The Mad Mamluks Podcast: From the Cosmos to the Quantum | Mufti Abu Layth

[Music] did you get a chance to uh you didn't have to but did you get a chance to hear any of our episodes by any chance uh I haven't actually just to get a review from you okay no alhamdulillah it's all good I mean I checked out your if you think we suck just let us know

well okay yeah I can see the pictures and yeah the the guy with the hat is is mahen uh I'm the guy who's bald they call me Sim on the podcast and uh okay I could see the picture with is it right yeah yeah we had him on last night yeah we had him on last night he's also abuth by the way he's what is he is Abu as well yeah so he named his son he he named his son LA and he's sad so his so he's you know awesome awesome yeah yeah see when I chose that Kun I don't

know a single person with that name a but did you did you choose LA because Le or I just it just sounded slick it sounds beautiful beautiful name yeah I mean I I chose it years ago like probably year 2000 or something so yeah so at that time I never I heard of anybody with the the name and it happens to be your Maliki too so did you know it had anything anything to do with the malakis or you just happen to do that and you specialize in Malik at the time the only AB that was known was the

historic AB um Beyond him I don't think any I mean obviously Le was known but I don't think Abu in any of the other MHS was really even till now I don't think it really carries a uh I think really he I think he killed it thei yeah yeah but yeah I don't think anybody else really so I thought let me have a go at it and see if I can rock it for a while inah but yeah Mah man um what's going on then how are you guys

doing and what's this the Mad M looks all about you asked what what what comes to your mind when you see that name right okay it depends because my mind's a crazy place man a lot that goes on in my mind but I think uh I I mean it sounds obviously funky and good and so yeah I'm understanding that you you see there's there's a difference here because I'm understanding that you're doing it just as that kind of uh it's just got that Muslim kind of touch to it as mom looks like because of the historic so people would assume and then mad as

in just crazy you know uh but not crazy as in crazy crazy but as in unrestricted exactly that's what I I guess but I mean it could be that you've actually are linking it into the actual M thing yeah actually yeah because they came at a point in history where uh the the Muslim world was um almost decimated right so our thought was well the the mum Lukes not not not just not the not just the fact that they the name sounds cool but they also came to the rescue at that important historical

period you know where uh they were the Last Stand between the Mongols getting to uh North Africa and and they were the least expected to yeah yeah because when when they stopped uh the Mongols at uh the Battle of angelu that was the the first time in history anyone had put a stop to the Mongols or beat them in a battle front you know and yeah uh I think that that that it's I know and we were thinking that you know uh there might be some implications of violence or something

like that associated with with the name but we said you know the it's very important uh for for young Muslims and Muslims around the world to know the important contributions that the mumluk made and we can't just be reactionary and and be fearful of what the world might say about don't you think you know just on a side note don't you think you see a lot of this with the you know the Mongols just on a side note don't you think like in history people have ignored though or maybe downplayed or the you see because there's a lot like I I take you

referring to like nudin zingi and and the whole thing but with the Mongols actually being put to a stop don't you think it had a lot more to do with his cousin brother ban who was actually came down from east Europe to fight halak yeah yeah and it was when he came down with his horde uh then the Muslims had a strong chance against um cuz he he totally wasn't expecting his own to turn on him now because they were really powerful at the time and so his uh when he came he his his kind of vision was within a year to kind of have conquered um uh you know the whole thing and gone

into like you're saying North Africa and the whole thing now when he had decimated Bagdad he a year earlier or a year and a half earlier when he had met because they had to go back to uh what is it the you know the great KH because they want they needed to know who was going to be the next great yeah they had that big meeting when he was chosen over bar and the others so when he let them know that I'm going to be attacking the Middle East and stuff B Khan was a Muslim out of them right and some of them had embraced Islam some of them hadn't now B Khan was a Muslim who said

to him that you can conquer them but don't uh destroy and kind of violate the the religious stuff and so obviously they had their own Tiff as well because of the fact that uh you know he was chosen as the great KH and the and the others weren but when he goes there and then what he does with um obviously MIM and the whole thing and uh and he obviously decimates bdad he he was told that look you can take over like I don't care you take over whatever but don't kind of violate the the Muslim sanctities and don't kind of just do massacres but he obviously

did so when he moves on from Bagdad that reaches ban who comes down from East Northeastern Europe with a great massive you know part of his hor uh and who tells the Muslims that you go forward and I will attack him from behind like we're bringing our armies and this is what actually leads to the destruction of uh hakan because he's killed in that battle in which he meets Baran now but I I never noticed any of the like a lot of the Muslims just ignore the like in the history they completely either just brush it aside

about B Khan and the whole kind of internal Clash that the Mongols had because of his ransacking Bagdad yeah and I'm not saying that obviously you know nin zingi and and the whole thing wasn't huge and whatever they did have oh sorry sa Kus and the whole um um you know the the it was it was huge and they did have the whole you know the jalut whatever the thing was instrumental but I was just saying that it is interesting because I I was kind of fascinated with uh history and I remember reading through a lot of these kind of things and thinking it's it's really amazing that a lot of this is just missed out yeah and every every event in history

right has so many different elements and so many different sides right and even until now even in some parts of s there's so many things that happened and so many collapses that happened that are still not very heavily talked about but it's just talked about in general in General way right yeah even though what was interesting is Ban was Muslim yeah right right that he wasn't Muslim he was Muslim so you think Muslims could have kind of claimed him right but they didn't right but I think they didn't in the sense that he wasn't bothered even though he's Muslim he didn't really care that whether the Muslims got taken over by them because he was kind of Mongol

first and then Muslim like he was Muslim but to him the great KH was kind of over the caliphate he didn't have that kind of so which is interesting once again and I suppose it doesn't tie in with the systematic view that I don't know I don't know what the reason you know if you notice in the central Asia and those republics they will attribute a lot more to uh or their their Heritage back to the Mongols more easily than the Arab world well the Arab world has a lot of you know bad memories with the Mongols so will be very reluctant to attribute

any of their successes to the Mongols or any because the Mongols caus a lot of Destruction so uh no no yeah I meant specifically with Baran right right right right I didn't mean that the whole Mongols as a whole but I meant because he was in charge of the the kind of the the uh the I I forgot what but they had named them in accordance with certain um colors as well but but the but the the of European front that they had the horde that they had settled there he was the the great Han of that now but he was Muslim and and I was just it was just it

was kind of like C uh kind of I don't know sparkled my uh curiosity in the sense that well okay you know it's strange how Muslim didn't really claim him even though he was Muslim and he came to the aid of the Muslims right uh and he was one of the core reasons if not the reason or at least 50% of the reason that the you know that halakan was unsuccessful but really we don't really read much about him at all they don't kind of even mention him and and where you do read about him I think is in just general history documented by the people that they kind of speak about how he

stopped this whole thing and what he was involved and and he was his cousin he was his cousin brother I mean he was cousins with I mean with halak but anyway I mean that's smells irrelevant anyway coming back to uh to your thing so okay so that's um that's good that's it's kind of like fresh and and revolutionary I suppose the Mad portion the reason why I'm mad is there it's not like you know we're crazy it's just to let people know that you know we Everyone likes to joke around too and we've gone crazy in in a way too with all the different experiences that we've had as far as you know trying to find which flavor of Islam is the best you know that kind of makes you go crazy

eventually CU you try to find yourself and then eventually you just you know you end up just being a good people person and you can laugh and you can joke you can have fun and you can be serious when you need to too you know so it's kind of all that combined yeah when I tried to K in the podcast I was like maybe we should change to the mad malakis because we have a lot of malakis as guests and and and mahen especially is ecstatic because he's he's Maliki too so having you is a for him is yes I am alhamdulillah all right that is that is that uh am or is that that's isik yes how do you say Mahin or Mahin

I would say Mahin Mahin is the proper way to say it yeah because Mahin sounds a bit strange in Arabic yeah yeah it comes across as like Despicable fluid or something like that no if you say m if you say m Mah is talking about despicable fluid you say Mahin in Arabic it's just referring to something despic difficult so don't worry okay okay yo cuz my my friend jokes with he's Arab he's like my dad's name is Islam like the great thinker of Islam and then he named you Mah Islam like the Despicable [Laughter] flu he had Great Hopes and aspirations he like yeah like he's like

don't try to achieve too much son you know you know and then there's also like I think the Mad mudes was just a joke you're you're in birmingh right Birmingham it is yeah man Birmingham you got like you got spubs up there you know on like the hist Street yeah yeah no doubt um what what is the what is the environment like uh in the UK these days I know when we were growing up but we I think we all uh were kind of studying Islam at the same age um I think you're you're in your mid-30s

right I'm now oh what am I bloody oh 38 now so you you grew up at we're we're all the same age here and U in in the late 90s and early 2000s a lot of the the rhetoric that was coming out of the UK the American kids were just adop adopting that into their their psyche you know and they were kind of trying to figure out it was interesting it was very interesting because it's such a small area and you have so many different Muslim groups group that are so close together and you would hear a lot of different conversations occurring between these two different a bunch of different groups but it wasn't just that

though the UK Community was much more welldeveloped back yeah a lot more there were a few maybe two generations ahead of us right yeah yeah so the American the young American kids we're kind of just looking at what's coming out of the UK and we're trying to make sense of it I think this developed is a I think a strange word for the for the context I think they were def um it was just a head start they had as far as Islamic Muslim generation I I think the thing is the the UK environment is that Muslims obviously the the UK generally obviously is so much smaller than than the US and then naturally proximity is something that's there so people are closer to

each other Muslim communities live in in in kind of like pocket environments like so they have like enclaves and so because they've been brought up and just amongst each other and things like that so so this is very common in the UK now unlike the US where it's all spaced out so I think that and then the UK has that closer attachment with the with the Indo Park so you know just being closer I suppose than how you know further away the US is so you've got a lot more of an influx people coming in going out coming in yeah uh and then there's a lot more

of the typicalness here uh that's because of the the the wave of migration here was from rural parts of Pakistan as opposed to the cities unlike the US which had city folks migrating there and here you had the rural kind of farmers and stuff kind of migrating here so so that's going to naturally produce a particular environment so if you're going to get only kind of uh you're next to beding like people kind of almost you know the the kind of rural Countryside people moving to the UK which they did and then they going to have children

which they did now they're going to have a particular mindset so unlike people who went to the us a lot of them were already professionals doctors whatever lawyers and things like this and engineers and they've already gone through they're kind of a bit enlightened and then they've moved into kind of sparse like communities are all kind of spaced out and you've got um you know so they kind of there was a lot of um I don't know if see assimilation can be taken negatively but they mixed in and Blended well with where they moved to and plus I think the difference is

that they I think people who moved to America saw America as like saw thems very clearly as American so people because America didn't have a history so America's just been a bit neutral in the world wars and obviously it's got history with some parts of the world but not with the Indo p and whereas here Britain had obviously colonized um Pakistan and India and so people that came here saw this Stark difference that we are not them one and then they obviously added religion into it as well and it's only been a recent thing really since post 911 that people

have started to openly embrace the britishness right and say that we are openly British because of the streng that they faced otherwise pre 911 people openly used to say things like I'm not British I'm Pakistani and I'm not like and they used to be very um you know they used to be like quite wacko the whole thing yeah and post 911 it just changed all of that so people you know they started to just be very clear about a British identity and what does it you know we're British and Muslim and and that's been the whole thing so I think these things make a huge difference so with Islam you know people growing up

and then having these kind of differences and then Islam is your identity like people yeah un Muslim and Muslim so they had a bit of that uh I don't know Head Start start so to speak on getting onto this religious bandwagon I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing or a bad thing I I can't comment but I I it was what it was and that's because it caused a lot of problems as well along the way so you see question do what may take Generations obviously it did a lot of good things as well like it brought about an interest in the dean and stuff like that and people wanted to study or

they wanted to do things but the kind of mentality that it brought about with it the kind of rigidity is very I'm sure you guys obviously face it as well but less so I think in the states um so there's a you know there is that a lot like sectarianism is strong and that's what we wanted to kind of ask about is that um what we knew from like the early 2000s there was um a lot of uh uh when you say sectarianism there's a lot of different groups since they're so in such close proximity to each other um there would be a lot of debates um how is that now in

2017 as as far as an improvement is concerned because I was always curious about that and I get you know mixed reviews of of what's actually happening there yeah and before I before before Mo the comments I sh I want to piggyback real quick I think I remember growing up um in in the dean like like again early 2000s we looked up to y'all in the UK because y'all were so hardcore at least from the C perspective I used because I used to be like I had alluded to like I used to I used to r with those Cy Brothers man and so like Birmingham was like Dar HRA you know what I'm saying like we were all trying to go spubs you know what I'm saying so no I I totally I

totally do that hardcore thing was admired uh but this is what I mean about the the issue was that people were very hardcore here um now obviously in one on what from one aspect that brought a lot of people onto the dean and kind of put these blinkers and let them Focus but the from the other aspect well the kind of damage it did in in defining what Dean is may take now generations to undo yes because you know there's an interesting actually I was watching a lecture of an American um it was actually ullah Evans actually but he he was he was given this

talk about something but he spoke about some research called um the the first effective community that migrate to a particular land and and this research that was done on this topic from a sociological perspective and it was really interesting that he said that you see the thing is that when they've studied migrant communities the first community that is born in a region they like he was terming like he said that they term them the first effective community and they the the the actions or the views and the the kind of paradigms they adopt influence generations to come it's not like uh you

see Generations after them will never have the same powerful impact that the first effective Community will have and and that's very interesting because we see that here so the Muslims the way they defined what Islam was back then in the late 90s and the early 2000s and that will now last Outlast a few generations and people to undo that now or to to work against or to present counternarratives is uh is a battle it's it's really diff it's a struggle so because you're considered a sellout if you do right you're considered water down or a sellout if you do right if you're not as hard they set you see they

set the you see what it was was that they set the scene Islam to be religious is to be this kind of Hardline very antimaterial anti-western um this kind of very something that's just fresh out of either Pakistan or fresh out of Saudi Arabia that kind of image as very long beard short shoir uh this uh it's all about you know this very super uh Puritan puritanism was kind of set as the backdrop for what Islam is and Islam

is by contrasting it with the other and the other is the Western so now Islam kind of to them the center is like the periphery defines the center and the periphery is the West so to be opposed in or to be other than the other in this sense here the West is what makes you Islamic yes now this kind of having this kind of a backdrop has now kind of just settled in and even people who you know it's it's whereas I think in America they didn't so although I obviously I'm sure you guys do have

the things there as well but it was a lot many things were just seen as natural as well so I think you guys um so for example I don't think dress was as big of an issue uh over there I could be wrong but I don't think it was um also being American wasn't something that was seen as being as like anti-islamic um I mean now obviously now even here they so certain things have had amendments so being British now they have to openly claim to be British um but I think the the the problem is they set the scene so uh so much so I understand when you're saying that people used to look up to you know the

the Muslims used to look up to the UK and they used to look up to Birmingham a lot of I think a lot of it when I was growing up a lot of had to do with the accent too the accent kind of threw a very uh uh Regal elegant twist to even something that may seem so simple because you hear us now and I live with British guys on all of my travels and ser and it was they would say to us oh well I still remember one of my friends he's like keep talking it sounds like we're watching a film from Hollywood you know and uh and we'd hear them talk and we' think of like oh tea and crumpets Now isn't it or isn't it you know like

we think of something very queen's English like a I wish they all had that accent they God so the accent I spoken what was that what would that be considered in the UK what's what the the accent that I just spoke which part of UK uh which which which accent would they be because I know you guys have lots of accents and even make fun certain accents of accents yeah but I think the one with the in in it in it in it in it yeah the is like you see because a lot of Muslims don't unfortunately I think now people are working on it though but

previously they weren't too focused on on first they weren't focused on education anyway but secondly they weren't too focused on uh expression and being articulate or trying to work on uh language skills and and unfortunately a lot of Muslims do have very I mean it's very poor the the standard of English that they have um I mean it's I suppose overall it's improving now with the younger lot but I it's partially to do with the fact that they grew up in certain areas that were all kind of closet uh enclaves of just Muslims and

then at home they never spoke English um and then because they dropped out of Education as well so the English that they would only hear is either what's going to be on TV which fair enough would be decent or it's going to be what they just hear from other people on the street uh which wasn't and so you get it's it's it's very unlike the Americans I have to say most Americans that that you know whether it's the or whether it's anybody that we hear speaking and I don't mean just on TV I mean people that come over they are actually they can express themselves very well very well I

I think so anyway I mean even when we used to study all the American lot were very articulate compared relatively speaking and when you're talking about the study where did you get a chance to uh study with uh Americans and just to all over everywhere I went there were Americans there so I mean um initially in the late '90s I went to study in Damascus and so I was there for a little while um in Syria back then in 97 998 I think going into 99 like that so there were Americans there there were several Americans there um then when I went to Pakistan so I studied in Pakistan I

studied first in Islam Abad then in Karachi now in Karachi in the madrasa there were several um loads of Americans in fact people like I don't know if you know she Abdul Nas JRA yeah yeah for sure so he was from the same Institute that I went to um so he was senior to me but uh over there like we knew each like I met you know we might just say Salam and stuff and obviously he was senior so he was kind of finishing when I was joining there and was this or I think it binoria right boria yes so we never used to chill out much I never used to chill out with him or anything but uh I got to

know him more once I left and graduated and but there were other people there as well that um I think they're keeping a low profile now in America I don't think they do much so there were people like there was a uh one guy called CRA he he had a brother called N I think they're from New York uh there was another guy called naif American there was a guy called tamim I don't know if you know him he's in I think California used to I got to say they they they had it they had it good though even over there Americans are always kind of very chilled out you see this is the you see this is the thing it's strange because

our impression of Americans is that they're very cool very chilled out but then it's strange because in certain things they don't seem like you expect them to be like on the religious front I expect them to be a lot like very chilled out and cool now I think they appear to be like that but when you start discussing actual religious stuff with them a lot of them are not actually like that I think it depends who you're talking to also and I mean yeah possibly you know um I wonder if I wonder if

you're alluding to the issue of like us just being too politically correct and like not getting humor like remember when Abu Isa made some jokes a few weeks ago on International women's day man like people here got freak what years ago years ago yeah few years ago years ago yeah yeah yeah people got like real upset Isa yeah and it was like and then all the Brits were like that's just that's just normal British humor there's nothing offensive about that and Americans were like trying to get lose his job yeah I think the thing is that even here I think uh you get the you see somebody like ABA he he's very you know

he's out there with his humor so he he's good like that as in you know he's got this humorous front and and he cracks jokes and and he you know provokes things and but I I don't think a lot of people are like that here I think most are not I think in fact most people are very serious is and although um I remember that thing that when you know all these people got and he was like all these feminazis are after me uh but he he he he he's good like that in in the sense you know he's he's very uh down with humor he's he's Jolly yeah what do you think about the

feminist movement that's coming out of America particularly uh I mean I'm not really you see I I don't think I I I kind of cross paths much with things like feminism and it depends because I know some there's some American um feminists that I think uh like my stuff sometimes and that sometimes they might send me questions and things like that so I um I get this impression that sometimes um like on my I think I've upset a few on my uh Monday nights with Muti well you come you come across as a

guy who's you know very in touch with his masculine nature and you work out and uh you you know you you speak plainly you're not uh you're not a guy who's really you know super careful about offending people but uh that's why we got you on the show man I think it's all a front now the thing is that you see because on women issues I've spoken out for saying you know like condemning like any kind of uh discrimination against women and things like this so that could be seen from some as oh like a modern

aspect and from some it could be seen as well you know that uh so for example like women should be allowed to go to the Masjid women should be allowed to do this women you know when I I was highly condemned for certain fatawa when I when I which I still say but like so for example women can do things like pluck eyebrows can cut their hair they can I even gave the fatwa which was I would say was quite radical but uh that I gave the fatwa that woo uh doing woodoo whilst having nail polish or nail varnish whatever doesn't I mean that's absolutely fine that you can so I've given because of these kind of issues

and topics that I've touched up on that have um that are to do with women so people you see I think that kind of leaves people in a way that so people ain't too sure so some women that let's say that are quite feminist they may be drawn to these kind of opinions and think well you know oh this you know oh I like what this guy's saying a lot of what but then other things when I've been asked um I think it kind of upsets them right so recently when I was asked about um things like polygamy and stuff like

this and um and I was asked about to to speak about relationships and I don't really do stuff like that much I don't speak about stuff like relationships and and I said look I don't really see what you know it's just life and I said we should just appreciate things the way science teaches us that you know we have a nature that has evolved and and we are in essence we are animals we are creatures that's all we are and you got to kind of you know there's no point denying that aspect and and so I think this kind of stuff obviously upset cuz people want to very um and I think this is actually maybe more of an America may

be found more in America than in the UK but it is in the UK as well but people want this nice kind of very fairy image presented and I know right now there there's this whole market for things like uh all about like uh love and all about kind of uh um relationships and the ideal kind of relationships and and and the one and nurturing and all this kind of stuff and um so I think people may expect I don't know maybe they expected me to be also down that kind of Lane but but I wasn't so I I was just saying people should just be real and life is life and you know just well the

trend over here now is you know somehow getting Islam to merge with liberalism and somehow finding a balance so that Islam and liberalism are in are compatible with each other you know so that's where a lot of the the debates are happening in ter interesting that's interesting because I've never understood truly what the Americans mean by liberalism because you see because I because a mat of mine and and and mean we were having this discussion perhaps a few weeks back now I said I I because

the Americans you see the term liberal you see the term liberal over here is positive but in is really negative so I don't like I've seen people on on social media say things like oh my God like they really condemn things and they'll say and it's like an insult like they'll use the term liberal like yeah but they'll say like oh my God like Western media and liberalism like and and we don't understand what that exactly like what li like because you see we understand liberalism to mean like L control less

authoritarian that's what the term actually in essence means like something that is less authoritarian and the opposite of liberalism is more authoritarian um so you would assume that in this age like people are moving towards less Authority but I'm not sure what because over there it is very so I'm not quite sure exactly what because I have heard this you know what you're saying now I've heard this on social media but I've not understood it like I've heard like I've read people's posts and things like this saying oh my God uh you know this is like basically it's it's the

apocalypse almost it's apocalyptic how um how people want to you know they want to this Western not just Western but this liberal they they want to kind of the agenda the liberal agenda that's it the liberal agenda and I've not understood what that exactly means like and so I've thought I wonder what they mean by but they they probably mean something else so I'm not exactly sure what that what does that what does what do they mean when they say I think the liberal agenda means like trying to be um pushing the most liberal interpretation of Islam

like for example how you were saying um painting the the the woman's fingernails and Performing what does it just mean less strict yes um less strict or even trying to make some more controversial subjects like not necessarily that there is even controversy about homosexuality in Islam but that somehow allowing homosexuals to um or or that type of behavior to be accepted in in our communities as long as they're good people and but they can practice whatever they want to practice even if they're Muslim and we shouldn't judge them but I think adding on to that

also to be in all fairness on the political level liberalism can mean something on a theological level liberalism can mean something and I think that's a problem with a lot of these terminologies is that nobody really I don't think anybody has a set definition which is why I think it become a little chaotic because I've struggled with stuff like that I do understand that you see this is why I I I wrote something a while back um saying that uh I completely am against these terms liberal and conservative and I feel that people have tried to hijack Islam with these terms and I said what's

interesting is for once it's the people who are you see what it's the people who would be deemed conservative as in the traditional the very strict puritanical people who are anti-west have adopted this Western rhetoric and it's almost ironical but they've only done it because they feel it lands them in a good light so in the west this um this kind of philosophy arose from Europe in against the authority of the state and the authority of the church but primarily against the

authority of the state so to be like authoritarian was kind of deemed oppressive uh and and it was to be free from that that was liberal now this you see because that exact parallel didn't exist in the Islamic world on a similar term so they never had these terms now what's happened is here this is obviously carried through into Politics as you have today although literally speaking all political parties like let's say in the UK are still liberal parties but they may call themselves conservatives but they may be more conservative compared to the other one but they are actually still liberal all

of them because Western democracy has embraced that kind of uh you know liberalism now Muslims have then adopted this to Define religion which is so new because asked people that explained to me from the past then what was the equivalent words in Arabic that the scholars used because even today in Arabic they just say the word liberali and they use the word NOAB word for left and and I've said well you see because if this means being less strict then that's weird because that's not what liberalism is in the west like liberalism isn't about it's about control it's not about strictness like

so uh if you say strictness then you would assume this is what I say to people that you would assume when you read the Hadith about the prophet that he always chose ease over strictness yeah now so then people say yeah but it's about so it's it's really interesting that this term these terms are pushed by people who are very puranic and usually almost anti-western in a lot of their things and you know what the the thing that I find that's closest to liberalism at least to find in the West is kind of like in all matters you know like not

choosing what I mean or you explain words yeah what's easy right because chose if there was two things that were Hal he'd choose the most easiest right but one one thing that I've seen as far as liberalism is considered someone like how we refer in the in the Arabic langage would that be you see because this is my point but wouldn't that just be subjective it would you're right I agree with you it would be compared to being but there's an underlying assumption that religion is here to be strict you're right you're right you're right I age the question would be where do we get that assumption from that religion came to be strict except this is an assumption

isn't it we're either learning it from the religion or we're carrying it from somewhere else that religion came to be strict I would assume that religion came to connect us with one God it didn't come to be straight I think it depends on reality you're in though right I think if you're living in a Muslim dominant country or Islamic government um you know being or being being extreme or being too easy on things would would not you know the the the lines would be you know easily it it it'd be easy to uh differentiate or identify what would be extreme or what's not but when you're living in the west the problem now is when you're living in in in as a minority in any Muslim country is non

Muslim country majority non-muslim country yeah majority non-muslim country majority non-muslim country is that there's no real um author authority to really make sure that you know everyone's in line and to make sure you I'm just saying you know this Drawing the Line yeah what makes us like where do we get this idea of where the line exactly so that's what I'm saying right so so what what I what I was going to say was is that when uh Muslims were a minority in any country they felt like they had to hold on to Islam very tightly or if they don't then Islam is going to wither away and it's going to go away so how do we do that we made sense somehow that the

stricter you are and the more there when there's no room to to to uh interpret unless of going back to classical text and not going away from that I think that's where it comes from right is because when they're when Muslims are minority that would be you see that would be an explanation to it being a reaction so it's a defense mechanism but it wouldn't it would demonstrate that in itself the explanation would demonstrate that it's not accurate no defense mechanism to hold on there a lot of people will cite Hadith where uh you know a sahaba when he's doing Wu I forgot which sahaba this was but he

would um throw water under his eyelids you know so much so that did right now when he did for example he would watch but he was condemned by the other companions for doing that okay yes and the thing is you see this is where I asked people I said well how would you define I Abbas then would you define him as a liberal because he said temporary marriages are okay he said riba partially 50% doesn't exist he said he was known for his ease in everything and I think that's where the oh sorry yeah continue I'm sorry no I'm being m in you know in things like you know some of the harshest issues he

didn't really recognize them I I think that's why it's up to the jurists right I think the jurists that are you know the the people that are specialist in that in that knowledge they they're always going to have their own opinions which is why f is such a beautiful thing right and I think because they never had this Paradigm of this term called liberal and left and right never used these words because this narrative didn't exist with them no of course in instead of calling them liberal they would just disagree with them right or a body like abdah they would say you should but there was no label for it yeah because in Islam they would just see that look an opinion is backed by evidence if you have evidence you have

an opinion it I may disagree with it but it's an opinion like they didn't have a linear understanding that there's a center there is a right there is a left they didn't have this concept they just had an understanding that like well I don't think you're accurate but I don't think you're valid but you have your evidence yes now so if so for example Abu hanifah not today the Hani M but IM Abu hanifah was deemed incredibly I mean by these standards incredibly liberal his time yeah like he he considered so many things permissible a certain what other people deemed alcohol he deemed

permissible what other people deemed things like how you pray oh it's okay you can use it do in Persian you can do this in Turkish you can do this in oh sorry not Turkish but Persian you can uh you know his rulings were constantly known for things like he loopholes yes of course in fact to the extent that IM Muhammad that he has this book the book of loopholes now the thing is or what's attributed to him anyway so the thing is that that this would then be deemed like very liberal if we're going by an understanding of strictness but my my point is that since when would

strictness become the definitive marker for or or even a guideline for what religion is is it fair to say that is it fair to say that the classic Islamic scholarship operated out of a paradigm of Truth rather than uh conservative or liberal they just wanted to know what is the truth of the matter and arrive at the correct conclusion rather than you know trying to find uh um a middle ground or even go towards a liberal position or conservative position and I think I personally think a lot of it has to do with you know the colonialism and the way Muslims were colonized too because if you see all the stories when people talk about and especially from

Muslims that come from subcontinent that are living in the west they always talked about how strict he was you know on certain things to let Muslims know hey you have to raise your bar of of Islamic if you want to say right and uh and I but I completely agree with you about about um you know IM hanifah he would be considered nowadays he would be considered somebody as liberal but I think the slight differences is that when westerners talk about Islamic liberalism they're talking about which is clearly Haram and I met some people and and what they what they see is liberalism is they see that Islam made something clearly Haram but you're trying to make it Halal to not push people away from

Islam do you understand what I'm saying and that's kind of the I think the other extreme of liberalism and I I don't think that westerners because these terminologies and we we we we don't we don't use this proper application right and we made it a religious thing I think there if you ask 10 different people what liberalism is you're going to get 10 different opinions that's the problem with labels right and there a problem no but I mean liberalism has an understanding though it is because it's a philosophy it did originate it's like it originated and as an anti-authoritarian movement and that's what it still is today in essence it's about fighting

authoritarianism um now it is seen as like being trendy and stuff like this that is true because it's the kind of in thing yes because they see what was previous as being kind of harsh and controlling of course so it's kind of fighting controls and controlling mechanisms and in essence I'm just saying I do recognize obviously they will be you know political so depending where you are people may vary on there but the Islamic thing is interesting because you see when you say something is clearly Haram the question is clearly Haram according to who I agree with you yes because you see once again it's

making an assumption that certain things are very clear now you see there are some things in Islam which are very clear yes very clear but I would say there are so few and only at an a great level are they accepted as clear so for example saying God is one we accept that at a a very great level once we start to learn more about Allah we all disagree on how Allah is who is he what does he do how does he behave everybody disagrees but they accept God essentially as one yes uh when we say things about like so for example like we

there are five prayers in a day yeah we accept that as a broad Universal yeah once you start speaking about how you should pray should they be combined should they be uh right you okay okay oh who is that little one leaa are you okay what happened Lea somebody bothering you all right well I'm sorry is somebody bothering you her Mischief

is uh it's usually this this is this is like that news anchor moment that went viral on on the internet that would have that would have been if my other one came through do more than that before before we continue mu before we continue I'm just letting you know my inner need or inclination to speak in a British accent is is it's erupting now and I'm trying to put a cover on it so if I go out on these weird fits please don't take offense to it okay and before we get before we get into uh we're going to continue this conversation but Brothers remind me because there's there's a confession I have to make and uh you

know i' I I I have a confession to make for give me your father for I have sinned yes but after we're having a really good discussion I don't want to ruin the discussion with some I'll I'll remind you but uh there's one thing um I want to chime in on the other angle that a lot of will talk about as far as being strictness as far as coming from a strict angle is that they they say there a direct it's directly being strict or being scrupulous or having we call water right is direct directly proportional to like how One feels with their Iman right I'll give you an example that's of high contention I don't know how big this issue is in in the UK but in the US and especially here in Chicago shareif it's

always the Zab me non Zab me issue right so that's what defines you as a Muslim here by the way yeah like is that the hot thing right now that's the thing it's always been the thing it's always been the thing it's never gone away especially in Chicago and it's never going to go away you know but part of the uh you know the angle is okay well if I eat you know only Zab meat this is good for my it's like again I'm controlling what goes into my stomach and it's part of scrupulousness and some people will even push it to the point of is that to do with just to just to kind of just so I I understand it better is

it non or is it to do with things like stunning everything yeah I think it even has to do with the the way the way it's cut whether it's a vertical cut or it's a horizontal cut um stunning is part of the re yeah stunning is to there is this topic about so for example several I think certain meat is stunned and then sacrificed but you see one is clear like I just walk into McDonald's and eat from Donald's and are you talking like that or are you talking about it's still Halal but as in Muslim me being pro but

it's just uh it's being stunned first is that what we're talking about or we talking about no we're talking about the whole gamut like for example like just to generalize here a little bit like for example a lot of the Arab mhay um in in America in their communities like they they'll just they'll say our Imam says we can go in and get a big Ma mcdal Donald's no problem as long as you say bism I need it right yeah or not even that they just say you you say bis for everything it's not like it's not that the bism is a qualifier to make a Halal saying some people believe that though I don't think the imam's saying that though no not the IM right you know what I'm saying so there's that angle and

then you know you have a lot of that and then you know others on the o opposite end you'll have a lot of there certified agencies like okay there's only like six we investigated their practices and there's only six or seven restaurants in the city for example that you guys should be eaten at because everything else has is questionable and we need to be careful about what we ingest Etc but it yeah it does go as far as openness is pretty much like a lot of Muslims here will just say well anything anything as long as it's not pork it's fine or it's not or as long as there isn't like clear CR cross contamination it's fine and they say this is my IM like my local Imam said lot even there's a MH in America that I get the picture so that's

very different from the UK then so here most Muslims will not just eat clearly like they won't just walk into let's just say a uh a regular English Butcher and just pick up meat from there uh they won't like walk into McDonald's and just order a big MK most Muslims won't um I don't know about some I know the copies uh a while back gave the fatwa it was okay and it was really weird but um and interestingly enough it was given by the American sh that came over um but uh most Muslims here won't do that but then that is coupled with the fact that we

have plenty of Halal Outlets so we have so many takeaways and and like whatever burger places or whatever you want to call them that are actually run by Muslims like so many that you wouldd have to in fact I don't even think you'd be able to find you'd have to go so out of your way to find a non-muslim place so I don't think here I think the issue is more to do with the stunning and and so so there's some organizations that say we are the authority and you know basically be certified through us the same here to yeah so other organizations

are like you know whatever and so that's the issue here but you're right that that is different where you know you're just eating outright anything as long as it's not pork it doesn't matter who what KFC you know McDonald's whatever it is doesn't make makes zero difference as long as it's not pork okay that's very different to hear on on a side note is it true that majority of Nando's branches are now run by Muslims in the UK I don't think majority no but I think uh all of these major so for example KFC Nando they do have Halal stores here as well like Halal so in Birmingham the

Nando in bir I don't go to Nando much but I mean I know they they are Halal the KFC is halal uh one of of them at least or two of them here sorry two KFCs in Birmingham W Halal I'm not sure about McDonald's the KFC I have to say a bloody tasty man godamn bloody tasty there's that supposed to be there's that supposed to be any blood in it I've had to cut back because I've been kind of dieting from drunk F but it tastes so good oh my god um the last thing I wanted to com because there's a couple things we want

to get to um so as a Layman and when we're again when we're looking at opinions and whatnot like I'm a in the Mal in in the right I just kind of you know I have relationships with shm mash you know like I in Chicago aldah we have Evans like you alluded to earlier Hamza makb and then shik YF Rios yeah the third one did you say shik YF Rios okay I'm not so I don't I don't know if I've come across sh yeah out on Facebook yeah check him out he he's studied with ahmedan in Egypt

oh so um you know so I'm studying a couple books with these uh with them um but even within that there's like disagreement there's like you you'll find like okay there's a mure opinion and I know you for example have had debates with other malakis like you know as far as they accuse you of being out going outside the you know the the majority opinion even even when she Hamza makul was here we spoke about it when he came to my house and we uh I mean he he he kind of chilled out with us for a little while for a few days and and so on some of the days we we had a bit of a chat about

this as well um but you're right there is this and and a few other people so there's this kind of um you see which uh which I I suppose you know it'll be questioned by people but my take what I would call the institutionalization of the dean uh or in this particular case to narrow it down of this of the Maliki meab um which I obviously I I have issues with anything being institutionalized like I feel that once something has been institutionalized it kind of robs it of the true spirit that it had but I mean

yeah sorry carry on yeah and and one thing I just wanted to make clear even for our listeners is that um we if if we're a part of something especially in the dean some excuse me you have to fit a certain description right um and if you don't fit that description then you don't have any credibility and the thing that uh really caught my attention with yourself uh mallah is that um you kind of uh get rid of those lines of somebody has to fit a description to be a scholar and I mean that in a very positive way because if they listen to your talks which I listen to and I I do a pretty good impersonation of you that's what I

wanted to see if we can Heir that I wanted you to see if let's hear it right now let's start off with that just just before I get into that is that you you You' you've got written those you have gotten rid of those lines and now you have somebody I mean masah and I said somebody who looks like a borderline bodybuilder you know um he knows he has good very cool taste and clothing mallah have you seen Jersey sh Shake by any chance have you watched that show don't make compar somebody said that to me they said oh my God is this guy muy he looks like he's come out of Jersey short I have to quickly Google it and I was like all right that's a compliment

no no and you could tell I mean you got you got a taste in Fades you know getting a fade in the hair and Mah the hair even though you come back from well that's another question I had before I do the impersonation is when you make those uh Facebook live uh videos are you usually coming back from the gym or or you do do you like do it like as soon as you come back from the gym sometimes but sometimes no sometimes I've just been working sometimes I'm coming back from somewhere sometimes it is from the gym okay uh so it's a bit of a mishmash you see before on a few of them I I used to sit down like this like I'm now just a t-shirt like I'm at home

then I was told by some of my crew that look listen you got a you know too many people are kind of making a fuss and I was like I don't give it I don't give a damn I say n come on please they put something on I like this guy do is I just put like my jacket on yes and just sit down and do the D like that so I try to have like a jacket or something or a coat or something on just to calm people down a bit oh my God and the reason why I said about the impersonation is we could cut this out if you don't like it is that actually impersonating somebody can be a type of GBA right so I don't want to

fall into that trap so I told the guys when I told when the guy said that you were going to be on and I was doing a positive way I was like man I love this guy I even love him so much I can I think I can impersonate him too of when he sits down he starts it so one thing I realized is whenever you start it uh you are looking at your device and it starts off the same all the time and it's awesome and I think that's kind of like your signature in the beginning right there's a different signature in the end so when you start off I always see that you're looking at the screen and you just say all right here we go let me see if this is working now and then you grab your water or

whatever you drink and you make you make me thirsty when you do this because I feel like drinking water or some Coke or a fizzy drink as you say afterwards so you Sip and you go all right let's begin now you know so it really makes me excited W I love it well and I'm saying that because I love you for the sake of Allah I'm not trying to make fun of you it it kind of like I'm look forward to that that beginning that's that's what that's the hook that gets me in I'm going to be I'm going to be conscientious no no see I didn't want that to happen keep doing it keep doing it brother keep doing it because it makes it very it makes me happy it does there's authenticity to to it is there is and that's what makes you you you

know just just you just do you and I didn't make it for you to be conscientious or be self-conscious I'm I'm on a joking I'm on a j yeah but just keep doing it man because literally when you drink and sometimes you got ice cubes in that cup and it's full all the way is it is it Coke that drinking of Pepsi what is it yeah so normally I've uh it's usually like Pepsi Max and and ice and sometimes I've mixed a few drinks in so sometimes there's a bit of like a seven up mojito mixed in there or there's a sometimes an energy drink mixed in there and that's why I asked about the gym thing because it you seem like you got a nice pump in your muscles when you're drinking it and it seems like you're really thirsty at the same

time and that that's actually contagious right when somebody seems like they're thirsty and they're drinking something really cold and they're sipping it you hear the noise it makes you thirsty too a lie it makes you thirsty so I was like man this guy's a g look at the way this guy starts off he starts off the same all the time and he doesn't care he just does it how he wants to you know what I'm saying see even Sim he's drinking water right now because we're talking we're talking about drinking cold St I've actually got my got my drink right here that's it try to yeah just catch up on my drinks but yeah so and if you if you want us to edit this part we can edit it because we don't want people to come across and think we're making fun no no it's good it's good good sh Hammer is so careful about offending anyone

least of my uh I mean my my humor is usually way way overboard that's that's nothing that's extremely mild so like this whole thing all right I used to when I first got hip to you oh that's how it starts off too no CU even hashtag it was like you know even I was talking to him is like Alum Mah all right you know and you would hashtag it people would be like hasht all right like like four A's right like is that just is that how you just talk or is that like a common thing in the like where did that you kind of coined that but like I gotta ask where did that come from I don't know where it came from to

be honest with you I don't know honestly I don't I just I've been saying it for so long I honestly don't know and I think it was only I became conscientious of it after it was pointed out to me so I think when you know people I'm not right now I mean like years back but when they pointed it out before that I was doing it before that as well but I don't think I was noticing it until people a few people pointed I don't know where it it's just there it's part unfortunately part of the package now so another thing I wanted to ask you is as far as there you go now I got to get something to drink hold

up all right all right now one one thing I wanted to ask you is how did you the the the whole uh promoting working out and lifting weights and and uh and martial arts and all I I I think in one of your episodes you did promote martial arts or you know or you you alluded to the fact that you did some type of martial arts how did you kind of just get into this and and you know promote it very well working out thing I think um I mean I got into that a little while back and I just think it's it's definitely something that ought to be part of the the scene I mean I think people aspire to it anyway

yeah see I if you look like if you can improve your health it will have an overall impact on every aspect of your life every aspect from you know just the way you conduct yourself to how you feel about yourself to to everything in life it will it will increase your confidence it will it will just have an overall positive impact and I think it's something that Muslims we ought to do I'm not saying people don't do it but I think especially in the religious circles it was um like we've got a bit of a stereotype this kind of you know gutted

this mulie with a big gut and sitting there and you know briani loving and you know just eating Hal and I'm not saying it's true but we've got a stereotype no I agree with you I fit that description by the way and I think uh I think that needs to be done away with and have somebody that people like we need certain stereotypes that people would think yeah like I like they wouldn't feel ashamed of associating with religion and themselves so they wouldn't feel like like because if you

asked a lot of regular Muslims like oh imagine here's an IM or here's a sh or here's a molana and he's going to represent you like he's going to represent you like so you have to be with him physically and he's going to talk like I think a lot of people would actually be embarrassed um they won't they may not say it openly just out of respect but I think a lot of people will be embarrassed and especially I mean young people uh they don't they they kind of feel a bit uncomfortable and they feel like uh oh like it's a bit especially especially if they're very much representing my religion yeah I think especially if they're very much

into optimizing their body and you know utilizing their body to its full poti you know I think yeah I think I can kind of see that I think it's it's a great thing and then to be fair it's something which we do find in our tradition and I have kind of tried to share this on a few occasions like people like Imam Malik was so into things like this that he it was known about him that he would emphasize having a strong build and he used to often say that you see he said many are people of knowledge that through their build he said because of their build like people hold them in a

when they people listen and he said and because of that they honor knowledge and he said that there's many people he'd seen who had these kind of shriveled up bodies and he said that they held great knowledge but because of their presence right or the lack of knowledge was disrespected and and he himself was somebody could say obsessed about eating a daily portion of meat and they say he would eat every day like and you have to remember in his time it wasn't common to be eating meat every

day in the Sal because he's like from the and so he say it's like almost two dinar worth of meat every day he would eat and when he was asked he said that it helps me maintain my posture and my build and he said to somebody that uh if I have because he was criticized for this so some some actually wrote to him saying that you're indulging in the dun and this and that and and he said if I had to sell the the wood of my roof to buy my daily portion of meat I would do it Allah wow that's amazing that is and this was IM Malik and so I think that over time we've

um it's not that we haven't got this as part of our Legacy but we've kind of drowned it out and we've standardized a model which doesn't focus on on these things and and I think it the first thing we see is appearance about people and obviously you know we listen to them as well so that's important too but the but we see and that impacts us and so that's very true yeah people don't like to talk about that because again we're in this world where we want to say well it's what's inside that counts but as a human being that's the first thing you see right and whether we like it or not we say we shouldn't judge people but human beings are always judging people even though they're anti- judging people

right it happens right there's nothing it's not just from a judgmental perspective it's from an aesthetic perspective are drawn they're drawn to something that they you see like you see your body like as an example if you work on it inhance it it has a kind of charm to it yes it would that's natural that's part of nature people to it like it will and and through that people will also respect you people may you know they may be they may admire the fact and they may aspire to work out but they would want to also maybe listen to what you have to say

they will and and having the opposite has the opposite effect the averse kind of it draws people it repels people so being kind of like old scruffy or you know just being it repels that people don't like that because it's not natural it's not um I mean I know it can I suppose it can be natural but it's not what people it doesn't AR struck people basically yeah exactly exactly it doesn't it doesn't and so so that's the the whole working out thing but uh but I just enjoy it anyway I mean it's something um you see I don't I don't do a lot of things

um I mean I wish I could you see many things that I do I do them because I I'm just being myself I'm just being me it's not because I'm doing them sometimes with this Grand kind of vision in mind I'm just doing it because yes it has these benefits and yes it does it but I want to do it and I don't want to pretend not so people would say look why why do you dress this way it's because it's how I dress so people say yeah but you know why don't you in front of people just put on a Juba or put on a Shar which I have done and do at sometimes but the point is why don't you do this more often it's not so difficult

to do something like that but I have this thing of I don't want to play pretend yeah like I don't want to kind of and I've said to people that look I feel that those people who want that as a role model people who want somebody wearing an wearing a or sh or things like this they've got hundreds of thousands of Role Models yes they've got hundreds of thousands of people like that around the but you don't get many people that will just be normal or be like especially okay if they're from the West will be just casual so and they are

also Muslims that may want to connect to the dean so to them like I I'll will just inshallah at least kind of hopefully maybe show such people that look this is fine to just be who you are anded to the them it's not you know you don't and maybe I can be a role model for them so the other people who don't want that well they've got hundreds of thousands of people to to kind of follow to be a part of to to do things and and whereas the other Muslims who don't want to be like that but want to be connected to the dean are then left with the impression that to be connected to the

dean I have to look like that yeah and they think well I can't look like that for whatever reason hence I can't connect to the de and they even think they're bad Muslims sometimes the way they're led to believe yeah yeah exactly even though they're practicing Muslims they're good people but if they don't look a certain way they think they actually feel that they're bad Muslims you know it's so true because that you know we we we had this discussion I mean it was a bit of a hypothetical I don't mean to I said it's interesting that look um we were speaking about a particular celebrity in uh uh actually we were speaking about J Jed who's passed away you know may Allah Grant him J and the thing is I was saying as a thought experiment you see

he was seen as a a kind of icon for people in terms of fashion yeah like in the I mean it was a bit ahead of my time but this is when I was reading up after his his tragic accident now the thing is that it said that he introduced a lot of fashion into Pakistan in the early 90s following martial law he introduced like the genes the leather jacket the stuff like this and and thereby inspired a whole Generation Now you see the thing is I I said it would have been interesting if once he became religious he didn't adopt

a particular look like I wonder how he would have how things would have been different like like like it would have that made a different impact on because in that part of the world to be religious is associated with a particular look yeah exactly yeah I think they wouldn't have given a time and place they would have never they would just be like who's this guy he's not dressing in a certainly why is he talking about religious stuff I think that's what happened to him and we don't have a middle step yeah right like you have people who are just not religious in that part of the world and they're just your normal people and then you

have the religious clergy and who want to look like the clergy and you don't have anything in between right you're seeing The Stereotype being broken UK and the US you're seeing this this you know this Juba wearing she that that stereotype is being broken but uh you're not seeing it being broken in important places where there's so many more Muslims like in Pakistan and Arabia I thought as a thought experiment we were just thinking that I wonder like imagine he kept I'm just saying like imagine he wore slick suits and didn't adopt a particular look necessarily with the way

he did I know he got involved with theik jamaat and then they had that whole understanding this is how you look but I'm just saying imagine he didn't adopt that look and he kept that kind of slick cool look that he was known for I wonder how he could have possibly inspired maybe a whole generation to become more connected with the dean yeah it may it's just I mean it's a thought experiment but I'm just saying it's interesting that some because there's many people you see people want a connection with God but most people don't want to look like a particular thing like most Muslims I'm speaking about they just

want to be normal but they do want a connection but then they kind of feel that well I can't look like that so I can't have this connection and if they do try to have a connection they kind of looked down upon right by that Circle the practicing you know like oh my God you haven't even got the sun oh my God you don't even dress oh my God you don't do hijab oh my God you don't do and so it it kind of leaves people just back to their own you know like oh forget it like I can't really be a part of this and I think they yeah isn't isn't The Young Muslims I don't know if if you

notice in your uh social media following but aren't you seeing that a lot more younger Muslims from Pakistan in India and other parts of the Muslim world are following Western Scholars and uh their messages being heard over their own local Scholars right and I think because they're finding the the Western scholarship something that they can identify with more easily rather than their local scholarship I don't at least from our own Facebook following we we noticed at least like half of our following is from India Pakistan and and the Middle East you know so I don't know if you noticed that from your

own I mean like I I know people like you know Nan Ali Khan he's done certain things over there in and he's done certain things in U and even in his English thing they they have been circulated and and they are coming in contact with obviously there's the language barrier sometimes people their English may not be as good but that's because people are just they just fed up I think like people are so fed up like it's it's shocking what we've turned this Dean into right you know like we've turned it into this is what I mean about when I said the institutionalization like we've turned it into just control right like

it's only about controlling people it's about well I control you and you don't ask questions and you just follow and you and everything is like wrong and you know it's like uh and and you know to question what I'm saying is to I pick you immediately against Allah like oh my God so you don't believe in Allah then and um I'll tell you one I'll tell you one thing real real quick um my neighbor in in India my neighbor is a an MP in the Parliament and I will tell you that the most of the people that come to his home are the most the the scholarly or the the

religious people who who are the leaders of the their communities and they are giv all these gifts and these are things that we've witnessed firsthand we've seen them getting cars and and uh other things as gifts and then you wonder well how is this influencing what they're saying to their their uh they following the the the people who are in their Villages and whatnot so it it's it's important what you just mentioned that that scholarship has become at least in the Muslim World in general has become a means to control people you see and the thing is as well

that Islam you see what it's what it ought to be about is truth yeah you know like you said earlier on about a truth Paradigm about truth the thing is that yes like you or one of the other speakers said earlier on about uh colonialism it had its horrific elements now a lot of it did cause a disconnect in the Muslim world and a lot of people today they have a deep-seated kind of hatred for the West for what's happened in the past the the issue with this is now as a as a reaction anything that could be

linked to the West is seen as as it must be wrong right and the problem is that even if it's a good thing it will still be seen as wrong like imagine if it's a good thing like I give the example of things like human rights now people will even though one could easily say well look in Islam obviously Islam Advocates human rights but yet even This this term this thing they say oh my God human this isn't I don't know you know this is not coming from it's coming from the west and we don't want to affirm anything that's coming from the West we don't want to so the in this reactionary mode

now imagine that's to do with things that in essence could complement Islam they're not even against Islam how would one feel if they were things which could challenge certain understandings of Islam so the issue is that we Muslims in certain parts especially the influencing parts from from you could say like the Indo Pac world or the the midle like the gulf especially Saudi Arabia these countries influence a lot of uh especially in the UK presumably the US um the the notion of Islam here so people are very reactionary and they they have this thing of so justice has

very little to do with it now and and trying to seek out truth has very little to do with it the other thing is that they say well why have these criticisms come from the West sometimes certain things will be criticized see what they don't well a lot of people refuse to kind of acknowledge is that naturally when when somebody is viewing what you are presenting they will be more critical of it in the past they haven't had access to stuff like Islam the way it's been made available today Muslims the world wasn't kind of Metropolitan the way it was it is today Cosmopolitan the way it

is today so Islam has a lot of it has been translated into English so it's left people criticizing a lot of Islam now naturally you will get bad elements you will get people who are doing this with prejudice but you will get people this with curiosity they will be saying oh well look it's what you know um Omar what it Omar Abdullah from from the US when he he says in one of his thing what he calls the flies in the ointment and he says well you see you might not be noticing the fly but when somebody else comes they will say hey what's that fly in the ointment it's

because it's a fresh P of eyes and it's viewing what you have been a you've just been brought brought up with so you've been brought up not to question secondly in the Muslim communities and especially in the Muslim world and even in this part of the world or in the US Muslim communities have a huge sense of censorship they there's they don't allow people to just ask questions all the time they don't mind basic questions like oh how do I pray how do I do this but when you start asking the why they only allow they only answer a bit and then they tell you off so you know if

you said well why is this like this why is it but I don't understand this though why is they'll just tell you listen you know what BN is asked a lot of questions and look what they blah blah blah don't be like B is you know you'll get told off yeah so we have this culture of Silence like silencing out questions because questions are difficult to answer but you can't do that with non-muslims so they will question the de they will question so hence today we have a lot of questions being H at Islam uh and some of them yes are with prejudice but some of them it does even if they are with prejudice it becomes a duty to now

evaluate and answer because once a question has risen it's not going to go away so we have a lot of and and the problem is that then you have this reaction coming you see on some of these groups in the Arab world and I remember recently we got they got into this discussion and said oh you know people shouldn't answer this because by or they shouldn't really try to give in in trying to provide explanations for things like this because you're just giving in the Alman and the you know these kind of secularists and these western western thought which is nothing but the enemy of Islam and I was like

what hell are you guys on about look these are now questions which we have like these will affect Muslims as well ask same exact questions Muslim will ask the same exact questions that every single one of these groups is asking right exactly and and and you can't and it's about time and this is what I think what y y was saying when that that whole there was this whole issue with the email thing I think over a year back that had happened was what he was trying to say is that I think certain aspects of Islam have to be

reevaluated like as in we have to kind of put a fresh pis on them and and think and look at and there's certain schools and I think he was talking more in terms of a and stuff like this when he said about the certain schools traditionally they arose to deal with the issues of their age yeah which was the helenistic thought that was coming in uh a lot of this Aristotelian issues and Greek philosophical issues that Muslims had as a challenge they dealt with but today we're not this is not our challenge you know trying to deal with what thees or with what you know uh

heraclitus or with what other people had presented from you know whether it's what Aristotle or Plato had said and people don't care about this today today science and other things have presented problems now to Islam let's just say now Muslims have to kind of rise to the challenge and say well H that's interesting well let's take a look at this and and I I you know one I say this that one unfortun thing I don't know how this is in the US on the ground but um I I fear that Muslims are wrongly placing themselves on the wrong side of science

unnecessarily um I mean maybe that's not where where you guys are but I felt sometimes like Muslims you see you get two responses like if you ask people what do you think about Islam and science one response is yeah of course Islam is compatible with science there's no Clash you know there's a lot of scientific miracles in the Quran and we have that side but then we have this other side which is very kind of uh oh scientists think they're God and they think they know it all and you know and and you know scientists oh they only theories and they're only this and they're only that and um and there's this very kind of um one you could say

skeptical which okay I mean there's no harm in being skeptical at times but the but almost like an uh antagonistic position to science and and I think that Islam has historically never had this clash with science so I don't think we need to start doing that now in an age when Sciences has really blossomed and like boosted so from all ages we choose this age to wrongly to place ourself on the opposite side of the fence well the problem is the problem is is that science is constantly evolving and I think a lot of Muslims are trying to confirm their beliefs science that's

problem sure but I mean but I think if it evolves evolve with it I don't see any harm in because science is just human knowledge isn't it like as human knowledge grows our knowledge of the de will grow but there's there's a certain group of Muslims who want to um justify or use the use science as a proof that the Quran is a is a miracle or or whatnot but I think that kind of stuff is nonsensical I think uh you know like people that used to do all this this how do you know the Quran is the word of God well it's got this embryology in it it's got this in it's got that in it I think that kind of stuff is outdated now and yeah and even

they're realizing that okay we better we better brush up because and people who try to say oh the Quran is the word of God because there's no contradictions in the Quran right I mean that is such an outdated argument because so you know it's like one that was on one of these TV shows and the lady said yeah well Harry Potter has got no contradiction in it I mean what what's the point that's that's what she said and she said to the guy who kept you know they had this sh on they kept saying there's not one contradiction in the Quran in the Quran there's not one contradiction and she goes well you know there's no contradiction Harry Potter what's what's your point but that

teaches us right we we have to change our discourse we we can't bring our discourse to that level because everyone can say anything it becomes very subjective right it comes very becomes very I think the issue is that what Muslims a lot of the people are doing is they're reading up arguments which were for a particular date and time yes and these arguments were relevant they were relevant in that time so you know this when people were arguing against Christians who were using the Bible and Muslims were using the Quran and they're saying oh but that's got contradiction this got no contradictions it was relevant when Muslims were arguing

against you know neoplatonism or aristotelianism or these kind of things or the helenistic thought or they were arguing against these things were relevant when people were arguing against a certain culture and trying to speak about the Miracles of the Arabic language because the Arabs were obsessed with Arabic at the time and they were trying to show well look how amazing this language is that was relevant today this is irrelevant it doesn't make any you know it's like that the person trying to uh you know like somebody trying to speak to one of these you know major physicists in trying to say well yeah but the Quran is the word of God why because the Arabic language is so

awesome and the GU is like well that's just dumb because like first of all I don't speak Arabic secondly you don't even speak Arabic thirdly if this was really for the whole of mankind then how are the whole of mankind supposed to appreciate the Arabic language right unless we were supposed to be Arabs so what's your point and so you know the the person or other people realize that you're using an outdated argument that was good for its time it's not good for this time so I mean it's just I'm just these are just thoughts I'm just saying I

mean do you have a argument for today's time I think today's time you see this this is a good question I think today's time is not about stuff like this I don't think in my understanding today it's not about the Artistry of the the language of the Quran and stuff I think yes these things are there for whoever finds them fascinating and they strike a cord with them but I don't think that is what it's about I think what it's about is uh you see we have to it's weird but we have to understand what Islam in

essence came for in my understanding it came to connect with the Creator that's the primary focus of Islam that recognizing a Creator I do feel that one of our greatest challenges in this time like us especially in the west is dealing with some of the most complicated challenges that have risen and that is to do with stuff like uh the scientific challenges that have been posited the kind of quantum physic physics challenges the the hard questions that have risen and ethics I think in dealing grappling with these issues that is perhaps our challenge of

the age and when you say science are you referring to atheism too in that like the the mental gymnastics definitely definitely I mean I I think I I mean Muslims have got this strong hatred for not all Muslims certain Muslims for you know people like atheists and stuff like this I I don't necessarily share that kind of hatred or strong kind of thing to I I think a lot of people that you see that they fed up of religion and you can't blame them like they they they've come to a point where they just fed up like they've and they they see religion

as not answering true questions and not being and being just outdated and irrelevant and all about control and they don't want to be a part of it and and there are some people who are you know some atheists who are just kind of just s about religion they've had a bad experience or they just hate on religion I accept that that's that's true but so I think it's it's but in general I think it's worthy to listen to people listen to their points of view and to to try and think well you know that's an interesting point of course and how would we truly answer that like you've got a actually you've actually got a valid point let me not kind of be just in a state of denial let me accept

that that that is a decent point that you're making okay how would we answer that and let's try to go about finding an answer for that because I believe Islam does have all the answers but it's I think they have to be Unearthed they have to you know they they and it will involve interpreting certain things in our in light of our own age yeah ethical issues things to do with ethics things to do I mean topics like Evolution um I think these things are huge challenges which Muslims have not yet really dealt with I think things

like uh I spoke about recently as well on the Monday nights with Muti the predestination uh stuff like this Destiny uh Free Will and how things like quantum physics can shed a lot more light for us you know probability waves stuff like this how that you know the whole Quantum eraser delayed Choice experiment how this shows that SpaceTime uh things like this are different time is different you know how things are it's not how we thought it was and these things actually add a lot more clarity to the debate of Free Will versus

determinism and and I think Muslims need to tap into this discourse and they need to also use that to explain rather than having the old you see because when we just refer to old things it it scares away a lot of people from religion as well yeah because people today when you just tell people oh and when you play semantics with people some people okay they'll just be quiet other people will get fed up yeah so when you say to people people ask about Free Will and go oh no no you got free will don't worry oh but you haven't really oh but you have but you haven't oh but but but at the end of the day you have although really you're just being forced to do what you're being you know and people like what what the hell are you

saying I think the only one that's actually we know of a name um and you probably know more but who's actually spearheading this idea itself is hza sources right um he's he's he's tried to make an attempt and he still does to debate the biggest names of atheism and talk about it in a very in very scientific way too um and have you guys ever yeah you see the thing is you know

Hamza I always struggle with with his name thing is he's I mean he's a great person he's done a lot of great things but to be honest with you I don't personally agree with a lot of the the way he's kind of done things I have watched his his lecture with uh Professor Lawrence Crow and stuff like that and I unlike a lot of people didn't see the good in it uh I kind of felt that look like okay there's a lot of philosophical jargon and yes you definitely have a lot of charm to you and and the crowd is Muslim so they're going to cheer for you regardless but you're not actually

engaging the the debate like he's presenting a debate and you're not engaging it now you see the problem with that that is I think either don't take on people that are so huge or take them on when you're ready to take them on like I think if you are you talking about like the jargon he uses like there's a lot of it's very jargon heavy a lot of scientific or philosophical term answer his questions you see and and you see the thing with Lawrence Krauss is that Lawrence Krauss isn't a like he's not very Charming in his debate so he doesn't come across but if

you look at his points like he when he asks him okay how does something come out of nothing whatever and then he says to him okay what about a photon doesn't that come out of nothing now he you see he like now he just kind of like oh just turns the topic back to and and I know I know he's referring to a lot of philosophy and you know uh uh kind of philosophical jargon but today it's not about philosophy anymore it's about science it's not about like I know he's you know he's saying well aram's Raaz and we do this and we do that and you know according to this we call this in philosophy this and we call this and it sounds impressive to

people that you know think oh wow you know wow because I don't fully understand it it must be really good as an answer but in essence it's not it's not actually answering his question at all I'm I'm sorry no so the one thing I did realize is uh he he defines the term that he's talking about and from what I understand he he answers it pretty decently you know like he he defines what's what being said and he answers it but I think what he does this is what I've taken from him is that he's he's trying to he's not concerned with non-muslims I think he's concerned with Muslims not being confused about yeah

but the is like like let's say let's take that debate as an example yeah now that's a really big name he took on yeah now to be honest with you had have it been a non-muslim crowd he would have been annihilated uh but it was only because it was a Muslim crowd that they were going to cheer for him regardless the second thing was that you see he turned that debate first of all okay the topic of that debate was useless it was a you know is religion good for you or is which which even Dr kuss said or professor kuss said look I what why the hell are we even discussing this like it doesn't even make much sense but uh the

the thing is in that point he kind of says uh he well he's discussing with him he turns the topic into this whole thing of the Arabic language is what proves the Quran is um is so um is the word of God yeah it's the word of God now which once again comes back to that point which is so silly because like how does the Arabic language uh prove that this must be the word of God no I don't think he was saying Arabic language I think I say he was saying the structure of the Quran in the Arabic language I think I think mu's point is though real quick is that like

Dr CR doesn't know Arabic so why you bringing that point up right no but he doesn't know Arabic and this is the point where Dr kuss says to him oh do you understand Arabic and he says no and and then he just makes a joke like and the audience start laughing uh but the point was that look you yourself don't understand Arabic so these things of the miracle you know the miraculous structure of the Arabic language is an outdated argument because most Muslims in the world today and even the Arabs today most of them don't understand that kind of artistry it's like a very kind of very science to

do with before we continue I want you to continue on this so for the general individual or every Muslim should know that the miraculous nature of the Quran lies within the structure that Allah subhana T spoke the cam which is the Quran but that's just a general understanding but now to debate it at a high level you have to understand it at that level or else it doesn't give it its proper Merit you see I don't you see the thing is I'm not you see my understanding is look the Quran came the the Quran is a miracle of course uh it's a miracle in the sense that you know what it came with what the capacity it

has the message it carries and it primarily came for the Arabs of its time that's what it primarily came for We Are by extension the people it reaches now when it came with this oh look at the structure message this was aimed at the Arabs of its time who could appreciate it most people beyond that stage will never appreciate that they appreciate it but it is that is the factor right that is the that is what makes it the miracle everything else is kind of the package deal but even though it just came for the Arabs and I'm not disagreeing with you just so it's clear for the for the for the listeners is that that is the miraculous nature of the Quran though

right the structure we may not understand it let's say even the three generations of the sahaba didn't understand it like the sahabah would understand its miraculous nature but that is what makes it the miracle right M Alam threw his staff and The Magicians couldn't replicate it so they knew it wasn't from a human being it's from Allah the similar way when they heard the Quran you know they knew that it's not from a man right I think I think this is this point is not like this point isn't highly stressed in the Quran itself uh the Quran does tell the people okay bring something like this if you want to kind of go ahead you know if you want to bring something like on to this

but it's not the stressed kind of point of the Quran doesn't make a point of it all the way that this is wow like look test me test like it does say oh yeah you know like okay you guys are really you know your Arabic is up there go then bring something like onto this so I can see this point that you're saying that the of the Quran uh its miraculous nature is in its structure okay I can see that I don't personally believe that is the major Miracle of Islam but okay fair enough I mean that could be one of the features of the Quran but beyond that initial point I think it becomes a bit immaterial to the discourse because

most people never understand that the problem with emphasizing this point is then to deny the universality of Islam because if the Quran is about if the whole Miracle is about the intricacy of the structure of the Quran of the Arabic of the Quran then that means the message was never really for Humanity the message was obviously for a specific type of Arabs that's it who are not who are a tiny fraction of humanity of course so yeah so so you see to preach to a non-muslim who is not an Arab that wow

God you know the amazing thing the proof of God is my language the Arabic language is is going to come across as nothing but arrogant and it's going to come across as it's definitely not going to be convincing it's like somebody telling you that oh God the proof of God is Japanese why because God spoke to you know through the Buddha and through his disciples and these people through their particular writings have preserved something in Japanese but it's classic japanese and only if you know classic japanese then you can know God so I I think we might be talking about I don't really care I don't want to learn

Japanese yeah I think I'm people talking about two different things here the reason why I'm saying that is is because if if there's a miraculous nature of the Quran now if that miraculousness is laced with saying that there's one Creator and Allah proves that also that's obviously there's there's multiple miracles in that right but it makes it now impossible for the Arab of that time because he knows a structure is a miracle that anything that's within that is a speech from the Creator talking directly so it kind of brings them to the level it raises their level to be like okay everything in this is true because I can't bring anything like it and I know for sure that a man didn't bring this right and I I get your point too but I I I I I think what we're

talking about is the feasibility of convincing somebody that it's a miracle becomes it becomes almost impossible if they don't understand the Arabic language but it's still a fact yeah but like yeah but the point is if it's a fact right if it's a fact right why do we emphasize it we should emphasize it in dialogue with non Muslims stop pushing this if we stop pushing this the question would be that well you see because the moment you see because you're speaking in a very open audience now yeah who can criticize and question anything yes it's not like remember we're not in that Muslim closet censorship environment anymore so when you say something it it can be criticized so if you say that Muslims

never brought or people never brought anything like this what's your proof that they never no I think that requires somebody to say that someone to bring that argument they have to be a specialist in the Arabic language or else it would make no sense to bring it up right yeah but then it's a redundant point isn't it because none of us can assess that level of so it doesn't it makes it a bit redundant it's just like saying well I believe it but I can't assess it and nobody else can assess it so it doesn't and we know study of B right I think a lot of people there are specialist in the Arabic language right I think that they they can uh if somebody tries to but the question is they're all

Muslim no I mean okay so let me let me jump here real quick like break this so the argument is is atheism and debating atheists and like even working with like Muslim kids who are like borderline like thinking about leaving Islam yeah so they don't know Arabic right so why are you this point is irrelevant to the conversation I believe it's irrelevant but I but I'm saying is that I believe he shouldn't no one should bring it up if they don't understand the Arabic language especially if they don't understand it right if they're Specialists and the person that they're debating is a specialist in the Arabic language like if they're debating a non if they're debating Arab who's a specialist in the

Arabic language and the Muslim who's bringing up is a specialist in the Arabic language then it's feasible to bring that statement up pragmatically how often is that GNA happen GNA happen yeah it's not gonna happen but I'm saying the thing is you see the thing is this when you say like we know historically right that people like for example several people did attempt to challenge the Quran we know this historically like in the time of the the prophet after the prophet like M other people brought their versions of small verses now the the question would be obviously they did have followers we know this too yeah they had followers now the question would be that people

would say yeah but look at this dumb uh verse that they made up here is one uh you know you know do you know the elephant and what about the elephant and so on and this and that but remember this is the transmission that own that Muslims have allowed to be transmitted like remember there's going to be a lot of standardization along the way there's going to be a lot of control what about the other verses that they didn't transmit from him what about people like there was there was really eloquent people in the past like Abdullah M yeah who was really eloquent

that uh he he was of Persian origin and some of the early he's from the time of the salaf and he wrote several things anyway which are still available but they then questioned him of heresy or kufur why because some of the things he brought up he challenged the Quran with them with his eloquence and and then obviously people said well he's not a Muslim and he's just a hidden zarrian and stuff like this zind and my point is you see when you say these things that nobody's challenged it most likely nobody's transmitted it because Muslims allow because they had a culture of censorship they wouldn't allow things like that to be transmitted so I don't

see the point in emphasizing this when one we say that look nobody can measure it anyway and two those people we know it was challenged but we only see the poor specimen that people produce because they wouldn't allow any other specimen to be transmitted but that's that's kind of with a preconceived notion that they weren't Hest historically they just killed those people so if we're going to honest like we can't there isn't much point in arguing this because today this will be questioned because we're not in a state of censorship so when people say things like this other people who do know will say uh well actually didn't so and so

challenging and they were just killed well what what what central theme of from the Quran you think should we as Muslims be propagating to the west or people non non-arab speaking people what uh what quality of the Quran should we be explained to there has to be a quality that Allah says in the Quran that they question when they question Allah's reality they question this yeah Allah says yeah and we will show them our

signs that and people would say this is the horizons but in my understanding in the beyond that in the cosmos and inside them and people said that oh this is you know uh physiological like within organs and within body and but beneath that even I believe that Allah meant when you go from the greatest of sign greatest of measures like the cosmos to the smallest of measures which

is the Quantum world that when you once once you reach that level at that point it will become manifest that this was the truth now we as human beings are on this journey to kind of discover I do feel that people have this kind of inbuilt need to reach out to the Transcendent I think our message in you see it's interesting when when you say what should our message be today to people our message should be of what

what the message always was that you know that we heard somebody call out what message did he call out with what was the first command that there is indeed one creator that this is our message this was the message that all prophets were sent with with all Messengers were sent with the message Prim primary message was never things like oh how do you cut your hair or how do you do things like these are like tertiary aspects insignificant insignificant insignificant compared to the great message which was that there is a Creator then people will say today

that look if there truly is a Creator then how does this a you know a b and c make sense and then our challenge is to shed some light on that does make sense just so people can be at peace at recognizing that look there is this Creator and they don't have to be driven away because they feel how can there be a Creator if a b and c and we have to then deal with that that's the way I see things the Quran I feel we do need to give that great importance I feel that the Quran it kind of it has it carries a message of it it carries it

encapsulates The Narrative of Islam Unfortunately today the Quran has been kind of placed in the background and we've already got our image of what Islam ought to be but when we read the so for example when I said earlier on about things like look people ask about free will yeah when when you read the Quran the Quran addresses you as though you have complete Free Will Subhan Allah that's true actually like it addresses you look don't do this don't do this this will be punished this this has a reward look there's consequences don't do this why don't you can I not entice you towards the Jenna can I not do this it's addressing you as though you have free will why would it be addressing you

if it's just control to you like that you know when we read the Quran it teaches you look there is no compulsion in Islam why don't you look why can I not interest you in in Islam shall I tell you about an investment that is good for you should I what it's this is dawa at its best it's it's speaking to people about the nature of Islam but today this has become kind of like background uh stuffff and it's all about look no you know if a person doesn't believe he doesn't do this then he's doomed to this then if he's already Muslim then it's you know if he decides to question Islam he's an apostate he deserves death he

deserves this she deserves you see this kind of this is what is causing damage to Islam in my understanding it's not about uh what isn't it's not the concept of God it's the fact that Islam has become appears so kind of mutilated that nobody wants that people are okay they stuck with it because they're born with it but otherwise they kind of they're struggling with it and you know what one thing that you mentioned is very the simple nature of the speech of Allah to his creation and sometimes people find that not Advanced enough that I think I've came across that problem too where people don't like to talk about everything you just mentioned right now you know let me invite you to this let

me invite Allah addressing us but to but to a lot of people it doesn't seem as academic and they write it off very quickly you know and it it seems too over simplistic and they and that is the very reason I think why Allah speaks to us that way because everyone can understand it yet it's a very deep way of of pondering upon your very existence and your creator speaking to you right so I think I think people Rite it off very quickly for that reason unfortunately and and really that sounds like uh the solution is that every Muslim when as they're studying the dean that's something they stress so cuz at the end of the day it's like when you're

cuz we live in amongst non-muslims and when you're questioned about something and usually it's not belligerently they're just they have an honest question curious you know you have a you know you're able to articulate really what the foundations is rather than and I've had trouble problems with this myself dealing with like Muslims who like Fringe you know and just you know using the Arabic I remember I was taking the bay in a 10day course of n man Alan like in 2007 and um you know a relative of mine was like really questioning it and like Islam and I I was like oh but you don't understand Arabic I was getting a little taste of it and I was like this is a crazy but like I can't that doesn't translate to him yeah right and I think

that's where you know we have to just get better I I think first of all it's like studying and before we wrap up here AB studying is is definitely I think look and and I don't mean in any way I I totally I'm very passionate about things like the Arabic language and encouraging people to learn Arabic and and to become a part of this Legacy because really we can only access it through we can only access the richness of the Legacy that's been left behind through the Arabic language because that's what most of the things were written in um so I didn't mean in any way to kind of detract from that greatness but I do I do feel that

today we have to also be prepared to recognize that maybe some things that we think are Islam maybe they're not like or maybe there are a version or an opinion within okay it's not the kind of thing like it's the vers you see it's like the way I I I G I gave this U uh I don't know like like like a simile to it it's like saying so imagine you had a TV series so you could choose anyone like let's just say a popular one like I don't know Breaking Bad or you took something uh that was a very popular TV series with so many had so many kind of

series to it now you imagine you had 30 seconds to just select Clips to to kind of summarize that now some you could summarize it as a comedy you could take out the comical Parts true and summarize it as that true you could summarize it as like a very violent thing about you could summarize it as a drama you could summarize it about the family points you've only got 30 seconds to to choose different clips from all the seasons now none of you are necessarily wrong okay none of you are necess but

you're not truly encapsulating the whole thing now imagine one person took out a particular aspect of it and then many people take that aspect what happens over time it starts to get standardized so when it reaches people so many generations later if the majority of the people kept deciding on a particular kind of summary that will then become known as the thing yes this is exactly what's happened with Islam as well and religions it's just been standardized over time into a particular narrative which certain people have just

agreed on and accepted it didn't mean the other aspects weren't are invalid it just meant they got kind of drowned out through the standardization process yes and maybe some of those things will be more suitable for our day and age maybe they would answer more question questions in in our kind of context and so you know maybe this obviously it comes back to the today or students of knowledge to kind of investigate that to kind of see what because we have a duty that you see there's something transmitted that that that you should be weary how you address people let be address them in light of

the reason and intellect do you wish that Allah and his messenger be denied because of something you say so this is a fear that may be actualized like we may be preaching certain aspects or teaching certain aspects which may end up driving a lot of people away from the de so I I mean these these are just my kind of thoughts my angles on things um yeah I don't nobody has the answers to everything but we you know we all kind of contribute our our angle I guess and I think people students of knowledge uh Scholars or people taking you know an interest in

studying the dean should explore these kind of things maybe look at contemporary issues see what can be um maybe it's maybe like I I always said look within Islam there's certain things which are always stable and there's certain things which will always change this is that Imam shatab refers to the those things so obviously they're being one Allah they're being one you know certain things are established and certain things are subject to change they can change based on your understanding Dynamic basically yeah exactly like a kind of static and a

kinetic kind of almost force that you have and and I think a good example is like U people you know like sh when I I share this quite often sometimes when he was asked about when the when people told him about the the moonlanding and if you read certain you know if you take a certain reading of the Quran that appears to be impossible to land on the moon because a certain reading of the Quran places the moon in the heavens and not in our sky so it says in the heavens in the

plural so the thing is well according to that human beings can't shouldn't be able to access it so you know when they told him this and they said well what do you have to say about this and and he said well look this is one of two possibilities one that this is a hoax and it's not true and whatever and he said and the other which he said is more likely is that we've never perhaps truly understood the verse until now that maybe we need to revisit our understanding of the verse and and that's you know that's some profound words so it is and and I just want you to know it didn't come off as if you

were uh undermining it all the Arabic language and it it just showed it totally showed your depth and how much you actually thought about this and that's that's all it showed so yeah man that was an awesome conversation I think it it made it think deeper no it was I think it was awesome I think it was awesome I don't know how confusing it is for anybody that it's not going to be confusing in other I I almost feel like we have to do a separate show about just your mindset cuz like you you're someone who's you know studied in traditional seminaries and you know but but you you got your own you're your own guy right and a lot of people when they most people I feel like who are classically trained are just parenting the same uh

whatever they learn more or less and there isn't really much thought and we talked about this a little bit if you have a chance uh have you ever met Joe Bradford I've heard about him I've heard about him is he he's in the US isn't he he's in the US yeah so he's a bachelor's and masters from Medina but you know again we talked a lot about he he has he had some opinions that are like necessarily seen as like kind of out there he he he was on our podcast too you can if honestly and I'm not just saying this to plug it to make you listen to our podcast I swear that's not the intention if you if you were to listen to it whenever you have an opportunity and just give us your feedback and maybe we can do something podcast yeah we can definitely do a

collab with you and him too someday in it's called dynamics of Islamic law dynamics of Islamic law at fi right so we recorded it over is we give it I love listening to different podcasts and stuff and so I think it would be really cool if if we one day can get together and you two are in the same room and we all have a discussion I think it'd be pretty awesome Epic muy when was the last time you were in America was it St Louis a couple years ago yeah it was I went there twice actually and um it's been yeah a couple of years now so okay it's I mean it it's good America alhamdulillah it's good I don't know about the whole Trump thing now and how difficult he made it for people to visit

and stuff but um everything's gone in a little peir shape isn't it everything got I think at that time I was kind of shocked by uh not shocked but I was kind of Taken aack if you like by the um by their reaction of uh I was at a University at that St Louis University whatever Le giving some of the lectures there but at the they get really offended by certain um what they consider swis the the profanity of speech it's so interesting because they consider the

word damn really offensive I totally don't know and so I was asked on a few occasions would you stop uh you know there's been some requests if You' just be a bit watchful about mindful about the about swearing in your lecture so I I actually thought that I may have accidentally actually sworn in the in the lecture I thought Dr an F bomb or something I thought that actually sweet I didn't realize I swore because I'm usually very I can you know keep things like that under under control so I wouldn't just swear and stuff like that so I I thought well maybe it happened or maybe I kind of said it under my breath

but people heard it and you should have said to him I gave this whole again and they complained again you should you should when they said that complaint about swearing you should have been like you taking a piss no and then I I said I actually I was told oh they're talking about damn and I was I was using it so much in my even after that I was like God damn no come on people no we have we have a lot we have a lot of language police here uh and whatnot and sometimes that one of the things we try to do on the podcast is talk about issues that

like people like really because it's really three guys just chitchatting like imagine like you're in the UK but if you were here the format would be we're just having coffee and just chitchatting for like about random stuff and it's unfiltered and people like it but a lot of times within the community like Sim will have I remember we did a Show recently called Dead bedrooms which think about what that means you know um dead bedrooms and the uh one of uh one of the brothers at the mus I would say I I would say a few things run through my mind there but yeah yeah you know I'll leave it to the imagination you can go check out the show we we published it but one of the brothers says like you know you know I love your show but that

show you guys got a little to like graphic I'm like how else are you going to talk about it without being graphic I'm sorry people are facing real problems in the bedroom and how are you actually gon to not be specific about Allah wants us to be specific about these things to protect us right I mean I can't I actually I actually had to you see because I get a bit carried away on my Monday nights with musty and I crack all kinds of jokes and I I love it I love it keep doing it brother and they uh they get a bit shocked with some of the stuff and the humor and and so I actually did one of the answers I don't know whether it was last week or the week before but on swearing actually where I said I think a lot of people must have been shocked I said that

swearing isn't Haram there's nothing wrong with swearing but swearing at somebody offending them is Haram but just regular swearing isn't and people were like what the hell and then then I I you know I broke I broke it down and went into some evidences and stuff but then the the jokes in general I you see I have some of my mates who kind of usually give me feedback and and they they always telling me oh oh oh no man oh no they're going they were thinking they go there was about two or three places in this last where I thought oh no don't don't don't they go but you did and the jokes

that well what the hell I'm just like well don't worry about it man it's it's all good it's all good it's you gota I think you got to break some of the the barriers for people and for sure for sure no hey down mindset yeah well we're gonna let we're gonna let you go we heard that come off we have you we've had you on for over two hours so you might be the longest podcast we've ever done longest podcast I think we've ever had mallah man and right well it's been awesome talking to you guys so inshallah I mean we'll check out the podcast and if you ever want to do this again or you just want to promote something or you just want to rant or vent contact us and we can do

this again man you know hey real quick um is there any like how can people like learn more I mean you have your Facebook page is Facebook your most popular Medium you're obvious on you're on Snapchat as well um yes uh Facebook what is it or Twitter all with the name mu AB they can add me follow me shoot me any questions inshallah I do try to answer on Snapchat it's Mal 2014 so M m2014 they can add meah fire away with any questions I do try to respond um that's the main um inshallah I'll have my website

soon when I stop I stop getting lazy and and that will be another another medium but I mean yeah inshah and I'll I'll definitely I've always got a lot to Rave and rant about so contact us something El yeah I I really appreciate you were really easy to work you know to set this show up with one a a lot of our listeners as you can see they were tagging Us in posts that's what happened they were like when is the Mad mom luk going to do a show with Muti Abu and and you know and like listeners out there we give y'all what you want all right you know we we got this we got this for you all right you know that's what I'm talking about we give you what you want hope y'all liked it uh man

message him to make sure he comes back on too yeah man yeah start flooding if you want to hear anything else that M AB didn't talk about like man you a talk about this or that we at you know we we we talk to you all day but uh we got another podcast coming up in like 15 minutes too we're doing a back toback today man so uh if you feel this wasn't controversial enough or explicit enough then that's it just fire out those messages and we'll another show in got do a round table with him him and Mort got to be on this table Yeah we have another we have another host that is in rotation sometimes though we'll get them in inshah so man we really appreciate it um

for our listeners out there if you have any questions or comments you can email us at the Mad mumluk gmail.com you can also follow us on Twitter like us on Facebook uh we are on Instagram trying to be a little bit more active there so check us out there and if you have an iTunes account uh subscribe to us on iTunes r as 5 stars and for you Android folks who are behind the times you can check us out on Podcast Addict for our special guest all the way from Birmingham United Kingdom mu Abu Al Maliki and my co-host Sheik Hammer Sim this is mAh signing off for the Mad msam alaykum

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