Sources and names › Scholar › Dr Javad T. Hashmi (guest)
ScholarDr Javad T. Hashmi (guest)
Cited in 36 segments across 1 recording · 2020 · scholar/scholar:javad-hashmi
Citing segments
Newest first. Each opens the whole segment, not a bare quote.
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did a medical doctor choose to study religion at Harvard?
The guest describes training as a physician and then turning to Arabic and Islamic studies at Berkeley and Harvard, where he is now a PhD candidate in the study of religion, despite his family's initial unease.
machine3 min 33 s0:04on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it better to study Islam at a madrasa or at a Western university?
The guest says he chose the critical academic study of Islam over al-Azhar, considering it superior, though he took two years of al-Azhar's online programme and recommends combining traditional and academic study.
machine3 min 07 s3:37on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Should I go to Madinah University or a madrasa to study Islam?
The guest advises open-minded, critical thinkers against a traditional madrasa, which he says selects, programmes and isolates its students from current scholarship, citing his own rejection by Madinah University.
machine3 min 21 s6:44on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are madrasas failing their students?
Mufti Abu Layth says the madrasa phenomenon is dysfunctional and dumbs students down though it supplies the raw materials; both say those who leave orthodox positions are ostracised, and the guest recommends a few years of traditional study combined with academic study.
machine5 min 25 s10:05on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why don't madrasas teach the Islamic philosophers and the Mu'tazila?
The guest says traditionalists value only a narrow sliver of Islam's diverse intellectual heritage, ignoring the philosophers, the early Qadariyya and Mu'tazila, Shia thinkers and modernists, and that he found answers on religion and science in Ibn Rushd.
machine3 min 58 s15:30on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does traditional orthodoxy lead to extremism?
The guest says today's orthodoxy promotes reactionary conservatism that can mutate into groups like the Taliban and ISIS, and proposes reviving the philosophers, Mu'tazila and modernists; Mufti Abu Layth agrees some non-violent groups create a springboard for extremism.
machine3 min 11 s19:28on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If blind following in faith is forbidden, why must I accept a school's creed without question?
Mufti Abu Layth finds it paradoxical that schools forbid blind following in faith but demand blind acceptance of their creeds; the guest says traditionalists use reason only to reach revelation and then discard it, whereas reason must stay in continuous use.
machine7 min 03 s24:25on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Isn't reason subjective, and is something good only because God commands it?
The guest says the Ash'ari voluntarist view of ethics is the real relativism and argues for universal moral values grounded in God's nature; Mufti Abu Layth calls the Ash'ari denial of inherent good and bad nonsense.
machine4 min 16 s29:42on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where does morality come from if not from God?
The guest says a theist can ground moral realism in God while an atheist who relies on evolution alone cannot, and that traditionalist debaters exploit opponents who know little philosophy.
machine5 min 49 s34:45on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is morality an instinct God put in us?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the fitrah is a hardwired moral instinct of recognising harm and feeling empathy, built on by environment and a collective consciousness; the guest adds that morality can be confidently grounded in God.
machine3 min 30 s39:47on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If morality is universal, why was slavery accepted for so long?
The guest says moral ideals exist in God and humans approximate them; past acceptance of slavery came from not recognising others' full humanity, and ritual laws such as the pork prohibition differ from universal moral law.
machine4 min 24 s43:17on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does God's morality change over time?
The guest says universal morality does not change, only ritual law: the Quran corrects the biblical conquest narrative by implying the Israelites inherited Egypt rather than slaughtering another people.
machine2 min 11 s47:41on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do animals have morality, and does that mean morality just evolved?
Mufti Abu Layth sees a sense of justice in primates as evidence of a raw moral fitrah that humans develop further; the guest warns this can suggest morality is merely evolved and says rooting it in God is the necessary step.
machine4 min 06 s49:52on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If we all recognise harm, why do people still do terrible things?
Mufti Abu Layth says empathy can be overridden by instincts such as power, and that a shared consciousness shapes the moral feel of an age; he notes the Quran commands justice without defining it, which the guest links to the Mu'tazila.
machine4 min 26 s53:58on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How should the stories in the Quran be read?
The guest describes his dissertation on jihad in the Quran and his project translating Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah's suppressed study of the Quran's narrative art, which he says is right.
machine3 min 59 s59:44on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the stories in the Quran meant to be literal history?
The guest argues, following Khalafallah and Ibn Rushd, that the Quran's stories are sacred literature and legend, using symbol and parable for theological ends rather than reporting literal history.
machine6 min 58 s1:02:23on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Can I accept evolution and still take the Quran's stories as true?
The guest calls for reading the Quran wholesale as sacred literature, accepting evolution as scientific fact while holding that religion's symbolic truths, not science, ground human rights and meaning.
machine3 min 46 s1:09:21on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran speak in symbols and metaphors?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees with Ibn Rushd that the Quran speaks in symbols and that scripture is a kind of art, but asks whether the guest thinks the prophets and their stories are fictitious.
machine2 min 48 s1:13:07on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are paradise and hell in the Quran meant literally?
The guest, following Ibn Rushd against al-Ghazali, says belief requires accepting the afterlife, not literal readings of its details; Mufti Abu Layth agrees the afterlife is symbolic but says the prophets' stories are of this world.
machine4 min 28 s1:15:55on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the Quran tell the same story in different ways?
The guest says the Quran's stories are set in sacred, not historical, time and follow archetypes that speak to the Prophet's own circumstances, which is why the same story, such as Lot's or the golden calf, is told differently.
machine4 min 29 s1:20:23on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Jesus really speak in the cradle, and did the earlier prophets exist?
The guest says historians can be confident that Muhammad and Jesus existed but less so of earlier figures, and that the Quran's Jesus stories, such as speaking in the cradle, are dramatised; Mufti Abu Layth says no clear verse says Jesus spoke in the cradle.
machine5 min 37 s1:24:52on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet Muhammad perform miracles?
The guest argues that the Quran implies the Prophet performed no miracles and ties signs to compulsion, so traditionalists read miracles in from hadith; both speakers appear to reject the view that every prophet needs a miracle.
machine4 min 27 s1:30:29on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did angels really fight at the battle of Badr?
The guest says the angels at Badr are a literary description of God strengthening the believers' hearts, since the named Muslims who killed the enemy chiefs are known, and that the same reading applies to earlier prophets' stories.
machine4 min 06 s1:34:56on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Who were the riders seen at Badr?
Mufti Abu Layth takes the Badr angels as strength and vigour rather than a physical event and floats a theory that the riders seen were Persian knights of the House of Karen; the guest prefers a purely literary reading.
machine3 min 23 s1:39:02on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Should archaeology worry believers about the Quran's stories?
The guest, as a self-described Islamic modernist following Fazlur Rahman, says believers need not fear archaeology, since the Quran re-attributes Jesus' miracles to God for theological rather than historical ends.
machine3 min 12 s1:42:25on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the story of Adam in the Quran a myth?
The guest reads the Adam story as sacred myth whose point is human dignity, improving on the Babylonian and biblical accounts by removing original sin and blame of the woman; Mufti Abu Layth holds the figures and events were real but told to appeal to listeners.
machine7 min 08 s1:45:37on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran treat every human life as sacred, even in war?
The guest says the Quran holds every human soul sacred, which classical exegetes on jihad missed; Mufti Abu Layth says Muslim scholarship must shift from outdated fiqh to ethics.
machine3 min 27 s1:52:45on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does the Quran actually say the miracles happened?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Quran often never states that a miracle occurred, as with the table for Jesus, and that the prophets were real though later assumptions colour them; the guest says the Quran rearticulates the discourses of its milieu.
machine5 min 43 s1:56:12on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Who was Dhul Qarnayn, and who are Gog and Magog?
Mufti Abu Layth identifies Dhul Qarnayn most likely with Cyrus the Great and reads Gog and Magog as havoc-wreaking forces, later the colonial powers; the guest says this already relies on ad hoc literary reinterpretation.
machine4 min 55 s2:01:55on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the Dhul Qarnayn story based on the legend of Alexander?
The guest says scholarship shows the Dhul Qarnayn story derives from a Byzantine Christian legend of Alexander walling in Gog and Magog, known to the Quran's first audience; Mufti Abu Layth asks why the Quran then tells it so ambiguously.
machine4 min 34 s2:06:50on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the Quran tell the story of Dhul Qarnayn so briefly?
The guest says the Quran retells the known legend concisely to show the Prophet's knowledge from God, while stripping its Christian imperial ending; Mufti Abu Layth objects that its unusual wording is too vague for that.
machine5 min 40 s2:11:24on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What do the unusual words in the Dhul Qarnayn verses mean?
Mufti Abu Layth argues the wording of 18:83-90 is too vague to be a retelling of the Alexander legend; the guest says the Syriac subtext explains it and that without it the passage invites endless speculative readings, and they agree to differ.
machine8 min 39 s2:17:04on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the Quran give so little detail about some prophets?
The guest says the brief, repeated stories are archetypes recalled to console the Prophet, which audiences already knew; Mufti Abu Layth argues that following an archetype does not show a story was invented.
machine7 min 25 s2:25:43on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does the guest criticise Yasir Qadhi's views on jinn and evolution?
The guest criticises Yasir Qadhi's dogmatic style and his literal readings of Dhul Qarnayn, evolution and jinn, offering a medical explanation for exorcism accounts; Mufti Abu Layth jokes about the zombie theory and calls Brubaker courteous.
machine7 min 56 s2:33:08on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the jinn real, or a symbol?
The guest says the Quran rearticulated a late antique belief in jinn to subordinate them to God, that he does not literally believe in them, and that Shaytan personifies human evil; Mufti Abu Layth agrees that inner impulses are personified as good and bad forces.
machine6 min 46 s2:41:04on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Closing: the guest's projects, his statement of faith, and a safe space for views
The guest describes his planned article and book, affirms that he believes the Quran is divine revelation and that his views are legitimate, and Mufti Abu Layth says no one has the authority to silence learned opinions by calling them misguided.
machine6 min 14 s2:47:50on YouTube