Hub Talk: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

Junaid reportedly said that water takes on the color of the cup he was probably referring to the state of a Gnostic so you know the state within the heart where we know God but I think the same also relates to the relationship between religion and culture that is water is Islam in this metaphor and the cup are the pre-existing cultures that it enters into I would argue that Islam doesn't come to to do away with our cultures American cultures Arab African Pakistani Iranian it doesn't superimpose itself rather it takes away the idols that we've added both to our cultures and to our hearts this is clear in early Islam the time of Abraham peace be upon him that the time of Ishmael all of this predated the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him and so when the Prophet came he's restoring the rights of Abraham of Ishmael of Hagar he's removing the idols from the Kaaba and in a similar sense you could you could we can argue that you know there's a lot of good in the the origins of Western culture which is quite diverse there's not a monolithic Western culture there are you know white Muslims black Muslims Latino immigrants and many people of diverse faiths yet there is an innate goodness in in in all human beings and this is clear from you know our judeo-christian heritage the Sermon on the Mount the golden rule it's also clear from Greek philosophy a lot of the early Muslims believe that Hermes was the Prophet III s-- one of the founding fathers of the Greek philosophical heritage who went on to inspire Pythagoras Plato Aristotle of latinas also many of our great writers Shakespeare Dante Cote Blake these were clearly people of inspiration and I would I would also argue certain ideals in the United States or ELLs are also noble if not all of the realities the Bill of Rights the Constitution women's rights the civil rights movement but we also have our idols we also have our idols that need to be removed racism or sexism consumerism material or is materialism it's an honor to introduce a speaker an educator a scholar who's well versed in both the Islamic intellectual tradition and Western culture she comes the use of his president and senior faculty member at Zaytuna College America's first accredited Muslim liberal liberal arts college he's an advisor to the Center for Islamic Studies at Berkeley's Graduate theological Union he serves as vice president for the forum for promoting peace in Muslim societies which was founded and is currently presided over by sheikh abdullah bin bhaiyya a world-renowned muslim scholar and jurist in addition yusuf joined the emirates fought to a council under the leadership of sheikh abdullah he's also the author of several books and scholarly articles including purification of the heart the content of character caesarean moon births prayer of the oppressed and agenda to change our condition he was recently named America's most influential Islamic scholar by the Muslim 500 I'd like to add that Zaytuna College was you know the the place that that I actually not only have learned a great deal from the lectures of Shyam's Imams aide dr. Bosnian but I also found love there it's where I met my wife so it's it's a true pleasure to to introduce to you this evening one of our great thinkers and someone who I think can help heal the divide ladies and gentlemen share Hamza Yusuf used to be upon you and I have a lot of familiar faces first of all I just want to really thank SM Habad for doing such an incredible thing that reflects our our tradition our religion there was so much commitment to excellence and beauty so I just want to thank him it's just to come here and see something that normally would be part of this cultures hegemonic presence it's very overwhelming and powerful sometimes but to see something that reflects another part of America that is often just set aside and people don't realize that Muslims have been here from the start we've been part of the fabric and tapestry and culture of this country people I read a book years ago called Africa and the Blues and I was once in a TV Anees area in Mali I was I think nineteen years old and they started singing this song and I was thinking where have I heard this before and I realised it was American music it was literally a what they call the bo Diddley beat and it really struck me as just so strange and familiar at the same time hearing these people singing but a lot of people don't know is actually a 4/4 beat which is the basis of most American music it's usually three four four four sometimes you get into some jazz like six eight and things like that but it's generally a four-four beat so you have a la Lala and it's it's four-four beat so you hear that you know and that's that's right out of the African slaves that came here and in this book Africa and the Blues one of the things they pointed out it was a musicologist from Germany that did this and this is something I think sylveon do you points out also is that there was so much suicide on these ships that they started bringing these African itinerant African musicians that would do Vica in shat on the ships to keep people's spirits up right so this comes into America and you see the influence of it in the Mississippi Delta which is where a lot of the slaves arrived in fact back in the 1920s there was a blues band from Mississippi called the Mississippi shakes so anyway as a little side I just want to say I don't feel like the main speaker I think the main speaker preceded me a mere silly man what did it what an incredible what an incredible gift and and the artifice that goes into that if people think that this stuff is just there's inspiration undeniably but there's a lot of really incredible hard work in the craft and one of the interesting things about this tradition of spoken word is that it's really added a third type of speech that the Arabs identified very early on so it traditionally there had NASA and novel prose and poetry but there was a third type of speech that they called said John which is very similar in Arabic to what we just heard and it was it was a type of inspiration in fact somebody once began to spontaneously recite such an in front of the Prophet after he recited some Quran and he just said stop because it's there's a relationship to poetry in Revelation which is why many prophets were accused of being poets and the Arabs accused the prophets item of being a poet because of the relationship between the two because inspiration is very similar to revelation and a true poet is inspired a true poet and there's a lot of people that write verse but a poet like our brother I'm your Suleiman is an inspired person who's coming up with things that really in essence they're kind of a conduit for for those words and and it flows from in fact the prophets alarm once when has sandy beneath habit was reciting some poetry said as you you know recite this poetry because the mashayikhina it really affects them and then he said a year they could be oh how to produce you know may God inspire you with the Holy Spirit and that's that's that's where it comes from so coming from these angelic realms so I would like to talk tonight a little bit about I just push on the the main yeah we begin everything with bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim there's a lot of debate on what that bar is but it's definitely a but it's Dianna the arnold toynbee is a very interesting character in in 1947 he wrote an essay called Islam in the West and this essay is a very interesting essay because he talked about this awakening that's gonna happen in the Muslim world and he talks about fanaticism will arise out of three places probably Afghanistan Yemen and in Saudi Arabia this is 1947 then he talks about how it'll probably be left to the Americans to deal with this problem one of the things that he said though was that an Islam ism is dormant and he was a great historian so he really knew about pan-islamism this kind of spirit yeah we have to reckon with the possibility of the sleeper may awake if ever the cosmopolitan proletariat of a westernized world revolt against Western domination and this a lot of what's happening right now there's a there's a lot of people Chinese are fed up the Africans are fed up the Indians are fed there's a lot of people just fed up with the the Western power that's existed for so long and he talked about that the Muslims could take up a kind of anti Western leadership and evoking the militant spirit of Islam and he talked about the possibility of a race war was very troubling I don't agree with this vision I think I would prefer to look at it like the Prophet SAW said how become a row madam if it is your hair your companions are the Europeans as long as there's good in the world which is related in concern oh man and Mustafa that apparati he said once in the presence of a murder banana house he said double Misawa Rome xro nests the Prophet said the end of time won't come until the the Europeans are the majority of people and Rome is Europe if you look at Rome's sacred history all of it goes back to the Ania to Romulus and Remus to the foundation of the city of Rome the venerable bead in his history of England says that the English people came from Rome so the Prophet called them Benin follow the white people and and there there are very powerful people historically they're great gift was in organization the Roman cohort was 12,000 and the Prophet said 12,000 people will never be defeated for lack of numbers I'm I suspect that he was looking at the Roman legion that that's where that number came from because they were indestructible as a military force but when I'm at have been I also heard that hadith he said absurd Morocco think about what you're saying he said well I see merit to memorabilia I heard it from the messenger of god and he said if that's true they have four beautiful qualities he said whom as soon as he said a luminous and the fitnah they're the most forbearing of people during civil strife and he said what a sorrow home Etha patent bad amoeba and they're the quickest to recover from calamities and then he said oh Shaka home carrot invader Farah and they're the quickest to return to the battlefield after fleeing from the battlefield and then he said well hey little home Bemis Keenan we're your team and will die and they're the most kind to the poor the orphans and the handicapped and then he said bhajami Citroen has sent it to injure me to tune and they have a fifth quality that's especially beautiful I'm now announcement voted me Malucci him they constrain their rulers from oppression more than any other people so he was looking if that's true that the Europeans are the majority people and Mohammed said because the majority of people would be imitating them but the Shabo so he said if that's true he chose to look at the good qualities of the people and this is calling people to the better angels of their nature this is what Martin Luther King did and anybody who's ever really been able to affect change in in in this civilization has done it by calling the people to their higher selves not call to their lower selves or reminding them of how despicable they can be and this is something that our prophet was especially gifted at Mendota bata abu sufian kena amina a man who fought him for over 20 years it's just it's amazing he had the gift of winning over his enemies and making them his friends it's much better than destroying your enemies or suffering it defeated their hands so I reject that vision and would like to look at another possibility America's first principle this is a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence which shows you that a lot of work goes into a good piece of writing people think Thomas Jefferson just wrote it out actually arisen he said he took Locke's for me that said that you know that aren't certain inalienable rights are unalienable rights among which are life liberty and the pursuit of property that was in the original draft yeah it's a little too materialistic put happiness you went with Aristotle eudaimonia and Happiness we all want happiness so and then we have the Constitution these are the first principles first principles get to the axioms of a culture if you look in in the Constitution Article one is that the Congress shall make no law and this the first article this came after this was an amendment to the Constitution because people were worried about rights being infringed upon because that's what Britain had done to them so they want to ensure so they made these articles and and and in article 1 here is that there are five freedoms and the and the most important it's interesting that the press was it's the only business mentioned in the Constitution to protect press because they really believed you needed a free press in order to ensure an educated democracy they had to know the issues which is why corporate press is so dangerous because they give you now the corporate interest in fact now they don't even do that anymore they just do entertainment I think everybody knows about stormy Daniels but nobody knows about the 20 trillion dollar national debt so but this was the point that the he it made it that people were free to worship as they understood Thomas Jefferson had a famous statement he said whether my neighbor warships one God or twenty gods neither Rob's my pocket nor breaks my bones it's it's a beautiful sentiment and this was traditionally the way the Muslims went when they went to places they adopted this approach with the exception of the Arabian Peninsula and there's debates about where it is the Arabian Peninsula is equivalent to the Vatican state you you can't build a mosque in the Vatican state you can't live in the Vatican state as a Muslim you're there cuz you're Catholic and that's the high jazz tradition although people of other faiths can come into the Hejaz and there's even a ki Tov about Mecca and Medina but the high jazz is specific to it's like a sacred space for the people of Islam and so the to the intellectual origins of toleration in the Western tradition because historically the West was not tolerant unlike the Muslim tradition which has bleak periods it's undeniable Imams day and I like to quote Imams eight on this when you read well some history you should take Eman vitamins because we forget that Muslims are human beings it's like right now the Catholic Church is going through you know I I want to tell my Catholic brothers and sisters we know what you're going through because people you know they think now Catholicism is pedophilia they think Islam is terrorism Catholicism is not pedophilia Catholicism is st. Thomas Aquinas it's saying Agustin it's it's Julian of Norwich its master Eckhart it's John of st. Thomas brilliant tradition great intellectuals but it has fallible people now running the institution we have president right now who a lot of people are embarrassed about I was in Rome and I saw Cardinal yes we were I was from and I said California he said oh the United States I said yeah these days I like to say California and then I said you know we're a little embarrassed about what's happening in Washington he said we're all embarrassed my brother the whole world is embarrassed right so anyway I don't want to trash Trump tonight but we have to remember that the presidency is an institution that's not necessarily an individual that embodies it we've had terrible presidents in this country and and we've had some good ones but it's an institution and and and and that's the nature of religion is that it's fallible human beings attempting to practice and oftentimes falling short and so when you read Muslim history there are periods of persecution the the Jews were persecuted in Andalusia in Spain at one period in fact Saladin and I UB took in Maimonides Moshe Ben mamon he had to flee persecution in Spain and he went to Egypt and he was taken in as a refugee in Egypt he actually became a minister to salahuddin and his personal physician so John Locke and Hobbes were influenced by this man Edward Pocock is a very interesting character he the Pocock library in in ink Oxford has 400 Arabic manuscripts that he brought from Aleppo because he studied for four years in Aleppo and he became a scholar this was the personal teacher of Locke so Locke is considered one of the most influential people in terms of what influenced the founding fathers of this country and John Locke was very intrigued by Islam in fact he was actually thinking about pursuing the Arabic studies and and he was convinced not to do that but the point is is that he he studied the system of the mid-late system and if you look at the treatise of toleration which John Locke he uses the Muslims as a case study in there but what's very intriguing is that the first Edict of toleration in the West came from Transylvania which was under Ottoman suzerainty so it was a Christian edik that tolerated all sects of Christianity before that if you were other than a Catholic you were persecuted and even the Protestants initially persecuted groups that didn't follow their view of things so the Anglican Church if you look at this country's history you had Christians coming here fleeing religious persecution from Protestants in England so this is very important that America begins as a place of fleeing for religious persecution it's very interesting and religious persecution is is a very interesting problem this idea of forcing people to believe what you believe and the Perron is clearly a gravid Deen which is in suratul baqarah is a late verse and a Hydra banished or says we should see this versus abrogating all the verses that would indicate anything else the Prophet was told do you think you can convince people to you can force them to believe you can't force people to believe and in fact if you study this habit of dude the people of the trench it's a very interesting story which is a historical fact they were religiously persecuted and that's why Allah judges for them against the Jewish ruler of Yemen in that period despite the fact that is al-qaeda was probably more sound but if you look so this is a treatise of toleration which is for religious freedom in that Jefferson and this was what he was he was most proud of three things it's on his tombstone one that he'd written this addictive toleration for religions but to that he was the writer of the Declaration of indepen tanned the third that he founded the University of Virginia these were the things that he really felt were his legacy so Muslims in America where do we come in well if you look the discovery of Mississippi this is 15 41 and and this is a famous painting by William Powell and I I looked this up Powell said that he based this on the most accurate historical sources that he found so he based this and this is one of the things of hidden in plain sight so if you look at his picture who's with him there and this hangs now in the capitol building so there's a Muslim wearing his turban and helmet he's a more because the Spanish when they came over they thought they were going to India which was controlled by Muslims and so they always brought translators and Muslims with them and this is why if you travel around you will you'll notice a lot of Spanish names like Alcatraz's and portals you have a lot of Arabic names wherever the Spanish went because they had Muslims with them they called them the madad Junoon the muda Jerez you know the medici known were the domesticated muslims right and they brought them with him and that's why you find in mexico you find all these names like nora and fatima and these are names from the spanish that brought muslims over and they were here so this is this is early on the muslims were here ottoman armor was discovered in in a archaeological dig in Virginia there there's evidence that the Muslims were here before Columbus these are debated points and I understand that but forgotten roots and there was a scholar that found Arabic inscriptions in in several places in the United States we also know that the Seminole Indians if you their dress they're clearly wearing West African garments they're wearing turbans ASCII law if you look at a picture of Ischia law he looks like a West African Muslim so we're pretty certain that they were here so what were the founding fathers views on Islam well George sale and I actually have there's not that many copies left but I actually have an original copy of George sales Quran published in 1734 and Thomas Jefferson this is in Thomas Jefferson's library and this was the Quran that keith Ellison was when he became the first Muslim congressman he swore his oath on the Jefferson the Quran and symbolizing this you know this goes back a long time this was the first translation I read which is very strange because it's a very it's actually a pretty good translation but it's it's written in very archaic English but it was the one that I found for some reason a used bookstore and the first one that I read so somebody gifted it to me so I think now another really interesting character was was Henry Stubb who wrote an account of the rise in progress of Mohammedanism this book was never published because he was afraid of persecution he really praised his Islam it was a book that we know was in the library in in in in a manuscript form with Hobbes Thomas Hobbes so Henry Stubb was the first European to really praise Islam and and recognize that they done things that the West had to catch up in fact Nietzsche in who's you know dies in 1900 but Nietzsche was writing mostly in the 1870s and 1880s Nietzsche and the Antichrist actually says that Muslim civilization even makes our 19th century civilization look very late indeed like we haven't caught up yet so a lot of fair-minded Europeans were aware of this amongst the intellectuals Benjamin Franklin we heard in amirseun a man's poem today Frank this is an interesting character he wrote a book about he wrote a little pamphlet about the narrative of the massacres of a certain Indian tribe they killed tens of Indians including women and children and so he was very disturbed by this and one of the there's there's two great blemishes I think on this country that we're still dealing with one of them is the the just the incredible mistreatment of the native peoples that were here originally it could have been very different and there were enlightened Americans even at this time that recognized that it could have been different but this is one of the great crises of tophi is something that is determined by God alone and the other obviously is the African American and and and the slavery again you had enlightened people from the very start but unfortunately they were a minority so in this treatise which is very interesting here you can see that Thomas Jane these Christians who mowed down these Indians and he said that Mohammed when the account was brought to him applauded the men for their humanity but said to hadid with great indignation o holla'd thou butcher cease to molest me with thy wickedness if thou profess after a heap of gold as large amount a hood and you should expand it all in god's cause they Merritt would not have faced the guilt incurred by the murder of the meanest of those poor captives this goes back to an incident where some captives were killed and when the when was a relatively new Muslim but when the Prophet heard about it the first thing that he did when he got the message was he turned to the cabin and he said Aloha mean anybody who me Muhsin how haughty I have nothing to do with what Hadi did and and then he he got diem money and sent it to pay to the people whose relatives have been killed what's interesting to me is that what Benjamin Franklin says in this pamphlet is basically they would have been better off had they surrendered to Muslims because Muslims since hotted was he says this later since Hadid was rebuked by the Prophet Muslims have never harmed a captive which is is it's quite tragic what's happened now because that was the attitude of Benjamin Franklin and he was and he knew about the captives of the Barbary Coast so it's not like he didn't have history about this so oh how do I go back I go yeah there Benjamin Rush is another very interesting character he was a physician believed that the great crises was the African American crises wanted the slaves to be freed at the time he felt that all men were created equal had to apply to everybody there's a beautiful story I read one of his his books where where he it was actually a essay but he talked about how he went to the african-american church in Boston and helped build this church and then he said we all sat down to the table of brotherhood and eight black and white together these were some of the Christians that really felt that this was this was real Christianity to see these people as equal to us and and so he actually said and this is very interesting such as my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of God or a future state of rewards and punishments that I had rather see the opinion of Confucius or Muhammad inculcating upon our youth and see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles and this is a man who knew something about Islam this is not somebody who was ignorant many highly literate people this is another very interesting event that happens in in history Joel Barlow who for people that had to do Norton's anthology of American literature if they still do that when I was in school yet to do this Horton's anthology but in Norton's anthology there's something called Hasty Pudding dole Barlow wanted to be the poet laureate of the United States and he aspired to write a true epic which he called the Columbia it never took off but he did have one poem that was famous it's called Hasty Pudding and he was part of a group called the Connecticut wits he was George Washington's ambassador to the the North African States Morocco Algeria Tunis and Libya and he actually wrote Hasty Pudding in Algiers because he was Hasty Pudding was a type of sweet dessert that they ate in colonial America so he was missing that dessert the baklava wasn't doing it for him anyway he goes he meets with the day and they did these treaties for Washington that are very interesting but in the Treaty of Tripoli there's an article article 11 and this was a treaty done between the Libyans and the Americans and in article 11 in the original treaty okay so as the governor of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion as it has yeah in itself no character of enmity against the laws religion or tranquility of Muslims and as the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any nation it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions they'll ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries this treaty was ratified without one dissenting voice in the Senate but article 11 was not in the original translation that's very interesting okay but this is what they gave the Muslims yeah so anyway John Adams becomes president I found out about George Bethune English from reading I was reading the Jefferson Adams correspondence which is really an interesting read his letters between the two of them today they had a kind of their adult life they had a ongoing correspond it's very interesting letters Adams was a real believer and Jefferson was they called him the you know the atheist president he was a deist probably but anyway I found out about George Bethune English because Jefferson says said I just read George Bethune English's travelogue up the denial and in the in in the footnote it said George Bethune English an early Muslim convert to Islam an early American convert to Islam this was his PhD dissertation see cuz the highest degree at this point in America was the masters they brought the PhD from Germany it was a research was a research degree her specialization the Browns of Christianity examine it by comparing the New Testament with the old by George Bethune English he got a master's with honors from Harvard and in it he proved he knew Arabic Hebrew believing around heretic was taught at Harvard in in in the colonial period not incredible and if you go and look and there's a true true fact if you go and look at the dictionary of Webster the very first website you know Noah Webster all those Webster's didn't you anybody can Sam as the idea for you anybody can do a Webster's dictionary it's out of copyright so you just call your own dictionary Webster's okay he did the first dictionary why because he wanted to have a spelling that differed from your pen suite right color co lor they write Co L Oh you are we spelled jail the way it's pronounced they spelt jail looks like go all geo al even those Browns jail they say tomahto we say tomato they say potato we saved tomato that's why where's Katherine South Africans did you all they say they say things like raunch dead of ranch launch sounds like rhonchi so he wanted to write an american english and standardize it he wrote a beautiful book that you should read for your children it's called Webster's advice to the young and it's pure Unitarian as it was beautiful any Muslim could read it and wouldn't find anything offensive in it but in his book he wanted to prove in his first dictionary 1828 that English went back to Hebrew but he ended up saying it was actually closer to Arabic and in that dictionary and I have a copy of facsimile of it in that dictionary he has all these Arabic typeset in Arabic in 1828 in you the United States amazing it's like where did they get Arabic typesetting in 1828 we're still having a problem with Apple an Arabic typesetting and I and I found finally found out by somebody high up at Apple why there's no Arabic typesetting that really works very well because we bootleg everything so they just don't have a monetary incentive to make good Arabic software right Arabs think it's a conspiracy he's just trying to keep us down no no monetary benefit so now this is the other amazing the slaves in America that came it's estimate this is a picture from probably Senegal and if you look the tragedy of this picture is you can see the Muslim in the back with the robe and the hat that Muslims were heavily involved in the slave trade not all of them all Murtagh one of the great West African scholars was a Mujahid against the slave trade so there are Muslims that really recognized that it was wrong but like now you have Muslims in sexual traffic in yeah I mean whether or not they're true Muslims it's called the true Scotsman fallacy right we would say they aren't true Muslims but there are Muslims and they get involved in these things coyotes like that you have Mexican coyotes that bring these poor Mexican people over the border they do the same thing now with the Syrian refugees and then some of these women end up god forbid and sexual slavery and things like this so there's good and bad Muslim just like there's good and bad people everywhere but the these Muslim it's estimated it's it's obviously hard to prove this but we know that it's between 10 and 30 percent of the slaves and we have documentation Silvia and you've Alan Austin did a lot of documentation so we know that out of the millions of people and this is why the Bahia revolt in in Brazil this was a slave revolt they were corresponding in Arabic that's how they were actually corresponding in their messages so that the the Portuguese couldn't read it the Portuguese Brazilians so there were huge populations of Muslims in South America in Central America some in in Mexico and then there were large numbers of slaves that were here in the United States that were Muslim yarrow Mohammed is one of my favorite characters he's you can see he he designed a Nigerian type of hat so this was a picture that was painted by the man who painted this Charles William peel painted George Washington and in his own diary he said he originally intended to yarrow Mahmud was a freed slave who lived in Washington during this was done in 1819 but he lived during the founding of the country he was known for saying his walking up and down Georgetown saying his prayers he was reciting the Quran which is a very North West African thing to do the West Evans at night they go out and they do that what they call their Surratt you know where they review their but he was noted to do that he would they said he would chant in Arabic his prayers walking up and down Georgetown he was very well loved he'd been a he was a he built houses from brick and he had his own house he was freed but Peale said the originally intended speaking to spend one day with him he ended up he liked him so much he spent three days with him when he sat for him because he enjoyed the experience so much so you can tell he's got any smile on his face like he's one of these people that his is just the default setting of his mouth was in a smile which there's not very many people like that some people like Trump has the default setting of a intense frown or really a scowl he's all he's got that scowl on his face you know but you could see this beautiful smile and then here's another extraordinary man Ibrahim been sort so that he was actually the subject of a film that was done by Michael Wolfe and Alexander grönemeyer about the the prince what was it called Prince among slaves so this was a man who was freed he went he went around the country lecturing raised money actually got his family freed and ended up this man is another extreme man a you've sought a man Diallo this is a from Senegal beautiful man he was actually painted in England he became a cause celebra he he the Unitarians were so impressed he learned English in a few months and he was a theologian so he would debate against the Trinity and the Unitarians were so impressed with it that they would take him to debate against the Trinitarian preachers in the churches and he ended up going to England he was he was honoured in England and he ended up having commercial ties with the English and going back to Senegal so another really wanted to do him first because I was involved in that but I really thought that he was just such incredible he was clearly ally of God I mean I believe this because you know in the prison he was put in jail for a short period but they they all just couldn't help but really admiring this man and then this is an actual photograph of a Muslim omar bin Saeed another extraordinary character with an amazing story he was also educated and this is this actually from his own hand yeah that's actually from sort of monk and it's accurate so he rode out Swat monk in his thing George Washington pigment and he in it he he asked him to find him some slaves and in the letter he actually says they can be Christians or muhammadans or atheists as long as they have good character so the Equal Opportunity slavery was only a good good character and a nice face right that was his criterion so we have pictures of him so this is in the actual letter that's in his own hand so he says they could be so clearly there were Muslims that he knew were good people to have on the plantation I guess and yeah so very interesting history this country has but here's a picture of him right there and there you see in the back little turban on they called these blackamoors it was a status symbol I have a Muslim slave the war of Tripoli is probably one of the great tragedies in American history Washington did not want a war economy he did not want a standing army because he did not want the burden of that it would take on the Treasury and believe it or not the Treaty of Tripoli and Algiers cost the US government at the time $850,000 that was the deal that they paid to the Muslims of North Africa and that was one third of the federal budget at the time amazing but Washington did not he thought it was better to pay tribute than to get into a war economy because he just felt it would really do what it did to the European states which was create massive debt so now we have a you know we have almost a trillion dollar budget now for the it's moving up upwards everything's about six hundred billion dollars this crazy war economy so Jefferson when he became president he wanted to didn't want to pay tribute and so he said we should go to war with them so he begins the thing the US Constitution one of the things about the Americans is that the technology has always been extraordinary at this time the the America's developed ships that were that were built with oak from Georgia and they called them Ironsides and the French and English thought they were made of iron because the cannonballs would bounce off of them the oak was so strong it wouldn't penetrate the wood and so this is this is why they were so effective so Jefferson actually had them build these I think he he earmarked for four of these ships and this Edward Preble was the the Commodore of the Constitution and he was tasked with dealing with what they called the Barbary pirates and I want to say piracy is basically what your enemies do not what you do but if you read the Constitution there's something if they're called mark letters of marque and reprisal we have some lawyers here I don't know who's a lawyer we have a large did you do that in constitutional law yeah what's up of marque and reprisal it's basically permission for private ships to pirate ships of the enemy so the US Constitution actually grants the right for piracy on the high seas so this is what countries do the Muslims were were if you had a treaty with them they didn't attack your ships but if you didn't have a treaty with them they would attack your ships so when the Americans broke off from England the English pressured the Algeria and Libya and Tunis to actually target the American ships the English ships weren't being harassed because they had treaties with these so they said no no you have to target them put pressure on them so this is what happened now this is a very decadent unfortunately and we have some algerian here so i don't wanna i love our i study in algeria but the Algerians were the government was pretty decadent I mean nothing's changed it's been going on for a while but Bainbridge actually took the Philadelphia in to Istanbul in in in in the Marmara sea he goes into Istanbul and he meets with the Ottoman caliph at the time the Ottoman can have said that he was so happy to see stars in the American flag he said we too have stars and he said the beauty of this is that there's enough room in this world for all of us just like there's enough room in this guy for the stars that's what he told the American he said there's plenty of room for us and and so Bainbridge though loses the Philadelphia and it runs a ground on some shoals and this young man lieutenant he could have almost been President of the United States but I don't know if people know but there's cities all over America called Decatur they're named after this is the first major hero superstar in early America this man that arrayed on the Philadelphia it was it was in the the harbor and they dressed up as Muslims and they went in pretending they were a Maltese ship that needed help and so they lined up alongside the the the the the Philadelphia to destroy it because at the time the Philadelphia would be like today having a nuclear warhead or f-16 it was very advanced technology and it would have really given them an advantage and so and and here's this but most bizarre thing and this is the weird thing about history there was a character in Libya the Khurram Lea's were the rulers of Libya at the time but there was a character in the name Peter Lyle Peter Lyle was a Scotsman and they had these characters called Rena Gatos these were Europeans that became Muslim they called them Renegado renegades the Spanish called them Renegado but it became a term used even amongst the English Peter Lyle had been impressed by the Americans when he was a young man and if you know about impressment it was a horrible thing if you want to read a good story about his Billy Budd by Herman Melville but impressment was where they would just come alongside a ship and force people or they would take people from the shore and just bring them onto the ship it was basically like a slavery he had been impressed on an American ship he hated Americans he became a Muslim he actually rise to the level of Admiral and he took the name war autorelease so he was immediately battle which is where we get the word Admiral from he told the Libyans the Americans are cowards they don't know how to fight just we can deal with them big mistake so this was the beginning of the Special Forces so they went in this was in 1812 was actually before it but they went into the harbor in Tripoli dressed as these and this is Decatur this is sorry Preble but Decatur goes in and and leads it was basically a suicide mission they actually thought they were gonna die and they were volunteered on a suicide mission as you know most congressional medals of Honor go to people that died doing something so there are suicide missions they don't I mean suicide bombing is haram and I've always been against it but the idea of sacrificing your life for others in war is known to be bravery so that's what they do they they end up blowing up the ship and and then will General William Eaton leads an army of it's a very bizarre army this should really be a film but he leads them across the desert from Egypt half of them are Arab mercenaries he leads him across with the small group of Marines and into Doudna in in Libya because the brother the two crumblies one brother wanted to usurp the other Brotherhood so he sided with the Americans and this constantly happens in Muslim history is again and again so he goes across the desert here quicker okay and then so that's this a picture of the Marines attacking dharna and then raising the flight was the first time the flag was raised in a foreign nation I don't have sound but it goes from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli so--that's Tripoli yeah that's the marine him now this is the Mamluks sword which actually became the official sword of marine officers so they still have Mameluke swords very interesting it was actually given by the Egyptian ruler to the Marine officer so and it became the standard for the Marines so here's some Bolly ban right no they're not those are Americans that's a civil war both sides were they had these these they called them swabs from swaiiow and and they used Moroccan designs because they were still enamored of the Moroccan all the a lot of the military stuff comes from Muslims all these designs on them so but in the Civil War they had they had these swabs they were they were Americans they weren't Muslims but anyway so we've been here from the beginning and we had this is Reverend George Bush who's the great-great great-great-grandfather I think it's 8th or something of President George Bush wrote the life of Muhammad right that's that's amazing Washington Irving wrote life of Muhammad when he deals with the age of Aisha he just says he doesn't make any comment about it he just says what was known that women in the Iranian matured early that was his only comment because it wasn't shocking to pre-modern people's getting married at 12 or 13 and there's debates on that but this is another extraordinary muslim alexandre russell webb he had been a a console in philippines and he got to know the muslims in the philippines ended up becoming Muslim noble drew Ali it's very interesting some of the African Americans attempting to discover their Muslim roots this was the beginning of this and from these type of events the nation will emerge which will will will bring Ellis Island the first arab immigrations that happen in in the 1890s and then obviously the Melungeons are very interesting they think that there probably have Muslim descent but the Melungeons they think Abraham Lincoln might have been Melungeon hence his interesting features another thing the Washington Monument which was in the watch amount and believe it or not I was told about this by a Turkish a historian of Turkey who told me that on the 14th floor there is a Torah from Abdul Majeed Khan to Washington to the American government when I went there to film this we got permission to film they did not know this to hora existed and they swore to us that there was no Turkish this was purely American and we they they we they went up to the 14th floor on the elevator sure enough that to what I was there they didn't even know this and there it is this is in the Washington Monument sultan abdul majeed donated $30,000 it was the largest single donation for the building of the Washington Monument and on the Torah it says he did this in order for there to be peace between the Ottomans and between the Americans as an act so this is to support the continuation of true friendship abdun ajiz Hahn's clear and pure name was written on the lofty stone in washington that's what's written in turkish he also he was so happy with purchasing Winchester rifles that he sent all these Turkish workers and they built a Winchester factory based on Turkish architecture which exists to this day and it's got all this tile on calligraphy in history is bizarre now the interior I'm almost done so I've gone on a long time and it wasn't anywhere near as wonderful that's what we heard before but interior dome of the of Thomas Jefferson Building so on this dome it gives all of the influences to America that's what that's what it was meant to honor all the influences of America and the only two religions that are mentioned are Islam and Judaism it's just amazing so there it is and they've got a mathematician so you can see they're Germany Italy Spain these are all influences England France America Egypt Judea Greece Rome and Islam on the fresco this was done in 1932 on the north wall of the Supreme Court of the United States they have a fresco of all the greatest law makers in human history to honor the whole concept of law and the making of law because that's what the Supreme Court judge does it judges law the legality of a decision of a judge and there is a symbol of Islam the Prophet Muhammad's Eliza I there were some Muslims that actually tried to they petitioned to get this removed which really bothered me first of all and that's why the next slide I want to put this so they're on the North three is a great lawgivers is the is a symbol it's a symbol of the Prophet Muhammad holding a sword which is government to enforce the law and the law together because governments need power to enforce the rule of law but it's very important always to remember so seen as passive and peep right you guys know what does that say this is not a pipe what is it it's just this picture a pipe is something that you can smoke something with you can't do it with that right it's not a trick question that's not a pipe when they draw these pictures you have to look if they're doing it like in that case it was to honor the Prophet but if it's to denigrate our prophet that's not our prophet and if you think it is you're a Kaffir because the prophets eyes and when they attacked him they called him with them mum it's inside Behati which means the blameworthy they took muhammad the praiseworthy and they made the name with them mum What did he say he said isn't it wonders how God removes them away from me they're talking about somebody named who them and my name is Muhammad so like I when I hear these people say Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad that mom it's not Muhammad they're talking about some character named Muhammad that's not our prophet his name's Muhammad right it's a ha with a shed - over the meme Muhammad subtle are they would send him that's our Prophet Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad I don't know who they're talking about not talking about my prophet so this was a letter of peace and friendship this is the oldest treaty in the history of the United States of America and was to the Moroccans the Moroccans were the first people to recognize the sovereignty of the United States that was the Sultan of Morocco it's the first country to recognize the United States sovereignty and this was a this has been unbroken the first piece of land that was given to the Americans in a foreign territory is the American Legation in Tangier which I visited still there its runt there's an American there it was the palace of the Sultan who gave it to the Americans to house their diplomatic corps as it was just given as a gift I'll tell you another story that I didn't mention in here but it's a very fascinating story in the 1830s Sultan Saeed and this is the same family that rules Oman today Oman is a very fascinating country because Oman is one of the it's a very old there several hundred years and they ruled a lot of East Africa so tenzin a.m. Mozambique all these places so they they they had an empire there but he noticed in the 1830s these American ships coming and how powerful they were so he had an Omani ship built to sail across the Atlantic he filled it with gifts and unfortunately two concubines so he sent that the concubines were for the president but it's they show up in the harbor in New York and these sailors came down with their turbans and their beards if people see all nineties they know that they traditionally had big bears in truth and they were a big hit in in New York a lot of people were going down to see the ship they brought all these gifts the Congress debated about what to do with the gifts and this is the beginning of the Smithsonian they sent the concubines back anyway George Washington in his farewell address he cautioned the Americans to observe good faith and justice towards all nations cultivate peace and harmony with all religion and more out religion and morality not our religion but religion and more out is nikeyra right you feel that among amongst some of the oh so lien so this is my hope we need to we need to recognize that we have to live together we have weaponry now that can destroy large numbers of people with literally the push of a button we're living in a time with just incredible instability very dangerous times we're leaving a time where individuals can get hold of nuclear materials and create really wreak havoc and we just have to pray you know really people need to pray the Provos I am said that prayer Ward's off harm there's three according to immolate and Josiah there's three things that do I does if it's strong do I it literally will ward off whatever harms coming if it's not strong enough it gets overwhelmed but it can mitigate the harm and the third and this is in Asahi hadith the third is that the the prayer and and the tribulation yeah tell you John they start fighting and they keep fighting until the day of judgment so the tribulation doesn't come down so don't underestimate the power of prayers to end of the somebody will Salah don't really seek help in prayer and impatience but we really need a lot of prayer and patience our community's a bleaker community but we're also very fortunate community we're not we're not oppressed in this country by and large I mean the idea that we're oppressed I think is a false narrative we we have a lot of incredible opportunities in this country but the most important thing is that we we live our Islam and we practice it and and and really we we be upright people virtuous people because people recognize that and in a time where everything's falling apart you know they the poet said turning turning in the widening gyre the Falcon cannot hear the falconer the center can't Things Fall Apart the centre cannot hold mere anarchy is loosed upon the world and the blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned the best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity so we really need to quantum hydromatic or agenda Ness you have to live up to that kuntum is in the past tense right but all Maher said the only way you can fall into that is to do the conditions so just ahead and I want to thank Sam again for this wonderful forum that you're doing may God give it great success continuity perpetuity may he bless all of you and the people that come here and and inspire us to do similar works and to show who we are by our actions and our deeds in the llaha ya'muru era surah comme well Monica mob sherry come free wire but I can yonder era Carew become an American God does not look at your forms or your colors your complexions but he looks at your arts and your actions and to translate that into grammatical terms God doesn't look at nouns and adjectives but he looks at verbs and adverbs and just to give you an example of this all morality should be based on verbs and adverbs and false morality is based on nouns and adjectives so just to give you a quick example of this if I say a palestinian killed a jew the noun palestinian should be irrelevant and the noun jew should be irrelevant the question is what was the verb killed and then you need an adverb why did he kill him justly unjustly in self-defense that's an adverbial phrase that's morality is never to look at the nouns and the attitudes but look at the actions and the adverbs that give you an understanding of those actions that qualify those actions why and and that's the way that's true morality and that's what we need to inculcate music inculcate a morality not based on color not based on wealth or gender or any of these things but based on what people do and why they do it a couple of questions I'd like to ask I've heard you in the past speak about some of the virtues of you know American culture including independence so we have these these binaries in Islam talk lead and geek and knock these sciences and ugly sciences basically this juxtaposition of a transition that's transmitted and one that's realized within so how can we grapple with this within our tradition of legal scholarship Sufism this this sense of needing to receive something from teachers and needing to develop our own independence I think said the best thing he said know the truth know men by the truth but don't know the truth by men which is a difficult thing because you need people to learn we have teachers and we have people that we have to learn from so the beginning of learning is belief you you we were just looking at something yesterday in in a class we were doing at school about that you know a student has to accept their ignorance before they can remove that ignorant there's something that they're called compounded ignorance there's a famous story Bruce Lee used to tell this story but it's a story comes out of samurai tradition actually about a man who went to study with a master and they're doing the tea and he and he's telling him he learned this from so-and-so and he learned this from so-and-so on you learned that and so the master just keeps pouring the tea until it overflows and and then the student says why are you pointing that the cups full and he said what it can't take anymore and he said yeah he said well it seems that you're full also so I don't know what I can teach you because you have to go to a a teacher with a type of humility and and and if you don't have that you can't learn salsa de variety allodynia take a balloon if it oughta be little Huck you know I will remove my signs from people that have arrogance in the earth without any just right and and so humility is very important of just maintaining a type of humility intellectual humility is important spiritual humility there's you know the story about the Imam you know he's in the mob and he kind of has an epiphany falls down and starts saying I'm not saying I'm not saying and then what Evan comes in he says the Imams nothing what am I he's falls down he says nothing then the guy who comes in who sweeps the mosque out he sees the Imam and then he's saying they know the whole Quran by heart I'm just ignorant what am i he falls down saying I'm nothing I'm nothing and the Imam says to the moyen look good things he's nothing so that that's spiritual pride which is a real problem right okay that's a Jewish joke that I just switched to Imam and it's originally the rabbi in the Cantor but that's a nice thing about Jews about religious jokes you can just change the names and they fit so that that's very important is just humility and also tuck lead is a negative thing in our tradition but it's a necessary thing for somebody whose ignorance is just to have humility and recognize that they they need to learn and and we should all try to learn I think the most important things about this tradition is a lot of the basic principles are not they're very simple and universal like for instance if the Muslims just took one verse of Quran and applied it that you we changed the world well Khalil in a sea of asana speak beautifully to people like all if you just applied that one verse or it's vanity here a sin you know return are wrong with a right you just apply these are not hard things to understand they're hard to implement you know but they're not a sustainable if somebody will set up you know seek help from God with patience and prayer there's so many principles in the Quran like that so I think it's it's important to recognize that this religion is multi-layered at the highest level you're dealing with some of the most sophisticated thought in human history our theology is very deep it's very complex it has profound metaphysical foundations and and and and and and then at the same time it can be understood by very simple people and I'll give you one example of that I was in Morocco and I was at a gas station somebody was filling gas and and I had a jalopy on so this man thought that I was learning it or something so he came up to me he was a gas station attendant he's a young man he said you know I'm studying at the University I'm just I do this for but he said I have a philosophy teacher he's really confused me I said what'd he say he said he said that you know everybody says you know God created this God created that good but but it begs the question who created God and so I told my hadith in Sahih Muslim that the prophets have said they is that a Nessy at the center new people will continue to philosophize that's what philosophy is asking question and they'll say who created this and the answer is Allah and who created this the answer is Allah until somebody will say who created Allah is if you hear that say I believe in Allah as I told him that hadith I saw the in Shara in his heart I saw it on his face his whole face changed and he said just Alcala had a father Stanley you know and he just said Amman to be loved you know and and that's the beauty of guidance like the prophesy it's a very simple statement but what the Prophet was essentially saying was you can't think beyond the the unthinkable you know there's a there's a famous magazine called Georg Cantor he has Cantor's theorem which says that the whole can be greater than the part well Cantor believed that you could have an actual and infinity which Aristotle said you couldn't and most massive scene say you can't sew Cantor said if you have an actual infinity the even numbers could be equal to the to the odd numbers so he said so the part can be equal to the hole right that's Canton interest Eric Cantor ended up in a straightjacket literally in an insane asylum he went mad why because he contemplated infinity the Prophet said letter fukuda Fila you know do not think about God but think about the gifts of God because if you start thinking about God the word in Arabic Allah is from well AHA which is to bewilder or confuse you can't think about God all you can think about is the attributes of God and the gifts of God but to actually contemplate the essence of God is Haram you know it's just you can't do it because you will go mad it seems to get to the you know the limitations of rational mind it certainly has its its its place its function that's where that's what belief is yeah I mean look scientists they have believed too they never talked about it their belief is in the order of the universe because all their science is based on the assumption that the universe is orderly that these laws will actually work I mean Einstein his his his laws equals mc-squared is based on the idea that you can measure energy we can measure mass and you and you can measure the constant right but what Einstein said is the only thing that he finds unintelligible about the universe is its intelligibility that's somebody who we know why it's intelligible because God made it to correspond with our minds and and that's why our believers knowledge irrespective of what faith you're in and I'm not a perennial Asst but irrespective what you faith you're in you are advantaged over a materialistic scientist because all can determine is how we know why and that's a great gift because why is that the essence its purpose like why are we here where did we come from where are we going what's gonna happen when we die and one of the most amazing things about profits is unlike philosophers philosophers every single philosopher that comes disagrees with his teacher every single one like Aristotle said about Plato I love playdough played as a friend but the truth is a greater friend so I have to disagree about these archetypes right you look at all every single one of them they they disagree with their teachers with rare exception I'm talking about the great philosophers all the prophets say the same thing every single one of them how did they do that why do why do they all say there's a day of judgment every Jewish prophet that came none of them decided oh you know what I disagree with Isaiah none of them and the prophets lies have confirmed the previous revelations Jesus said there's a day of judge said you're gonna be raised up you're gonna be resurrected Moses said you're gonna be rezar of them said the same thing the day of judgment is coming so that's an amazing thing so I you know I think Muslims we just we have to recognize what a gift we have and then the other thing that we have you know and and and again people need solace and and religion is the essence of worldly solace if you don't have religion you're going to have to find something to opiate the pain of being in the dunya and I just spoke to a lady today who's losing her 13 year old child you know this is dunya this is a very difficult place to be in and you will Allah says well anybody window can be shaken Menil Hoffy will jury who knocks in min and I'm worried when you see with a mirage Bob Bashara sovereign we will test you with some thing of fear and hunger and loss of life and property so give glad tidings to patient ones imam zaman Sheree in Attica chef says he says be shaken because whatever jubilation you have it could be greater you lost one child you could have lost all your children you lost one arm you could have lost both arms it could always be greater but then he says but Allah is warning you when Edna Blouin we will test you and so he's giving us a heads up that you might everything might be fine today but you can wake up tomorrow with a diagnosis and your Iman has to be as strong if not stronger in that situation that it is today but for people to say you know people say Dylan has a wonderful line he said you say you lost your faith you that you know it's not like that you had no faith to lose and you know it what is faith if you can lose it and and that's why this this place is difficult and religion is the necessary fentanyl to get you through the pain of this abode but our prophet told us Allah Ladouceur them that the person who had the most difficult like the believer that had the most suffering in the world will go into there's a river which is called the river of life in the afterlife and you go into it and you come out of it completely renewed and that man will be asked have you ever known suffering and he will say la ilahe I never knew suffering this is the one that for 60 70 80 years is now looking at infinity and in perfect bliss and people say you know the after life's a hype well good luck people have been saying that for a long time you know we make a choice in this dunya to believe or disbelieve my man chef Edmond weilman chef a yak for whoever wants to believe let him believe whoever wants to disbelieve let him disbelieve you have a choice but just know the choice is going to have consequences it's a long answer to a short question it's brilliant I like to ask just to two other quick questions related to to your response do you see a harmony that could be established as there was in you know classical Islamic history between faith and philosophy between for example abu hamid Cazalas Mishka to Lenoir and super verities hick metal - rock there seems to be a connection there were philosophers people of faith who based their writings upon the writings of the theologians I mean first of all I would say that Allah has created a creation wait a sec I couldn't have said that you know your endeavours on this planet are diverse there's all these different people there are very simple people and those people actually aren't lucky you know simple faith you know this a famous father Dino Rossi was walking once with all these students in his in his trail you know and this old woman saw him and she asked one of the students who's that she's amazed all these followers you don't know that's fine yes 70 proofs for the existence of God and she said if she didn't have 70 doubts he wouldn't need 70 proofs and when father Dean heard that he said I they come the Eman and I Giants have the faith of old women you know that that's real faith right and so there's a great blame you should never belittle simple people because some of the most beautiful followers of the Prophet were simple people like that woman who used to sweep the or fear Farrah you know Farrah didn't know who that is fearful sometimes it's called Kira Kira they may know Kira Kira was nobody Kira Kira a newbie he was one of the servants of the Prophet SAW him he loved do you know who Safina was Safina Melora Selena he was a servant of the prophet saww I saw him he was a freed slave and he served the prophet and he tells this is a true story he tells that he got lost in a forest and a lion came and was about to attack him he says wait how can you know watch out he said Anna Athena monarus Juanita I'm Safina the servant of the Prophet Mohammed and he said that the lion he said he came up and started nudging him and then he walked him through and he warned any animal that threatened him until he got him out and then he said he said when he said that he wagged his tail as if he was acknowledging and then when he left he said the lion hum humma mmm-hmm as if kind of what that is if he was saying goodbye to me and we have many examples of that from Sahaba so these are simple people that had profound faith and but you also have in steins you have people like Richard Fineman you know who are thinking about some of the most abstract things on the planet religion has to encompass the whole spectrum it's not a true religion if it can't satisfy the most brilliant people and the simplest people and that's the genius of our religion and this is why I'll give you one example of this bruno Greta Tony all right Bruno where the donee is in the top ten cosmologists on the planet he's a he's a physicist astrophysicist which is our highest material science Astro Finn a stroll physics he's an astrophysicist he was actually responsible for looking at background radiation and analyzing background radiation from the edges of the universe I read an article about him in the in The Herald Tribune and in that book and in that article he talked about how as a cosmologists he looks at the universe as signs that need to be interpreted and I was thinking he should read the Quran so then when I googled him found out he had become Muslim in France and this man has over a hundred peer-reviewed papers on galaxy formation right I mean he's really one of the top scientists in the world and we almost had him at Harvard and Harvard was so excited about getting it we were gonna do a thing because I correspondent with him but he said in one paper he said as a scientist I had to be true to my intellect and he said but as a believer I also had to satisfy my heart and he said I found Islam was the only religion that could do that for me that it didn't again my intellect and in it and it asserted my heart and and so philosophy the Muslims philosophy is dangerous because if you're not grounded in in in tradition well and you go into philosophy first you can really get confused especially modern philosophy because a lot of monitor philosophy is is very a theistic and and these poor students go into university courses and take these courses in philosophy and these guys are powerful Sophists that really know how to argue and confuse people but philosophy as a subject in the Islamic tradition is essential to the religion because in having a metaphysical foundation for your religion you can defend it in a way that can't be defended without that foundation when right what they call obfuscation Zoar shubo had come and in losing philosophers we lose defenders of the faith and and and that and then the defense becomes the Blunden you know it just becomes the the hammer which is no defense so you need philosophy to be part of the reason and I just literally today i sent to abdullah ali abdullah bin VII was interviewed on Sky News and and the the interviewer who was from the Gulf one of the Gulf states he said Jeff you're always quoting philosophers that some una mas a philosophy is Haram and he said philosophy is hikmah and he said philosophers are men and they sometimes have wisdom that we can benefit from and he said the prophesy him said al-hikmah to Bartlet and movement wisdom is the lost property of the wherever he finds it he has more right to it and so there's there's great wisdom in in philosophy there's great wisdom in poetry I mean poke poetry is one of the great art forms of Muslims and that's why people are going there so limón are so important because that art form is is is it's a sign that we're maintaining our humanity if you have a culture that doesn't have poets you're in big trouble really because poets what they're doing is they're using language as the art form and language is the highest thing that we have as a species and this is why the Quran is words and and and and and there are many beautiful art forms but we share those art forms with most other creatures I mean beavers build extraordinary dam that are marvel to look at bees make beautiful works of art you know they're tessellated honeycomb beautiful hexagrams but the poet is his art form is the gift that God gave us all right man Demoman you know he taught human beings how to articulate and and this is the great gift and that's why our community was always a commune of language and you cannot understand language at the deepest levels without having a philosophical foundation for the languages which is why we had great grammarians we had great rhetorician and if you study them they were profound philosophers of language really and Noam Chomsky's coming next week and if you're here is it next week I hope be here October 26th ask him about the Arab grammarians because Noam Chomsky knows Arabic and and there's a Palestinian Arab who wrote a PhD dissertation which I read dr. Omaha I gave it to dr. Omar the PhD dissertation showing that a lot of his theories were actually preceded by Iraqi grammarians in the 4th century right so yeah and metaphysics metaphysics is the first science because it's the science of first principles and and you have to have a metaphysical foundation the Quran has many many metaphysical implications but because it's a revelation it's not a book of philosophy but embedded in it is a metaphysical perspective that has to be drawn out and I'll just to give you one example there are two ways to look at the world one is that the world is is-is-is evil by its nature and there's all these horrible things that happen in the world and the other is to see the world as a testing ground for your own spiritual growth because things are going to happen that are very troubling in your life but the Quranic perspective is that he does these things to in order for you to grow and so the believer grows by it and the disbeliever is stunted by it and that's the different that's a metaphysical understanding that if you don't have that the world will confuse you to no end thank you for that shape the last I'll just briefly ask one last question I think you've alluded to this in your talk but you know how would the the prophet peace and blessings be upon him respond to some of the challenges that we're facing right now in the United States you know racism sexism tribalism but in particular war as well which which I think is at the root of a lot of our problems wars abroad how can we grow as a community here well at the same time being concerned about what's happened what's happening I mean first of all you know the Christians haven't seen what would Jesus do like that's a evangelical principle they always ask what would Jesus do in this situation we know what the prophesizing would do in any given situation because no prophet is more detailed historically than our prophet so we know how he dealt with all these various situations that he found himself in and and and I would argue one that the Prophet I said I'm dealt with all the major human problems that we should be concerned with in the farewell address the farewell address which is recorded in a few different iterations but essentially deals with economic injustice which is based on usery and and usury is one of the biggest problems on the planet and nobody wants to talk about it it's just amazing the second was racism he dealt with racism and what's amazing about that hadith is he said laughing loudly out of you mean well I mean well a.d us what other of y'all well area beyond us what it let me talk what really struck me about that hadith is he did not collective eyes he said there's no preference of an era individual over a non-arab individual and there's no preference of a non-arab individual oh he didn't say laugh of that I let out of Allen Adham you didn't he did not collect about he brought it down to where the problem is in the individual heart and this is if we will not get rid of racism until we recognize that this is an individual problem it can have collective realities when large groups are racists so it does happen but always within those groups are good people so in the history of America you have constantly white Americans that were fighting against racism many of them having terrible lives because of it you know just horrible lives and and you've always had those people and and and then you have the fence sitters and then you had the people that were just clearly wrong but if you collective eyes it's a crime against those individuals amongst that group and that's why the poor on always it talked about many is right it says men women want me known they so so I mean a holida kita it's always giving you look there's people among them that are good there's among them that are decent don't collectivize them soaps the Quakers exactly you know so this is really important then he said there's no preference of a black a white man over a black man or a black man over a white man he went both ways he didn't just say because the problem then was you know the white against the black that's been the problem on this planet for a long time color is Varna in Hindu which is means caste system means color in in Sanskrit so this has been a human problem for a long time on this planet and you will find in many many cultures before the Europeans ever showed up on the historical seen this problem existed you know and it's a if Tina it's an empty lot in in many cultures but it but the if Tila is is a test to see what what you're made of what's your metal and we have people that despite everything just did amazing things so he dealt with racism you know and racism the word on Saudi as a modern word in Arabic racism is a species of arrogance its kibbe the real diseases is arrogance to think you're better than another especially for something as stupid as the color of your skin I mean that's just stupid do you know it really is and and then you have it's just crazy you know I've got these white people that do all these things to turn brown and then you've got black people doing all these things turn white it's I don't know it's very odd you know but that is just this is called an accident in philosophy so it's it's not an essence not any essential quality because it can change I can go out in the Sun and turned dark and and somebody who has black skin can can literally lose their pigmentation turn white it does that change their essence no and so that's where Islam looks at the essence of people and what's the quality of you know the content of their character what are they made of and and the beautiful hadith of ah both are looking fatty when he called you know some say it was banal it's it's different and about but he said yeah better so that which is almost like using the word for the Arabs you know but what the Prophet said to him to me is is very profound he said on to Emeril tikka tikka jihad yeah you're a man who still has some Jannah in him he didn't say you're evil he didn't say he said you've got something to work on you know you're you you haven't gotten this religion yet if you've still got that but but he recognized him as a believer so there people have things to do we're evolving and we have to allow for people to evolve the I did somebody was a racist 30 years ago and that means he's a racist today that's criminal it's criminal because people evolve and so that's and then he dealt with sexism and he said your women are in a compromised situation and women are compromised people don't like that fact but when when societies break down it's the women that suffer you look at the Yazidi women it was just dragged off the men were killed and the women were dragged off you look at the sexual things that are happening so most women are physically weaker than men and that's why rape occurs far more often against women for that reason because it's hard for them to fight off a strong man there's women that could throw me up on that mat there and knock me out do it that's true but we're talking about the vast majority of women are compromised physically so they can be overwhelmed by a man physically and that's why men have to be taught to honor women and to be chivalrous and these ideas of removing this from culture is very dangerous this whole modern movement against masculinity is very dangerous because masculinity there's a reason why men are meant to have masculinity it's to protect and defend you know these are important qualities and this idea of just removing that from society it's anti Fattah and and and and and it belies inherent impulses in in the most noble qualities of human being so but we should see the Equality of men and women before the law before God and intellectually there any women that are far smarter than most men and and and and vice versa goes both ways intellect is very close the difference between male intelligence and female intelligence by and large is is it's negligible it really isn't that's been proven women are perfectly competent learning anything that the vast majority men can do there is however a very small select group of mathematical geniuses that tend to be male that's that's just a fact that in spatial reasoning you have a very small select group but that's not men that's just a select group I mean they're literally could probably fit into this room on the planet but what men go around boasting were smarter than women because of that it's just stupid you know these are stupid be the ones that go insane thinking about infinity exactly yeah and then finally the last thing in that farewell address was he talked about the manipulation of nature which was the intercalation you know taking the natural order of the calendar and changing it and manipulation of nature is another threat to our species what we're doing now with all these manipulating genetics and things like that so I think he summed up all the major problems on the planet economic injustice which is class warfare racial injustice which is racial warfare and then gender injustice which leads to gender warfare and this is we have to avoid these Wars because they're not Wars we want to fight their wars we want to prevent and we can only prevent them by bringing these prophetic truths and getting larger and larger numbers of people to commit to them thank you so much Sheikh Hamza oh the Benicia tryna Jamie nononono he come to the diner to be Lana mean allahumma salli ala sayidina muhammad al-fatih lima Oobleck o hot smelly mad subha connoisseur hug bad luck I had to eat a sorta kimochi mo and the Hakka catch it here on external idea Salam alaikum how are you did I was very nice to see you it's very nice to be here I'm honored that you've invited me into your company as you said my name is Amir today man I'm gonna recite some poems and the time that I have to recite a little bit I want to to make the floor open though I don't want to organizers to get nervous I shall I won't go over my time but I do this our poetry what I do I've been doing this as for a living for a long time at least for a young man we're doing it for a long time and I do it in all kind of spheres and all kind of communities domestically and abroad and it's very nice to be here with you because in this not just this community people in some people that are actually in this room but are some of the people that grew me in my Islam and matured me and my assignment so I'm very happy and honored to be here with you also all the poetry today I'm gonna recite I've heard it all before because I wrote the poetry so it's not new and terribly exciting for me in that kind of way I could be at home with my feet up eating cocoa pebbles watching reruns of Martin reciting my poetry but I said I got out of my bed and off of my couch and I came here to recite for you I'm saying all that's say no that to say that you are the only thing that's making this special for me the poems I've heard before you're making it special and I'm thanking you for being here with me to make it special for me and I hope to do something special for you all that being said also if there's any questions or comments concerns I want you to feel free I just happened to be here standing with the microphone but if you have something to say I would like for you to go ahead and say it and we can have this to be more of a conversation than just a presentation and that would make it even more special for me we an agreement for that that was like seven percent of the people here it has to be a consensus you know for it to work right yes okay and I love you to see how nice that was that wouldn't happen maybe if I didn't open the floor but he felt comfortable to say that let me feel very nice thank you I love you you know they say the Lord will come like a thief in the night perhaps the Lord will come and the things that I write and the things that we bleed in the things that we've read and the things we recite maybe they're afraid I'll spit fire and he's kerosene streets will ignite or that I'll spit water and he's bearing streets to give life and I've learned the thing that pulls the thing to the pipe is the same thing that pulls a human being to the light the love of love a means to cope try try to inhale their dreams and exhale hope boom boys that matter people either fill it or don't so you can inhale their dreams in exhale hope but you better choose coca leaves and spit out dope and that remind me of a passage and I quote Allah will not change the condition of a people and today's change the conditioners was within themselves and quotes inshallah I won't falter steady rocket your boat to Swift traversing waters verses I've authored I offer as a solemn sacrifice upon the altar in order to alter their current conditions of our sons and our fathers and they say we need more black mayors and black lawyers I say we need more black Jon man suing Grammys for singing songs about our daughters because we are caught in a culture of defeatism worshipping victims and martyrs we are not victims but Victor's of we but witness our honor our brilliance of resilience and our beauty as father than pimping hos tricking Dogu Chi and Prada from science Rita Simpson road we are shook in the trauma of terrorism that precedes al Qaeda and Osama forget bin lie and Ben Franklin and Slade my great-great grand mama karma great-great-grandfather comma and Jewish nations up reservations comma but we caught in a coma sleep so the truth will have to come like a thief and the night but if you're awake you'll hear it and the things that we write and the things that we bleed and the things we recite and because the truth will come like a thief in the night being awake I've learned is the meaning of life [Applause] are there any questions comments or concerns I made a promise that I would open the floor for you if there's not it's okay but I just want you to feel free she asked she asked what does it feel like when a poem comes out and I said it's like I'm writing my insides out and I got to get it out before my pen dries out before my ego finds out okay let my ego find out cuz when I'm writing my insides out my every fear my every floor flies out in my ego with those fears and flaws hideouts or whatever I do can I my ego find out if I couldn't write my insides out I don't know I pally blow my bloody mind out instead I write and recite to bloom your third eye oh she said oh that's what danger that my walking is all about I said yeah she said well I'm glad you took the divine route I said yes I took the divine route but it's only a matter of time before the world finds out this is both heaven and how coming out of my mouth she asks where is the truth hidden I laughed not because she asked me because as I'm living a Monday the truth is hidden everywhere it's really everywhere there is no place you can scour search a visit except the truth isn't it the truth is hidden even in the question where is the truth hidden and truth the truth isn't hidden it can't be hit him it is a true and living those that are seeking to hide the truth try to convince me in you that they hid it but they did him and his not the truth isn't being spoken perhaps we are not ready to listen certainly we are not ready to listen and you may be at home in my poem and if not you may just visit and if you can't visit maybe I should have listened my poetry is not for everyone it's no navy-blue yankee fitted in fact it's highly acidic enough to burn for the mind of a critic why be a cynic who were moving beyond a speed of life there is no difference between time and distance such are both here and there in the same instant for instance i'm both manned an infant both devil and angel i'm both the witness and the witnessed both a monk and misfits I am the medicine in this sick if you would like to know the truth is and I wrote the answer to axis and senses and I told sis hold this close to your heart into your soul sit still when a summer solstice she said I can't keep my soul still it's hard to hold my focus she said I've noticed that I can't seem to focus in any real goals I can only focus on what's closest she said how do you know what your goal is so I don't how does one save the souls of the soulless an eviction notice stapled to the heart of the heedless so slept homeless no place to reside and so they hide out and slide in the bodies of two eyed men so my lyricism is an exercise in exorcism but the exoteric call it as so terrorism I learned jihad for loony the Sunni called me she Irish y'all call me Sufi the feds I have WMDs what I do with the loosely because what I do it too loosely make devil's rue sleep and I don't care who's on whose Dean I follow the one who was senator seven heavens and lands on two feet and it may be too deep but it is only by his life that you can see through me and if by his lights we have sight then what is the meaning of day and what is the meaning of night and I would like not to say that I'm living at night but I'm living very late awesome NL in Santa Fe wholesome rough translation I'm a loser I aim to block his light yet claim to follow his Sunna the truth is I wish I could sing so I could mask the bitter truth with sweet melody unfortunately for both you and me I only know how to speak straight with the record diction that doesn't allow for mistakes she said but you speak so whole while the beat breaks is so ill it's so real I said it's so real but I'm so fake she said what you sound so sure I said that's the point I'm not sure I'm barely a float in the sea without sure and if you sing when I saw that you will certainly know that certainty without flaws often delusion and no certainty at all and when it is certainly certainty it can be like the drunken munkey man so on and square looking at any moment he will fall but he never falls at them when she paused it began to recite dr. bong I was surprised nearly memorized my whole poem she said if I might travel in this world then where do I find home I say just keep your nose to the grindstone tell your mind to never mind the unknown this is why I rhyme like a Spirit of God is and my poem because in the beginning there was the word and before that there was the unheard the unseen there's nothing past but the present there's nothing past the past but the present just as the moon begins with the crescent it seems that way but in that there is the lesson the whole moons always present the whole moons always present the whole moons always present the hormones always present [Applause] any questions comments or concerns everybody's okay I don't know that I mean Allah I love my teeth thank you I want to recite something that's unfinished and I'm reciting it for the purposes of receiving blessing and benefit from all of you in your prayer there is a poem that I've been working on for a long time nine years that's a long time for me and it was an intention I had no idea that it was gonna take so long it was an intention I and in the spirit of this event how it applies is that one of the signs of the maturation of an Islamic community anywhere in the world as they develop poetry praises the prophets that are sort of lauhala valueless of them and their language and everyone has made their offering obviously the Arabs have made their offering the language that people speak or do have made their offering people will have people of so many languages have made the offerings and we have poetry that people obviously have written in English and praising the prophet salallahu alaihe salam but i wanted to write a no they say in search of the Great American Novel like I wanted to write but I can agreed upon a big poem for sayidina muhammad saw solo so I'm in the last part of it charlotta Allah will be finished and this I will in Charlotte Island it's called the lover the love in the beloved and it's basically the poem is I won't recite the whole thing now but the poem of being recitation maybe 40 or 45 minutes long so it's a long that the affair the whole affair the whole affair is love that is the beginning of a fair in the end of the affair of everything that Allah to Allah was a hidden treasure desiring to be known and if any of you have been in love have you never been in love if you've been in love you put your hand this 7 people been in love mashaallah well for you of the poor souls I've never been in love let me tell you something about what it's like to be in love when you're designed to be known if you beloved knows you you don't care who else knows you or doesn't know you if you want to be seen you only want to be seen by your beloved in fact if you dress nice thing you but ever doesn't see you wear the same clothes the next day because you feel of didn't see her it doesn't even count anyone who watches gaze upon you does it count but I was a hidden treasure desiring to be known and what he created is the reality of his beloved Muhammad sallallaahu and it was on them and what an amazing thing that is that he created sayidina muhammad saw also for himself and he created the rest of the creation for him trust that when adam alayhis-salam was seeking repentance and leaved in the garden on your throne I saw a line I know you will not put a name xa your name except that it was great with you after he creates this reality this light of muhammed sallalahu and I was from there next thing he creates his a pen and after that a pad and he creates the great love poem for Muhammad song which is the universe everything that is happening and everything that will happen written and the presence of his beloved muhammad salallahu alaihe salam and even in english to where we have universe uni means one verse means poem that the whole universe is a poem and the poem is about love so we are all in love there's no place to go actually other than being in love the only way to hide from love is you have to delude yourself you have to deny it but we are all essentially soaking in love living breathing and love our existence I on ik in the covalent bonds I love affairs everything from the material and material world love so I wanted to write about that and I want to write praising this one the body that that that reality came into because Allah to Allah could have made the great ocean Muhammad and we would have had to all go to this ocean and like bathe in air or drink its water or something like that but he didn't make it a ocean could have made the great planet Mohammed and we wouldn't have to look in the sky and we would have to say prayer prayers on this planet or the great mountain Mohammed or the great sky Mohammed oh the great tree Mohammad oh the great anything Muhammad said oh honey I don't sell them we brought him in the form and and in this form in our form and what a great honor that is for us so I wanted to praise him in his form and also praised his reality I proceeded his form and that goes past this form but without talking too much as just when I recite something of this poem such that in hopes that you'll pray for me and pray for the completion of it because it's in service of all of us all of us it is a gift from us to him you know someone came and asked about the character of the prophet salallahu alaihe salam and aisha radiallahu on her her mother asked him don't you recite the Quran yeah of course I recite the Quran said he was like the Quran walking so everything he is the Quran walking a Quran as Muhammad Hassan lying down and the creation the corn of coal fire corn is as if Allah said Muhammed which is the cone of cone Falcon so I said you are the Sun at noon you are the calf in a noon you are the bad in a scene in is seen and unseen you are surely see you are a night list day you are the meaning of being with the angels we pray Allah humma salli ala sayyidina muhammad al-fatih Halima you click our heart minima Sabich on our aqwal aqwal had alas erotica Musa chemo and early huh kikuchiyo ah MacDonald azim he's seeking to praise the beloved it's to throw a handful of dust into the desert to increase his vastness it is to spit into the sea to increase its volume it is a light a candle to support the Sun but may God be my witness that this paw report attempted but his unremembered memoir recited from a dismembered member of a mind bewildered a heart more beating and beating love did not descend upon his heart with a slow long drip of cool honey no love set upon his heart like a flesh-hungry flamed no love satin upon his heart like a pack of wild wolves don't you see their bellies fat for my flesh don't you see their blood in my don't you see my blood in their teeth let the red grin be as evidence that it is not that I was always heartless I used to be able to love he/she they and them but now my heart has been consumed by her ravenous love but the vow was anything other than itself I have fallen in love I have not fallen in love for what is beautiful I have not even fallen for beauty itself I have fallen for the well from which beauty drinks I have fallen into the world from which beauty drinks and it was to journey in yes and see saying like Joseph's brothers who cast me into its bottom but this world's darkness is brighter than the sun's light let the king of Egypt throw down the rope I will throw the rope back and tell him he is trying to sell me his junk for my jewels he's trying to trade me his dirt for my diamonds why me with the one who has the keys to the brains when I'm with the one who has the keys to the garden let this poems parchment be as Joseph's garment put it beneath your nose to heal your blindness put it beneath my nose to heal my blindness why I wet myself blinds he can to find it I run it between the hilltops searching for a sign of you running to and fro between safa and marwah between beauty and breaking which one I love that empties and our longing that fills but lovely just give me some hope that one day I will drink from your hand that I will smell your neck but these words they'll celebrate me and chew these words humiliate me my words can't not you're worthy and my love cannot not you're lovely I'm a poet of poor without the words wouldn't support without the words I'm a tree without the limbs of fire without the light you I see without the shore I day without the night but these words still celebrate me but in truth these words humiliate me I've lit the candle to express the Sun I spilled water in my hand to describe the ocean my words can't match your worthy and my love can't match your lovely you are immense I am a mess beloved what can a poet bring his profit what can a pauper bring his King when you were already the Sun at noon throughout the CAF in a noon you want the bad and as seen in the seen and unseen you are surely see you are a nightless day you are the meaning of being with the Angels we pray Allah who must surely allah sayidina muhammad al-fatih lim an ugly color horribly man Sarah Connor Cyril Huck will hide to Eli Sir Arthur camasta quinoa Allah early haka culture he wanted on another thank you very much [Applause] you

Channel: Hub Talks

Views: 56,262

Rating: 4.8594251 out of 5

Keywords: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Amir Sulaiman, Zachary Markwith, Islam, United States, Hub Foundation, Hub Talk, Hub Talks

Id: -D5Opg9G_js

Length: 123min 14sec (7394 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018