Deconstructing Religious Pluralism - Ustadh Bassam Zawadi (Part 1)

so our next speaker I'm just gonna give you a short introduction says Battams and why he has been active in the area of comparative religion and defending Islam for the past 11 years working closely with his fellow peers says Bassam has offered several articles and conduct conducts debates and workshops around the world and the service of defending Islam from attacks of critics one may find said the SAMS work at call to monotheism calm who says Bassam takes a very great care in assuring he does not sugarcoat or water down Islam for the sake of appeasing critics he pays staking Lee puts the effort to conduct rigorous research in order to provide sound and intellectual response to critics from an orthodox perspective this is key Orthodox perspective this passion of Assad's Bassam has also led him to actively research Lee refute arguments of modernists and progressive Muslims who shy away from defending the traditional stances of Islam said the Sam will be sharing some of his expertise and knowledge in the area with all of us today in sha allah says Bassam currently lives and works in the Middle East however as a Canadian himself he frequently visits Canada from time to time we were happy to have a status and with us insha'Allah and to share his knowledge with us and shala his his segment will be a little bit will be also slightly interactive as well - without for the reduce of the sound please hey it's me Lois Watterson I'm a nurse and I'm an ignorant diabetic Adam okay first I'd like to extend the big thanks to the i3 Institute for inviting me to come and speak and I want to thank all you brothers and sisters for coming here today and participating what you'd find to be a very important discussion it's extremely saddening that there are extremists today who in the name of Islam shed innocent blood and do so in order to further their own personal personal goals and agendas but what is equally saddening and disturbing is the extremism that we find on the opposite side of the spectrum that extremism that some of you may know as progressive Islam or liberal Islam or modernist Islam and I'm not speaking about the modern Islam that seeks to address the problems of the 21st century for Muslims while abiding by the constant principles of Islam but rather that modernist Islam that seeks to water down the faith to an extent that is no longer recognizable they seek to take the hijab and make it a cultural symbol rather than a religious one they take the fur dude and argue that it only belongs to the seventh century and snow longer applicable for our times today and so on and so forth this movement has crossed so many red lines they've even gone way beyond any red line and they've gone to the extent of watering down and compromising the very heart of the message of Islam the Shahada itself and it is that problem that we're gonna be grappling with today in sha allah some questions that we're going to be exploring together today are sorry I know the projector will be like this so it might appear feels a bit small but I'm gonna be reading out everything first of all it's pluralism unconditionally bad or good what is Islam's stance regarding other religions could religions other than Islam provide a path of salvation that is a path to paradise who is the calf if what is the definition of a kafir is he only the one who knows the truth of Islam and rejects it or is there a broader definition for this word who can we label as a kafir can we comment about the eternal fate of the cathode as the punishment endured in hell temporary or everlasting what about the atom Fatah that we hear about so much what is this doctrine of the head etc what did what did the different theological schools of Islam say about the head affected on what their faith is are their passages in the Quran and the hadith which appeared to suggest that other religions are acceptable knives of Allah passages which religious pluralists appeal to or are their responses to these passages that they appeal to is the Islamic view of salvific exclusivism that is that only Islam is the true path to God riddled with logical and moral difficulties are there rational objections to this belief you believe that Islam is the only true religion and all the religions are false are there rational objections to this belief and if there are are their good responses to them so we have a lot to cover today and we'll just get straight to it first we'll begin with pluralism what is pluralism what do you think about when you hear the word pluralism do you think about legal pluralism we all know that Islamic societies in the past Islamic caliphates in the past allowed Christians and Jews to set up their own civil courts to deal with their own civil issues so is that what we're talking about is that what we're thinking about or are we thinking about political pluralism where you have a state which tolerates several political parties operating within it or are you thinking about cultural pluralism also known as multiculturalism something us Canadians proudly embracing something which aslam proudly embraces as well are we talking about religious pluralism and when we say the term religious pluralism as well what do we mean by it do we mean a state that accepts or tolerates or embraces its citizens practicing different religions if so Islam is open to this but that's not what we're talking about today we're talking about a specific kind of pluralism but the reason why I bring this up is because if anyone ever comes and asks you is Islam pluralistic I don't want any of us to jump the gun and say yes or no right away we need to clarify our Terms very carefully here and we have to clarify what the other person means when he uses the term pluralism because Islam is pluralistic in one sense and it may not be in another but what we're going to be talking about today is soteriological pluralism or salvific religious pluralism we're also known as universalism or some of you may know as perennialism different terms that are used for this notion and it's defined in terms of salvation so according to an equality soteriological pluralism a plurality of religions are equally effective in guiding people to salvation and this notion usually comes in two different forms the first form is reductive pluralism so it states that all major religious traditions share a common element which makes them successful in attaining or providing a path for salvation so there is a common element in Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism and Buddhism in Islam etc that makes each of those religions sufficient enough for granting its adherents salvation the second form is non reductive pluralism which states that all major traditions have distinctive features unique to them through which God may guide people even if there was no common essence to them thanks so aslam with its unique features Christianity with its unique features Judaism with some unique features are all sufficient in the eyes of God for attaining salvation John hick was a were a prominent British theologian and philosopher of religion and he was a very devout Catholic and when he was living in the UK his homeland he made many friends from from the subcontinent especially Muslims and what he came to realise was a lot of my Muslim friends from the subcontinent are actually very good nice people how can I believe that they're going to hell just because they didn't accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and so he became a religious pluralist he became one of its most ardent defenders in the 20th and early 21st century he passed away in 2010 so he gives the following illustration in order to explain the notion of religious pluralism better this is a illustration an elephant was brought to a group of blind men who had never encountered such an animal before one felt a leg and reported that an elephant is a great living pillar another felt the trunk and reported an elephant is a great snake another felt a tusk and reported an elephant is like a sharp ploughshare and so on and then they all quarreled together each claiming that his own account was the truth and therefore all others false in fact of course they were all true but each referring only to one aspect of the total reality and all expressed in very imperfect analogies so aslam is partially true Christianity is partially true Hinduism is partially true no single religion has acquired a view of the total reality but each religion has partial truth to it that's what he's trying to communicate through this illustration giving a very brief history of religious pluralism the richest pluralism is not a modern phenomenon it's not a modern notion it actually goes all the way back to the Roman Empire before the Christianization of the Roman Empire the Roman Empire was a very polytheistic society they worshiped a multiple host of gods and they were quite tolerant of one another no one insisted that the other worship his God so if one worship to the pagan god Jupiter he didn't have any objection if the other person worship the pagan god Isis no reference to - if someone worshiped the pagan god Mithra he didn't have an objection if someone worshipped the pagan gods Sybil so that's why when Christianity came on the scene later on they didn't really like Christianity as Christianity teaches salvific exclusivism you cannot make make it to paradise except if you believe that Jesus Christ was your Lord and Savior and shed his blood for you on the cross but moving on to the 15th to the 18th century now the Roman Empire is fully Christianized world exploration expedition started taking place the likes of Christopher Columbus Marco Polo maybe a century a century earlier and so on and so forth started exploring the world they started exploring new lands new people's new tribes and what started to happen was they started discovering that Christianity is far from being the universal religion there are many people in the world who never heard of Jesus Christ and two things began to dawn upon them one it's harsh and cruel for us to condemn people to hell just because they never heard of Jesus Christ secondly they began to think that religion is something that is relative so as they've discovered all these new lands and people's having their own different religions this notion of religious pluralism started slowly but surely creeping in to Christian circles and it didn't help that at the time there were enlightened enlightened rationalists who were mocking Christians who believed in this doctrine that all non-christians would go to hell now at the time today China has a population of 1.3 billion at the time there was a popular Chinese were around 16 million so some people would come and Mock the Christians and say are you going to say that the 16 million Chinese men are gonna go to hell just because they didn't believe in Jesus Christ and so we see that it is during this era that religious pluralism start creeping in to Christian circles and when we start to come to the 1930s around the decade after the abolishment of the caliphate we see that religious pluralism has unfortunately begun creeping into Islamic circles now some academics argue that there are some major Sufi scholars in the past such as it ought to be a rule me who adopted religious pluralism as a notion but even if we assume that's the case we don't see any trend emerging from that time rather the trend that were observing is in the 19th has begun in the 1930s and an individual by the name of free stuff Chauhan also known as a Sonora Dean Ahmed was a convert to Islam and he was born in Switzerland and he was heavily influenced by Hindu philosophy and he began publicly preaching this notion of religious pluralism and started arguing that it is compatible with Islam and then over time you have notable convert aslam such as guy eatin Martin lanes some other religious pluralism or not convert or say it's the same muscle who is the editor of the famous or the infamous times how you view it this study Quran that was published last year also hold these kinds of views you also have full or non who was who studied in deal bunt and became a Muslim scholar but then he went to the west and did his furthered his studies there and he adopted this notion of religious pluralism now just because I mentioned all their names together that doesn't necessarily mean that they all held identical beliefs and religious pluralism but they all became religious pluralists eventually and so we're seeing this trend continuing on until today what's Islam's stance on religious pluralism let's read some Quranic passages together in some ahadees together surah 2 ayah 128 Acosta ended his lecture with and never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion say indeed the guidance of Allah is the only guidance if you were to follow their desires after who has come to you of knowledge you would have against Allah no protector nor helper so here we see a clear distinction being made between the religion of the Jews in the Christians and guidance so that entails that their religion is misguidance and obviously Islam rejects this guidance surah 2 ayah 135 - 137 they say be Jews or Christians you will be guided say rather we follow the religion of Ibraheem at a Sunnah inclining toward truth and he was not of the polytheists so here we are to shun or reject the call of the Christians of the Jews to follow the religion because it is not truth continuing on say o believers we have believed Allah and what has been revealed to us and who has been revealed to ibrahim alaih-is-salaam and is made and as haq in yahoo and the descendants and what was given to moosa' and essa' and what was given to the prophets from their lord we make no distinction between any of them and we are Muslims so if they believe in the same as you believe in then they have been guided but if they turn away they are only in dissension so it is absolutely clear that in order for them to be guided they need to believe in what we believe in and what we believe in is in making no distinction between the prophets and the messengers by the Christians rejecting the Prophet of Muhammad peace be upon him and the Jews rejecting the Prophet of Muhammad peace be upon him and any sade Saddam and people from other faiths not accepting the Prophet of Muhammad peace be upon him this verse is clearly telling us that they are differentiating between the prophets and the messengers hence they are not guided so our 3io 31 same welcome to florrum if you should love Allah then follow me so Allah will love you and forgive you your sins and Allah is forgiving and merciful if you want a lot forgiveness if you want to be overshadowed with almost mercy you need to love and follow the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon something that people from other religions are not doing surah 4 ayah 150 indeed those who disbelieve in Allah and his messengers and wish to discriminate between Allah and his messengers and say we believe in some in disbelief in others and wish to adopt a way in between well this way in between is not good enough differentiating between the prophets and messengers still falls short of the standard that Islam has set for salvation surah 5 is 72 to 73 they have certainly disbelieved who say Allah is a messiah the son of Mary while the Messiah has said o children of his worship Allah my Lord and your Lord indeed he who associate others with Allah Allah has forbidden him paradise and his refuge is the fire and there are not for the wrongdoers any helpers they have certainly disbelieved who say Allah is the third of three a reference to the Trinity and there is no God except one God and if they do not desist from what they are saying they will there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment so this is a very clear condemnation of the beliefs of the Christians and the verse is very clear almost Anuradha has forbid for them paradise due to their beliefs so a seven is 79 so a seven I of fifty nine we had certainly sent no honey Saddam to his people and he said all my people worship Allah you have no deity other than him indeed I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous day and these sorts of passages are just filling the pages of the Quran you just go read the story of any of the prophets and messengers in the past you would see that this is the same message all the time to their people worship Allah saw saying be a good person feed the poor smile help the old lady cross the street all of that is good and dandy but at the same time they're calling for so hey they're calling for the worship of almost Subhan Allah Allah and this is clearly not in line with religious pluralism surah 7 ayah 157 to 158 those who follow the messenger the unlettered prophet whom they find written in what they have of the taurah and the injeel who enjoins upon them what is right and forbids them what is wrong and makes lawful for them the good things and prohibits for them the evil and relieves them of their burden and the shackles which were upon them so they who have believed in him honored him supported him and followed the light which was sent down with him the Quran it is those who will be the successful you want to attain success you need to follow the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him who was prophesied in the taurah and the injeel and you need to support him and you need to honor him say o muhammad saw sanam oh mankind indeed I am The Messenger of Allah to you all to whom belongs the Dominion of the heavens and the earth there is no deity except him he gives life and causes death so believe in Allah and His Messenger the unlettered prophet who believes in Allah in his words and follow him that you may be guided you want to be guided it's not just being a good person it's not picking any religion and then following it from the bottom of your heart no you need to follow and believe in Allah and Allah and His Messenger surah 9 I have 31 they have taken their rabbis and priests referring to Jews and Christians as Lords besides Allah and also the Messiah son of Mary and they were not commanded except to worship one God there is no deity except him exalted is he about above whatever they associate with him now here when when the verse says an ayah says that the Jews and Christians took their rabbis and priests as lords it doesn't mean in a literal sense that they actually call their rabbis in their priests God or Lord rather they have assigned to them the right to legislate rulings and they believe that they have done so with the permission of Allah however this is a false ascription so this is their shift when it comes to their rabbis and their priests another thing notice at the end of the verse it accuses the Jews and Christians with this belief of theirs of having committing of having committed now unfortunately there in modern times there are people who are some people are trying to come and say that the Jews and Christians are not much to gain and that they are just for far they don't commit ship because the Quran continuously distinguishes them from the mushrikuna because they are called al-kitab however and this refers to them as al-khattab it is doing so in order to differentiate them from the pagan idolaters who are intentionally worshiping a multiple host of gods that doesn't mean that the Jews and Christians however are free from committing at the end of the day we all know that Christians worship Jesus and that they worship in a salad a Saddam in a saute Saddam is not God so this is obviously so the Christians and the Jews are mostly corn even though this is not the label assigned to them in the Quran in order to differentiate them from the pagans surah 9 ayah 33 it is he who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religions although the polytheists dislike it I think this is one of the most anti religious pluralistic verses in the Quran those who are coming and saying all religions are equal as long as you're a good person you're going to make it salvation all religions provide an equal opportunity to attain paradise this verse just smacks that notion straight in their face because the Allah so Allah is telling us is that Islam has come to manifest itself over all other religions to be superior to all other religions not to be on par but to be equal with other religions and notice what the ending of the verse says when Oh kevie had mistaken although the polytheists disliked it this should be this should this should serve as a self reflection for many of these misguided brothers who spread themselves to this movement because it appears to me even though it's not my place to come and discuss what the inner intentions of every single individual is but it seems pretty obvious that the the Muslim Ummah is in a state of weakness today and the West is in dominance that somehow we feel pressured to conform to that which is popular to conform to that which is politically correct that's telling us the only thing you need to be concerned about is what I think do you care about what almost pounds other things do you care about what other pilots either likes and dislikes or is it what the West likes or dislikes now I'm not trying to necessarily create this divide between the two obviously there's a lot in common but at the end of the day when there are differences we need to know where our loyalty lies and at the same time this doesn't mean that we preach Islam bluntly and harshly and say oh we don't care if the polytheists dislike what we're saying you know we have to preach with wisdom and good conduct at the end of the day you need to be you need to be blunt and not compromise on your faith surah 16 bio 36 I'm just gonna read one part of it worship Allah and avoid the hold toehold refers to false deities false gods false objects of worship so that means that there is such a thing as false gods false religions false objects of worship and it's not something to embrace but rather something to avoid stepping into the hadith literature now first hadith no child is born but on the filter oh but it's parents turn into a Jew or a Christian I think this is self-explanatory second hadith an important hadith I shudder the lonja reported I said Messenger of Allah Salaam the son of Judah an i-beam Jordan the son of Sudan during the days of jahiliyyah established ties of relationship and fed the poor would that be of any avail to him he said it would be of no avail to him as he did not ever say oh my lord pardon my sins on the Day of Resurrection this whole notion of just be good to your fellow man and do the deeds and this whole undermining of faith is something was just flatly rejected in this hadith this iben Jaudon sounds like a what we would call today a very upright guy a very decent guy was good to his family he fed the poor but that wasn't enough for him to attain salvation narrated Denisov of the lawn by young the Jewish boy used to serve the Prophet SAW Nadia said lemon he became sick so the prophets of the law do said I went to visit him he sat near his head and asked him to embrace Islam the boy looked at his father who was sitting there the latter told him to obey a booth fossum of customs the Prophet Allah no cinnamon and the boy embraced Islam the Prophet sallallaahu centum came out saying praise be to Allah who saved the boy from the Hellfire so clearly it is the Judaism the Judaic beliefs of the boy that was going to land him in Hellfire again something that is not in line with religious pluralism this hadith I personally find to be very powerful promise I saw them said I swear I swear that if musa alayhis salam were alive and you followed him and left me you would be misguided if musa were alive he would have followed me so here the promise of our son is not saying if you follow a false prophet you'd be misguided if you follow a liar or a corrupt person instead of me you're a false liar no even if the great and the Magnificent prophet Musa al-salaam who is honored in the sight of Allah who is one of the greatest of the prophets were alive today and we followed him and we followed Moosa as Salaam but not the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him we would still be misguided so then what do we say about following all the false prophets and false religions of today by the one in whose hand is the soul of Muhammad there is no one among this Ummah Jew or Christian who hears of me then dies without believing in that with which I have been sent but he will be one of the people of hellfire I will elaborate a little bit more on this hadith later on in the discussion but it seems pretty clear so right now we just read ten quranic passages together and we looked at five sahih hadith and we could see that islam is explicitly clear in its rejection of religious pluralism these passages are very clear it was my intention to just not really elaborate too much on them I just wanted to come here and actually read them out for you and not come up with any fancy interpretation from my own now we step into the area of Cather a word that many muslims these days are not feeling comfortable using they don't a lot of them don't like to use the word kafir a lot of them prefer using the term non-muslim and what I've observed is that in recent times the definition of the word kafir has been tainted partially and it has been restricted in a manner that it shouldn't be restricted so who is a Katherine well almost para nada says in surah 64 ayah - it is he who created you and among you is the disbeliever and among you is the believer and a lot of what you do is all-seeing so almost no Dada has categorizes creation into two different categories you have the believer and you have the non-believer we don't see any terminology for something in-between so it would be fair then to say that a kafir is the one who is not a believer anyone who is not a believer and we already read the passages together which stipulate what you must do to be a believer so whoever is not a believer in other words whoever is not a Muslim is a kafir so every non-muslim is a kafir now a lot of people these days don't like that they don't like they don't like the ice the notion or the idea that every non-muslim is a kafir and they give two arguments in support of this let's look at them argument number one you don't know which non-muslim truly received the message of Islam and rejected it and whether he's going to help so how you don't know if that person and let's talk about you know people North Korea the most state-controlled country in the world they probably probably most of them don't in my opinion I think that they qualified to be an effective of our times because I don't think they get the message of Islam there but let's talk about people in North Korea for example are they good far maybe they didn't receive the message of Islam study it analyze it and then reject it so is it fair to call them COFA well first of all we already read the passage which distinguishes between in the cathode and there's no other third category but I also want to respond to this argument directly by saying that first of all there's a double standard going on let me read this hadith out first and then I'll explain what the double standard is Saudis a reformed Bihari Muslim by the Prophet peace be upon him said by the one other than whom there is no deity verily one of you performs the actions of the people of paradise until there is but an arm's length between him in it and that which has been written overtakes him and so he acts with the actions of the people of hellfire and thus enters it and verily one of you performs the actions of the people of hellfire until there is but an arm's length between him and it and that which has been written overtakes him and so he acts with the actions of the people of paradise and thus he enters it so what is hadith famous hadith is saying excuse me that you might see someone in this life who appears to be a pious Muslim who does good all his life and and right before he passes away he could leave the slum with other than uh you know got particulars from that you might fall out of the Sun and end up going into hell likewise with the non-muslim which is what the argument of thing you don't know if that non-muslim would have accepted Islam if you got the message or whether he will eventually be saved but then think about the double standard here if you want to argue that you don't want to call every non-muslim a kafir because you don't know if he received the true message of Islam and so you should just plead ignorance well then we shouldn't be calling each other Muslims here for all we know one of us could be a man awful one of us could be a spy working for the Intelligence Agency or whatever by the way I'm innocent if you're here eventually he might apostatize in the future and enter hell so be consistent in your methodology don't you know you can't cherry pick what you want to do if you don't want to call every non-muslim a catheter because you don't know whether he to serve as it saw the message of a summon rejected it then also don't call every Muslim a Muslim because you don't know what fees I'm one of them we're spy or whatever secondly it is our job in this life to just judge by the appearance we're not talking about the eternal faith of anyone here there are gone there are rulings specified for cathode I want to know can I marry my daughter to this to this person what about the inheritance laws can this person enter messages in Haram and so on and so forth we have a cam we have rulings specified for Kofa you can't take those rulings should we bury him in a Muslim very very on the kaffir grave you can't take these rulings specified for Kafar and apply them on people you refuse to call the fine be consistent thirdly and we're gonna talk about ethnic Fatah after the break but the ethyl affected ah what I've noticed is that there are people who are inconsistent in the theological view that they've adopted here by not labeling every non-muslim a cafe and the position that they then hold when it comes to the head of feta because as you're gonna see later on there are three dominant opinions about who that have affected are our two out of those three dominant opinions still labeled an infected ah as Kafar and the third opinion which says that the affluent Vitara are saved are not Kafar will still say that in this life you still have to judge by the apparent and say that they are good flow so the thing is brothers and sisters is that when you adopt a certain view you have to make sure that first of all you have actual proper scholarship as precedents for that view that you're holding but also make sure that your that that view that you're holding is not interlinked with another topic in which you hold a view which contradicts the view that you've held here everything has to be consistently aligned this is why many scholars have advised laymen be careful about mixing between methods because if you mix between meth hubs and your Nicola recklessly then you're gonna end up being very inconsistent in the views that you hold there is a foundation there is a proper or sword behind every ruling that comes out whether it's or even in a kingdom so this will this point will become clear but the point I want to make here is that those who are arguing that you cannot label every non-muslim a kafir are bound to be inconsistent when it comes to their views on that Loretta because the three dominant views are not infected ah do not line up with this view of not labeling every non-muslim I got second argument to give is that a kafir is only one who knows that Islam does the truth and rejects it now this definition is a modern one it is based on a selective and partial reading of the Quran yes there are passages in the Quran which speak about gaffar who recognized the truth of Islam and still rejected it who recognized the prophethood the truth of the prophethood of Muhammad peace be upon him and still rejected the Prophet but that doesn't mean that these are the only type of Kafar or that this is the only description description fit for Kafar now well I may say right now might be a little difficult to digest for some if it's not for some here maybe some more what we're gonna watch this lecture later on but I ask that you pull with pull through with me until the very end and install that with me look at the whole subject comprehensively together and tell about everything will make sense to you now what I want to argue here is that a catheter is not only one who rejects Islam after knowing it's true and once again I want to read passages from the Quran together now first I want to point out that the previous responses that I gave still apply at the end of the day you still need to judge by the apparent for legal purposes secondly let's read these verses from the Quran together surah 2 ayah 13 and when it is set to them believe as the people have believed they say should we believe as the foolish have believed unquestionably it is they who are the foolish but they know it not and here even Cathy in his commentary says that they are so ignorant that they don't even know they are the ones were misguided so r2 is 73 and among them are unlettered ones who do not know the scripture and except in wishful thinking but they are only assuming they assume that they understand their scriptures they assume that they are in the correct path surah 7 ayah 30 a group of you he guided in a group deserved to be in error indeed they had the devil's as allies instead of Allah while they thought that they were guided they thought that they were on the truth they thought that they were upon guidance it's not that they knew they were upon misguidance and that they were rejecting is not they thought that they were on guidance so our 8900 for those whose efforts have been wasted in this life while they thought that they were acquiring good by their deeds they thought that they were doing good by the works that they were performing and here you could read several quranic commentaries on this for you could even refer to imam with Tommy's common Terry on this where he says that they were that they had but not all disbelievers knowingly reject so he's and he said that this verse is very clear regarding that you can also refer to the theater Diwali and Wadi and others surah 21 ayah 24 or have they taken for worship gods besides him say bring your proof this Quran is the reminder for those with me and the reminder for those before me but most of them know not the truth they do not know the truth so once again to say that the calf it is only he who knows the truth and then buries it and then rejects it is not a correct statement it's based on a par shoulder reading of the Quran it's not taking into account all of these verses into the Quran of the Quran so our 38 ayats from 7 and we did not create the heaven and the earth and that between them aimlessly that is the assumption of those who disbelieve so our 41 I a 23 and that was your assumption which you assumed about your Lord it has brought you to ruin so what you assumed was right about God actually ended up bringing you to ruin and you have become among the losers on the day Allah will resurrect them all this is surah 58 I 18 on the day Allah will resurrect them all and they will swear to him as they swear to you and think that they are standing on something and they think that they have a case for themselves they thought that they were right unquestionably it is they who are the liars now we just read a Quranic passages together that spoke about COFA who thought that they were doing good who knew not the truth who assumed that they were right so the definition the catheters only he who knows the truth and rejects it falls flat in the clear reading of these passages once again I'm trying my very best to just read out the verses for you and not to inject my interpretation into it and once again you could also refer back to the well-known toughie see you that you hold in high esteem and see the tefa see you on these passages as well so I want to make a clarification here these passages when read in their context dr. Sultan and our Maori doctor saponin are Maori is a specialist in Nevada in theology and he's based in Omaha University in Mecca and in his book Scalia tada dadada Jeff and baphu dhaka d alright if anyone could read Arabic he could refer to that book and he argues in that book that these passages their context is that these people were being spoken about here these Kofa are those who received the message of Islam they received the message of Islam in its true correct form and still rejected it while still thinking that they are right so these passages have nothing to do with an infected are those who did not receive the message of Islam no these passages are speaking about people who received the true message and it's true pristine form with no taint in its representation and still rejected it while thinking that they are still on the truth but then the question comes but isn't it problematic isn't it problematic the Allah would punish someone for his ignorance shouldn't Allah only hold people accountable for that which they know so let's say I do go up to a Christian and I tell him give him the message of Islam clearly not tainted but he says well you know what um I still think that the evidence for my face is still stronger than yours I still think that I understand what you're saying I understand the message of his fun as you've given it to me but I still want to follow Christianity is that problematic is there a rational problem here does it seem unfair on Chama we will tackle this in the last segment of the discussion when we address rational objections to sell civic exclusivism so I know what some may be thinking well I mean this doesn't sound fair this we shouldn't all only punish people for what they know and not for their ignorance but we will address this in more detail in the last segment I think we I will tackle this section and then we will take a break inshaallah or we get a guy's like a break right now so don't take a break all right let me finish this section then we'll take a break sure what's the fate of Kapaa can you comment about the eternal fate of specific individuals can I let's say I know that a good brother of the Muslim brother passed away can I say he's in general or someone who apparently died on Kufa can I say that he's in the Hellfire now there's a dispute amongst scholars on this issue and we want to look at the two opinions that are out there the first opinion says no you cannot say what the eternal fate of a specific individual is unless revelation specifies so so we know that Abu Lahab and his wife earned help you know that phone isn't help because we have revelation that clearly states that but when it comes to other people that we don't have revelation in regards we can't say that now this is not a modernist or a liberal opinion actually this this opinion actually seems to be the most popular opinion amongst set of set of he scholars so for example bin baz of the command rock-solid frozen abdel aziz banaji Sivaji these are all all Santa Fe scholars who are not known for liberalism and they all adopt this opinion and the proofs that they gave is that proof number one you can't know with 100% certainty upon which state the person died you just don't know if that if it may appear outwardly that this person is a kafir but you don't know with 100% certainty that he didn't take the shahadat before he passed away you don't know that you don't know with the 100% certainty if that he's from was actually you know a spy or whatever I'm enough proof number two you can't know whether that person was an awful or from an infected on once again you don't know especially if you adopt one of the opinions on that that I that we're gonna be looking at together after the break if you believe that infected are saved and you don't know that this person that belongs to end-effector then how can you say with a certainty that he's in hell but I also want to mention something that those scholars who take this opinion that you cannot comment about the fate of a specific person they will say that sometimes there could be exceptions let's say for example you have a very pious Muslim he was known in the Islamic community for being pious and then he passed away and tens of thousands of people come and attend his funeral prayer and they speak and praise and speak very highly of him many scholars who even belong to this camp will say this could be a Korean or this could be an indication or a sign that this person's eternal fate is in Hamden ah very good but to go beyond that no the general rule is we do not comment about anyone's fate so your non-muslim peers at work your fellow nun with some students at university your non-muslim professor at university it is not your job and it's not your concern to start thinking oh no is this person really gonna go to hell and burn in hell no your only concern is to present the Islam to those to those people or to be the best Muslim you could possibly be to those people you don't have to go and think about oh no this guy he's such a nice guy at work he's always so good to me I can't imagine that he's going to help slow down who told he is going to help if you have a relation that says so so if you adopt this opinion that's the way you should be thinking about this issue second opinion is yes you can yes you can judge by the apparent and say that if this person died the kafir I would also say that he is in hell but this person died outwardly as I must also say that he's going to heaven we're first proof they give is the generality of the passages that the catheter is in the Hellfire and judging by their parent they'll say our job in this life is to just judge by the apparent he outwardly died a kafir the Quran says of the kafir goes to hell he's in hell and so on the second proof they give is the hadith if you pass by the grave of a mushrik give him the glad tidings of Hell now this seems to be a very strong proof was here the Prophet SAW said I'm saying excuse me upon saw something here is saying if you pass by the the grave of a mushrik give him the glad tidings of hell but wait a minute I don't have Revelation telling me that this Mushnik is in hell well it appears to bolster the position of this camp which says see you have to judge outwardly and just say that every motion occur kafir is going to hell but people people from the first camp that the first opinion will argue that this hadith is not authentic so there is a dispute over the authenticity of this hadith some argue that it's authentic others argue that it's not authentic so it's an area of dispute thirdly the statement of picado de la on him when he spoke about the followers of tolay Han Assadi he said you're dead fighters are in hell oh my head I said he was someone who claimed to be a false prophet and he led in a rebellion or an insurgency against the Caliphate against Abu Bakr guarana when he was a Kamath eventually to layha repented when him and his followers repented and they came to Hobeika obviously fighting already occurred and he already lost dead fighters so abu bakr told him you're dead fighters are in hell so here are people from this camp will argue opinion number two they'll argue that abu bakr said that his followers are in hell and abu bakr dena romano did not receive revelation saying whether they are in hell or not so this shows that you're supposed to judge by the apparent and say that all guffaw are going to help but then people from the first camp will come and argue well know what a bucket of the round hole is actually saying was actually emphasizing on is that he was doing like fear not not the clear Maranon meaning he was just giving a general ruling of takfeer on the group as a whole not commenting on everything visual person and he was emphasizing on the fact that the act that their actions were people were actions of the people who belonged in the Hellfire these are two opinions both respected opinions there's no harsh opinion there's no liberal opinion okay good timing there's no harsh opinion and there's no liberal opinion here you're free to choose based on what you think to be the strongest position what opinion you want to adopt obviously if you adopt opinion number one it'll it will enable you to grapple with the subject much more easily but that should not be your main motivating factor to adopting opinion number one you have to make sure that you follow the evidence where it leads and inshallah after the break we will then speak about the punishment of Health and whether it's everlasting or temporary [Music] you

Channel: i3 Institute

Views: 5,290

Rating: 4.858407 out of 5

Keywords: Islam, Quran, Sunnah, Religious, Pluralism, West, i3 Insitute, i3, Deconstructing Religious Pluralism, Bassam, Bassam Zawadi, Ustadh, Canada, Anatolia

Id: T7HoJKg0KRM

Length: 57min 43sec (3463 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 25 2016