's not simply thinking is this true? In fact those are really good questions. Every one of us in once you are in high school or even before that sometimes you should ask is this true? You know I live my life by this. Is this actually true? Do I truly believe this? Not in a way that is challenging Islam, but in a way that you're trying to establish the truth for yourself. Not just because you are a born Muslim, not just because your name is a Muslim name. And discovering that for yourself is really important as we'll see. So, we're talking here not about the doubt that makes you go ask your father or your sibling or your friend, how do you know Islam is true? You know, how do I know? I have a question. It's the doubt that brings individuals to the cusp of leaving Islam or altogether abandoning their faith. So it's the doubt that has really shaken the foundations completely and now they start to have thoughts of uh this might not even be for me. I'm not even sure Islam is completely true at all. It's not just curiosity, it's almost denial. It's getting close to this is has no utility for me. Um this doesn't make any sense. So questions like that this doubt is what we're trying to cure and the other doubt is natural and we have answers for that. So we encourage people to ask questions to be inquisitive but this doubt is something which uh affects our our Muslim community and this is why when we when we try to understand this we talk about the story of Zade. This is a hypothetical story of a Muslim. So I hope no one's here. Zade, I'm not not talking about you. But it's a hypothetical story of a Muslim who grew up in a Muslim community just like MCC. I grew up in this community and who memorized the Quran, maybe went to Sunday school. They have a Muslim name. They know a lot of fun facts about the prophetam. They might even enjoy going to certain Muslim gatherings. Um, and they love the culture, but they have these deep down doubts that are starting to, you know, pull them this way or that way. I don't know. I don't know why I did that. Okay. Starting to pull them this way or that way. So, they talk to their parents maybe one day and they get shut down. Maybe they tell them don't ask these questions. Maybe they tell them, "I don't know." And when they go to their Muslim high school, their their public high schools or in college, they have very intelligent professors or other people who are not afraid to challenge Islam, who are not afraid to challenge the establishment and to ask these deep questions. And instead of stigmatizing questions, they come with answers. They say that we follow the evidence that we are we base our beliefs on pure factual evidence. We're not we're not we don't have any blind faith. And that approach is in is intriguing. It's exciting. It feels like maybe this is a proper way of understanding truth. So although they are outwardly Muslim in their community, they're Muslims even maybe with many of their friends, they have other friends that they don't talk about Islam as much. Maybe they they change their name in front of. Maybe they have, you know, they they they don't, you know, they act they start to act ask even deeper questions and start watching YouTube videos of certain people who challenge Islam, maybe popular atheists who speak really well and eventually you get to a point where although his name is Zade, his belief is not there. He is a closet atheist and that's very common. So he doesn't have the courage yet to break out of the nest and just to tell his parents, I no longer believe in this. Maybe he's afraid that of the repercussions being cast away, being uh excommunicated from the community, but he knows that Islam is mo is only a cultural thing at best. It's a way of connecting with your people you love. It's not really true. So maybe he eventually accepts that he's Muslim by culture and he loves uh you know his his cultural food and the cultural wear but inside he knows that miracles are impossible that God doesn't really exist and that the prophetam was just another man and this story that I mentioned the story of Zade is very common actually in our communities and the reason why it's a problem is that you don't know you can't tell so you have to be that student you have to be one of his close friends to really understand that and there are so many Muslims in our community who because they are given the right answers this begins to create a compound effect right where more and more and more start to leave Islam in the shadows and eventually as we'll see they have this coming out mo moment or they actually just break away um and then it's very hard to bring them back. So let's look at how we you know what are the causes of this of this story you know what brought Zade to this um situation so the first thing is poor education and we'll talk about that today poor education they are not given the proper adequate answers so even Muslims imams sometimes will say I don't know how to deal with evolution they themselves say you know that's something I don't So if the im doesn't have the answer, then what do you think about parents who haven't studied, who aren't imams, who are busy, right? Do they have the time to actually go research the these things? Do they even have the confidence to respond and say, "No, I know there's an answer to this. Let's go let's figure it out." Uh or maybe they just they just, you know, shut down the conversations. This also occurs in public schools, in Muslim schools. So a study in ISNA found that uh when it came to the STEM sciences, math, science, that they had the you know the best teachers, people who were very adequate but the Islamic studies teacher was just the local uncle just someone you maybe a young student of knowledge someone who might have some good effects but there's no depth there's no you know real grounding in these in these sciences they don't really know theology that well so you end up have you have even in in many Muslim schools, right? You know, they're elite in math and science, but when it comes to Islam, they're getting just they're told just a bunch of stories and very weak evidence. The teacher doesn't maybe doesn't even have that confidence as well. So, that's another problem. The second thing is the ne the negative representation. This is either from within the family that challenging is not an option. You cannot challenge these these beliefs. Um you cannot say anything about these beliefs, right? mentioning even the prophet's name and you're not being absolutely you know venerating every single sentence we're not even going to have a conversation and some of these things come from good from a good place right so it's not to demonize our parents and it comes from a good place they are trying to protect their child from you know the outside influences and trying to show a strengthen of Islam but many times those intentions have the neg the opposite effect that's that's that's intended so this negative representation of Muslims being intolerant, not not willing to answer questions and also as they look around them, they see uh you know propaganda from uh you know from from the news you know all of these public speakers who are who attack Islam who say it's backwards. Maybe they even see Muslims who claim Islam like extreme extremists like ISIS and whatnot who claim to be Muslim and they know that that's nothing to do with pro true Islam. So how do they navigate this and what you know what what circles are they being you know grouped into without their without their choice. In many cases there's also abuse and trauma from people within their family and more importantly from religious figures in their community. So spiritual teachers, imams who we find out later on have have had you know multiple you know secret marriages or who uh were using their authority and their religious uh their religiosity and their spiritual insights to get people to over to work you know overly work uh or to sacrifice um a lot more than they should and whatnot. So this is a very problem a very you know very widespread problem. We keep hearing these stories that pop up and a Muslim growing up in the west who say if these are my leaders, these are my religious examples, what does that say about Islam? So even if that might not be completely objective, it's a powerful it's a powerful uh producer of doubt. You also have unislamic influences. the fact that you actually have people who are Islamophobes who are literally the far-right anti-Islam and their goal is to is to downplay and to attack Islam. So this is online. The idea that you go, you know, half of the videos up there, if you if you look up Islam, some of them are going to be good. Many of them are going to be pure propaganda. Um, Christians who are just blatantly attacking the prophetam with no evidence. And they bring a lot of, you know, what seems to be factual information. They're trying to cite these hadith without context. So a Muslim who reads, is that really in Bkari, is that really what the Quran says? It says, "Kill all of the disbelievers." Is that really what it says? with no context with no with no backing and these anti- unislamic influences begin to erode the the the certainty that they have also in general just the idea of you know like a western lifestyle you know we you know the entire west as we'll see is built off of this separation from church and state right disconnecting our knowledge and our institutions from religiosity so this so this type this level of secular secularism it seeps into even our Muslim communities and we start to think that certain things should be separate, right? That the way you go to school is not the way you go to the mosque and that oh that's what God says but this is what science says. Muslims might even think this because they've been influenced by this secularism and these and this and these ideas that aren't from their tradition as we'll see. And finally we have the modern atheist movement which is a very powerful uh movement which we'll talk about today um which is a huge it's a huge producer of of atheism and doubt. So institute they did a study and they wrote a paper on the modern pathways to doubt in Islam. I don't know if you guys can see this well up there but they found that there were three major causes. The first being personal trauma. The second and that leads to whether that's communal trauma, acute trauma or prolonged trauma. And they give all these other examples there. Or philosophical and scientific concerns about the truth of Islam, new atheism, evolution and whatnot. Morality and social norms. So communal problems, social problems. How do we understand the had punishment? How do we understand gender interactions, the transgender movement, right? Are these compatible with Islam? Um what rights do non-Muslims have? Right? Is slavery okay? Uh all of these questions on the social level that lead people to doubt Islam. And in reality is very complex. You know, one person might have one or two from from each of these and it's a culmination of doubts. It's never just usually one problem. That's very rare that you'll find a person they just have one issue with Islam and then that took them out of Islam, you know, because usually that one issue can be found. They figure it out or they don't and then that's it. But usually there's a lot that's there. They might say that it's a philosophical concern, but in reality it's abuse. They might say that it's a social concern, but in reality it's just the way their im you know their the the it's actually just the way that they that science doesn't seem to align with evolution. So to not downplay the complexity of doubt these three sources are really uh are really important and in order to understand them at a very deep level let's look at the modern um atheism movement and its history. Any questions so far? Everything all good? Okay. Okay. So if we look at atheism, the history of atheism, there's actually a good book called the evolution of atheism. It talks about how it's evolved. And even the word, which is a modern word for atheism, is in the Quran. But it's not the word, it's not the meaning that we know of today of atheism. Rather, linguistically just means to turn off the path. Right? So in fact it means just to you know this is a straight path to go against orthodoxy or to turn away from what is correct what is the truth and this is what we've saw in the 17th century is that atheism the idea of atheism was just an opposition of orthodoxy going against what's considered the status quo of belief in the 18th century and there's a history behind this behind the enlightenment and the scientific revolution as we can study this deeper But it begins to define atheism as deism which means that yes there is a god an all powerful god but he is just the beginning of the universe right he just started everything he roll he started the he started the to roll the ball of the universe that just kept going so a god that's disconnected from the universe and this is a very important step because a god that's disconnected from the universe that's just there at the very beginning can simply just as long if you just remove him from the beginning, he's nowhere. But a God who is involved in every single action and every single decision, this is a God that's a lot harder to remove from your life. He's there all the time. In the 19th century, it became agnosticism. People who believe in a god, but they don't call it God. It's just an a higher power. We can't define it. And it's not Christianity. Um and you know this was when uh so and then and then in the 20th century a explicit denial of Christianity so kind of the culmination of the enlightenment to say that you know what Christianity itself is completely backwards and that's actually really important because when we look at beliefs religions are connected in the fact that we rely on source texts we have a belief in a necessary in a in a being whether he's supernatural or necessary. We'll talk about that. We believe in his connection to the universe. We believe in that day of judgment. The Abrahamic faiths are very close even with our disagreements. So when for example uh Bertrand Russell when he attacks Christianity and he has this very famous uh paper named why I am not a Christian. This attack on Christianity in extension is an attack on Islam. uh because it's not just an attack on Christianity just from you know very certain points that are only connected to Christianity he's making a bigger argument which is that all religious texts are not compatible with progression with progress with science with an objective um outlook. So he says, "You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in human feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminish demuniz demunition of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. So there's a problem with an organized idea of religion. And we in Muslims we don't really have these problems. So many of the responses to Christianity as we'll see don't apply to Islam in the sense that we don't we didn't have this approach you know against against uh science and whatnot um and against many of the things that Christianity opposed and the racism that Christianity had this idea of Christian hegemony that kind of took over the world. So Muslims don't really have this this dark history as much. But as he says, I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion as organized in its churches has been and is still the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. So by extension, all religion is the moral the principal enemy of moral progress. It's holding you back in the dark ages. And that's what so if you want to be a moral good person in the modern age, you have to reject religion. Let go of the shackles of religion. And this is the uh this is the messaging that he has. So in the in the 21st century we now we have what we now consider atheism. If I were to ask you what you believe atheism is, how you understand it, it's the denial of religion as a whole. Right? There's no you know we're not even talking about God. Religion itself is useless and it's evil and it's backwards. So it's not just God. It's all of religion. and that even arguments to say that oh religion is good for societies and whatnot even those are not good not good arguments. So let's look at key themes of this modern atheist movement. The first is very aggressive criticism. So they in the past atheism it would you know they would it was kind of it was a lot more subdued. people would challenge but it would be you could say softer. It it wasn't they were they weren't immediately just denying all religion. They would bring contradictory facts and show that you know that these things contradict each other but there was never this brazen outright just rejection of all religion and saying that religion is evil. They didn't they didn't do this. So one of the mo the very key themes of modern atheism is that they're not afraid to say that religion is evil. They're not afraid and we'll see very clearly, you know, how how an example of that. The second thing is scientism, right? That science is the ultimate measure of truth as we'll as we'll talk about. And third, this is there's this idea of coming out that you have to outwardly express your rejection of religion. It's not enough for you just to not accept it uh in your heart. You have to bring it out. You have to show people And they had, you know, the the modern atheist movement was built upon many different articles and an entire history of opposing religion, but really four key writers, scientists, some of them being uh neurologists, another a reporter and um some some into history. They call themselves the four horsemen. So Richard Dawkins, the most famous of them still today, he wrote the do the God delusion, which is a a very powerful book actually. The rhetoric in there is very powerful and it's meant to really break your ideas of of religion, the connection to it, right? So he really challenges you in that book. So it's not a good book to read if you're not ready. So sometimes Muslims get this idea of curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat. It does. If you're not if you're not ready, right, it's good to ask questions. But the people who are trained, right? You don't go trying to discover if Islam is true reading Richard Dawkins, right? That's how you just fall right into disbelief. Christopher Hitchens and you see this brazen attack. He says God is not great. So you know in the in what we say Allah Akbar, God is great. He wrote a book God named God is not great in response. Sam Harris um the end of faith and Daniel Dennett Darwin's dangerous idea. He was really into the into into evolution and how evolution undermined religion. Now although today these four figures and this idea of modern atheism has kind of died down in its popularity. It was very popular in the early 2000s 2010. Now a lot of these some of these figures have actually passed away. Others have kind of you know kind of fallen out of popularity like Sam Harris is now considered it's like a laughingstock a bit but the idea is that the the work and the the damage was done. So they set the foundation, the groundwork for a you know vibrant and powerful movement against religion, a new atheist movement that outlasted them and they did this with a lot of effort you know in given many interviews uh writing their works of course they wrote many books each of them um and being as we mentioned very aggressive in their attacks right so if you look at if you talk if you look at Richard Dawkins today if you see a couple of interviews right he's very aggressive when it comes to attacking uh Islam and Christianity. He he won't he won't accept any like middle ground, right? So even someone like Jordan Peterson was talking about the utility of religion in the fact that it provides you stories, moral stories and whatnot and that these things are real from the perspective of them being a myth and whatnot. He didn't even want to accept that. He wants to basically throw all the religion out completely that there's we just want to rid ourselves from religion. We don't we you know wipe our hands. Let's not talk about it anymore. It's just an evil and ancient thing. So the second thing as we mentioned before the second pillar is scientism and scientism looks at science as the benchmark of truth. So if you look at if if you were to you know investigate does god exist that's a question they will say that that's actually a scientific question. It's a scientific question. Does God exist? So if we can't find evidence in science then that's right a useless claim. It's not it's not backed by evidence and they use the language of science to prove everything. So science and and uh sorry the language of mathematics that's actually incorrect. The language of mathematics to prove all of their scientific conclusions and their strongest weapon is evolution. Why is evolution their strongest weapon? The modern atheists this is their strongest weapon against religion and Abraham Abrahamic faith. The main reason is because in our beliefs we reject that Adam was was evolved. We believe that he was created directly and we'll talk about evolution in this seminar. So there their main proof is that look you know we can talk about whether or not God exists and these different arguments and whatnot and that can get very philosophical. It's a lot more difficult. But if I can just show you very clearly that evolution is scientific fact that it's been unanimously basically agreed upon in in in can the cannon of science and I and I also show you that your religions are categorically saying that Adam did not evolve. This is an immediate contradiction. So they cannot be true at the same time. And this is why Dawkins himself said you're either um like a Christian or you're a scientist. That was like a famous thing he said. You're either a Christian or a scientist. What's he trying to say is you either either hold on to Christianity and that's good or and you don't do science or you do science, you be objective, you be fair and you reject you reject Christianity because there's no you know it's completely contradicts science. [snorts] So religious texts are scientifically correct. And if religious texts are scientifically correct, then all the revelation is incorrect. If we can show that like revelation is backwards, then we don't really need it. It's not useful. It's not true. Right? So maybe some things they got coincidentally they got right, but religion as a whole is not true. And their strategy for the new atheists is to discredit religion on three fronts. The first front is through the texts. So the religious texts so to show the text the Quran and to say look how backwards this is look how you know you know there's like there's there's you know look how ancient this is look how it contradicts our scientific conclusions look how unfair this is right so you know mon many modern questions that they'll hold on to and they'll say oh look you know the had punishments if you steal your hand is chopped off right and this is uh you know cut their hand right in the in the Quran so Look how barbaric this is, right? This is this this text is completely backwards. The second thing is institutions. So they'll attack, you know, Muslim, you know, uh, mosques, communities, um, any type of institution that's trying to do good for Islam, right? They will try to, uh, discredit it, say that it's not, they're not being it's not objective, right? Try to even apply legal force, you know, in in communities to shut down initiatives. So the whole idea we saw in Texas with the epic mosque or you're creating a community of like a terrorist, you want to establish Sharia Allah. They never said they wanted to establish Sharia Allah, but this is the idea that this institution is bad. They're going to establish Sharia law and start cutting our hands and everyone's going to be walking around in a in a so rhetoric is attacking our institutions. And finally, the the leaders, the religious leaders by number one pointing out and holding us to our faults. So when we see the scandals that happen, right, pointing these out, but then also just um showing how uneducated many of our our leaders are, if they if they're not very versed in science, right, they'll make them a laughing stock, right? They'll humiliate them in a debate. And this is actually why the you know, you talk about the modern da movement. Have you guys seen like the modern da online? This is very in many ways anti-Islamic in when what you would consider like a traditional approach to da'ah which is very calm and there's adab and but why why do they have this kind of response because they're dealing with a a a huge wave of people who are attacking you know who are attacking the Muslims and their leaders with ad hom attack attacks right saying how backwards they are they're not being fair so the mo the modern Muslim da scene has kind of grown in this we're going to fight fire with fire right if you're going to insult me Muhammad hijab for example said right if you're going to if you're going to come to me and insult me and insult the prophetam in front of my face I'm going to insult you I'm not going to I'm not going to play nice now whether or not that's a valid and correct approach that's a different discussion but this is the response this is a kind you can say like the natural conclusion right so if you're going to go out there and do these public debates and just ridicule Muslims that we're going to do the same thing and we're going to make we're going to make atheists and Christians and Christians a laughingtock of of of people who are, you know, educated, you know, like smart and intellectual. And that's kind of where we're at today. So, you'll see that they a lot of times they don't have good adab. They're very like they're very rough around the edges. They'll just attack them. They'll insult them. They'll bring up their relationships, right? Make fun of their wives and stuff like that. That's not that's not Islamic, right? So, we don't we shouldn't do this. But it's this type of environment today when you go if you go out there in the da and you get involved this is what you're going to feel. This is how you're going to this is what you're going to it's not going to be the atheists aren't coming from a purely objective you know let's have a conversation they have a goal they have a strategy and it's to discredit religion and to destroy it. It's not to have you know good conversations. [snorts] Now the third theme that we mentioned to the modern atheist movement is this idea of coming out. So this is a website um and we'll talk about this but they want to build a community of atheists. They want to break away from the closet atheists. They want everyone to come together. Look, you're an atheist. You're an atheist. Great. Come together, right? We hope you'll join us, right? Come to our community lectures. We'll provide you resources. You know, just as we we had a convert uh yesterday, mashallah, who who became Muslim in MCC Jama, right? So, he gets sent an email with all of these this packet of all these resources, right? If you need financial aid, here's the the Sunday. You know, we have a lot of resources for people who enter Islam. It's the same idea, right? So, if you want to enter our religion, that's not a religion. If you want to enter the modern atheist movement, you know, we'll make it really easy and appealing for you to do so. We're not it's not you're not going to feel alone. So to develop a positive identity, no, you're not being uh you know like uh sacriiggious, right? You're not rejecting uh the truth and tradition. You're being a fair open-minded person. You're following your truth and you're doing the right thing, right? This is the best thing for you to do and to leave that backward religion in the in the in the dust. So they really pray on Muslims on the edge. people who are Muslim but who have these deep doubts and they will encourage them also almost recruit them to just make a very rash decision. So the the idea won't be to look take your time of course and look at the evidence, weigh the evidence, right? Go on a journey of self-discovery. It's very clear like look, if this seems backwards to you, just say it. Just say right away, right? Don't keep going to the the vicers. Don't keep going to the the mosque. Just tell your parents, I'm an atheist. I don't do this anymore. Right? And that's the respon that's that's kind of the attitude that we see today um from, you know, many of the youth, right? is that they are not afraid to just to challenge uh you know their culture and their family identity and these because they are being bolstered and and pushed forward by this by this modern atheist movement. So if you look at this um this website if you can look American atheists um so their goal is to create strong community and they have an entire network and this is just one of the many websites online for a community of atheism. You can look these up and see they have a lot of they do a lot of work. Um and they have these three these three these four tenants right activism right community education and service. So if you look at this, you think like, oh wow, this resembles like a Muslim community, right? This is like how Muslims think. We know we're trying to have and get involved in activism, defend Palestine, um, community, strong education, and then serve one another, right? This is Islamic, but they're spinning this from a purely unislamic atheist, right, viewpoint. So look how you can see how harmful this is, right? We think that we we're we sometimes we think that we still live in a bubble that our communities are protected and that right people are going to be tolerant and they're going to look at it like we're all Muslims and we can never break out of this. But if you look around, we have many other communities. We're in such a diverse land. And just as we have this bubble of of our community, they have the atheist bubble or the Christian bubble. and the atheist bubble and these other bubbles are getting stronger and their communities are getting so they have a place to go they leave and that's very dangerous right because in the past in a Muslim society for example if someone had you know actually wanted to leave it would be a problem right they wouldn't have anywhere to go they'd have to face these questions they wouldn't be able just to reject Islam and then find a community the next day right and find a whole new group of friends right so let's keep going any questions so Alhamdulillah. No, this is like so we're doing that the toughest part first. You know, we got to we got to look at the evil first before we go to the the light, inshallah. And but it's important to know this because we have to know what's working on us and our and our communities in order to in order to to to face it and to defend Islam. All right. So, let's look at the Islamic the anti-Islamic narrative. And this is something that we has been building up since the n since uh the 20th century. So the idea that you know we have a positive identity of leaving Islam why I am not a Muslim hers very famous right the in she's you know infidel my life so this is my life story this is my autobiography look how I improved and I grew and I went through this journey to leave Islam this is the idea um the illustr the illusion of harmony why there is no god the atheist Muslim Ali a rivi and then the curse of God. The curse of God and many of these people are very active on social media. So the idea is that they're not just writing these books. They're very vocal. They have they produce a lot of material and all of it is connected to uh you know estab you know challenging the establishment um you know breaking out from the shackles of religion and a positive you know uh a positive attitude towards this journey that they had that we broke away. So you can see throughout the years right they've been publishing these works and this is not maybe as scientific and as strongly acade strong academically as the four horsemen the god the god delusion and whatnot but this is like the personal level right people who are coming out and saying look I left Islam I'm just like you I was a Muslim I have a Muslim name and I left Islam I did it I had the courage you should do it too right and they're writing these works to to to build on that narrative Okay. So what are the themes that we see? Freedom of thought and belief. So a freedom of expression, freedom of thought with belief. This idea of of freedom of belief in the Middle East as well, right? Like there's another organization Arabs without God. Right? So we we the Arabs, you know, we had the prophet sent to us. So we in inherited this tradition, Islam, right? Islam was our religion. And now we're breaking away. We can try we can finally like rid ourselves from that tradition that we had, right? Because they were Arabs. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, challenging the establishment, um being brave, being having courage and um thinking of Islam as an religion as a problem. So Ayanna Hers Ali for example sat with um she now she now like converted to Christianity but she sat with um uh Richard Dawkins and said that we have this vacuum a religious vacuum in the US and it's being filled by Islam. So this needs to be fought this is a problem right that this vacuum is being filled by Islam. That's why we see today that the highest the strongest growing fastest growing religion in in the world is is Muslims and in America as well. So this idea of independence as well all of these themes and I'm I'm going deep into this to show you right that they are connected to these moral themes these ideas that are good right it's good to be brave it's good to have independence but in what way right is is rejecting your belief and just challenging is that what we taught is that how we define bravery is that how we define you know like uh critical thinking and strong independence freedom of thought is just to or attack the prophetam and say he's this and that. Is that how we define freedom of speech? So these are many of the you know the the themes within this movement. So there's an very important report by this organization called the ex-Muslims of North America and they investigate the character characteristics, experiences and beliefs of North American ex-Muslims. So they want to research this phenomenon of Muslims leaving Islam in the west and they have a bunch of really important um uh surveys and it's good to look at these. So for example the age of apostasy we see that most of these the people who apostated are within their 17 to 20 so 22. So through college, so college as we see for some reason and we'll talk about why is leading people to leave Islam. People are leaving Islam in college. And then the next group is right after college. So maybe they've did a masters, maybe they're now working. These young professionals are leaving Islam and it's this age where this post university they they feel this independence. Maybe they're living alone and their education in college has destroyed their idea of Islam. So this is not to say that one shouldn't go to college. You know you have to but in in in many cases but it's to say look at how when these people are are now in an age where they're reflecting they're on their own how this leads most of them most of the people who leave Islam are in this age. It's not people way later. So it's it's a young generation and most of them had a bachelor's degree right so not uh you know they're educated they know their science they know these ideas but they haven't gone you know necessar not beyond that as much uh but they're educated so it's this idea of the young educated mind that now rejects Islam right now now that you're educated and you're independent you can go to the science lectures you can understand these books Now you can think for yourself and leave Islam. [snorts] And let's look at some of the reasons for apostasy that they said. So conflict between Islam and human rights. So a major contributing factor and a primary factor. So human rights, this is a social area that we said very important between Islam and science. That's the second one. So you see human rights and science those are the two the two most important ones. Logical contradictions these are you know contribut a major contributing factor internal inconsistencies feeling disconnected from the Muslim community and other non-religious reasons. Notice how feeling disconnected from the Muslim community is not a factor really because many of these people are still very connected. The story of Zade is that they're still coming to the mosque. They're still coming to Jama, but they don't believe in Islam. So we see that many of these individuals are also questioning Islam for years. It takes time. So where how are we not solving this problem? How are we not giving people the correct answers if they're thinking about these questions for years? It's not something despite all the efforts to say just leave Islam right away because they're so connected to their communities. How are they how are we not giving them the answers for many years before they leave Islam? Right? There's a long period of time where they are are still a still there still in the community and we can still connect to them before they actually make that final step. [snorts] So the crisis as Yes. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, >> yes. Mhm. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Absolutely. I mean, this is Yeah, this is an atheist study and you're right there. The idea of the lack of meaning and trying to solve these deeper questions that come once people have many kids and they're older. Um, that absolutely leads people back to Islam and that's why, as you said, most of these people are not old, right? So, um, Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's that's the most important thing is that as you said is that one of the main reasons stigmatization this really pushes people away because even if they aren't accepting of the ideas and the answers that we give them the number one thing that's going to pull them back is our good character. It's the fact that they find they still feel that they have a home in the mosque. But I was just with someone else and he was like a scholar and he was saying that his daughter left Islam. This was like a sheh and he said that he cut her off completely. He said he never wants to see you again in my life. And you know the question is like how does how does that help right? If you if we truly understand belief as life Allah gives us life through belief. It's a form of life and it's not the real death right because we know we're going to be resurrected and and and go to paradise. So the real death is losing your iman. Then why why should why would we ever make ourselves a barrier for them coming back to life? We have to be as open as possible and wanting them and having a good and and encouraging them and making dua for them to come back right that we have to be their lifeline as you said. Um so it's absolutely true that many come back to Islam. They have this problem this this phase. Um, but just as like other phases, maybe someone they have a phase, they tried drugs or they try they maybe they're not as religious when it comes to the opposite gender. The this these have greater consequences, right? Because of the fact that you're actually leaving Islam completely and you're not guaranteed to come back. So, how do we stop them? How do we protect youth in colleges and universities from leaving Islam? And what is the answer? And that's the main question we're answer we're looking at today. Okay. So the crisis is that 55% of the people who leave Islam and it said that yes sorry Yeah, absolutely. I mean education is the easiest step in the sense that once we're trying to look at like the the fastest thing the quickest thing you can do to bring them back is just to teach them right that Islam is true and we have arguments and we have these proofs um the other examples like maybe social problems or abuse these are harder but most of the people who have problems many of them as we saw um it's because of like philosophical concerns like real doubts and these doubts can be can be cured very easily, right? So, it's not necessarily something connected to their emotions as much. And then in that case, we know education has to be number one. From a young age, Muslims do pretty good with young kids of getting them in the mosque and making them love Islam and love the prophet. I think most Muslims grew up in a way that they love the prophet. They love Islam and that's really good. But then once they get to that age of 12 12 until and then until through through through college, this is when you have to start to be very intentional with your educational education. It doesn't just suffice just to put them in a a Sunday school where they just talk about the s and different things. You have to give them these proofs and start to introduce them to them especially the ages of 14. And the reason why so I what you know what's my background? I run a seminary in in Toronto where I live for youth the ages 14 to 18. And the goal is that when you get them at this age at 14, their minds are still open. They still have this sense of innocence. um even if they're in public high school and they're really receptive to looking into Islam and to understanding these things, we find that once they get to college, it's a lot harder because now they have this identity and they're not afraid or not even not afraid, it's like they just they're not as willing to just change who they are. So if their identity now has become we don't I don't like Islam or I have these problems. Now you go it's it's a lot harder to convince them that Islam is true or to show them the proofs as much. They're not as receptive. Um, so really the a the secret age is between 14 and 18 when they're still in your household really and when they still respect author authority and they respect their parents and they're open to learning. Uh then once you get to college, you know, most of the influences are going to come from their friends or from like lectures and talks that they that that people give, but usually not from their parents. So from as as an on an educational level as parents we really have to focus on the you know 12 to 16 17 these years are absolutely crucial absolutely crucial. So one in four Muslims of Americans raised in the west raised as Muslims um no longer identify as Muslims. They leave Islam and the number is even higher for converts. I believe it's something like 66% of converts leave Islam because for them they don't have that community that community that connection they weren't raised as Muslims. Now 55% of them half of them know have no identity with any religion. So this is the problem. This is the modern atheist the fact that they're not just saying oh I think Christianity is more convincing. They just say no no religion itself is just gone. They want to just completely disconnect themselves. 22% Christian and 21 with the the smaller groups of Hinduism, Judaism and other uh you know generally spiritual uh types. So the problem is that you know we have a lot of Muslims in our community you talk about one in four right and if you look at your own community your own family even if you come from a big family maybe maybe not maybe many of them haven't actually left Islam but which of them do you think are have these doubts which of them are vulnerable and it might not be so obvious right it might not be so obvious so really we have to look at all of our youth everyone in our family and say that We need to give you the answers. We need to, you know, give you this intellectual armor for your Islam and not just suffice and not just kind of pick out the kids who we think are having doubts. Sometimes we have we have no idea. But if it's one in four, that means that there might be people even within our family, may Allah protect us who are questioning Islam because one in four is a that's a very like that's a high percentage of people who leave Islam. That's very high. Yes. Yeah, >> closet atheist. Yeah, it's high. They're closet or they have major problems because we have we we have to understand that atheism doesn't have to mean rejecting all of the tenants of faith. It can simply mean that thinking the prophet was an immoral person. that by itself I mean traditionally we say oh that's kufur and what that but if you think about it even on like a just at a at a intellectual level um that is half of our belief so when you if someone sure believes in God but they don't like the prophetam that's a big problem or they can't explain these questions and usually it comes to the fact that they just don't have the confidence in answering these questions or knowing that there are answers they don't think there are answers So that that was actually I asked my the seminar I did the students at the end of the year I said what was the number one takeaway you took from this course like what was the thing you benefit from the most they said the fact that I know that there are answers because none of them we you know if you tested them could you know oh here's a contingency argument premise a premise 2 premise premise you know they can't do this that's difficult you have to be very trained but they were exposed to the answers from someone who knew them well, who had confidence in them. So now they have the confidence to know that there is an answer, that there's someone they can go ask. And that way when when an answer comes or when a question comes, a doubt comes, someone who sounds very intelligent in their high school, they don't immediately just try to figure out themselves. They just go back to their teacher. They go back to that relationship they had with their parents or whoever was teaching them these answers. That's what we want to give our our students just that that confidence and that connection uh I'm not sure if they did an age group. I think they did. You can check it. It's if you look up um the Pew Research One Informed Muslims leave Islam, they have a website with all the information. I can look that up. I'll look that up in the break and see. I just don't remember on the top of my head. [snorts] Mhm. >> Mhm. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean uh you're right in the sense that um education is very is very complex is you have to be you have to be precise because otherwise if you go through a stage of just a lot of trial and error you might not come to the right conclusions that's why I'm saying just relying on your friends or YouTube you might get the right the right video you might get the completely wrong video and that can change everything you might even think it's a good answer so I've had people come and say oh yeah this is like look at this answer This is like such a strong answer. This will beat the atheist and it's like a Christian answer which means that it's leading you to believe in Christian in in in how the Christians understand God and whatnot. So there are problems in the answer you don't even realize. Um so you're absolutely right. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's correct. I had one I was working in Sacramento actually and I had a student or not a student a guy come to me at a Ramadanar and he said I'm an atheist and he was a convert and I said oh can you tell me your story like I'd love to hear why you left Islam why you joined Islam and why you left Islam so he said I was really I was always interested in science and into mathematics and like philosophy and I had these deeper questions about existence and these things so I went to my local mosque and the imam just told me to make Toba I'm just say Allah just say Allah for having these doubts that might be a good answer for a young like maybe like a really young child right um or for oneself when they know that they are on the on the straight path and then these doubts come they just say like just get this out of my head but for someone who is genuinely questioning Islam that's a completely wrong answer so this type of stigmatization you know says I'm going against them attacking them you shutting them down. All the everything you mentioned is what can lead people to leave Islam. And that that's a real story. He left Islam because of that. Um he didn't he said they don't have the answers. They just want me to like make vicar and think it's going to be okay, you know. So he didn't accept that as an intellectual as we said. So absolutely right. You're absolutely right. So I just looked at the website. I don't see anything about the exact number. They said they're adults, but I can look more in later on to see if maybe they have some more information about the study. Okay. All right. So, let's go back to the problems. We talked about the philosophical and scientific concerns, social and moral concerns, personal trauma and emotional concerns. We are going to respond to these problems today and in this course in this seminar inshallah. Um, so let's look at our solution. What's the solution? The solution is what we call the house of iman. The house of Ian the picture might be a little hard to see but this is built off of three main approaches. The first is why Islam is true and this is a response to the philosophical concerns. So establishing that Islam is true that prophet existed um that we have rational evidence for God's attributes that um you know Islam does not contradict science. All of these questions are done in Islam is true. You have to give your children or our we have to give the people in our community the tr the absolute full comprehensive approach to knowing why Islam is true. They can say Islam is true. Then the second thing we mentioned the social and moral concerns. These are usually once they know Islam is true these are cured by loving the prophetam. That's the pillar. So learning about the prophetam his beauty the beauty of his life his morals his ethics. And when you learn who he is and in that context, then a lot of these questions kind of fade away because now you can approach them from the perspective of who the prophetam is and how he's understanding these things and how they should be understood with the corre correct context, not how other people are framing them. Right? So when you know who the prophet is and then you understand for example the had punishment, you're not going to understand as some barbaric thing against you know like all progress and whatnot. you're going to understand you know what is the wisdom behind this how would someone like the prophetam actually understand this and and and and and uh and advocate for this what does this really mean so from that perspective all of these things can then be placed properly and not misrepresented so that second thing is love the second pillar is loving the prophetam and the third is purifying the heart purifying the heart what we mean by this is cultivating a spiritual connection to Islam to to to god and the The reason why is because we know in our tradition that all mental health for the most part and many on many of our problems it stems from our heart. Right? So the famous hadith that there's a part of your body which part of you which if it is sound the rest of you is sound and if it is corrupted the rest of you is corrupted. That's the heart. the idea that yes [snorts] we have we can respond to these issues yes with like a mental health clinic and these things to abuse but there are a lot of these issues that stem from people just being in a bad having a bad relationship with Allahh spiritually they're not in the right place so when something goes wrong instead of having taw unreliance and patience they blame Allah they think why me they start they start to challenge God that's a spiritual question right They might still believe Islam is true, but their emotions, these states that come over them are now making them doubt God's love of them and God's kindness. So these are not philosophical concerns. They're not real concerns. They're emotional states that people have maybe emotional, you know, or diseases of the hearts that come up. And this has to be treated by purifying um one's heart. So making Islam a lived practice not just something which is cultural inherited something that they actually find this beautiful connection with when they pray they that prayer really means something to them they see the beauty of Islam they really feel it in their lives and when that happens even if negative things occur and people wrong them they're never going to connect the trauma that they had or bad experiences with the truth of Islam there are bad people in the world and bad things happen to people. But whether or not that affects whether or not Islam is true or not does not depend on bad people and bad people's actions, right? We have to be able to separate these things. But people can have a hard time with this because their spirituality and their state, their heart, their connection with Islam, whether or not they found any beauty in Islam or not, um is not there. So really, this is important because when we talk about a belief system, like what what are we looking for in a belief system? We're looking at the fruits that it bears, right? like not just that it's true but also what it does for you as an individual. So what does Islam do for you? How does it help you? How does it make you a better person? These are questions we should ask. And this is going this is connected to our spiritual state. Meaning where our heart is at, how we connected to the Quran, how we've purified our our our bad quality, our negative qualities and adorned ourselves with beautiful qualities. um and then built up a and character that then does da by itself. Now once these three these these why Islam is true love of the prophetam and then purifying the heart are established then you can defend Islam then you can defend the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and you can defend the Quran from all of its attacks but without these pillars and without the structure you're going to end up making mistakes you're going to end up making either mistakes on the philosophical grounds you're trying to talk about something about the Quran but you haven't even established that God exists. How are you going to have a conversation about that? Um, you're trying to talk about the, you know, um, this a certain moral question, but you haven't, you don't really know who the prophetam is. You don't, you have no idea the context of revelation. So, the reason why you're misunderstanding all of these ayat is because you don't know who the prophetam was. You don't know the context that the ayats were revealed in. You don't understand the history behind it. These are all really important to defending Islam and defending the Quran. Um, so that's the roof, right? The roof of a of a strong house of iman is able to defend these these criticisms and these attacks on Islam, but from the ground up. And you can build this house of iman in individuals, right? In individuals, you give them these foundations and then that will lead them to this community safety net. So whether or not they're going to university, the medalasa, Islamic schools, convert care, mosques, homeschooling, prison, da, whatever you do as a community is going to be grounded. It's going to be protected, right? They'll always have that backbone to go back to that that that lifeline to return to if there if a doubt comes up. if they themselves can even maybe they can defend Islam themselves but the community as a whole can be very effective. Right? So how do we do this? We we engage in proactive education. We give our students and our children the education and the resources that they need to build these three these three pillars. Um we create a community of people who are learning and building this house of iman within themselves as well. And then we reach out to people. We connect to people that we maybe have lost touch with, people we think need help, people who could benefit and we share the information that we have. We teach them, we give them resources. Right? This is how we can start to enact change, how we can, you know, fight this movement and protect Islam for the next generations. Okay. Okay. So, any questions about the history of atheism, the modern atheist movement, and the these responses before we begin? Cuz we're going to we're going to now begin with the first the first pillar, which is why Islam is true. So, the goal of this of this seminar is we're going to look at this first pillar really well. Why Islam is true. And we'll give you all the arguments you need to understand this. And that's going to be good because this pillar is kind of hard to only do on your own. It's good to do it with a teacher. The second two I'm going to give you resources to access you know because these take longer. Learning who the pro discovering the prophet is not something you can just do in one day and purifying your heart is not something you can just do in one day. It takes time. So I'll give you the resources for that and then with this framework we will then respond to many of the modern doubts inshallah. Yes. I think they said it was working when they when they checked, but um I'm not sure because Okay, let's see. Let me check now. I'll check right now. Last time I checked it wasn't. Let's see. still saying that it's not working. It's saying video unavailable or restricted. Not sure why. Okay. All right. So, I'm not sure, but we'll have to keep going. So let's continue for why Islam is true. We have four major arguments. Four major arguments. So the first is the contingency argument for God's existence. The second is the design argument. Third is the oneness argument. And the fourth is a genuine messenger argument. These are proofs. I say argument just to because it can be structured on argument but they're proofs and these are Quranic proofs. So we're not relying on arisatilian logic to get here. These are proofs that are in the Quran and I will show you where they are in the Quran. Allah Allahh tells us how to come come to these conclusions just by re reflecting on the universe and reading the Quran. So these are really easy to share in every community, right? Because some people they don't like logic, some people don't, right? You have to accept the Quran as a Muslim and these are in the Quran. So let's go through each of these together and inshallah this is going to be the most important part. So we have to you know focus and ask as many questions as you wantshallah. Okay. So the contingency argument Allah subhana t says verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth the succession of night and day and the ships that sail the sea with profit for mankind the rain which God sends down from the sky then gives life there therewith to the earth after its death. The animals of all kinds that he scatters through the earth. The changing of the winds and the clouds that they swirl between the sky and the earth. And all of these are surely great and numerous signs for those who reflect. So Allah says ayah a sign. He wants us to reflect on these things. What are we reflecting on? This is just our day. We're looking at the universe. We're looking at things that are changing and uh and moving in our universe and in our world. And this is going to be the basis of our argument for contingency. So it's very simple. We say that the universe is contingent. What does that mean contingent? It means that it dep we see that everything in this ayah everything around us depends on something else. We see that the leaves which change color we we look for an answer. When we look at rain, we say why do we have rain? From maybe from the clouds, from condensation, from the sun, evaporation, where, you know, we we look to answers. This is the basis of all scientific inquiry is asking why. So contingency is something that we look at in every single and everything around us. We see that this could be this could be different. How did we get here? Why is this the case? Like why is this cloth blue? Would anyone say that this was blue just because like just for no reason this cloth was blue or that for no reason at all, right? For no reason at all, right? That chair is black or that I'm from America. We're in it. We're here. We have answers to these questions because we immediately see that they could be different that it depends on something else. And this is something that we can view and we can see in everything that exists. We can see whether or not it's contingent or not. We see it immediately actually. And this is actually why one of the scholars said that you can show a young child that God exists just by throwing a pillow at him. Because when you throw a pillow at him, what's he going to do? He looks back to see who threw the pillow. Where did this come from? How did this get here? That's very intuitive even at a young age, right? Why didn't he just say it just came from nowhere? It has no cause. This pillow has no cause. I got it has no cause. Right? So the fact that he knew that this was contingent that it depended on something. It came from somewhere is very intuitive and it actually returns to the origin of all thought of all of our of all experience of perception. um returns to these principles that under that underly contingency. The second premise is that everything that is contingent depends on necessary being. We're going to explain this meaning that everything which could be different that depends on something actually needs a necessary being for it to exist for it to be there for it to be the way that it is because otherwise it leads to many problems as we'll see. Therefore the universe needs a necessary being. Okay. That's a simple argument very simple here. Let's look at some of the the details. So if I look at something which is contingent and I say what is the answer you know why is this the case I look at the the rain I say oh it's because of the clouds and maybe how did the clouds get water or because of evaporation and where did it and where did how did evaporation well from the seas and then from the the sun. Where did the sun come from? Oh nuclear fusion. If I start to create this chain of dependencies of things which are different, which are contingent, I go from the seed to the sprout to the tree, I am creating what we see as a line of of dependencies. A line of dependencies. A depends on B, B depends on C, and C depends on D. So what is the problem with this picture here? Can everyone see the problem? There's a problem here. Okay. Yes. Nothing knocked over a. Okay. So, we Let's just assume that it's already it's it's it's leaning back on something. There's a problem. The problem is that if we did an example here and I had a a bunch of us stand up and lean back on each other, right? So, I depend on you and you depend on me and you depend on the person behind you and we keep going back. What will happen if the last person just leans back? They just all fall to the ground. What do you need? You need someone who is standing on their own, who's not leaning back on anything else, who's not depending on anything else. It's a very intuitive idea that whenever we have a contingency, something which is dependent on something else, we need something which is intrinsic to itself, which is necessary, which doesn't depend on anything else. And that's all we that's what we call the necessary being. The necessary being is simply that which doesn't depend on anything else which doesn't rely doesn't need anything else. So just by seeing one simple thing anything in the universe one thing that I know is contingent I can immediately infer that there has to have been a necessary being because otherwise the only other conclusions could be that it just happened by itself. It's the way that it is for no reason and no one will accept this. Everyone, even scientists will say this is absurd, right? That the leaf is the way that it is just because like there's no reason. Um, and when they say this about the entire universe, they're simply avoiding the question. So this idea of a brute fact, they're not actually coming they're actually not actually engaging in a conversation. They're just saying it is just because they don't want to think about the absurdity of saying that an end like a chain of dependencies goes, you know, just began from nowhere. that you have things which are dependent and now it just came from the you know I don't care what you say you could say it's uh you know dark matter and that's right or the big bang you have to give something just to say that it came from nothing is very absurd and philosophically untenable and atheists realize this themselves right this is why you know like uh Lawrence Krauss he's a famous atheist when he had his idea that the universe came from nothing scientists themselves critiqued him and said, "Your nothing is not really nothing cuz you're saying it came from a quantum field and there's dark matter." Well, dark matter and quantum field that's something that's not pure nothingness. So, it did come from something, right? Like just on the outward. So, we need a necessary being. The other solution is that it goes on for eternity. But the problem is that you cannot have an endless line of dependencies because you're simply avoiding the question. If I if I say for example, right, like how did this person who's leaning back right now get here? Like why is he leaning back? Why how is he being held up? How is he being held up? And you just said, well, the person behind him for eternity, for infinity, you wouldn't believe this because that's actually untenable. When we have a set of causes and effects, we need a beginning to cause and effect. You're not going to get any cause without a be without without any effect without a cause. So the origin of cause and effect shows us that this chain of dependencies could not have gone on forever. And we can look at this in deeper in deeper a deeper level as well and go deeper into this. The impossibility of a real infinity and whatnot. But um a simple illustration is that if I had a dollar and I said here I'm going to I'm going to give you the dollar and you said then you said okay um someone asks you for the dollar. So I say okay uh let me go get it from me and I say well I need I need to get the dollar from someone else. And the other person says I need to get the dollar from someone else. And I said that goes on for infinity. Would we ever get the dollar? So the fact that we have a dollar means that someone had it. Otherwise, we wouldn't get the dollar. So the idea is that if you if you actually go back into infinity, everything just falls down. There would be there would be nothing then. But the fact that we do have something that there we have a dollar that the universe is here in front of us. It's contingent. We can't deny that it's here in front of us. This shows us that there had to have been a necessary being. So even scientists for the longest time believed in this. And then they investigated what is that necessary being? Is that a the Christian God? Is it the Muslim? You know, like what does this necessary being mean? And that's even in many modern debates, they'll say yes, I'll believe it. I I'll I'll conclude I'll I'll concede that we need a necessary being, but that's not your God. I'll say that's not your God, right? That's not Jesus, right? Like your necessary being is not Jesus. So how do we how do we understand God in Islam? In fact, Allah subhana t when we look at as Muslims, our definition of God is simply the necessary being. The one who doesn't depend on anything else and all of the other attributes of [snorts] of and these things many of these are just talking about and describing Allah's actions, right? The like what he you know what he has caused, what he's done. But at the at when we look at like the essence like the essential qualities, we're simply saying he is the one that doesn't depend on anything anyone else. This is how he's described in the in the Quran. As means the one that everyone returns to for their needs and he doesn't return to anything else. He doesn't need anyone else. Right? So when we say that Allahh is the necessary being, it's very simple actually. This proof is very intuitive and that's what we mean by God. We don't need to do all the extra like acrobatics that maybe a Christian has to do to prove that Jesus is their God. Our understanding of a necessary being of God is a necessary being. So this very intuitive answer it grounds all of our theology. And this is why when we look at Allah subhana wa ta'ala and the way he uh is described in the Quran, we see that we say that the the necessary being must have five qualities. Must have five qualities for him to truly be necessary. Okay? So the first is that he exists. He necessarily exists and we already prove that. The second is that he is beginningless. Because if he had a beginning, what would that mean? If Allah, if God had if the necessary being had a beginning, what does that mean? You're back to cause and effect. He's not necessary, right? If he began, if he had an end as well, how could he be necessary? How could truly be necessary if he could just end? [snorts] >> Mhm. So if God is necessary and truly necessary then he cannot end because otherwise he wouldn't be necessary. So the so the so when we make the argument from that's a really good question. When we when we make the argument from contingency, we're not saying that God is just the first cause because the first cause is not necessary necess is not necess is not really necessary. There could just be like you said a first cause and he disappears. But that in reality, in order for there to to be a first a true first cause and to to to fulfill real contingency, you need a necessary being. A being whose existence is intrinsic to himself, to itself. Because a first cause that's contingent that can no longer exist also begs the question of where how did it get here? Because its exists existence is not intrinsic to itself. it also admits uh to to cease to exist. So then you ask then how did that get here? And that's actually why the atheists when they respond to the Christian arguments they'll say if you for example the argument from design that the Christians use that argument. We're not going to use the argument to prove God's existence because if we do the question is just you just proven the existence of a supernatural being. So who designed the designer? That's what they'll say. We say no no no no no. We don't use the design argument to prove God's existence. We say that any contingency needs a real necessary being who is truly necessary. And the design argument as we'll see we use it for a different purpose. So in that case we're not saying as Muslims that God just began the universe. In fact we say that everything in the universe itself actually needs a necessary being. Like everything in the universe requires a necessary being. Not just the beginning of the universe. every like this this right here everything. Now how we explain that is going to be different. Are we explaining that at a metaphysical level meaning we're explaining it from like the reality of things depending on a necessary being or do we explain it like in everyday terms through science. So when I say oh this I you know I got this from a store and they made this that's just everyday terms or from science or do I say on the like the ontological level like from existence looking at its existence this immediately depends on necessary being because otherwise everything else in the chain just falls it just disappears right because it's not really doing anything so I don't want to get too deep into this it's a really good question um but let's keep going through these five the fourth is that God has to be transcendent What does transcendent mean? Who can who can tell me what transcendent means? [snorts] What does transcendent mean? That God is transcendent. So transcendence means that he can't resemble creation. So why can God not resemble creation like truly resemble creation? Why not? Yes. because then he would be just like us. He'd be hidden just like us. So to say that God is like us like like us literally like us this is very we can't we can't believe that right it would lead us to say that God um is also contingent and needs something to make him the way that he is. So we'll say that even the ayats that outwardly seem that Allah subhana t is describing himself in ways that resemble creation are not literal in the sense that they literally mean that he is like creation in the same way because this would lead to immediate logical contradictions and we'll we can explain how we understand that but we're not going to what we'll say is Allah says that he has hearing and sight for example but he also says before that like nothing is like him. He is like nothing else but he is hearing and seeing. So one could say how do I affirm that he is hearing and seeing but without saying that he resembles me and you in the same way that like I have an ear and I use this to hear. So because then he would be like us. So to join between those two statements that Allah makes the scholars have an approach but he his his transcendence is preserved right that he doesn't resemble his creation at all and independent Allah can't need anything cuz then that's what contingency is itself if Allah literally depends on something else God depends on something else for its own existence for its continual continuation of existence then it's not really a necessary being and that's pretty clear Okay. So, let's do an exercise. Um, and this is something you can take to practice with your children or to your your friends, to people you know. Explain who Allah is with these attributes. Meaning, I'm not saying you have to remember the argument we talked about, we covered. But I want you to when you talk about God, don't talk about him like he's someone like an old man on a chair in the sky. That's how some people describe Allah. We want to have the vocabulary and just the com comfortability to explain God from these from these attributes that he doesn't need anything that he is independent that he's all powerful for example right so how would you go about telling someone else about God how would you explain God in normal natural words not as a seminar but in ways that you highlight these attributes that he's a necessary being right because you we really want to show that there's a distinction between Islam and Christianity in the sense that we're not like the Christians where their god literally resembles humans. Allah says in the Quran they used to eat food. So how could they be God if they how could he be God if he ate food issa Islam. So their god literally resembles creation and their entire theology has to include that. It has to be able to work with that. So even when Christians use many of the arguments that we use, they always have to take an extra step to somehow once they've proven the necessary being, bring him back into creation. So it's like they separate the necessary being from creation. They say, "Oh, everything depends on necessary being, but now he came back into creation and now he's like us again because they have to believe that Isaam is God." Muslims don't have to do this. We can just hold on to this rigorous and rationally coherent understanding of a necessary being in its pure perfection. We don't have to bring it back into creation. So what I want you guys to do is I want you to pick someone next to you and practice explaining this. Just explain who God is. If you say who is God, how do you define God? People ask this all the time. What would you say? And how would you explain that in your own words? Inshallah. Okay. So go ahead. Let's practice this now. pick someone next to you and uh we'll go from here. So, [snorts] >> [snorts] >> Okay, Miss Mah, how'd it go? Alhamdulillah. Okay, so if you ever want me to go slower on something, let me know. Inshallah, we can go slower through different of the some some of the slides and take our time. Okay, so we're not on a time crunch. We have lots of time. So, how did it go? How did it how did it go to explain it? Yes. So yeah, what is existence? That's a good question. Existence is to be to be to be um established in reality. So it doesn't have to be physical. That's not existence is not tied to only being physical but it means to be established in reality that it's not he's it's not just an imagination something in our mind that there's something that actually is in in in in in you could say like the fabric of reality and not but not in necessarily in our world. So we don't believe Allah is in our world. We believe he's outside of the universe. The universe is everything besides Allah subhanana wa ta'ala. That's how we define the universe, right? So there's a scientific definition and there's the Islamic definition. The universe is everything besides Allah because the necessary being is not from the universe, but he still exists. So we don't have to connect existence to physical the physical universe. So there are many many ways to understand this. There is the fact that many ways actually the first is some scholars said that n is guidance. So Allah his his n is his guidance to creation in that case it's not physical. Others have said that it's creation. So Allahh his n is the fact that he brings things out of the darkness of non-existence into the light of existence. So Allah is the new of the heavens and the earth means that when something is not in non-existence is is pure darkness because there's nothing there. So the idea of of darkness being non-existence and light being you now you share an existence with Allah mean that Allah exists and now you also exist that that's light and Allah gave you existence which is light. It also can refer to an aspect of witnessing Allah subhana wa ta'ala meaning that there's a manifestation of God which is pure light because we will see Allah we can perceive anything that exists can be perceived can be seen so not necessarily with our eyes but that when we we can perceive it with our souls so the perception of Allah subhana ta is one of of like of pure light and radiance and this is the imagery that's given um even though we won't say that God is literally light. Meaning that like his existence is a physical, you know, like definition of light and uh and atoms and and electrons like we're not going to say that. Um or and and waves and particles like that. So that's not how we define Allah subhanaa tala. So in in that definition we don't so many of the scholars will say Allah is not lit he never said he sits on the throne. So the word isawah is to like uh it has many different meanings but of the meanings can be to reside it can mean to to rest it also can mean to have complete control. So they said that the ruler is like the uh like he had complete control and ownership over the land that he conquered. They use that same word. So linguistically there are ways to understand it in ways that don't make Allah literally a physical being sitting on a throne. Right? Um but other scholars will look at this and say that this is like like from a spiritual perspective the idea of is that um he is a metaphor for his complete dominion and like an absolute kingship. So not to say that there's a physical being literally on a throne um but to say that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because then that would go against many other ays as we mentioned and other things right and he's not you know wherever you turn there is a countenance of God so he's on the throne is he on the throne or is he in the you know so many of the Allah descends in the third the last third of the night well how could he descend in the last third of the night if he was on his throne so if you make it literal they're actually like are a billion contradictions that come up and because of that the scholars have understood these ayas that show a level of connection to the universe in ways that are metaphorically compatible with the language. The language allows it to be understood in this way so that we preserve the text but we also preserve our our belief in who Allah is. [snorts] So that would be a manifestation of God. So Allah will create a manifestation like like how Mus Alam when he talked to Allah through the fire. Allah was not literally in the fire but he had he spoke with to Allah through a manifestation of God. Right? So he he perceived God through a manifestation. Right? Just as if I were to for example like I'll give like a simple example like if I look in the mirror you say oh I saw you in the mirror the mirror is not me that reflection is not me right it's not actually me but it is so a manifestation is something Allah creates that's physical that represents his divine his oneness his his being even though he himself cannot literally be physical otherwise it leads to just like a billion contradictions and even rationally it leads to contradictions So some scholars say that if we don't understand it, we just say Allah said it, that's what it is. We don't understand it. But none of the correct scholars will say no, Allah literally has a foot like me and you. So his foot is like me and you and it looks like this foot. Like this would be considered kufur by most of the scholars. We'll say that Allah said he has a foot. It's an attribute. We don't know what it means. It means foot, but we don't know what it means. Like we can't understand it in a way that um is is literally physical. anthropomorphizization anthropomorphic of Allah. [snorts] Others will say that we we under we we interpret it um because the language can mean other can can give different interpretations and this is what the majority of the scholars are on. Yeah. Very good. Mashallah. So if you look at like these these these ideas in the Quran, we saw that the main proof is in the Quran but also that Allah necessarily exists. He says inah Bakar do you not know that he alone controls everything in the heavens and the earth and nothing controls him right that everything depends on him he doesn't depend on anything else or he says subhana ta for example we talk about beginninglessness he says he's the beginning he is the first and the and the last meaning he does not have any uh he does not have any beginning doesn't have any end he also says place your trust in the ever living who will never independent. He said that Allah is completely free of need completely free of need. So he's independent and the fact that he doesn't resemble his creation. There is absolutely nothing like him. These are all ays in the Quran, right? So we can explain this in our normal language, but these are all ays in the Quran. Now, why did I have you do this exercise? Well, for example, David G uh uh not David Gins uh Richard Dawkins, right? Similar name. He um has a famous quote which said that I'm an atheist of every god and you're an atheist of all other gods minus one. Meaning, just as you're an atheist of the spaghetti monster and of Zeus and of Athena and Bal and all these things, I just go one more god further. I'm just I'm I'm consistent, right? So, you're you're unreasonable to believe in one god and then reject all the other gods. You're an atheist also and with it just mine is one. So, how is the response? We respond to that by showing that our idea of God, our understanding of God is not the same as Zeus and Bal and these physical contingent beings like Jesus. No, our God is a perfect necessary being. So our proof for God does not make him resemble any of the other gods. And that's why we can actually we can reject Zeus, right? This bearded man in the sky with the lightning bolt as God and we can affirm Allah subhanaa tala as a necessary being. You see how you can you can they can it can be compatible. [snorts] Okay, let's continue. The next argument we're going to look at and proof is the design argument. The argument from design. So Allahh the same ayah he we're going to use in Bakar shows that the universe is designed. Now what does it mean for something to be designed? Design is let's go one more design is the bene the beneficial the benefit and purpose perceived in the change in composition of physical objects. So when I see that you know this is set up this way for this reason and has this benefit I say it's designed. So when we look at the universe we see very clearly that it's been designed. Now the scientists they will actually even admit that there's a fine the universe is fine-tuned and they have you know we'll talk about this like the con the cosmological constant all these things that if it was just like one to the tiniest the tiniest number ever one to the power of like negative 120 or you know one over you know if it was just changed that tiniest bit we wouldn't be able to you know exist in on earth or if it you know so it went one less or one more life on the earth wouldn't be possible uh or the the earth wouldn't exist. So the idea that the universe is fine-tuned and there are aspects of design is something which everyone will agree upon. The scientists will just reject the idea of design because that will then lead them to say oh there's a designer like there is a designer. They don't like the name design, but they'll say purpose. They might they might say purposes. They might say there's a benefit behind it. And that's all we mean by design. And their really like knee-jerk reaction to this is because of how the Christians use the argument from design to prove that God exists. So they'll say, "Look, you see the design? Look how intricate the eye is. Therefore, God exists." And then scientists will say, "No, no, no, no, no. There's no design. That's just an illusion. Therefore, God doesn't exist. And there's also the idea of the argument from the God of the gaps. So, the scientists use, the Christians use this, which is to say, look, this is something we don't understand in science. Therefore, God did it. Like, you can't find me a scientific explanation to this. Therefore, God did it. Muslims don't do this, right? Because you're just waiting for the next scientific discovery to disprove your belief in God. So our design argument is very simple and it's not used to prove God's existence because we already did that with the contingency argument. So our argument says the universe is designed everything that is divi designed depends on an evolutional agent. That's the fancy word right evolutional agent. Therefore the universe depends on aitional agent. Very simple and intuitive powerful argument. So notice here we didn't say that it depends on a necessary being. it needs a necessary being which is the argument that we did last time. We're saying that it needs a being that is has valitional agency and we're going to talk about what that means. So when we look at the universe, let's look at the ear for example. You see like just read just look at this image as I explain it. You see how complex and fine-tuned and purposeful something as simple and lit on small as the ear is, right? That like these tiny tiny tiny little um uh um little hairs and um these passageways and these tiny bones in our ears is behind all of our hearing. And this is how we hear. And that if it wasn't designed this way or it didn't have this these features, we wouldn't be able to hear. So science discovers this. And anyone who sees this will say, "Look how purposeful that was, right?" Like there's clear purpose and benefit in the way that the ear was structured in the way that the eye has been formed. You look at the universe, you see how the like I said the cosmological content. So science discovers design. It shows the benefit of purpose behind things. It just doesn't want to admit that there's a real design behind it. But we don't need to do this because the design argument is built on the contingency argument. We've already established that God exists. If you don't want to believe in God, just go back to the other argument. We'll talk about it there. Here, we're just showing you that actually God has valitional agency. He's not like a dead cause. The universe didn't just like emanate from him without any cause. We said no no no anything that's designed someone who designed something who created it needs to have these four attributes needs to be able to choose needs to be able needs to be alive right there has to be this level of will of power right of choice behind it because design shows that there is a process there is a plan there's a purpose behind it and that shows will that shows knowledge right as opposed to like just like a clicking talk uh clock or like a just gears moving, right? There's no design. Whatever it produces, it just pumps out the same thing every single time. So, the fact that we see this variety and this complex design in things around the entire universe, it shows that this could not have come from a lifeless cause. So, it's like a necessary being, but the necessary being doesn't have these attributes. They show very clearly that they that he needed we've already proved his existence. He needs to have these attributes of life, knowledge, will and power. And these are very clearly in the Quran. Right? Allah is clearly saying in the Quran all over the place that he has these attributes and we have these attributes as well, right? We choose, we will uh we we we have power. So when you look at for example your life and anything you do right what are all of the different options you have all the possible choices you can make within your knowledge you choose one of those and then you act upon it with your power so Allahh he has the same attributes except that they're perfect right that they're eternal they didn't begin to exist and that they're infinite he has infinite power infinite knowledge and he can will and choose between anything which is I can't really choose between anything. If I cho if I try to choose to pick up that entire or the TV or every you know like this entire stage by myself I'm not going to be I'm not going to be able to do this. So I'm limited. I'm clearly right dependent. I'm weak. Right? But Allahh he's in he's infinite. He doesn't depend on anything else. So his attributes are perfect. Okay. So now let's do the same type of uh uh exercise where we explain something that we see normally. So let's walk. You're going for a walk with your child or your friend and you see a magnificent waterfall or an intricate spiderweb. explain how this waterfall or spiderweb shows Allah's valitional agency. So we want to think about how we can introduce this level of thought into everyday experiences knowing that it depends on the necessary being the necessary being created it. So when you look at for example um you know something that's beautiful you don't just say oh mashallah that's pretty think about you know what went into such a perfect design such a perfect creation and Allah wants us to do this by reflecting on the universe. So the idea of this ayah that we said before we we we read it many times the purpose of this ayah is to say look at the the ships look at the rain look at the wind the crops look at these things all around you they're all pointing to Allah and this is why there's a famous line of poetry every single thing has a sign that points you to the to the one to to to Allah subhana wa ta'ala so everything around you will ointed and even within yourself and within yourself you look at your own will your own power your own existence you can prove Allah subhana wa tala's existence and his attributes so let's go back let's practice this with another with one of your partners you can doesn't have to be a waterfall or a spiderweb it can be anything just think of anything um natural and think about how um Allah subhana t created us how it depends on Allah but using these attributes bring these attributes out in conversation. Um, and usually these will come from the perspective of power, right? And and design, but you can bring out many of these, you know, in in your conversation depending on how you look at it, right? So, we want to be trained to look at the universe in ways that affirm our belief in Allah subhana wa ta'ala. Not in just like heatlessness. We don't even realize there's anything special behind it. And definitely not in ways that lead us to not believe in Allah subhanaa tala. Okay. >> [snorts] [snorts] >> Mhm. Mhm. >> [snorts] >> So we So that's a great question actually. So we don't believe and um yeah I should have mentioned this that Allahh just set things in motion. He just started it. In fact that every single thing which is contingent it itself needs a necessary being. So even the line of contingencies that we see they actually aren't doing anything. The middle chains are actually doing anything. From one perspective they are right because we can explain things through their natural causes. But from another perspective that one that waterfall and that person and this tree in every stage needs a necessary being otherwise you you're actually not giving a real answer like from a from a a real like you know from the perspective of existence of real dependency you're not giving a real answer because if you say for example well where did the waterfall come from and you say the I the glaciers you haven't answered the question the real answer is Allah because that's the necessary being so on from the ontological level you have to say God because that's the only answer and in that case we can actually see that Allah is very active in the universe like everything we do all of our actions and everything around us is directly depending on the necessary being in that moment because otherwise if we just say that Allah just started it and and and just continued we have to kind of admit that it's no longer um it's either no longer contingent or that other things have their own intrinsic powers that Allah gave something its own intrinsic power it's no something else is no longer contingent but That's not what we see. Everything we see is very clearly contingent and dependent and needs an explanation. And that explanation is either going to be from the natural perspective. It's a science thing or from the like you could say the real um ontological perspective. It's Allah subhana wa ta'ala. And this is why we have to be able to have two lenses, right? a lens that points to it and says, "Yeah, that's clearly a water, you know, like a glacier or this and photosynthesis." And that's great. That's good to say that, right? Um, right? We don't we don't naturally just say like, "Oh, you know, who turned on the light switch?" You say, "God." Like, no, you know, or why did why did the light turn on? Because Allah created it. Allah made it. So, you say, "No, because someone switched the light." So, our natural language can be preserved. But when we really think about things from their contingency from their dependence, we see everything depending on Allah directly. And that's why and that's kind of the the insight is that everything is really depending on Allah directly not after a long chain. Um everything itself needs an answer and that's how you can look at something like this and say wow Allah created this right now. Um and that's why Allah the examples he gives in the Quran are not like beginning of DNA. They're just everyday life every things because those things themselves need a real answer um that is that that fulfills its contingency and also can have an answer that fulfills our understanding on the on its physical and scientific level. And we'll talk about these two views. Yes. >> [snorts] >> So Allah so if you look at everything as contingent everything needs Allah directly and then you can explain things through science from from not looking at that perspective. So if you start to connect them in a way where you say well Allah gave this gave this tree the power to create itself or to to to now create other things in reality that's just not really consistent with the contingency. you're kind of giving it something. You're saying it's contingent that it needs Allah, but it doesn't really need Allah. So in reality, we say that everything depends on Allah directly, but we explain things from different views. I look at it from our daily everyday daily life. I look at it from a scientific explanation and I can look at the causes. So when I say for example that fire burns, yeah, fire causes burning. But if I look at it from its contingency, I say Allah caused the burning. Allah created the causing and he created the cause and he created the burning at the same time because they're both contingent, right? They both need that dependency. So it depends on how you view things. So >> [snorts] >> What is that? Yeah, these are really heavily debated uh discussions actually within theology. And there are many different perspectives, you know, a perspective that I've gener I mean I' I've studied these different perspectives, but in general a way that is kind of consistent with the necessary being that doesn't diminish Allah's power and role in the universe, but then also can pres preserve um natural causation is that we say that a a nature, something that has a nature, if it's contingent on Allah subhana wa ta'ala, completely contingent on him, Then in reality it in reality is Allahh doing it. Now when we say it's a nature what we're saying is that um we've tested it its relationship to something else to the point that we can with certainty establish a correlation and a relationship with this and that it burns by itself. meaning that um it always burns and it has this nature in a way that I mean even modern science won't say nature as much. They don't really look at things from the everetilian perspective of natures and essences but they'll say that this nature is something which is an explanation like a science like science an explanation that this burns because of its uh you know recept you know its receptivity to to burning and maybe it's molecular makeup and it's what however you want to explain this scientifically they'll also explain it from the from the perspective of natures in a way that removes God from the perspective because we don't need to always mention Allah's everything is dependent on on Allah in everything. So I can say that its nature is that it burns. But if I make it to the point where it no longer needs God, meaning that it's its nature irrespective of God or not, then that's a problem because now you're saying it's no longer contingent. It no longer depends on God. And that's where the the the fallacy of materialism goes astray. It's like I can explain things in science. Fine. That's okay. But once I say that it there it no longer depends on God whatsoever. It's necessary on its own and that leads to a problem. And the conflict is that it is contingent. So it needs a conclusion. But now you're saying based off of its relationship to other contingent things that it's necessary. So is it necessary or is it contingent? And that's why like language can be a bit deceptive, right? We can say something has its own nature or it's a real cause and then we can also but then we're not we don't actually mean that on that onlogical metaphysical level. So in this case when we say that Allah you see sent messengers and the messengers did things and we have our own free will and whatnot that's from the perspective of of ourselves and our relationships to other things that I have my own responsibility and I create my you know I do my own actions I create my own actions but if I were to look at my own actions from their contingency I would say Allah creates everything because in reality my actions are also dependent and contingent and my existence is dependent and contingent. So if everything's contingent on a necessary being then then who's fulfilling then then what is everything doing and that's why Allah says in the Quran also he says Allah created you and what you do Allah creates you and your actions. So meaning from that perspective like the ontological that real perspective Allah is creating all your actions but from your perspective from your um uh you know how you look at the world how you look at your own actions you do your own actions you create and you're responsible and you experience that you feel that you know that to be true and that's why like being able to separate between these two things are really important um because then it's like a comprehensive approach because otherwise it can lead to people to either do two things you either remove God completely. You say God's not in the universe whatsoever. There's no God, which is what the scientists did and some of the philosophers. Or you deny all causation to the point like there's no causation whatsoever, right? It's just Allah. So fire doesn't burn. I don't do any actions. And that can also lead to other problems too because like are you literally saying that there's no relationship between fire and burning? It's just like an imagination. It's an illusion. Is that really true? I wouldn't say that's true. Are you really based off of all your experience? Are you really saying that you don't have any free will and that you're not responsible? So going down that path can lead to, you know, like harder truths like it can be lead to not necessarily harder truth. It can lead to other problematic views. And that's why I think the middle path is to bridge the gap between our look at our viewing something from its contingency, which is like a metaphysical way of understanding it, and our viewing something from its natural characteristics and it's science and science and our own free will and our perspective and these two things can be brought together. Um, so I don't know. Let let me know what you think though. This is a good it's good to have these conversations. And I know many people who have gone the other way, right? They kind of really push for just the fact that, right, like there is no causation. There's no laws of science. There's no none of these things are real, right? They're just illusions. And I think that although that can be helpful to illustrate the point, it can also be detrimental. It can be hard for people to accept, right? So um, yeah. what you think inshallah. Okay, so let's practice this, right? Let's just practice applying this framework to something in your life and um explain to someone next to you inshallah. Go ahead. [snorts] >> [snorts] >> Mhm. So you would say that Hitler killing Jews and all of those things everything is dependent on Allah. Allah created all of it. From the perspective of it depending on Allah directly. But from the perspective of Hitler and the Jews, it was him and he was the evil person. He did all these things. So if you're going to look at like justice and evil in in things, you have to either look at it from the perspective of the ultimate creator creating everything from that perspective and that's a different way of looking at it or from our perspective of human accountability and identity and that's you have to look at it from two different perspectives because if you join between them you'll say well there are now you have we'll look at things from people's perspective oh it's him doing it and it's you doing it but then Allah created it so then you just you bring that injustice and you throw it on God and that's that's not like uh um like consistent. So what we'll say is from an ontological level Allah created everything and because he is a perfect necessary being and everything's created he can do whatever he wants and he has you know so like if I take this water bottle and I just destroy it it's like from the perspective of it just being creation there's nothing wrong it's I can do whatever I want but if I now give this water bottle identity and I give it and this other thing identity I say it has feeling and now I start to go into this realm where I say this water bottle came and I destroyed and beat up and killed this other water bottle but now I'm going to I'm going judge it on this perspective. I take these water bottles for example. I'm not going to now look back at the at the at the the play designer. And that's why people you can't you can't go from creation and throw it back at God. Like and that's and that's what people do, right? Because they don't understand that. They'll they'll go do something bad and say, "Oh, God, why'd you make me do this?" That doesn't make any sense, right? You either say there's nothing but Allah and his creations or we have responsibility. Mhm. you have to do another step. I agree. The only problem with that other view is the fact that you can't you have to say things aren't contingent anymore like because that they don't need a necessary being that other contingent things can really suffice that Allah meaning basically that like things are going to act on their own whether or not God wants to or not right like and that that limits God's power. So like if I say okay I have So it so Allah gives us free will but if you now say that you are completely independent of God whatsoever that's a contradiction in terms because how can something which was created by God which was designed which is dependent in every way now be independent of God. Something cannot be necessary and continued at the same time. Something cannot be dependent and independent at the same time. And I can't just give you independence. That's not how it works, right? Like this water bottle, I can never just give it independence to now create its own thing. Like I I depended on me in every single step, right? To give it its material, its design, everything. So if you have you take a human being and you he's completely dependent and contingent in every single way. And now you say, "Oh, but now he's his own like free active will doer that can act irrespective of whether or not God wants him to or not." That's a contradiction in terms and they and that's why many of those you don't see the contradiction in terms >> No, no, it's okay. We can have a conversation. Yeah. So um what do you what do you you don't that so what do you mean by independence? Independence Yeah. So I I absolutely understand what you mean. This is actually one of the earlier schools in theology. They believed in this. Um and they had many like many arguments and fights back and forth on these points. Um so it's something which some Muslims believed it was considered to be like incorrect and the main reason was because when we say independence we either mean one's like the perception of its own you know autonomy and the fact that we ascribe its actions to itself or when we mean independence it means it literally on the existence level no longer needs God. and does depend on God. And if you say that, it's not it doesn't it doesn't allow for it to also be continued at the same time. Like when you say God set up the rules, well the what what number one, what do we mean by rules? And if he created for example a creation and he said here's your independence that either means that it has its own actions that Allah describes its actions to itself which is what many people say that you know we ascribe these actions to you even though God does it or it means he literally creates his own actions irrespective of God completely and that means that if he doesn't depend on God whatsoever then then Allah then if he doesn't depend on Allah subhana wa tala whatsoever then his actions are not contingent meaning his he he doesn't need Allah in any way whatsoever and Allah also could not control his actions either like they're necessary then >> okay So accountability, yeah, that's one thing which can is could be hard to understand. The way that the wheel explain it is simply saying that there's you look at it from the perspective of either creation or the perspective of ascri of one's own perspective of the human perspective. And if you separate between those two then you're not ascribing the the the like the wronging and the bad actions to Allah only from only from the perspective of creation. And if everything is Allah's creation then in reality there's nothing wrong like everything is just simply like a water bottle and I'm just crushing it. Nothing like that. that. So your point it makes sense and I and I but the only push back is that when you look at things which are contingent they cannot Allah cannot give it full independence meaning that independence even on like an existence level is either dependent on Allah or it's not if it's not then it's not contingent anymore meaning like it's and something cannot be contingent at one point and then become necessary. Because by the definition of contingency is that it needs something to make it the way that it is. And a necessity is it's complete opposite. It doesn't need anything to make it the way that it is. So if you talk about I gave you the power now to act on your own. All of your actions are either dependent on Allah meaning that you still they're still contingent. They still need a necessary being. And I can say you have a power just to explain that but they're still in every way dependent on Allah. And in that case they still are created by God. Or I say that no they're not even contingent anymore. the necessary and in that case that's where it's a contradiction of terms to say that this is contingent because it's a human action and look at me like when I act it's clearly contingent like I can't you're not going to tell no one can tell me my actions are necessary or there or so it's either it's either contingent or it's necessary and I perceive that it's not conting it's it's contingent and they began as contingent so they can't become necessary so I can say yes Allah gave me the power for example to do things and he gave me free will and he gave me I can explain things like this all I want that's okay but to say that Allah literally to like completely get out of this like try to completely avoid the idea of causation this leads to contradictions in the contingency argument itself and this is why many of the scholars said that like although that's a noble attempt to say that okay look Allah is not even involved in the universe anymore people are just doing bad things it's trying to do a good thing but it's going about it in the wrong way Um and the proper way to understand this is just to separate the perspectives of creation and then one's own free will. So we can have more conversation I mean but um that's kind of how they how they responded to that. [snorts] Okay. So how did that exercise go? Everyone went everyone went well. Alhamdulillah. Okay. So um let's just do Yeah. Yeah. How's No, no, no. Thank you. Yeah. How's how's it going for everyone? Is it clear? Is that understandable? The last year we did uh we did like a 7 hour two days just on why Islam is true just on these four arguments. So we spent a lot longer. I don't know. I think some people here were from there from last week, last year, but um we took a long time just going over everything and doing a bunch of examples and exercises. So, it was clear. Um this this seminar is a bit more uh streamlined. So, it's a bit quicker, it's a bit sharper, it goes a bit deeper in some points. But what I want to say is that the the why is true course which I mentioned, it's an entire 12week course and it's completely for free, right? All you need is your email and you can go through this step by step. So that's going to be one of the main resources to take from this course is that you now can go through these arguments on your own at your own speed. You can ask questions, you can take your time and we can schedule meetings even with my teacher Shak Hamza who's the main teacher. If you have deeper questions, you want to talk you want to talk more about certain things. So, you know, that's really in going to be the resource um that I I really encourage everyone to take advantage of because it's completely free. There's no there's no um no strings attached, right? You just it's the course. You can take it or you can not take it. But it's really good and it's very comprehensive. It takes its time. [snorts] So, let's go on to the oneness argument and then inshallah we'll take a break before we get to prophetic characters. So, we'll take it today. I want to just finish why Islam is true. And we have um a lot to cover today. So um I know that you know um we're going to probably be able to finish all of why Islam is true, but we might not be able to get to the critiques and the other arguments. We'll do that tomorrow in really want to cover evolution and the main responses to evolution, how the Muslims have understood it. We want to talk about the problem of evil. These are two really important ones. And we want to talk about um the age of Aisha. These three are probably the ones that are the most prevalent. Everything else will maybe allude to them or I'll leave it to you to look at the video series that we've also posted on everything that we're covering uh which is on the platform as well for free. So inshallah um you know but those we definitely have to cover and we'll do that tomorrow for sure. Okay. So the oneness argument Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran if they the heavens and the earth had more or any other god besides Allah then both of them would have been in ruin. This is the argument and actually it's really interesting in the Quran. Allah is actually using a logical um structure is one of the very rare. This is actually a conditional syllogism and it's it's if then so this is like if a then b. So Allah says if the heavens and earth had any other gods then both of them would be at ruin. So this this structure was um you know Allah it's very rare he actually uses full logical arguments but he does in this case. Now what is the argument the full the full argument with its premises? If the universe had more than one god it would be in ruin but the universe is not in ruin. Therefore the universe does not have more than one god. So what is this argument saying? It says that intuitively when you have two all powerful willing choosing agents they disagree. They argue and if they want to do something the other one doesn't want to, they're going to get into arguments. They're going to fight. Their will will start to contradict each other. Just as when you look at how they described gods in ancient Greece and whatnot, they're always fighting each other because the intuitive nature in intuitive understanding of a will completely freely choosing an all powerful God is that there's nothing's going to get in their way. they're going to do whatever they want to do. So the conclusion is that and this is a beautiful example to picture is that you look at the heavens you see the perfection and this order note Allah says you don't find any like discrepancy in the heavens yet when you look at civilization and humans who gain power there's always the rise and the fall the conquer the destruction right and that shows this the power of this argument so because the universe is so perfect And we cause corruption in the universe. Allah is one. And this leads us to establish that he is one in being. Meaning Allah is he only has one essence. His attributes are one. Meaning that no other being resembles Allah in his attributes. So meaning I have power but my power is not like Allah subhana t's power. There is only one truly all powerful being. There's only one truly all- knowing being. There's only one truly um necessary being. Right? So his attributes are also one and his actions are one as well. His actions meaning that Allahh's actions cannot be contradicted by others. Right? So when Allah wants to give someone something, no one can stop him. When Allah wants to destroy something, no one can stop him. This type of argument [snorts] or or these type of actions are meaning Allah is undeniable. He's inevitable. And that's what actions mean. It doesn't mean that you know when for example you go and you buy that food for your family that's called you're providing sustenance and when Allah provides sustenance that oh we don't there's no connection whatsoever no we have similarities in name but in reality in the essence is that Allah is one in his being in his attributes and in his actions and this is actually beautiful you can see this in Islamic art that Islamic art represents and reflects the oneness it shows the oneness in creation so if you look at the dome home. This is actually the the Chambla mosque in Turkey, the newest biggest mosque built by Erdogle. It's a beautiful mosque. But this is very common um in Turkey and around the Muslim world where the dome will show ayas of the Quran art and it'll always return to the center and the center in the center will be Allah subhana wa ta'ala. So there's always this point of unity, this point of oneness and that is showing the fact that everything in the universe is in harmony in its dependence on Allah subhanana wa ta'ala in its need for Allah subhanaa tala and that any other being in that in that relationship would cause corruption and chaos. Now there's also a very philosophically rigorous argument for the oneness of God because this one's intuitive and people can kind of push back but let's do an example um to illustrate this and you might be able to point pick out the philosophical argument um from this example. So let's take um for you know in this example you have two cups and you have a pencil and the goal is you have two people I put um you know let's let's do the let's do the example. So what's your name and I take N. So I take Jabriel and N. And I put you two at the opposite sides of the table. And the last time we did this we did we did this with a thing and it was like a big fight. So, we won't do that today, but we put you at the at the table and I say your goal is to get the pen, pencil into your cup. That's what you want to do. And nothing should stop you because you're all powerful, right? Nothing should get in your way. What's going to happen? Like, what's going to happen if I tell you guys that? You guys will fight it out. You might destroy the table. You might break the cup in the process, right? So your your wills are going to contradict each other. You're choosing and you're all power your power is going to contradict is going to come into immediate conflict. This is why when you look at any any film that that shows like all powerful supernatural beings the superman right what are they doing they're destroying the like everything around them is being just absolutely destroyed when they fight right mountains are exploding buildings because that's the idea is that whenever you if you had multiple gods it would lead to this like tremendous chaos. Now the other deeper argument is that their wills would contradict like you think about this what actually happens right so if nothing happens then they're both not powerful and if if it goes to one cup then that one's the god and the other one's not and if both happens then that's just a logical contradiction right that it's in both so you know Allah the ayah he gives if there were more than universe would be in chaos this can mean chaos meaning literal chaos it can also mean non-existence fa Fad can mean non-existence. So meaning if there were multiple gods then nothing would exist. It would lead to rational conclus you know absurdities and that is the argument from the oneness uh of God. So you see these these arguments that Allah subhanaa tala he brings into uh in the Quran they're very intuitive. You can break them down in five minutes and um they they're very powerful, right? They're philosophically rigorous and they can deal with with challenges and responses um at every level, right? Okay. So obviously this is like an intro if you want to go deeper into these right there are deeper discussions or more sophisticated challenges but all of them are dealt with and Allah has given us this framework that is um it's really bulletproof at least these three arguments that are in the Quran are very very sound. So we said the argument from contingency for Allah's existence, the argument from design for his attributes of life, knowledge, will and power and the argument from oneness which shows that he is one and not multiple subhanahu wa ta'ala. So everyone did everyone get that? We'll take a break after this at one. Um did everyone understand those arguments? Any questions from those the first three? This is like the foundation of Islam really. Are we proved our belief in Allah subhana tala? So the problem with the trinity is not this idea of oneness, this argument from oneness because they're not arguing that there are multiple necessary beings, all powerful beings. In fact, they're just saying that there are uh God is contingent like he resembles his creation. So the that will return to the argument of contingency to show that God cannot resemble his creation. um and he cannot be human. Um otherwise he wouldn't that wouldn't be God. He would just be another dependent being who would need another answer. [snorts] Well, that's a good question. So Allah subhana wa ta'ala's will and and and um and power applies to contingent things because you cannot create a a question that by itself leads to a contradiction. And that that's what you're saying when people ask this question like can God create a rock that he can't lift? You're saying can God be all powerful and not all powerful at the same time? So when you phrase it like that, that's a conclusion. That's that's a contradiction, right? You're basically saying, can I be me and not me at the same time? So it's just an absurd question. It's like saying, can this be a circle and a triangle at the same time? By definition, they're not the same. So that's how we respond is that when you say, you know, can God create a can God be human and not and also necessary? You're asking him to be contingent and necessary at the same time. And those are two those are two contradictions. He's either necessary or he's contingent. and they can't be if you go one way any step in one way direction you're just no longer necessary right so you're either necessary or contingent because they're literal contradictions and that's um how you would respond to those things. So you just say that's that's a that's a like a facious question. That's a saying like have you stopped beating your kids? You say yes. Well then you admit and you say no then so the question is problematic. That's not that's not a valid question. And then that in the same way that that would also not be a valid question. So in the next thing we're going to do after this is the genuine messenger sallallahu alaihi wasallam and we're going to talk about why the prophet wasallam is a genuine messenger. How we can prove this rationally with absolute certainty. But before we get here I really want us to all be on the same page when it comes to those three arguments that we talked about. Is everyone good with those? I know I said we can return back to the chorus and you can view those, but right here we want to get what we came for today. So if you if you have any questions, if something is not clear, we can repeat it. We have lots of time. Um so we'll take like uh what did the brothers say the time for the lunch was? 1:30. So there's any questions, we can take questions before and then we'll take a break for lunch inshallah. Oh, okay. So maybe it's and lunch. Okay. Any questions about this? Any uh before we continue? It's very deep. Yeah. And it takes time. So that's why I said go, you know, rely on the course. Go back to the course and just take your time through it. Go lesson by lesson, argument by argument. It's good to take these things and just spend a week reflecting on it, right? Go through every possibility. That's what I used to do like when I was learning this. So, you know, they gave me the lesson. I just like what about this? What about this? That was me. I was argumented. I wanted to just make it bulletproof in my own head. If you accept it, you accept it. That's good. You don't have to go any further. But if you have problems and and you think something's not right, then think about it. Can you come to the conclusion yourself? If you can't, then you can come to come to us and we'll and we'll have a conversation and we'll either agree with you or we'll disagree. But um [snorts] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, one one thing I can say is um for the causation, one of the ways that they explained uh you know why we have sometimes believe believe things are necessary is the experiment of Pavlov. You've probably heard of that, right? that when we associate something with something else, we sometimes think that it's the actual real cause. And we can explain it as a cause, but there might be something else. And that's important just to understand that science is not is um it explains the relationship between contingent things, but not necessarily the the ultimate reality of of of of continued things, its existence itself and whatnot. These deeper questions. So for example, they gave the they gave a bunch of for everyone just to benefit. They gave a bunch of dogs food and every time they gave it food, they rang a bell and then one day they they just rang the bell. They didn't give it food and what happened? The dog began to salivate saliva. So the dog thought that the bell caused the food. The bell is what brought about the food. But in reality, the bell was nothing. It wasn't doing anything. The bell was just an association. It was just there. So they will understand that creation is Allah subhana ta's norms. meaning the way he's just set things up for us um in ways that we say yeah fire causes burning but in reality Allah could make fire not burn Allahh has just he's connected between things for us to understand the universe and to make sense of it and that's why science we can say yeah fire necessarily burns from a scientific perspective right but not from a ontological real perspective because in reality Allah can make fire not burn and fire burning is contingent so can it could just not exist so why Does it necessarily have to burn? And that's that's an important, you know, experiment to show people or a lesson to show people. Yeah. [snorts] Exactly. Right. And that's how we can explain miracles. So the problem with miracles, as we'll see later on, is that people will say it's not possible scientifically. Uh but we say, okay, sure. But we're going to say that it's contingent, meaning it really it truly is possible. And that the way that you said it's not possible is just in relation to science. But Allah subhana wa ta'ala can can he created the universe. He can change it however he wants. [snorts] Mhm. So Allah subhana wa ta'ala is responsible for everything in creation from the perspective of him creating it and in from that perspective everything is um perfect meaning that Allah can do with his creation as he pleases and there are wisdoms behind his um his actions and we might not understand why he's creating things but if it's his creation meaning If I create this bottle and I chose to just burn this bottle and whatnot, you wouldn't say that's that's wrong. Um, but he also from our perspective, he gives he's given us a consciousness and he's given us our own understanding of our identity. And from this perspective, we say that people are responsible for their own actions. And Allah's as you said, he just lets people act in the way that they can. They they live by their own experiences, right? Like when have you when have you ever gotten up from the from like sleep and said, "I'm waiting for Allah just to bring me food. Why? Why don't you ever do that? Right? Like if Allah wants me to have food, he'll just bring me food. I'll just it'll just appear in my mouth and I'll just eat it. Like no one does that because we know we have our free will. We know how the universe has been created. We have our consciousness and we get up and we go make our own food. So from that perspective, we'll always say Hitler is evil. He did all these evil things. And from Allah subhana's perspective, he just created everything. So from the from the aspect of creation, Allah, everything is is perfect. from the action of what happened right between people and what happened these are these are um you know ugly and whatnot and this is actually a deeper question people ask how can Allah say that he hates things if he creates it like Allah hates disbelief but he creates disbelief well that the idea is that there are two different Allah Allah talks about things from our perspective meaning that which is created so from the perspective of things that were created right in creation then Allah hates disbelief he hates when people wrong people But from the perspective of things being Allah's creation, being dependent on Allah, everything is perfect because it's all his creation and it's depending on Allah directly and he can do with his creation as he pleases. Um and just like from a purely ontological perspective um and everything returns to his his wisdom and his knowledge. So everything is just within within his control and it's just nothing there's no relationship between just creation and creator. But if you look if you if you extend it to humans and to created then that's when you get these ideas of morality and these things. So honestly these questions are deep in the sense that it can be hard to like uh it could take time to really you know go through but it's it's it's this is how our scholars have explained it and um you just go through you have conversations and you and you figure it out. [snorts] Yeah. Any other questions people had or problems people had or doubts? So another thing is that you know when you do da'ah when you talk to people is not it's not as simple as just bringing arguments usually right you know we're have we're all Muslims here we're all trying to learn so you're all kind of receptive and even our discussions are going to be on like finer points you know they're not on the basis of the main argument themselves but when you talk to someone else they're not going to be as as charitable right? They're going to have they're going to push back and they're going to argue and and that's where the sciences of logic and debate come into play where it's not you you want to you want to guide someone. You're not just trying to defeat your opponent, but you have to know when they are um not playing fair or when they're trying to change the subject or when they're trying to derail a conversation, right? Or when they're or when they are challenging things that are not necessarily immediately related. You have to know how to keep the conversation on the same path. stick to your points, right? Um avoid getting emotional, right? And this is a skill, right? So that's why someone might be really sure of these these arguments and they go talk to someone and they just end up arguing and yelling and like it's really frustrating. That's normal, right? So debate and convincing someone and dealing with other people who don't want to believe in what you believe is a whole another science and that's not what we're studying here. This is really just to give you the confidence and to give you the certainty to see if you understand this and if you do, that's all you're responsible for. You're not responsible to give dawa, right? Um you should you should you can but I went and did dawa at um at the mall. I just like I brought my students for our final project and we just brought it a sign that said nothing provocative. It was provocative but not like very pmical. It just said Islam is true. Ask me why. So not saying debate me, prove me wrong. Just say ask me why. I think Islam is true. Ask me why. So not trying to get into debates. And even with that level of like, you know, trying to be fair, we're just if someone did wasn't interested, we say, "Okay, have a nice day." Like, we're not here to debate. If they wanted to argue, we say, "Okay, that's interesting. You have this perspective." But we're I'm just if you're curious about learning why Islam is true, I'll tell you otherwise. You know, I wish you a good day. We're being really like really simple, just trying to avoid all arguments. And we still had people who were yelling and, you know, cursing the prophetam and saying, "If I had a gun, I'd come shoot you." like things like threats and uh in insults and cussing us out. So people have like problems people and then people are just maybe like they just don't want to they don't want to hear it. So debate and these things another realm, right? We're not doing that here. We're just we're just understanding it for ourselves. [snorts] >> [snorts] >> Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, that's a good point. So there are many different types of proofs and there are proofs which they'll say are demonstration like the like which is just pure reason and logic and that's what we're presenting here and there are other proofs which are more there are some which are more emotive there are some which are um that rely on just like generally accepted claims which are more dialectic right and that's why many proofs many many tactics of oh just here read the Quran that's very effective I think a lot of people become Muslim because they just read the Quran. A lot of people become Muslim just because they have Muslim friends. It's not even the arguments. So in reality like you know yes we learn these arguments to show that there is a real demonstrative proof that if you want to look for certainty here it is right. It's all logic. It's all reason and we can show you very clearly on at that deep level. But when it comes to dawa your tactic might be completely different. And and bringing an argument up like this might not even work. But saying read the Quran or look at oh how could the prophet have this character he was an orphan like stuff like that make people make it makes people think and they say oh wow you know maybe the pro maybe this is true right sometimes it's just community right so like the brother who accepted Islam yesterday he said that I you know I grew up I I grew up with a lot of pain and I'm looking for community and for peace right so he wasn't looking for a philosophical argument he wants peace he wants community so you have to give him that and that's why it's you So guidance is something which is very it's like an enigma. It's very hard to understand how Allah guides people. It's not just with rational arguments. Um so what we're offering here is just a very simple like uh in you know like uh you know the basic rational arguments but guidance is from Allah and we have to know that you know but yeah that's that's absolutely correct. Alhamdulillah. Any other comments? Anything about the atheist, you know, the history and whatnot? Anything else that you guys interested in or want to look more into? Does everyone understand the three arguments which does everyone? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, one of the main things we'll talk about, I think probably maybe today, maybe next week, sorry, ne tomorrow is um the problem of evil. And that's a major that's a major thing people have to understand. So, atheists use that all the time. We'll watch a video of Neil Degrass Tyson and his formulation of the problem of evil, which is actually like I want to say it's good, but I mean like he he knows what he's doing when he makes this argument and then we'll respond inshallah. So, we'll do that tomorrow. We're going to we're going to we're going to get there. We're going to talk about the three main things we want to talk about are the the evolution and understand that well, the problem of evil and then uh the age of shadow. These are the three most like the three biggest weapons they use is either age of Aisha and that will include the pros wives what not but people really can't argue too far on that because of the historical examples of people with many wives and what it's like that's hard but the age of Aisha people they bring the problem of evil because it's the biggest moral uh you know like problem people have conflict and then evolution because it's the clearest contradiction between science and religion. These three are like the number one. The number one. We're going to talk about all those in depth in. No. So the response we'll talk about in in depth tomorrow, but the response that she was most likely 18 or whatnot. This is like a copout response is not very historical and it's not heavily um backed by most Orthodox or Muslims. So if you're going to try to if you're going to try to push that, you're kind of on the fringes. And the argument against it is still powerful because of the amount of Muslims, the majority who believe she was like six or seven. So you have to and we we and we shouldn't want to just like run away and just say, "Oh, it was 18." If that is historically true, then that's fair. But if if it's not and if most people through all of history is saying it's six, then we have to understand this, right? Um because otherwise we're not really doing ourselves a favor. We're just kind of ignoring the question. So, you know, I think those I think that actually does a disservice to people, you know, responses like that. But we'll talk about that tomorrow. There's many I I have stuff planned for that. Yeah. Okay. In we'll just take is at uh 1:30. So, if you need to make woo, use the restroom before, go ahead. We'll take a quick break. When we come back, um I I'll double check to see if we have lunch afterwards after the hood. I think we do. Um but we'll either come back after salah or we'll come back after lunch and we'll continue with the proofs for the genuine messenger of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Alhamdulillah. All right. So let's continue. Um the next arguments are very important because we're going on to the second part of our belief in understanding why Islam is true. If you said what does Islam mean to you? How would you define Islam? Well, one part of that is going to be that God exists and the attributes we mentioned and another very crucial part of that is going to be that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is his genuine messenger is is his messenger. That's what we sayool. So how do we understand who a genuine messenger is and how can we differentiate a genuine messenger from an impostor? There are two things we're going we're going to look at. The first is prophetic character meaning does he show the character of someone who is genuine and the second thing is miracles and this is the proof from miracles which should show someone that he is um a genuine messenger and not just uh someone making up a story. Okay. So the first thing let's look at is the character uh of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. This is really important because when we look at impostors throughout history, people who claimed to be prophets, people who claimed to be uh inspired and then they were exposed, they were found out, they were rooted uh you know the tragedy of Waco. You can look at any example throughout history. You find that their character throughout along the way um had many you know was consistent in the way that they uh tried to teach an authoritarian complete domination. They had complete control that they would use their power for benefits whether that was sexual benefit, monetary benefit for the fame. They also had um like a resistance to difficulty not and it was it was hard for them to you know go through trial serious trials. Maybe they gave up their claims when things got very difficult. So let's look at how who the prophet was and this is something that you can look at by studying his s his life his his biography and you will then see um you know just objectively does he seem like an imposttor before we even get to a miracle does he seem like an imposttor or does he seem like a genuine messenger so the prophetam before he even claimed to be a prophet was known as the truthful and the trustworthy one I'm going to give a couple points. It's kind of hard to be known for something. You have to do it a lot. You have to, you know, if I you if I asked every one of you, what are you known for? You might say, oh, you know, uh, daughter of this person, married this person, do this job. But these aren't really titles. You know, how do you get the title of the thief, the person, the liar? You have to do it a lot. It has to be something that is very consistent. So the fact that before he was even a Musl you know claimed to be a prophet he was known as ass truth the truthful one and the trustworthy one this is very important it shows that he wasn't someone who took things lightly made up jokes um was just you know not very serious right everything he said was truthful everything he said was um he was trustworthy and this is why even after he claimed to be a prophet people still gave him their things to take care of. They said, "Look, take care of our our um our belongings." Even though they disagreed with him during his time of claiming to be prophet to be a prophet, a genuine messenger from Allah Qures before they threatened to kill him, they told him, "Look, what do you want? If you want kingship, we'll you know, we'll give you we'll be make you our king. If you want um wives, we'll give you wives. If you want money, we'll give you money. Just tell us whatever you want. You don't have to go against your entire community. Just tell us what you want and we'll give it to you. And his response was, "If you were to put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand, I wouldn't stop doing this message." Meaning, you couldn't buy me with anything. And that might be okay. Sure. Maybe he was just very passionate in the beginning. But eventually he was then persecuted and intensely pers persecuted. He was starved for three years. The boycott um they they dumped right like the carcass of animals on him while he was praying, you know, garbage in front of his house, beat up his companions, killed one of his companions, um you know, insulted him, ridiculed him. So someone from a a noble family of Quraysh, right? Why would he go through all of these intense difficulties and persecutions if he if he wasn't sincere? If there wasn't something real about what he was claiming, right? If he was just doing this for monetary value, I mean, he was already from Quraysh. He had money. Why did he need to claim to be a prophet for this? when he gets to Medina and now he even has power and he has his own community, he doesn't give himself a wage. He doesn't give himself the wealth. In fact, he gives away all his money every night. Um he never said no. He never refused anyone who who who wanted money from him. He never he wasn't allowed to take zakat from the zakat funds. So his community could but he wasn't able to do so. Um he didn't allow his companions to stand for him. So he could have easily said, "You know what? I'm the prophet of Allah. Give me a throne. Make me a throne. Make me a, you know, and just I'll sit on this and teach you. He refused. He didn't even allow like this to happen, right? He would sit in front of, you know, everyone as if they were normal. When someone would come visit, they couldn't tell who is the prophet. They didn't know who he where he was in the in the in the setting. Um he prayed for his enemies, right? How rare is that to see someone who is being attacked and killed and was stoned at and then he makes a prayer very sincere prayer asking Allah to guide them and not to destroy them. Um he fought in the front of the battle. This is very important. You see you know usually kings are they're worried about losing their their leadership. They're worried about their control so they don't put themselves in danger. But for his co for the causes that he believed in right he was always in the front of the battlefield. His companion said that we used to uh seek shade in the prophetam on the day of battle. Meaning that when the fight got tough and rough, he they would go to where the prophet was kind of behind him because he was always in the front. Um so he wasn't, you know, when you see when when someone sees this about the prophetam, they will at least say he fits the the image. Whether or not he's genuinely a prophet or not, let's look into this. Whether or not we can establish this with with historically establish these facts is another thing we'll look into. But if we accept these things to be true, he looks like a messenger, like a true genuine person. And that's very very important. It's actually a key part of the proof of the miracle itself. And actually this proof, many people accept Islam based off of who the prophet was. when they read about him, they will just say this person um could not have been this wise and this well um you know have have this level of character and wisdom if he wasn't a genuine messenger. If he was a complete like fake a phony, right? He was just doing this for money or wealth. And this is why there's a famous lines, right? It suffices as a miracle that your knowledge and your wisdom in a time ofah of a heedlessness and the fact that as an orphan you had tremendous character that should suffice people in terms of a miracle. Um so one thing that we want to begin to practice and all the men ran away. I don't know what happened but um we we want to teach the prophet's life from the perspective of proving that he's a genuine messenger. Whenever we read the many times we're just studying this as like fun events. This is just cool facts to learn to know. We don't really appreciate how many of these characteristics, how many of these events actually point directly to the fact that he is a genuine messenger that show that he is uh you know not doing this for selfish personal personal gain. And that's why one of the exercises we can do is to explain an event from the prophetam but from the perspective of it proving that he's a genuine messenger. So when you look at the way he responded to the boycott, how does this prove that he's a genuine messenger? when you look at him in war, when you looked at him um with his family, right? How does this point to the fact that he's not an imposttor? This is something which is really important and you know we can practice this but um you know um I think that s in general is usually completely missing this aspect to it and this is one of the most important way the most important aspects. Now what is a miracle? Who can tell me what a miracle is? What is a miracle? Yes, a breaking of a norm. Okay, good. That's pretty good. Um, we talked about, right, the normal rule, laws of causation, associations between things being shattered, right? And it's it's it's a breaking of the norms that we can't immediately just write off because otherwise, you know, sometimes like something happens and I didn't expect it. That's not a miracle. So, if I'm running around a track and I beat the time by 2 seconds, no one's going to say that's a miracle. They say, "Wow, you really trained or what happened? Can I look at your shoes? Can I look at the way you launched?" But if I ran around that track in 1 second, this no one would immediately assume, oh, this just an scientific explanation. Something happened here that I can't explain with this system of understanding the norms, the relationships between contingent things. So, the miracle The argument for the miracle is that the universe depends on a necessary being. We've already established that everything that depends on necessary being is subject to change. Therefore, the universe is subject to change. Why is this part of the argument important? It's important because when we don't connect the universe back to the contingency argument, miracles become very hard to accept. People don't want to accept them. They think that it's impossible, right? I've never seen one. Um my science books say that this has to happen. But if we can always look back and say look the universe depends on God and it's it depends depends on the necessary being or you can even say the universe is contingent. Everything that is s is that way is subject to change can be broken. It can be changed and if these changes have a spe a specific order as we'll see it can prove that there's a genuine messenger. So it's not just the fact that something is changing in a specific order that proves that the prophetam is a genuine messenger. It's also the fact that we can even accept that miracles can happen. If we can accept that miracles can happen based off of the the previous arguments, that's a really good step in the right direction before we even look at the history behind it. So a miracle, there are three levels, three types of miracles. There are preparatory miracles, major miracles and minor miracles. So a preparatory miracle is something which happens before the prophet claims to be a messenger. And the you the purpose of this is to show the people around him that he's special that there's something coming that maybe he has a very like unique qualities. He might even people might even think that he's a messenger. So, for example, when you know the the reports of how he um uh when he rode on on the camel with when he was on the camel with Haleima, his wet nurse, it sped up and then she immediately had milk and the camels had milk and how when he was walking the you know the the clouds were covering him. These reports, they're not necessarily proving his genuine immediate that he's immediately a prophet. They're just showing that signs were happening during his lifetime before he claimed to be a messenger that showed that he was a special person. And this is why the Jewish rabbi who saw him said that you're a prophet. He knew he was going to be a prophet. They had this understanding. And you can actually use this level of type of preparation of miracles to show within the Bible and within the Torah how the prophet is mentioned in many areas and how they were even expecting this final prophet as well especially the Jews and this is at the time of the prophetam and also throughout history they knew of this man named Muhammad who was going to come and who is going to be um and this is why the Jews actually won't reject the prophetam they'll say that he is um you They'll say he's like a a type of they'll say he's like a prophet, but that he just um his his law doesn't apply to them. Something like that. They're not going to reject him in the way that Christians reject him, where they'll just say he's not a prophet. He wasn't a good person. They'll actually say that the prophet was a very good man and he was uh like a prophet of the Gentiles. He was uh he was a prophet but not you know he he he didn't maybe follow the complete teachings or whatnot. I'm forgetting exactly the way they spin it, but they have a tremendous respect for the prophet Muhammad. They don't attack him the way that Christians do. The second type of miracle is minor miracles. These are things which um happen a lot. And the purpose of these is to show that the prophetam he performs miracles even if you can't point to one specifically is to show that he's consistently proving he's a genuine messenger. So how does this happen? For example, when he's just with his companions and they report that water gushed from his fingers, that's a minor miracle. There were only a couple people there. For example, when he um you know uh read people's thoughts, they kept them and he's told them exactly what they're going to ask. When he uh for example, it said that he you know pointed, you know, uh took a stick in the in the middle of battlefield and it turned into a sword. These are minor miracles which they're not major. They're not a hu, you know, for everyone to see, a challenge for everyone, but they happen throughout the prophet's life and throughout his message to show and to keep affirming that he's a genuine messenger. Now, the one that we really want to focus on is the major miracles. Major miracles. Um, there's a fivestep process to proving with a major miracle that that someone is a genuine messenger because a major miracle is something which cannot be denied that it happened. Right? It's in front of everyone and it's an immediate it's it's it's something which cannot be explained. Right? So when Moses strikes the sea the sea and it splits in half and his entire people walk through it. This is not something you can say oh maybe you know you just didn't you know you weren't [snorts] like paying attention. Maybe you're just something in your eye. This is something very uh it's major. So now the way that miracles work is that there's the background which we already talked about the prophetic character. So you can't have someone who's known to be a liar and now they claim to be a prophet with a miracle. It doesn't work, right? No one's going to believe him. Even if they see a miracle, they're going to they're not going to accept him, right? You can't have someone who is immoral, extremely immoral and now they are a prophet and and you have to follow them. Why would I follow you? You're not immoral person. You you do you do evil things. Why would I follow you? So the background is very important. The second thing is the claim. The claim to prophethood. So a prophet has to claim. we can't just bring a miracle. He says as the prophet did, he gathered everyone around him and he said, "If I were to tell you that there was an army coming from over that hill, would you believe me?" And they said, "Yes, you're the trustworthy one. We of course we' believe you." And he says, "Well, I'm here to tell you that I'm a prophet from God and that there's reward in paradise and a punishment in hellfire." So, his claim is that I'm a genuine messenger from God. After he makes that claim, he brings a miracle and a major miracle for everyone to see. And he then challenges people to replicate it. That's very important. He doesn't just bring a miracle. He says if you want to disprove that I'm not you want to prove that I'm not a a prophet to prove that this isn't a miracle then bring the like of it very just do it again. Why not? And when they are unable this this is what we call their the inability to do to to reproduce the miracle. This is a proof then that he is from God, that he is a messenger from God. And the way that they illustrate this is like someone basically, you know, um they bring you in front of a bunch of people and they say and you and and and you say, "Look, I'm from this king or I'm from this president in the other room." And the way that I'm going to show you that I have a connection is that he is going to do something which he never normally does. he's going to change something up and it's going to accompany my claim and it's going to be something that no one else can do. So then when he makes that claim, for example, that they're going to, you know, shoot a thousand arrows in the sky for no reason or they're going to set the king the kingdom on fire, right? Things like this that normally never happen. This then points to the fact that he's from that messenger, that he is genuine in that claim. So when we know that the universe is created by God and that God exists then we have someone claiming that he has a connection to that God and then whenever he makes his claim something which completely shatters the normal norms the general cause and effect relationships of the universe it keeps occurring. This is a proof that he's coming from he has some connection to that necessary being. He has some level of influence, right? That there's something special about him. And that's enough. That's enough to begin to to trust to trust in that in that prophet. Now, your main belief in the prophet might be his character and the fact that he's moral and he's a good person and you think he's a good role model. Reality as as you the brother mentioned, prophets are here to guide us. So if you find that this person is suitable to guide you and that he fits the role of a of a true of of someone who can bring guidance and and and show you how to run your life in an effective and moral way with an entire complete universal comprehensive, you know, moral code, legal code, then that's enough. And the miracle is kind of like the cherry on top. It just shows that yeah, there's definitely something special about this person. But really, we all need role models. We need people that we look up to, whether that's that's in in the media or on parents. And if we find someone who is truly sincere and fits these amazing qualities, we will naturally follow them. We'll naturally seek their guidance. Um especially if they're outwardly sharing it, which are what messengers are doing, right? They're outwardly calling people. They're reciting the Quran. They're not just keeping it to themselves. So the Quran is considered to be the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's you know greatest miracle. Every prophet came with major miracles. The prophet he split the moon. Um but his greatest miracle is the Quran. And um as you mentioned this this Quran its power is is is beyond uh it's is like it's linguistic and it's the knowledge and its miraculous nature is beyond simply its linguistic uh structure and it the format and the words it uses. So we find that there are three major miracles within the Quran. One of them that doesn't apply as much today, two of them that are still very relevant. And then there is the general pull and beauty of the Quran that will convince people as you said they they say this can't be from a human being. The first is the linguistic miracle. Now the linguistic miracle is something which is based off of ancient Arabic. Ancient Arabic, the ancient Arabs who spoke this very eloquent Arabic, they were masters of the Arabic language. They competed in poetry. They had what they would do to hang out was compete and recite poetry. That's what they did. Um right so their Arabic was something which they took pride in. And when the Quran came it broke their abilities and this is something which is very unique because when we talk about a miracle there are some miracles when they come they just immediately show you that you can't do it. Like for example splitting this the Red Sea. It's like how how is that you know I'm not even going to try this. But if I bring something that I know you're good at, and then after I know that you're good at this, you're the best at this, I still make you unable to do this, that's very powerful. Like if I if you're a great cake maker and I say, "Look, here's a cake that's miraculously good. You know how to make good cakes, you know the system, and then it still blows your mind, that's very powerful." As opposed to someone who just doesn't even know how to make cakes. Whatever you bring them, they're going to like. So when the prophet brings the Quran and as we'll see the the Quraysh their response is that this is miraculous. We we don't understand how eloquent this is and they're the masters of the Arabic language. This is very unique. It's very powerful and actually can carry over to us. It can be applicable to this time and age because we can represent we can we can hold on to the effect of a miracle even if it didn't occur in our time because we can see the effect it had on other people. But for us here who don't know Arabic and we've we might never properly understand Arabic to a level that we can see its miraculous beauty. Let's look at a couple of the key fact characteristics about the of the Quran that make it unlike any other book. The first is a unique composition with striking impact. The Quran uh is very powerful in its in its composition. It is not like a normal book which has some areas which are powerful and some which are kind of dull and boring. you say like the filler words, filler chapters. The Quran in every ayah in in every ayah um it's telling it has a story is bringing a very powerful meaning and it's connecting its words in a way which when people hear this they have an they are immediately affected people who don't even understand Arabic will begin to cry uh and will will like you know immediately like feel something when you read Quran maybe in prayer you feel a level of focus maybe uh you know um there's just you're overwhelmed with emotion. This doesn't happen with many other works in the same way. There is an unmatched eloquence and rhetorical perfection in varying contexts. Now, the key point here is a varying context. If I'm a good writer, I like to write, but I'm good maybe good at writing history. I'm really good maybe at writing uh romantic fiction, uh mystery, uh you know, crime, whatever it may be. when I change my genre and you have authors change their genre, they're not that good. Right? So, you take someone who's really good at writing fiction, you say, "All right, write an autobiography or write a biography, they're not that good at it. They there, you know, the the power that they have in telling a thriller and a is not the same telling a romance, right? This is why we read different genres because we can appreciate the masters in their different fields. The Quran when it brings this level of eloquence, it's um the same across different contexts. When it's telling stories, the Arabs say this has perfect eloquence. When it's reminding you and scaring you, it's perfect eloquence. When it is telling about the day of judgment, just informing you of things, it's has perfect eloquence. When it's commanding you to pray and to fast, it also has perfect eloquence. So this is something which the Arabs never had seen before that something across varying different contexts and different subjects could be so eloquent and mastery in all genres. Basically it's universal language that does not contradict itself throughout revelation. The Quran is still applicable today meaning that we read it and we get take lessons from it. as we'll see, it aligns with modern science, right? It's not completely backwards. Like many of Christianity actually has a big problem that Islam doesn't because so many of their claims in the Bible are scientifically incorrect. And this is why you actually have to it's called mytho history, which is that many Christians now, for example, William Lane Craig, he believes that all of the desri the cosmological descriptions in the Bible are just like myths. Peterson says, you know, like they're just stories. They're not actually meant to to explain the universe. So all the Christians who thought that they, you know, explain the universe, they're wrong, right? Science is right. And they have to basically undermine their Bible. Right? If you can say that, oh, this is just a myth, you can say anything's a myth in there. And others will like uh you know um creationists and whatnot, they'll say that new earth creation, new age creationist, new earth, new earth creationist, something like that. They'll just deny science. So, their approach is to say, "No, the Bible's 100% right. The universe, the the Earth is 6 6,000 years old." They'll say, "The Earth is 6,000 years old. I don't care if we have all this evidence that it's now 13.6 billion years old is 6,000." And and science is wrong. And they're obviously considered like the loony kind of, you know, crazy people, uh, fanatics. So, the Quran doesn't do this. And on top of that, it doesn't contradict its even message throughout the Quran. When I write a book, I have a draft and I compare my drafts with each other. I make sure that I'm being consistent throughout the book. I'm not saying one thing in one chapter and then changing it up in the next chapter. That's a big flaw in writing. But what if I write a book over 22 years? The prophet's me his mission was not just for it was 23 years long. So revelation was coming down scattered throughout the 23 years and throughout that entire time the strength of the message was consistent the main regarding the main tenants of Islam and also even the stories it wasn't contradicting itself. So if you look at a prophet, you say, "Oh, this man, he made it up or he was just very learned in certain things." You would assume that he would contradict himself, that he would make mistakes throughout the revelation. And that doesn't happen. A timeless textual compatibility with exoggetical continuity. Meaning fancy way for saying the Quran's really deep. It means that throughout time even until very recently people are writing that are discovering new elements of the Quran right so like uh Ash he wrote his and it was considered like a groundbreaking in the 20th century so it's not like oh people in the third century figured out the Quran they wrote a couple great and there's nothing else you can get from that in reality people are still learning new things about the Quran they're still making connections that the people in the past didn't and that's actually the the beauty of the scient scientific miracle is that it shows that we are discovering things about the Quran that people in the time of the prophetam didn't know right the prophet knew but we didn't know um or or the his companions didn't know for sure um or maybe he didn't even know depending on depending on the on on the fact it also has a very strange composition of subjects and tone meaning that when I whenever I I write I have you know like a you know the started sentence and you have a uh you know like a final sentence. It's called um a warrant and you have your you have your progression throughout the paragraph. You have to mention certain things. we you know in order for it to seem like cohesive but the Quran in one ayah it'll talk about like praying and then the next ayah it's talking about paradise and then the next ay it's talking about the disbelievers and the next ayah it's addressing the prophet directly and the next ayah it's talking about the Jews and it does it in such a way that it all makes sense you feel like you're reading the same surah it's all working together but the sentences are completely all over the place and the tone is Allah even within the Quran in the fat right it's third person then second person then first person right again and again and again so this level of of you could say dynamic structure in its tone and in subjects is something which is very rare you won't find it really outside the Quran there's some other people who've written like this but it's very difficult to do so to bring all these together you can kind of see this book is not like any other book and that's the point and if we look at The challenge that the Quran brought, it said first, you know, you guys are masters of the Arabic language. Here's the Quran. Just bring the like of it. Just create your own Quran. You've written many books before. Just write another Quran. Why can't you? And when they're unable to do so, Allah and he's challenging the humans and the j everyone. All of you work together. Just try to do 10 suras. Just bring now 10 suras. You can't bring the whole Quran. Just bring 10 suras. And when they were unable to do this, he then said, "Just bring three ayats." Now, someone says, this is I want you guys to figure this out. How do we know that the Quraysh didn't just write three ayat, they didn't complete the challenge, and then Muslims just covered it up? How do we know that that didn't happen? What's one way you can easily tell that that is historically very untenable? At least for the people of Mecca, right? I mean, you know, afterwards, we know Allah tells us and we know that we we don't have any evidence for it to occur. So, you know, but at the time of the at the time of Mecca, let's say, right, when he was making this challenge to all the Quraysh, how do we know that, you know, they didn't reproduce something and then it just got shut down and then just got covered by the history books? Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, the main the main thing is that if the Quran is pres was preserved orally, meaning through memorization for the longest time, then if it was defeated, basically if the challenge was met by the Quraysh, then the history that we find number one would not be the same. They wouldn't have gone to the same wars. They wouldn't have had s the same level of frustration and it would not have been it wouldn't have been such a thing that we don't actually have any real attempts. it would be very well known because this was his ultimate challenge to everyone. It wasn't just something hidden behind in the back in the back door that would try to do this right all of them were tasked with replicating the Quran. So if something really met the standard, it would be wellnown. And the fact that it's not there seem is is is very indicative that it never happened. And the only examples we have of people who have tried are very laughable. Like even you will understand that they they basically just took the the same structure of a surah and then just change the word, right? So like um soi was zun, right? By the fig and the olive. So uh they change one one person changed it to something like that by the elephant right he has a long uh a long he has a long nose and a short tail like that was their attempt right so people are like okay this is not the same right at all this is just laughable another one was like Um uh you know I swear by the day of judgment instead it's right something like that like nay I swear by the apple and who can tell you about the virtues of the apple. So these are like they're taking the same structure and you're just changing one word and it's a laughable. The fact that we don't have any real attempt uh even like serious attempt is indicative that there wasn't any real attempt and the fact that they kept fighting the Muslims and going to war um instead of just saying look we completed your challenge right we we we defeated you right uh we we can just ignore you um they saw that the prophetam was only a threat because they saw that the miraculous nature of the Quran and the message he was bringing was going to shatter all of the customs that they built on their idol idolatry, right? All the systems that they had that were built on idolatry were going to be collapsed, were going to be shattered and they were threatened. But if they had defeated the Quran, then that there would be no threat, right? They already had the power. So his message wouldn't be power would would would lack. Um so yes, >> [snorts] >> Yeah, you're right. Yeah, there might be bias. So the way that they respond to this, that's a good question, is that number one, um, that it would be the it would be the the experts of the language and whether regardless whether or not they're Muslim or not. So meaning that if there are experts, even a couple who aren't Muslim, it's going to cause a problem like later on, right? So let's say for example, people have brought this up with regards to AI. They're saying we're going to try to make AI replicate the Quran and make a better Quran. They're they're already doing this. So even if we have Muslims today, like maybe if I show it to someone, they're like, "Ah, yeah, whatever. That's AI." But if if it really is good enough, it will it'll cause it'll create it'll it'll it'll catch traction just like all of the other like attacks, they catch traction if they're good enough and there's enough people who know what they're talking about to at least affirm it. The second thing is that this is more like a historical argument is that Arabic at least and we're talking about a linguistic uh miracle of the Quran has only deteriorated from the time of the prophet objectively right we've we've only lost our eloquence we haven't gained any any eloquence and that's unanimous across the board so if we look at the greatest the masters of the Arabic language and the best poets at that time where all of our understanding of grammar is based off of their poetry if they couldn't do it, then why are we going to assume that someone who was learning Persian and Greek figured it out somehow in like the 11th century? It seems a bit far. It's like it's more far-fetched in addition to the fact that we just don't have any proof. So, if there is a claim, then bring bring, you know, evidence. But those are kind of ways to show that it seems very far-fetched. That's a great question. So, the effect of um the Quran on people, we look at like this linguistic miracle. Let's just look at the people of of Quraysh how they responded and this is actually a powerful argument when you know one one might say I don't see how it's miraculous but when you see the masters of a language and how they responded then it leads you to make a you know think you know maybe there's something about this even if I'm not getting it so right the famous tribe master of Benu right the father of the great companion in general. He was known to be one of the most eloquent Arabs in his time. And he said that no one knows the poetry of the humans and the poetry of the jin. He actually said this better than me. Meaning I know like even like the gibberish poetry I know better than you. And um when the prophetam was in Mecca claiming to be a messenger and reading his Quran, he told the groups of Quraysh, the chiefs of Quraysh, let me go talk to him. So he came to the prophet and he told him you know you're going against your people you're a disgrace to the family all these things and he said are you done now like he let him speak and then he said let me read for you and he read from and when he got to the in so they say if they turn away then say I've warned you of a tremendous punishment the punishment of the like of put his hand to his lips and said that's enough right and when he came back to he has this famous saying, you know, like meaning, I've never seen anything so beautiful and so eloquent. Um, and they said, well, can we say he's a poet? He said, no, don't say he's a poet. Can we say he is, um, like a sorcerer? Say, no, you know, um, you know, um, or no, can you say he's crazy? No, you can't say he's he's insane. Just say he's a a sorcerer. So, basically, he said, you know, he didn't accept Islam. He died a disbeliever. And his response was, "Oh, no, you know, we could do better than this." It was just say he's a sorcerer because we're not going to be able to respond to this. Of course, we have the famous story of right who's on his way to kill the prophetam. He hears the Quran and then he immediately accepts Islam. Like, how does that affect how does that change someone so quickly? Juberb Mutim was one of the uh nobles of a tribe in Yemen and he was an intellectual and he wanted a you know he was searching for the truth and for wisdom and he heard about this prophet from the people of Quraysh who had a message. So he traveled to Mecca and on the way the people ofQuresh stopped him and said hey you know watch out he has this sorcery that he reads in front of people and look we have others we have better stories than this. So he had he told himself that he was going to you know cover his ears when he went to see the prophet and as the prophet was reciting Quran he said that Allah just wished that he heard something he maybe you know wanted to hear and immediately he then said I accept Islam right he left his his people and he accepted Islam and uh he was working one day and he passed by the prophet and the prophet recited one ayah were they created from nothing or did they create themselves and heard heard this and immediately accepted Islam. So why are these people why is it having this tremendous effect on them? Why are they just accepting Islam when they were enemies of the prophet just before that? Um you know how you know how did the miracul miraculous nature of the eloquence of the Quran um affect them? And if we look into these stories there's hundreds of stories like this we see that the ancient Arabs whe whether or not we can accept it or not they clearly saw that this was a miracle. They clearly accepted it as a miracle and instead of producing the like of it, they just went to battle. They attacked him. They boycotted him and they fought him. They didn't pick up the pen whatsoever. In fact, other some poets even stopped writing poetry after the Quran was revealed. Leid said that after the Quran came down, I find I I lost my like my um creative like my creative spark, right? Because it's just it's so beautiful. What can I even write anymore? So we see this inability in the way that they insulted the prophet and made false claims claiming he was a sorcerer, a liar, a uh uh you know um he was insane, a mad man, that he was studying with the Jews. even seems some modern like academics try to make this claim that the prophetam he was just a very literate person and he you know was just like a student of Jews and uh was really deep in these traditions and this is just really hard to prove when for 40 years he was known to be illiterate um so it's kind of it's kind of hard to prove that this person was somehow just like deep into the science deep into the sciences and somehow mastering history and science way above beyond on his time in the mid in in the deserts of Arabia when everyone around him didn't read or write Arabic right uh let alone Hebrew or other languages they put the blockade on him right for three years and they went to war now the next thing so that is you could say the linguistic miracle of the Quran and one way for us to connect to this miracle of the Quran is really to look and understand these these layers to the Quran but also to just to listen to someone who is really good at reciting it in a way that they can bring out the meanings of the Quran. So you look at a tap or translation and listen to someone like Mshawi, right? Someone who has really mastered the the way of of showing the meaning and and and power in in the different ays. And when you do this, you'll see that there is something very special about this Quran. You'll see the beauty of it, even if you can't understand it. Yes. Yeah. No problem. Yeah, >> that's absolutely. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. So, yeah, Nanhan has done a lot of work on this and he's done a lot of work in showing the linguistic miracle for people who don't are native uh Arab speakers. So, yeah, that's really uh Arabic speakers. That's really good, inshallah. And I' I'd advise checking that out. Um it's hard. It's a bit hard for people, you know, sometimes, you know, cuz people like there's aspect of like the numerical uh miracle of the Quran, right, that we look at, we can see a bunch of numerical st like um uh layers and there can't be coincidences, right? The values that just add up perfectly and whatnot. So, that's really intriguing. It might actually convince someone. Other people might just say it's a coincidence, but it's there, right? And we had a we have a a tradition in our in our tradition a study of the numerical uh like measurements or you could say calculations behind every letter. So they've studied this before to show that you know like Allah is 66 and then that aligns with so many other things for example or whatnot. Um, and you look at your palm and you have 60, you know, uh, 70, uh, 81 and 17, uh, no, 18, 81 and 18, right, on your hands. And then you put them together, that's 99, right? 99 names of Allah. So stuff like this, right? So you're kind of like, wow, that's that's cool, but it might not be as powerful. >> Yeah, exactly. So it kind of it can fall into cherrypicking and that is not necessarily like useful. It might it might be useful for some people. So let's look at the historical miracle of the Quran. The historical miracle of the Quran is basically that the the Quran make made historical claims that were impossible to have known during the time of the life of the prophetam and even in his time in in relation to the trends right of of the time. So for example, Ib Malik, he was an enemy of the prophetam and he actually was the first to chase after the prophet while he was on hij for the with a for the the the ransom money um or the the the amount that he was going to um yeah the ransom. So when he caught up to the prophetam he there was a couple other things that happened and he accepted Islam and the prophet told him then that you would wear the bangles of Persia and later on in the Khalifa of Omar long after the prophet had passed away they when they when they beat the uh the Senian Empire they gifted Suraka the Bengals of of Persia Um he also for example predicted that Fatima would be the first of his family to pass away after him and she died soonly soon after passed away himself. He said on the when he was once on the on the on the um the mount of that uh you know he said be firm talking to the mountain because you have a prophet and a sudik and two martyrs meaning that he knew he's he predicted that Omar and Oman would be martyed. He also um in this famous hadith predicted that the herds people who were just desolate Arabs would then compete in the building in buildings and in building skyscrapers just means to go higher and higher and higher. And when you see that this is what happened in in Abu Dhabi and Dubai these people who a couple hundred years ago were were just herdsmen. They didn't really have anything to their name and now they're the kings of the of the Middle East. He also and this is probably one of the most powerful ones. He did he predicted the Quran predicted this is in the Quran the defeat of the Romans. The Persians at this time had had done done major blows to the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. They had taken Damascus um and other very important strongholds for the Byzantian Empire. And no one would have believed at this time that the Romans would come back or sorry that the um uh sorry that the that the Byzantine sorry that the Cisanians would have come back and defeat the Romans sorry. So the Romans were the Romans were winning in the battle. So the pro the Quran says right meaning that Rome was defeated in a couple years in a short in 3 to n years and the prophet in order to even prove this he before betting was prohibited he had Abu Bakad make a bet against this claim saying that if I'm wrong I'll give you 200 camels or something like that and this came true right the Romans were then defeated uh by a tremendous like uh you know you know uh unilateral uh uh uh like uh counterattack and counter uh miss mission again by the by the Cisanians against the Romans something that no one would have expected no one would have uh predicted. So when we see this, we look at the historical miracle of the Quran, the historical claims, even talking and referring back to many of the claims in the Bible and things in in the past, it shows that the Quran had knowledge that an unlettered Arab bedin or person in Quray would not have had. And that's enough to show that there's a miraculous nature to its knowledge. The second is the scientific miracle of the Quran. The scientific miracle of the Quran shows that the way that the Quran was actually describing the universe at the time of the prophetam align and makes more sense with modern day science than it did in the past. And that the way that the exjits in the past understood this were kind of guesses. They kind of didn't really know how to explain this because it didn't align with their understanding of cosmology or natural philosophy. And today it aligns more. So meaning that it made claims and descriptions of the universe that align with 21st century physics and science not with you know that ancient Arabia and the way that they or even Aristotle and whatnot. So for example the expansion of the universe Allah says very explicitly we have made the heavens with great power and surely we are expanding it this here is for emphasis meaning that it is happening um it it is it is it is true meaning it's literal meaning this is not an interpretive uh uh explanation and meaning a word that that was actually hard for the ancient um exites because they didn't know what it meant for Allah to literally literally be expanding the universe at the moment. They believe that the universe was static, right? That it didn't change and the mus is active participle. So it is it cannot be intended as past tense. It is right now the universe expanded is expanding. And this was only discovered in the 1920s with Edwin Hubble where he noticed the red shift change um in different stars and galaxies that showed that the universe was rapidly expanding and this actually led eventually to with other discoveries to the discovery of the big bang. But we now know as scientific fact that the universe is expanding and it's actually gaining speed. It's rapidly expanding um today. So the way that the Quran describes this is not does not align whatsoever with the science and understanding of the time of the prophetam. People believed based off of Aristotle's conclusions that the universe was static that the earth was in the center of the universe and that it was not expanding. The second um scientific and there are many I'm just mentioning a couple of them just for um we don't have a long a lot of time so I'm just mentioning a couple. The second is the embryionic development. This is one of the most powerful ones because it's very clear and when you describe something in stages it's very easy to get it wrong right because you're kind of guessing that in every moment every different stage this is what's happening. So you if you just get one stage off you're the whole thing doesn't make sense. So Allah says then we place each human as a drop of sperm in a secure place. Now this is something which you know previous understanding and Aristotle they didn't believe that um the blastois or the embryo would be would be lodged into the the wall of the uterus. In fact, they believed that it just kind of floated around in the stomach of the woman and it never it didn't actually, you know, connect to anything. So, when we see that we see the once the the o and the sperm is fertilized um and the embryo attaches when it goes down the fallopian tube which is that tube um into the wall of the uterus and it actually closes around it. This is what it means by right a secure place. It doesn't move. Settling firmly established. Right? He then says subhana we we then made the zygote into a leech. You know something which connects and the leech is something which exists in it lives in water and it attaches itself and it nourishes it nourishes itself through that attachment. So when the human embryo um is attached to the wall of the the uterus, it is in this fluid. It lives in fluid and it is getting nourishment through that attachment. So this description is very it's actually like it's it's extremely accurate for someone who they did not have any ultrasounds and the general dominant understanding in many cases actually they believe that they were just mini humans. many humans, right, went into the stomach and that they just kind of slowly grew over time. They didn't have this understanding that it were that it went through these very, you know, clear distinct phases. He then says, "We then made the leech into a chewed lump of flesh." Mudra. Mudra meaning something which is literally just chewed. And you see that once these somites, right, these little bead like bones on the on this um the um the zygote begin to to grow. It literally looks like teeth marks, indented teeth marks. Um and this is how you would describe if you're not the Quran is not a scientific book. It's not a science book. But if you were to describe it with just everyday language, this would be a very accurate description. And then finally he says, "And we covered the flesh with covered the bones with flesh. Then we developed him into another creation because at 8 weeks and and then 12 weeks we now call it the fetus. It's no longer called the embryo." So it name literally changes. And so blessed is Allah the best of creators. There were even some uh embryologists who remarked that this was like uh this could only have come from God. He's one of the leading embryologists. He didn't end up accepting Islam. But even non-Muslims when they see this, they see this is a very uncanny, strange alignment with modern science. Like how does this make sense? So the Quran as a miracle is is still very clear. Like once you get that God exists, that the prophet was a good person and you have his character, then you start to see these alignments in in in science. And there are many many more. I only brought a couple of these. You then can see that this could not have come from a uh you know, the prophet himself making this up, writing it at this time. And this must have come from a god who knew the future, who knew how science actually works. um and you know who who knew what the people in ancient Arabia who didn't have access to uh ultrasounds knows. Okay. Okay. So, any questions about this before we go on? Before we So, we talked about the Quran. We talked about the prophet's character, the different types of miracles, we went deep into that. Any questions about any of all of this? Yes. The only thing, and it's an apparent, it's not a real contradiction as we'll see is going to be evolution. and we're going to talk about that. Everything else um in the past they they had to figure it out but now everything's actually affirming it. So there are many examples of mak and even the skin the way Allah describes the people on the day of uh the people in the day of judgment and um how their skin after they are go through one round of punishment they will be given a new set of skin so that they can feel the pain again. And we now know that our pain receptors are in our our our skin. So meaning that they're in they're in they're they're it's at the level of our skin. It's not deep inside. So you know um if you didn't if if um you wouldn't understand that if you don't understand modern science like why is Allah giving them back new skin, right? Aren't they going to still feel a pain? But this level you know this you know this level of precision when it comes to describing even the punishment it shows it aligns with modern science. So there are many of these and you can find them you know some of them are a bit farfetched but many of them are very clear and you said this is exactly how modern science understands this. [snorts] >> [snorts] >> Absolutely. Yeah. So all of the problem majority of the problems besides evolution as we'll talk about between science and and religion are inherited or taken from Christianity. And that's the maj the majority of the dialogue. Why? because it's Christians the largest religious population versus atheists. So they're the ones having these conversations. So it's important to know, you know, what is our battle? What what do we actually have to fight? And the whole idea of creating the earth in six day, creating everything in six days and uh 6,000 years old and in in the beginning he created, you know, uh there was light. In fact, there wasn't light in the very beginning, right? So that doesn't align. and the way that he created the the stages of creation. You read Genesis, right? Um I I don't remember as well, but you know, first this then that. It doesn't align with modern science. Science will say no, that's not how um everything was created, how everything formed. Um they also have to reject evolution in its entirety because they believe that God placed the animals directly on the earth. So how do you understand that? Whereas Muslims, we don't have to believe that. As we'll see, we can actually believe that all of evolution is fine except for Adam. So, and there are even other ways to understand Adam where humans are evolved as well. We'll talk about that too. So, you know, like where's the contradiction really? Uh whereas for Christians, right, they literally have to reject all of evolution. So, these are like macro major theories that are have to be rejected and Muslims, we don't have to do this. And that's a big problem, right? When you have to when there's one detail, right, that has to be corrected. This is simply just like you weigh your evidence and we say we interpret this or we understand this this way. It's very easy, right? Because you're accepting the macro, the majority, the major elements. When you have to reject an entire scientific theory, you have to reject an entire, you know, entire like tons of evidence. Um it's a lot harder. Right now, it just makes it look completely backwards. Right. So, um absolutely right. I think it's important we should all look into this. Look into the scientific miracle of the Quran. Um it's really fascinating and it'll just it'll strengthen your iman. But you know, alhamdulillah, we don't have these contradictions as you mentioned. [snorts] Okay. Any other questions? Okay. So, you can kind of pick which which path do you want to go down in relation to the Quran that you feel the closest to, right? Do you like looking at it from its linguistic miracles trying to find, you know, the the patterns and understanding the order of the Quran and how why he used this word instead of that word? Like there's lots of these things, right? You know, the word choice is is miraculous. Or you can look into the historical evidence and you go deep into that. This actually will undermine the the Islamic dilemma, right? Because the Quran is correcting history. It's modifying it. And the the prophet is then explaining these corrections to his people. So the fact that then you know the Quran is is advocating for blind acceptance of everything of Christianity as we know it today after it's been corrupted this is just a very like low IQ argument right um and that we should you know do you accept God or do you accept a prophet right this level that this type of like separation is something which you don't find except with like really strange reformist or or people with low IQ so you know the history the historical miracle of the Quran is very powerful And you'll see this uh throughout the Quran inshallah. Um okay. So but the question then comes if you want to say you know these miracles happened fine and you want to say that the prophetam existed and he had all these qualities what is your historical evidence and this is the problem with orientalism right of rejecting Islamic sources of of history. So what are our historical methods? Because do we completely agree with the the western historical method? Um do we align with that? We're going to see no and we have proof to reject for to to change certain things. So in historical evidence we have two major types of evidence which is physical evidence and written evidence. These are the two that all archaeologists and people rely on. Now the problem with these two of course you know and this includes fossil includes all you know uh you know is is very huge. The problem with these these two types of evidence is that physical evidence is considered uh you know very difficult to understand um what happened because you're trying to understand what happened in the past and you just have a bowl you just have rocks like for example if you look at stone hedge there are many theories of what happened was it a burial site because they're like line of was it a place was it like an um observatory right or like a place where they looked at the stars was it a an altar Right? So you have a bunch of these competing theories. They have to investigate it. You don't have a whole lot. You have a lot of physical things. You don't know if this was from this area, if it was brought there, what was, you know, there's a lot of guesswork. The second is written evidence. The written evidence is obviously stronger than physical evidence, but still there's a problem of authorship, right? So yes, this is a story that's been written, but like how do I know it's not just a myth? It wasn't completely made up or that someone was just adding details. So written evidence can help in many cases and it can especially you know we look at old books and um encyclopedias and these things these can really help you know but there are many other examples of his of written evidence that make it difficult to exactly tell is it perfect is it has it been preserved and the biggest example of this is actually the Quran right the Quran if you try to prove that it is 100% preserved through written evidence it's kind of hard right you can do you can make a good case through written evidence, you know, the Senna Palums and these different things to show that, you know, we have very very very old copies of the Quran at the time of man that are consistent throughout history. Um, and you can show this, but to show to say that it's 100% in these things, it's not as clear. So, what the Muslims do, we have a third type of evidence, which is testimonial evidence. And testimonial evidence um is you know sometimes like imagined to be like you're playing telephone right so we play telephone right now I told you something it' get around back to me completely different and you know I saw a video is like a hadith is like saying my friend said this and he's and his friend said that my friend told me that his friend told me that his friend told me that his friend told me that's not as we'll see but that's how people imagine it to be so what is testimony evidence we have two types of testimony evidence in we're We have um let's just we're trying we okay we'll try to get through the next 10 20 slides and then we can end in I don't want to go too long because I know it's a lot it's a lot we've been here since 10:00 a.m. We have two types of testimony evidence. There is mass transmission which is called tawat in our tradition and there is isnad evidence. Isnad [snorts] mass transmission which we'll begin with yields certainty. So we'll say that this actually gives us 100% certainty of past events and I'll explain what this is. Whereas evidence will only give us strong confidence. There might be some, you know, areas where it gives you certainty, but it's not, most scholars will say that it only gives us very strong confidence and this will obviously go all the way down from from confidence to doubt all the way down to fabrication. So there's isad is once you're out of the realm of 100% certainty and this is what you know historical evidence is usually it's never 100%. Right? How can we make a very educated guess? Did the prophet say this? Did he not? Did he do this? Did he not? And that's what is for. Now what is mass transmission? Mass transmission or tawat is a report that has been independently testified to by such a large number of eyewitnesses that it is impossible for them to be lying or mistaken. It is impossible for them to be lying. So let's give an example. How do I know that China exists? How do I know that China exists? Let's say I don't have any access to the internet. I never saw I don't have never seen a picture of and even pictures they could just be AI now. Right? So how do I know China exists? So many people who have been there, been in the airport, who have who have visited, who have family in China, you know that it's not possible that they all could be just pulling the wool over your eyes that you're in like the Truman Show. Like that's actually not possible. um you know they try to make the case for that but the fact but you know that there are so many people who have independently testified to something that they've seen with their own eyes. So this doesn't apply to like, you know, rational evidence, right? No one can say, oh, 100 billion people told me that God uh doesn't exist, therefore God doesn't exist. That's not how this works, right? We're talking about empirical things, things you can see, right? An event, World War II. How do you know World War II happened? You've seen history books, but how do you know that's true? There's just so many people from generation to generation that have been talking about it from the people who were actually there, the millions of people who are affected by this war that you know that it's 100% true that it happened. And this is what we call mass transmission um and and and testimony and now is is dependent on the testimonial context. So depending on the in you know the event what happened and who were affected testimony tawat um can grow in strength it can lose strength and it might even carry over generations right so in order for toat to continue giving a certainty every generation has to carry that same level meaning it has to reach a level that you know they can't all be lying it can't die down in one gener generation to the point where you're not sure anymore otherwise it's no longer you're no longer you know So, let's do an exercise to practice this. Um, if I were to tell you that there is a fire outside right now, you probably wouldn't believe me. How many people would you need to come through the door before and tell you maybe different people from different areas um to tell you that there's a fire outside before you believe it? before you're 100% sure that there's a fire outside. Two people three. So, there's a difference between Yes. Yes. Well, exactly. So, there's a difference between whether or not you would act upon something or whether or not you know it's true. So, we're thinking about when you know it's true. Let's say, for example, not a fire. What if it was like someone said there's a um a police wearing an orange jacket? Like there's no who cares, right? It's not like it's not even like an elephant like or something. You're like, "Oh my god, I want to your amazement starts to kick in. It's just a police wearing an orange jacket outside." How many people do you need to know that they're 100% telling the truth? It's testimonial. You haven't seen it, right? You know they're not lying. How many people do you think you would need to come in? Right. There's actually like a there's this concept actually kind of goes back to uh you know um the Greece. There's like a a line they say you know this person um you know um he says uh if you're if you're bald and you had you and you have one hair okay I'll still say you're bald. You had two hairs, three hairs, four hairs. Eventually, there will be enough hairs for me for for for for you to say that you're that you have hair. So, what number is it? Meaning, you can't you can't keep saying you're bald forever. Eventually, you're going to get to a number of hairs. This is like the philosophical argument that you'll say that you're that that you have hair. So, like eventually you'll get to the point you'll say it's not possible that they're all lying, right? Then you can like there's a difference between hypothetically saying, "Oh, I can potentially imagine them all lying." But you know, based off the context that you know they're not lying, right? [snorts] >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. 50 people. >> Yeah. >> It doesn't. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Yeah. So, it depends on the It depends on the context. It depends on the event, depends on how large it is, how many people are be affected, >> how unlikely it is. Yeah. So, all of these things depend, you know, they they they gather, they they take more. So, like wars, for example, are almost immediately mass transmitted within the area because of how many people are affected, people are dying. Right? So wars are just immediately mass transmitted. Right? Now mass transmission doesn't mean that everyone in the world knows about it. Right? You like I there might be a war in like the middle of Africa and everyone knows it happened. Everyone's sure it happened because their family died, but I I'm not sure. I have no idea about it. So it doesn't mean that everyone knows about it. But once you've met enough people, you've had enough testimonial evidence come through, then you will reach that threshold that then tells you that it's certain. And that's why when you look at the life of the prophetam we have to look at the testimonial context. What is the testimonial context? Well the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was born into right the religious and cultural center of ancient area Arabia right Mecca where people the they were the custodians of the kappa. You know hundreds of thousands of people came every year to do pilgrimage. Um everyone knew about his birth right. He was like born into a royal family basically. um and his life was followed from a young age. He had a 100,000 companions, people except Islam. These companions then went and conquered and and and and ruled the majority of the world or of like the the world at that time. And right they brought the Persians, the Byzantines to their knees, right? Um they brought the com uh you know um um you know they they spread uh Islam throughout the entire world and they preserved the Quran through memorization right people at the time of the prophet memorized it and every generation it spread and people and more and more people memorized it without mus they were taught right the companions spread and they taught this and this was included this was also aided by the Muslim world system Islamic what we call an Islamic world system. Many um academics look into this that like there's the Islam had connected the world through its culture and through their practices and through the memorization of the Quran itself, right? Connected and unified the entire world based off of these different practices that that they did through trade, through um through travel. So when you look at this, you know what about the prophetam was mass transmitted? Well, his birth, his um claim to prophecy right in front of all of Quraysh, the fact that he went to war against the Quraysh, the fact that he, you know, died in Medina, the fact that he um brought the Quran, meaning he brought something that he claimed is the Quran, right? Whether or not it's a miracle or not, he brought the Quran. And then the fact that now today we have, you know, millions of people who have memorized the Quran. You go anywhere in the world and you just ask them to read a random page these people and they can all see the same exact page. This when someone sees this and based off of the context the different areas that they're from they'll say that it's not possible that all of these people just made this up that they didn't get this from somewhere. It didn't come from you know and you keep going back every generation. It didn't come back from uh the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam which is what which is what he's which is what he brought right. So from the time that it's mass transmitted that he brought something called the Quran and people are memorizing it. every generation memorized the Quran and preserved it and every generation it was mass transmitted such that now when we look at the Quran we say that it's absolutely true that this is um preserved right you cannot convince me now that the Quran is not preserved when I can go to Malaysia and someone reads the fata and bakar and I go to China and I go to uh Egypt and I go to India and they all reading the same thing from memory and that's the main method of the preservation was through memorization right not on written evidence So this is the the the proof to show that the Quran is preserved and to say that we actually can prove with a like 100% accuracy that it's been preserved and we can make our corrections. We can correct people when they make mistakes based off of this knowledge that's been passed down through generations and there are many things that's passed down right so the ex you know like the existence of Aristotle um you know the you know ancient wars and battles right the you know between the Persians and the and the Byzantines we know this with certainty um the fact that the Byzantines existed right the fact that the Ottoman Empire existed right so there's just too much raw data about different figures in history throughout history for us to deny that they happened or for us to not be sure that they actually existed and that's why some people even like try to claim that the prophet never existed or that the Quran was just made up like in the third century after his existence. I mean, and and they don't really I mean, they're they're like the historical claims they make are kind of very far-fetched, but they ignore the idea of mass transmission and the fact that if it was um uh you know that that every generation and through every claim that we that that's connected to the Quran um if it was made up in the third century, we wouldn't have this knowledge of it being uh of of him teaching his companions, of the companions memorizing it, of the comp compilation of Earth man, of the Quran um and spreading this knowledge throughout the Muslim land, right? So, it's it's very far-fetched to say that that it started then, right? Um and with with all of the reports with everything that we have in relation to the prophet reciting the Quran and his companions as well. So once we can establish that the prophet wasallam he brought the Quran. He claimed that this was the Quran in its entirety. And then we can establish that what we have right now is absolutely sure like it is the same Quran and we can look back at every generation. Then we know that it is um that that it's true. And then test you know physical evidence will only verify this. It'll only in you know increase this strength and show that yes right like um you know a thousand years ago 1400 years ago the mus l look the same as today right and the the details are just very tiny minor details that have no real significance um which are norm which are common in in in just copying manuscripts and whatnot. So the testimony evidence and this mass mass transmission is something which is not studied today. It's not really Muslims don't really know about this a lot. they kind of only know about the archae you know archaeological evidence and the you know like the different manuscripts. But if we understand this today and we see that these people who are claiming to have taken it from their families from from their families and we have this senate this chain of people in every generation at such large numbers this by itself will give us certainty in the in the preservation of the Quran. Okay. Now the next thing to look into is isnad. Now isad as we mentioned is what you look into when you don't have toat because doesn't apply to everything. So what do you look into when you don't have hundreds of thousands of people reporting the same thing when you don't have such large numbers of people. And this is something which is actually very it's unique to the Muslim community in the fact that there's no other tradition that has built a system of isnad in the same way. This is actually why many orientalists or people reject this simply because they haven't seen it anywhere else, right? They kind of like there's a bias towards, you know, recognizing the Muslims came up with something unique and that it's, you know, it's like a legit system. Now, how does a work? Well, if we want to we want to understand this as like a chain of a chain of custody. So, the chain of testimony is a chain of custody. When we have evidence that's been involved in a, you know, like a criminal investigation, the police just can't just come and just bring it and just dump it in the police in the in the in the office, right? They have to mark down exactly when they got it, how they got it, who carried it, put it in the sealed evidence, right? And then it's passed and it's it's monitored because if there's any tampering of evidence, you can't indict someone or you're not going to be able to get someone based off of evidence that could have been corrupted. So a chain of you know a chain of testimony is the same way. You have um two parts of the of of um uh of the of of a of a senate. The first is its textual analysis and the second is the actual chain of testimony itself. So when I whenever I have a hadith a saying, I'm going to investigate the text itself and say does this text actually align with the general teachings of what the prophet brought for example or what other people were saying at the same time. Is there a motive behind narrating this hadith for example? Um you know what what are the different things I can take from just the text itself and then I look at the individual people in the chain of testimony. So there are five people for example between me and the prophet. I'm going to look into every one of them according to their honesty, their precision, how well known they were in in in in hadith, right? How relied upon they were by other people. And the reason why this is important and why it works is that isnad was an independent movement. It was not something that was state funded. Right? So you had a bunch of individuals usually who were very poor and who they gave their entire life to isnad. They made the hadith of the prophetam their life. All they did was memorize hadith, study it and analyze it. That was their goal, right? They would travel across the entire world to find hadith from Bebakistan to Mecca to Medina to Iraq. And they did this um without any pay. Right. One of the uh narrators went to someone and said you know what do you do? He said, "My job is hadith uh analysis, hadith. I study hadith." He said, "Then um I give you the glad tidings of pro poverty, right? Because you know, no one's funding this." [snorts] And they created their own unique grading system of how to grade hadith based off of all of these factors, taking them into consideration and seeing right how can we be sure based off of the um you know precision and the strength of the narrator as well as this the type of the text as well as the location of the narrators where they were. Is it possible that they that they actually met? Right? Did they meet? Is it well known that they met? all these factors to tell is this hadithah is it accurate? Is it highly highly accurate? Is it like just pretty accurate? Is it which is weak? Is it like which is like um it's missing a chain or has one chain? It's missing the the companion narrator. Um is it meaning it's actually not from the prophet, it's from a companion. Is it to the prophet? Um is it um uh and then and then finally is it fabricated mold was it absolutely fabricated and they would sift through thousands of hadith. So, IM Bkari, for example, in his collection of Sahi Hadith, right, is the most authentic book of hadith we have today. Um, there are only around 2,000 or so unique hadiths, right? Not including the repetitions. And um, IM Bkari is said to have known 600,000 hadith, meaning coming into contact with 600,000 hadith. He was said to know 13,000 hadith narrators. He only included around 1,000 narrators in his corpus. So this process was sifting through large amounts large amounts of hadith um and and you'll see this in the works that were produced right entire you know encyclopedias on the narrators on the different types of hadith writing entire works on the fabricated hadiths right to preserve this knowledge that this is fabricated and we'll see that there behind every single hadith there's a story it's not just my friend told me that his friend told me that his friend told me in fact you can trace each individual narrator, look at their story, look at their reliability and based off of the systems and the grading uh metrics that they established and see how everyone worked together right in this movement to preserve the prophetam. Now what was the like like the motivation? The fact that the said right whoever may Allah you know enlighten and illuminate the face of someone who memorizes a hadith who heard something from me and brings it to someone else because it may be that the person hearing the hadith is more knowledgeable than the one who is uh is telling it and he also warned of people right who intentionally made up hadiths right that they would go to hellfire. So there is an incentive based off of the love of the prophetam and his own words to preserve these hadith. So let's look at let's take an example. This is called a hadith. It's the first hadith that any student in anything at all would learn. It's the first hadith they'd ever learn. You can kind of think about you know why is this the first hadith that they chose right? It's very deep. So he says those who have mercy the all merciful has mercy on them have mercy on those on earth and those in the heavens will have mercy on you. This narrative by who's a student of Abkari. Let's look at the chain of transmission. So you have from Ib or Omar sorry from Sfanb from Abu Kab from Abdahb from the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Now when we see this we see a bunch of names and this is how normally people will look at hadith and this is why they usually cut them out right when you're studying hadith you just kind of skipped oh skip all the names read the hadith that's people how people do it but if we look at these individuals very clo you know shortly Abdullah ibn right famous companion who was very devout and who memorized many of the hadith of prophetam the prophet actually told him to stop praying so much and reading Quran as much because he would read it too too often actually. So he said don't complete the Quran in less than 3 days right and he was um in so this great companion he taught Abu Kabuz who actually was his servant and he lived with Abdullah Iban Amar he learned from him and he became a well-known hadith narrator who then taught Ahmed dinar who was the kaldi of Mecca the greatest one of the greatest you know judges of Mecca for 30 years who taught Sophian ibana who was who lived in Mecca as well and who was the most knowledgeable Imam of his time or of of Mecca. He was the contemporary of Imam Malik and he dedicated his life to hadith. So when you have these major figures, everyone around the world is coming right to study with them and read hadith with them. So the environment is such that if someone makes up a lie about one of these narrators it's very easy to to to pick it out to point it out because there are hundreds of thousands of people who are taking hadith from them. So if someone says I got this from Safyan they'd say uh no that's not possible because I was just with him right we have all these other people who are with him and he never he never mentioned this hadith right so they would so that would be considered right a standalone hadith and it's considered weak it's not going to be strong uh and then Sufyan taught Ebmar who actually came from in uh in in in um in Yemen he used to make Hajj walk on foot to make Hajj And as he was making Hajj in Mecca, Tidmi who had traveled from Usbekistan met him and took this from him. So you see they're all there's this connection and it's all based off of this movement of people putting lots of effort into collecting these hadith verifying them checking the narrators. There was someone named Sha uh who would go and just say let's do for the sake of Allah. Meaning he would go and say this person is not a sound narrator. this person is right to say you know don't take from this person he's not that accurate right so they would and he would actually go and test people right test them on their hadith to see how good they were how much they memorized so this independent movement which was based off of the love of the prophetam and trying trying to preserve his wisdom and his and his teachings right culminating in culminated in a a very thorough analysis of every single type uh uh report and when one studies this and they see how how sophisticated it is, they'll realize that even though we can't reach maybe certainty in the fact that this is a hadith, we can come to a very strong level of confidence that this is the prophet most likely said this and that we can rely on this. And when that is the case and we see for example the narrations regarding the prophet's life or different miracles, we'll see that even if one of these is incorrect, the culmination of all these reports actually leads us to what we call collective mass transmission. mean that the general truths of the prophet's life that he was a good person that he for um you know um uh you know hadith that he that he had many sayings sorry that he um performed minor miracles these general facts are all true even if we can't verify or one want someone wants to challenge us on one of these individual claims because of the fact that this entire corpus and this method of isnad um brought such a level of rigor ous authentication to such a a huge amount of hadiths. So if you look at the entire corpus in its entirety, there are truths that we affirm even if we can't affirm and and verify the exact hadith. And that's the use that's that's the that's the usage of of of isnad and how it's used and and how we can benefit from it. Okay. So any questions about uh hadith and the history of Islam? This is our historical method. So we take written evidence, we take um histo you know physical evidence and we also take testimony evidence uh and we rely on this. Any questions regarding this? Yes. >> [snorts] >> Yeah, it's a good question. So the schools of thought when it comes to for example fick is based off of different narrations. The strength how how we verify and understand narrations if we agree on them right if we interpret them the same way. uh how we rank evidence, right? How we um you know prioritize different sources of evidence. So it's it's it's kind of very nuanced when it comes to and that's why they'll say that all of the different mah are correct, right? Because they're all making this effort to understand what is the, you know, the best and the the most accurate understanding given the the evidence that we have. [snorts] Okay. Alhamdulillah. So now let's go on to a couple more slides. Just a couple more um for today and inshallah then we'll stop uh before we get to evolution to kind of round out these um investigations. Okay. So the first is epistemology. I'm bringing this up now because once we've understood the simple arguments for Islam, it's important to also understand how we weigh evidence, how we gauge and understand evidence. Um, because this is going to affect our investigation into science is going to affect everything. And if we don't understand our epistemology, which is how we know things, we're not going to be able to respond properly or even see why, you know, where the problem is and how and how it can be responded to. The first level of epistemology is reason. So reason we know we we believe and we know we don't actually have to believe. We know that we can gain knowledge through our mind alone. Right? And this is such as mathematics, metaphysics, right? Cause and effect, logic, right? These are rules that are in your mind even if there's not a single example in the universe, right? And 1 plus 1 equals 2. You know that's true without having to think about it, right? It's immediate. Um, and no one can convince you that 1 plus 1 does not equal two, right? It's it's something which mentally you know to be necessary. The second source of knowledge is the five senses and this includes right just like our our five you know like you know touching and and sight but also experimentation and induction right science. So science is going to use reason, mathematics and the five senses and then a combination of the two. So for example, experimentation uses a combination of reason and the senses and these two is kind of what builds all of you know modern science right is built off of these two. Really they prioritize the five senses. In reality when we look at these five the these three sources of knowledge we can't actually prioritize one over the other because they have different roles. So because they have different roles, you can't prioritize them. In rather they just kind of they they have their own utility and to prioritize one uh arbitrarily would not be uh objective. So you'll see that science will actually in many cases arbitrarily right um prefer one over the other even like the five senses over reason. And this is just like an epistemological error as we'll see. The third is testimony and we just already studied right the two types of testimony evidence and this will show us revelation and hadith. So whether or not revelation is possible well that's a re that's rational. Whether or not it is accurate and true I mean and and preserved is through testimony. So that includes the the revelation as well as the hadith corpus. This is a comprehensive epistemology, right? That takes knowledge from our five senses, from our reason, and also from what we don't have access to, from the past, from other people. So it allows us to establish our tr truth and to discover truth [snorts] in a way that is not arbitrary that is not right like just limited to our own like whims and our own uh you know like our biases right. It is um applicable to every proposition that one can investigate. Now from reason which we want to focus on for now is the science of metaphysics and we talked about this the idea between of cause and effect understanding existence contingency and necessity. How we can order these concepts in our mind. What is real causation versus association? What is action? How do we des how do we just you know like um uh how do we um describe our actions, our free will, the you know beginning and end. So this study, this area of investigations cannot conflict with science because metaphysics is purely rational. Meaning we discover this with our you know with our mind alone. Meaning that it doesn't you know what we learn through experimentation cannot contradict these things cannot contradict these truths just as metaphysical truths will not contradict science. And that's why for example like quantum theory and the fact that you know things just happen without a cause. On a metaphysical level nothing can happen without a cause. There can be no effect effect without a cause. It's rationally absurd. Rather, we might just not observe the cause. We might there might not be any apparent cause or physical cause. Right? So, some scientists will try to some of them who don't who who kind of don't rely on reason as much will try to argue that an an effect can happen without a cause. But in reality, even many scientists who are more trained will say that no, there are are causes, we just don't know them yet, right? or whether it's dark matter or these other things, they won't go to say there's an effect without a cause because of the rational absurdities that begin to pile up after that. And the thing is if if you challenge any of these, especially the five senses and reason, you actually begin to challenge all thought and knowledge whatsoever. Right? If someone challenges the fact that they are seeing the sun in front of them as oh I'm not sure, right? How do I know? then they be they actually undermine all of their knowledge whatsoever because they're underingying that under undermining that which um is so immediate and primary to their experience. The same thing with reason. If someone begins to deny reason then then deny all their thought. Right? Because if you deny reason then you deny your ability to know anything to discover if this is true or false. If this you know the idea of contradiction right? So if you undermine reason, you undermine all thought itself. And it's not tenable. You cannot make an argument to say that science has disproven math. Science has disproven logic. That's impossible. Right? We might have different ways of applying it to science, but they are fundamentally different realms, different different worlds, and we have to be able to objectively apply both when necessary. So let's look at an example to illustrate this. We look at the rain. We say that it comes from condensation from evaporation, sunlight contacting the water, the the sun shining and then nuclear fusion. And when we look at this for example, if we understand this from a an empirical study from our five senses, we'll say that okay, scientifically, you know, rain is caused by the condensation from the clouds. But we're only studying this from its p from the perspective of the five senses. So that means that the we're studying the associations between contingent things. This isn't a contingent thing. This is a contingent thing. What's their association? We're keeping ourselves within the realm of the physical universe. But in metaphysics, we study, we don't study this, we study the the existence of contingent things and its dependence on a necessary being. So say let's look at the existence of rain, the existence of cond condensation. Are they contingent? Do they depend on a necessary being? So this example is to show you that we can understand uh different phenomena, different facts according to a scientific understanding and we and we keep it there, right? We just keep these these balls connecting to each other without looking up, right? basically or we can understand it from a metaphysical perspective which then brings the necessary being into every single interaction because we're understanding it from the perspective of existence and from contingency not from the physical realm. We're not understanding it from a scientific perspective. So that's really important to not mix between these two categories unnecessarily because it can lead you to confusions, right? To to confuse these different frameworks and to come to the wrong conclusions. Okay. So the question then is does religion contradict science? Uh depends on the religion. If you have a religion that does not have a rationally grounded metaphysics and theology, it will contradict science. It'll it'll extend its bounds beyond it'll go beyond its bounds. Likewise with a science. If you have a science that starts to make metaphysical claims, right, which is materialism, the fallacy of materialism, how do we know that there is no supernatural being, that it's impossible that God exists? We haven't just because we haven't we haven't observed him. This does not deny the truths of causation, of dependency, of necessity. So our conclusion and rel and and realizing that God exists is something which cannot be disproven by science. So a scientific framework that will will intentionally deny the existence of God is one that is going beyond its limits. It's not realizing that you just stick to the physical universe. You can't make these claims. And this is actually why when they there was a movement to try to undermine philosophy and just kind of get rid of these sciences, they were rejected even by scientists who said that, you know, we can't we can't use science to reject metaphysics and and philosophy. They're fundamentally different sciences and they're both useful. So if one is objective with their science, then they can affirm science in in its realm and they can affirm metaphysics in its realm as well. And they don't extend one to the other. [snorts] And that's what Islam does. Islam has a comprehensive approach to the universe to a to number one affirming religious claims and also scientific claims. And this is why Muslims were never scared of science. Right? There was not there wasn't some, you know, Galileo being house in a house arrest because his belief that the universe was no longer geocentric was now considered heresy because it went against the the church. So we have to just basically forbid people from reading his works and put him on house arrest. No. Right. Muslims were pioneers in mathematics. They discovered algebra, in physics, in chemistry, in medicine. You just read Cena's encyclopedia of medicine, right? And chemistry. How we know and and and physics. How we know that the eye does not actually shine light itself, but it but light um reflects off of things. And then we we we uh and and the light rays come into our eyes into our retina. Not that we have this like light bulb that's shining from our eyes, which is what Aristotle believes. So all of these scientific discoveries, the golden age of Islam, if you just look that up, are from Muslims. So if there was a serious conflict between science and Islam, how would they be able to come to these conclusions? And that's why when we look at claims in religious claims or people who say that religion contradicts science, these are only apparent conflicts. They're not real conflicts. Because when we have a comprehensive approach and epistemology to truth and discovering real propositions, then what we're going to do is when science says something, we're going to take the evidence. When our mind says something, we take the evidence. And then when revelation says something which we can prove to be true and objective then we also take that evidence and we weigh the evidence together. We create a comprehensive picture instead of just saying well this is science so we don't have to talk we're not going to talk about religion at all or this is religion we're not going to talk about science. We bring the two frameworks together and we weigh evidence. So when there are areas where there is an immediate actual real contradiction how do we weigh this? We study this. Can we interpret the text? Can we interpret can we find a more charitable understanding in science? Can we um is science even is it even like that definitive? Right? Is it really that definitive when it comes to for example human evolution as we'll see tomorrow? Like is it really that definitive or is that what they're saying? Are there ways that we can join between these two frameworks as opposed to just taking a purely, you [snorts] know, anti-science framework and all science is wrong or a materialist perspective which is like we're not even going to take into consideration evidence from religion whatsoever. Right? Whatever science tells us that's it. So we're not even going to take it into our conversation. Muslims say no, we're going to take it into conversation because they're all sources of truth. And in doing so, we come actually to the most objective conclusions. And that's how we're going to approach science and religion. So we covered uh today we covered the contingency argument, the design argument, the one argument, the oneness argument, and the genuine messenger. And in our house of Islam, as you can remember, this was the first found. This was the first step. This was the foundation. There were two more that we mentioned, right? Love of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and purifying the heart. And I will leave these two for you and I will give you resources. So for uh loving the prophetam there are many things that we have to investigate. We have to investigate the features and the character traits of the prophetam. This is what we call in his life. We talked about how to look at his life his virtues right what were the virtues that he virtues that he had what were the wisdoms he taught and then the sayings. It's really important actually to read hadith. If you read hadith, you will get a good understanding of who the prophet really is. You'll learn a lot about who he was more than you probably can imagine. So loving the prophet is founded upon knowing the prophet because you can't love that which you don't know. How can you say truly love the prophet if you don't really know what he what he stood for, what he believed in, how he lived. And we have alhamdulillah bas a really amazing series called Discover the Prophet. Um, it's 51 episodes. This is on YouTube as well. So, it's on Why Islam is true for free. It's on YouTube as well. This is really beneficial. It's a it will bring up stories and different examples that show you who the prom really was, his character. And I'll I'll I'll share I'll show a little at the very end I'll show a little snippet of one of them to to show you what it's like. So, this is something which you can't really do in one day. You can't really know the prophet completely in one day. This is kind of a life journey. You should take your time, read the hadith, study into it, you know, investigate, take other courses. And what we have here, the 55 51 episodes, there's a lot there. But, um, this is personal. And if you go into this, you put some effort into this, you will love the prophet. And that will then give you the context to understand all of the other social questions and moral questions that come up. Finally we have um purifying the heart and purifying the heart is another journey right it takes time but it's not just coming to it's not just a charismatic person speaking there are practices that you do um that the prophetam has taught us things to say in the morning things to say during prayer before prayer after prayer we know this we've been taught but there's a lot more that we can we can learn there are frameworks the framework to self- betterment self-improvement in Islam What is the soul? How do we define the soul? How do we define the heart? What is the nefs? What are the different types of of nefs that we have that are calling us to bad, calling us to, you know, calling us to good, blaming us? The diseases of the heart of arrogance, of vanity. These are things which are real diseases that can be cured, but we have to discover and know about them before we can cure them. And then the cures themselves, right? So if someone has arrogance or they have anger, what do they do? Do they just keep trialing, you know, trial and error, trial and error until they just, you know, lose everything or they figure it out, there are real methods to solving all of our diseases of the heart to identify them and then to solve them. And finally, the states that people go through. So when you are in a state, for example, of of being blessed, how do you respond? Of tribulation, how do you respond? of of reliance, of hope, of anger. When is it good to be angry? When is it good to be sad? The different states that kind of all of our life are we're going through states and our states are constantly changing. So, how do we manage these states? How do we make sure that these states are prophetic? And that's what the science of purifying the heart um uh investigates. Alhamdulillah, we also have with Puly education completely free um something called um uh sacred steps, right? So it's a it's a based off of the sunnah a a very detailed it's like 20 hours long guide to purifying the heart. So I recommend checking that out looking into it um and um you know seeing if it's uh if it's of any benefit inshallah and as I mentioned these are you know this right here is another life journey. It takes time. is not something you're going to learn in one lesson. So, we could talk more about this, but I'm leaving this here because we have other uh you know uh things to to worry about inshallah. Now, now once we've done that, now we have built the house of im. So, remember we can now go back to the house of now we can defend the prophet and we can defend Islam because we built this foundation, right? A solid strong foundation based off of the certainty. And now when we go come tomorrow we can look at evolution and we can start to you know dive into this and break it down. But we have our epistemology we have our frameworks everything uh is working together. So any questions about this? I'm going to show you one of the just the intro to one of those just so you can see. But any questions about what we covered today? Today was the most important day. you know, if you don't even show up tomorrow, it's it's not, you know, you got you got the most important day. So, tomorrow is application. We're going to be applying what we've learned today to different um world views and things that challenge us. But today, alhamdulillah, we are we've gotten the foundation and this is what really mattered. So, alhamdulillah, you know, it's 4 p.m. It took us 6 hours, maybe 5 hours because we took a break for for dur uh that was like 30 minutes, though. So, uh alhamdulillah, we got through it. But any questions, comments? We can [snorts] leave time for Q&A. They were Yeah. So, I think it's it'll be available after I want them to publish it live. So, hopefully they'll publish it just open for everyone to see because then we can people can benefit. Suffering the prophet. Uh it's um I was going to I'll play it on my I'll play it on my thing in but um this is the intro and this is the website. So I'm just I'm just showing you so you can navigate it. You can um uh it has everything on there. So you don't have to go to the other other websites or YouTube and um you can access everything. Everything here. >> This is my teacher. So Shakamaldi this like he started all the work. So he this is his all of this is mostly his work and I've done my own research and built these presentations but you know I work I work with him. He's a teacher. >> That's something that I've done a lot of but there's a second part to Islam as well. Islam is about proving the existence of God. But it's also about showing that the prophet Muhammad wasallam is really and genuinely God's messenger. There's atheist argument that cause us to doubt about belief in God. And there's atheists but also many Christian arguments that cause doubts about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Christians in particular they'll advance accusations that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was a warlord that he was a womanizer that he was harsh and cruel that he manipulated people around him for his personal advantage. In other words the claim is that he's a false prophet. He's an impostor who just made this claim because he wanted to gain something personally. He was selfish. He wanted to manipulate other people. Anyone who knows about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam who knows who he was will find this completely preposterous, completely unbelievable. Nothing could be further from the truth. But the problem is that we don't know who he was. And that's why I'm recording this series on discovering the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. >> So that's the that's the motivation behind this. Um they're really short lessons and I would really recommend checking that out. And the second thing is I think this is it. This is sacred steps. So it's another the other course. Um just so just for complete transparency as I mentioned these are these three all of the series the YouTube series and the short courses are completely free as well as sacred steps you get why Islam is true um sacred steps and then all of the other series completely for free the the Islamic the dilemma and um the prophet warlord all these videos have been out there Palestine and whatnot and there is also though two other levels to this there is um we've made this into a streaming platform. So there we used to sell courses um the whole course for a certain amount. we've now made it that it's like for example like Netflix you pay $10 you get access to all the courses over 40 courses um and or you could or there's another option to support the mission and um and and get more access but they you know we made it such that it's it's simply just like you have the core which is why Islam is true sacred steps and all the other series completely for free so everything we talked about today you have access to and then if you are interested in more of the courses and more knowledge about isnad, about logic, about there's so many more. That's $10 a month and $5 if you're in uh in the east in in countries where they don't have as much money. Um and then one could support the mission if they want to support our work and to keep and they they like what we're doing inshallah. So that's kind of what we're what we're what we're showing people. Um we're spreading this awareness because we're really happy to be able to launch to offer it for free um when we before we weren't able to because of the you know like the running costs. So alhamdulillah you know everything there is an extension of what we've covered today. So I I recommend just checking it out and then um and going from there inshallah. Um any other questions today before we end uh today's seminar and we'll come back tomorrow morning and keep going. any other um comments, concerns? Yeah. So, if you just check up yislamistrue.com, you'll find everything there. So, this is really why Islamist is true.com and you just need an email and you can get access to the courses for free. And then the other the other all the other ones are $10 inshallah for for one subscription fee. Um so alhamdulillah. Um but the especially the why Islam is true course. I would recommend everyone do that. Um it's like it's it's it's 18 weeks. I mean 18 modules basically. And um there's a lot of information there. And the biggest thing is you get access to to us to to my teacher and if you have any questions we can set up a private meeting. We're really trying to just do da'a and to spread this information. So, uh, alhamdulillah, like, you know, all of these talks and everything, we we don't charge for them, you know, there's no So, we do this just to spread this information to make it as easy as possible, inshallah. And that's the goal behind our our our mission, our work. Alhamdulillah. So tomorrow will be shorter because two full days is long. So we're going to cover evolution, age of Aisha and um the problem of evil. These three are the most important and [snorts] the other ones that I mentioned I said I mentioned a bunch of them in the beginning. I mentioned just all the possible main ones. So the warload was the process of a warload. We can talk about that if you want. It's a very simple. It's kind of just historically inaccurate. This is like more propaganda than anything. Um, spiritual abuse. Um, and and how we and how we can go into this. This is a bit longer. I don't know if we want to do this cuz we have to look at um some like psychology and we have to look at mental health and standards and how spiritual abuse manifests itself. So, we probably won't do that tomorrow. Um, but the Islamic dilemma, I can mention a little bit about it. But the main thing tomorrow will be to apply what we're learning. I'm going to bring an exercise on world views like how to understand and dissect different world views and different claims. We're going to look into the problem of evil, talk about the age of Aisha de la and then go deep into evolution and look at all the four different responses from religious religions to evolution. how they deal with it, what's our preferred method to dealing with this and show how how close it is to modern science really. Um, and then just Q&A. So, people have Q&A they want to, you know, it'll I mean, if we start [clears throat] at 10, I'm hoping we could finish by two, inshallah. So, we don't need a whole another 6 hours. It'll be uh two inshallah. So, that that way it's not too long. It's not to and as I mentioned um it's just applying what we're learning. So you can do this in any in anything else and or you can look up the videos as we said which we talk about all these in depth in so any questions today any final questions or comments before we be we end today. Thank you so much for attending and for asking great questions and uh for listening. Thank you so much and look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Welcome everyone to the second day of of this um seminar. Now the la yesterday we covered the origins of atheism. We talked about where how doubt arises, how it grows and we built a framework as you can see here on the screen which is the foundation is why Islam is true while we know God exists. The prophet is the genuine messenger and you can refer to the the live stream link we had uh from yesterday. We had um we did six hours and we covered everything. Alhamdulillah. We then talked about the importance of loving the prophetam knowing about the who the prophetam is to give us the context when we talk about different problems and then finally purifying the heart um to deal with many of the social or moral or emotional problems trauma that comes up. So today we're going to now apply this solution to the roof of this house which is defending the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and defending the Quran. And we're going to look at three very important three important issues today. Um these are the three most prevalent attacks against Islam and we're going to use this framework that we built yesterday to respond objectively and systematically inshallah. Now there are many other questions and many people sometimes they get they'll text me and they'll say uh oh I this person made a video can you respond? This person said this. The goal of us as Muslims is not to respond to every single problem that every single challenge someone brings up. There are endless challenges. There are, you know, infinite. People are always going to have something that they find problematic. What's really important is that we build our framework. We establish it and then the major problems we knock those down. The ones that are affecting me most people. But if there are, you know, someone does understand this ayah, some someone does understand this specific action the prom did. Well, this is just based off of education, we can help them. The more that they learn, the more that they get interested in Islam, the more that this these things will be cleared up and with, you know, personal conversations, we can solve all of these issues. But it's not, we don't have to outwardly you respond. So the goal is to respond to the major problems, the ones that are kind of really out there uh everywhere on online, everywhere on YouTube and then the smaller ones will be solved um by themselves. Now I wanted to discuss something uh really important which is when we talk about our rational system the thing that we built up yesterday you know why is it important to look to look at this framework um in the way that we did and this is what we when we look at our life and we look at our values it's built on this pyramid. So we have our sound reason, our epistemology, the way that we look at the universe, we the way we look at and try to discover truth. This underlies everything. On top of this, we build our worldview, our system of beliefs that govern everything. So fundamentally a Muslim is going to understand the problem of evil differently than an atheist. A Muslim is going to understand evolution different than an atheist, different than a Christian. So it's really important to know your worldview. Not everyone is on the same page and not everyone agrees. Not everyone has the same definition of God. Not everyone has the same definition of atheism. So as an individual, we define our terms and we understand exactly what we mean when it comes to God, atheism, Quran, our epistemology. We saw already that atheists, they're not going to accept revelation. So that by itself is a point of contention. Before we even get to discussing evolution and these different things, we have to establish that miracles are possible and that revelation is is true. Uh and so it's important to build up this this this pyramid and to understand that and understand the differences that we have so that we don't confuse frameworks. A lot of people they will look at arguments from Christians apologetics and say, "Oh, that's a nice argument." and they carry the argument over to discuss with their atheist friend and they don't realize that because their worldview is different than the Christians, they end up making mistakes. They end up proving something that doesn't actually completely align with the teachings of Islam or they end up trying to to defend or fight a problem that doesn't actually exist in our tradition. So, for example, with evolution, as we'll see, some Muslims, they want to attack and respond to the entire theory of evolution. We don't need to do this as Muslims. It's not our problem because our worldview is different. and built off of and from this worldview we then understand what is good and bad right evil um what is righteous are values and this value system will will then affect all of the moral and social problems. So when an atheist has a problem for example with um uh certain marriages or certain things you know what are the values that you are building this critique off of? What do you how do you consider good and and and right? Is it universal? Maybe some things are universal but not everything is. So many of our values and what we consider to be good and and and wrong what we consider to be fair these return to our worldview and our relationship with Allahh. So we have to we have to really understand that in the next in the next couple slides. And finally, the way that you live your life is based off of your values, right? Your decisions every day are depend on what you think is good when you're seeking uh the job you you you you go towards um the habits you cultivate. All of this returns to your values, what you think is important, what you think is true goodness. This is what like uh Iben Cena talked about, right? There's the objective uh you know uh rational investigations which look towards what is truth itself and then there there are the ethical investigations which is what is goodness what is and then there's the final which is what is beauty this is also in Plato's work so the idea that we all have different if we if we have different values then we're going to live our lives differently so let's continue um from from this from this place so Remember just to review our epistemology, we look at reason and we consider it as valid. We will also look at um the five senses and we consider this to be a valid source of knowledge. And we also look at revelation. We consider revelation to be a valid source of knowledge. And this is a type of testimony. Now remember some of this is we learn know with certainty. So for example mass transmission the Quran and some of this we don't know with certainty it's maybe probabilistic and this is what we talked about which is isad system. So these are three sources of knowledge and these are how are the sources that we're going to use to analyze any claim any objection and look at all of the ev evidence. So we're trying to always come up with a complete comprehensive picture. We don't want to prioritize one of these over the other. And the more that we start to prioritize one of these over the other, the more that we make mistakes, the more that we come into problems as we'll see. Okay. So, any questions about this epistemology? Any questions about what we covered yesterday? I know, you know, maybe you thought about it yesterday. Any questions before we continue? [snorts] Okay. Alhamdulillah. So, let's begin with the first problem. evolution. So, we're not going to dive deep into what exactly evolution is. All of you have probably studied this in your middle school or high school classes. Um, it's it's very prevalent. It's everywhere. But there are three main pillars of evolution. There's the fact that the universe is really really old. So, breaking the myth that the universe is 6,000 years old, we know that, you know, the idea of deep time is that the universe is very, very, very old. And that's a pillar of evolution because if you don't have a lot of time, you cannot uh have this very gradual um uh evolution of species from one species to the next. So this is the first truth that has changed a lot is that the universe is really really old. It's around 13.6 billion years old and that's how they generally uh they generally understand it. The second thing is common ancestry that different species have a common ancestor ancestor and they they have uh similarities in their genes and in their characteristics and the main mechanism of this evolution is two things. Number one random mutation which is actually there before Darwin. So uh Lamar and others had looked into evolution and said that there's common ancestry but they didn't they hadn't really investigated um the mechanism as well as deeply. When Darwin came along, he proposed the idea of natural selection, which today is still challenged, but it's considered, you could say like the major idea behind evolution is that through natural selection and random mutation, species change over time and they evolve. And this is how you can go from one species looking a certain way to a whole variety of different species or what the species within itself changing drastically over time. Now natural selection although it is challenged by many it has the four you know pillars of natural selection. So over production the fact that a given species will produce more offspring than will you will will naturally or will probably survive. So you have a lot of um offspring that allows this process of elimination and trial and error to occur. there's a variation between these between the offspring. So that different species or different um members of a given species have different characteristics have different qualities uh different uh genetics in certain in certain forms that will through a process of elimination and trial and error lead to different conclusions. The third is adaptation. So over time and through you know experiencing the rough ele you know the rough the you know like the harsh elements and the rough environments uh the survival of the fittest that some qualities adapt and they change and the example of this is like the spotted uh moth. So during the industrial revolution there were all the moths were um they had they were white and then when with with all of the suit and the pollution they were covered in in in in in um in this suitess. So the suits they were all black. So all of the black moths that when that had this trait naturally survived. They lasted longer until soon you saw that even the white moths began to become spotted. They had these they were spotted with you know they they were spotted um had black spots or even they they the the dominant uh type of moth was black to be able to survive and then this change. So you can see that within this example right the environment affected the adapt adaptation of the species and then selection the selection is that you know depending on this environment certain beneficial and more powerful features uh will survive. So the example Darwin gives he he he traveled around a lot. He did a huge survey of different animals and he went to many different uh islands and he saw for example these different species of turtles. So when this when the when the environment was very lush and there was tons of greenery, the turtles had short necks because they would they didn't have to reach for their food. They could just eat off of the ground and they had bigger shells to proect them protect them from predators. But then, for example, in more dry drier airier um airy environments, they actually had longer necks. So, the turtis had very long necks so that they could reach the branches of of bushes and whatnot to reach their food. So, depending on their environment, they they said that they're from the same species, but we see that one turtle has longer neck, the other one has a shorter neck depending on their environment. And this is the example of the natural selection that if the turtles that had shorter necks in the drier area climate died off and they didn't survive and the ones with longer necks survived and therefore um this process continued until you actually considered the turtles with longer necks their own species. Now that's a very simple example but through many many many invest uh investigations and observations of this selection they said that this applies to all of the animals right we see this with with all of the animals they all have a common ancestor and we can even return them back to a single cell um and whatnot okay so that's like the general idea of evolution now what are the four responses or approaches to dealing with evolution Now there are four responses that are you could say Islamic within within our community and there is but there are five in total. The first is just scientific materialism. So this is idea that we don't believe God exists. There is nothing such there's no such thing as revelation. There's no such thing as miracles. And based off of this materialism, it's a worldview based off of their philosophy. um uh there is there is not possible for there to be a break in the chain. Evolution is necessary and we all have common ancestors and there's no exceptions whatsoever. And this this approach is based off of their materialism. The fact that it's not possible for a god to even exist or or or for God to intervene with in science. So even if God possibly could exist, there's no proof that he exists. There's nothing supernatural and there's no miracles. And this is what for example the biohysicist um Stuart Coh Kaufman said, "Science not sin has indeed lost us our paradise." So that you know the idea that you know we didn't lose our paradise and our beliefs in God because of sin and because we're bad people. We lost it because we're smarter because we we have science now. Um so this is this approach is what we mentioned in the earlier slides. the idea that you know the new atheism is a is in complete opposition to religion. So we're not looking at this idea anymore because we've already uh refuted this, right? So the idea our our entire framework that we looked at yesterday of why Islam is true and everything. This should have refuted scientific materialism. So we no longer have to deal with this claim anymore. But as Muslims, we see four major views. The first is creationism and this is very similar to Christianity Christians as well. So the the idea that um evolution is not true. It's just it's like a scientific myth. It's all just a bunch of like guesswork. Um Allahh created all of us directly. All of the animals were put on earth. Nothing evolved whatsoever. And this [snorts] is what many of the Christians are saying as well. Now this approach although many there are many Muslims even some like scholars who try to take this position is usually from a misunderstanding of what really is the problem with evolution. So they will inherit all of the problem like the like the um the approach of the Christians in this example to say well look the Christians they have to believe the universe is 6,000 years old and they have to believe that all of the animals were directly placed on the on on earth. Um so the Christians they have to either they have to reject evolution. We also have to reject it. It's part of our it's part of faith. It's part of belief to reject um evolution completely. we have to just believe in Allah. Science can't lead to the truth. Um, you know, science can't defeat God. You see, hear a lot of this rhetoric. Now though some of this rhetoric might be powerful or useful in some some cases trying to defend you know Islam against materialism it's incorrect and it actually is very detrimental to our communities because if the atheists if their entire movement is to try to show that religion is incompatible with science and that people who follow religion are intolerable and they simply just follow their beliefs even if all the evidence points in the opposite way. This approach to evolution is not going to help. It's just going to strengthen their argument. So mus most Muslims especially in the west who grow up in with with western educations, they go to high school, they go to college, they're not going to accept this. And people who say this is just going to make them believe more that they shouldn't believe in religion. They should just accept uh science and the way that science approaches truth and reality. So creationism is although it's maybe like a fringe in the community in the Muslim community, it's an incorrect approach um to this uh to this idea. The second thing is that there are no exceptions, non-acceptualism. There's no exceptions whatsoever. So um evolution is true. We proved it with science. Revelation, nothing can can come in the way. So because it's a fact, we have to reinterpret all of revelation. And there's nothing in the Quran that said anything about uh revelation really in a definitive way. Um you know, we have to believe it even about um humans. And if we can't understand it then and or if our our revelation seems to point the opposite way, then we will just reject this revelation or you know kind of interpret this revelation. This is what a lot of many modern Muslim scientists believe. And what's the obvious problem with this? What's the obvious problem with this? Yeah. So yeah, exactly. You're kind of just rejecting revelation entirely if you just if you just throw it all away. If you say that, you know, all of the ayat that point to this uh can just be interpreted, then there's no real backbone to your text anymore. And this is also what the Christians did. the whole like the whole idea of mytho history that all of these stories in the past even Jesus's crucifixion are just stories. They didn't actually happen. They're meant to give us moral lessons and values. But if you do this, then you just make your entire religion just something like cool that you like doing because you feel like there are some moral benefits to them. you're not actually establishing as objective truth and you can't make that claim because you're saying that, you know, science as soon as something contradicts religion, we just throw out religion. We just get rid of it. So that doesn't really show that there's a strength to your belief or that you really hold it to be true because if something's true, you can't just throw it away. And it's also very problematic because this type of revisionist approach um has no end. So you can just keep doing this with every other dictate, every other ayah that you don't understand. You just interpret it. You just reject it. So we don't and this is what many of the modern revisionist uh the modernists actually do. So we don't like the ayah of the had punishment. We just get rid of it. We don't like the way that you know there's a testimonies done in Islam. Just get rid of it. We don't like um the you know like the for example the modesty rules in Islam, just get rid of it. So what's left then? You know what does it mean then to be Muslim? If you can just interpret and get rid of the entire Sharia, the entire text, what do you have left? So these two approaches are considered fringe in the Muslim community. And this is actually what most I mean you could say most most orthodoxy Muslims or orthodox Muslims will not accept this. They will see that the they will say that these two approaches are very problematic. Now the third is human exceptionism. This is what you this is probably mainstream in most mosques in most communities that you know we can understand evolution on its own terms. We can accept it but our biggest problem was with Adam's uh origin. So you know I don't really care too much about whether or not trees evolved or not. But the big problem is Adam did not evolve. And this is the whole this is where all the discussions happen online right Adam is not from a monkeys. We are not from monkeys. Do I look like a monkey? This type of rhetoric, you know, um when have you seen a monkey do math? When have you seen a monkey build a skyscraper? So, a lot of this rhetoric, even though it might be inaccurate and whatnot, it's it's showing that their problem is with human evolution, not with the fact that trees and turtles evolved. I mean, who we just don't really care that much about whether or not trees or human, you know, turtles evolved. Now, the final approach is Adamic exceptionism. And this is more rare in our in the in in the intellectual um conversation but it's is gaining strength. And the idea behind this is that let's say that all of humans evolved and that all of humans are children of Adam. Let's let's try to hold these two things as true. What do we need to affirm to establish both of these truths at the same time? So they'll say that humans evolved from previous, you know, from a from a from a natural a common ancestor that shares the same common ancestry as um uh uh Muhammad apes and and monkeys, chimpanzees. But Adam was created by himself. So he is the only exception, him and his wife. and he was placed into a community of other already humans or you know like in an ancestor of the human race. Now how do we understand that we're all children of Adam? Well, he bred and with you know he uh with all of the other species at that time and his children bred with them as well and the rest of that species died out. So basically, you have some monkeys. They're not humans. The ones who would be considered the ancestors of other humans, they all died out. And the only people or you could say species that remained were those who had a connection to Adam. So he kind of was placed into a species into a population. And he was a prophet. So he had maybe the most power, the most influence. When he bred with the other species, maybe he bred with a lot of them. Um all of his children survived. and the rest of the the living ex existing species that evolved they died out. So technically humans did evolve but were all the children of Adam and they'll say that this actually doesn't have anything which is very explicit in the Quran that rejects it. Um and it's you know uh it's fine. It's it's a possible it's a viable option. Now what's the evidence for this? The evidence may not may not be as strong or it's not as clear. So there isn't really any positive evidence for this, but it's another approach to trying to merge the two positions, which is we all evolved and Adam is a miracle. So this is Yeah. >> Yeah. [snorts] Exactly. So we do have proof that we that we um or at least strong evidence that we uh uh um mated with Neanderthalss and that many actually Europeans have Neand Neanderthal DNA. So that's what they'll say is that ATM was just placed into this community and then everything that evolved it all just all just makes sense and then the other populations died out. So if I for example if I have if I have a great great grand you know ancestor and I have other people who have ancestors we only need the top of the ancestry line to die out. Meaning the people who only came from that you know like the the very end. So if you see like two two heads and they just branch out and they merge here with this father. We just need the couple lines on the side who didn't have any relation to Adam to die out and then all of humans and that's actually very possible and plausible in science that you have a species a couple species who just went extinct. Yeah. >> Yeah. Absolutely. So I this this approach or this idea this this belief this view is not like heretical in in a way. It's not something which uh is so like um out of out there right. So it's very probable uh or it's it's actually very possible and we have to investigate it more. Now can we establish this as like the main idea as we'll see the evidence doesn't seem to pro to to point there completely but is it a viable option? Yes, possibly. And it's not something which you could say completely contradicts orthodoxy in in in the same way. [snorts] Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. That we're going to actually see that. So both views the human exceptionism and Adamic exceptionism we'll look at that idea. Um the main thing is that as we'll see we'll get there is that there are certain ay that make it seem that we're all we just we just came from you know like we're all the children of Adam we came from one that's kind of like the the most immediate understanding. So do we stick to the immediate understanding or do we also you know include this? Uh there are many scholars who you kind of reject Adamic exceptionism but there are also many who really push for it. So we'll see the different views right now but as you see it's not the same as creationism or no exception no exceptions. It's kind of it's close. It's a lot closer. Uh so over a time so Allah subhana tala uh the way that it's described is that he was made from clay and he was then immediately you know as we'll see he was immediately he was made into his form immediately. So he could there could have been a process in terms of him being created by Allah through the clay. But the idea that he evolved from other life species as we'll see is kind of is preposter. [snorts] We'll see. We'll see right now in Yeah, that's a good question. So what is the I'll say our approach and I say this is our approach because it's the most it's the majority. So I'm going to give you the majority approach what most of the scholars of today are looking at and what they they posit whether or not you go you choose to believe in Adam exceptionism or you stick to this is fine but what I'm saying is this is the majority and if we're looking at like evidence we're going to just we're going to I'm going to show you the the strongest opinion out there for now and how we reconcile it and then the other opinions will take place as we look into it. So the first approach is that we affirm revelation. So we hold revelation as true as a real source of knowledge. We don't reject it. We don't we don't just over interpret it. The second thing is that we examine all of the evidence. So we also don't reject science completely. We take science. We're connecting to the sensory as a real source of knowledge and revelation. And we have to connect and and join between all of these. We can't just pick one or choose one over the other. So from these two approaches, the first thing we have to say is that what is the problem? The problem, as we kind of alluded to earlier, is that um not, you know, non-human life is not a problem. So, we have no problem with dogs, cats, trees, flowers, and bacteria evolving. All of this can can evolve. We can say, you know what, the science is there. This is great and I love it. Let's study it more. I'll help you discover how trees evolved. There's nothing in the Quran that says that trees did not evolve or that Allah just placed trees directly or that he placed animals directly. In fact, Allah is kind of quiet when it comes to the exact creation of animals and whatnot. He says that he's placed animals on the earth, but that doesn't mean that he directly created them without any process before that. So, this is not our battle to to fight and we're okay with accepting that evolution is true for 99.9% of all of uh you know uh life life forms. So, like if you look at humans and apes, we're a very tiny percentage of all the rest of life. So evolution as a theory is true regardless whether or not humans are are are are included in that or not. Right? So that that's it's an important point but we can still maintain evolution as true for the maj everything else and that's a very important point. The second thing is that we're looking at the human origins. So humans after Adam can evolve. So the idea that we looked like this like the same way the same you know general height and lif span that's not true at all. So even within our tradition we knew we know that Adamam was very very tall. He walked across the earth right in a couple days he was you know and then there were people the people of Tamud were taller that were giants and they were making you know like using mountains as their homes and whatnot. So even within our tradition, humans do not look the same. So the idea that the homo sapien is the only understanding of human is not even within our tradition. We have a a more broad understanding of humans and they're and they're and they're changing over time. So if humans evolved after Adam, we don't have a problem with this either. If you want to say that the way I look now is not the same way that someone from the same place I'm born looked like a thousand years ago, that's okay. even 500,000 years ago, it's okay. We're talking about the origin of of of life, the origin of the human being. Was is it is it evolved from other uh species? Does it have a common ancestor or was it created miraculously? That's the only problem we're looking we're looking into. Okay. Now, the second thing we have to look at is rules of interpretation when it comes to Quran. So this is really important because if we don't understand how to approach the Quran, it's very easy to just kind of make mistakes. So the first thing is that the basis of all speech is the apparent meaning. So when I speak to you, the apparent meaning that you get from all of my words is what you hold me to. You can't immediately interpret it for no reason. So if I say for example it's raining outside you cannot for no reason just say oh he means that uh you know there's like u like a yeah you can't say oh it's like there's building pressure of anxiety like no no no that's not that's not what I meant at all and I just said it's raining outside so you have to hold me to the apparent meaning. So the same way when we look at texts when Allah says something if there's not an immediate uh or textual or linguistic reason um or rational reason to point in another direction we hold it at on its apparent meaning. So if it's rationally possible mean that it's theoretically possible for it to exist for it to occur we hold it at its in its meaning. So there might be some things that's not possible. So for example when Allah says that he like uh his his hand for us to hold this in its literal meaning would mean that he has a hand like us like literally like us and that rationally is absurd as we looked at earlier. So in this case we have a real reason to say the hand of Allah subhana ta it's an attribute of his but we don't understand what it means like we it can't be a literal physical hand like me and you but in the case of evolution and we're talking about contingent physical things there's nothing that's rationally saying this is impossible if we look at the apparent meaning of certain ayas and it's rationally possible then we have to believe in it conclusively we can't just throw it out. We can't just interpret it. We can't just say, "I choose not to believe this." If we do, we run the risk of rejecting revelation. Now, the second point is that there are two types of proofs. There are probabilistic proofs and there are decisive proofs. Meaning that when it comes to revelation, when it comes to anything, there are things which we know with absolute certainty is the case and there are things which are a bit fuzzy. It's not as clear. It's probabilistic. And probabilistic proofs are always going to have more flexibility within them. So for example with testimony we'll say that the Quran is a decisive proof because we know that it's been preserved with certainty but a given hadith for example the the fact that the said that Allah is shows mercy to those who show mercy this is more this is probabilistic is it possible that he didn't say this? Yes it's actually possible he didn't even say that. So in those cases, it's a lot easier to actually interpret it or to not even accept the hadith if there's tremendous amounting evidence on the other side. Meaning that when it's probabilistic, there's a lot more leeway. But if it's decisive, we can't really ignore it. And the third thing is that there is a probabilistic meaning and interpret uh right the immediate meaning is either probabilistic or it's decisive. Meaning that when I use expressions, the meaning that you get from that, it's either going to be very clear to the point that you can't immediately interpret it or it's going to be a bit ambiguous. For example, if I were to say, you know, Zade is a lion. The immediate meaning here immediately points towards the fact that this is a a metaphor. Oh, for example, if I say I am um [snorts] uh someone says it is uh you know like uh uh I'm happy right now or this thing is uh beautiful or um they make a they make a statement which has a lot of flexibility. So, for example, all of the angels prostrated or the angels the angels prostrated. Does that mean that all of the angels prostrated? Does that mean that they prostrated all at the same time? So, just saying the angels prostrated, there's a lot of leeway there. There's a lot of flexibility as opposed to saying all of the angels prostrated together. If I say this for you to now get out of this and or to say that that they didn't actually all prostrate, you can't do this because it's decisive. its meaning is decisive. So we're always looking towards what is decisive in proof and what is decisive [snorts] in meaning. And that's in in in the case of revelation if it has decisive proof and decisive meaning we have to believe in it. We have to accept it in its literal meaning. We can't really move around it too much. Uh but if it doesn't if one of those two things are missing is probabistic in meaning or probabilistic in proof we actually have a lot more interpretation that we can do. Now let's look at um the revelatory evidence in the Quran relating to Adam. So throughout the entire Quran there are many many ayas and I gave a huge list here. And one of the most important ays and that that we're going to look at today is inah he says Jesus is just like Adam is to God. So Jesus is just like Adam is to God. He created him from earth and then said to him be and he was. What is Allah saying in this ayah? What he's saying is that Adam's creation is miraculous. Meaning just as Jesus was created without a father and he was just created directly in the in the womb of his mother, Adam also was created directly. Meaning he's saying it's a miracle. So if you try to understand this in a way that makes Adam's uh existence or his origin non-miraculous, this goes against the ayah because the ayah is clearly saying that he is a miracle. So meaning there has to be a mira a miracle in this situation. We can't interpret in a way where there's no longer a miracle. And this is why understanding it as just a previous uh you know thing uh you know like a process or there's like there was he Adam was like a a species like a like a gene pool or something like that. This actually does not um work because there's no miracle then in that in that formula and Adam when he was created it said that he created him on his on his form. So Allah there's another hadith that says Allah created Adam in his full form meaning on his exact form and there are many other hadith and ay that point towards Adam being a complete human when he was created. So having the characteristics the features of a human and not being for example some like semi- lizard like you know thing that then eventually evolved into a monkey and then eventually evolved or some like monkey type and then eventually became a human millions of years later. That's not how Allah is describing it and it's very clear from the ayat which are decisive proof and from the meaning which is very decisive that even if we don't understand all the details he clearly was c created directly from god and on his form so in human form directly from god he said to him be and he was and the idea of is that it's immediate so this also rejects the idea that he was created over a long period of So when we look at evolution and there's deep time meaning we need millions of years for these things to occur. Be and it is doesn't agree with that because be and it is is a metaphor. It's a it's an expression to say very clearly it happened right away. Right? It just it was >> [snorts] >> Yeah, that's so in that case that that idea would would maybe not be as strong. But the other hadith and or and ayas that point to uh you know Adamisam being a human on his form that would kind of contradict that though also in this ayah he says he is like Jesus meaning that just as Jesus was a human being Adam was also a human being. So he said just Jesus is just like Adam is to God meaning that the creation of Jesus is the same as the creation of Adam. It's miraculous. And he was a human being as opposed to, you know, you wouldn't say Adam was like Jesus if he was, you know, like he just didn't, he was just a gene pool and then over a billion years he was created. Not only is there no miracle in that, but there isn't an immediate. Well, because the miracle a miracle is that which breaks the natural laws of of of of science, the the natural associations. So, we're not talking about like, oh, the miracle of life, which is like how did how did we get here? >> Mhm. Mhm. [snorts] >> No, that's a good point. And um exactly like what what was the clay? Like this is this is actually a question people ask. Exactly. What what was the clay? Was the clay some some type of gene pool or previous a previous previous species or whatnot? Um the the scholars actually disagree, you know, can we accept this or not? But they will all say that his form was created when he when he was fully created. Um it wasn't just his soul. So when he was Adam, he was human and in a soul and had a soul because his identity was connected to his human form on his and this is what all of other hadith are saying that he was created on his form. So meaning maybe there was a process to Allah creating like buildup in the clay but when Adam was created he was created as a human being and that means that this actually has implications when it comes to you know what was a common ancestor. So to say that he came from a previous uh like uh like a monkey like uh creature and then that just over time we went through all these other species and now suddenly we're at the you know the idea of a human being. This doesn't align but there could have been some type of clay some type of process from which he was created then directly as he was and that's and then now he's considered Adam. So um it's not to say that so he would not have been Adam before he was uh created uh you know like before or whatever that may be may have been and the ay are saying that he was created in a miraculous way as Adam completely. So in that case, you know, we can look into what clay is, but the idea of just a pure pure evolution doesn't fit right from the very beginning just slowly just working until you get to like halfhumans, Neanderthalss, and then eventually to to humans. This model needs to be tweaked to a certain degree. And that's all we're saying is that the show that we can't accept the scientific model completely as it is, right? So the idea of no exceptions doesn't work for us. We have to we have to see how we can weigh this evidence. [snorts] There's also a scholarly consensus which is we call which is that Adam was the father of all humans. So this is something we haven't talked about this but the idea that when all of the community uh the early community the companions um and everyone else based off of the evidence from the Quran Sunnah agree on something we consider this as orthodoxy it's binding proof. We can't just reject this. So if everyone is saying something of the early generations we don't just we can't just throw it out. So they had a scholarly consensus that Adam was the father of all humans that we all came from from Adam and there are many ayat too. Allah says that we created you that we created all of you from one soul. So we all have some connection to Adam and even this ayah that we created you from one soul is what people have a problem with Adamic exception meaning that did those other beings have souls? Did we come from those other beings? There's a conversation there. Humans came from Adam and Hwa and Adam was made of clay. So this is like the general the general proof is that humans came from Adam and Hwa. They are their parents and that Adam was created from clay. So created from clay and the general and the general immediate meaning of clay is that it's just the mud clay. It's just he he had this mud and he was created directly from mud into human being. And this is the general way that scholars and people have understood this uh for the majority. So to look even to look into what was the clay, what exactly was this? This needs more evidence. So trying to we're trying to just make guesses. But from what we have now, the idea of what clay is is very simple. It's a simple just like the molding process. >> Yeah. [snorts] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> [snorts] >> Mhm. >> No. So Allah could have created other things from clay. So, it's not that he didn't um you know like Clay didn't begin everything you know whatever the clay was. [snorts] >> We'll talk about the similarity. We'll talk about similarity. But whether or not he took the DNA of chimpanzees and then morphed and then that's the clay. This needs evidence. So it's like that's like an interpretation. >> Yeah. Yeah. [snorts] >> Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Well, >> yeah. We'll we'll yeah we'll we'll we'll address the similarity problem. And that's a good qu that's yeah identical. Yeah. So we'll we'll we'll I I'll mention that we have a slide on that actually. That's a good question. Um yeah. So this this these are good really good questions. We're going to we're going to address these. >> They're going to say Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We're going to get there. And one thing that's important to know is that as Muslims, we don't have to I mean, we're going to answer these questions, but we don't have to figure out all of the details. Meaning that like when exactly did Adam pop into creation? We're not really theologically held to this. And this is why what I'm saying with regards to the clay, are we held to a specific exact understanding of what the clay is or how exactly this occurred? Not really. So in this area there's room for research, but we need to always establish our beliefs on facts and and evidence. So a lot of some people will just kind of make like like assumptions or guesses like hypo like pure hypotheticals like what if it was like this? What if these are great hypotheticals but that's not enough to actually build our own explanation to evolution and to engage with other uh other you know groups with we have to take this systematically and look for evidence. So all we need to do is just understand Adam's creation. Once we get that and its relationship to the Quran and to the evolution, then all the other details are going to maybe come up over time the more we research it. Maybe researching talking to a lot of people. So that's a good that's I think that's a really good personal journey. I think that's that's something that we don't necessarily have to look into, but it's interesting. I'm really interested in that. Like when exactly, as we'll see later on, when exactly did Adam show up? Was it at the very beginning of the of the homins or was it in the middle? That's a really interesting question. But does it really matter in relation to these ayas? Not really. So trying to create the most like reasonable and bulletproof framework we're in in these sciences. It's constantly adapt adapting adapting and changing. Even the science of the fossils and the and evolution is always changing. We find a new species and then we we we we fix we find a new fossil and we we fix the model. we think oh actually it wasn't this many years it's actually another 500,000 years so the science is evolving and with that our understanding is also going to evolve regarding Adam as well and that's kind of that's exciting [snorts] It might. Yeah. The only thing is the miracle though. The only thing is the miracle. There has to be a miracle. >> So that wouldn't be our definition of a miracle. That would be like the the the normal understanding of a miracle. Like the fact that I made it here safely when there were cars and how do we get that's a miracle but a miracle in the sense of fire not burning. A miracle of a sense of you know it's you have to be able to challenge someone on this to show that it's it's a proof for God God's truth. >> So a soul we they're not going to accept a soul. So if you like if we're talking to an atheist, they're not going to accept the idea that there's a soul and they're not going to accept that there's any mira that it's miraculous at all. Like if you if you say that it's basically the clay was this and this, there's no miracle whatsoever. You're just basically saying that he just was created like every other being. [snorts] >> So whether or not he used that, that might be fine. But the aspect of creation meaning him being on his form you know in a certain form as Adam and not just evolving over complete over time as Adam meaning like he wasn't just uh he didn't exist and now he existed through evolution. This is something which uh has to ay seem to conflict with. So there has to be some level of there are no humans and now there's a human and it and and this this this miracle means that it doesn't follow the natural process of every other life form and that's what the ayah is saying what all of the other like this is the the the consensus is saying that he was created special just as Jesus was created special cuz otherwise if you were to say that he just evolved and that the whole process of that is Allah creating him from clay then that would be there would be no relation to Jesus whatso What's up? [snorts] >> [snorts] >> So, so that's so you're going to have to fight them at some at some point, right? But the idea of consciousness is harder. Because uh you know like they're going to say like like like you said scientific materialism and just in science in general is that the consciousness and the human brain if it evolved then the consciousness evolved as well. Like they're not going to make separate this from as some like miraculous nature that somehow we now are conscious. They'll say this is just the this is like the result of natural selection at its finest and we just based because we there are possibly billions of universes. We happen to be just the most dominant and luckiest cre creation. They'll say we're the luckiest like natural selection produced the the greatest. It can and that's and that's why I say that if we looked at it if we if we if we look at any of the other universes out there if we believe that there are many other universes that there might it's possible but it's possible so within science they'll say it's still possible because if we got here through ev through through natural selection and everything was a natural selection then it can happen again. [snorts] This this turns into a god of the a god of the gaps argument. It basically says that we don't understand how how we got to consciousness and that's amazing. It's like beautiful. Therefore, it's from God. >> [snorts] >> So that's the question. Is Adam just a soul or is he soul and body? >> So in this case when Allah says he created Adam and you just use the word Adam is that just referring to the soul or is that referring to the body as well? >> So [snorts] because of the simil so there's a problem of similarity. So we'll see how we can deal with the problem similarity. But I think when we look at we're getting to the same place is that we there is a level there is a miracle but you know what do we have to accept like what can we hold on to and just from the outward ideas of this ayah is that Adam is human and body human and of body and soul and this was created miraculously. This is like the outward and if and whether or not we want to look into the idea of the clay and whatnot, we're always there is going to be a level of of of a problem where we have to break the rules of of science when it comes to as a miracle for the human for the human nature because if we don't have any miracle then the all these ays mean nothing really like if there's no miracle in the process he literally just evolved like everyone else then there's no then all these ay are kind of rejected. So in that case, we're looking at what the miracle is. And the simplest understanding, the simplest understanding so far is just that it's human and body. It's it's soul and and body. It's body and soul. Uh and we'll see how can we reconcile this with the scientific evidence. But these are great questions and I I'm learning on this too. So this is great. This is these are great. Mah, what what's the scientific evidence? So the scientific evidence is that we have patterns of physical and genetic similarity and even identity. So it's like 95% of our our our our gene our genes are on and our genetic makeup and everything is identical to chimpaz. Um and even the the physical similarities are very clear. Like if you look at us and you look at a monkey, you'll see a lot of similarities. You go to the zoo, you see like that monkey if he just started speaking, you know, and he got rid of his fur, you'd probably think there was a human because they look very close to humans in in many cases. Um now the problem with this now now this evidence here though is used to immediately to to assert that humans guaranteed had that common ancestor as as monkeys and as we'll see that claim is not necessarily true. So we can find similarity and there can be similarity even in ident in in gene in in genetic gene even in like n even identical genes without there being common uh ancestry. So without revelation that would probably be the most reasonable understanding and conclusion but with revelation it's not a necessary conclusion because it is an indirect observation and it's inferential meaning we don't we we can't actually see the moment where you know humans and apes were together and they were one species and they broke off. It's just based off of the evidence we think, we assume, we make a good guess, an educated guess that they were connected. The second big uh evidence, this is actually even stronger, is that are the fossils, bones, tools, paintings, and even burials. So, we've had a like an like an explosion of new uh in like discoveries regarding um the hominan gene, right? So, all of the prehuman species are ancient extinct ancestors. And this shows that the idea of humans or homo sapiens just popping up 500,000 years ago or something like this um is rejected that we have people or beings that are very similar to us that do the same things have very similar skulls, very similar bones, have used tools, make burials, right? They act like humans but they're thousand like millions of years old. So the idea that we kind of popped up and we're very unique is also rejected as well. So there is this like this broadening this idea the spectrum of the human you know like of the of the human gene right the idea of the homminin this is where the idea where we get the idea of the hominin there are many species and the homo sapien is just one of those um in this general uh you know like a univer like a major gene or father gene. So what is reasonable based off of the evidence? What can we assuh assert based off of the eyes that we saw as well as the scientific evidence that is pointing us in one direction. Let's look at a couple facts. The first is that as Muslims we believe that there was life on earth before Adam. So whether that was jin and other animals, there was a level of consciousness as well as um of uh of of like of life forms as well as even moral responsibility before humans on earth. So the idea that Adam was the first conscious being on earth is not true. Also the idea that he's the first moral morally responsible human is also not true. And this is actually really helpful in for our conclusions. Um we also look from the at the verses we understand that Adam did not evolve from and that he was a pure pure natural uh process of evolution that he was a miracle and that all of the Quran and ay are pointing that he was a miracle just like Jesus was a miracle in his mother's womb. We also understand that Adam lived a very long time ago. So with the deep time we don't have anything to hold us to 6,000 years or some number. We can believe Adam existed at a a billion years ago. It doesn't really matter, right? We he can there's no specific date that Adam had to have popped up on Earth. We also look at other species, the Neanderthalss, Denisovvens, Homo erectus, and we see that not only do these other species have a strong similarity in their skull as and their bones to humans, but we also have evidence that they inter mixing with each other, that they were living with each other. So they weren't completely like separate as as we would imagine you know us and monkeys like you know when have you ever sat and had like done anything with a monkey but no between the homo sapiens the denisobans and Neanderthalss we have this very strong relationship very strong and that the deanderls and denovans not only does their DNA DNA very similar but also they're doing the same things as we mentioned they're performing burials they're cooking they're they're using tools and these tools are actually if you look at this and I'd like to do a longer presentation, but they're they're very sophisticated. So, you wouldn't assume you wouldn't the way we think of monkey like right now, you just look at a monkey just like scratching his head and eating a banana. No, they're creating weapons. They're creating hammers. They're creating things that you would assume if you didn't know that this was a Neanderthal was just a human, a homo sapiion. Now, the question is, what do we mean by Benu Adam? Beni Adam, the children of Adam. And what do we mean by insan? Insan linguistically meaning human. This traditionally just means every single every child of Adam. It doesn't have to mean um homo sapien. It means every moral respon morally responsible um animal right a morally responsible animal that's a human the rational animal. It doesn't necessarily mean homo sapien. So many have tried to connect homo sapien with eyes in the Quran as human as insan or the way Allah says refers to human but in fact that's not very accurate because none of these terms this terminology was around in the past and we didn't have the the idea of a homo sapiion with these very specific uh DNA makeup and specific uh skull none of that existed in the past so in fact when Allahh refers to human insan this can actually include all of these other species. So ban Adam can also include the den denis denisovvens and others as well because it does not as long as it's literally not monkey it can still fall within benan and it can and and the all the ayat that refer to us as the children of Adam do not necessarily mean that we are the that that is only homo sapiens and this is where people make a mistake between confusing scientific terminology and the language of the Quran. the lang the language of the Quran saying one thing and then the way that we classify things in science by just seeing a very you know like we see a sim like you know a variation in their skull we give it a new a new name that's not how in the past traditionally people understood species so there may be many organisms that are similar to humans that fall under the name of insan [snorts] Yeah, absolutely. So, let's look at a typical model that you'll see. I don't know if this is large enough for you to see, but a typical model that you'll see in um in your science textbook. And we look at the species of the hominin. So, the last common ancestor, look on the right, uh shared by gorillas, hominins, which are humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos. And this then splits and then you get to another the next last common ancestor between chimpanzees, bonobos and humans. And then it splits and then you have the chimpanzees and they're growing and they're evolving into the modern chimpanzeee. And you also have the hominins and all the different types. So you have the uh I'm going to mess up these names, but the homo uh habilis, the homo erectus, um the andrathalss, as well as the homo sapiens. And on the right, you see that this green is actually their whether or not they over overlapped with others. So all of these species within the hominins are not only very close to each other, one another in their skull and also their DNA, but also they're exist they're living at the same time. So they're not just like um completely separate. You wouldn't say that, okay, there's this one species that has a a skull that looks kind of like a human, but it was 5 billion 5,000 5 million years ago, and then 1 million years ago, there's another skull that's kind of similar. That's not what's happening. In fact, all of these are very sim. >> Yeah. profit. Yeah. >> Yeah. [snorts] That's a [snorts] good question. So, this is where I'm going to give two solutions based off of what we said. Um, and that idea is that what you know where do we place Adam on this in this train. The first idea is that we place Adam and these are actually many like many scholars point to each of these that we place him at the very beginning of the homins. So, they'll say Adam actually is the first. So whether he's actually part part of the uh say sahalenthropus right um tetroidis something like that right he's there so Adam he pops up there that's human and he just didn't evolve from the previous ancestor the the last common ancestor so he doesn't share a common ancestor with uh a monkey or an ape but he is not the homo sapiion that we understand today he's actually it's just the very beginning of the homminin the homminins and all the species within the homminins are returned to Adam. That's one that's what's one way and some people and there are a couple scientists who actually Muslim scientists who try to prove this it's hard um and you have to sometimes you have to make bigger jumps in terms of like you said progress language the idea of language the idea of these different tools when are they showing up um so you know if Adam existed at that time would we have seen would we see a lot more of these tools and a lot more of these other things So if there's no language exactly how does that so a lot of those sciences on language they're they're pretty new and contemporary and there's some ambiguity in them but yes the general idea that how could he have existed 5 million years ago or two million years ago at the beginning that's hard to deposit. Others will say that actually no he pops up Adamson pops up around the homoctus homo erectus um and the um you know the homo uh naladi right so he's between the homoctus and the neanderthals around this area maybe like you know um a million years uh a million years ago so he's not 5 million years old right he pops up around 1 million years ago and what about all these other species all these All these other species are two possibilities. All these other species are either not human. So meaning there were other things that resembled humans as we'll talk about the problem of resemblance resemble resembled humans but they weren't humans. So the humans are only that for example the homoctus the and the neanderthalss and the homo sapiens. And you have to choose exactly you know which ones are which. But they'll say these are the these are the humans. I mean when we say human we mean from the children of Adam and the other species. Adam didn't really engage with them. They existed, but they weren't humans. And they they maybe died off. They probably died off. Um, and as of now, we only have evidence that the Neanderthalss uh were uh mating with and and maybe the this other this other one were mating with Homo sapiens. So, the idea that there was a connection between all of these in terms of mating is not true. Um there's only with only a few of them, we see that we have evidence that they were actually intermingling and mating and whatnot. So they say that's when Adam popped up in this in from this framework. [snorts] The other framework is that um the other idea is that Adam is just homo sapiens. And this idea is a bit harder is a bit harder to uh posit considering the evidence of the Neanderthalss not only sharing DNA but the idea that they mated with each other, the idea that they they perform similar tasks. So when do we understand when when does language pop up? when do all of these other tasks that a prophet could have done building an ark, they'll say that that doesn't make sense if you're going to say it's just homo sapiens, right? So, there were other creatures. Then you have to you have to basically admit that there were other creatures who did the same things as humans and who resembled humans in every ways, but they weren't humans and that's harder to establish. The final option is that there's just Adamic. So all of these were all of these species were evolving. Adam himself popped up among maybe the homo the homo neandrathalss maybe the homo erectus that was that was the community at that time he mated with the people who were at that time his children made it with them then the rest of that species the rest of the ancestors of the species died out and actually all of the rest of these died out these are these are extinct species so even the Neanderthalss they're extinct there's not there's not a single Neanderthal today so we don't have to worry about oh there's still Neanderthalss existing somewhere they they're all extinct So all of the other species ex went extinct and only the children of Adam who he mated with and were part of his family the strongest you could say civilization the strongest group because he was a prophet because he had knowledge way beyond his time and we we know that's with prophets and wisdom that his community his you know uh you could say like gene the gene of Adam connected to Adam was um what dominated and and that's what lasted till today. So even though Neanderthalss uh went extinct, they were still part of the children of Adam and because they were connected to Adam as their final father, even if they had gene pools from like the Canyanthropus, Platypus way in the back, way back there. But all of those ancestors went extinct. So technically they are still the children of Adam even if not even if many much of their DNA is mixed with other species as well. So did humans evolve from monkeys? You say yes and no, right? So like yes they did. They share the DNA but they're all still the children of Adam in the sense that they all returned to a father of Adam who was miraculously created and was placed down. And for a scientist to actually deny this is actually impossible because you cannot deny that like the possibility of a human being one human being or two human beings being randomly created and just popped down onto earth when the community already existed. It's like you can't you actually can't deny this whatsoever. The only way to deny that would be through um right rejecting revelation entirely. But if we have proof through revelation, the idea that the Adamic exception is like very plausible makes sense. But as we'll see that as we've seen that even if you reject the Adamic exception, then our idea of human is not homo sapien. It includes the Ne and others and that species is the only species that is considered Adam. It was started by Adam. And all of the other resembling species, they they they went extinct and they they're actually not humans. And how why do they resemble each other? we're going to respond to that objection right now. But does do those possibilities make sense? Like these are possible ways that it all aligns and that there's no conclusion. [snorts] >> Um yeah. So he's either the first homo sapiion or he is the first like Neanderthal or Homoctus. something there or or like a mix of between, you know, something there. Or he's the the first hominin. The first the first and the last one are are weak. They're they're kind of hard scientifically to establish. The middle one is possible, right? It's possible that that he is the first species between the homo anderthals and the erectus and that that's all the that's what the human is. He is the beginning of that species miraculously created and all the other things behind and they're not humans. So you have this line of yes you know the common ancestor between chimpanzees and and hominins they kind of grow the chimpanzees make it the rest of the hominins die out and Adam as a cre as a miraculous creation with the homoctus and the anthals exist at that time as well and we'll talk about similarity or he was just two people Adam and that were just put down on earth miraculously within you know a community of Neanderthalss or community of uh, Homoctus. He mated with them. They continued to evolve, continued to grow. All of the other ancestors and family lines that did not return to Adam died out and the one and and then his species, the one that he made it with, continued. So those are the possibilities and and and the human exceptionism is the most dominant if you look at like the scholarly opinions and it's the closest to like you could say like traditional orthodoxy meaning you know the general idea that we're all the children of Adam was miraculous created you know humans were just all miraculously created this idea this is like what the average Muslim will understand the average Muslim will be taught so Adamic exception is a bit like uh it's rare it's a bit more it's a bit prepos preposterous in like you could say the general, you know, dialogue and the way that we are discussing these things. Um, but it is something which many contemporary scholars are pushing and modern scientists as well who are Muslim and they're saying that there's no problem with believing this. It actually makes the most sense. So, I'm not I'm I'm putting that as a viable option. I'm not just rejecting it off the table. >> [snorts] >> So if we see so a lot most of the fossils and these things that we've we find are within the Homo Neanderthalss and these earlier ones. So we don't have that much from 4 million years ago. that's a lot harder to see. It's mostly just skulls um and some bones. Uh but in terms of other species like you know they could have learned from the humans they could have also had similar we'll see the idea of similarity. Uh but the biggest like as you said um the deciding factor is the fact that Adam was given revelation. So you know he just do his species dominated every other species um because of their because of the knowledge that they were given. Right? So they just every other species is like naturally evolving with no knowledge really figuring things out and he comes with just this corpus of you know knowledge way beyond his time and that and that obviously has a major effect. Um >> so they might have had some of these things but yeah you're right they might have had some of these things. Um and and um uh but they they they went extinct. So the idea is that even if they had similar tools like and maybe maybe there's a monkey that's figured out like how to there are some monkeys that are very intelligent, right? They can call, they can talk, they can do tricks. So like yeah, they figured things out. We're not saying that they're like literally like dogs and we're just like, you know, no, they they they might have shared many of these qualities. I mean, if we look at just animal intelligence across the animal kingdom, there are very intelligent, sophisticated animals. the way that rats um you know build and and go through mazes like the animals are smart but they all went extinct. They just didn't make it. And the thing the species that made it was was the human being. Yes. Yeah. So there's an approach of of the like philosophy of science and to downplay science or to challenge it. This is useful when the approach from scientists to say that everything about evolution is 100% scientific fact. You know, no one's even arguing about this. There's no nothing can be improved. This type of approach, which actually is mentioned many times, is not it's not honest. It's disingenuous and it's meant to just kind of stifle any uh conversation. In fact, a lot of the conclusions regarding evolution are probabilistic. They do accept variation. they do accept revision and they're even revising and and reinterpreting and re-evaluating uh natural selection. So like the whole idea of is natural selection even a viable idea for evolution. This is heavily debated and challenged even within the scientific community. So on that grounds to say that science knows everything and that science has figured this out and you're such an idiot to even challenge it. This is not really this is not this is disingenuous. But we also don't want to go too far to just downplay science completely and say that yeah they just can't find truth. We have the Quran. We we're the only ones who know truth because um science is just the it's the most dominant uh you know science of today. It's the most dominant field of study today. It's the language of you know of of everything that we do right the way that how we use our phones and how we um you know put a you know like use telescopes like everything of the modern world is based off of science. So to reject it completely or to downplay it in its entirety is just not going to work. [snorts] Yeah. So they'll say that we're we're sure because the evidence has led is so you know like overwhelming based off of you know the millions or hundreds of thousands of uh you know uh discoveries, fossils and experiments and investigations that we know that there is that evolution is a very viable uh theory. It's it's true about most of the animals. It's um we know we can we see all of these these similarities between humans and whatnot. So there's a lot of like raw data that Muslims we have to take into consideration. We can't just reject it. So even scientists will say that yeah there's we have to sure investigate this more and look into it deeper but a lot of it is considered scientific fact right even if some of it's probabilistic. So the idea that you know we 100% um are you know have share you know common ancestors with um monkeys I mean this is a probabilistic uh claim it's not something which is considered you know 100% scientific fact just in the same way that you know the big bang is scientific fact in the same way that you know E= MC² and these ideas right so it's a good guess but we're all we're saying is look we have some other evidence that we've proven with revelation we have to take it into consideration And if you notice the way that we're approaching this, we're not rejecting the science. We're using what they've given us, the same models, the same to try to figure out how can we bring revelation into this. How can we join between the two of these, right? So where where revelation fits with science. The approach is never to say, "Oh, yeah, this this model just looks this looks so silly, right? This is garbage." Or to say, you know, so we're bringing it all together. And this is why the different options I gave, all of these are feasible within science, right? They're they're possible. Um, and the [clears throat] scientist might reject it because he does he's we don't have evidence for this, but he'll say this is a possibility. It's not a complete like uh it's just not it's not like rejecting all of evolution. It's not like rejecting all of science completely, right? It works. It's just something that needs proof. And we're say we have proof. [snorts] Great question. Okay. So now let's look at some of the objections. These are like the common objections you will face if you talk about evolution. You bring up these uh discussions. The first things is that why are we similar to apes? Why are we similar to apes and we share their their genes 90% like you said 95% identical. You know how can we understand this? Well the first thing is that there is no reason for specific creations to be physically different. And there are many examples of this. So Jesus we believe was a miracle but he was a human being just like every other human being. Um there were dates that the prophet miraculously created or or had um like bless the date a date bag that Abua had and for years he would reach into and take out dates. So we we're saying that those are dates that were miraculously created but they were dates. If anyone else had the date he wouldn't assume that there's anything different. He might, if they even tested it, they might be 100% identical in every way, but it's still a miracle. So just because something is a miracle doesn't mean it has to be unique in every way. And in fact, in order for there to be biological and chemical compatibility with other life, they have to be identical, as many modern Muslim scientists have said. So it actually wouldn't make sense for a human to be created that doesn't have that doesn't share any identity or any genes with any other animal. This would not this is actually a lot harder to believe. So the fact that they do share with monkeys and other life forms and they have the same general biological makeup and and gene pool, all of these things are they would make sense for a creator who is wise and wants humans to to as animals to exist and to thrive with other creations. And there's no reason to say that Adam has to have his own unique DNA. So it's a miracle because it didn't go through the process of evolution like all the other animals but they share the same DNA and that's not a that's not something which um is impossible. There's also the idea of and and this is actually even affirmed in science with the idea of convergent evolution that we have the same or almost identical traits and features of different species that we know did not evolve from one another that that do not share um the same genes or a common ancestor. So from that even within science we'll say that yes it's possible that we have two species that have very similar features have very similar DNA but did not evolve from each other. They they don't actually have any real connection. So in that case um depending on the models that we and the solutions we we gave earlier they have unique DNA from the human exceptionism perspective um and they there were other creatures that resembled them that had that shared similar DNA but that weren't humans that weren't miraculously created and they all went extinct and we and here we are or we actually share DNA with them because Adam was just created miraculously himself and the rest of the humans actually have DNA from animal from like monkeys and and chimpanzees because we we evolved um over time and we're just the humans of Adam. So you know either way you you you put it it works. Uh the second objection is that so these are these are objections that you'll get um in in in college and they're really um prevalent. So the Quran says that humans were created in stages. So uh we created you in stages. Some will say doesn't that point to the fact that we were created in through evolution that you know evolution is true. Well in fact most of the scholars interpreting this said that this refers to the womb based off of the context of the eye and whatnot. And on top of that the meaning of this is not decisive. Meaning if we can say that this is the womb it's something else. This is not so explicit to the point that this one ayat that says we created you in stages um points to the fact that we evolved. This could mean even in human growth the fact that you're a child and then you grow up into a a teen and then you are an adult. So the fact that this ayah by itself points to evolution is something which needs more evidence inshallah. Um the third is that this is a god of the gaps argument. Um, regarding the similarity question, there's actually a lot of work even, um, in in Islamic tradition, uh, going back hundreds of years ago that discussed why we're similar to other animals, like the chain of of existence and whatnot. Even Kdun talks about this. There are spiritual investigations into this as well. And there were Muslim scholars who said and even noticed that they said, um, it's surprising how similar we are to apes, right, hundreds of years ago. So this question is something which has been discussed heavily for you know way be way long before evolution was even uh a theory. The second the third objection is that this is a gad of the gops a god of the god of the gaps argument. So they say rejection of common ancestry is due to uh so they'll say that um you know you don't understand the science therefore you're just saying that Adam was the father um or um the science hasn't caughten up therefore you're just uh assuming this to be the case. In fact we're not we're rejecting the common ancestry based off of revelation. So we're just incorporating new evidence into the picture. We're not assuming that because we don't have an explanation from with science that this is what's happening. A fourth objection is that um [clears throat] Muslims used to think the world was only a few thousand years old. Now they have changed those ideas. So why don't we adapt our beliefs to the science of today? Well, we are. So number one um beliefs based off of common views or scientific reasoning are subject to change. So when Muslims for example had beliefs of the earth being the center of the universe this was never placed this was never mentioned in revelation. So this belief was subject to change and they made mistakes just like everyone makes mistakes but revelation is not subject to change. So our understanding of Adam is not based off of our own thought, our own experiments. It's because God is telling us something, informing us of the way that something occurred. And if it's God's information, then we know it's true and that it's not subject to change. So uh the second thing is why don't you adapt your beliefs? Well, we are. So instead of just saying we reject all evolution, we're taking the the evidence from evolution and we're trying to see exactly how we can fit our belief in Adam with that other evidence. So maybe there are some things we reject which is the fact that they had to have had a common ancestor and there are other things that we don't have to reject such as their relationship to Denisovans and Neanderthalss. They can have this connection. We show it how they can have similarities, how they can even be part of Benu Adam. So much of the science of evolution align is even is compatible with Islam. We're not actually running away from it. The Muslim account of human origin implies imbreeding and incest. Meaning that your investig you know your claim that all humans came from Adam and Ha means that you know brothers and sisters were marrying each other and this is wrong. Well, number one, you know, how do we define right and wrong at the beginning of creation? So, it's one thing to say there's right and wrong between all of us here. Um, and there are rules for the way that we live our lives, but at the beginning of creation, there might have been different rules and different systems to allow creation to exist. And that's number one. Number two is that one of there's actually a response to this in our tradition which is that when Allah created you know um Adam and Eve and they had children they were born in pairs so twins one man and one uh daughter and uh so so one man and one female and they could not marry each other they had to marry the other female or the other male from the other set. So even at the beginning of creation, this was the idea that the sets were different. They weren't actual brothers and sisters and that they had this they had to have you had to kind of separate themselves from the set that they were born in. And this is why the whole story of Cain and Abel refers to the fact that Cable wanted to marry his sister, his actual born sister, and not the sister of of uh Abel. So we even within this understanding there's like a like way to show that it's not it wasn't idea of incest that we have today. Um the third objection is that there's a population bottleneck. You'll hear this. So that a population of two people is likely to die out quickly and that it's hard to sustain a very small population and in fact there's a very high probability of extinction. So if you're saying that the population began with Adam and Eve just as two people, then this would just there would be a population bottleneck. They would have ex they would have went extinct. It's very highly unlikely that they actually existed. Well, the problem is that this is true for wild animals in the wild or other species. But if Adam and Eve are a miraculous pair, meaning we believe they're miraculous, then this means that they would be protected by God from this population bottleneck. So the they were miraculously created and they were meant to continue to exist. So even if normally they would go extinct because it's a miracle they didn't go extinct and Allah made it such that they did they didn't have a population bottleneck. And that's the same idea with um other objections of like oh mutations and uh between you know siblings or if there's lots of close intermarriages there's lots of diseases and whatnot. Number one that's true. um but uh when it comes to you know us now and and other species but they could have been protected from these diseases because they're miraculous pair. So the whole idea of them being a a miracle kind of undermines this entire all of the other typical scientific uh objections because the whole idea is that their creation wasn't scientific. It was it was a miracle and Allah then everything else could have also just been a continuation of that miracle to allow them to continue to exist. So these are some of the major objections you'll hear. It's important just to know right your like your evidence and what you can accept what you can't accept to know the ayat and um you know what is considered orthodoxy and consensus amongst the scholars so you don't go too far to reject some of the Quran or hadith but then you also know the science enough to be able to explain how this can fit and kind of respond to some of these objections because otherwise if this if you get this objection and you don't know you'll just think oh yeah this doesn't make any sense like how you my theory doesn't make any sense in modern science. So, we have to you have to know these some of these objections for it to be consistent. But if you do, it's inshallah it's not too hard and um you can have good conversations with people. And I think that if you actually have a conversation with someone at the level of this um you know this presentation, most people unless they're being stubborn about religion and whatnot will say it's pretty reasonable, right? Because you're not coming from a perspective of saying we're rejecting science, we're rejecting all of it. you're actually making very strong and good arguments to show how they would fit within a a population or the gene pool or the generations of um of uh species before them. Now, one final point to say to you know to to explain what should we tell our children because you're not going to be able to explain this all at this level and this is important too when it when it comes to like education. How do you educate young children growing up as Muslims? you want to guide them the right way because if all they're hearing in school is just scientific materialism and that none of this makes sense that's a problem and this is why people have these questions. So the first thing is that the Quran mentions human origins many times you show them the ay that humans came from Adam and he came from clay. There's a mistake there. He came from clay. Um science books don't include evidence from revelation. So the reason why this doesn't really make sense according to your science book is because that they don't include evidence from revelation. Um and some science is proven and is absolutely true and some of it is speculative. So you know just because it's in the science book doesn't mean that it's 100% true or necessarily true and that some of this just looking at science is proven and some of it speculative. So not everything there is 100% and we have our own proofs to establish that Adam was created as a miracle and that everything else is was was evolved. Later on you can show them why Islam is true. Meaning take them through like the process or the course or even the process of show of these rational arguments to build that rational framework for them and also introduce them to the history and philosophy of science because this will show them um and will kind of knock back the feeling that science is just the most ultimate um you know measure of truth that it can't get anything wrong. In fact, science gets a lot wrong, right? And they have a lot of revisions. And that's not a a means to just reject science or to downplay it, but to show that this kind of modern materialism approach and attitude towards science is something which is motivated by atheism is not something which even within the scientific community is considered to be uh like valid that you know science never makes mistakes and it's only you know measure of truth. So if you if they kind of see even within non-Muslims and and the way that they look at science and philosophy of science, you'll gain you you'll be able to appreciate the complexity of science and how there are many times where we were wrong, we made mistakes, we discovered something new and that's totally fine. Alhamdulillah. So any questions about evolution before we go on? Any questions about evolution or anything at all? any of the discussion. Yes. [snorts] So, any questions before we we go to the next section? But okay. And I I can hear them too. Yeah. Uh, sorry. >> Oh, when we are discussing evolution. >> Mhm. >> Is it just physical or spiritual or mental? Also >> revelation. No. Evolution. >> Evolution. Well, it applies to the it's going to apply to species and their genes and their thought. Um, so everything that can be scientifically um, measured. I'm not I don't think they don't look at this from a spiritual lens. Some scholars have from like a Muslim lens, like a Muslim idea, you know, how, you know, we evolve as, you know, like um the the Khalifas of of this earth and how we've changed and whatnot. But that's not science. Won't look into this. [snorts] Um, so one brother says he says mushrooms and humans share about 50% of their DNA, but that doesn't mean we evolve from them. So you know that that was one something he mentioned that's from Cindi sister. Um, so alhamdulillah. So anyone any other questions any comments about the evolution or the this um presentation before we go on? All good. All right, let's continue. So [snorts] the next major problem is going to be the problem of evil. Now once again let's look at our framework. We always return back to this framework when we are discussing any question. Remember, you cannot try to defend the Quran and the prophetam without a solid foundation. And if you do, you're going to make many mistakes. So the problem of evil is something which is probably one of the most powerful um moral arguments against the truth of Islam and the existence of God. Meaning it's not really a rational argument in some people try to make it such but there are most of it is uh is a moral argument for the morality of God and it can be an emotional argument as well. The argument goes like this. It says if God exists then there should be no evil/suffering. So if God exists then there should be no suffering/ evil. But evil and suffering exists. So if the god's there, he should be, you know, he, you know, he he should be good. He should um, you know, act in the interest interest of people. Uh, but he clearly doesn't, therefore, God doesn't exist. That's really the idea behind the argument behind the problem of evil. Um, they're trying to say that God shouldn't exist because uh, he there's evil in the world. Now, immediately we'll see that there are three responses that take different approaches to this. The first is an objective rational reason response. Um the second is wisdom of suffering and the third is an emotional respon and spirit spiritual response. Let's go through each of these. The first is just return to the contingency argument. So our proof from from God's existence or God's existence depends and relies on the contingency of the universe that things change and they are contining. They're dependent. Everything which changes and is contingent and dependent needs a necessary being. Depends on necessary being. Therefore, the universe depends on a necessary being. Now, let's look at each of these premises. Which of these premises are undermined by the fact that suffering exists? So, let's say someone gets hit by a car. Does that undermine the fact that the universe is contingent? No. Right. Clearly not. Does it also undermine the fact that everything that's contingent needs a necessary being? No. In fact, suffering actually proves the existence of God because suffering is contingent. Right? There are some people who are healthy. Alhamdulillah, we're all healthy here. And there are other people who are going through very difficult extreme difficulties. So just the difference in our lives proves that God exists because they're contingent, right? Why am I living a healthy life? Why are we all comfortable here in in Pleasanton? Right? None of us have, you know, alhamdulillah no major problems. were able to just sit through a seminar and enjoy it. And there are other people who are they can't even walk outside. They're worried they're going to die. So that difference right there shows that God actually exists. So from a purely rational uh perspective as a Muslim, as a Muslim, the problem of evil does not undermine God's existence. And we might not understand God or even like him. It doesn't mean he doesn't exist. And that's a very different those are two different things, right? So not understanding or liking what God does is not the same as him not existing. You God can exist and you believe he exists even if you don't like what's happening to you. Now why is this a problem? Because Christians have an idea of God as having to be all good and all um like pure love. Meaning that their concept of God is one where he's not a necessary all powerful purely relational agent. In fact, he has to do what's in the interest of people. He has to just be loving and kind. And if you try to take that idea of of God and then compare that to the suffering and you said Hitler or these things, that's a big contradiction. But we don't actually understand Allah from that perspective. We believe God to be yes, you know, beautiful and uh and and uh merciful, but also majestic and ultimately powerful and purely valition has valitional agency. Meaning God's attributes from a very from the very beginning of our understanding of him are majestic which are powerful and even his with his names the one who abases or lowers people the one the one who has a painful punishment that's how we describe God and also merciful so our understanding of God is not one where everything is going like sunshine and rainbows or everything is just beautiful whether or not we understand this or not is a different question right can I come to terms with that something is a question. But our understanding, our definition of God is one that can do whatever he wants. And so God does what he does, the Quran says, and you just kind of have to submit, right? God will not be asked about what he does, but you will be asked about what you do. Meaning whether or not you like what God's doing or not doesn't matter. He's he's a necessary being. He's a absolute positional agent. He's all powerful. He just wants to destroy everyone. He just destroys everyone. Right? And that's why Allah says in the Quran, if he wants to just destroy all of you and bring a new creation, he'll do this. And no one has a power over Allah. This is his own words. So our def our understanding of God is very different than Christians. And this is why this type of attack on God from the moral like good and whatnot is only really a Christian problem because they believe, you know, that God has to be, you know, act in the interest of of creation, that he's died for our sins and all these things. And that's when you bring up all these other examples of like the commandments that were very intense or almost crazy in the Bible, that's when they have like a they have to, you know, like Jesus is commanding genocide, for example, in the Bible. And how do they come to terms with this? They actually can't. And this is why when you look at like modern atheists like um this guy named Connor or Okconor or something like that, he's a very famous young atheist. He like destroys Christians with the problem of evil, right? like he just like wipes the floor with them because there are so many examples in the Bible where God is just acting with their God is acting with just insane like insane commandments that are just wiping people murdering children and babies and these things and to then compare that to the idea that oh God loves you and God is the most kind he died for our sins which is the whole model of Jesus this is very difficult for them to do and that caused lots of problems but Muslims don't have to do this. So the second uh approach then response is then to try to understand the wisdom of suffering. So yes suffering is tough. It might seem we can't we it might seem very difficult to come to terms with like how did Hitler happen? How did I lose my parents and all these things like you know why did all this these bad things happen to me and not someone else and is there a wisdom behind suffering? So now that we know God exists and we know he has these attributes of relational agency, why do these things happen? Why does God do this? Is there uh a light at the end of the tunnel? And in fact, Allah also points us to many of these wisdoms throughout the Quran. Meaning that he says or meaning you might assume something or presume something is bad for you and it's really good for you. And you might presume something is good for you and it's really bad and it's actually bad for you. So Allah points us to our our lack of knowledge, our ignorance throughout the Quran to show us that there are many things that we assume to be bad or wrong happen in our lives that are actually good for us. Allah is wise. He says this in the Quran and this wisdom means that he knows he has a plan. There is a a a a good outcome to whatever occurs in this world. all of his actions will end up in a good outcome. And this can be understood from the perspective of of our two lives that Allah's positioning of this world is only as an intermediary to the next world. It's a very it's like a fleeting glimpse, right? Like it's like very short amount of play and fun in this world before the eternity of the hereafter. And on the in the hereafter we have Allah tells us with the idea of absolute justice meaning that if negative things bad things happen to us in this world we will be rec receive a recompense in the hereafter that even animals that were horned that that basically poked another animal this will the the other animal will get horns and poke the other animal on the day of judgment. So the complete justice will occur in the hereafter and that's our real true lives is in the next world. This this this dunya is s Asam said, it's the prison of the believer and the paradise of the disbeliever. So for everyone else, for a disbeliever who thinks that this is it, right? This is the last um this is all you have. If that was the case, then this would be a problem because if this is all we get and we're being tried and tri and intense tribulation and what did I do to deserve cancer and whatnot, then these questions would h would need answers, right? We you would want to think about it. But if the answer is simply you will get a tremendous reward for your patience in this world depending on the trials and tribulations that are that you go through then in that case the trials and tribulations aren't that bad because we know what's to come. So the idea is that Allah will put us through trials. He says this in the Quran. We will surely put you through trials of what? Um fear. and a loss of life and uh money and crop. So meaning we will trial try you by taking away all of the blessings but give glad tidings. So there are glad tidings to those who are patient. Those who say we are gods meaning to a God we belong and to all to God we return to say that we we are owned by God the wise and the all powerful the all merciful the all knowing whatever he does to us we show our a proper response the response of a slave and because of that Allah will then bless us with tremendous rewards and paradise in the next world and from that perspective suffering is actually very tolerable this is actually and the biggest proof of This is not my life or your life where we've had some things bad happen to us but alhamdulillah we're blessed. No, we're you know you look at the Palestinians or people who have gone through tremendous suffering and look at their outlook and one of the biggest reasons and for conversions to Islam in the last couple years has actually been the genocide in Gaza that when people see these horrible things happen and then the Muslims are not just crying and saying why did God do this to me? Why not? Why me? This is not fair. Instead, they're saying, you know, praise be to God for giving me life. I'm so grateful for the time that we had. Allah is the Allah is all kind. Allah will give us victory. This response is very powerful because it shows that they have a different perspective on suffering. And yes, probably an atheist in that situation would have a very difficult reality, right? And that's why he has a problem with this. So this is why I think it was C. Lewis or a famous atheist writer. He said that, you know, when when we're not just amusing ourselves, the our existence is pure hell. So like when we're not just amusing ourselves going out for food and having fun, you know, with our spouses and whatnot, existence is pure hell, right? All it is is suffering. It's the the strong devours the the weak, right? People are evil. People are wrong. There's no purpose. That's their perspective, right? So that's their worldview. So from that worldview, suffering is a problem. And that's why even one of the atheists, he had a he made a whole argument about suffering from the perspective of stumping your toe. He said that just by stumping your toe, that should make you question God's existence. Like why did why do why did I have to go through this level of suffering in this world just stumping your toe? But any Muslim would say that that's very silly, right? The fact that you know when you stump your toe, what happens, right? How do you respond? just it's very simple to say oh you know we're being tested and this is uh how I respond to stumping my sto my toe getting stumped is how I respond to an accident or something other major happening but for the atheist that level of suffering was too much so you know alhamdulill you know we see in the example of the prophets as well that they were the most tried of people and in that is a tremendous wisdom that Allah's the the greatest creation Allah has sent us as our examples were tried the And that's what the said the most tried of people are the prophets. Then those who are most like the prophets means those who are most prophetic in character will be tried the most. So what's the wisdom behind that? That's something which immediately undermines the whole idea of suffering you know you know disproving God's existence let alone showing that God is immoral or not unfair. if his own prophets are being tried the most and going through these difficulties. Yes. [snorts] Yes. Yeah. So Allah says in the Quran, so Allah will ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra raises some of you over others to test you in what he's given you. So the the test of the poor person is in patience and the test of the person who has riches and money is in generosity is in thanks and that's where the scholars actually disagreed. Is it better? You can think about this. Is it better? Is it more virtuous to have money and be gracious to give grat have gratitude and be generous or to be poor and be patient? Scholars debated this, right? Because it's like which one is actually better situation. Um but Allah gives to to us in different um in different shares to try our character in different ways, the ups and downs. Right? If we were all the same, then there wouldn't we wouldn't really experience this level of wisdom and this level of these different states that you can go through, right? If everyone had money and no one suffered, then when would you ever be patient? When would you ever um, you know, show your reliance on God, your trust in him? When would you ever show your thanks? How would you even be able to give gratitude if you never had tribulations? Because you only can truly give gratitude when you lose something or we don't realize our blessings. We don't take notice of them until they're gone. Um so you know Allah had created his perfect creation. He created the angels who don't have free will and who um just are perfect right? They just believe they just believe in Allah. They obey Allah. They can't disobey him. But part of the trial or the blessing of free will and our own consciousness is that there are different situations now we have to take into we have to respond to and those and our response is very important whereas angels there's no there's no different there's no response right they just do whatever they're told so why didn't Allah create people ask us why didn't Allah make us all like perfect well he already he already made angels so part of the beauty in our creation is that we have free will that we have these different trials that's the beauty of our creation If Allah wanted to make angels, well, he already did. There were angels who existed for millions of years before humans. And that's our belief is that so we are a unique creation. But it's because of our free will and the potential to do evil and to do good that we are the kaiffs or the khalifa of God, right? The vice gerants of this earth because God has complete relational agency, right? So God does not ask about what he does. Meaning that in our it's in in our share of these divine qualities that we can make choices. We can make good choices or bad choices. And when we choose to do good things and we choose to respond in a beautiful way, this is what elevates us and this is what makes us very special as opposed to just you never could you only had one option. That wouldn't really be special. There would be no virtue in someone who only could be patient, right? that you know um [snorts] a great question and the the third response though is that sometimes this is just coming from people who are hurt who are going through trauma or through very difficult situations. So it's very natural that when thing bad things happen you have a human response right like if if for example you go home may Allah protect us and you just lost your job the next day you might think you know like wow this is difficult right it might stress you out there's anxiety right if someone in your family you love may Allah protect us dies tomorrow you're going to cry you're not going to just be this is amazing you know I love this it's not going to be easy so loss and trial and pain and suffer suffering is has an emotional element. It has a mental health element. And when people are you most people who actually have a problem with evil, they are basing this off of a previous trauma, something that they really had a hard time going through. And we might not understand it, but maybe there are people who when they lost their parent, that was it. They could not move forward. They couldn't take another step. It just devastated them to the point that they felt that they couldn't live any longer. And that's why some people commit suicide. So the idea that, you know, we're all just completely rational all the time, we don't have any emotion and we're always going to be objective is not true. And that means that we have to help people emotionally and spiritually. Number one, by showing them the attributes of God, showing them and teaching them who God really is, right? Who is this God that you have a problem with? Because the more that we know about God, the more that we will recognize his blessings. And it's only we only blame Allah when we don't recognize his the blessings he's given us. When we forget the 20 years we had where everything was going good and he was blessing us and showering us with blessings and now we have one really tough year. The second thing is to have a build a community right so you people who are going through this you don't want them alone just with their thoughts you want to give them people who are have a good perspective who can help them who can um raise them up who can talk to them. So community is absolutely important. There are practices, right? Whether that's going to uh after therapy, whether that's just going on walks, there are well-known clinical practices as well as spiritual practices to help one gain a another level of like reliance of patience. It's something that can get that can be built up, right? So if someone has a hard time accepting the decree or being patient, then they have to build this up. It's not it doesn't come natural for everyone. It's a virtue and all virtue requires effort right some of it people are born with but otherwise um it you know the shaitan is pushing us towards the opposite side so when we are get angry and we want to be forbbearant we have to build that we have to practice that we can't just say why am I getting so angry this is just horrible you know because you haven't practiced being patient you haven't practiced you know lowering your tone or being uh forbbearant when you know you get angry so in the same way when someone immediately blames God or challenges God when something bad happens to them. They haven't practiced forbearance and reliance on God enough. They have maybe a problem, a spiritual problem that they can build and they can cure. And that's why some people and this is this is the ultimate proof that you see some people and a very bad thing happens to them and they're thankful of God and they're okay and they are they have a good relationship with Allah still and they still they don't lose their their religiosity and they are happy still. and other people it just sends them in an absolute spiraling disaster. So why does that you know you might even see within your own family some people you know they just have a better tolerance to difficulty you know you know bad things happen to one person and they just start going into bad habits immediately and the other person is fine so we're so different we're so complex we have to realize this and then build up these practices that are within our tradition and that are wellnown so the emotional spiritual guidance um is really uh important for a lot of these uh problem of evil questions Okay. So, any questions about this before we continue? Okay. So, we're going to practice something now. Uh we're going to watch a short uh video and then we will respond to it. So, this is Neil Degry Tyson, right? A famous astrophysicist. He's everywhere on YouTube. He actually has a lot of really good content. Um, you can benefit from what he's done in physics and science and whatnot. But he has his formulation of the problem of evil. So, let's listen to this and um uh we'll go from there. Unfortunately, the the video it doesn't um it used to be a nice like a short where he where it it explained everything with nice images. For some reason, that one was taken down and it's just a bunch of like really random strange images now. So, I I'm just going to play the audio and uh you can hear it because it was kind of weird what I I saw it today. >> Traditions that God is typically described as being all knowing, all powerful and all good. Yet I look back through history and I could choose many examples but one famous example is that earthquake in Lisbon Portugal 1755 somewhere around there 80,000 people died by the earthquake took place on All [music] Saints Day in the morning when most people were in church. Churches were the largest structures of the day. If you have an earthquake what's the first building to collapse? It's the ones that are the largest most susceptible. So people died in churches. Then there's a tsunami that basically wiped Lisbon off the map. Either God is not all good. If we define good as being in the interest of your health and longevity, [music] that's a pretty simple definition of something that's good for you. Or God is not all powerful. It's not clear whether God could be both of those at the same time for that event. Particularly, >> okay, so let's just spend like a couple minutes just thinking about how you would respond. Let's, you know, you might get one of your friends might send you this v this reel and say, "Hey, check this out. What do you what would you respond?" So, this happens a lot and they'll give real examples of bad things that have happened. So, think about how you would respond based off of based off of our last um explanation and um uh then yeah, let me know what you what you think. So, go ahead, take some time. You can work with the person next to you if you want or you can just think about it yourself and then I'd love to hear your uh your response. >> [snorts] [snorts] >> Okay. So, what do you guys uh what do you guys think? [snorts] And today, inshallah, it's going to be today is a half day. So, we'll try to finish by the we'll have lunch and then that'll be inshallah for today. Today, yesterday was a full day. Today was a half day. Yes. Mhm. Good. I like that response. Mashallah. What else? Anyone else want to share? What would you say to your friend if they said this to you? If they showed you this video, how what would be your response? a good response, but anyone else. Okay. So, I have to pick on people then in the back. Yes, you. Okay. Okay, good. Very good. What about in the front here? Mhm. That's great. I mean, we wouldn't really understand the the attributes of mercy and the attributes of beneficence and goodness if there was anything that we didn't under that that didn't also uh like shake us and be very be hard on us. So, it's part of that comprehensive that all powerful God that he can do both. And in that sense, when we look at the wisdoms, we know that everything's good. Everything is has a beautiful outcome uh and we can understand it. But even like you said, that's a good response. Even in that situation, um you need both sides of the coin. You need you need both both understandings. Uh yeah. Mhm. [snorts] Mhm. >> [snorts] >> That was very good. The idea of a test is actually powerful because they'll say that even some atheists will say like the problem of goodness. Meaning that like it's not fair or it's not good that God even gives people money and like health and wealth because if they if he does that then uh you know that's a responsibility that they don't deserve or they don't deserve that wealth. So or it's too much for them to handle. So like you if you if you don't if you understand all of God's things from this perspective of he has to do what is perfect for us on both sides is actually hard to understand. So that's why even riches and whatnot is not considered just an absolute blessing. It's considered a test and it's you know someone gets a million dollars that's why you see people who they win the lottery. Is that a great blessing or is that a test? And half of them just end up either wasting all their money doing things that they never would have done before or even dead. So where was the blessing in that? And was that good for their longevity and sustainability as he as Neil said? I mean probably because he gave them a lot of money. You can do a lot with money. People who have money and who are smart do good things but that destroyed them. So how do we understand this uh in the Yes. So the foundation is showing that God exists irrespective of suffering. That's number one. So you see this is not even my my proof for God's existence is not that he's good. My proof for God's existence is a contingency argument. The second thing is to show that our definition of God is not just the one who is all good and does whatever is in best of our in the best uh interest of our sustainability and our long existence. In fact, it doesn't really matter what happens to us here as long as we're doing the right thing for the next world. So, you know, you could die tomorrow and you know, yes, you had all these dreams and whatnot, but that wouldn't really s such a bad thing if you were blessed with eternity in paradise, right? that's not really a problem. So, we'd missed you here, but you know, you'd still be fine and that. So, in that case, uh we're try you kind of just like you flip the whole perspective on them. Um and it comes from their denial of God's existence in the first place. So, you have to kind of fight them there and show them that this doesn't disprove God's existence. In fact, it does. Um and then we can go from there. And there's another question. Yeah. >> [snorts] >> Very good. Yeah, that's that's that's that's great. And that's actually a good point about and that's actually an argument that's made against Christianity is that God is not if you say God is good, all good. He's not just because that's like me saying I come and I I murder this person's family and then Jesus dies for my sins and we're all going to heaven cuz I believe in him or this person is an amazing person and you know he does he does he's done all good but he goes to heaven just like this murderer because they both believe in Jesus or he doesn't believe in Jesus and the other person does. So there's like a a problem with that with everyone going to heaven and everyone you know it doesn't really align with justice. Also the fact that you know they'll make the why why would you have this perfect or pure person your son why would you kill him or uh sacrifice him for the sins of other people there's a lot of these problems and that can get into like the palemics between Christianity and Islam. Um but uh yeah that those are good those are really good um observations. Alhamdulillah. Okay. So to finish out this seminar um we're yes. Mhm. Yeah. >> Mhm. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Absolutely. That's a really good response. Yeah, that's a very good perspective. Absolutely. So let's go on to the last the last um uh thingah and these slides are from another presentation so I haven't adapted them to the mo this the modern this new format but um let's look at the age of Aisha and whether or not this is a valid concern or not. Now the first thing is the historical basis meaning did this even occur? Did this even happen? Now we have in our tradition um narrations in Bkari and Muslim that establish that she was married to the prophet when she was six or seven and that they consummated the marriage when she was nine. Now these are the strong the strongest compuh compilations of hadith that we have. the strongest collections, the most accurate collections of hadith we have. So if you reject these hadith, it's a problem as a Muslim because it basically means that you're just saying all of Muslim is not really that accurate. Um because both of these collections have this hadith and you're saying it's just not even true. And this is why most Muslims accepted these narrations as a given. Um there were a couple others, modern revisionists, Mhammad Al and Abdu, Muhammad Abdu, who basically said that, you know, this this wasn't actually what happened. In fact, you know, they say six, but they just mean that she was young and she was probably 18. They didn't count her age. So, they started to count that, you know, they say six, but that was after puberty, for example. So, she was actually like 12 and then six. So, she was actually 18. These are different ideas which might seem convincing to non-Muslims. If you mention them, you say, "Okay, actually it wasn't actually six. It was 18." Fine. But the problem is that most Muslims don't believe this. And most Muslims won't even accept that. So how do you explain that to other Muslims? And how do you just accept the general narrative that she was 6 years old? And this and there's actually an important point in that in the fact of um can we defend this like is it even possible to understand this in a way which is fair without you know just interpreting it away. A third approach is a modern hadith critique by this is one by Joshua Jay Little. He wrote his masters on this and this is basically to say that um this hadith was just um made up. So to look at the like the um the crystallization of hadith over time and how there were other incentives and motives from the Shia or from others to basically fabricate a hadith. So it was made up by Zub and then it was disseminated um in the Muslim land. Um so his idea is to historically try to prove that it was just a complete fabrication and there was no basis to these hadith whatsoever. If this is true, it needs more it needs more work because uh it's kind of considered very fringe and there's not a lot of evidence for this. But um you know these are interesting claims. So it's I'm not saying reject this just completely. It's interesting to look into it to see where it takes you. But if we just take it on a first glance like if we just hold it to where it is. So let's just take the worst understanding the worst possible scenario for Muslims right that it is actually six. this is exactly what happened. How do can we understand this? Does it make sense? Are there are there critiques valid? Uh or are they not? And that's how we're going to approach this. So the objection is that it is wrong, immoral, strange that the prophet married Aisha when she was six and consummated when she was nine. Now there are a couple different parts to this. The first is how we define what is wrong and right. So there's a problem with atheists or you can say non-Muslims already coming to a certain situation saying this is immoral or wrong. What do you mean by that? Do you mean that this is something which um is objectively across the board immoral and considered wrong? Is something which is considered wrong today? Like what what framework are you basing this off of? And actually these questions are important because a lot of morality and whatnot is very subjective. It's actually there are different frameworks to it and people are not consistent sometimes. So if you have someone who's just coming and bringing up an argument against you, not everything that they claim to be immoral is is immoral. Not everything that they claim to be wrong is actually wrong. Um and this is we see this in for example like um in you know uh in gay marriages or homosexual ideas of these things 100 years ago everyone in America would have condemned that and said it was wrong. So what is your standard to accept, you know, gay marriage today when you hated it 100 years ago and then and or to critique this? So sometimes it's worth basically pointing out their uh uh inconsistencies. But let's just continue with this. Um if we ignore these major questions, uh let's look at a couple factors. The first is a cultural and biological differences. So what leads someone to have this problem? the fact that today marrying a six-year-old is wrong. We can say that, right? Culturally it's wrong. Biologically it's it's it's it's wrong. Um even like morally today it would be wrong. And the reason why is there are clear biological differences between um us today and people in the past. Meaning that today a six-year-old is very clearly uh a child. Even a 9-year-old is considered a child. And um these clear distinctions would not allow anyone would not would not allow anyone today to try to argue for this being okay today. So from our culture and our perspective of biology today, this is something which is considered wrong and that would not be permissible today and no one would accept this today. Um but does that mean that that same standard can be applied to 1400 years ago? That's another that's another question. So, it's one thing to say yes, it's wrong today, but is that the same thing 1400 years ago? This is a this is a more complicated question because there are assumptions that go in. We can't assume that today is the same as as yesterday. The second Yes. [snorts] M. So we will say that our framework to marriage is universal and how we and the rules of marriage are universal. But So exactly that's the point is that our standards, our rules of marriage are compatible across throughout history and we're going to look at the rules of marriage today and that today according to Islam this would not be permissible. So today, marrying a six-year-old would be haram, would be wrong, morally wrong, and every Muslim would agree upon that based off of our rules. But the question is, does the Sharia apply to every culture the same way? Meaning, it has systems. Are those systems based off of the the type of person and where they're at, are they the same? So like, is jihad the same today as it was in the past? Are the had punishments the same today, and the same in the past? These are right even though the the law is the same they might be complet carried out completely differently according to the system to to where we find ourselves >> they might have >> no they they would be so that's going to be so the the the conditions for marriage and the rules of marriage are going to look at certain qualities and factors in the individuals now in some in some areas they those qualities might exist. So then that would be fine and in other scenarios they wouldn't. So the change is biological, the change is cultural and because of that it's no longer permissible. But the struct the the the framework is not that you can marry a six-year-old at all times. That's not the rule, right? The framework is that there are rules and conditions in the individual that you one has to look at and we're going to see those today. So um in that case, right, that's what I'm saying. Today is wrong. So we don't we're not saying that you have to accept it today. Meaning like you have to think it's right today. I mean that that would be very preposterous like hard to prove. Mhm. >> [snorts] >> Mhm. So we're sticking to it because of the narrations in Bkari >> people who are narrating it a lot of the people who are narrating it and we have seen it over and over even you know I'm I'm not an expert in there we have seen it over and over even by some of the the most prolific narrators like Abu Herrera and others is that they not intentionally but they add their own interpretation. they to act as an explainer and for example if prophet said something they would understand in a way and they would add the next thing to it. We've seen that happen. So for example there's a famous hadith where prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam was passing through a a graveyard >> and then he said something about people in that grave. >> Mh. >> What he said versus what was narrated and added afterwards were like the conclusions that were reached were very different. So what I'm and again I'm not an expert but what I feel that the idea was that Aisha was young >> and then it was translated into six and nine by other people which it may not be historically accurate. >> So you're right in the sense that sometimes they narrated things by meaning sometimes they added their own interpretations. No one will disagree on you on that but can you prove that for this these narrations that's the case? So that that's the these are scholarly discussions. That's why I mentioned the other points is that there are many scholars who are looking into this. There was a a lady in my when I was doing my masters who did a whole thesis on Aisha's age and trying to show that it wasn't 6 years old and she said that this was just all motivation by the Shia. That's really interesting. Like if if you can bring a case to show that this never happened, sure. Like I I'll I'll accept it. I'm not saying we have to stick to this. this is the Quran and it's you know in fact as we mentioned before this is probabilistic proof meaning and probabistic meaning meaning that uh these hadith could just be wrong it's possible and the meaning could also be mis interpreted differently as well so I'm not saying that this is like evolution it's categorical you cannot you have to believe in this I'm just saying as of now the evidence is not strong enough to say that there is an interpretation it's kind of not really clear and even If there was a case with Bkari adding things then we would see that within the interpreters as well and the and the commentators we don't see that either. So my thing is let's just take what people have believed for the last thousand years and as considered as considered like the main narrative. Can we understand this? And if you can't that's okay. Maybe you have proof but otherwise then you have a problem still right because this is the majority. So if someone else comes with evidence I will accept it. If someone says, you know what, I have strong evidence that she was actually 18. That's great. I don't have to have this do this a seminar anymore. This is like we don't have any problem anymore. It's just immediately solved. >> I think there's one one more uh thing is that were there because I know where you're going with this and you know I totally get it, but were there other known um historical at the same time frame incidences of other people marrying 60-year-olds? Yes, it was it was common at that time for people to marry young >> young versus six big difference. >> So whether or not Yeah. So the exact number this is something which uh even six and seven is a bit challenging because they didn't care they didn't they didn't track birthdays that well at the time. So um you know that that could have been an estimate but around that age meaning way beyond way below what we would consider like pubescent or proper like a ready to be married. Yes. And that's something which is true. Whether or not it's 6 or 7 I don't think it really matters. 6 7 8 9 I still don't think it matters. Like you have to kind of con you have to get to 12 or 14 15 before you can start making an argument that like oh she's a she she looked like a woman. She had she had all the characteristics of a woman. >> It's the puberty, right? >> Yeah. So, I I just don't think that that's just not the case even at six, seven, eight, right? Um and especially today, there's still a problem with that. So, you say, okay, let's just make the if you're going to just say, okay, it's just by puberty, people are still going to have a problem because let's say a woman is today, she's nine and she is now considered an adult cuz she's gone through puberty. Are you going to marry her? No, of course not. like she's still a child. So there are other aspects that have to be taken into consideration. These are great questions. So the the first motive is that we find it strange. We find this hard to believe and hard to accept today. And that's a valid reason to want to investigate this further. The second reason behind this is simply the um enmity and jealousy/ propaganda. Meaning there are many Muslim non-Muslims and enemies of Islam Christian apologetics who are trying intentionally trying to find something against the prophet and they will bring up every single example. So even one thing the prophetam with his young children right these young little babies um they were his his um grandchildren he was holding them and carrying them and then he would you know hold them up and put them down and then he'd kiss them and then he even put his tongue out like this and they were like sucking on his tongue right biting his tongue like with their little baby mouths if any of us did this today we wouldn't cause a problem especially with your own grandchild but the Christians will try to make this whole argument that he was somehow a pedophile and these things based off of this. So a lot of this is not fair. A lot of this is not, you know, like uh it's not objective. So we might have certain cultural and biological differences that make us seem, yeah, that's not right. How do I understand this? And that's not the same as what the the narrative you'll hear from a Christian or an ap, you know, someone against Islam, how they're going to spin it. And that's why we have to kind of separate between these two. Now what are the history of and this is really interesting the history of of objections to Aisha Aisha's age well for seven sort of 17 centuries we didn't have any objections in fact the only problems people had with this even though Bkari in the third century had narrated this hadith all the attacks were on the prophet's lust/exuality meaning trying to show that oh he was in in he was a prophet because he was trying to marry lots of wives and the whole idea that he married you know 10 widows kind of disproves this Because if you were a prophet, why would you marry 10 widows? You would only be marrying the youngest virgins of the land, which is what every other king did in that time. So, um, [clears throat] you know, that doesn't really make any sense. But all of the attacks were on this on from this perspective. None of them even mentioned her age. And that kind of leads to a big question like why did no one for so long have a problem with this? If we're having problem with this today, why did for 17 centuries no one said anything about this? Not even non-Muslims. It's only until the 17th century that an orientist uh orientalist um uh uh attacks this. And this is this orientalist is Humphrey Prudau. And he reports he basically looks at reports of the prophetam's um uh marriage to Aisha. He sees the age six and he says that actually this is um uh you know um uh this is fine this is simply you know this is he says that this is normal in hot countries for women to go through puberty very young and to get married uh he said that we've seen very similar things in India but he looks not at her age but at the proposal proposal story between the prophet sallallam Abu Bakr and there are details to this and he basically misinterprets this hadith to show that the prophet basically tried to convince Abu Bakr and force his hand into this marriage which is just simply not the case looking at the narrations. I mean it's uh you know what's his name? Um uh one of the professors um Muslim professor recently uh wrote something on this but I I forgot his name but he basically said that he misinterpreted the hadith took it out of his context to try to show that the prophet wasn't wasn't the problem wasn't that he was marrying a six-year-old but that he was forcing Abu Bakr's hand and make like kind of forcing Abu Bakr to give his daughter up. Um which is not the case but it wasn't off based off of her age. He said that that was normal in hot countries. It's only until we get to 1905 that David Margali attacks the prophetam's marriage to Aisha based off of her age. And even though he mentions this as saying as backwards, it is within a context of attacking other cultures and viewing everything that is not considered to be uh English and and and white as backwards. So his attack wasn't it wasn't alone in the fact that it was about her age of six. It was attack on the entire Arab culture that they were just savages. They were way back in you know in way you know like in the in the stone age. They weren't like the uh you know the people of progress and morality. Now the question then becomes are these limits arbitrary? So just for us to get a context, what was the age of consent in America? And what we actually find is that in 1880 the age of consent was set in most states states to 10 and 12 years old and in Delaware it was actually 7 years old. So this is a question like okay we have a problem with her being six but Americans people in America in 1880 that's not too long ago had allowed marriage at the age of seven. If that if that was so backwards no one would allow this it wouldn't be legal. Like why is that legal if it's completely backwards right? Like if you said today anyone who marries a seven-year-old is a pedophile. I'd be like I agree with you but in 1880 in America you could marry a seven-year-old in Delaware. We're not even talking about Arabia or anywhere else. That causes a big problem. And in most states, it was 10 and 12. So even today, we'd say it's not okay for someone to marry a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old. But they most states were doing this in 1880. We see this even through um even until like 1960. Um there were there were still ages that were at 14 and 15. So even uh even pretty recently 1920 actually we have ages of 12 13 um uh in many different states. Now today once again no one would consider 12 to be a valid um uh you know age for marriage but they did in America in 1920. It was only until 2007 that most of the states uh reached the age of 16 to 18 with um a couple uh um others being around uh 15 as well. So, you know, there's a lot of there's like kind it's kind of interesting that you see a lot of these like modern um debates and whatnot and even like uh catch the pedophile, they're going to always like they'll point to someone who's talking to a 16-year-old, right? and they say, "Oh, this is a this person's." Now, that might be illegal, but when you're saying they're a pedophile, you're trying to say that this is morally wrong. You're saying this is not this is inappropriate. But even in many states in in 2007, um it was fine. So, in in Delaware, it was 16. In Connecticut, it was it was 15. In Colorado, it was 15. So, even in other states in America, it was still 16. Meaning, this are these are these age limits a bit arbitrary? the idea that now we say it's 18 or 16 or 14. Is this arbitrary? Is this just something based off of our time? Uh or is this like objective? We look around the world and we find that um till today there are people who marry at the age of 14 and 15 in Jordan. We saw this happen all the time. So anyone in America would say that's backwards, that's not that's not right. That's immoral. But people around the world are still doing this and they're not considering it to be strange. Um so we in reality you know this idea of the age of consent and what is you know considered wrong is is really subjective and even in America if that was 7-year-old in America then why are why do we have a problem with something happening 1400 years ago uh when at the age of seven or at the age of six. So then what is the criteria then in marriage in Islam right if it's not the age what is the criterion the first thing is the consent of the bride/ the cararing guardian so um in many of the what the the the bride has to have give her full consent to the marriage um or her legal guardian gives consent so in this case with Abu Bakr um he gave consent and Aisha didn't pro protest at that at that at that young age. Now we also have a ruling which consummation can only occur at puberty. So in the situation she had reached the age of puberty at 9 and that was considered very normal that by 9 a woman was at the age of puberty. People were going to war at the age of 14 and 15. They had families and children at the age of 14 and 15. So world back the world back then was very different than it is today. And the customs and the standards were very different as well. So we have to take that into consideration in addition to the fact that the the age limit is very is completely arbitrary. So the question then comes you know what was the prophet's character meaning you know was he someone who we thought or who we consider to be have the qualities of like a pedophile or someone that we think is doing this to manipulate his uh his power and use his authority or not. And how does Aisha describe the prophet sallallaihi wasallam? Because if we have narrations from Aisha herself, then we should just look at what she said. Did she say, "I was married. I was a I was a child bride. I was forced into this this he just used me." You know, like how does she describe the prophet? Especially because she lives way longer after his death sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And this is what I mentioned about discovering the prophet is that a lot of these problems once we know who the prophet was, they disappear because we're not going to have negative assumptions and we're not going to just assume he had these negative qualities when we look at his life and the way other people described him. So the pro Yes. [snorts] Mhm. >> That's a very good point. Yeah, absolutely. That she was it was a norm and she was already spoken for. >> [snorts] >> Mhm. >> Yes. There till today. Yeah. Till today people are spoken for at birth. And that's the point is that if she which is kind of very standard, she had reached an age of puberty at 9, then just the outward marriage which is just the nika doesn't really mean much. And so you know today people get have the nikah and then they then three four years later they actually consummate the marriage. It doesn't mean that when you get married in Islam that immed you're immediately sleeping with the person. And that's why a lot of the Christians they misunderstand they think that at six that means that they were doing everything that a husband and wife would do at the age of six. But the hadith completely contradicts this because there are many hadith where the prophet when he brought her to when they were in Medina he allowed her to he he kept her still with her friends and he gave her her toys to play with like he he didn't immediately give her the roles oh you're my wife now and this is how he just kept he allowed her to just live her life in the way that she normally did meaning that she was spoken for but they only consummated once she was of age and she showed the maturity intellectual and physical maturity to be a wife and 9 years old as we see I mean seven was in Delaware that's that's very young but nine is something which um in in many cultures even in some places today women are reaching the age of puberty by 9 and if they have a level of maturity um could easily be considered uh a wife. Now in our modern age we we don't do this because there's idea of you know like the teenager and we delay the growth of our children and their their responsibilities which is fine like you can choose to do that if you want to but that's not the case for everyone right there other in other environments people grow up a lot earlier they have responsibility a lot earlier as well um so that's important so if we look at the she was the most well doumented woman in premodern history she was a muad which means that she was at the center of the nent Muslim community after the prophet, right? Everyone was coming to learn from her to to to study with her. What she said really mattered. She has over 2,000 and narrations of hadith from the prophet wasallam. And some scholars have even said that a fourth of all of the rulings in the Sharia return to Aisha. So like without Aisha, we're missing a a tre a huge part of the religion itself. She was beloved by the prophet and the Sahabah. And she described the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in a way that does not describe someone who um is doing this for ulterior motives or you know um an immodest or immoral reason. The prophet wasallam he affirmed family rights. He forbade zena right? He removed doubt between people. Right? So if someone had a doubt that this person was being you know whether or not he was being um right like fine uh you know just or uh you know for example he was once walking with one of his wives and the Sahaba saw them and he intentionally said this is this is my wife meaning he made it very clear the relationships he had with his wife nothing was hidden nothing was secret it wasn't like secret wives people that you know were you find out later on that there was a secret marriage um he gave her the freedom to leave, right? And to to end the marriage when uh they were disagreeing, right? He never he never he didn't force her in the marriage. Um there are many examples where uh they argued with each other and she said that truly she swore she said indeed we challenged the prophet directly to his face. Meaning that we're not afraid to challenge him and to argue with him just because he's a prophet of God. And Abu Bakr once came to the prophet and they were arguing and she talked back to the prophet and Abu Bakr then disciplined Aisha and the prophet said we didn't bring you here to do this like I didn't call you to come hit your daughter right we were just we were having a a conversation so they raced with each other they uh uh he he carried her on his back they uh um u you know had um like great memories and she has great memories of him. And this is the biggest point that if this was something that she considered to be wrong, that was immoral. Then we would 100% see many narrations or reports after his death, the death of her discomfort or her not being pleased with the prophet. And this because this is what happens, right? During the time of the prophet, you can make an argument. But afterwards, when she had this authority and she had and she's just an open like mouth, she's just talking and teaching everyone. Everyone's coming to learn from her and they held her in such a high regard. It seems very unreasonable that she would just not talk about something being unfair, something being wrong or if he mistreated her, she wouldn't mention it after he had already passed away. So knowing who the prophet was and how he also controlled his desires that um the prophetam he said that you know she describes the very explicit rulings of engagement and how he never saw they never saw each other's private part. She said she she narrates this meaning that he was extremely modest and that whenever he would whenever she would be on her period she he would have her wear an isar right like a like a a waste cloth right because it's impermissible to touch between the belly button and the knees during that time. So the rule, the way she describes the ruling of even like sexual rulings and whatnot is very clear that they had a a high level of modesty of of of of respect and that he wasn't just some womanizer, someone who was just using his uh authority and power to get what he wanted. Um she praised him and they had a truly beautiful and close relationship. So just looking at the hadith from Aisha, looking at the story, if you just take the the narrations as they are, it's very clear that they had an amazing relationship and that he was not some womanizer, someone abusing the relationship. And that itself is probably the most powerful point because look, just let's just look at the history. How did she describe him? How was he what was their relationship look like? You know, if if we're trying to guess about was this good or was this bad. And then once we understand this then we can say that the conclusion is that when our societal norms differ so greatly from what we are accustomed to and comfortable with we have to understand those norms and practices within the context in which they existed. We should not project that modern culture and morality onto the past. This is like a very famous fallacy to project modern standards and modern culture onto the past is not acceptable because that's just not how you can't guarantee that people are the same over time and people have the same values and the same uh conditions. And pointing out, you know, this usually comes from the west. Pointing out the rules of Delaware being seven and whatnot kind of throws everything on its head because it shows that um it's kind of hypocritical to challenge this as an American being that Delaware said it was seven as well. Um, so this is ch this is kind of the conclusion of the age of Aisha. Um, like I said, this can take some time and and sometimes you're talking to people who are not being fair. They're not, you know, like they don't they're not being objective from the very beginning. They're just trying to attack the prophet. And in that case, our conversations with them aren't really useful, right? If you just have someone the only reason why they're bringing this up is to attack the character of the prophet. They're not actually have they don't actually have a a concern or they're not a real question. So, you have to navigate that. Um, when it comes to having these conversations, are they trying to learn or are they just trying to say the prophet was this and that and that's their only goal. Uh, so and this one I had I I put my the sources I used as well. Um. [snorts] >> Mhm. >> So I think the other question we get is the because there have been lot of uh you know examples from history from Christian history where >> uh I think even um Mary the uh the mother of Jesus was 12. >> Mhm. when she was married. >> Mhm. >> So they're or around that age. There are a lot of examples but they they claim that the husband in that case was also around the same age or maybe 5 to 10 years older. But in this case the age difference is like 40 years or so. >> So that's another argument that comes. But you don't have to address it. I'm just saying that that maybe >> yeah that's a good point. I think the the main response to that is simply to say that that's even more culturally uh acceptable than the age itself. Meaning that you see like tremendous age gaps. Like we see a lot of these modern actors, they're like 70 and they're marrying 20 year olds and >> but that's not considered in a good light as well, right? [laughter] >> But a lot of times it's not considered like immoral. It's just considered like, oh, you're a bit of like a you just, you know, like a womanizer because they keep they keep marrying a young a young woman. But it's not considered like, oh, you're like just immoral, right? Or for this or you're like it has any level of like uh pedophilia or whatnot. The question is that was she actually [snorts] a child and and and do the rules of Islam allow real child marriage? And if we can show that no she was just promised to the prophet and that they consummated once she was of age and that people you know went through puberty earlier and they matured earlier then in that case even if he was older it wasn't a that type of like weird relationship especially how she describes autism afterwards and the age gap was just like another just any other age gap as we see today. I think that one's more common. You know, people marry like with big gaps. Um, yeah. >> I think one one thing, this is it, right? I think you're >> Yeah. So, >> Q&A now. Yeah. >> So, another topic that comes up which you may address in the next five minutes, maybe [snorts] a quick one, is the whole slavery. >> Mhm. Oh, we can talk about that. Yeah. >> Yeah, >> for sure. >> So, yeah. So, now we're at the Q&A. Alhamdulillah. I wanted to just bring the the most important uh challenges to Islam to show how we can practice and apply this framework that we learned to everything else. You know, you don't have to worry. We have we have the answers. Um but now yeah, so Q&A you can bring up anything you want and we can look into it inshallah. So slavery is a really important question and those people bring this up and our response to slavery is that we really have to show the distinction between like the western American child slavery and then our ideas of slavery and ownership in the past. So how slavery existed in the past was um at least in was that in Jahilia people were imprisoned and then just enslaved. They were just snatched up and and enslaved. They were abused. They were um you know had no rights. And there are endless stories of this. When Islam came the prophetam he rejected all of these practices. Meaning enslaving free people was impermissible. Wronging them and hurting them was impermissible. Overworking them was impermissible. So they had rights. They had they had to feed them. You had to clothe them. You had to treat them well. You couldn't overwork them. So there was a system that rejected these early practices of jahilyah. But at the same time there was two major considerations. Number one is that you can't just remove all people all property because just as alcohol the prohibition alcohol went in stages you cannot just take everyone's property that they've had for hundreds of years and say yeah they're all free now. This would not work. So although the prophetam his mission was very emancipatory in the sense that there's you know one of many of the had you know like or the experations is freeing a slave and there's always an encouragement everywhere in the to free slaves and to let them go and the prophet's own example was that he freed all his slaves and that he constantly just let you know you know worked towards freeing them. examples of you know using his own money to pay for the slaves Salman and Fesy and other people who came and who but who were slaves. Um so in that case that's number one. The number two though is that in war there are when you have captives there are three possibilities. They didn't have like uh prisons at that time and it was difficult to keep a bunch of captives. So you either let them all go and the prophetam did this many times and sometimes it's fine and sometimes you just regroup and they attack you again or you kill all of them which is kind of like bar you know you have to kill every single person or you enslave them and the idea behind enslavement here is that when you bring these enemies or these people who hate Islam into your households they will eventually grow to respect and love Islam and then convert to Islam. And we see this as a tremendous opening and door uh from people who are going to die who are enemies of Islam to becoming Muslims and actually becoming the leading scholars of hadith the leading um authorities in and whatnot. So people who had not only just rights but were respected heavily highly respected in their communities um and who were technic technically considered slaves but who were enemies of Islam at one point and who came through this process. So in that sense, slavery in Islam is really just a method of integrating captives into the Muslim community and it's probably is the best way of doing this. Otherwise, you have to kill everyone uh or imprison everyone which is not very feasible especially at that time. And once we understand it this way and we understand the rulings of slavery and how fair they are and how the prophet's always encouraging us to emancipate and to free slavery and to remove this then this actually is not a problem in the way that and the only reason why we have a we have like this visceral response is because of the absolutely barbaric you know child slavery that we witnessed in this country and that's kind of part of our in like our history uh as a nation but and that's why some will, you know, will never accept this, right? Especially maybe if they had like family members or people who were slaves, but from the perspective that I mentioned, um, it's not the same. It's not the same. And this is why it's even useful not to use the word like slavery because it just has a negative connotation. Uh, when in reality, it wasn't. It wasn't the same. It was closer to like a servant and who had rights. And that's if you talked about a servant or someone who like was just um you know uh in your in your like who had to listen to you and was just serving you that's not the same as the when I say the term slave it has a different kind of terminology or connotation. Any other questions or comments or things you want to investigate? So, we made good time. I mean, Dar is going to go off in like 10 minutes. So, we can have as many Q&A and if there's still Q&A afterwards, we can come back. But today was a half day. You know, yesterday was like the full, you know, 7 hours, 6 hours. So, inshallah um I hope it was useful to see our framework and how we can address all the the modern problems, the most important ones. and then inshallah go from there. Any other But if anyone else has any other questions, yeah, let me know or your thoughts or if you have any feedback on the course, please let me know. I want to I'm trying to make this better every time. So, if you think something could have been better, you think there should have been a side on this or something like that, let me know. I'm I'm open to all constructive feedback. [snorts] I think it was really really good. I just uh I just hope you do it more often >> in and also maybe think about making it into like a oneweek summer camp perhaps. >> I'd love to. Yeah. >> Yeah. I think I think we can really explore these areas deeper. Um and it depends on how deep you want to go. So even like the contingency argument, we can spend six hours talking about that because there's Hume's problem of of uh the of induction. There's and there's um and Khan's problem and like there are many objections philosophically and scientifically to the contingency argument. So do they have responses? Yes. And we can talk about them, but it's not that's not the place of this like kind of >> Yeah. Then nobody will show up the next day, right? >> No one would show up the next day. Yeah. Exactly. Um but alhamdulillah you know I think um if you have benefited from this then then keep learning that would be my advice right keep learning keep wanting keep reviewing this it's hard to master everything in one go you probably might not remember everything we covered today but if you know that the answers are there and you have resources you can keep learning. So whether that's on your own research, whether that's through the the the website as I mentioned um the why islamist true website which has all these things for free um just keep learning, keep studying, keep investigating, asking good questions, challenging your own beliefs. This is really important, right? Don't don't let anything just go for granted and just accept it for no reason. Um ask why. Challenge your imams, right? hold the leadership in your community to a high standard, right? People, the imams should know how to respond to atheism, to evolution. They shouldn't just be like like oblivious or they give you some caval answer and oh, don't talk about this or this is the oh science that can't tell you the truth of things. That's not a you that's not a standard. We want we have to our imams every imam should be able to explain these things well. should be able to break things down because you know the atheists and the scientists and the professors they can talk really well they know how to explain things well. So if they can be uh you know if they can be articulate if they can bring good slides if they can express things with proof and studies then we have to as well that that's part of our responsibility. So inshallah that's kind of the goal to show that we have this in our tradition and then the rest is on you to keep learning. >> Is there a place here or somewhere where there's sort of like a a forum where people can ask questions and >> kind of moderate it because I know this can go in very weird ways like moderate forum where especially the young folks >> can ask questions can get answers and everyone can benefit. >> So absolutely. So this website I believe this is the first version. The second version has a full forum to it. It might have it as right now but we're working on that already. >> We're just trying to figure out the moderation because it can get a which is a bit crazy. And of course anyone can reach out to the emails on this um or to my email if you have a specific question or you want to have a meeting. We can always meet have conversations. You can meet Shik Hamza. you can the one who is kind of the the mind behind this work and um and and you can do a lot inshallah. So we're open to new ideas. We are trying to improve our material constantly. We're always doing revisions and it's it's through this these type of seminars that we get better because we try things out. We see what works, what doesn't work. When people challenge us, when they ask good questions, that's what we want. If everyone just said that's amazing and clapped, we wouldn't know. So we go to universities a lot. I do a lot of seminars and talks at universities across Toronto. We work with the young minds, see how see where they're at. Um, we talk to academics. We do our own research. Uh, so we're really just trying to make this as bulletproof and strong as possible. And what's on the website is kind of the culmination of a lot of this work. So why Islam is true, why Muhammad is God's messenger. We have theories on basically everything that we've covered. And um, inshallah it's of benefit. Yeah. But we're working on that right now. We we so we just launched this website with the courses and the different the new structure and we have a like a learning pathway. This is the newest thing where you can kind of talk to a bot or that we've already set up that and show you where you're at, what questions you have and it'll give you the right um courses or things to take so you know how to to keep learning. Or if you've taken this, you can tell I've taken this this this what do I need to do next? Um so we're kind of working on that but we have a lot in store. So uh look forward to the next couple years inshallah for new content better you know uh resources inshallah alhamdulillah thank you so much it was a pleasure to share this space with you and to benefit from your questions and your uh your um your insights. Uh thank you so much for attending. Like I said please check us out on our website why Islam is true. And um I look forward to seeing you in the future. Maybe another seminar here at MCC.