- [Dr. Nasr] One of the characteristics of modernism is that the soul is turned completely outward and cannot live with itself. You always need something to occupy you. We have lost our sense of love of the quiet. ('The Centre' by Sami Yusuf) - Dr. Nasr, I have to begin by saying I'm a huge admirer of yours. I'm a huge, huge admirer. I'm honoured, truly honoured that you could join us
on Reflections today. Thank you so much for joining us. - I'm also very glad to accept your invitation, and I'm also very glad to know such a gifted young Muslim musician. One who, especially now moving and with very sturdy and strong steps towards the expansion of the heart of Islamic art of music in a contemporary setting. And I pray for you to
have the greatest success in doing so, because traditional music, especially if it's kept pure, is one of the most important means in our world today for the expression of the truth. There's oftentimes a
mental and intellectual opposition to the theological and philosophical
formulation of the truth. Whereas, the music penetrates the heart and even western people, some of whom consider
themselves to be atheists. When they listen to the pure unadulterated form of Persian, or
Arabic, or Indian music, or any other traditional music, it goes right to their heart. They have very deep appreciation of it. So, I pray that you would
continue to cultivate this very important art, for which God has given you so much gift. - [Sami] Thank you so much. I'd like to speak with you today about the
environmental crisis, since we're both in parts of the world where the coronavirus is
once again, increasing. I'd like to start by asking how you see this pandemic
in the larger frame of the ecological upheavals the world is experiencing. - I already wrote a
little piece in Sacred Web when the pandemic began. It was called epidemic at first, now called pandemic. And also did an interview with a Jewish rabbi from Jerusalem, which had been very widely distributed. In which I speak about
the spiritual dimension of this crisis. So, those who wish to turn to this issue more extensively can do so through these two sources. But let me say that of course, it's a tragedy of a large scale, but it also can be an occasion to learn very profound lessons. First of all, the fragility of the world, which
Islam emphasises so much. And the Quran, one of its major messages is the brittleness, fragility ever passing nature of the world, this evanescence. The lack of permanence, which we see around us, but we don't want to accept, and we feel that we are on terra firma, solid ground, and this world is so real. And a little bug, which we cannot see changes all of the different equations and calculations, of modern civilisation. This is the first important lesson to draw from it. - Right. - And to allow, not only allow, to force us to be more humble. The great sin of modern man is hubris. In a sense, since the
Renaissance modern man has substituted himself for God. He still talks about God, but we now live in a homocentric rather than a theocentric
universe, modernism I mean. Parts of the world which
are still traditional, that's something else. But this is an occasion to remember, as I said, really how weak we are. Where is this mighty science of which everybody speaks? That was supposed to
solve all the problems of the world. I'm not saying that science is not correct to the extent that it
deals with certain domain of physical reality. - [Sami] Right. - But this idea that ordinary people have of the almighty nature of modern science that it can solve any problem. There it is for everyone to see, and I hope therefore,
it will be an occasion for an ethical and spiritual correction. Secondly, one of the characteristics of modernism is that the soul is turned completely outward. - [Sami] Mm. - [Dr Nasr] And cannot live with itself. You always need something to occupy you. People put things, wires in their ears even when they go for a walk because they cannot do without music from the outside. There's no music inside their soul. So, they have to listen to music, to artificial music
through wires as they walk. You've seen all of these things. We have lost our sense of love of the quiet, of contemplation, of being alone. - Mm. - Because ultimately, when you're alone, you're always with God. - Mm. - Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, whether you're conscious or not. And that's why fallen man
runs away from himself, and the less spiritual inclination there is in human
beings, the less is there this love to be by oneself. To go inwardly. Now, the external
situation is forcing that to a large extent, not completely, but to a large extent upon us. So, let's hope that it will be a period of self discovery. Let's try to find out who we are. Don't run away from ourselves. To discover oneself is also to discover the spiritual world. It is not accidental
that you know so well, you know Arabic so well. (speaks in foreign language) The famous Arabic saying, of the Prophet (upon him
be peace and blessing), "He who knows himself his nafs, his soul knows his Lord." And this perhaps is an occasion for the reality, a
realisation of the reality of this saying. Thirdly, the crisis caused by the virus is not at all as dangerous for the future of humanity as the environmental crisis. - [Sami] Mm-hmm. - Which now people have
forgotten somewhat, but paradoxically, this crisis of the coronavirus is helping the environment. You now see wild animals coming into towns, suburbs, or even into cities. We have seen pictures of it, pictures of wild animals in Sweden, England even, coming into towns. I know myself, I live in the suburbs of Washington, you know where I live, and the number of foxes who visit us has increased a great deal. We give them a lot of food every day and then their number has increased. Birds have increased. It's a very interesting
response of nature. - Right. - To the suffocating stranglehold that through machines,
through modern industry, man has put on the body of nature, and therefore, it can be
also a freeing moment. And perhaps once the corona crisis is over we shall learn not to go
back to our old habits. Not to go back to our old habits. An area which I use to
drive about 35 minutes where I live in I can
now do in 10 minutes. The roads are somewhat freed. I'm not saying that it's going to stay like that, but let's hope there'll be an amelioration. This idea, as they say, commonly 'putting all our eggs in one basket'. That is having all our hopes, all our aims in a... Towards a materialistic
bodily comfortable, rationally explainable, and really non-wondrous, and without mystery reality for the world and our life in the future. This will change a great deal. I don't think the world
will ever be the same. I think the self-confidence that western civilisation and modernism, and it's spread into other continents and countries of the world had of itself, although it's trying
to put on a good show. It will never be the same. - Mm. - Especially in Asian countries where modernism was
first beginning to come at least first, I mean, it's century old, but in comparison to the west.
- [Sami] Right, right. - At first beginning to come since the last century, it began five centuries before or ago in the west. Let's hope that God-willing, We will learn these lessons. And there are many other lessons, I will not take your time because you may have
other questions to ask. But that we will learn these lessons, which are spiritual, ethical and moral, intellectual, and also physical and having to do with the natural world in which we live. - Thank you so much, Dr. Nasr. In fact, my next question is related to the previous question. In your opinion, what are the roots to
the environmental crisis? What are the roots of it? - [Dr. Nasr] As you probably know, in 1966, Lynn White, an American scholar of intellectual history
wrote an essay called, "The Roots of our Ecological Crisis." - Mm. - It became very famous,
and it laid the blame at the foot of Christianity
to a large extent, and certain strands of
thought that Christianity inherited from the Greek world, Roman and Greek worlds. Greco-Roman world. Six months before that I gave the Rockefeller Series Lecture at the University of Chicago. Which came out as a book 'The Encounter of Man and Nature', and
later on 'Man and Nature'. That became very popular again in the last few years. - [Sami] It's a masterpiece, I have it, of course, it's a masterpiece.
- [Dr. Nasr] You have it. Yeah.
- Masterpiece. - Yes, it's translated into... I wrote it in English. It's translated into French, other languages, Portuguese and so forth, Spanish. And it's interesting, it
was one of my very last books that was translated into Persian. - [Sami] Mm. - I have 20 or 30 books in Persian it was one of the very
last, because the interest in the environment came to the East from the West. The roots of the environmental crisis. - [Sami] Yes. - Are actually, I believe to be found in modern civilisation. I know those who have written against what I've had to say, because I was the first
person to have spoken about this globally, seriously, from a historical point of view before Lynn White. That all goats were eating trees in Syria 2,500 years ago. If goats had been continued
to be eating trees in Syria, and we would
not have steal mills in Liverpool, you would not have had the environmental crisis. They would still be
eating the lower branches of trees, the goats in Syria. This is an absurd, absurd extrapolation, you might say, from these small events of animals doing this or that, to what has happened in modern times. Yes, the rise of agriculture, the settlement that people, perhaps 10, 20,000 years ago. At least 10,000 years ago from being nomads to sedentary people was a stage in which some part of nature was destroyed by the
creation of small towns and so forth. But there was a remarkable
balance that was kept between the population
and the countryside, this what we see today cannot be seen as simply an extrapolation of Babylonia in the millennium before
Christ up to New York. That's not correct. There's something much more profound that takes place. Secularization of nature, the desacralization of nature, and the idea of Francis Bacon, that the role of man is to conquer nature. - [Sami] Mm. - [Dr. Nasr] There's a very, very major transformation that takes place. And so the roots of the
environmental crisis yes, there are some
elements in days of old. But most of it, with the rise of modernism and modern science, and
then later on technology in the 19th century. It's true, the Greeks, the Greek religion, decayed into what's called cosmolatry. That is the worship of the cosmos rather than that of God. And a kind of naturalism that began to dominate late Greek philosophy. Christianity born into that world had to confront this particular problem. And so, set itself against this, and early Christianity,
not paying much attention to the spiritual quality of nature. Although there were some like Origen who did speak about it theologically,
but it was very little compared, let's say to
Islam, or to Hinduism. It concentrated on the supernatural. There's a very, very sharp distinction between the natural and the supernatural, whereas for example Islam, your religion and mine. - Yes. - There's something
supernatural in the natural there is nothing natural
in the supernatural. The barakah of God (The
Almighty) can manifest itself the mountains. It's not only in the Eucharist, or the various acts that exist in traditional Christianity, in which the grace as
juxtaposed to nature, or the supernatural
juxtaposed with the natural. And all of these elements were there, I accept that, and Christianity had difficulty integrating. The sciences of nature into Christian perspective, although they did to some extent, in the late middle ages
when these sciences came from the Islamic world, but there was always a kind of dychotomy, a kind of inner duality that went on. And when Christianity weakened, this breach in the wall, broke the unity of the Christian intellectual worldview. And modern science was born in the hands of Galileo
in the first decade of the 17th century, 1609, 1610 when he wrote his first
treatise 'Discorsi', which really are the
foundation of modern science. And afterwards Rene Decartes developing the mathematics that went with it, and the Bifurcation Theory, which is a very, very important as the foundation of modern science. So, in the 17th century onward, then you have nature becoming an 'it'. - [Sami] Mm-hmm. - Science that the west accepts are more and more as official science. It begins to be taught in universities. All the other sciences now gradually step by step brushed aside. Alchemy, its inner meaning forgotten, turned into chemistry. Astrology, rejected because of also sometimes very superficial use of it. But in the former astronomical world, whereas in Arabic, Nujūm it can mean both astrology and astronomy. And in Greek, astronomia and astrologia means the same thing. But now they are bifurcated
and become different, a kind of secularization
of modern science, which you know. And had it not been applied, there would not be an
environmental crisis. Had there been Newton
sitting down in Cambridge and Oxford just writing about the laws of gravitation, that would not have happened. But soon this secular science of the world began to be applied, began to apply from the 18th century. And you began to get a wedding between western science
and western technology, and like an atomic explosion,
suddenly the impact of technology on the
environment multiplies by many, many degrees. And already in the 19th century, we really begin to get
an environmental crisis. Look at the Ruhr Valley. Look at parts of midland England Look at lower Massachusetts. These are areas, I always
mention these three because they were three
great industrial centers. Even in the 19th century, and they all had environmental issues. They didn't call them that, but the dirtiness of the rivers, of springs, of cutting
of forests, of trees, all kinds of things that went on by a man, a type of
humanity, that now considered itself to be the ruler of the earth, and independent of the ruler of heaven. If I can use this term, independent of God,
independent of the teaching of religion, and considered nature as it's own right to use as it wished. There were no rights given to nature. You know in our own tradition, Islam, the word Ḥaq means the truth. It also means God. - Mm. - But the Ḥuqūq means both law and rights. - Yes. - Every creature has its Ḥuqūq by virtue of being created by Ḥaq. We have classical Islamic texts, which speak about this. In my own humble writing I have spoken about it several times, also in Persian, I've said... I suggest on this issue, speaking about this one
word and its derivation and how various words
derive from this root interrelate very, very
important concepts together. Anyway, this development came without any consideration
of other creatures of the world, having
any rights of their own. And Christianity was misinterpreted as meaning that God created the world for man. - [Sami] Mm. - [Dr. Nasr] There's one verse of the Quran that speaks about this, but on the condition that man continues to be the servant of God. And the two ideas of man as Khalīfat Allāh, and as 'abd Allāh as the vicegerent of God,
and as a servant of God would define the human
state in Islamic thought. You can say from Islamic point of view that modern man wants to be Khalīfat Allāh. Wants to play the role of God on earth without being 'abd Allāh, without being the servant of God. And so, this happened, this happened in the west with not in each terms that I spoke, and then gradually, of course, spread into the other parts of the world, including the Islamic, and the Indian, and the Chinese, and everywhere else. - You've written that
all of nature is alive and speaking to us. It has even been said that there are 'two' Qurans. I think you were the one who said it. I heard this from you,
there are 'two' Qurans, the written Quran and the cosmic Quran, which is all of creation itself. What can be done to attune our souls to perceive the divine messages and signs that surround us? This is a question that
involves both faith and spiritual, intellectual development of the various faculties
of the human soul. First of all, we have to have faith, Īmān, that there is such thing as a Quran. Whether this is tadwini or takwini. Whether it's the cosmic
Quran or the literal Quran that we put before ourselves and read that there is such thing as a Quran, as the word of God. Not that there's a book called the Quran, of course, atheists also wrote about it as a book, but the metaphysical theological
understanding of it. We have to start with Īmān, with faith. - [Sami] Right. - If we have Īmān, then we have to delve into what the message of the Quran is. About us, about nature
and our relationship. The Quran in a sense, in a deepened sense is addressed not only to you and I, but also to the whole of the cosmos. And in no sacred scripture, I've written often about this. No sacred scripture in any religion, except perhaps the Tao Te Ching, the sacred scripture of Taoism in China. Which speaks so much about nature as does the Quran. God takes the stars and the moon as well as the olive and the fig, as well
as the ant and the bee, as witness to the truth. That's a very, very powerful image. To look at the sun every day, We never think of this,
but our ancestors did. Our ancestors did. There is in Islam, this very, very strong nexus between religion and the realisation of the laws of God in nature. In fact, in traditional Islamic thought how animals and plants
and so forth function, that is what we call
laws of botany or zoology and so forth, and so on.
- [Sami] Right, right. - Are so called the
sharī'ah of those creatures. - [Sami] Mm. - Are called the sharī'ah, divine law. The Apple tree has its own Sharī'ah in a certain sense. By virtue of that is the Apple tree. The difference between
me and the apple tree is that the Apple tree is saved by God from seeking to be an Apple tree. Whereas, I'm given the freedom by God not to be myself, not to be 'abd Allāh, khaliīfat Allāh. - Mm. - But to rebel. This is both the grandeur and the danger of being a human being, that we are given the
freedom to reach God, but also to hang ourselves. Enough rope to hang ourselves. - [Sami] Right. - [Dr. Nasr] But with
other creatures by virtue of their existence, they're following their own sharī'ah. They're following the laws by which God created them, and through
which they function. - [Sami] Given the perilous circumstances we're in now with the ecological crisis, many people, especially young people have a sense of dread and hopelessness when they contemplate the enormity of the problem. On a spiritual level, what inner attitude will serve us best in
these difficult times? On a practical level in the outer world, what can those listening to us today do to make meaningful action to hopefully improve conditions? - First of all, we are responsible to God only for our souls and our actions. - [Sami] Right. - If somebody murders somebody in Siberia, you and I will not be held responsible on day of judgment for it. But we are responsible for what we can do, and so, the young people should know that the hands of God are never cut off from their lives. As I've said, wherever you go, when you lift your head
there's still the sky. - Mm. - And there is this
beautiful poem of Rumi, that every young Muslim
should know by heart. - Please, please. - [Dr. Nasr] I'll try to recite for you. (speaks in foreign language) There is a connection. Literally without being able to ask how, without knowing how. (speaks in foreign language) without any analogy. (speaks in foreign language) There exists between the Lord of man, or of the soul,
or of the human being, and the soul of the human being. That is we all have a
direct connection with God, which we don't even know how, it's a direct connection that exists. This is a poem of Rumi. - Beautiful. - The young should remember that. That no matter where we are, no matter how we're brought up, whether we're brought
up in a religious family in Lahore, or an agnostic
family in San Francisco, that nexus always exists. And the same way that wherever we are, if we lift our head and open our eyes we see the sky above us, transcendence. - Beautiful. - But we do have to open our eyes and lift our head. - [Sami] Yes. - That part... (Sami chuckles) God has left to us. And that is the grandeur
of the human state that we were given the freedom not to lift our head,
not to open our eyes. And the real philosophers
who would understand the very fact that we can reject God is the proof of God. That's why Meister Eckhart said, "The more you blaspheme, the more you praise God." These are very, of course, a subtle, difficult metaphysical issues that I cannot get into a talk like this. But I thought I would mention that, that young people should not lose hope. There's always hope, and we see terrible things in the world. We should care for what we can do. - [Sami] Mm. - We can do, of course, we commiserate, we pray for others. Rumi says (speaks in foreign language), "The more intelligent you are, the more does your skin turn yellow" that is from worrying
about what's going on. A person who's just like a zombie walking around here in Washington doesn't care if the Volga River
suddenly becomes polluted and millions of fish died. - Right. - But a person who's aware, reads about it and worries about it, but they should leave things also in the hands of God. And we should pray for
people, for calamities, for animals and so forth. Do what we can. I always tell my students
when they ask me, I said, "God does not expect from us what we cannot do, but he does expect from
us what we can do." I think that should be an advice for for everybody, including myself. - [Sami] Turning to my field, music, what do you see as the place of music and the world of nature? What is the relationship and how can music play a role in enhancing
one's love of nature? - Let me just start with the quotation which I've read many times, which goes back to of all people a great theologian and also of course Sufi,
Muḥammad al-Ghazālī not Aḥmad Ghazālī, both brothers wrote a treatise on music, which among the jewels of Islamic texts on music. And Muḥammad al-Ghazālī says, this famous Persian saying, (speaks in foreign language). - Mm. - "Music makes whatever exists be more of what exists, more intense." (speaks in foreign language) and this is a proverb which has
gone down the Persian language over the
centuries, we always use it. - Right. - That is if the... Ghazālī says, "If there is in the soul a love for God, for the truth, for heavenly beauty,
music intensifies it." Of course, he's talking about music, not of rock and roll. I'm talking about music of khorāsān, and traditional music,
that's very important, but even that traditional music. But if there is only love of the world, of worldly passions, it intensifies that. - [Sami] Right. - That's why the whole question of permissibility and
impermissibility in music in Islam is so complicated. Why it was never banned by all the ʿUlamāʾ and never agreed upon by all the ʿUlamāʾ. A distinction was made between, music, social music like dancing music, and let's say a London dancing hall, and spiritual music. That is why in Islam, the whole of the tradition
interiorised music. - Mm-hmm. - Except for military music and music in weddings,
and occasions like that. The classical music of Islamic people, by virtue of the fact
that it was not allowed to exteriorise itself, became more and more interiorised. - [Sami] Mm. - And it's not accidental. You, yourself are a master of this, that if you sing any Persian classical, form, whether it be dastgāh-e
shūr, or segāh or anything, what is the poetry you sing it with? Usually a ghazal of Hafiz, or Saadi or Molana (Rumi), or Jami, it's all Sufi music, Sufi poetry. - Right. - The wedding between Sufism and music, Samā', is a very, very long story, and you cannot understand music of the Islamic people without understanding Samā'. Look at the Ottoman
Empire, the Mevlevi Order, you know better than I do that most of the great musicians from Farāhāni in the Qajar period who revived
classical Persian music. All the way to people like, Ebādi, Abdolvahab Shahidi
in our own period, people whom I knew personally very well. Many of them belonged to Sufi families, Abdullah Khan, Darvish Khan Ebādi's father who belonged to the Ne'matullāhi Order. There's a very, very close
nexus between the two. And so, in our tradition, music was always related to spirituality. Perhaps I may sound prejudice because I love music. I'm a person who loves music, but unfortunately I have no art. I knew how to play the Santūr a little when I was young, and I played a little piano. I could play the Two
Part Inventions of Bach, but that's as far as it went. I gave up music completely for the sake of the intellectual, spiritual life, to which I've dedicated myself. But I've studied the theory of music a great deal. I know a little bit about that, and I consider the musical heritage, especially Persian classical music. But also that of Yemen,
which is the only part of the Arab world, where classical music, that is really Arabic music survived, and in Mosul, and also the Maghrebi
music, al-musiqa al-andalous and of course, classical music, the Mevlevi Order in Turkey. And Indian music, which became Islamicized to a large extent from this 13th, 14th century on. In addition to Hindu, and Japanese, and Chinese
music, but especially of the Islamic world,
is a very, very precious heritage for us. Something which I love and I live with, and surely the most eloquent way of expressing the deepest truth of Islam. And especially today, it plays a very important role. The concert you gave in Azerbaijan, part of which thanks to our friend Ms. O'Brien I saw. If I had delivered a lecture on the mystical and metaphysical truths which that concert presented, in a sense represented. 10 people might understand it, 100 people might come. So, music is chosen in our day and age, as the favourable dress, which appeals to a much larger audience. And even a western
people, even in the middle of the Islamophobia is
the only Islamic art form, which is still openly practiced in Europe. If you give a concert, you yourself, if you give a concert in Paris, thousands of people will come. I've seen Shahram Nazeri, others in Paris, other places do this, same with the United States. So music is a very important art, at this particular stage of our history, but for the very reason
and with this sentence I will conclude, it's most important to preserve its authenticity, not to play around with it. Not to try to change it like 'Abdel Wahhab who changed Arabic music as
a result of the influence of Aida by Verdi at the opening up the Cairo Opera House. Not to do those things, to learn lessons from history, and to try to be authentic. Advice I gave always to all my students when they asked me for advice, I said, "Above all, to thine own self be true." It's a saying of a medieval Jewish mystic, a Rabbi Ben Ezra, which
we also have of course, in Latin, and in English,
and other languages. "Above all to thine own self be true." This certainly holds true for music, and you as an old friend of mine now, I've known you several years. I hope God-willing you will be one of the carriers of the torch. - God-willing - Of preserving the authenticity of the musical tradition
of Islamic people. ('The Centre' by Sami Yusuf)
