Who Wrote the Qur’an, Why, and What Does it Really Say?

hello everyone I wanted to tell you about two trips we're sponsoring this year uh part of our Geo tour uh portion of the skeptic Society is our social and science uh Explorations the first one is June 2nd through 16th so 14 days two weeks from Ireland to Iceland on a cruise ship with none other than Richard Dawkins this is the passage from Ireland to Iceland we're calling it and Richard Dawkins will be the uh invited guest and lecturer where you can hang out with him for two weeks as on this ship the Vega it has a guest of 152 um PL people that can join so it's not a big huge cruise ship with thousands of people so you get intimate time with with Richard uh it starts in Dublin it goes to rovic as we explore Europe's northernmost Islands Scotland's Hees orcines and shetlands Denmark's Farrow islands and Iceland a remote World known for its rugged Landscapes picturesque Villages fascinating history and nature lovers uh Delights the second trip is from Greenland to uh Canada's Nova Scotia we're calling this wonders of the Arctic on the same ship just 152 person ship called the Vega it's a beautiful ship our featured guest for that trip which is September 20 3D through October 10th uh is Jared Diamond yes Jared so we have Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond two of the biggest names of Our Generation to the greatest Minds both good friends just picture just sitting on a ship just hanging out with these guys so of course they're lecturing but breakfast lunch and dinner they're just sitting around and you can sit there and chat with two of the greatest minds of our time uh this second trip September 23rd through October 10th uh goes from Greenland to Nova Scotia with a bunch of different stops in between so check it out uh go to skeptic.com geology tours or just go to our website skeptic.com you'll see it prominently on the homepage there again skeptic.com gyore tours to get access to those and sign up uh these are big fun trips I mean I've done a bunch of these myself and uh it it's just great to be able to spend so much time with such great minds of Our Generation all right thanks for listening here's our podcast my guest today is Muhammad Jabara who is a scriptural philologist and prominent exst exegetist sorry for that uh known for his eloquent oratory style as well as his efforts to bridge cultural and religious divides a semanticist and historian of citic cultures he served as Chief Imam as well as Headmaster of several konic and Arabic language Jabara has lectured to diverse audiences around the world briefed senior policy makers and published in prominent newspapers and magazines a respected voice in Islamic scholarship Jabara advocates for positive social change well who could be against that all right Muhammad nice to see you where are you nice to see you I am uh speaking to you from Canada with the snow inside are you Canadian yeah yes I am so you you were bornn and raised in Canada yeah my my most of my life was in Canada so uh I'm accustom to the cold but um I don't think anyone ever gets used to the cold just how how does a uh tolerate it how does somebody born and raised in Canada become an Imam and let me read a little bit from your book here about your Early Childhood which is quite unusual uh that you memorize the entire Quran not even knowing what the Arab erab Arabic Arabic words meant sorry so memorization involved processing sounds Melodies and emotions it also required extreme discipline I'll say I would luck myself in my room for hours constantly repeating passages to guide me my teachers invoked a classic Mantra of Islamic scholars I won't try to say it in Arabic constant repetition leads to stability of memorization okay so it took you months to build up muscle memory say that again that's the Arabic yeah yeah that that's what I was going to say that's it and here let me just continue reading this this is quite quite the uh unusual upbringing by age 12 I had memorized all the quran's words yet understood few of them a bit like repeatedly watching a foreign film without any subtitles knowing the scenes in detail without comprehending the dialogue my teachers began intensive sessions on Arabic grammar syntax and etmy empowering me to At Last begin to decipher what I was reciting okay how what in the world possessed you to do that well I I do speak about it a bit in the introduction of uh this book and also my period previous book Muhammad the world changer I talked about being born with this name Muhammad which I I I say I was given I have lived with the with with Muhammad my entire life I was given his name the day I was born but yet for years knew nothing about him and with the Quran as well I was a baby on the first day I was born my parents attached this small Talisman which was basically a miniature Quran to my left side over the left side of my swaddle right above my heart and they attached the same small miniature Quran to my siblings as well and I always wondered what this thing was I couldn't understand that um we had a Quran on the on the wall hung up on the wall most of our families did they would put it in a small pouch and hanging up on the wall out of reverence we had passages from the Quran uh written in beautiful calligraphy decorating people's homes but we didn't understand what it was so there was always a mystery surrounding both the Quran and its Prophet that's why I wrote These two books and that's basically what led me on that quest uh I'm always very curious and when I don't understand something and I don't know something I like to really explore the nuances of what it's about not just understanded the surface I like to understand the the depth of what it's about and that led me to become an IM and to teach because I realized that Not only was I I I realized I wasn't the only one who didn't know this that there were so many people who didn't understand it either and they needed to understand it deeper because it had a great impact on people's lives and it can have both a positive and a negative impact if it's not understood properly as we see around the world so are your are your parents Muslim yes my parents are Muslim but uh and their parents how far back did they go it's actually a very long story but uh our families have not been Muslim for that long it's only been several generation my father's family uh were mostly Greek Orthodox and uh Catholic Christians so so most of the jars are still Christian actually till this day uh our our my paternal family descent from the ranit who I speak about in this book Muhammad the world changer um they were vassals of the of the byzantines and later on they became vassels of everybody else but basically they were Christian uh monarchs who lived uh near where the Golan Heights is today and they lived in a city called alabia which overlooks Damascus so one of the main gates in Damascus which I also speak about in my books uh called B jabia is the door that the basically the gate that faces the city of jabby now it's all in Ruins but that's basically where my family came from and um there's actually an airport in Kansas called jibar Airport named after one of my relatives James he was an ace uh he was a pilot an ace in the uh American Air Force and he was Christian and he was Christian as I have uh my I have three half siblings who are Catholic oh wow that's so interesting and do do you have these conversations with them about religion and do they ever say you picked the wrong one you should have been a Christian or well I I I don't know if they thought it they never said it but um at least never in my face okay all right okay uh let me stand in for uh ignorant Americans that don't know anything about the Quran or Muhammad or Islam because I'm one of them so let me just ask the dumb questions who wrote the Quran and why what does it say what's the purpose well According to Islamic tradition the Quran was revealed through the medium of the Archangel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad the prophet Muhammad was illiterate um he could not even recognize his own name he couldn't read and write and he had scribes who actually wrote down the Quran as he thought it to them which is really fascinating because you'll find this book the Quran is composed from the memory of an illiterate an unlettered man who never went to school and the most fascinating thing is the editing process of the Quran which a lot of people don't know is that the Quran in its final form the way we have it today is not the way it was revealed it was revealed at a you know there was a chronological uh revelation across 22 years and basically in the last two years of the Prophet Muhammad's life he had it reorganized so you have passages that were in one chapter were moved to another chapter chapters were reordered verses were moved all around and you know we take it for granted but just try to imagine how massive this Enterprise is you can't read what you have written WR but yet you remember it because he's like oh the passage so and so put it in this chapter between these two verses and he says it and it's like how do you do that for us because we're so reliant on books and writing and literacy uh it's it's very difficult I mean that's part of the memorization process so when I memorize the Quran so when I wrote These two books I wrote them from memory because that's what we were required to do so all the information the knowledge after to write it from memory after the man manuscripts were completed then I went back to all the sources that I had mostly memorized so you use the oral tradition yourself I I did that's basically what we that's how we work because the way it works is it's it's difficult for people who don't memorize to understand it but your brain functions like a computer now doesn't mean that oh wow like I can remember everything no because I I can't remember most people's names because it just it's fascinating I can remember genealogies and ancient people's names and and I can give you the prophet Muhammad's genealogy and his ancestors and who his father was and his mother and Grand and all of these people uh I could barely do that with my own family unless I have to consult something so it just your brain selectively find something interesting and you remember and a lot of people are like that if they're interested in something they're able to to remember it but in general all the information that I learn my brain categorizes it so let's say I'm reading a random book and it mentions something about uh snow for example so my brain registers that piece of information under the category snow so when I'm when I was writing these books things that I had read whether it was philosophies or whatever it was other writings that had mentioned certain topics my brain had categorized that information there and and when I was processing and analy information you're able to connect things together and say oh that Point's connected to this point and when you memorize the Hadith which is U the compilation of the sayings and the the teachings and the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad it's information Vital Information and clues about his life are scattered throughout how did he walk how did he talk how did he look how did he interact with people his personality his Etc you and then you you gather all this information and then you fuse it together and that's basically what I did in these books I so as I understand it the tradition believes that God Allah or Yahweh by the way are all yah Yahweh and Allah of the same deity yes is the same God we believe in the same God and so God essentially dictates to the Archangel AR Angel Gabriel who then what transcribes it to Muhammad in what language did God speak to Gabriel and how does this work well we the the mysteries of the Divine we can't TR understand but what we do understand is that uh the Divine inspires us the way the it's FAS because the word the Quran uses to describe divine revelation is the same word it uses to describe how God teaches the bees [Music] so this word is is a fascinating word because it it entails this it's it's almost like God is putting these Eureka ideas in your head so the an so God does this with nature do God does this with people so how it happens we can't we can't comprehend it but we these Eureka ideas where we got wow this brilliant idea that's basically how Revelation Works how but the way you just said that sounded very um song likee or musical is that part of the oral tradition it's easier to uh transcribe those long Poetic passages from memory if it's more an a song like or poetic like structure yes we chant the Quran of course the chanting of the Quran is not uh unique to Islam the Jewish tradition did it before the Hindu tradition um basically it's it makes it easier to memorize and the The rhythms it's it's part of it's part of the um the delivery process and when we say delivery here it's not just deliver in terms of delivering to an audience so just like the pun which is also you're also delivering the information from generation to another it's easier to remember something when it sounds when there's a ring to it now the fact that you're able to do this write two books um well-received books I read your reviews uh from essentially memory before you actually wrote it down in fact checked it and added footnotes and whatnot so that would not surprise me that even an illiterate person like moabit if he has scribes helping him could do that by natural means without any Supernatural intervention is that possible it's very possible okay right interesting and who do uh Muslims think Muhammad was compared to who Christians Think Jesus was well I I do speak about that a little bit in the author's note of the life of the Quran basically for for Muslims the prophet Muhammad just like any of the other prophets were just a human being he is he's just a human being who is a conduit or a channel for divine inspiration divine revelation just like Moses uh Muslims also believe in Jesus actually Jesus is mentioned five times more than the prophet Muhammad by name so wow he's mentioned more in the Quran uh Mary's also mentioned in the Quran she's mentioned 19 times and and you know the numerology is very fascinating because you know why uh you know um chapter Mary in the Quran is actually chapter 19 and Mary the mother of Christ is mentioned 19 times in the New Testament the mother of Christ it's really interesting why is it chapter 19 because there is a correlation in the numbers even when you look at chapter uh Joseph Yousef is chapter number 12 because obviously that's 12 sons of of of Israel right sons of Jacob that sounds like numerology to me yes there is a lot of numerology in the Quran and and that's a very Semitic thing so the semites love playing on numerology playing on Words it's and the Quran is full of these examples it's fascinating and I do that as well my books are full of numerological secrets for example the the word 12 is mentioned 12 times in each of my books you're not going to find it more than 12 times did you do that on purpose on purpose one the I actually I put in a whole bunch of Secrets my kids names are in there well their dates of birth are in there even though they they actually correspond to actual dates that happened I made it sure to mention these because they were my children's dates of birth I want them to know that that's funny I did something similar to that in my first book white people believe were things in the index I put uh on a certain page number accurate predictions by uh psychics and then you turn to the page and it's a blank page anyway I like that one yeah yeah okay so you know I I debate a lot of Christians um on the existence of God and Jesus and the resurrection and so on one of the questions I like to ask them is why don't if if the evidence for Jesus's resurrection is so good and the arguments and so on why don't Jews accept it so let me ask you why don't Muslims accept Jesus as Messiah as as the as a godhead as one and three and so on and so forth they you said they mentioned go Jesus a lot but not as the Son of God as as himself a deity right so chapter two of this book that's an excellent question I give you a comprehensive response to your question go ahead and basically uh in an not shell Muslims believe in in Jesus as the Messiah so the Quran calls him Al which is the Messiah which is messah in Hebrew and of course it means to rub or to anoint and the reason they call him a messiah or Messiah or Messiah is uh because they would you know in the past the the prophets or the priests would would anoint the foreheads of the chosen either the prophets or the Kings with holy oil usually it's a sort of a a a refined extracted olive oil that they would utilize and and that's basically where the the concept comes from and of course the Quran also plays on the concept of G of Christ Jesus being the messiah messiah or Messiah as because the word also doubles as the one who wipes away so Mah also means to wipe away could say that Christ came to wipe away Injustice he came to wipe away uh villain he came to to wipe away corruption because Al you can see from from the New Testament for especially from in the gospels see that Christ was not U you know he he he was a reformer he was there to combat aggressions he was there to stand for and support uh the weak the the destitute Etc so the Quran Praises him in all of these and recognizes him in all of these amazing feat that he did but the Quran confirms in many words that Christ was human and so is Mary the Quran uh glorifies Mary and glorifies the Quran mentions Mary as being the greatest woman um where the Ang but their belief is that Jesus's uh message was Justice in this world not in the next World right yes uh it basically the message itself calls for just the Quran clarifies that that Justice the teachings of Christ are what we apply because if it's our duty as people the same thing with the Quran by the way it's our duty as people to apply the teachings the the Quran or Christ or the Quran or or the Bible they're not going to come and do the work for us because that's what we expect you say you know like the book will do the work for me but no the Quran says that you have to do the work and this is that concept the Quran repeatedly uh evokes the concept of which is the equivalent of the Hebrew or in in modern Hebrew which uh is generally translated as hope but actually it actually means action based hope because the concept re refers to somebody pulling a a bucket out of a well so you go from well from one well to another in the desert seeking water so you're looking for water and you're pulling the bucket maybe there'll be water there maybe there won't but you're trying you're putting in the effort you're putting in the effort you're trying to do the work so it might have results you might not have results but you put in the effort and that's what the Quran teaches us that that's what you need to do that's the teaching teachings of Christ from the Islamic point of view from the quranic point of view is the prophets don't come to save us they provide us with guidance they provide us with the with the knowhow with steps with methodologies how we can change our states the Quran has this fascinating passage that that the Divine will not change the state of a people until and unless they change their inner Outlook and perspectives so it has if you internally are negative and pessimistic and and waiting for somebody else to do the work for you nothing's going to change the Quran says you have to change the way you think the way you behave and you have to put in all the effort yeah God will help you from the side but God's going to do the work for you so the emphasis is more on this world than the next World the the emphasis is on the effort that you do which is going to make this world a better place and yeah I like that and will reflect in the afterlife as you know Christians emphasize very much the acceptance of Jesus as your savior so you can be born again John 3:16 for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son so you may have everlasting life and so on I hear you saying that this is very different from what uh Muslims believe what do Muslims believe about the We believe We believe that you know at the end of the day like whatever if you if you want to call it salvation or whatever the concept is that that's something that we can't control but we control are the actions that we do you know uh the prophet Muhammad's uh cousin and also one of his scribes actually his first scribe IM Ali said something really fascinating in terms of defining the concept of what's Faith he says faith he says so the fa the reality of faith is what is deeply rooted inside your Consciousness and it's proven through the good works that you do so faith is not just like oh I believe in something and I go and destroy the world faith is if you are truly a person of Faith you're are supposed to be that's what the Quran teaches us is that if you are truly a person of Faith then you do what is known as which is you do act of reparation for the world you repair the world you know the modern Jews use this concept obviously this was not a concept that they used in the past this is a concept that was influenced by Islamic uh philosophy and Islamic thinking during the Middle Ages um which is the reparation of the world you make the world a better place that that is what really matters of course we believe obviously in Islam we do believe in life after death but the concentration as you don't know what happens after there's like everything that comes after after death is an uncertainty is what we call it is unknown it's something we can't understand it's a world beyond our world so since it's something we can't understand just like the Divine you know IM Ali the same person says this fasc that recognizing your limitations as a human being you're recognizing that you have limitations there are certain things which we cannot comprehend or understand or fathom we cannot understander things recognizing that is understanding and recognizing that trying to understand okay what's God what's the Divine what's the afterlife these are things you can't understand we can't understand it's like Christ says and of that day and of that hour knows no man know not the son nor the angels in heaven but the fathers like yeah you know trying to guess when the world's going to end or Doomsday and doomsday prophecies and all all this look uh you're never going to know this stuff so don't thought think about it what you need to think about is what you're going to do in this world just like the prophet Muhammad said if one of you has a young plant a sapling in your hand and you see the world is about to end you can see it the world's going to end I don't know maybe there's like a huge asteroids going to collide with the Earth or something whatever you know the world's going to end and he has you have this shoot Ling in your hand he says plant it because you cannot guarantee the future but you can guarantee what you do you put in the effort you can't guarantee that you're going to have an outcome but you put in the effort that's what the Quran teaches and you'll see it from the way I I I I believe that the Quran is is is as a cure it calls itself that in the Quran that all yeah that all sounds great to me you know that we we really don't know what happens after you die nobody does so why not focus on this world because that's the world we live in but as you know there's at least some percentage of of Muslims believe in the afterlife in this whole idea of martyrdom you know this is what we hear in the news and so on because of terrorism you know that they're you know the land of milk and honey and 72 virgins and all that where does that come from is that is that from the Quran or is that a A mistranslation or a misunderstanding where do they get this idea and how many people actually believe that well first of all uh Islam is against taking your own life right Islam Islam values life just like we see in in the Jewish tradition in the mishna you know and quote in the talmud and other Jewish Traditions about the taking of life and the sa salvation of life that if anyone who takes one life it's as if they have killed all humanity and who saves one life as if they saved all Humanity that's in the Quran I actually do quote that in in the book as well and explain about these parallels that you will see between the Islamic tradition and and Judaism and Christianity but a lot of these ideas are are created much after the prophet Muhammad we see there's a and I do speak about that in the book as well which is this concept of the fabricated tradition we call them which are uh words and actions that are attributed to the prophet which he never said and of course anybody who's famous and we can see that on social media people always say oh you know they make make up a quote and then they put somebody famous they put their name and people believe it okay well the question is did they actually say that and and you know so that's part of what we do when we study part of our in traditional Islamic scholarship we study the the Hadith uh and and we studi what is known and and Hadith like these Traditions have two components we have what is known as the isad or the which is the chain of transmission I heard it from so and so from so and so like verifying the source and then we have what is known as the met the metan is the actual content of the tradition what is what is actually being said so we verify okay was it what is actually said by the prophet you know is there a link and could the prophet have actually said that so you see tradition a lot of these Traditions used by um extremists or what Etc most of them are made up they are lies the prophet never said them they actually contradict the Quran and they TR contradict our tradition but people don't know that because people know you know it's like after September 11th I mean I was a I was still young at that time um it was a long time ago but people uh in the media like Oh chapter 9 in the Quran verse 11 sorry I have to like make fun of them but you know well you do hear that yes yeah but chapter 9 verse 11 what is it talking about okay talking about orphans what does that have anything to do with your twin towers people lied people lied and they got away with it and it was in the media news outlets were were spouting this stuff and people didn't challenge it people didn't question it and people lie all the time and which is fine that's that's how the world works but then you go well it's not fine but it's reality well in the sense that that's how it is it I mean it's been happening and I talk about it in chapter chapter one on on the chapter on language I talk about how language is used to manipulate um which which goes back to the earliest times we see Pharaoh doing that in the story of in the quranic telling of of the story of Moses and Pharaoh Pharaoh presents himself the guy who Enslaved the Israelites who enslaved all of these people presents himself as what as a liberator he's like I have your best interest I'm coming to say I love you guys he's telling that to who to the isra Israelites telling oh Moses wants to enslave you he's the guy he's a bad guy I love you guys have your that's what the Quran is quoting him as like does the guy actually believe it I don't know but you see you know he definitely know how to do politics interesting yeah well your message needs to get out and your book needs to be read by Muslims around the world can you explain Sharia law and to what extent uh it is accurately derived from the Quran or it's mod IED or even butchered by local political leaders today well here I'll show you since we're on that topic so here here's basically what we call sh you know like basically what becomes our you know we the jurus Prudence are you know way of understanding so is the root word the root word means to seek to go up a mountain seeking the source of fresh water that's basically it relates to the word Torah you know so Torah which is the teachings of the the Torah it comes from Y which is the which also relates to the the paths that are forged by rainwater so it's always you see there's a connection to water as a source of you know life so basically sh is seeking the source of life so the we what we have in Shar are the things we call which is why what is the purpose of the law what what is why are these laws formulated and the the mid revolve around the following the sanctity of life so salvation of Life sanctity of society sanctity of the environment so Islam basically cared about the importance of Environ for example part of our law is you can't urinate or defecate in in water you can't urinate and defecate beside trees especially fruiting trees this is part of that's what the law says so if you look at the uh the the subjects they revolve around the following you have which basically our devotions you know our prayers our fasting you know like how we how we how we you know do our our acts of spirituality and the first of all of these if you look at every single book regardless whether your or or any school of thought the first part is what we call is purification so how do you clean yourself the f one of the first things teaches you is how do you clean yourself when you go to the bathroom when you defecate how do you clean yourself make sure that you actually do a good job that there's nothing left when you urinate how do you clean yourself so that nothing's L you don't drip urine into your clothes how do you uh washing your hands when you wake up from sleep washing your hands before you eat washing your hands after you eat this is what it talks about you know how do you behave with people how do you interact how do you uh write a contract you have a business contract how do you write it should you have witnesses what things should you stipulate that's what it relates to basically conduct how you behave as a person how do you interact with other people uh marriage divorce charity there's nothing take something like like homicide you know are there degrees of of murder first degree second degree third degree the equivalent of that yes definitely and and sorry just one moment and and while you're doing that since um Islam is against the taking of a life yes how do you think about things like abortion or capital punishment or just war or self-defense murder and self-defense something like each of those problem an entire session to discuss excuse me sorry I have um I have asthma yeah I understand I I grew up with asthma so I'm sympathetic um but but again I guess what I'm asking is to what extent does the Quran really instruct on that or is it modified over the centuries a lot based on what's going on in a particular uh region or political system so the Quran is very uh doesn't go into details so all of the stuff I just discussed with you the Quran doesn't give us these details doesn't tell us like these are details that are discussed you know by Scholars for based on the needs of the people so the Quran doesn't say like for example the Quran talks about praying right the Quran says pray you know keep a connection to God the Quran does not tell us how to pray there are no instructions it it alludes to people putting their face on on the ground like Abraham and Moses and all the prophets like it does in the Bible you know he fell on his face and prayed to God that's how they translate it which is like how Muslims put their face on the ground because they I mean the Jews used to pray like that too and the Christians and doesn't tell you that doesn't give you the details of how to pray So based on the school of thought whether you're sun or sh whether you're ja or or zi or cha or or Hani each School of thought has its own particulars of how the prayer is done so for me for you as a as an outsider you can't tell so all look all the same all Muslims right so for us for me when I see someone praying I can tell what school of thought they are just based on the movements or what they say and and and their sometimes even their political Outlook because now the political outlooks the modern political outlooks also impact how people pray so all of that different and of course these things were developed over time so a lot of the laws and the laws differ the law the laws are really if you look at the way that the the body of Islamic scholars um evaluates information it's really fascinating uh how how they think and and it and it it really resembles the discussions you see in the mishna the Jewish uh discussion or comment and oral tradition Etc the tal these discussions where the rabbis are going one Rabbi saying one thing other one's saying like I remember when I was studying uh we would have a Hadith which is a tradition of the prophet and there was one particular one I remember I was 12 at that time I was it it B it boggled my mind there were over 700 different opinions on what this could mean or what this imply or how this could apply people think Islam is a monol monolith uh the Muslims are so diverse and and the power the power of the Quran is that the Quran in semetic languages you see that in the Torah as well by the way and even in the you know the the the Aramaic speaking people is that there are so many layers to something that they would say so you can always extract so much there's so many gems you can extract from one word from one concept so I was before before we went into all of this I was speaking about the Quran and as a cure or a healing because that's what it calls itself so let's say it calls itself a what a healing it calls itself a source of healing of healing yeah okay it is a source of healing for all the world for people for all people doesn't say it's a source of healing for believers or people of Faith but for all people because when you when you have a migraine or a headache or you need a procedure and you go to a pharmacy or you go to the hospital the medicine is supposed to at least in theory work for most people right it doesn't discriminate well this headache medication only works if you are white this only works if you are German this actually only works if you are Jewish or this only works if you are a woman or a man or whatever you are doesn't work like that it supposed to work for everybody at least most of the time does medicine work all the time for everybody of course not there are certain people that medicine doesn't work with and that's how the Quran is the teachings of the Quran are supposed to be a are supposed to give guidance and inner perspective and deeper perspective for people of all backgrounds regardless of what you are it's I like that Universal message a lot can you explain the difference between Sunni and Shiite in my in my category of dumb questions is this uh scriptural interpretation differences is it a political split what what is that uh let me let me put it to you this way the classification of Sunni and Sh is is inaccurate because uh you have for example the zis which are Shiites in Yemen and U the uh you have the shafit who are sunnis and you have the H who are sunnis and these three are close in Juris prudence and sh and their in the way that they understand and and apply religion they're very close their their outlook on the world is is very very close on the other hand you have the jait who are the 12 Shiites which basically the shites in Iran Iraq most of the Shiites are or which are 12 and then you have the hanafis and the malakis and their Juris Prudence is very close so you know that's how I would split it so you know so from the point of view of of of Law and un interpretation of religion this is how it should be split not Sun but but would would that be the case in Iraq say well I mean today you know a lot of the a lot of the way Muslims are informed because most people don't know much about Islam they're informed by by you know the way the West has has looked at Islam not because that's what Islam is and uh arguably a lot of what what you call Islamic extremism is a product of Western uh Western academic systems not a product of traditional Islamic systems interesting and and well of course because in traditional Islamic systems we are taught like when I was studying uh as a child and throughout my my studies all the teachers I studed from they taught us all the schools of thought both Sunni and Shiites like and you see even Shiite Scholars they studyed Sunni schools because it wasn't supposed you're supposed to you're supposed to study a broad range of fields you're supposed to you're not supposed to limit yourself to just one school or one idea what would the analogy be say between Catholics and Protestants I I would I would I would give you on that level I would explain it to you simply uh the Shiites are like the Orthodox Christians that sunnis are like the Catholics and what call themselves The wahhabis or whatever all of these you know Puritan movements are like the Protestants that's basically where you're this is the closest parallel you can find to Christianity in terms of the jur spirit ter of the Outlook in terms of how they view the scriptures uh the Shiites are much more uh are much they look more on humility you see like sh clerics of top clerics are extremely humble compared to you know our people you know the sunnis I I you know even though I studed the sh tradition but I was ordained within the Sunni tradition and the Shiites are much more you know you if you see like the the top AAS they they have very simple lives they live extremely simple lives and that's in contrast to you know people on the Sunni side where they can live extravagant lives and there's nothing against one or the other it just that's a comparison which you will see that uh the the Greek Orthodox or at least the Orthodox in general tend to favor Simplicity much more than than the Catholics or the Protestants the Protestants especially evangelicals uh they they see like living in a you know having a a nice house having a good life is is a positive thing so it's that that Outlook is is how you can see the parallels but right now but just just mind you it hasn't always been the case like the Muslim schools have evolved drastically like that you have the Isis like the aahan foundation Etc they're some of the you know most Phil they do Phil philanthropy they do charity they're like you know anti- violence but there were Isis in the past who were extremely violent for example the Assassins the hashash I mean the word assassin in English comes from has and they were Isis like so you know and and like uh just like you had Puritan movements 3 400 years ago burning witches and now they're anti-war you know so people change so I think it's important well one way we think about that is that Christianity went through the enlightenment uh and the Age of Reason and so on uh and that Islam has not gone through something like an Enlightenment is that is that accurate that's absolutely ridiculous for anyone to say that because the reality is Islam did the opposite we had our Enlightenment when everybody else was in the dark right yeah of course if you elaborate a little bit both of my books yeah you know if if you look at the description of bat in chapter 8 I describe it you like you would be amazed at the level of sophistication of these people um how Advanced they were how open-minded yeah you're going to have individuals here and there who weren't always there are exceptions but I'm talking about as a general uh well I know and the history of Science and Math and Technology Way ahead so then the question becomes what was the title of that book what went wrong what what that would be that would be a following book that I would speak about but I do allude to to that in the uh the epilog epilogues of both but is that correct is it correct to say what went ask what went wrong did something go wrong I think a lot of things went wrong and if you if you it's a combination of factors it's not just one factor in a nutshell you have the biggest the biggest turning point is the destruction of Bagdad of Baghdad where the Mongol when the Mongols sacked Baghdad um they destroyed millions of books you had the Reconquista happening in Spain as well where millions of books were also destroyed and you know when you look at the amount of books that were available in these libraries you have this major center of learning in in Lebanon which doesn't obviously doesn't exist it was completely destroyed as well during the Mongol sack where just that one Library had over 2 million manuscripts and books the the one in Baghdad had you we know of at least five million books that were destroyed in Bagdad alone uh talking about think about um Al Alexandria all of these places where you had major centers of learning and they're all gone and what happens is when the books were destroyed a lot of Scholars were also killed and so with the destruction of of the knowledge and destruction of the scholarly past if you if you want to call it that what's left are the less educated people and with time that basically you have a chain reaction so if you go in the Muslim world today which is really unfortunate if if you have brilliant children they become lawyers or doctors or Engineers or whatever I mean that's what my parents want me to do you know and I could have easily done that my marks and and the Sciences were all in the high 90s I'm the psycho that went to summer school for uh 1% uh you know my my children laugh at me for doing that I had 99% in chemistry and I wasn't satisfied so I went to summer school to get 100% and everybody there had failed so the teacher was going around asking each of us how much we finished with and it was like oh 22% 30% and then came to me and I refused to answer I'm like they're like was it that bad I'm like I'm not saying anything the teacher looked like you had 99% what are you doing here I'm like want 100% um so you know but I chose to do this because I believe that the brightest minds or at least people who are gifted should be in the field of religious leadership to teach the people because what happens is when the people who are less gifted the people who are less academically strong are sent and pushed into religious learning which is what happens in in most Muslim countries the kids who fail the kids who are unenterprising uh lack entrepreneurship lack foresight like okay let's send them to the religious send them to the mad because you know there are exceptions but I'm talking about in general unfortunately that's what happens and then you're you end up with the Taliban for example you know how do you think about people like the the Taliban or Osama Bin Laden or Muhammad ATA who flow the flew the plane into the South Tower uh how do you think about them in terms of the Quran they've they've misread it it's a it's a butchering of the real meaning or they're political ponds being used by other people or they're just mistaken well and and at basically whatever they believe in whatever they think it's not the Quran that's a simple answer whatever they think and it's really fascinating because a lot of these extremist movements they quote quranic verses and the quranic verses are actually saying the opposite of what they alleged them to say um for example you know there's this quote that was quot quoted recently where he said oh you know enter the land and if you do you know it's like you know that you will be Victorious and this verse is is is leveraged but yet the fascinating thing about this verse is in the Quran it speaks about the opposite this verse speaks about Joshua the son of noon and uh basically encouraging the Israelites to enter the holy land so the vers is is evoked to mean one thing but in the context of the Quran is actually saying the complete opposite it's actually referring to the Israelites ties to the land instead of the opposite is this part of your motivation for your work and your books is to set your fellow Muslims straight on some of these misinterpretations or uh misreadings well I mean when you the let's let's go back to to the concept of an IM just to help people understand you know the word IM is is is basically the title of a religious scholar or an Islamic scholar yeah mainly among the sunnis by the way the Shiites don't use it the Shiites use the word IM for only 12 select people so when you hear if somebody has a title IM you know automatically they're Sunni they're not shiit unless it's which is a a a rare a very rare occurrence in the sh tradition where he took the title of IM whereas no other sh before him had ever taken that title it's usually reserved for the 12 select in the sh tradition so you're an Imam yes I'm an Imam and the concept of an IM and I do speak about it in the book by the way this is the book cover with you can see there's a calligraphy oh I only have The Galley so I don't have the uh but but it does have it uh I guess that's what is uh this is that what that is no no that's that is actually in the canite script which is the Phoenician script oh okay oh you have several Pages here there must be yes and the second one is the Sean script which is Southern Arabian script so I wrote the first chapter in the Quran that one yes that's saan script that's Southern Arabian that's from Yemen this was written like 2,000 years AG that was that and then there's this what is that and this is the evolution of the script so my children actually my son Drew the pictures and my daughter wrote the stuff I want them to but basically you see the alif the alif which becomes uh the letter A you see how it evolves from yeah yeah so that is my in you know um my dedication to uh to God okay you dedicated to God okay can you talk about the role of women in uh Islam yes I'd love to let me just quickly answer your question about oh yeah the other one yeah the IM the IM is the the the meaning of the word going back to the root is a particular kind of guide It's is a guide who guides people out of the darkness of of caverns so some people are are are trapped in caverns in dark Caverns they're not sure to get out of these you know mazes so the job of an IM is to guide people out and of course if somebody if people are stuck in a in a cavern or in in a maze in a mountain do you discriminate you say okay are you a man a woman a Muslim a Christian do you discriminate or do you guide all people well hopefully the latter that that's so basically an IM is somebody who guides all people not just Muslims I mean now it's reverse of course people don't know that the first time the word Imam is used in the Quran is to refer to to the Torah the Torah is called an IM because it guides people from Darkness to light remember what he says that he made dark you know like God made light right in the in the first chapter of Genesis so because it guides people from the darkness of confusion to the light of certainty and understanding that's what the Torah is supposed to do that's its function so the Quran calls it that uh the Quran refers to Abraham as an IM and it also refers to Jewish sages and Scholars as as IMs as well the plural of Im so the Quran never refers to uh never uses the word Imam to refer to Islamic scholars because they didn't exist at the time so every time the Quran uses Imam it's reference to the people before us the Jews the Christians the the the Apostles of Christ for example but but I guess um Muhammad what I'm asking is is it your sense that your religion has gone off the rails at least some people I mean you have a billion adherence or more so you're going to have you could have a hundred million people and that only be 10% and that's still a lot of people that have misread or misinterpret is so is this your goal like I got to set these people straight they're just not getting what the real message is here my my my goal is to revive what has been lost I'm not a reform I don't believe in reform okay I'm not a reformer I'm not a modernist I'm not here to modernize Islam I don't believe in any of that um or I'm not trying to cherry pick or or sanitize Islam I don't believe in any of that I don't respect that I I want to return it back I want I want to purify I want people to go back to to the Quran to what actually says and that's what I do here every time I deal with a topic I don't say oh well so and so says or no I'm like okay what does the Arabic say in this verse uh these roots the root word of this word what does it actually mean what did it mean at the time of the Prophet Muhammad because language evolves and you know it's fascinating because 70 years after the prophet's death we are told that the um droolers who are the first Muslim Dynasty the first people to establish a dynasty in the name of Islam to be more precise they could not understand the Arabic of the Quran anymore because the Arabic had evolved so drastically that people coming out of Arabia who are still speaking the original Arabic they couldn't Comm they couldn't understand them and they were speaking Arabic they weren't speaking a different language that's how fast it evolved and then you have this concept known as which happens during the period where words that existed in the past are given new meaning because of the new circumstances so if you read the Quran especially now people like oh I'm an Arab I'm born in an Arabic country I I I know Arabic I know what the Quran says no it don't because what you're the the langu the words that you are using they have a meaning but the words in the Quran have a completely different meaning I'll give you an example so I'm an artist I'm a visual artist I love art and obviously the artworks on the cover were done by me I I Illustrated the book I love art and I think of myself more as an artist than anything else even when I write I write like an artist when I perform uh like a service I do it artistically for me art that's that's who I am and when when we go back to this concept of an artist in modern Arabic the word for artist is fan fan is the word for artist right I mean you you're like oh yeah of course I know that word but anybody who knows modern Arabic or modern St Arabic would be familiar with this word oh that means an artist and Fen is Art but in the language of the Quran fan means a wild donkey what okay what's what's the what's the point I lost the thread what's the point what's the point here the thread is that a word if if if you went to the prophet misreading yes okay I if you went to the prophet Muhammad and says I'm a fan he's going to say um are you okay do you need a psychiatrist or psychologist identify as a wild donkey I don't know what to do with this or another example is the word for coffee in modern Arabic So In classical Arabic in the language of the Quran meant an extremely intoxicating beverage something a very strong alcohol something like uh like Jin or vodka it's very strong alcohol but coffee is nonalcoholic so if you went to the prophet Muhammad at his time he say oh I'm drinking um okay you can't drink that because you shouldn't be drinking a strong alcoholic beverage so the words definitely Chang and and I I do speak about several things where misunderstandings come like you have this concept of in modern Arabic if you go if you look at the Arabic media they also like about becomes terar terrist Orab is Terror or terrorism in the language of the Quran irab and I do speak about it here Muhammad the world changer in the introduction I refer to that concept which is that irab in the language of the Quran means to act in such a lofty in such an inspiring way that you inspire awe and reverence in people people like wow this person person is so inspiring H that's interesting but if you if you if you're reading the verses in the Quran that use that word like oh it means to terrorize no it doesn't mean to terrorize it means you must you must act in such an inspiring way that people want to be like you not to be terrified by you the word that the Quran uses the classical Arabic quranic word for terrorism is Je which most people don't even know it means to Quake or to shake you know where you get the concept of a Quaker because they Quake or they shake you know that that is is where you cause people to they're so terrified they start shaking from the terror you this phrase albar that we hear so much about and have terrorists shout it what does that mean is it one of these misreadings again and I do actually speak about that Muhammad the world changer people should read this book too because it's seel it is they they work hand in hand basically what I've done is in Muhammad the world changer I I zoomed into the prophet Muhammad's life and the Quran is like looming in the background it's fuzz you know it's fuzzy right and then in this book this book the Quran comes it's it's focused and Muhammad's life is fuzzy in the background but but they work hand in hand I mean that's and you know the Prophet Muhammad in his final sermon he says I've left you with two things if you hold on to them if you understand them you will never go astray you will never fall off the path the book of God the Quran and my tradition my way and and like you said because we have the Muslim world for has has really lost connection to its Heritage of the Quran most people don't understand the Quran or don't know what it says or the prophet's life I wanted to make them accessible I wanted to become you know known by people all right allahar so allahar is a phrase that we use in our worship this is basically what we use when we pray and it is a reference that God is the one who constructs the world he's the one who repairs the world that God is that everything beautiful in the world God makes it even more beautiful that's the concept of the beauty of of of in Arabic means to grow it's to to basically God is the source of growth of healthy incremental growth not destruction and I do speak about it in Muhammad the world changer the prophet Muhammad never used the word Allah abbar in war really the only time he ever used it is after Mecca had surrendered peacefully so what the prophet Muhammad declared is a holy peace not a holy war in contrast to the meccans the Pagan meccans who fought him who made the fights they had had against him a holy war they're the ones who proclaimed which is basically glorifying their deity hubel the the the idol that they worshiped hubel so the difference is that Islam and in the Quran actually I do speak about it in this in both books it's chapter nine the one everybody likes to oh it's like everybody's scared of chapter nine and I and I give you a long quotation from chapter 9 actually so people can see what it's what actually says in chapter n which is which is the reconciliation the chapter begins without evoking God's name so the Quran has 114 chapters in 113 of them it has the word basically evoking the name of the Divine as as God as the the source of all compassion the the source of all kindness The Source the one who optimistically has a vision of a better future for people the one who is caring and comforting the one who's a comforter the one who provides uh presence only in one chapter does it not begin with that and that's Surah 9 because its beginning says you know what the Treaty of peace between us and you is is is now revoked because you guys murdered you guys massacred our allies and you know what's fascinating is that the quran's most angry chapter verses is angry because of the death the massacre of pagans the people who were killed were pagans Allied to the prophet Muhammad killed by their fellow pagans near their holy sanct the prophet so the Quran is angry that you guys have no regard for treaties or for interesting I had no idea talk about it in both books both in both of these books I give you the details but basically to use Allah abbar in war is actually a defilement of the name of God you are defi it's actually disrespectful to the name of God Islamic you cannot use the name of God in these states wow that's really good to know since 911 there's been this ongoing debate I haven't participated in but I track it you know why did they hate us what was the cause of this was this a misunderstanding of the uh Islamic religion or is it really not religion at all it's really politics religion is secondary or tertiary it's really has to do with US foreign policy and Israel politics and US troops in holy land and the religion is a secondary to it or on the other side uh you know they've just butchered this religion and they are mistaken but it is religiously motivated what are your thoughts on that I I think it's a very complicated and complex situation so you have It's a combination of of of several factors yes there is uh the the foreign policy issues which is definitely a big part of it uh there's also the uh the history of colonization which we're still suffering from you know drawing up lines where you know putting up fake borders and Etc things like that that that just popped up without you know people are just sitting there in Europe oh let's draw a line here but you're cutting it through strange eth like there was no regard for for the ethnicity of the people for the religions for the languages who are these people like you have the Kurds are literally divided among several countries like how does that make sense you know it's such or you have Arab speaking people in Iran Etc so there was no there was no consideration for who lived in these lands um or or kind of like when the partition of India and Pakistan happened like Bangladesh and and Pakistan become like East Pakistan and West Pakistan like Bangladesh has its own language its own culture yes they're Muslim but they're very different than the Udu speaking or Punjabi speaking whatever um people in in Pakistan even Pakistan you have a a portion of the northern part that that that are PS that are basically part of the Afghan people so you have all of these lines that are drawn that that do you know ultimately result in Conflict plus the the the the the breakdown of our systems for example uh in North Africa you had a lot of companies that were formed corporations that were formed by Muslim women uh in the textile industry in the formation of um of of rugs and and and and tap tapestries Etc and when the French came they're like okay we're not dealing with women you know like you these companies have to be owned by men so women were pushed out and you had a lot of these strange rules that were were created during the uh Victorian a era and and and segregation and things like that that that were not there in the Islamic World in terms of attitudes and these were Incorporated by Muslims so you you look at the Islamic world today how many women are Scholars you can barely count them on your fingers whereas in the past during the Golden Age 40% of our Scholars were women really wow yes and the majority like you have I I do ref refer to several of them in these books uh you have which is she was a major scholar in Damascus and the imagine that the Muslim ruler used to come to attend her class he would sit on the ground like everybody else and this treatment of women you see say by the Taliban this is again another complete misunderstanding of the Quran and the history of the religion of course you have B the best example is B who was the MU of kab during the Middle Ages and you have several other women who who who ranked in different places around the Islamic world I do mention several in my books so if if you want to read more you can read more about it but basically the prophet Muhammad uh actually assigned a woman as an IM and assigned a woman as a as a mayor of Medina and and a woman as the head of Education of Medina so you had women in all these different positions where you're they're less present there now is that because of it because it's Islam or is it because of other factors so what I'm saying is that no it's not Islam Islam doesn't push women out Islam recognizes that yes men and women are different we are not obvious the same we have different needs different different uh perspectives on things and but at the end of the day Islam guarantees the equal rights of both male and female because every time the Quran Praises a characteristic it always mentions both the masculine and The Feminine the masculine the feminine so feminine masculine always then how come we're getting this message in the west that say the hijab is a way of men controlling women what they can wear or show or their freedom and so on is that just another complete misunderstanding that's definitely in there are circumstances and places like obviously like Afghanistan with Taliban Etc where yes they are imposing uh but we're talking about General no that is not the case and islamically no islamically Islam guarantees the freedom of thought of all people look I'll give you an example uh Islam is very much uh against the consumption of intoxicants whether it's alcohol or drugs anything that alters the Mind anything mind altering the Quran says avoid it like you have to stay away from that right yet you had the and I do give an example here of one of the Prophet Muhammad's followers his name was and he used to he was addicted to like he loved his wine and you know when one of his disciples was getting irritated by this guy's always drinking you know like you know curse him or damn him and the prophet Muhammad said do not curse him for he loves and is beloved by God and His prophet and this guy was drinking so in a sense you see you see that the prophet Muhammad taught us to look Beyond these you have an example of the Prophet Muhammad telling us uh contrasting two women one woman who was praying and fasting and doing all this religious stuff and yet in the privacy of her own home she was cruel to a cat she trapped this cat she imprisoned and she caused this cat to die of starvation in contrast to this woman who was like righteous you know veiled and praying and all of this stuff was and of course the example is given about this women these women were Israelite women because obviously there was no no examples from Islam so every time we have examples in the Quran they're generally about Jews and Christians both positive and negative examples because there were no you know our our you know tradition are uh leg of the tradition because we consider ourselves a continuation of of this abrahamic tradition had not been formed yet so you can't use examples from us because we didn't exist so the other example was a prostitute a woman who basically was a sex worker they didn't pray they didn't do anything but she's walking in the desert alone she comes upon a Well she sees a dog on the side of the well panting she goes into the well uses her tattered shoe fills it with water and goes up several times to quench The Thirst of the dog and the prophet Muhammad said that God loves This Woman This prostitute who was kind she wasn't showing oh guys look at me I'm I'm I'm doing this act of Charity look I'm I'm helping the poor and you know let's see how many likes I'm going to get she didn't do that nobody knew about it she was alone there was nobody looking but she did it from the goodness of her heart and the prophet Muhammad says she attains salvation whereas the other woman who's sitting there praying and fasting and everybody's like oh wow she's so righteous and he said that woman God was displeased with her because she was cruel so what really matters as the Quran says being that what really matters at the end of the day what matters at the judgment and the final judgment is when you come to God with a complete a clean a healthy a pure heart God doesn't care about your actions doesn't care how many times you pray times you fast oh how how righteous you good works it's it's it's not it's not just the good works good works that are that are sincere oh intention yes course yeah because if your good work start to show off because oh look at me I'm better than everybody else then then um then along these lines of of a horrible subject female genital mutilation what do you make of that why is that happening how much is it happening well female genital mutilation is not an Islamic practice it is an ancient practice that goes back to the time of uh The Cult of Isis you speaking of Isis but this is the other Isis you know the yeah the goddess um Isis yeah and they would they would this B was basically part of their tradition and it remained in Egypt and it was practiced in Egypt and also in certain parts of of East Africa Islamic scholars have condemned it uh the highest Islamic authorities in Egypt have condemned it the same thing in Somalia and other places uh yet it's still being practiced um and lot of and and and a lot of people don't know this but the it's mainly perpetrated by women like men are not doing this so they wait until the father who's in in most cases fathers are against this they don't want this to happen to their daughters wait until the father's out of town or out of the out of the picture somewhere and they do it while he's gone so he can't why are they doing it um in in their in their way they think they're trying to protect her Chastity whatever it is you know because but it's a cruel It's a cruel has it happened to them too the women are doing it to a lot of them have have had it happen to them and it it continues but it is not an Islamic practice actually anti-islam Islamic scholars have condemned it and you know the Quran is very clear anything that is harmful we are supposed to avoid is forbidden and anything that's beneficial then it is you know you're it's it's open you can do it you cannot do it but anything that is harmful we're forbidden to do of course men are circumcised uh which is in in uh connection to the ancient tradition of Abraham and the continuation of what the Jews do but women for circumcision is not permissible in Islam and even with men circumcision is supposed to be done in a delicate way where there's no harm Etc and of course the purpose of why we are circumcised as men is for cleanliness because clean is very important islamically for hygiene hm have you experienced islamophobia or uh discrimination or bigotry yourself in Canada as a Muslim I mean that's I I I guess I have but I I I don't think it's really bothered me you know like I ignore it you know I just laugh at when people do say things that are stupid I don't get upset I just laugh like whatever like what what you gonna do do yeah somebody's ignorant and they say something stupid about you or your faith you know I'll just for me it's a joke I laugh like when when when they have these cartoons making fun of our Prophet I don't get offended at all why should I get offended yeah okay that's a good question like him he never did this Behavior that's somebody else why should who is getting offended you know the Charlie hebdo incident who are the people that are offended by this that want to kill well in a lot of cases it's the people who don't really understand the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad or the Quran because they don't know it okay because if you look at the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran the Quran says clearly you know if you look into the teaching of the Quran when people are are are are are are are lowly in their behavior they're they're aggressive they they call names what do you do ignore it you know the Prophet Muhammad when people would say things about he didn't go and say oh he didn't do any of that stuff he ignored it one time he was standing one of his followers his closest one of his close followers name is Abu Bakr and he's in a session and there's this man sitting there swearing at Abu Bakr and calling him the worst names and ab Bak is silent silent silent and the prophet Muhammad is smiling so then you know Abu Bak starts getting okay he gets to a point where he can't hand he start to respond want to say no that's not true and the prophet Muhammad frowned and he walked away and he said why why did you do that he said when you were silent you were the better you were the better man you were the you were strong and I and I respected that and once you came to respond to someone because now you're acknowledging you're you're you're giving value to this aggression to this lowly Behavior then you have degraded yourself and I don't want to see that so you see the difference in attitude that's that's our Prophet that's how he taught us to be when people insulted him when they you know they used to throw garbage in front of his house you know one of his neighbors used to throw garbage every morning would take G like animal intestines put thorns in it put it at Muhammad's door so every morning to get out of his house he has to remove this stuff scratch his hands and one day he he gets out of his house and there's no garbage there and you know what he does he's worried he goes to his neighbor knocks on the door I'm like are you okay like he finds that his neighbor's sick like oh I got worried about you because you didn't throw garbage and he takes some food and visits him okay that's how he taught us to be is our prophet and if we want to honor the prophet Muhammad's life an example we do it by living up to his you know none of us are perfect we're all flawed I'm more flawed than most people out there you know and you you accept your flaws but when you're going to speak in the name of our Prophet when you're going to speak in the name of Islam then you speak the truth and you do it elegantly out of the billion plus Muslims how many of them would agree with everything you're saying how many of them just don't know that much they just sort of go along they were raised that way or whatever and then how many of them disagree and just go no you're wrong I really got to do the terrorism or the female genal mutilation or the whatever it is that we hear so much about the negative side I mean are there surveys and polls like I I found some about Sharia you know in certain countries you know 90% of the people think Sharia law should be the law of the land and so on but it's hard to say on these other things what percentage would you know agree with you versus not or just don't even know well I think a lot of people don't know much but my understanding of how Muslims are is that at least at their heart most people want to do what's right you have bad people everywhere and people who who are destructive you're going to find them in every culture and every religion and every sect but the majority of people do and i' I've had Muslims of various backgrounds whether they're sunnis or Shiites or you know Sal if to whatever their school of thought may be you know I mean the life of the Quran is not out yet but people who left who read Muhammad the world changer the majority of people loved it and because because that's the prophet we believe in even if allot of people don't understand it but this is this is why we love our Prophet because he was an amazing person his character he way he behaved with people the way he treated people uh his kindness his benevolence his generosity his humility all of these people would walk into a room where he's there and they would ask which of you is Muhammad he didn't dress different than anyone else he didn't put himself on a pedestal he didn't he was an ordinary person and and and and he lived like that and he lived that example when he died he didn't have anything he had given everything he had to charity to the poor to to orphans he died poor he didn't have anything actually you know his his armor that he need to get for the few battles that he had to go to which he didn't really fight in right um he took that armor before he died and ped it with a Jewish Merchant to get money so he can buy food to feed to feed his family he didn't care about his armor you know he that's that's not what a general does you know that's not what a military person does but that's who our Prophet is and when we speak about Shar I already explained to you this is what Shar is so in the in the mind in the psych of Muslims Shar is Justice Shar is compassion Shar is Mercy Shar is giving women rights giving security to people uh uh not lying to people not deceiving them you know not hurting people safety that's what people think about when they think of sh they're not thinking of of extreme you think anybody would want to live under that like if anybody thinks that that's how people think they must be insane but that's what they that's extremist movements promise people they promise them that if they bring Shar at least the understanding of Shar according to the Quran the Shar and according to our tradition is a system of justice a system of equality where the king is equal to the poer that's what our teach our teachings teach us the Miracles um the miracle stories attributed to Muhammad similar to that those of Jesus but different um you know flying to uh Heaven on a winged horse and splitting the moon and raising dead soldiers and turning so what what do you make of those we don't need we don't need Miracles our Miracle is one the miracle of our Prophet is the Quran this is what every Muslim scholar agrees on the Miracle of our Prophet the proof of his prophethood how do we know he's a prophet because of the teachings of the Quran because they are guidance we don't need we don't need myths we don't need Legends we don't need and and a lot of these so-called Miracles are you know were created long after the prophet's death to compete with Christians and Jews and everybody else yeah so every every Miracle Jesus had done Muhammad does it and Does It Better everything Moses had done Muhammad does does it better right and you have thousands of Miracles attributed to him like you know what it's uh it's actually it's unnecessary and and and and at the end of the day it doesn't help you interesting lying about somebody because you love them and you want people to respect them is not helpful because at the end of the day all it does is takes away from the prophet's amazing personality who he was and if you look in my book I show you who he was I show you who he was his life his real life every in piece of information in this book had to be verified and you know I actually use empirical evidence to verify these stories and if it's not verifi if it's if if there's something that cannot be verified with fact it's not in here and the stories of his life are in themselves so inspiring because you you read this and you're like I want to be like this person CU he's a human being if he's flying and he's doing all of these things you know and and walking through walls or whatever he's going to do how can I compete with that tells us that he's our example yeah we have to be like him so he suffers he goes through difficulty his his sons die he buries almost all his children with his own hands you know he goes through so much suffering he's injured he breaks his tooth his face is cut he's he's garbage is thrown at him rocks are hurled at him he he's hurt in all these different ways because he's a human being he's flesh and blood and that's what makes him so special is that because he was a mortal he says that by himself I'm a flawed mortal I'm a flawed Human Being Human Beings no you know it says every human being makes mistakes there's no perfect human being no and the prophet the Quran gives examples of the prophets making mistakes and doing things yeah prophets don't sin and the the concept of sin is basically when you intentionally maliciously want to do something that's harmful or bad or like against God or against people that's what a sin is but mistakes we all make them and you know what we also sin you know but the prophets are are human beings islamically they are Mortals just like us and they ex examplify how to like look at the story of Moses he's Moses and the Quran doesn't shy away from how Moses's rage he had a really bad temper well Muhammad you've been very generous with your time you've given me three times as much time on the ground he grabs his brother's beard he's pulling at him he's yelling at him slapping his brother in front of the Israelites he's so angry but he's the Beloved of God you know this is the same guy who who kills the the the Egyptian Foreman like has so much rage but you know what he had a good heart and he had and at the end of the day no human being is perfect you know the Quran doesn't try to make them sound like oh they're perfect they're above they're human beings and they suffered just like us yeah nicely put Muhammad I was just saying you're you've been generous with your time you gave me three three times as much time as your publicist said you had so I really appreciate that I couldn't find that much biographical material on you do you have like a congregation that you're religious Services every week or I I I did for 26 years I have been retired um what you look so young are you kidding me no I I'm probably older than you no you're not I can I'm 69 you're not older than me maybe I'm 80 no anyways so you're a full-time writer now yes I'm a full-time writer and I do have another book in mind after these hopefully you got to because you got to have a Trilogy yeah yes um I I do have other books I had written before uh you know when I was Chief Imam and when I served as Headmaster of calmies uh wrote books on U uh on different Islamic topics the classical Arabic language its grammar its syntax history um ex aesus Islamic law all of these different topics I had written about in the past but these these are for for popular audience they're written for all people whether they're Muslim or not so what's the what's the next one the next one um the the the topic is on it's going to be female Centric so basically it's about uh women in Islam and I want to you know I'm still formulating the idea but basically it's it's going to highlight just like in in this book I highlighted the prophet and the and you can see the women but the women are in the background so now I'm going to zoom in on the women on khad the amazing woman at Baraka the African the African a former ensl formerly enslaved woman who who basically raises the prophet she's there the day he's born she is his uh one of his closest advisers throughout his life and she's there the day he dies and she's an adviser to two of his um successors so she's an amazing remarkable woman and I so she she will be highlighted in the next book and and also have um The Prophet's daughter fala who's a remarkable woman as well and all these other women who who inspired the prophet who supported him who were inspired by him who upheld his legacy and also um you know all the women Scholars that we had across time that people will know about uh by the way I do speak about her I have an article um online about the hidden Heritage of Islamic women so if anybody wants they can read it okay but I do mention several examples nice that's an important subject and if all Muslims thought like you then I don't think we'd have much of a political issue that we do so I hope people read your book this way I don't think there are people who are genuinely uh you know bigoted and hate people but I think the majority of people who think they hate Islam don't hate Islam they actually if they knew what Islam really was yeah if they knew the prophet they would love him because unless unless you're you know you're really set in your ways which is fine which your right to have you know I think the majority of people can identify with the prophet Muhammad's teachings and who he was a human being and and also with the teachings of the Quran nice well there it is the life of the Quran from eternal roots to enduring Legacy we will release this on the pub date of the book I hope it does well for you and I hope everybody Muslim and otherwise reads the book it's important to get these myths debunked and understand what uh the religion really says so thank you for that thank you for your work all right mamad

Channel: Skeptic

Views: 6,040

Keywords: Michael Shermer, Skeptic, Christianity, interpretation, Islam, Judaism, religion, Science Salon, Sharia Law, The Michael Shermer Show, translation, Mohamad Jebara

Id: JVCx9_g413Q

Length: 95min 13sec (5713 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 09 2024