Quranist MindTrap Review | Psychedelics | Trauma & Tradition | Meetup | Mufti Abu Layth

[music] >> All right, I see.

Um Yeah, I did Right, this or is this rescheduled? No, it's not rescheduled. The live is going ahead. Unfortunately, with the mind trap that was scheduled with uh Sheikh Atabek, I'm not sure what happened to Sheikh Atabek. So, I did speak to him um just uh 10:00 p.m.

Um then suddenly, I'm not sure when I tried just before 11:00. I have actually been sitting here waiting just in case. I think his phone I don't know what's happened. Hopefully, he's okay, but his phone wasn't responsive. So, hey. I thought in any case, right, let's come live. And let's take a look at what some of your thoughts.

I know we'd had a um mind trap last week. Allah. Hey, what I'm looking to do is I'll share the link. And we can discuss some key theme, sorry. >> [gasps] >> All of your mashallah Allah.

Bless you all. Shukran shukran. Allah bless you. Sheikh Atabek keeps teaching. >> [laughter] >> I did think Well, for what it's worth, it was Sheikh Atabek who actually got in touch to say, "Look, let's do a mind trap." So, this is why I don't know. I hope everything's okay on his end. So, it wasn't really Um so, he was himself very keen to to do this.

So, hopefully, it's all good. I mean, maybe something's come up or maybe his phone's died or something. I don't know. But, hey. Yes, Allah. We'll circle back. There are a few other mind traps as well I do have in mind. And a few uh interesting conversations pending. May Allah bless you.

Right, how are you guys? Right, so Mhm, I'm going to I was thinking since Let's since it is blessed Friday. Allah, let's get some of your blessed um presences up here.

See what's on your thoughts and mind. I will give a brief overview. I was thinking about I've just shared the link as well. Those of you just tuning in, you can click like and share. Right, so my thoughts on the discussion that happened.

Right, yeah. You see, I am a key proponent of dialogue. I do feel overall, it was a successful dialogue. You see, after I'd watched after I'd done my mind trap with uh brother MFG, I then saw I mean, after in the days that followed saw many clips.

People had sent me some clips and then once you click on one, the algorithm brings you more and more. I saw a lot of clips of previous clips of uh brother MFG coming on other people's lives and debating them. And yeah, I mean, the the kind of dynamic was just horrible to watch.

Absolutely horrible. You know, they're shouting at each other, being very rude, disrespectful to one another. Um You know, all this kind of stuff, just vitriolic hate speech, really. So, relatively speaking, and I saw the algorithm brought a few clips that I think he's appeared previously um with a few different groups and dynamics.

He's appeared with Muhammad Hijab. He's appeared with uh some of the Shia uh representatives. He's appeared with a few of the people then I saw and then I didn't really want to watch anymore. So, relatively speaking, I I do feel our discussion was a great success. Because for the most part, we managed to speak.

And I know some people were upset about, well, you know, you're speaking over each other. And Yeah, so And I can understand why that was happening more so from brother MFG's part because just looking at all of his other dialogues and discussions, they're not really discussions.

They're just all shouting debates. And they're just uh monologues. So, I can see that maybe brother Muhammad was not accustomed or used to just just having a very calm discussion, like an actual dialogue. And the reason why I would you know, I did watch back.

I would interrupt is because brother Muhammad wouldn't really answer the point. He would like have almost like a You see, a dialogue is not two monologues. This is important to understand. A dialogue is a conversation and the reason you're having a conversation is you're prepared to to to to see what the other person has to say about this.

And and what is on the stand for discussion here is Quranism in that dialogue. It's not other points. It's not, well, what would you have to say about, for example, such and such thing. It's actually it's this topic, Quranist only.

And is this a viable means? And I think the discussion really did show that it's not. And I mean, from my perspective, I'm kind of done with Quranists. Uh That's my kind of where I'm at. I'm not really interested in them. I never was really. I had no idea who Muhammad was.

And it's a really good idea. I mean, it's a really good element that I had no idea who he was. Otherwise, I If I'd just seen the other clips that he'd just been arguing and calling people non-stop mushriks and calling Muslims most of Muslims idolaters and calling all pagans. And I would have not even had that conversation with him. I would have not even brought him up on the platform. So, I'm glad alhamdulillah I hadn't watched anything and thereby did allow him a conversation.

Um so, but it really I feel it proved my point that this Quranism is really just an inverted form of hard wing um almost Khawarij Salafism. So, if you look at not just regular Salafis, but like the far right, the right-wing hardline Khawarij kind of Wahhabis that we have and I'm using the term Wahhabi especially for

that such a group like that. I'm not referring to regular Salafis. This Quranist movement is an inverse of that. They are exactly them, but here they just reject Hadith. So, it's It It comes off There is an element of cognitive dissonance.

Because when a person joins or when a person comes across it, they assume You see, and I mentioned this in my discussion that you assume that maybe these people are coming from a place of passion. Uh sorry, a place of compassion. But, they're not. Right, um they are really just Right, they are really just coming from a place of rage, anger, um hate even.

Maybe just trauma that they've feel they've been done on to that they are the new saved sect of Islam. You know, everybody else is an mushrik is a idolater and everybody else is a pagan. And All right, so all of this stuff Yeah, it just goes to show it really just proves the point and but here I am glad and and in my thoughts on the discussion were that it did go very well as far as the discussion have possibly gone because once again

if you take a look at brother MFG's regular dialogues, they seem to just be nothing but a shouting. So, you can tell based on that I was actually not out of line because to compare something you have to look at like for like. So, if you see a lot of his other discussions, they're just shouting. He's just shouting, the other person shouting. So, relatively speaking, this was quite a success.

In this discussion, we did look at a few key central themes. One, okay, how do you respond to certain verses? Um two Um All right, so which brother Muhammad gave a response and that was, you know, um and that's what we're looking for.

We're looking for well, how do you respond? What are your reflections? And he gave those reflections. I was I was very I was quite caught off guard with how And I and I understand this may not be their intention, but how apparently appears that how disrespectful they come off to the prophet I was very caught off guard with that.

I didn't expect that at all. That You know, this not being a mercy for the world. I didn't know this argument of this. I didn't even um That that that was a complete uh surprise to me in the in the dialogue. So, and then and I had to stop brother Muhammad and say, "Look, please don't carry on with this because I've got a feeling this is going to go down a road where you're going to start becoming more disrespectful to the prophet and then I'm not going to engage this conversation at all." So, he because he he he made some analogy

that if the prophet just sat at home and just did something. And I just thought, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." You know, we're Muslims here. So, let's you know, we're not even this is not going to this is not going to happen. Okay. So, that caught me entirely off guard. However, that said, the responses to the generic verses See, the the verses it was fine that brother Muhammad gave his thoughts and reflections and that's what I'm asking him to do.

What surprised me is somebody the whole Quranist movement is based on every person can come to the Quran and take what it what it speaks to them. Yet, when we're discussing verses with valid interpretations like let when we said the verse that that what does Noor here mean?

And some of us have said it means the prophet which I would say it means the prophet. Some people have said it means the Noor of guidance. And you could say, I mean, they don't usually say it's speaking about the Quran, but okay, brother MFG felt it was speaking about the Quran, which is fine. But then almost in a rage, he he denounced every other valid and primary interpretation as going against the Quran and therefore almost kufar.

You know, because it's going against the Quran. And so, once again, you're seeing that very Khawarij understanding of that everybody else is not a believer or they're not they are, you know, they're all corrupt. We are the saved sect. Somebody here had said that Mufti, you know, they said allegedly Mufti does that. I I'm not aware that I've ever done something like that that where I've said that I'm the saved sect and all these other interpretations.

In fact, my whole thing has been about welcoming people to a diverse approach. And Yeah, so that really surprised me, those interpretations. Then I think what really bothered the Quranist um movement and especially I think brother Muhammad um what really bothered them is when we took the dialogue to the application of salah of Islam.

So, we took it to salah and so. Now, in salah when brother Muhammad started to give a description and if you watch my I did watch my whole thing back to see was I being How was I being? Now, I because people saying, "Oh, you're talking over." But this was really just people who I could tell were just hardline Quranists and just upset.

And hey So, I watched it. Now, the moment he starts to give his description of the salah, I do ask him that could you just give in I say something like 60 seconds an overview from beginning to end of how your salah looks like. Now, that conversation went on didn't I mean, it went on for quite a while. And in a way, I'm glad it did because in that brother Muhammad's whole thing I feel fell apart.

And this is what really bothered a lot of the Quranists because Look, you know, I said this the week before when we spoke on our meetup that a person should have like worthy adversaries, you know, opponents. You know, my being other.

And you should have the kind of fortitude to accept as well certain things. There's a There's a grace. There's almost a heroism in that as well. And you could tell although I'm sure they're not going to accept this that the whole Quranist argument unfortunately with quite humiliation on their part fell apart as he began to explain the salah.

Any person watching that I could tell was deeply embarrassed at how um brother Muhammad was um representing the Quranists. Cuz you know, this thing of just saying I I pray salah however it feels to me in the moment. You know, I do And I had no idea by the way as I approached that conversation, I had no idea how brother Muhammad played prays his salah.

So, I didn't know what he was going to say. I assumed he was going to say that salah is not a ritual. Uh you know, some Quranists say that oh, there is no such thing as salah. It's just a remembrance in the heart. So, I for some reason assumed he was going to say that. But he didn't and he um he went on to say something which really I think decimated his own argument of Quranism and just showed how weak Quranism is as a whole.

So, because he he went on to say, "Well, I do pray. I pray three times a day." And then what you know, when I said, "Okay, can you describe the salah?" the the description of the salah was so arbitrary. It was like, "Well, I begin by Why do you begin with that?" There's nothing in the Quran that says that says when you're going to recite the Quran.

So, he could say, "Well, because I'm going to recite the Quran." Okay, fine. But you would assume that the verse of the Quran says that He mentions the name of his Lord and then prays. Begins salah. So, he says then he reads Fatiha because it is the best to I in the Quran. First of all, where does it say in the Quran that Fatiha is the best to I in the Quran?

I'm not negating it, but it doesn't say that in the Quran. Secondly, why Fatiha? Because that is how Muslims pray. So, really it's just doing what other Muslims do, but having such a problem with the tradition. And so, he says, "Well, because it's just arbitrary." And then I, you know, don't do I just go straight into and I say one such that two such does just do one, but it depends on the day.

You know, do I do do do you do a two depends on the mood and the feeling and the iman in that particular moment. Sometimes I pray three, sometimes I pray one, sometimes I pray I mean, you could see this is just embarrassing. So embarrassing that that that is that is not a tradition that could be taught.

That's just, you know, so ad hoc and haphazard. That then you might as well just not have >> [laughter] >> a system that is having a system that reads there is no system. >> [laughter] >> is not a system. So, you see Islam doesn't leave things to feelings.

Because feelings are the worst things to be consistent with. You need the whole purpose of discipline is to override feelings. That you don't If I just leave it to how I feel, then people aren't going to feel like anything. They're not going to feel like wanting to do anything. So, this let's just leave it to how you feel on the day. It's a very, you know, modern feel this philosophy, isn't it?

You know, in Sapiens, he really covers there's a good chapter on this. Um in the book Sapiens, that this modern notion of how you feel, you know. It's such a fallacy. He he really breaks this down that, you know, go do what your heart says. You know, what what does this mean? No, people one of the biggest problems is people have no idea what they want.

And people's feelings are the biggest impediment to their life their lives journey. Cuz most people feel miserable. Most people feel, uh, you know, like failures. Most people feel disengaged. They feel disenchanted. Most people feel confused. So, leaving it to hey, your feelings, this is And you might say, well, by feeling I mean my level of Iman, how my Iman feels.

But I, you know, that once again, the what what So, I think in that dialogue there when we shifted the second part, when we started speaking about application of salah, it really fell apart embarrassingly. And this was my point that, look, let's have a dialogue because if you can stand the test of time, I will want you to steel man your case, but by and with it steel manned, it will fall apart.

That was my da'wah. And such, you know, is what happened and manifested. So, then we went on to, um, some. And in some, once again, you know, uh, I just asked a simple question, what is it that invalidates the fast and the usual eating, drinking, uh, sexual intercourse.

And I said, well, could you just show me the verse of the Quran that clearly says that? And the verse of the Quran does not clearly say it. It does say it, but it doesn't it says it through by implying it without saying it. So, now that's interesting because somebody who goes by the Quranist alone movement I was denying a moment ago in that dialogue other readings in this verse of the Quran that they're relying on.

The Quran does not explicitly teach the rulings of what to abstain from. So, but what it does is it implies it. And And that's fine, but it was the the reason why that was a problem for brother MFG is because he was denying all other um, extrapolations, other people's interpretations.

So, yeah, overall, I do feel that went, um, it was very well it proved the point. However, it also really reaffirmed what I said at the preface. That to me the Quran only movement is is a movement coming from a place of rage. From a place of anger.

From hurt and trauma. That this is not a solution for Muslims. It's a very not thought through response. It's something very haphazard. It's very emotional. And it is actually an inverse uh, reality of the Khawarij right-wing kind of Salafis. It is exactly just a an inverse reality of that.

So, they're exactly the same, but they here just reject Hadith. And this is interesting and I mentioned this there that you see people who take a more balanced approach that say like, and I gave the solution, which is to do with tradition where we accept the Sunnah.

And Sunnah does not equate to Hadith. And Hadith have to meet the three criteria. You see, such people that in those cases reject certain Hadith, like Imam Malik did and many ulama coming down do. They often reject the Hadith based coming from a place of compassion and love for the deen.

And a following of the Sunnah. So, they find something clashing. And I mentioned that even when I did Bukhari gates and I showed I had a series years ago called Hadith that insult Islam. See, is in the title that insult Islam. That these Hadith were disrespectful to the Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam.

So, they could not be a Hadith. That the whole angle and energy was coming from a place of love and honor for the Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam and other prophets before us. It was not coming from a place of rage. So, that's a key difference. Like the the Hadith that, for example, we find and I find it disrespectful to the Prophet Moses, Musa Alayhi Wasallam, where they try to say he's, um, you know, he's he had some kind of an illness to do with his, astaghfirullah, his genitals.

Now, I find that very disrespectful what the Israelites were saying about Moses. And I refuse to accept that the Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam would have said something like that. So, this Hadith would have been something coming down through the Israelite tradition and misplaced as a Hadith. So, things like this, you see, we were the age of Aisha, things that were disrespectful to the honor of the Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam, we stood up for, not coming from a place of anger and rage.

Right. So, that said, yeah, the All right. Yeah. So, overall, um, right. Yeah. So, overall, that's I in summary, I'm glad it happened, but I'm not really interested in this whole movement. And let it be.

I was The reason I was very glad is because when I saw other clips later after my dialogue, I did see see the need that this that many people wanted this brother to have had a dialogue with a Muslim representative or a Muslim scholar or a Muslim thinker.

And many of them weren't having it with him because and some of them that were, it was just in shouting, arguing. And so, in that sense, I guess that job has been done. Right. Let's see. I've I shared out the link. Um All right. And if anybody wants to tune in, uh, click like, click share.

I will just add, um, a brief point that I didn't take it down the argument of trying to which I do feel is an argument, but I didn't take it down the argument of um, you see, because you're problematizing Hadith, Quran is transmitted similarly.

Reason being is that that's or it may have some truths and in part it's not true that the Quran was transmitted very differently from, you know, father to child. It was transmitted en masse as a collective movement. It wasn't transmitted the same way Hadith was transmitted in a more niche, but there are some parallels. So, even though there's some truths there, um, the other thing was what I didn't want to do was I didn't want to by any means bring about, um,

like I don't want people to drag the Quran down just because they have a problem with something else. Like let's say some If somebody's got a problem with Hadith, what we don't want to do is is bring the Quran there and say, well, okay, now you've got a problem with the Quran as well. I don't want to that cuz you see, that's that's not really the approach of We should never have that approach as Muslims.

Just as if somebody's disrespecting something, we shouldn't say, well, oh, then what do you say about the Prophet who did cuz then in that way you're kind of bringing the Prophet down as well. Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam. So, we as Muslims should never do things like that. And so, that's why that was never part of the dialogue and I never uh, uh responded with such kind of uh arguments.

All right. Okay, we have got some people joining. Should we have some thoughts? What is Um all right, I just want to say here. All right, I look I was just about to bring on a guest, but I saw this comment. And I thought let me just respond to that.

Look, I don't want to say stuff like this. Um Quranists, I do feel the whole movement to be like I said misplaced energy in a position place coming from uh rage and trauma, but I don't like this thought of saying then and and I completely disagree with saying they're not Muslims. They are Muslims.

And you know, they they're on a journey just like everyone else. What I don't want is a a I don't want a hatred towards people who are Quranists. I don't want a rage against people like that. They're they're on a journey. I do feel look, everybody somewhere along the way they've like many people they've probably been hurt with something.

We've all been hurt. You understand? And they've probably been hurt with something. Somebody's probably been cruel to them. They've probably used Hadith to be cruel to them. They This has made them turn away from Hadith as a whole. I bet with maybe 80% of them it's something like that. Which really is a shame that the people who try to shove Islam down their throat using certain Hadith, they are at fault really.

You know, the the prophet never taught Islam like this. So, what I don't want is this angle of they're somehow non-Muslims, they're somehow Kuffar. They're not. They are Muslims. They are our brothers and sisters. They sure, you know, we may disagree in our approach, but I do I wallahi from my heart I feel that as life progresses for them and they heal with whatever hurt they have, they they will just kind of realign to a bit more of a balanced approach.

That's what I feel. I don't uh my purpose of the dialogue was to show arguments, the weakness of the arguments by allowing the um the interlocutor to present his case, in this case brother Muhammad, and steel man it and thereby it's still falling apart. That was my purpose. And that did happen, but it was not to to kind of excommunicate and anathematize and to say these people are somehow you know, out of Islam or No, no, no, no.

Don't Let's not do that. This is why I'm against this whole debating culture. Khair. Um All right, let's bring on some I've got Hussein here. Hussein, let me uh salaam alaykum. How >> Wa alaykum salaam. All right, how's your mic?

Uh sorry. No, no, no, it's fine. I can adjust it from here now, I believe. They've um given us some >> How's that? Uh let's see. What's your Yeah, it should be hopefully should be okay. Test test test. Yeah, it should be fine. But yeah, so what is going on, Hussein, and how is life down under?

Alhamdulillah, life is good, Mufti. Life is good, you know, just uh Allahu Akbar. All right, how have you >> [laughter] >> Allah Allah. Has to be done, I guess. Has to be done. How have you um been since your whole journey, shall I say?

Oh. Oh. Let's just say things in the Quran make more sense after after that journey. You know, so uh you know, when the Quran's talking about God and describing God as light, when the Quran's talking about how God sent the Quran and the light, let's just say these interpretations are uh both literal and metaphorical.

It is >> [clears throat] >> they are I felt, you know, in my own journeys of uh people when I'd encountered what what is really uh medicine, sacred medicine I would feel, uh psychedelics. In my own journey, I felt what it what it did for me, what they did for me.

The journeys. Is This is I can only share one can only share their own experience. And this is qualitative. Um as opposed to quantitative that it took almost faith from a 2D perspective and made it 3D. That's the best Like I don't know if that makes sense to people, but that's what it did for me as a person.

>> [laughter] >> Oh, yeah. It makes That makes um to me what it did was it it also for the first time I experienced existence without a body. I experienced consciousness, that being without this body and and thereby you almost had a solidified layer to this belief of life after death.

Like all of a sudden life after death becomes so like you believed in it anyway, but now it becomes so real. It's like damn, like you you feel that you've seen a trailer, like an actual experienced an actual trailer of existence in the Barzakh. And yeah, it's it's something which it is ineffable.

It's what words can't describe. And it really does change people, you know, it um it it boosts a sense of spirituality. It brings to life mysticism. It boosts empathy, you know, your love and compassion. I don't know if you found this, but over time like I found that my you know, like my empathy side of things, it's like it's I don't been on steroids, >> [laughter] >> and it and that can sometimes >> Yeah, have you found Do you

and do you Oh, definitely. Definitely. Especially um So, you know, before that, you know, I've been on kickboxing for my whole life, you know, so it it's very hard sport, you know, you either make it or you don't. And maybe I also took that outside in my personal life. And after the this experience, you know, you just become very much more empathetic, you know, to what people are going through.

And you really let go of a lot of your own materialistic possessions and you and you go I'll put it at this level and now it's at this level. But I know other people they are still have it at this level. So, now it's a big a lot more understanding of people's perspectives and where they are and um yeah. Yeah, like I find that you know, over these last few years with a lot of things, with life experiences as well, but unquestionably what psyched You see what psychedelics does, like somebody asked here that why where's the question?

Why do you need uh psychedelics for experiential knowledge? You see, the I think the keyword there is in the knowing, what knowing means. And this is why I said you know before, but it took it from 2D to experiencing. So, it's a bit like saying, well, you studied an apple, but then tasting the apple will always be very different to just studying it.

You could be an expert on apples. Like let's say you, you know, you've studied uh all like, you know, about seeds and what makes the apple seeds unique and how it grows and how it kind of the roots shoot out in the tree and how the tree goes through its cycles and how apples develop and ripen and you could learn the names of the variety of apples. And But imagine you just But that's all experience could be in this world.

It cannot be that you've tasted the apple. And then there comes a person who also tastes it. Now, there is a qualitative um gulf between those two knowings. Both know about apples, unquestionably. But the the person who And this is why this tradition of mysticism it was called the the people who've tasted the people who taste because the tasting the was the experiencing they've experienced the you know the

the reality that Allah has kind of bestowed upon them really in by allowing them to so it's not and and from a biological perspective from a psychological perspective you see you have to understand how first of all consciousness in the brain operate that I do believe the brain is like a reductive valve for consciousness it kind of reduces the power of consciousness on the brain it's kind of like bringing it into it's like almost reducing it narrowing it so we can function

we can operate in this dunya otherwise we would just be overwhelmed I feel as humans and and what's important to learn is how neurons in the brain fire because they initially the first time you do something they take arbitrary pathways we have billions and billions of connections in the brain now the connections like let's say you had to solve something in in life like you had a problem you had to solve it the neuron will fire and it will just do it arbitrarily it will not always take the best or most

effective route but it will just fire in a particular way now let's say you solve or you you deal with a problem and your neurons are fired next time you face similar problems they will take that same pathway so it says that neurons that fire together wire together so that may not be the most effective pathway and most if you think about it a lot of our pathways are developed when we were kids we weren't even the most well adapted to handle problems so those pathways we're still using them as adults

and and then analogy that somebody gave I really enjoy this analogy he said it was like you've got like let's say a mountain with that's like covered draped in snow and you've got these kind of like pathways like let's say something's rolled down and it's made a path through the snow like a snowball has rolled down and it's made these pathways and there's different snowballs so you've got these so whenever a snowball forms it takes that pathway now and he said and what psychedelics does is it kind of somehow just shakes everything that everything just becomes

equal snow again so you've got you know a fresh start and that's that was an analogy but what it's actually doing is it's millions and millions of pathways it's creating millions and in that instance so you this is why you all of a sudden become sometimes much better at problem solving because you're you've developed millions of new synaptic connections which another person could develop but really they've got to go through so much to develop it and sometimes you can't it's difficult to

over rewire a new connection because the old one is so strong that was sorry response I was just >> [laughter] >> carried away in responding but yeah one of the coolest things that I have noticed since that is you know when you read the works of people like Rumi you start to actually understand what he's communicating so there's that famous story of him going through the marketplace and then the blacksmith is beating on the steel ting ting ting and then Rumi

he starts spinning and through the spinning now we know what is actually a way to induce DMT through the human body and as he's spinning and as the blacksmith is tinging he starts having a spiritual experience now I remember hearing this story before and I go yeah yeah makes no sense to me I I totally can't understand it >> [laughter] >> but now you you know what he's saying you know exactly what he's communicating and and people like even you know not that I know much about him but you know when

for example you're discussing him through through your series but earlier you can now understand what the man's trying to communicate because a lot of people after you come out from your own experience you you start thinking how can I put this into words and then you look at the those that have attempted to put it into words earlier and they're using the best words to describe it better than what I could come up with and then you go ah now I see the challenge >> [laughter] >> of trying to describe the apple to someone that's never tasted the apple and you're absolutely right

you see they in fact the definition you know from William James the father of modern psychology on the mystical experience is they they put in the acronym pint so they would say that the experience has a passivity it has an ineffability it has a noetic quality to it and it's transient that passivity in the sense that it will overcome you like you cannot resist it it it is overwhelming and the fact that it is ineffable you can't really put it into words I mean

you can try but it doesn't really make sense to the person who's not experienced what you're saying really there are just two camps there's those who have experienced and those who haven't and those who haven't will never truly understand those who have that is the truth of the matter it's like the the person who's never tasted the apple just has not tasted it you know they may always have a fear that apples carry parasites and apples are dangerous as well you know such and such person they will have anecdotes you know such and such person choked on an apple apple was the fall of humanity with Adam apple was you know the symbol

of global commercial capitalism apple is I mean you could just take an apple as an example and we could come up with so many things here in the moment but there will always be such a chasm between the two groups you know that those who have experienced and those who haven't and the N in pint was a noetic quality that you come back with a kind of knowing now this knowing is not necessarily information it's more gnosis it's like marifa it's

not so much ilm in the sense of malumat it's not like oh Paris is the capital of France or the algebraic equation for this is this or this is how the DNA code is made it's not that kind of a knowing to do with information it's more a gnosis a realization like a marifa and the T is the transient nature meaning that the trip the journey comes to an end it's [clears throat] not a psychosis it's not something that is you you because in the moment

yes in the experience you have disconnected from reality in ways that are similar to a psychosis although a psychosis is negative and this is positive but the fact that you have disconnected from this simulated reality if you like but unlike a mental health disorder this is transient this as the medicine stops it stops you you come out of it and and that is also this is how psychologists and you know beginning with William James they categorize the

mystical experience as something you know and it and you see it transforms the noetic quality was that it the knowledge that that they have the gnosis it it changes their lives and um to anyone out there thinking they should do it um just make sure you are prepared is all I would say you know I know a few people that have done it and they went in unprepared and there's no benefit or or or the benefit is very minimal or or or their mindset wasn't correct

you know they were very skeptical of it and therefore did not gain any benefit um so it's like anything you know if you want to make a cake you need to be prepared you know you got to have the ingredients in the right amounts and and the right measurements and then it goes into the oven you know you don't just you don't just buy your 1 kilo of everything and throw it in there and and go well it didn't work this is all blah blah blah you know obviously it's not going to work so

no I totally second that and and I [clears throat] would say to people cuz people say should I do this? I say that I don't tell people to do it. I say that the path has a calling of its own. It calls people who it calls. You know, if it's not your thing, you're not feeling it, don't do it. You know, it's like and and that that's exactly the nature of it and people sometimes say that look um that could it be dangerous?

I mean, there's no known fatality ever from any psychedelics including the most powerful uh on earth. There's never been a known fatality. But whereas people are dying all the time, people are dying from cigarettes. Most of them say cigarettes are not haram. You know, that uh people are dying from People are dying from driving. This could be the amount of car accidents you're having per year that you see car deaths.

People are dying And what I'm trying to say is there will always be a caution with everything. There will always be a preparation for everything. There is a certain thoughtfulness that goes into anything. Imagine somebody asks you, "Should I go to the gym?" And you say, "Yeah, like Hussein, you're you know, for many years you've been a kickboxer." Somebody says, "Oh, should I I should I take up kickboxing?" You say, "Yeah, yeah, take it up." Now now they get smacked in the head and it severely, let's say, impairs them.

Now, obviously, that's not what you mean by it. And and that's generally not what would happen, but it's not to say like anything there's any like somebody could ask me, "Should I go to the gym?" I say, "Yeah." Now they go and they end up doing something and it and it herniates a disc in their spine. So they say, "Well, you know, this person said we should go to the gym." Firstly, like anything, there is an there is a kind of protocol with anything.

These things should never be done unsupervised. They should never be done without guidance. They should You should always be They should be a guide. There should be people who are very you know, with great sophistication trained in these things that guide you through. You yourself should be prepared as as you were saying, Hussein. You should have a kind of mindset to that what you that you are going for that there's this healing that you are going for.

You know, one thing I would say is let it put aside the mystical experience, put aside the spirituality. The biggest thing it does in this dunya is it heals trauma. And so many of us are carrying trauma. And that trauma is difficult to heal.

Like you can heal trauma through other methods as well. You can go through therapy. You can, you know, work on your mindfulness, mental health. But a lot of people to face their own trauma, it's hard for them. Because usually a trauma is built up through childhood. It's built up through, you know, developing years. Sometimes maybe in adulthood. Maybe there's been incidents with people.

Maybe they've been Like I've known people who've been victims of all sorts of atrocities, you know, from uh violence to uh tragedies like rape. I've known people who've been victims. And then and to overcome and heal through that has been very difficult for them. You know, very difficult. So psychedelics has been something that has in those particular cases that I've been aware of has healed those people.

Now, so there is it is not just You see, the spiritual side, it will manifest It is something like your niya. It's a bit like, you know, the Tablighis would say that you have to make a niya. And they're so right because the medicine kind of reads your intention. There's a saying that it doesn't give you what you want, it gives you what you need.

>> [laughter] >> It's so true, isn't it? Very true. And and if you have these wounds, it will go to work on them. And and I think putting the spirituality aside, putting the mysticism aside, putting the religious thing aside, the trauma is the most important element because hurt people hurt people. See, people who who carry a lot of hurt within them are usually people that go on to hurt other people.

Yeah. That's what what what do you feel about Yeah, about that, Hussein? What about things like trauma and maybe you came across people who um had experienced trauma and it helped them heal and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I haven't got too much to comment on that. Cuz you said everything off the you know, um this is a way to get over that trauma and no matter what it is, you know, and and everyone that done it, they they talked about what the the traumatic experience and I might be sitting there going, "That's that's not a traumatic

experience." You know, so but that individual, Mhm. they needed this to get over that, you know, to move forward in their life. You know, there was a number of people with relationship break breakdowns. And they use this to to try and move forward from that. And here I am, you know, big tough man going, "Oh, you know, relationship, blah blah blah." You know, thinking to myself, you know? But so it's all it's all on a scale. And there's only I just find there's only so much, you know, thinking you can do at late at night in your bed thinking, "This this is like a real healer healing." And that's why it's called medicine at the end of the

day, you know? It's not something they just coined 50 years ago. It's been called medicine for over a thousand years. >> Yeah, this this practice has been going on for several thousands of years. You know, right back to You've got it in things like the hieroglyphs with from the time of the pharaohs where they've got the blue lily plant. You've got in, you know, in the South American kind of shamanic cultures, you've got heritage going back through memories and oral kind of traditions that date back millennia, you know, one, two, three, maybe possibly two to three thousand years.

So yeah, and I I do feel I agree with what you're saying that trauma is also you know, relative to the individual. Some trauma would be trauma for everyone, I'm sure. Um but then beyond that, people would disagree. I mean, they they would react differently. So it is trauma is when you are faced with a situation in which you are entirely helpless, uh like a tra- tragic situation in which you find yourself entirely helpless, the

brain generates trauma. So that could have been for somebody like a car accident. It could have been for somebody, uh you know, an assault. It could have been much worse. It could have been witnessing something. It could have been It could have even been things like being broken down as a kid, having your confidence shattered, being told you're useless, you're pathetic, you know, being told you're ugly, being told you're like these kind of things, you don't know.

Like people To some people, they might be more thick-skinned. And somebody could say, "Well, this happened to me. I'm fine." To another person, they became a recluse. They struggle to make friends. They had a poor, you know, low self-esteem. They So it is relative and it is a wound, you know, and the and and the prophet said that Allah says that you know, that ma anzala Allahu that there was no wound or illness or ailment illa wa anzala lahu shifa'an except Allah sent a cure to heal it.

Alimahu man alim. Wa jahilahu man jahil. Those who became aware of it became aware of it and those who remained ignorant remained ignorant. Now that that you know, that is a beauty in that because it is really that's what it is, a healing. A kind of a love for the world. And sometimes we see You know, right now with the rise of fascism around the world, you know, we're seeing a lot of kind of populist, right-wing, fascistic kind of uh trends and waves.

And I'm sure it's over there as well uh in Australia. I was saying it's here in the UK. It's in the US. It's in Europe. It's You know, it's in places like India. It's in Like people they they they're becoming like very you know, there's there's this rise of this mob group think and a very fascistic kind of racist um A lot of this as well.

I feel in addition to people having to you know, prepare and and and stand firm wherever they are, but in addition to that, I do feel See, that's a reaction, but that's not the cure. I do feel the underlying motive with a lot of these people is a pain and a hurt that they and a wound that they have in their hearts.

That is something to do with something mostly entirely different. But it's being channeled here with this hate. And something like psychedelics in an age where hate We're seeing more and more hate. It is exactly what deals with that, you know, it's something that promotes love. Even you know, the thing about it, it's like a wave. It's like flood. You know, even if you don't want to It's like a wave of love.

It just takes you away You don't You don't get a say in it. >> [laughter] >> You could be like a miserable person and it'll just turn you into some >> [laughter] >> Oh, jeez. I'll see. Um, just real quick, I just wanted to say I don't want to take up too much time. Um, I just wanted to ask and I've got to crack my fingers, mate.

Got to ask some questions about last week's discussion. Yeah, go for it. Let's Let's Yeah, let's go for it. Let's go for it. Do you know what MFG's in just a couple sentences what his position actually is? Do I know what it is now? Or before? >> No, now. Now. >> Before I did No. Yes, so now what I've understood is that he um clearly out of principle denies Hadith, not out of epistemology, out of principle.

Not only does he deny Hadith, he denies the entire Muslim tradition. The Islamic tradition. But and also feels that it is a kind of um it is almost akin to idolatry because it is uh people coming up with You know, this verse of the Quran They took their scholars and priests They took their scholars and priests their leaders to become lords.

A kind of uh a literal reading of that >> [clears throat and cough] >> verse. But the irony is you see him and and this isn't a personal attack to brother MFG. But that that group themselves are coming to the Quran with their their opinions and their interpretation. So, ironically it's kind of there's an irony in it that you're denying other people's interpretation, but you are affirming your own.

And this was my point when I said to him that look, do you feel reason the voice of reason has a role in engaging revelation? And he said, "Yes, of course." So, I said, "So, by by that logic, like if your interpretation, your understanding means something, then surely the 1,400 years of scholarship is equally valuable. Like even if we don't listen agree with it all, but it must be valuable.

There must be people who thought like if I feel my engagement is valuable, then there must have been thousands upon thousands of people, if not millions, who've had more insights than me." Sure. Sure. I mean I mean Look, in short, their position is, you know, guidance comes from the Quran. So, your halal and haram would come from the Quran. Your validators and invalidators would come from the Quran.

You know, your legal rulings are derived from the Quran. And anything outside from that Mhm. it is not necessary for your salvation. Okay? Um The point that you made on salah Okay, when you say it's arbitrary. See, this is something I get what you're saying, but at the same time I don't cuz I remember when I went through, you know, learning the validators and invalidators of salah.

And this was with a Shafi Imam. And he was saying, you know, three scratches in one the record will invalidate your salah. But if you do you [laughter] can do 10 in total. Like you can do two each record. You know, get up to eight. It's not going to invalidate. But if you do one long one, that's fine. [clears throat] You like you can itch for 5 minutes.

>> [laughter] >> No. >> Okay? So, but this is a man telling me that this is this will invalidate. So, Allah will not accept your salah if I scratch myself more than three times in one the record. But if I do two and stop on the third and then I you know, the next two I can do another two.

So, is this not also arbitrary? Yeah, no. And that was my point. By the way, what I wasn't uh Yeah, so I was saying about the arbitrary nature as in it seemed he had put together some arbitrary uh method to pray. But I totally agree with you uh that this is uh I find it um silly, these kind of rulings.

I find that saying there's almost an infantilization of God. You know, there is an you're almost treating without I know it's not done intentionally, but to the observer, there is an infantilization. It's like I as if I'm treating God as though I would treat an infant, you know. Oh, oh, it's okay because you know, because my finger stayed there and I kept scratching for two whole minutes, that just counts as one.

So, I'm okay. But if I Oh, damn. My salah's broken. You know, this is how I suppose the logic to a I don't know what like a 6-year-old or uh like what what what Who What kind of logic is this? It's a very almost like and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but it's like on the spectrum reading of uh you know, it's it's a quite a like an uh it's It's almost with a sense of like uh what's the better word?

Neurodivergence. That's it. For autistic. It's like an autistic reading of the And this is not in any way uh I don't mean it as a disrespect to anybody with autism. May Allah make things easy for everyone, especially for them as well. I mean it that's how the reading is because surely that's not what Islam, you know, anybody can can tell that that that just sounds or anybody should be able to tell that sounds silly.

So, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And this was my point that look, and you get more absurd things in fiqh. By the way, you know, this That's You've said a very nice >> [laughter] >> a humorous example. You know, there's uh silly examples in fiqh. And but that was my whole point that look, when we say the Islamic tradition we mean people who've contributed to the tradition under the Islamic banner.

So, they've come as Islamic scholars and they've put forward rulings. You take what's good, you leave what isn't. You know, you could This was my whole point that what you don't need to do is throw the baby out with the bathwater only to reproduce a new version yourself. So, like in essence, what you're doing is saying, "Look, let's reinvent the wheel ourselves and do the same thing." But you could just say, "Well, look, okay, we've got these rulings.

Okay, that sounds silly. That sounds silly. This sounds fine. I'll just go with that." You know, it's not That's how That That is a much more mature way to deal with things. So, with their position, you'll find that if someone was to pray as the vast majority of Muslims do pray, they would it is as per the Quran says as well, you know, so it's not contradictory to it.

Yeah, yeah. >> They're just saying you cannot tell me that three scratches would be an invalidator. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, because you see, th- this is my point that look, people have come up with these opinions um based on ijtihadat. I'm not denying that these opinions and rulings are not based on ijtihad. They are. But in many cases, you would entirely uh reject that ruling.

Like it would feel Sure, the person's come up with this ruling because they feel like what they're saying is that okay, what they seem to be doing is a very almost like an autistic reading. Like okay, we're going to go as if this is purely legalistic. So, the way to be legalistic is we we remove any kind of human reasoning. We're just going to look at just pure legality. So, okay, what would constitute not many?

One would be not many linguistically. Okay, what else could be not many? Okay, in Arabic, three is plural. And two is not plural in Arabic, right? So, in Arabic, you have a dual noun as well and you have a plural. So, okay, so two would also be not many by a linguistic Like imagine you're a machine reading this. So, you say, "Okay, many is plural and whatever is not plural is not not many then.

So, sorry, many is yes, is plural which is three. So, anything under three is not many. So, one and two. So, okay, so one or two actions therefore are not considered invalidating. It's a very like a machine-like reading of like a robotic reading. In the real world, in practice, it it's it's quite infantile.

It's very childish and silly almost. So, if you take this example and and we remove it and you also take away other that invalidators and remove them, then you sort of do work back to their position of Iqamat al-Salah. Mhm. You see, I wasn't disagreeing with I mean, I was disagreeing with uh when when it came to the Quranist Salah, I was disagreeing with the element of you don't have no structure.

You just do as you feel. That I was obviously I found that just absurd because that would never work. You need a system. I wasn't disagreeing with the fact that he, for example, chose to read Fatiha or he chose to because that that was arbitrary. Sure, but my point in saying that is you see, you've resorted to non-Quran to establish this.

That was the point of my argument. My argument was not saying that oh, you've got something arbitrary because many people have arbitrary things in their fiqh. But you too have just done what you've condemned them of doing. So, you've condemned the Muslim tradition because you feel it's arbitrary and you feel you cannot go outside of the Quran to establish things. But then you yourself as have established a tradition which is arbitrary and outside of the Quran.

So, to me that it's you know, the whole thing was was humorous because that's an ironic. So, that's what I was pointing out. Not the fact that it was arbitrary was the problem, but that because it's arbitrary, you refute yourself. Do you see my my angle?

So, I wasn't necessarily saying I was critical of him having no structure in Salah. I found that um you know, like absurd because I found it like saying well, you just you know, I feel like playing praying three, I feel like praying two, I feel like praying one. Like to me, this is that's and that was I think what even he once again, I'm assuming here, but I'm and imagining I imagine he even regretted saying that because it looked very embarrassing to say cuz you know, there's some things when you say them out loud, they sound and you think I don't know, for some

reason sounded a lot better in my head. >> [laughter] >> I hear what you're saying. Okay, but when to me, how is that any different to if I was just to pray, for example, my three Maghrib, do two sunnah and then I just feel like doing two sunnah, two sunnah, two sunnah just for the next 30 minutes? So, it's different in the sense that you see, you have a structure.

You're operating in that case within a structure within a system. So, for example, there is a system that teaches you Salah looks like this. So, if you look at the Hadith, now obviously they don't accept Hadith, but even the Quran hints at this. The whole uh definition of Salah is given as though it's like a building, like a structure. Like the even the term Iqamat al-Salah is about establishing usually what is a building, Iqama.

Like you you kind of establish a kind of structure. Now, and in the Hadith, it mentions Salah as though it has pillars and things like this. So, you are teaching Let's say you're teaching your children or you're teaching people a system that okay, this is how you pray. This has this many raka'at. This has this. And you can pray. So, for example, you can pray nafl. You can pray nafl in two raka'at. And you can pray as many as you like, you know, you decide to pray like you said so many after Maghrib or you don't.

That's very different to saying something like you know, that's quite anarchical in the sense that you say Like let's say your child asks you, "Okay, how do I pray?" Say, "Well, you know, you just stand and then you go into sujud." And says, "Okay, what do I do then?" "Well, you just how you're feeling." How are you feeling, you know? Do you want to get back up? And the child says, "I I don't know. Do I have to get up?" "Well, I don't know.

How do you feel?" This this is This system just won't work because it's not a system. So, that will collapse. Forget your child. It will collapse with you. Uh this is not this does not have the fuel to move forward. So, that's why I was saying that is very um you know, unlike if you have a system. Look, even if a person has a system where they don't um let's say a person doesn't pray.

Most Muslims in the world don't pray five times a day. But they have a system in their mind. Now, when they are to like let's say they feel oh, you know what? I should actually start praying. They they have a structure that they can go back to. Having this very you know, this kind of like go with what your heart feels, it doesn't like it's difficult. Like I'm telling you this that it's it's very inoperable and dysfunctional.

I would say for you know, I would argue for probably even you know, 99% of mankind would not be able to operate in in a way like that cuz human beings need structure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, sure. I mean, so with that all said and done, you know, I'm just trying to wrap this up real quick.

Their position of sort of what I just said earlier. I can reiterate it if you want or don't need is it enough for salvation then? In your opinion? All right. Oh, as in salvation in the eyes of Allah, you mean? Like as in for the >> [laughter] >> Look, I'm not I'm not here to um lay any claims about in the eyes of Allah.

Obviously, I personally do like as as [snorts] far as a fiqhi reading of this Salah, I feel that that from a fiqhi perspective doesn't stand. It's like very But I wouldn't like let's say now brother Muhammad prays like that cuz that's what he said he prays like. Or he said he did Hajj a month before the rest of the Muslims did Hajj. He did it in Zulqadah.

Now, I'm not to me, from okay, from a fiqhi perspective, if you're teaching fiqh, you would say, "Okay, that's how it's not done. This is how it is done." However, I don't believe we are here to say, for example, in the eyes of Allah, this person's worship doesn't mean anything. I'm sure it means just as much as worship is concerned in the eyes of Allah because look, he said he stays in sujud crying for like 1 to 2 hours.

I mean, that that I can only imagine the kind of heartfelt effect that's having. And you know, uh I'm embarrassed. I I don't don't pray like that and I don't uh you know, I'm embarrassed to say that you know, it's not unfortunately my state of Salah is not in such a heightened Iman that I'm in sujud for 1 hour and things like this.

I'm not. And I'm not going to pretend I am. Right? From that aspect, his bond with Allah from that aspect may be far greater than mine and many other people and I applaud that. From a fiqh I just feel it's a misplaced application of Islam. I'm not here to say what does Allah think of his worship cuz look, Allah says in the Quran that your actions don't reach me per se when you slaughter the animals and you do this.

The animals, their blood, these things don't reach us. Nusuki, that these What reaches Allah is the devotion. So, does the devotion reach Allah? I hope I hope it does. However, and this is However, that is to me misapplied. But I what I So, that's how I would answer this question. I know many people would may answer by trying to say, "Oh, well, they're going to hell for this and they're doing this." No, no, no.

I would not Like I feel that is a very wrong uh wrong wrong attitude to engage this whole thing. That look, heaven and hell and salvation are in the hands of Allah. Human beings endeavor. We have devotion. I got to wrap it up. Well, the that was actually it or I had to ask for stay blessed. Sure. Now, shukran. Saying take care of yourselves.

Speak soon. People, that was our beloved Hussein A Rai from Australia. Um we have Well, what is the time? You know what? Can we Let's see. Right, can we take on a few people without All right, I've got here let me just take a look at this.

Michael Marshall Payne assalamualaikum Marshall Payne How are you doing? How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. Assalamualaikum Marshall Payne right Well, I just want to say you know, I just want to massage your ego a little bit. You know, >> [laughter] >> subhanallah. I swear I blows my mind how every single topic I come and find you on the straight path.

Well, it's Really? Every time I'm like the last time we were talking about sufism and to saw off and I've been also seeing MFG Muhammad his videos popping up like how you said you watch one video and the algorithm start speeding you in it really is disheartening for me to to watch all these it's like for me it seems like it's just more division separating the umma and um and then to hear your stance on things is just subhanallah man I really appreciate you doing all this really

Allah Allah bless you honestly Marshall I really appreciate it and I love the and the ego loves it as well. I'm not going to but I do love your kind see this is what I need I need Marshall as a publicist. >> [laughter] >> No, you do a great job on your own. You know, bringing people to your to your side and um Allah bless you.

>> I wanted to to kind of to ask you um What do you think about how the Muslim umma is divided and and what can we do as individuals to in I think maybe watching a lot of his videos maybe is pushing the algorithm more for him.

So but but besides not watching those kind of debates and stuff like that. What are some other things that we can do to strengthen the umma and not divide it? Yeah. Somebody else too was MFG. So what is MFG? Sorry, they asked what does it stand for Muhammad from God it's a channel. Yeah, look it's like I I acknowledge that division unfortunately is a reality because people are different people have very you know, they'll have different attitudes towards things different perspectives and

but what I and we can't get unfortunately get rid of division unfortunately we can't cuz it's just you know, the way the cookie crumbles if we like it or not but what I would say is to try like let's turn the light inwards. Okay. What we can do is we have to move away you know, this ties into another question that people had asked me is that oh how do what would you advise to better ourselves?

as people You see we have to move towards the message towards a message of light towards a message of compassion mercy love a message of you know, like kind of like understanding in the sense of I okay, you know, like even when people even when we disagree you know, all right, fine.

You know, you we disagree but but there is a compassion. And one great way to do this honestly, I feel it's exposing yourself to videos even like you get reals you get you know, you could be on Instagram and the algorithm will do this for you to things of kindness and gratitude.

You know, watching an act of kindness triggers in the brain the the same kind of serotonin response and those serotonergic pathways as doing something like that or receiving that act just witnessing it triggers the same you know, witnessing like if you I try to share on my insta story I try to share things that are sometimes sometimes sad in the sense of like they are reality but like let's say you know, which remind us of gratitude cuz we might see I don't mean suffering in the

sense of just sharing pictures that will traumatize us but sharing like something where you know, that that maybe like somebody maybe unfortunately going back laying with something and and we think yeah Allah like there was this clip it really made me emotional. There was a child in a hospital bed and back laying with something and I and it and it it said something about we really don't understand the suffering of other like we if we think we have it hard and like a message like that like what it evokes in the observer or message of an

act of kindness like you see something kind like I've seen I shared just today that there was this once again there was this a mother quite senior lady that somewhere that was ill in a hospital bed but she wanted to watch her son graduate and the university professor or whoever they were had turned up to the hospital bedside to graduate the child the son in front of the mother and it's so heartwarming to watch it.

And and what it what is it doing? It's developing you. Like you're watching these things and you are as an observer participating. It's strange but it's you're kind of it's taking you through an emotional journey where you are having growth and and I think these things and even humor humor I I guess we can all appreciate but but these acts of these things that they mature us emotionally that we and I think that is the antidote.

It is not we're not going to get rid of divisions. But what we can do is try to sure you know, sometimes we might have dialogues and we might do things but as long as we can go back to a place of that isn't full filled with hate then that is the solution. I I feel like I I don't think we're going to get rid of divisions and I don't think Islam came necessarily to say everybody must think in one way.

Right. So yeah, that's my thoughts. Just seemed like watching some of those videos it was a lot of name-calling and insulting insults to each other and it was like it's like we're talking about Islam. We're talking about religion. We're talking about Allah subhana wa ta'ala and we're throwing names at each other like this is the exact opposite of like what you're saying what a dialogue is is supposed to be.

Because look I see this is my thing that look and I said this I prefaced the video as well last week by saying this that look we've got to understand no matter what we think about the opinion or the you know, the ideology or the philosophy this person or these people this is not just to make it about brother Muhammad or brother you know, MFG.

This is about anyone any person who has dedicated a portion of their entire like their lives to an aspect of Islam. Like that shows the kind of genuineness about the people. You know, it shows that these people that they and it and this is for all corners of life. I mean sorry all factions in society all sects.

You know, whether like this been long divides Sunni Shia divides this been other divides look we're not going to be able to get rid of these. We're not but what we can do is is try to understand that okay, the other person has dedicated an entire they know that their lives to this thing as well in their way even if it's a way that I don't agree with but it's like they have done it in their way for the sake of Allah as well.

You know, and I understand that we're different and we might look at things differently in some ways but we have a lot of commonality and if and this is one thing I loved about and I love about the mystics in Islam and this is why many of the mystics were sometimes faced you know, they were outcasted because you see they call to a very universal acceptance like they refuse to see these lines that people have drawn and they felt that love encompasses all.

And you know, and you have these people and you can see their names lived on even though in their time. You know, in the and you see that with people like Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi Ibn Arabi you know, these people in their lifetimes Maulana Rumi's teacher Shams Tabrizi like these people in their lifetimes suffered as well. From people they weren't these like some people may have venerated them and respected them in their lifetime.

Other people, you know, attacked them and they did suffer at the hands of people because but their names went on to become something amazing and and become symbolic of love. You know, in the in the desi world, Indian subcontinent, you have this giant personality, this mystical fig- mystic figure of Bulleh Shah.

His name was Abdullah but they call him Bulleh Bulleh Shah. And he was of Sayyid lineage, you know, he Shah in the desi world is often used it comes from the Farsi but it's used for people who claim to be Sayyid, claim to be from the prophet's lineage. So, he was from this lineage and he was learned and he was a scholar and and he was on this path of mystery, you know, he became a mystic and and he saw in his society people had outcasted.

So, there were certain outcast people in his time, people that were that were actually, you know, the khuntha that that I suppose like the proto-trans almost that you have. So, in Arabic we call it khuntha. I suppose today it's it's a different discussion because it's people kind of later changing from, you know, female to male or male to but in that case it was from childhood. They were these people that you had the word they use in Urdu is like khwaja sara and they are in Arabic you have the word khuntha which was like they were hermaphrodite or people in bet- in between and and a

lot of societies sometimes had outcasted these people which, you know, outcasting people is always, you know, in that way in shunning them and treating them wrong was is wrong and Bulleh Shah he would hang around with these people. He would lead them in salah, he would pray with them, he would pray their janazahs when people wouldn't pray their janazahs. He was often and for this action he himself was outcasted.

To the extent that when he died because people said to him, "Oh, you're a Sayyid, you know, you are descendant from the prophet's family. How can you hang around in these circles and have disciples that are like that?" You know, it's a bit like people saying to Jesus that why did he have allegedly disciples that you know, a woman that isn't yeah, that isn't chased or you know, they accuse some of his female disciples of being prostitutes previously and things like that.

But Jesus welcomed everybody as as does the message and so and when he died in this case Bulleh Shah they refused to pray his janazah and it was prayed by that com- you know, people from that outcast community. But his name lived on and became symbolic of love. And this is my point that this does that this message it does, you know, it it does reign supreme even if it's afterwards, you know, because you're trying to come from a place of caring and that is what Allah you know, Allah says my mercy

surpasses everything, you know. That Allah has written his compassion and mercy on everything. He loves us more than our mothers could love us. I love the you know, there's an Sheikh and he gave this example. He said he said, "Would could you envisage any mother throwing her own baby into a fire?" Could you envisage any mother Yeah, Allah we agree Allah infinitely or in the hadith it says 70 times which is the Arabs would use as almost like a in in infinite number loves us more than our mothers that how, you know, would you think Allah would do that with

us? Like he loves us so much. And and it's this mindset as well that we have to rewrite our script. See, some you know, I do these Patreon sessions and I have consultees and sometimes you're working with people and you see that that they've had for so long they've had this mindset that as if Allah unfortunately as if Allah's going to catch them and punish them over the littlest of you know, and and they and I'm I'm not faulting them.

I'm just describing that they've had this because they've been brought up with this. And oh my god, you know, oh no, I'm in trouble now, you know, Allah's uh-oh, I've said this and yeah, I'd better quickly oh no, oh no, oh no and they live in this it's a it's a very it's a state of suffering. But it's not how Allah is, you know, we In Mormonism I was raised as a Mormon and it it's even worse than that because they teach you that your life situation is a result of your past life in the in the previous life.

So, if you were having a Yes, so they so it's like the the spirit was created and then they came to earth and so if you're in a bad situation, if you're from a poor family or you're abused or something like that, it's due to who you were in the previous life meaning you were bad so you're getting bad now. And so that's you know, that can be a similar kind of mentality of God punishing you and and this and that similar to what you're saying.

Yeah. And I feel sometimes it it helps, you know, this whole thing it helps as well. I think in some ways may- I don't mean this as a necessity in case anybody misunderstands this. I'm putting it as a caveat. Sometimes it helps in life to have experienced other things even if those things were wrong.

Because then a person as you change you have more compassion to people. You know, like I give you an example like people who are let's say they are on a very religious pathway, you're very uber strict. So, they don't do things, they don't do these, they don't have, you know, they've not interacted, they've not gone out there done all these other things that are haram which sure, excellent, you know, it's a great life but but then what they do is they have this hatred for people that do that.

And part of it might be in some cases and I'm psychologizing here a kind of spite because they never got to experience it. You know, it's like I heard somebody years back say you know, like some dawa preacher was saying, "Oh, you know, if it wasn't haram I'd be in nightclubs right now and I'd be drinking and I'd be doing this and I'd be doing this but you know, because it's haram I don't do it." Now, so the restraint there is admirable that, you know, the person's not doing these things because it's haram but the ardent desire is problematic.

Cuz the person has this you could tell like a burning desire to want to do those things. Now, it may be in such cases that and likely that when you come across people that do them you then hate on them even more and you hate on cuz you kind of project this I never got this and so and so sometimes having experienced things even if those things are not you know, good in Islam but having experienced them and then coming to Islam, moving away from them at a later stage is sometimes brings a more

like a realistic compassionate understanding. You know, that uh okay, you know, it's like they're young, I get it, you know, it's okay. Like even if you advise, okay, you shouldn't do this but you understand. It's not like you don't behave in this very you know, like a like almost like an oligarch or this tyrannical way with them and I think and that is that is the way really, you know, to I remember I I don't believe music is haram but I remember years ago that there was when I was had come back

from the madrasah so in my 20s, late 20s. There was a great Maulana Sheikh from Pakistan and his name is Maulana Yunus Nomani, very popular and he was a debater like a passionate ardent debater of the Deobandi school and he would debate a lot of people. He was renowned in Pakistan as a debater. Really like vicious in his like what I sorry, vicious ain't the right word but really like heavyweight in that in the top of his of the league really.

And the person whenever he would come to the UK he would stay at in part my friend's house. So, so [clears throat] I I had very good contact with him and we developed a very good bond and he took like a really good liking to me which was really surprising considering that I thought, you know, he is really down to earth, amazing but may Allah bless his akhira.

He has passed away several years ago and may Allah grant him an elevated maqam in Jannatul Firdaus, amen. But I remember this at this one time we we I called him to where I was staying at that point, staying in a different place and so I called him there and my friend was there and so he was sitting in the front room and I don't I'd gone to get some drinks or something and so we had this at that time we had CD players.

This big CD player there. And it had this music in >> [laughter] >> So I think it accidentally came on. Right? I don't know how it maybe one of them were just fidgeting and it came on and it's got like this music in it. So I come back in and it's got >> [laughter] >> And they're looking my friends are like like you know Maulana this is like a great he is much senior to us and very like a reputable scholar and And I [clears throat] remember he just kind of smiled.

And and he just said He said he said Jawan here he said he's young don't worry you know like but I remember being very surprised at his reaction cuz I was thinking he's going to kind of frown upon it and think oh uh But his kind of reaction was one of very almost very paternal almost very truly kind of you know fatherly like in a way that like very understanding you know he said oh he's young you know but and he just kind of like smiled and But that's how our attitude should be.

Yeah. Mufi thank you so much for all your work may Allah protect and preserve you. Allah bless you Allah bless you take care man. All right sorry there you go. Shukran Marshall Allah bless you likewise. Our brother Ahou Marshall all right there joining us. uh Right from the oh what's what have I done here?

Right from [clears throat] the states. God. We've got [clears throat] Right let me just Allah Naheed Ahmed Allah Allah Allah. Allah bless you Naheed and Allah keep you always smiling I mean. All right so Let me see I do have to wrap things up so What time is it?

Let me try to quickly get some people on we've got Ali here. Ali Assalamualaikum. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Mufti. I'm very nervous. I've tried to reach you for a long time actually. >> [laughter] >> Allah bless you where are you joining us from Ali? >> Sweden. Sweden Allah Allah. All right. My journey of watching you has been a lot of years so and uh >> [clears throat] >> your research have actually helped me a lot when learning about Islam.

uh Yes so Yeah it's unbelievable that I actually talked to you. No no no Allah bless you. What do you do? Are you a student? I'm a student I'm a I'm studying civil engineering. uh On on the side I read Islam whatever I can to and I could see the student the cool setup and the cool vibe you've got going on there I love it.

>> Yeah now my my hairstyle is horrible so I just have to hide it I can't >> Oh I love the whole setup the the hoodie the the the the head covering Well I had to show something presentable I couldn't go with pajamas. No Allah Marshall. um epic Actually there's a lot Talk to us yeah. There's a lot I don't know where to begin. I would like to begin with the first uh uh the discussion you had with Muhammad.

Sure yeah yeah. The first point I had to I watched Muhammad a lot and I noted your point when you said uh that uh Sorry I'm nervous as you can see. I need to [laughter] calm down a bit. >> [sighs] >> The deep breath. No but uh Yeah but what I've seen a lot in in a lot of people who go to these extreme frameworks is like those who for example take literalist approaches or like Muhammad take just the Quran only approach is that imagine you have like you have uh you get born into this world and you get

like 20 color colored pens. But they say each approach that goes to the extreme says you can only use two. But they have no Quranic evidence that you can only use two. For example the Quranist with the only approach the Quran by Quran tafsir approach and linguistics. But we have for example the Quran itself speaking to the audience of the kitab and if you wanted to understand that you would have to read the previous scripture scriptures to understand what they're they're talking about because the Quran don't always always assumes an audience that are already familiar with everything it's talking about.

And for example if you want to see the limits of the tools you can see it for example the I wrote a comment I don't know if you read it I saw you liked it though. It was about the point of jizya for example that's where you can see the limitation. For example jizya is only mentioned once in the Quran how would you know what it is and how much and even if you use only linguistics and the Quran by Quran approach you'll see the limit you'll have to use history.

So sirah hadith so the Quranists will have to by admission admit that history is an important aspect to use as a tool. Now what he will approach he will eventually reach the point that the salaf used Imam Malik or the they said if it went against the Quran sunnah established sunnah we reject it. So you you will still have to get into the ummah.

And also um You know the Khawarij and there's a famous saying from Ali where he said where they use a verse where they say No you know the Allah. Yes yes. I would like to say this but only for God. What does that say? So said now Ali he says a kalimatu haqqin urida bihal batil that it is a word of truth being used for falsehood.

And for people that don't know I did some research because I said okay that's so short but what is he saying? What does he mean by that? And you can see like the wisdom behind it because if you look to the Quran you see three four other verses that show that they took one verse out of context and didn't use the whole They they how do you say it? They had like the colored pens and they said now we just use this the simple phrases.

So they didn't use even the Quran by holistic reading and I think like as for example as an engineer you take all the data points and if you want a good conclusion you would use as much data as you want and by that you can filter out what's good and the bad. Yeah. It's so true and you know it's it's like this was my point that [clears throat] you see if the Quran is giving us examples from the lives of other prophets then just by that reasoning the life of our prophet would equally be valuable.

Yes. I mean just by that logic. And you see here's the thing. I'm going to use an example here not to offend our uh Hanafi brothers but you know just as an example a point that is often made against the Hanafiya and where they are criticized is that you take for example women praying in the mosques. Now according to Hanafi fiqh women aren't allowed to pray in the mosque.

And often you find this criticism that is then hurled that is said that oh so you take in in the western world take any area of space whether it's going to be clubs marketplace shops shopping malls every space women can go and they're welcome except the mosque.

Mhm. Like that like you see now when you put it in that logic it's very embarrassing. Mhm. Because if I said look there's a place in this world where a woman is welcome in every area but the only place she's not welcome is in the house of God. Exactly. Now that's that's very humiliating if we say it like that. Now taking that logic that if you are to say by your reason that cuz surely these people they take from history generally speaking like they must read about World War I they must

read about Napoleon they must learn the wisdom from Plato they must read about every so they can take from everyone but you just don't take from our prophet how like that's embarrassing and and and sad. Is that like you could say you know oh I take from Shakespeare I take inspiration from movie stars I take them from Bruce Willis I take them from you know this movie star Brad Pitt I take it from Shah Rukh Khan I take style inspiration from this person I take lyrics from here I take quotations from there I take you

know Marcus Aurelius's kind of stoicism I take the only thing I don't take is from the prophet like like that would be so sad. Like to even say that like so this I think in that argument it just says it all. Like once you put it like that that in this world we do accept from people we take influence from people whether we like it or not yeah.

Yeah and and I noted this too also and as I I listened to the the whole debate or discussion twice. So the second time I listened I was like, "Okay, what did he say? What was the points? Where's the limitation?" And then when he said, "Oh, it's not me putting the people on the back foot. It is Allah." So, I was like, "Masha'Allah that you had the patience, but I was like, you just went from an extreme just to reach another extreme.

What happened with the Rahman that we read in all surahs?" Like, what happened with that? You just see the the extreme went to another extreme. And you can see also in the Quran when you read it. What does Allah say? That he does not like a transgressor. And constantly we are reminded that when you break a boundary, like you can live in peace with people as long as you have these boundaries that you don't cross over.

Oh, I I I wanted to uh >> Yeah, yeah. No, and so well said on that point that you see and often we find, you know, there's that Nietzschean quote from Nietzsche that "Beware when you fight monsters lest you become a monster." Because most people in their battle in fighting monsters end up becoming monsters. And and and that unfortunately is the cyclical nature of life.

And and what you see, this is my point that a lot of these people I feel have somewhere along the way faced hurt and trauma and you know, people being dogmatists, using a hadith to justify things. So, they they they kind of journey may have begun very noble that you know, this is in Islam. Exactly. >> but it ended up becoming a rival monster.

Like it ended up like you you became where you yourself are chucking people out and you've become the very monster that you wanted to, you know, supplant. Like you wanted to get rid of that and you just replace that monster with another >> [laughter] >> Yeah, exactly. No, but I think also while you men- mentioned a Western philosopher, another quote that I thought about it with this point of boundaries was this quote by I think Machiavelli.

What do you would you rather be uh feared or loved? And he said, "If I can't I'd rather be feared uh than loved if I cannot have both." But if you think about it, it's really true because, you know, some people that try to say Allah to keep constantly talks about hell, hell, hell, hell. Uh like a negative. But if you think about it in boundary, let love doesn't care about boundaries. It just gives gives gives gives.

And between people, you need the baseline respect. >> yeah. And so that there's a a certain fear, but also if we look at the word taqwa, it could be God-fearing, but also God-conscious. For example, let's say, for example, me, I'm a student. So, if I think about my own expectations for an exam, I would think, "Hmm, I do I wouldn't want I'm fearing to disappoint myself." Now, imagine that's your creator.

So, it's the same kind of like I have to think twice. Am I doing something wrong? Is this correct? Uh let's say uh how I treat another person. I would think twice before I actually act out in it. So, that's the So, that's the that's what I think also ties to the very point. >> human be- Yeah, because human beings, you see, this is where I'm speaking of systems. We operate within systems. Like whether we like it or not.

Now, human beings can't just operate. Generally speaking, you see, because Islam is for everyone. Then the few that can excel can excel themselves. Yeah. >> It's a bit like, you know, when we were teachers in schools, I used to teach in secondary schools many years ago. Um you see, you set the standard the class lesson so everybody at everybody's standard and then you allow what was the uh top 10% which was called the gifted and talented that they could themselves develop further.

So, you allow the work to extend, but you set it not at their pace. You set it so everybody can get it. Now, Islam is for everyone. Now, human beings operate within parameters of sanctions, of being sanctioned, discipline. There must be an element and not just human beings, even primates. Like if you look at the study by um um Frans de Waal.

Like when he's one of the leading primatologists in the world and he speaks of uh these um where chimpanzees or bonobos when they live within these kind of studied um What is it? Like reservations that they have that they set up structures that must have discipline as well. Where there is a sense of fear. So, when some chimps misbehave, the rest of them castigate them and so they are punished because then they fall in line.

Now, I'm not saying we're we're monkeys, but we too that's showing that even animals, like chimps, primates who share a lot of DNA with us, have a very similar thing. This is within evolution. We human beings need a sense of oh, that there is a sanctioning. But even if we look at societies, it has the same concept. It has boundaries. That's why we have laws.

We have don't cross this line because otherwise they'll create anarchy or uh a consequence that we have come in into consensus this this not what we want. Yeah. So, that's very well said. And so Islam does and the Quran does highlight that. And that's why there is the mention of the damnation or the hellfire to kind of to bring people. And by the way, many people will operate from that factor.

Yeah. I feel the ideal is to rise to the level of love. Yes. But that's hard to do. >> Islam sets the standard with discipline though. And as in you do this, this, you know, that's bad and it tells you off. Yes. And it allows that because there will be many people who will just stay and that's fine because that will be enough to regulate them not to oppress other people.

That will be enough for them to become better people. But to those who can transcend and become embody and mirror, you know, love and combat, that's the ideal. But it sets it here so everyone. So, I think that's very well said. Also if we look uh in the early sirah and we look at the the society the prophet lived in, we can see there was a harsh society. So, how would you tell them off? You can't just, "Oh, please, can you stop it?" Like, you know, that doesn't work.

You have to tell them with a with a harsh threat. With a harsh tonality. Yeah, it is true. And and that's why and you know, they it did it had the and has the effect that it does. But yeah, Ali Masha'Allah. I I I want to say two things. I'm sorry for interrupting No, go for No, no, go for it. because No, you're not interrupting. This is how conversations flow. Yeah.

Just call it the youthful passion as she would say it. >> [laughter] >> And uh but I did do some research recently uh today actually on the Battle of Hunayn. And I stumbled on a verse and and I tried to look through um By the way, I've done a I nearly forgot this. Thank God I didn't. But I did I have actually done a file document with all your Mufti lives with timestamps.

I know you don't have it on your website. And uh I want to share it with you if in case you want it. >> Yeah, please. Are you Yeah, yeah. Reach out to me. Do you have You have Instagram, yeah? Message me on Instagram. And yeah, and then I'll I'll connect with you from there and we'll I appreciate that, man. Shukran, really. I Uh because I think I think a lot of your points sometimes when I'm like I've stopped at a place and I thought, "Hmm, what is How do I Where do I start even the research myself?" I I look at your lives and then I find your conclusion or sometimes you give the full references.

Sometimes you allude to it and I have to do some digging myself. But I think it it's immensely helpful for people that can I appreciate >> sometimes stop. And there's not a lot of resources from like the Maliki school of thoughts or those who use this holistic approach because as you mentioned, the the money has pouring in from other countries and like Yeah, yeah. I I don't want to mention, but you know what I mean.

Like I know what you mean. Yeah, so so wait, let me just quickly send you the message and just say hi. Okay, that's done. Now, focus back. Uh so, I did the Battle of Hunayn and it was kind of problematic and I found nothing from what you said, but I thought maybe you can help. I did some like two hour research on it.

And it was about the What happened in the the battle was when they took the slave women of people took women that were already married. The hadith of that. Uh and from what I from my research have some is hadiths so it's all sahih from all what I've seen. Uh I looked from other scholars, different interpretation and and even the Quranic verse itself.

So, yeah. So, go over what is it that you've come across so far and go over the incident and refresh our memories as well. Yes, of course. So, uh there was a battle um and uh the men were still alive uh from at least from you get from the reading of the uh hadith. So, the hadith is found in Sunan Abi Dawud and I think uh a couple few more books.

And um so, they they object to the prophet and say these women have already they had husbands who are polytheists. And Who who what? Polytheists? >> Polytheists. Polytheists. Oh, polytheists. Oh, polytheists. Okay, yeah. Mushrikin. Yeah, exactly. And then the ayah is revealed about uh except who you whom you right hand possesses.

Mhm. Um So, when I read it, I I was like surely there must be a a reason. Perhaps they they were dead, the husbands. It would make sense then. But, I couldn't come with a like a conclusion that [clears throat] was that was like that suited my heart for everything. I found like a good explanation, but this I was like, "Hmm." So >> Good time that you had a life today.

Yeah, I mean, the specifics I'd have to look into the exact like incident and what exactly is being spoken about. But, gener- generally speaking right, so the you see this thing of concubines and how the the rules of war were at that time.

They were that this was not [clears throat] something that >> [snorts] >> I suppose Islam came up with. Sorry. >> Um Yeah. I don't know if if it's okay with you. I I like to I sometimes I can interrupt Yeah, sure. Of course. That's the just of my mind. Let me give you more data just so we can skip to the point. So, I understand that uh slavery was nothing new. And if you read the Quran holistically, it doesn't it doesn't give nowhere say go take slave new slaves.

It says for the slaves you have, this is how you treat them. So, it gave better rulings than any Yeah, yeah. So And and part of the slavery obviously had female slaves. Yeah. >> So, it did. And then And we see that it the it was a concept made by humans only because they didn't have wage labor. But, to build societies you had man labor. So, slavery was only is later ethically said, "No, it's wrong." Because we have other systems.

Yeah. Sorry. What what my reading, what I find is that you see the reason that they they was a different kind of awareness that existed back then. A different kind of um perspective on the world. So, and because our perspectives and our awareness shifted over time, so we struggle to even understand that awareness.

So, and this is important. So, one one example is like let's say of slavery itself. Because we have shifted on slavery. So, we can't understand that why would a slave not run away. Because the slaves would never run away. And especially in the Muslim world, it was much it wasn't like the kind of American slavery. In Muslim world, they were often educated and the slaves would then taught to do things like, "Yeah, you go do my business shopping for me." And they were becoming these kind of aids and these kind of Is it okay just maybe you had more like insight into

this. Of course, the Muslim world was a expansive like 1,000 year. So, but I know there's a famous battle of uh black people in Iraq uh doing a whole rebellion. The the yeah, so the Zanj revolts of the Zanj, or the Zanj. But, that's about, you know, something like 200 plus years after the prophet. That's a few centuries later.

Um but, this right here. And that wasn't by the way the the Zanj revolts of the Zanj wasn't just actually Zanj, although it had uh the Zanj in it. But, it was actually in part a rise against the Abbasids. So, and the person leading it, I think I've forgotten his name name now. But, he he wasn't Zanj. But, the whole point was that yes, it got certain people rising and there was this uh like a rebellion [clears throat] or an insurgency.

But, that's a completely different topic. Or >> No, no. I'm not I'm not I think into it. Right, so so no, no. So, that wasn't about slavery as a whole, but there was an insurgency against how certain treatments, certain things, and you know, what they felt was a corruption by the governors. So, it was an insurgency against that particular caliph and that particular I think it might have been in the time of just after around Mutawakkil's time, I think, or just after that.

But, hey, coming back here, the awareness what I was speaking of. The awareness is See, this is an important point. That it's important to understand that we don't see things how they see them. So, what you see if if I was taken away as a slave and then somebody says, "Oh, yeah, you know, hey, here's 200 lb.

Go do some shopping for my house." I'll be like, "All right. Okay, thanks. The moment I'm gone down the road, I'm out of here. I mean, I'm not going to come back with the goods, right? So, so why did these people never do this? Why did they themselves embrace the So, it's because there was a different perspective on the world that they had.

Now, whether it was you see, we could say whether it was good or bad or whatever, that's irrelevant. But, they had a different uh kind of awareness of the world. And our awareness shifted. Now, the moment it shifted, we see the world entirely differently. Similarly, now this is a bit of an eye-opener to sometimes people. They had in the even the early Muslim culture a very different attitude towards sex.

Now, our attitude towards sex has shifted. And it's been influenced by to us more recent history. Now, even though we feel today we are very liberal when it comes especially in the Western world towards sex, but it's still a different kind of liberalness lib- liberation if you like, or liberal attitude.

It's a liberalness that follows a very Puritan Victorian-esque Yes. >> attitude towards sexuality. This is very different towards what the Arabs had was a very natural approach towards sex. Now, they didn't differentiate between certain Now, to us, we can't even picture. This is why when we read some hadiths, we find it very shocking.

The way they speak about sex in terms We couldn't do things like that. We would find it very We find it almost rude and immoral. Like, can you imagine an imam talking in in the masjid about things like it'd be considered very rude. In fact, he'd be in severe trouble, I assume. But, yet the hadiths speak about it in such a a way that people today would find it like they would find it almost like they they would find it unsettling because we're not because our paradigm has shifted.

So, we've become very as Muslims uh and and the world as well, not just Muslims. The whole world shifted later on. Uh it became especially under the, you know, around the Victorian times, became very Puritan. And then some of the world saw take kind of rebellion against that. So, in the early time just as when you think of slavery, we think of labor.

They didn't differentiate like they assumed like today we could think of a workforce and we think, "Yeah, what's wrong with that? You know, the person's giving me labor." Now, they thought of that similarly for slavery. And now they didn't differentiate between things like sex. They saw that as a very natural thing as well. That if and they saw it as, "Well, if a man had a woman that was going to be around him." You see, this is the thing that really sometimes upsets some people when they view Islam.

And sometimes it upsets certain Muslims. I don't I actually commend how Islam had a very a very truly natural outlook and just took the bull by the horns when it came to matters of human sexuality. Islam didn't say You see, Islam didn't say things like, "Oh." Islam didn't even instruct that you have to get married.

But, it said, "Oh, you know what? You can marry." Because it knew people are going to do this. Islam didn't really introduce polygamy. It just knew men are polygamous. So, it didn't beat around the bush. It didn't kind of it just said, "Well, sure. If you're going to do it, do it." Because for the most part, men are going to always do it.

Like, you see, you can't put men in a line males in a line of species. Consider almost every male species throughout nature that will have a certain tendency. They will be polygamous. They will be every You're [clears throat] going to find almost every especially in mammals you're going to find every male species is like this. Human men are not going to be that different.

Now, you could say, "Well, you're going to set rules." And this is why Islam then set some rules. But, it's not going to go against the instinct. The instinct is that men are going to be polygamous. So, it's going to say, "Well, okay, have some Well, then you have they have rights." And you know, you have to fulfill responsibilities and you have to take care and you have to do this and that but it's not going to address it because men are going to almost always be like that.

Now I understand this is a problem especially with like hardline, you know, Western especially modern day Western kind of outlooks demonize this and say oh somehow Islam has has what oppressed women because it's allowed men to be polygamous. But now come to [clears throat] this point because it ties into this female slave historical narrative as well.

You see Islam understood that just like that if a man had a woman that was going to be living with him that was not related to him there's a very high chance he's going to end up having sex with her. So like why pretend it's not going to happen? So it just said okay fine there's rules responsibilities you have a role of responsibility you have to do this you have to take care she is like she's not a wife in that sense socially but she's like that to you.

And it gave that and to me I feel that that was a very true to life picture that Islam just took and and it just and it didn't kind of beat around the bush it just said fine this is how it is and just moved on. Now today unfortunately people see these um outlooks that Islam had as almost oh my god this was somehow barbaric.

It wasn't it was just being very real it was actually being very human because people are going to do these things anyway but then they're going to lie about them. Then they're going to pretend they don't do them and they're going to cause more tyranny. So rather you would have these things done with rights and responsibilities in that sense and you know you and that's how you'd have it. So and in that day and age when it comes to the female slave they saw they didn't differentiate between labor and sex.

Now this was as in what I mean by that is today we don't demonize labor. Like the fact that I can hire you as a worker and you work from 9:00 to 5:00 we don't see that as demonic but in the future a generation might come that they might see that as demonic. They might think oh my god these people used to hire people and what own their hours and their bodies. So we don't see that as demonic and therefore we see it as natural.

But to them they didn't see that as in that and I don't mean Muslims I mean humanity as a whole generally especially the Arabs did saw didn't they they had an awareness that that was quite natural. So Islam just took the bull by the horns and it just said fine you know then there's these rights. Yeah. But thing is with this Hadith in particular whatever is that the Sahabas themselves object because they say they are already married.

That's what I have a problem because if it was morally wrong or ethically why did they object to it? If they didn't see a problem with it. I mean so so first of all I mean I'm not sure about the particular Hadith because it could be for example the Hadith has problems in it. Uh but it could also be No no so it could be but even let's go with the fact that let's not moving that aside.

You see when we say Sahaba it could just be a person from the Sahaba. It doesn't mean that the Sahaba is a collective objective. It could just be a person came forward and said look is this okay? Uh so for example a person came forward and said about fasting you know he said look you know why is it like this how come it isn't like this? And then the prophet said look you know but you have these this is and and explained it about fasting.

So similarly um it could be that a companion let's just go with that this is authentic and right now from the top of my head I'm not aware of the exact Hadith that you're speaking of but let's just go with it that a companion questions that look we have this system but in this case what if the woman is [snorts] was already in a relationship and she was married?

Now the nature generally that they had the rules of engagement of war in that time were all these people were usually at war against Islam. Now somebody has done a study of I I believe it's been a PhD or it's a thesis study of all the battles that took place with the prophet participating.

Every single one was defensive. Or preemptive defensive as you Sure but defensive in the sense like when the Romans were coming down and the prophet went to defensive all in that sense. The prophet never just said hey there's a peaceful tribe minding their business let's go attack them. That never happened in any battle [clears throat] of the prophet that they were all defensive they may have been preemptive in the sense that this tribe were getting together to attack and the prophet knew and they're strategizing so the best way is we go out to them because if they come to Medina we're trapped they're going to

lay siege. So let's us go out to them with the element of surprise. That's still a preemptive strike yeah but uh a completely offensive strike would be like let's say you say hey you know that tribe over there in Yemen are just minding their business let's land on them tomorrow and attack that tribe and uh enslave them the prophet never did that in any and there's been studies academic studies on the uh Sira and the Battle of Maghazi and the Sira of the prophet.

You know the the one where they went north and that that's where they with the Romans as well. That was the only one where they took the the rumor because there was a rumor that they would be attacked. But other than the Romans didn't didn't come though. They uh they came and then they turned back. So the prophet ended up they didn't fight the Romans. Uh but that's a fascinating um uh battle as well because I believe it's in that battle when they're prepping because they're laying trenches and setting up that the prophet then wore a Roman thobe.

Mhm. So um Ibn Arabi the Maliki says that that goes to show because the the thobe was the Roman used to wear particular type of thobe that it was really tight on the sleeves so you couldn't lift the uh thing up to reach the forearm you couldn't lift the so when the prophet was trying to do wudu and this is why he describes the thobe it says because he was wearing a Roman thobe uh thobe and he says Jubba Shamiyya uh he it couldn't the sleeves couldn't go beyond the forearm so he had to take his arms out from underneath to wash them for wudu.

So he describes it in terminology and and Ibn Arabi says and that goes to show that you know Islam doesn't really set rules on clothing like wherever you are you wear the clothing of wherever you want it's fine. But yeah coming back to here so there was this understanding that look when the people have co-conspired against you you are at war with them and they would do this to you and you would do this to them except you would have certain rules like you can't mutate the bodies if you kill them you can't do this you know if you do take captives they have rules and they have rights and so on and they can buy their freedom and they can do this.

So just as they would have then taken the other Arab women they would have taken the Muslim women then that's there was no distinction between male and female they would have just enslaved them. Now some companion asking this fine. I mean we're going with let's say if this is authentic then the ruling would have been the same. It would have been that look because that you see the problem with this then it paralyzes a system because when you have a system because if we go into each person because each person is going to have a story then.

Because if I say well look okay but wait a minute let's go into each person's story. Like let's say okay wait a minute like let's say we've got a hundred captives and so you and me Ali and we say okay now let's go through each person's story let's go through this person what's what's your name? His name is Abdul Shams. So okay he says oh you know my story is when I was 15 10 years old you know I got I've been suffering from trauma all my life and I've been doing this and so as you know what damn okay let this one go.

We say what's your story? Says you know I was orphaned as a child and you know this happened to me say oh damn you know this guy's story okay let this guy go. Okay what's her story? Says oh you know I've got a husband and so we say all right okay let this one go. I say oh but the problem is they don't extend that to you see then the system can't work and the problem is the system is one of war it's not one of sitting down in dialogue because they're refusing to have dialogue.

They're prepared to decimate these tribes and they would even mutate the bodies and do all of it. So if you take in that you see this is the thing you know like when say Omar said when he said that the saying that um you know that know, it is iron that tends to iron that you know, straightens iron.

That you that there is a time where you have to unfortunately in the war scenario, that's what it is. And this is why Islam gave many opportunities to say never try to escalate war. And as Muslims are a people the prophet said that we do not desire war. You know, la you know, la do not desire war. Do not desire the battlefield. But if you find yourself in it, then the prophet said stay steadfast.

That do not do not like hold your ground. But but we don't desire it. The prophet on each term whenever he had an opportunity, he would say that look even when he came into Mecca and he had the opportunity, he could have kind of done all of these and taken revenge, he didn't. So, this I can see in isolation these things can come off as you know, somebody could say, "Oh, you know, like a companion asked this, oh, isn't this a bit but in perspective, you can see that well, that's that's what you know, those are the rules by which the other tribes would then back off.

Because people were you know, you take the result to conduct for example. They a master coalition and they vowed to decimate and they've vowed to slaughter man, woman and child that lived in Medina. And if it wasn't you know, and and because of Medina being surrounded partially by mountains and then Salman and Farsi gave the uh you know, the suggestion of taking the trenches.

And they still laid siege and let's be honest that that it was very uh you know, like a traumatic time for the Muslims. They were very kind of like it was very scary for them because they stayed there for a while. Then if it wasn't for the storm that came. And and the prophet did say, he said, "You know what? Do a treaty with some of Ghatafan." Like you know, because they he knew that that these guys could be swayed.

And then Ghatafan left them. But the point is that or some of them left and but the the sandstorm is what kind of broke their their willpower and they eventually left. But had they got through, you know, that would have been the end of man, woman and child in Medina. It would have been the end of Islam. It would have been the end of everything. So, yes, it was a very harsh society.

And yes, Islam was set up in a way and this is what the Maliki Madhab teaches, the school of Medina, that it sets an arc that when humanity and civilization reaches that arc, the rulings change. So, and we call this Masalih Mursalah, we call it Maqasid. In English, trajectory hermeneutics. Yes, slavery would be haram today. Yes, these kind of taking female slaves would be haram today and Islam would have wanted that as the society would have changed, which has changed.

But in their time, it was a very harsh society and and that was the perspective by which they all abide in. So, it was a very warrior society and and they all abide and they had a different perspective. So, that's um you know, that that's how we kind of understand these things. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I I like the the point you said if it like I needed that one data point to make sense of it.

Yeah, when you mentioned the harsh environment because Because because it was because you can't You see like if I say to look like let me You [laughter] know, just to to share like how I did the research. I know your usual method is to look at the Quran, look at the Sunnah, look at what the scholars have said, look at the reasons, try to interpret the method and the Islam.

I did all that but I felt like something is surely missing and I was like I need here is like I can't go further than this. I need somebody who has written something to explain this because it didn't make sense. >> you know, you pinned it. You know, when you mentioned did did you mention sorry the uh it was what you were saying before, mentioned the Machiavellian. You know, Machiavelli. Did you mention Machiavelli as well?

>> Yeah, I mentioned that. You did yeah, you did mention Machiavelli yeah. You see, even [clears throat] though this is not our default position that we aspire to be Machiavellian. But there is it is undeniable that being in certain aspects of life Machiavellian is necessary for survival. It's functional. You know, you can't we can't look, let's not pretend.

Like look, Islam is about love but it must mention the disciplining as well. It must mention the sanctions. This is why it has mentioned hell. Because if you just if you just promoted a very hippy-esque you know, Kumbaya, we're all love. Like the first point, the boundaries. You need to have the base. Because look, this would be beautiful. Islam would have promoted this, you know, it would have promoted this culture of Kumbaya, we're all brothers and sisters in humanity.

Let's hold hands. Problem is the other people would have just cut your hands off and stabbed you. They would not have You see, you would have been nothing but decimated. So, this is when the this this thing the prophet saying look, do not desire battle. Do not do tamanni this kind of long for, I want. Like today we get some people some people do I'm not just today, in the past as well, you have some people with this bravado of like, you know, we just want want war, we want death, we want sword swinging.

This was not the way of the prophet. The prophet was rahmatan lil alameen. And he never ever gave that kind of thing of like, oh, you know, we should let's cut corner this person and kill him and that was against his you know, in fact in the famous thing when when the person came and he was very disrespectful and and you know, some of the companions said, "Ya Rasul Allah, why don't you give me the signal and I would have struck him with the sword?" And the prophet said, "You know, come on." He said it's not you know, that the Nabi does not do khainatul ayun.

We don't do this kind of like, "Hey, get him." We don't do that. You know, like what you see is what you get. And so, this this whole thing that you need you know, war by its nature is very the whole that attitude is very harsh and it needs in that moment firmness. In that moment, softness is naivety.

It's silly behavior. You see, you need in that state You know, there's I was going to say that and Imam Malik said this as well by the way. You know, in his time there was the uprising of Muhammad Nafs Az-Zakiyyah. Uh may Allah raise his maqam in Jannah, amen. Um when he was upright he had an uprising against the Abbasids, Imam Malik what what I've read was from his heart may be in agreement but he was advising him don't do this.

And the reason that I've read one of the reasons that's suggested that Imam Malik said he said that you're You see, you are a virtuous pious man. Like you're a man of God. These people these people you're talking about engaging different rules.

Like they will be not only vicious, they will be treacherous. You're not prepared to meet them on that ground with treachery. So, you will by default lose. Because when a person is prepared to be treacherous, when a person is prepared to be break all the rules and you're playing by the rules, it doesn't work. You know, there's there's a Bollywood movie that has a scene that captures this so well.

There's a scene where this person this bandit comes into town. And he's like, "Oh." And you know, when they come in they kidnap the women and they rob the loot the village. And he comes in and he's like, "Oh, I got all these bandits." So, this one man comes out and he stands up and he says he says, "You know what?" He says "If you're a true man, fight me one-on-one." So, the bandit goes, "What?" You about to you know, what?

He says, "Okay." He says, "Come on then." And this guy's like a brave strong man like in the sense brave in the sense like he's prepared to stand up for his right. So, when he comes to the to the bandit that you know, the leader, the bandit says to him, he says, uh he says, "But I thought you said one-on-one, so what's he doing with you?" And the guy says, "Who?" So, as he turns around, he stabs him with his knife.

>> [laughter] >> And so, as he falls down, he says to him, he says, "Yeah, he says, you know what?" He says, "You brought courage and you know, you brought this jigar, this kaleja, this liver. You brought this courage to the fight. But he says, "Magar kamina pan kahan se lau ge?" But where will you bring the rascality from? You see, where are you going to bring the treachery?

You can bring courage but to win fights, you need to be vicious and ruthless. And you're too principled. Now, that's not to say obviously I'm just quoting a Bollywood. That's not to say people weren't principled, they were. But they were firm in the rulings. And if you start dismantling this thing of things are You need to be practical. You can't just sit there and wait for that's uh like many people today who try to do good say, "What should I do, what should I do?

But many I feel that are good-hearted, they are not practical. They say so they never move forward. Like they for example, a classical question is, why are the most rich people evil in a sense? Because they're willing to go that practical step that you are not willing to take. So, for example, they say, "I did I don't deserve it." Why? Because if you're good, you should actually do the practical step and deserve the do the good with it.

You see, I'm not saying do do wrong. I'm just saying for example, an evil person would for example, they wouldn't mind for example, bothering people a little bit too much. Like call three times instead of one. They say, "You know what? Let me just try more so I get this opportunity." >> even evil. I would rephrase that a person that is just being um they're just being more um less would say they they've kind of dampened down the being more pragmatic and in pursuit of an object.

>> evil good just because of that. Just for how most people think they started think evil good, but it's more really practical. And you see that in nature describing like how morality is like more of a good >> is not to say and and I and and you you totally I'm sure you agree with me. And just to caveat this, this is not to say in any way that those rulings I don't believe those rulings to be evil and don't believe the >> No, no.

response to be anything like that. What I'm saying and what we're saying here is that taking an itemized approach of let's say pure compassion an itemized approach doesn't work in a harsh environment where you have to rule by where there's generalization and the rules are one of generalization.

So, that's how that's the rules that everybody is engaging with. So, you have to engage in those rules. But you set rules of compassion within. So, you say, "Okay. So, when they took them as captives, the captives have these human rights. They have these dignities. You cannot violate their dignities. You cannot do this. You cannot do that." >> I think that's what you But the sexual element was because the whole society didn't see that as something they differentiated from the labor of the slave.

They didn't see it as differentiated. And Islam just took a very pragmatic approach on that. It didn't see as one of uh you know, like today I suppose people are seeing it as a fetish. But it didn't see it like that. You know, it didn't fetishize the concept of like, "Oh, this is like sex slavery." It saw it as this was just captives. And it just saw it as very natural. And people are going to do this regardless.

So, rather than a culture of where people are just lying and hiding and being tyrannical, that you have a system that kind of governs people. And that's what it the approach it took. Yeah. I just smiled a little bit in this because you're in the middle of your explanation I I just this this interview of Shah Khan is where he says first get money and then think about being a philosopher. [laughter] Then become a philosopher.

I've I've watched that interview. It's actually very It's on point. Very good points. >> Because like get the base needs and then it's like the I don't remember this model, but you know, you first have the human needs Yeah, Maslow's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. >> And then then you start to think about the higher ethics of things. But you cannot do that unless you establish first the the ground pillar. That's what people always forget in these discussions also, I think.

So, Ali, shukran for coming on. It's been beautiful that you raised these topics and we've had a really good and I think for people as well it's been very beneficial. So, shukran once again. Do reach out to me on Instagram and we're going to stay connected, inshallah. Take very good care of yourself. Assalamualaikum. Alaikum salaam warahmatullah. People, that was Ali from Sweden. Wa a beautiful soul from a beautiful country with beautiful landscape.

Wa So, people, right, we've got to really sign off. Oh my god, is that the time? Okay, just to say salaam. I've got here Sayed Mahar. Assalamualaikum. Alaikum salaam warahmatullah wabarakatuhu. May Allah keep you in in his peace in this world and in the next world. Brother Yeah, alhamdulillah. There are very few people born like you in this ummah, man.

If there are more people like you, I am telling you we would be not in this situation which we are in. Yeah, Allah. All over the all over the world, how many Muslim countries have been destroyed? We have good alims, no doubt about it. There Dr. Israr Ahmed, Dr. Zakir Naik. They're good good alim, alhamdulillah. Okay? But I believe I'm I'm researching for like last 35 years on this topic which you speak about, okay?

I am an engineer from India, but I reside in Texas uh in America and uh I I do a very very uh you know, uh very deep research on this. And I'm really really very hurt about the situation we are in today. The 10 10 15 countries are gone. Okay? I don't have to name it. You know it very well. Like what is the situation in Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Gaza, or even Kashmir, India, you know, even Pakistan is also not, you know, like like a failed state only, right?

Why? Why? This is the same community in the 300 years who captured almost 1/3 of the world at that time. This is the same community. This is the same religion which has influenced the the minds so much that the people who were primarily agronomy, you know, agronomy based, they were scientist. Ibn Sina, Ibn Battuta, Ibn you know, you see that what kind of impact this this philosophy which Allah revealed the the doctrine, what kind of impact this doctrine had that the people who were not even like businessmen, they were like, you know,

agrarian in economy. They were like, you know, and they were leaders. They were leaders, you know, of the world and they had first university, Qarawiyyin University, Al-Azhar University in Baghdad, you know, the the the Darul Hikmah. And we were the leaders of the science. And today even when Allah Ta'ala very clearly says in Surah Surah Anfal that wa iddu lahum ma istata'tum min quwwatin wa min ribati al al-khaili turhibuna bihi that, you know, prepare against them what you believers can of military power and cavalry to cavalry to deter Allah's enemy and your enemies as well as other enemies unknown to you but

only known to Allah. Allah is very clearly saying, "But uh who is prepared? 57 countries 57 only one Iran can come and reply to, you know, aggression. No other country has the How come we missed this these many great points? How come the shift is so drastic that the community who was ruling the world is like I'm I'm sorry to say that we are like beggars now.

We want financial aid from each and every country. So, my my my my question is this that, you know, I I I go with Quran uh centric. Like I'm not like Hadith disbeliever, but I go like when the Quran is there. See, when Allah Ta'ala preserved the previous books, the Bible and the and the Injil, when Allah did not preserve it, it changed. So, Allah preserved the Quran. Allah preserved the Quran.

So, what is the point if you bring another book and keep it besides the Quran? Then the whole system is not preserved if that another book is not as preserved as the Quran. Sure. I agree. Right? Like [clears throat] if you have a very solid house of made up of iron, but if it has a window which is like made up of like weak, then then the the thief will enter from that window. It it doesn't matter how strong. So, if the Quran is protected in such a manner, then what is the point of bringing another books and keeping it at par with the Quran which is not as as preserved as the Quran.

Right? >> Quran should always be the the sun in this entire It is the source of light. Anything else only reflects the light. It doesn't introduce light of its own. So, that that the Quran is we should all I feel as Muslims be Quran centric. Uh the Quran It's not even the Quran first, it's Quran centric. Like that is we always everything is, you know, the Quran everything succumbs to the Quran.

It's as simple as that. So, whether it's going to be uh you know, Hadith, Sunnah, whatever. And if things clash with the Quran, then those things are inadmissible. Yeah. Sorry, your mic's gone off, you know, by the way. So, I I can't hear you. Can you hear me now? I I No, very low. If you put that back on, let's see. Cuz your your mic's gone gone off all of a sudden.

Yeah, you can hear me now, right? Uh it's still very low. So, I don't know why it went low. It wasn't low before when you were talking. Right there. Now it's just muted, but let me un Can you unmute it? Yeah, it's unmuted, but let's see. Let me see if you >> Yeah, that's Yeah, that's better. Yeah, that's better. Yeah, yeah, I can hear you. So, so so this is the thing. So, my question my my question and concern is this and we can discuss upon this later on as well in details because my plan is to, you know, um move back from USA.

I I'm already like onto a retirement age now. I'm 55, you know, and I was working as a IT engineer here and then work in the field like I want to educate thousands of students, you know, and in the in the in India madrasa system, you know, you see that you know very well that what is the madrasa system in India. You what is the I don't have to explain you anything. I have seen so many videos of you and you are very much well aware of what's going on. It's very surprising that a person like you coming out of a madrasa system and then you have a mind which you you did not you know, your mind did not become captive.

Your mind is still remained free. That's that's strange because the first thing in the madrasa system is that they brainwashed the mind, you know. If you you are out of you are out of Islam, that's what they say, you know, that you know, if you it says you are you do you know more than Bukhari, they say, you know, you you are challenging a Hadith from Bukhari, you know. So basically, point is this that see so the Muslims were very very good.

They're following I mean the beginning 300 years. They were doing really really good. I mean that there were so many schools of thought as as Allama Iqbal writes in the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam that in earlier period there were like 700 schools of thought. So that's a good thing that Ijtihad was going on and you know, they were trying to extract from whatever knowledge was available the Sunnah, you know, definitely because the the Quran laid down the the principles, the doctrine, the theology, everything and then the Sunnah explains implementation details on how to follow it and then if there are some differences in the Sunnah, that's fine.

I mean you keep your hands you know, on the side like subtle what you explained in one of your videos or if you fold it that that is not great concern. That is not of great concern. So that the Sunnah coming that kind of things is fine because it doesn't change the doctrine. The problem comes when the doctrine is changed. Like you know, somebody giving three talaq that the thing is when the Muslims were doing so well so well in the first 300 years just going with the Quran and the Sunnah because Sunnah because Sunnah 700 schools of thought.

Why the Muslim accepted this that Bukhari I don't know whether he was a scholar or not. He was a Muhaddith, but I don't know if he was a like a Mufti or a scholar or what. Bukhari Muslim coming from Muslim I I don't know where he's from, but Bukhari coming from Samarkand or Bukhara and then collecting the sayings from public and then making it making it in a book and then that book is taking the seat next to the Quran and sometimes as you you also said in your lectures sometime above the Quran, you know, in in in how this happened?

I mean how how they allowed it? This you know, this you see the the core problem with all of this is the issue of dogma to start off with. Dogma, Islam did not come to teach dogma in that way. It came you see the problem is that the Quran and Islam and the Sunnah taught Iman.

We got bogged down with Aqidah. These are two different things slightly. I mean I know Aqidah is about Iman, but Aqidah becomes a dogmatized uh members club which you know, we've got to see is your membership up to scratch. It's interesting the prophet never taught Aqidah in that way. Like at most you see the prophet said Why didn't the prophet not just the prophet, the Salaf, the Sahaba, the Tabi'in, the Atba' al-Tabi'in, even Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifa, right?

They never taught the list of what you must believe in. Like think about that. That's phenomenal, isn't it? Like why would they not teach the the at most you have this one simple Hadith which we take as the bedrock that the that with the prophet is saying that I'm meant to billahi wa malaikatihi wa kutubihi wa rusulihi wal yawmil akhir, you know, and and and wal ba'thi ba'dal mawt, you know, that I believe in Allah, I believe in revelation, I believe in prophets, you know, that and I believe in life after death essentially.

Like these very simple things are the bedrock of Iman. Now Aqidah is a different thing altogether, you know, here's a checklist of, you know, I don't know, let's say Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi's 164 points or 100 or whatever it is and then people have got more after him and now we've got to measure you against this and if you miss on one, chuck him out.

See this dogmatism is is about control. This you know, when this in psychology you have this thing discourse analysis and and it's in social sciences as well and you know, Foucauldian where you look at power structures and power structures are are not there in institutions, they're in language, they're in discourses. Now this discourse of how we determine orthodoxy.

What is orthodoxy? I mean the dialogue of orthodoxy really emerges probably about 200 years after the prophet and emerges around the time of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the creation of the fitna of the sorry the fitna of the creation of the Quran. Now this this thing. So once you've got this, now you move on a few centuries and then you get the canonization of these Hadith books.

It is several several centuries after the the prophet several centuries. I would say at least I would say probably starts about you can probably see some roots forming around 400 years after some tiny roots. Then it starts growing 500 years after the prophet. 600 years after the prophet it's now taking some stronghold. 700 years after the prophet it solidified.

You know, this thing like by the time of the likes of Ibn Salah and then definitely Ibn Hajar, this thing the canonization of Sahihain and Bukhari has solidified. This was the Shafi'i outlook. Then what's happened is for some reason and this would make a great PhD that the other schools which were the dominant schools, the Maliki and the Hanafi.

Mhm. Or really the majority of the Muslims worldwide. And they were the only two schools that were that were imperial in the sense that they had uh you know, dynasties ruled by them. So the only two ruling schools, madhhabs, was the Hanafi in the east and the Malikis in the west. This was it and this is why Ibn Hazm obviously has a problem with them as well. He says that they you know, political because they were the two schools that ruled.

Now for some reason by about the the 700s onwards and and this would make a study why I don't you know, I'm sure there's many answers, but these schools also fought they kind of start losing that cultural war against the Shafi'is. Uh and this thing of Hadith you know, idhā ṣaḥḥa al-ḥadīth is the Hadith is correct and that is my madhhab.

The canonization of Hadith books over the concept of Sunnah starts to kind of prevail. Mhm. And so what happens is what I believe I like the term used by Sherman Jackson, Dr. Sherman Jackson, the crypto-Shafi'ization takes place. So the other madhhabs even though they're still Hanafi like you could take for example the Deoband school.

It's still very strictly Hanafi. Yeah. You could take the Malikis even later on. And this isn't going to be all Deobandis and it isn't going to be all Malikis, but it started to prevail. And I think more so in the Hanafis than it did in the Malikiya. It did as well prevail, but you still had mixed voices. You got this crypto-Shafi'ization where they face value are Hanafi but in practice their modus operandi is exactly as if they're Shafi'i.

Mhm. Like everything is about the Hadith the Hadith. It's no longer about you know, it's all about justifying everything through the Hadith. Yeah. So so today you will get for example Hanafiyyah being almost Hadith textualists and Hadith literalists and defending every Hadith in Bukhari whereas the whole madhhab is built on going you know, opposing rulings that were in Sahih Bukhari.

In fact, Imam Bukhari in his and you know, today uh Sheikh Atabek was supposed to come on, but I think something he was held up. I know he's spoken about this publicly as well. That you see Sahih Bukhari one of the key objections against Sahih Bukhari is his derision and belittling of Imam Abu Hanifa that people held against him. Now you know, okay, it's a debate, but in his Bukhari in several points he says and some people have said.

But you know, in Arabic this kind of comes off a bit belittling. Uh It's like and it's like saying and someone has said. It's like that. It's it's got a tone to it which is a bit belittling. And he says qāla ba'ḍu n-nās. Whereas when he's speaking of other Imams, he uses their names. But when it comes to Imam Abu Hanifa, he says wa qāla ba'ḍu n-nās and someone Mhm. decided to say this. So he doesn't even use his name.

And so this is a big deal that a lot of Hanafis were really offended by this. That how dare you, you know. And they had replies to it and even when we studied Bukhari in the madrasa, they had to respond to this Allah about and they we took like several lessons dedicated in replying to you know, and someone decided to say so they and why was he targeting Imam Abu Hanifa? So and in some of these he's actually harsh and some he isn't.

He just says, you know, and someone said this but in some he says and he went against the Sunnah of the Prophet and he went against the he's quite harsh in some of the us. Uh But today you have the being some of them, not all like you have you know, there are especially I suppose the other persuasions like you have the they're much more relaxed. They're not that but you might get for example, can you have your shower or your trousers below the ankles?

Mhm. Now this is seen as as a literal thing Mhm. amongst modern-day Hanafi's, you know, like modern-day uh many they see this just like a sin. Yes. Whereas whereas really even the classical Imam Nawawi, Ibn Abdul Barr and all these legendary of the past said no, this Hadith was only speaking about those people who who did it as a practice mean mean Bobby they did it from this arrogant practice and people don't do it like that and Abu Bakr himself would often have it below and you know, the Prophet when he said to the Prophet oh what about me because it

would often be below and he said let's him in home. You have you know, you're not from the people I'm talking about. Mhm. Now but today this the school which was the voice of reason in Imam Abu Hanifa's time champion reason that you know, that went to the extent that said oh Persians who've embraced Islam don't know Arabic and even do they salah in Persian. I mean to that extent and I'm not saying that has we have to agree but look at the compassion Imam Abu Hanifa was bringing.

He was trying to inclusively welcome people into Islam. His madhhab had kind of become the the kind of Frankenstein of what he stood for because he stood for this whole inclusivity and you've got this they've become kind of in the words of Dr. Sherman Jackson crypto Shafi'ized. In that way they've just become Shafi's who are wearing the guise of Hanafi's and they just say no everything and in fact ironically even Shafi's are more lenient than them in many rulings.

They they've become like a hardline puritan Mhm. Shafi'ization. So almost a bit Salafi but without being Salafi and so I agree with you that any person any Hadith that comes that compromises the honor of the Prophet that that goes against verses of the Quran. You know, the Quran teaches us there's no compulsion in in matters of in the faith.

You know, in the faith. To take a Hadith by somebody that was a Khawarij Ikrimah who would have had problems with Sayyidna Ali. Mhm. Right because the Khawarij were opposed to Ali some of them calling him a kafir and some maybe not a kafir but they passionately disagreed with him and belittled him. Take Hadith from Ikrimah who is a Khawarij narrating it from Sayyidna Ali.

Really I mean from all people Ikrimah is going to narrate from Sayyidna Ali saying that Sayyidna Ali said kill the apostate. Like this alarm bell should be ringing. Mhm. And how how is this come on? This cannot be like that's like somebody who who does not like another person is narrating from him a ruling that goes at face value against the Quran.

And happens to what support the Khawarij tendency of killing people. Yep that have apostated. That's like you know, that's very convenient, isn't it? That's like an addicted gambler saying oh I just found a Hadith that said actually gambling is fine. That's very convenient, isn't it? You found it. So it's so this is what I mean that when these rulings come, we have to remember that the light of the Quran is the light.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So that that was a good good explanation and you give some good insights on that. Thank you so much. I have the another part of this question is now this issue we understand that this is the issue. Now talk about the solution like is there a solution possible like I mean to to to like whoever is trying to do the like I mean Ibn Taymiyyah or maybe like Dr.

Fazlur Rahman Ansari from from Aligarh Muslim University or Allama Iqbal or Sir Syed Ahmad Khan whoever is has come out and and spoke against this injustice and say that you know, no no the Quran take the precedence and you don't treat you don't go by Hadith's like this. This is wrong. Then he's outcast from the from the community. Maulana Fazlur Rahman Ansari has to go out to America in the last days.

Chicago he was in Chicago and even even people call names to Allama Iqbal. And the last thing is there any solution to it like what is the solution we should you know, there should be there should be new school of thought with all those Hadith's dropped off which are problematic. So you know, when we look at the problematized Hadith, they aren't that many Yes that's my point. They aren't that many like so No but they are very very very but they have a big impact.

They are only but they are very big impact. So yeah, so I would feel that look what we do is we champion the voice of reason. Uh we champion always the voice of compassion. Our perspective should always come from compassion and empathy and mercy because that is because compassion and empathy is mercy and that's really the message of Islam. Now as to I I feel we should always welcome we should always welcome because look sometimes you don't know what opinion you may may have some uh you may carry certain gems for other

people. You just don't know so we should welcome we don't have to always agree. Look people will always come up with thoughts with opinions. You know, you you might have an opinion. I'm I'll have opinions. People could you know, they're more than welcome to dismiss all of my opinions. It's that's the very nature of discussion, discourse and dialogue that people you know, they have their say and you take what's good.

Allah says those who have faith, you know uh that when they that most of us those who listen to the discourse and follow that which is good out of it. So the that it which is the best of it, sorry. So yeah, so we shouldn't be insecure about anytime we hear a new opinion we try to shut it down or or opinions in the past you know, because let's let's face it most opinions have already existed.

They're in the past, you know, very few things are going to be new now but we don't need to shut them down just because we can explore them. We can critique them. We can disagree with them. We can decry them, disavow them. We can even say look I think that's absurd. I think that's silly but we shouldn't have a hatred. Yes. That's the point. So the the difference is the energy. Like we could say it's like somebody said earlier on look what would you say these Quranists that were reading like this would you I said look at the end of the day you you have to whatever our even our criticality must be from a place of compassion.

Not from a place of just trying to knock people down. Yep. So that because because then you're just doing what other people are doing. There's no difference and I think that is the only thing we can do as yeah, I feel that's yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you very much for for your time. I appreciate it very much brother. You're welcome. Say you take care of yourself and I will in sha Allah follow up on that. So take care. Thank you. You're welcome.

People that was Mahar I would say Sayyid Mahar from the US. Fear no I bring you on. I've got to say you waited ever so patiently. I'm sorry for the wait, man. What what happened [laughter] to my screen? Uh I was No no problem. I was working while I was working while listening to you.

I was Oh right. But no no problem. Maybe next time. I think I think that it is maybe maybe late for you. Yeah, it has got quite late and I by the way, I just wanted to say because I would would have loved to have also got your thoughts. I know you also if I recall correctly um you know, you pertain to the Quranist. Yeah yeah yeah. And but I have felt that your approach I know I had a dialogue with brother MFG.

But I know you're or I felt in our because you've come on on a couple of live streams that your your approach has been different I felt. You know, it's not been necessarily even though it is Quranist but some of the attitudes were I feel different. Maybe I mean you know, I'm just placing You know, you know, I I I discuss with with with MFG and you know brother MFG is one of He's He's very kind.

But the thing is, you know, uh I don't want to take up much of time. I will just I will just tell you something about MFG. Yeah, of course. He is He is a type of guy that he is very cautious because his life is maybe at stake. You know, people Yeah. Every times that he engage in in Kuala Lumpur debate, sometimes people threaten his life.

Maybe at gunpoint. Sometimes I I I I I you know it. Like the the I I I think I think like the the you have a discussion with him, and he don't want he didn't even want to reveal his information, his localization. Okay, sometimes people are So, he's when he's engaging with people, like he's very cautious. He's very like, okay, preparing for fighting.

And I know that maybe it is maybe in some of his livestreams he's like, okay, I'm going to go to this like special debates or he's like debating every time. But I think like when you go to to know him and to understand him, you see that he is somebody who's who's like have a heart and a very deep love for the religion. And yeah, I really I I Yeah, I would You know this >> [laughter] >> Yeah, so yeah, I will I will wait some maybe another time.

Maybe I maybe you are tired. No, no, no, I I appreciate you saying that because look, because you are of the Quranist community as well and the Quranist kind of persuasion. So, it it's it's you know, it's it's meaningful coming from you because it's easier to speak to other people who are not of the persuasion. Now and I have felt this as well.

I have felt that look, uh most if I I would feel all if not all most people that are coming from this Quranist perspective, they're coming because they care about the deen. And and this isn't just about them. It's about all people that have devoted themselves to some area of Islam. They They all care deeply about the deen. Otherwise, they wouldn't Otherwise, they'd be indifferent to it, you know, they wouldn't care less.

They'd just be like, whatever. But you can see it consumes their life. It consumes their time, their energy. And that, if anything, must be deeply valued. That this person has this deep sentiment for the faith. Um now, obviously, we then could disagree. We could disagree with perspectives, with energy. I do feel that when it comes to uh a lot of Quranists and once again not and I haven't felt that with you, by the way, Theirona.

I know I've had you on on a few. I felt from you a very calm energy. So >> No, no, no, you you know Quranist, Muslim, Christian, everybody is human. Everybody has a person. >> Yeah. And I And everybody I'm saying there's only way to to discuss or to >> Yeah, you 100% and I felt sometimes from a lot of Quranists that they are on edge.

And there is a um almost like like unresolved anger that they're carrying, which maybe justified in the sense that they have had a lot of trauma with people and like let's say now you could take brother MFG as an example. Uh he because he's been you know, everybody he's been debating and they just shouting shouting shouting shouting shouting.

Now he's that's all he's used to now. Mhm. So, because he's used to it, by default, he's ready. He's on it. Like because he's ex- you know, it's like the nervous system is expecting it. So it's not expecting a just a regular conversation because it's because everywhere else he gets attacked. So, he's expecting that. Now yeah, so I I understand that as well and I can I do uh I I pray may Allah keep him safe and um and you know what if I could give any thoughts, you know, of a nasiha Mhm.

And and maybe it means nothing because you know, what does my nasiha mean to and especially to but if if I could say something, look, um maybe brother MFG hears it or maybe other people like him hear it. I want to say that look in some ways I can relate. I I say this from some experience. Yeah, that because I feel historically like I too had some of this stuff as well.

And only in hindsight you can compare because you feel that uh like I can actually see now some of that I did have some of that as well and I can see So my thoughts, nasiha, and I suppose, you know, nasiha is little Muslimin, you know, it's for all of us that unfortunately, that energy, what it does, you see, because it's unsettled, it's kind of has a um it has a turbulence to it.

It only like I won't say only, but it often produces a turbulence. Like because nature produces it mirrors. So we need to kind of find a stillness. A kind of calmness. And that will be done by you know these things of empathy, these things of trying to come to this understand like even if, for example, you don't accept the Muslim tradition, the Islamic tradition.

Think, "Okay, fine. I get it. You're coming from this place. I get it. But sure, I I see it differently." As opposed to a kind of like, "Oh, this is hahaha." You know, mocking and And look, don't get me wrong. You know, I've done things like this myself in the past. >> Yeah, you got your you got your you got your fair share of you know, you had your fair share of turbulence.

Yeah, I got my fair share of turbulence and and you know, when you're in the when you're in the middle thick of it. Like I had like very thick skin. Like you know, I'd have so much hate online, I wouldn't care. Right? And when you're in the thick of it, the momentum carries you. But you know, when you do find a stillness later on and a peace only then you can compare the peace to turbulence.

And then you think, "Bloody hell, like that's actually not only is it unhealthy it's it's un- it's not positive. Like that's But you only you only realize it when you come to a stillness. Because when you're in it, you don't realize it because that's what you know and you're fine with it. But it's when you you see later on like I see that that unfortunately, it might do like sure, look, don't get me wrong.

You can still do things which are good. Like I'm sure he's still like brother MFG is still a source of inspiration for many people out there and he's helping them. But believe me, that help would be so much more amplified if it started coming from a kind of stillness. Like if it came from a place that wasn't so riddled with negativity it would like believe me, like even then look, don't get me wrong.

The other people still won't agree with his views. They're not going to agree. But hatred in turn. Like some of them might still have hatred, but let them be. You know, that's on them. That's not your responsibility. You speak cool and nasty husband. Like smile and the world will smile back at you. And there will be some people that will still be miserable. That's fine. You're You're not here to mirror that energy.

Right? So, that's if anything, these are my thoughts. Um No, it's it's very it's very useful. So, you know, if you want to really know exactly how he is really like he's like his normal self, like not his not his I don't know, somebody like somebody like you you have to maybe come come and listen to one of his Friday sermon. Like every Friday he does some he he does he do a live livestream and he's like a Friday sermon.

He talks talks about God, talks about love, compassion, using helping helping people. You know, you know, about this all this conflict about in in in Palestine and in Gaza, he really did help first hand people. He was committed to help his people in Syria. He goes over there and he did really a lot of work to help people.

And may Allah make it easy for him. >> giving giving love to people. So, yeah. You know, is he is he Syrian, by the way? I don't know. He don't want to comment on that. Okay, sure. Well, we we have another bond then, you see, because I studied in Syria as well years ago. You know, you you know, when I when I see him when I when when I see him, I'm saying that, okay, I'm seeing maybe you, but with a lot of a lot more I don't know uh tough tough skin.

Like you got his like you know, he's he's he's armor. But I think he's got I really hope that that mantra would have been like maybe the one with in the music the one with in the music it was it was like very much engaging like it was the Quranist the music was the Quranist. Yeah, yeah. He was a I wanted I would love that to you we are talking about the religion.

You see because the the issue is that this is what I mean that what I find from brother MFG is that there is too much unresolved uh like there's too much unresolved emotions like unresolved anger. And I'm not saying he's you know he a lot of wrong might be done on to him for him to be angry and to have these like negative emotions or this negative energy but there's too much of it and it does stop a fruitful dialogue because you see every time we're talking like if

you're going to come from this place of um you know you're going to come from this thing that oh this is a debate or I know your game strategy I know what you're trying to trip me up I know you're trying to do this. Well I mean then there is you know that we can't really have whereas like let's say you accept I didn't know who he was either. He got introduced to me he said look I said would you like to have a mind travel said yes.

I invited him on he did get a bit heated as well but for the most part we just spoke and he just spoke and I just spoke and like like to me at the end of the day like if you're going to say look this is how I believe and fine but if you jettison and let go of the the kind of hate your [clears throat] message even if people don't accept it but they will it will become much more um I don't want to just say tolerated but it will be much more harmonized.

Like so for example his his message does still have like I I haven't heard any of his Friday sermons but his message has a lot of this like hate. You guys are mushrikeen you guys are all mushriks you guys all follow idolatry you guys you know like mocking like the tradition in the sense that hahaha you you think your scholars are God. It is it is maybe just 1% of of of all of his message.

Um like I will I will maybe like I I think I think tomorrow yeah it will I don't know today But that's my but that's my you see but that's my point because it might be because this thing is bottled within. >> [clears throat] >> Now when it when he's talking to somebody who's not of his persuasion it comes out and it's a very you know it's like this was my point that look look even if you disagree like somebody said today like brother came on Hussein he said look in Shafi'i fiqh if you scratch your head three times you've broken your salaam and and I just kind of laughed at it and said look well that's absurd.

I think I think we all laughed at at the >> We all laugh at that and just find it absurd. Now we can like that we can do that that's what I mean we we can we can be amused at certain things and dismiss them. We don't need to get angry at them and be hateful towards the guy that said it as oh my God the scholar who said that thinks he's God. You know no we don't need to do this like that's coming from a place of place of rage.

So that was my point that you see there is too much of this like this kind of rhetoric of uh I'm like we're on the saved sect you know firqatun najiyah we are the saved sect everybody else is baalun mudil and they've lost the Quran we've somehow got it. And that that like you see that that's just creating a cult that's the problem it's not creating a group it's creating a cult.

And once a person matures to losing that inshallah the rest of the things will come easier. And it's like I said with the tradition look how is it that in life you are prepared to accept every other influence from every other walk of life you're prepared to accept influence in fashion in diet in psychology in health in philosophy in wisdom in technology in science in but the only place you're not can't accept influences from the prophet or you can't accept them from the ulama

of Islam like that's such a like that's like sad. No we No we are all influenced whether we like it or not. But the thing is like there's a Islam it is 140 over 100 and and 1400 years of of of tradition. It it shows that we are we will be all influenced by this the teaching of all of all of that.

But but Quran I No I agree No I say of course we will be influenced in our decision in we of course we will be like we should be we will be influenced because it is Oh influence is influence yeah yeah. Of course we will be influenced by by like everything that No no no I don't mean I don't mean would we No I don't mean would we be because of course we would be influenced but would we accept like welcome influence.

So obviously we are influenced by the Islamic tradition just as he for example chooses Fatiha to pray in salah the only reason he chooses Fatiha is because the fiqh teaches you to pray with Fatiha and the hadith teaches you. There's no other reason it's because the tradition teaches you that. But my point is because he likes it. >> [laughter] >> Sure but but he likes it why because he's been shown that this is what people do.

That but what my point is that do we welcome influence though welcome it. And it doesn't mean you have to wholeheartedly and so to say like to me that the logic that look you in life we welcome influence from every area of the world the only area we don't welcome any influence is from the Islamic tradition and from the prophet that to me is like like that the moment that argument is where everything the whole persuasion just falls and collapses.

Because that that would be so like just just look at that argument that crushes the whole Quranist argument like those that are Quranist by principle not those that are epistemologically Quranist because there's different schools I know of Quranist there's some who who don't reject Sunnah in that sense they just see as like like a supplementary guidance but not necessary to follow.

You will be surprised I would have I would have loved that you have we would have talked about different theology in Quranism different fiqh different discussion different different strands strands in Quranism because Quranism is like it is it it is a spectrum. Like Yeah. I know that I know I and I do know that people don't like to like we don't we don't even like to be called Quranist like we we prefer we prefer being called Quran alone Muslim.

You know first of all. So like you know but I do understand when somebody when somebody when somebody comes to me and say to me that you are a Quranist like it does not do not means harms in in a in the first sense. What I'm saying that Quran we Quran alone Muslim we have different ways different nuances No of course there's many different wala many different schools many many many different schools of way ways of engaging.

I'm not I'm not going to say that okay only the only the the ways the way of MFG or the way of Baba Sheringee or the way of the way of I don't know solo solo Quran say of Okay no sure but but do you see this argument but do you see this argument that look how can a people like value something deeply and dearly which is Islam Mhm.

and welcome influence in all areas of life and the only area that is unwelcome to them not welcomed is the tradition of Islam. Like that to me is I think it's such an argument that like this I think like that just that trumps the entire um you see because it doesn't make like it because surely you're going to accept influence from poets you're going to accept influence from artists you're going to accept influence from actors you're going to accept influence from you know maybe you've read something that's been some quote by uh I don't know like maybe you've got

different uh different people you like reading Oscar Wilde or this person or Nietzsche or Plato or Aristotle or you know you've got Francis Bacon anybody you might read some people and think oh I oh I like that I'm going to take this Yeah. You can't prove you can't prove with that same veracity that these people articulated it 100% as it's written in that text you know 500 years ago.

Sure like people have got text but they could have been some you know some things were miswritten misread some copies were altered there's always that possibility with some many of these things you can't even trace it back. Right so if we can accept everybody you know we can accept everybody as a source of influence. And the only person we don't accept is the prophet sala Allah alaihi wasallam as Muslims. That's like a very sad state of affairs.

And then with the only person we don't accept is the prophet and his disciples, his companions. And we don't >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I don't I can't I don't think I don't think you you like you can't you can't like Maybe you don't you don't understand what is at what what what we call Quran Quran only Muslim say why when we say Quran alone When we say Quran alone alone, we know that it's everywhere.

But when we say Quran alone, it is like we follow the Quran for No, because look No, because No, because the reason I'm going to stop that interrupt that is because I made that very clear in the beginning of the dialogue with MFG, I asked him that do you and I gave last week as well I used the analogy I mean the week before the analogy of the sun being the center and then you have planets and you have planets of moons.

And or do you accept or do you say there is no solar system, there is just a sun? And I said to him at the beginning of the conversation, is the Quran argument that you're presenting is it one by epistemology or is it by principle? And I explained what that meant and I told him given him a week to think over it because I introduced it to him last the week before when he came. I said, are you saying that we don't have a problem with Sunnah of the prophet, it's just sometimes we're not sure if this was an actual teaching or maybe somebody misunderstood it.

So, that is an issue of epistemology. So, you don't have an issue a problem you welcome the Sunnah of the prophet, you're just not sure if it was transmitted accurately. Or is it by principle that their Sunnah has no guidance? He says very clearly in the dialogue that there is no other guidance to come that there are no truths out there, it is only the Quran.

He said that the prophet has nothing special about him. And he said that and he was actually I had to stop him because he was almost about to become disrespectful to the prophet. And I said that look, he he doesn't accept anybody and he said that forget the scholars Imam Malik and these people, he says the prophet was no no nothing special about the prophet. He says Allah just chose him so that's why he is a placeholder.

The place was special, it just happened to be the prophet Muhammad. It could have been a different person. This person this ideology has no sacredness about the tradition of Islam. It does not value the sacredness that is in this faith. It accepts the sacredness of the Quran but it rejects the tradition wholeheartedly. Now, that is a disservice because any person who in their day-to-day life you [snorts] see when they remove their blinkers welcomes influence from all areas of life that they can't prove epistemologically, yet they still welcome they might have a quote on their wall that is written by I don't know by you know, they might say

oh look this quote was written by um Mark Twain but they they can't prove it let's say or Shakespeare said that but they can't prove it or Ghalib said this line of poetry I can't prove it 100% Me said this and they welcome all of that but the only thing they seem to so you know, [snorts] reject so wholeheartedly is that when it comes to the way of our prophet. So, this you can see why this person this attitude is going to unfortunately it's going to not only rub people the wrong way, it's going to cause a very harsh reaction to him.

Because you see what you're doing is and I understand he may his devotion and I understand he might be coming from a place where he does love the deen. But the way he's putting it together, it's it's not just turbulent, it's very cancerous. You see so cancer by its nature is going to cause a very like a harmful reaction. So, this was my point and I look there's no room for misinterpretation.

I gave him a whole week to think over the question and then I asked him and explained it before asking whilst asking him and he made himself very clear that we do not accept any guidance at all from anybody outside of the Quran not even the prophet he said. And his words were that the prophet was like he was saying there's nothing special about the prophet except that Allah chose him.

So So, you can see now why Muslims are getting offended. And so I understand how you're saying is is very different. You see now this was how I was thinking he was going to say. I was thinking he was going to say I didn't think he was going to say principle. I thought he's going to say epistemology. I thought he's going to say we don't have a problem with the teaching of the prophet, we welcome it.

The only issue we have is sometimes we doubt whether that was actually a saying of the prophet or somebody misheard it. That's what I thought he was going to say and we were going to have a lot of common grounds then. Because an argument from epistemology is still an argument from compassion because they are you know, they they're honoring the prophet that much that they don't want to attribute something that they think might be a lie to him.

So, that is still coming from a a place of love towards the prophet. Paid, let's >> [laughter] >> We we the passion takes over and we >> [laughter] >> I was I was I was saying what is all this passion coming coming to me? >> [laughter] >> This is you see now now you see now that you've got the passion flowing I've got to go to sleep.

>> [laughter] >> Oh yes salaam. I'm supposed to have an early start. >> [laughter] >> This is what ADHD does. This is the this is the problem with living with ADHD honestly. I Once you get on to something it's like time goes like this and you have no like I don't you have no perception of time how other people have it.

I envy people how they view the world sometimes I think wow like these people >> [laughter] >> But yeah, but but I but but but but but but what one one one thing I think I think like you you here you and you know, and you have to understand that for for for any people I don't know I have and I see for from from from Shia people from Sunni people from Quran only Quran only people for any people like we love We love we love Allah everything that you that you do that that you are doing.

May Allah bless you. And seriously and and and and I and and I know that maybe you and MFG like the discussion was very fair but I but I think that maybe destiny maybe maybe God maybe God will will reunite you someday and you will discuss. I will say that and and and I will say and I will say something to to people like watching watching watching.

I know there are many presupposition about the Quran alone community like many many people flowing like yeah something like that but like it is a community and it is very welcome. And I and if you are very curious and got your time little time tomorrow I think maybe in um maybe 7 7 p.m. GMT I I think I think maybe GMT I don't know exactly Greenwich Meridian Time.

I don't know exactly how to say it to in in English but in 7 7 p.m. like we we will we will we I I think brother Muhammad live stream I'm sure and and listen listen to him and listen to what what we are saying and yeah. And shukran I want to say Thierno shukran Allah bless you and you know, you keep you always smiling.

Amen. Yeah, shukran shukran to you. So, honestly and I and likewise look the love is there I say to anyone even here like I say in person as well that you know, people of different persuasions or whatever they are um you know, I always welcome them not only online if I you know, if people sometimes reach out they come to meet me I'm happy to have them hosted I will you know, welcome them and uh show that love and honestly and I do it regardless and I mean that it doesn't matter what persuasion what sectarianism what kind of denomination people follow even you

know, even if they think very horribly of me as long as they're not rude to me in person then I will honor them I will host them I will you know treat them to we we all sort they're all very welcome and and I think that is the message uh of this faith. If anything that's something that you know, we are taught by the Sunnah of the prophet sala Allah alaihi wasallam and in the teachings of the Quran.

So, shukran Thierno for having this conversation with us take very good care of yourselves of yourselves and speak soon. People that was our beloved Thierno who's come on a few times and really this live stream has gone on way too long yeah. You know, I've shot myself in the foot haven't I? >> [laughter] >> I you know, what was that poem I would often have that uh

>> [laughter] >> You know, that's what happened. I've shot myself. This is now going on for so long. Here, I hope it's been of some benefit. Take very good care of yourselves. Those who see somebody said see chef even changed his clothes three times. Yeah. You seem to be watching closely. >> [gasps] >> Right.

So, yep. Those of you want to reach out Instagram is the way. Do subscribe to the YouTube. Those of you that want the one-to-one consultations, the you're more than welcome. You should see on the ticker underneath. There is for one-to-one consultations visit patreon.com/malcolm. And it's tier two. You can book yourself right in. Right.

Other than that, have a very good evening. Um Right. Somebody Kashif, have you read my book on I haven't actually. So, uh but maybe we could get a mind trap on it. I believe it's it's the book on Cyrus. All right. And the Quran. Maybe we could get a mind trap in the future. Let me know. Take very good care of yourselves people. Salam alaykum.