In Depth: Sulaiman (a.s.), the Throne of Sheba, and Miracles in the Quran -Mufti Abu Layth

so what else is going on people what else what's this shall we take a look at this sorry man Ali Salaam and the story of the throne of beauties right so people people people people the throne of beauties the Queen of Sheba all right people all right so what is all of this about and why am I even speaking about these stories so I want us I want to use part of this story the throne of the Queen of

Sheba and I want to really touch a greater discourse and that is how do we handle stories in the Quran how do we engage is a better word with stories in the parameter then they say why does move this way as a joke people is a joke all right so can't believe somebody from Facebook is trying to bloody call me

while some on Facebook life god damn it why do we have to have a disproportionate number of retards in this why why do non-muslims get all the clever people normal people and we get a disproportionate number of challenged anyway so right sorry let me return to where I was how do we engage with the stories in the Quran because I think

there's many ways to engage with stories okay now storytelling is one of the greatest of human arts really it is solely a human trait and it is something we have doing since the cognitive revolution right so human beings have this unique gift to be able to tell stories and bring to life lessons through those stories and and also relates actual stories and accounts as well and this

has been the means for information for you know for so long for millennia and now right ok so there's certain ways when we approach the Quran and this loads of stories in the Quran stories about Moses story about prophets especially about Adam about Jesus about Abraham about Solomon Solomon aleihsalaam about da hood about all these amazing beautiful intense sometimes stories in the Quran and how do we engage with them so at one layer

there is the level of where we're intrigued and that's good so we read it as a story so people read oh that allies telling you know like oh so I like hacen el us us the best of things to be relayed in the story of Joseph and his suffering and how he rises to power and and and that's an amazing story as it as a as a narrative for example then we can extract lessons from this that's amazing as well that's and these are all definitely things which I advise and promote so we could read the story of

Joseph of Yusuf Ali Salaam and we could learn about suffering about consequences about how Allah has a greater plan how things unfold all of these things and we can learn about that and that's things we should do the other then comes the layer that some of these stories have been mentioned in ways at times that suggest suggest I'm using the word here suggest they don't usually explicitly say so but they tend to suggest a very supernatural

thing to them how do we go about what do we do once we read these super suggested we infer so it can imply and we can infer yes so we infer from it's almost supernatural powers and events and how do we respond to that how do we engage that one way of engaging it is to say well oh well that means these people all had super powers like in myths for example mythologies like we could take the story of the Greek the ancient Greek

kind of people of Zeus Zeus for example and I was relaying a story the other the other day about Prometheus and how Prometheus is the person who fashions man he creates man and he's tasked to do that and he has this affinity with man and and then the gods get upset with you know they don't they feel kind of like they've been done over by prometheus so they take away fire from man and Prometheus he goes and he steals fire and gives it back to mine he redeems it

for them and then he is punished and he's punished in a very painful kind of way where something comes and eats at his liver every day and this carries on for an eternity until he is then saved by by pop man I believe if it's Haraka Haraka lease or whoever it is that comes and saves him now this is a story it's a it's a kind of myth okay and mine I was saying this the other day that man is then you see because man is kind of lonely he sent Pandora the woman and

Pandora brings with her a box so it's really interesting those of you that have heard the term Pandora's box for like a box of evil so the Zeus and the gods had kind of poured oh they had instructed that basically man is done over so he's given this Pandora brings this box and he's told not to open it but then what does mine do he opens it you see very this is a lot of parallels with I suppose the story of Adam and the Garden of Eden and not to eat the fruit and not to open Pandora's box and but he does open it and when man opens the box

our of it comes wrath and disease and illness and ill fate and all these things emerge from Pandora's box and and at the end but the flipside is right at the bottom of the box is hope and that too emerges and and man then has hope but the point is that it's it's an interesting story with parallels in other religions as well obviously I mean this is from the Greek mythology Greek myths but you have my point is how do you approach these stories now this story if I told you you would just

approach it as a myth you'd say yeah in this story these people have superpowers they do all these things but you're not taking it to be real like maybe you can learn lessons from it but you're not taking it as a kind of like oh this is real same thing with Hinduism if he looked in Hindu stories so for example speaking of the first man but there's a story in the I think it's in the Puranas or it's in the old the Hindu kind of Vedic stories about how how Vishnu I believe that the

first man they call manual that's in Hindu method tradition the first man is referred to as manu and then from him come mankind and Vishnu the law or the God appears to him as a fish a kind of struggling fish so Manu helps this fish and he puts him takes him out of his thing and puts him in a larger amount of water and then this phase she feeds him and the fish starts to grow and that's Vishnu growing growing then Manu has a good heart and he realizes look he's struggling let me put him in a greater amount of water and then he starts to struggle there and he grows and grows and then eventually he

becomes so big that he puts him in an ocean he's so big for the ocean that Manu is then told to build a he's told to build out of because he's been so kind he's told to build a boat and he builds a boat and and then a flood comes that drowns the world or people have once again a stark resemblance to the story of Noah in the Bible and the Quran so then the whole point was that here because of his kindness to Vishnu he is then guided and he's on this boat and he's saved and then from him come

mankind now when you read the story of man whom Vishnu or these things or of Prometheus we take them as stories we don't think that these were we you know if we don't we're not trying to be realistic with that the issue is when we read certain stories in the Quran that don't state but imply a supernatural prowess or power or capacity or capabilities how should we be so some Muslims just say no these are supernatural powers and these people had supernatural powers so Jesus for example

would speak as a baby normal people can't do that but it's okay Jesus can speak as a baby because he has special powers he's a you know like a special powerful person so he can do things so what they do is they accept reality but then they just add for this part they will suspend reality and say I know in the real world people can't do this but here they did because God made him do it so this is how many Muslims approach these things the problem with this approach of them taking a very

supernatural is it doesn't correlate with reality and he has huge problems once you zoom out because once you zoom out then people everything can fall to pieces so you know because if you're gonna say well things can't happen and they say yeah but I know they can't happen but God did him yeah so well hmm so that means my god fine so why does anything have to make sense then because God could you know it's like the Trinity you could say well I know normally three doesn't equal

one but God here made three equal one you know you're saying God made a baby talk like grown-ups and you're saying God made a mind fly and do all these things and you're saying this so God and you except it doesn't normally happen so but you know God made it happen here so God made the three Trinity B he made himself B 3 I know it's against reason but you yourself are not accepting reason so you see this becomes the problem that you see if we take the

supernatural the mythological thing as a real then reason has to be ditched if reason is ditched then we have no right to discredit for example the mythologies of Hinduism or Greek mythology's we have no right because God did you know so God did these things so in that case how can we say you know Prometheus didn't create man and he didn't owe fish new wasn't the fish because we'd say yeah I know that doesn't normally happen but hey God

did it you know so what I'm trying to say is reason is either all in or or it's out it doesn't happen like you can't say you know what I'll follow reason 90% of the time that doesn't make any sense right so what I'm trying to say is that align the universe has set laws these laws have to be they have to be they have to be defined Allah says well ant I did a little metal light up you'll never find the laws of God the laws of nature to deviate and change

that they work gravity always works you see if somebody said I know gravity works I won't stand at the edge of a cliff and jump off I wouldn't do that I wouldn't do that to my child I wouldn't do that for myself but yeah on one occasion God allowed one man to defy gravity for example not that that well God allowed a group of men to defy gravity but normally he doesn't this logic it comes it doesn't just shoot you in one foot it completely buries you because you can then no longer find any

fault with any mythology so now that so no so I'm right so now I'm coming back to the stories I'm not saying the stories were mythical I'm not saying that I do believe that these were actually real people I believe all these people were real I do believe that there was an Adam there was an Abraham there was a Noah I believe in all these people the question is what were the sewers exactly saying so we have to visit it with this in mind if we want to take something real away from me if we want to just read it as a story to extract

other lessons and just read it like a narrative then fine but if we want to get real we've got to do a bit of sometimes like it's like we're approaching a scene as a detective I mean this is I'm giving an example okay so imagine a detective comes to a scene and he has a clear open shot case like he has a person and they say look here's the person and you know there's been a homicide it's been a murderer and this person was clearly holding the gun when we got there and it's a clear open shot case but the problem is there is no motive and in fact it's too convenient

the whole thing is way too convenient and it's at these places that detectives will say well you know it's - hmm this is more like it's got I know it immediately he makes sense but when we zoom out it doesn't make sense because this person for example that's the worst way to do it he could have done it in hundred other ways and got away with it why would he do it in such a stupid way and still stand there and do this it doesn't make sense so this in a similar way that kind of thinking cap has to be applied with these surahs that yes we can just read them like this and say super powers

supernatural stuff doesn't matter but when we zoom at there's a problem it doesn't make sense like that okay so let's take a look at for example the story of the throne of the queen of sheba so all the below min ash-shaytani r-rajim now now in this story it's actually very interesting I won't go through the whole story thing but I'll focus on the verses to do with the throne of the queen of sheba now the quran doesn't mention her name but muslim sources generally say her

name was Bill T's Allah Adam but she was the queen of sheba but one of the things that is interesting is how the quran portrays her as a woman of immense power beneath whom the administration and the ministers are all men now the Quran does not rebuke her in any sense for that power this is an interesting lesson to be taken from that story so when hood hood says you know in the widget to embrace and timely comb that I found a woman that owned them she owned

these people they were her subjects what idiot mean leash a and she's been given everything wala ha harsh on Harvey and above all what stood out for me was her majestic throne so this is an amazing kind of an account of a woman with great immense power being told to Solomon now Solomon aleihsalaam held one of the most powerful kingdoms in his time on earth and it was so powerful that and if you just look at the gold that the kind of

gold reserves that he had and gold that was reaching him and stuff like this and even to today they don't know what they have certain traces are from the region of ophea and they don't know where this region was and there's been a gold hunt trying to discover it because he was receiving a lot of gold from that region so hood hood and just to kind of touch up here it's interesting this isn't my point but I know a lot of people have asked me who was hood hood or what was hot now in this verse of the Quran it mentions that Solomon Ali Salaam

he says what the of the tire of a column Ali he says he one day missus this tail and tail can mean a kind of bird or a watch it can mean something like this because the collective noun that's being used for column Ali Allah are all hood hood uncanny mean Aloha hippie now people say it was a bird so he had this little kind of bird that would fly around and he's talking about this bird the interesting thing is the verb that is used and then says can a mineral aha a beam high beam is used for human beings only it is not used for

animals like the plural that is used like in like muslimeen me mean like caffeine for example this in or the own in the nominative case is not used for animals it is only used for humans and it says I'm Konami no I mean is he from the people that are absent where is he and then he says that look that was they been known as a bunch a didn't that he says I will punish him all as bhajana who only a TNA be so Poornima bean says I will I'm gonna punish I'm gonna

slaughter this person and this is him using the word here slaughter is what led a lot of Muslims into thinking it's a bird as well this as well as the word 5:8 reinforced for them that slaughter right so but that was just his figurative statement that this person had a responsibility now great legends like Maulana Abdul Karim al a letter II who was from India in his stuff seed sorry from the indo-pak region in his stuff

see sorry I'm just putting this on in his stuff Cyril orbital was all in line with certain atom of a Syrian as well say that this was actually a branch that there was a branch of people that Salomon ELISA Lam had under his command that were equivalent to modern-day intelligentsia hence he called them birds like Falcon like Eagles they were his people that would bring him information about other kingdoms now he says that that's he stuffs the image stuff see it is something that does make

sense given the kind of constant verbs that are used referring to human beings so for example for when salt when hood hood comes from Makassar era by eating all had to be madam to hit me he what you can be min saba'iin binaba'iin yaqinin' now he says that look he comes back and he says that he stays slightly at a distance and he says - sorry man Allison I'm look I've come with some information about the people of Sheba if this was a bird the problem when we zoom out is we're saying a bird has cognition

we're saying a bird has intelligence we're saying a bird has not just animal intelligence but it has the intelligence to analyze to assess to synthesize information to relay information to recognize what kingdoms mean to recognize these kind of concepts that that if you zoom out is a problem because animals are not Michela they don't have these kind of capacity so you see this is one of the this is what I'm saying with the zoom in zoom out problem if you take this to be a bird but if as Maulana Abdul Karim ls3

said that this was a person who told and this was his intelligence his intelligence iya so the person was responsible and hence as such an important figure was missing and hence Solomon al-islam was incredibly angry and that's any stuff see he then goes on to relay what he saw and I saw budget to her Oh My yes you do Nana shams him in do nila that these people were bowing down to the Sun that they were prostrating to the Sun was a yin 1108 on my lungs I saw the Holman is a really for home last at all that he says the Shaitaan has misled them and they have

turned away from God once again a saying an animal has these kind of psychological trucks that are human constructs these things don't exist okay so and you see we could zoom in and just pretend it's a mythology well you know God I know animals don't have human social construct but God made this bird happy hmm and then you zoom out and you say well hmm so what's your problem with the elephant God in Hinduism why is that all of a sudden so count of reason you know if they said well God made him happy you

said you know no but that doesn't make any sense really and a bird doing all this does make sense so you see when you zoom out you have a problem when you zoom in you're just so immersed it doesn't matter you're just reading it as a narrative so he then goes on to say he describes now listen once again what does Solomon ELISA Lam address him paulus a month or as a doctor I'm contaminant Kathy be once again Kathy being the plural only used for humans he says I will see whether you are truthful

or you are telling ale you are from though the people who lie people who lie birds are not from people and then is a bird once again a bird knows how to lie he understands human concept as theory of mind it recognizes I'm deceiving somebody it recognizes these things right so it's problematic saying this is a bird nevertheless Solomon ELISA Lam writes to the Queen of Sheba he writes to her censor and then she kind of consults with her people saying what do you think and they say that you know we can fight

him or whatever you whatever you wish and it's interesting she mentioned scarlet Annelle maluca dada hello' kharitonov Sidhu ha Raja Allu eyes Italia as illa voca delicate value I always found this verse incredibly interesting that she says that look Kings whenever they come to a because she asks them what do you think we should do and they say Natalie Batson you know we are people of power and strength like bring it on let him come and she says that whenever it came she says whenever Kings enter a town all

they do is ruin it and spread corruption it's really fascinating because from this verse we can D like opens a separate tangential on a tangent a discussion on political philosophy that what gives human beings the right to rule over another human being we did this concept of kingship even come from who said that one person has the right to be a king who why how do we become where did that come from

why do we have to accept it that you know he's a human we're a human how does the inner maluca is that the hollow Coria tan off sir do you know Kings if they enter it town they only spread facade what could their liquor your final but yet this has been you know the three things that have set man on this journey of ultimate unification has been God king and money and you know and then the thing is that we did this even come from that one human one day felt I have the

right to sub subjugate and you guys on my subjects some person just assumed that one day and it became a human legacy I find that so fascinating the way this verse kind of touched sup on this notion and then it goes on about she kind of liaises with Solomon ELISA Lam and then she eventually she decides to kind of come to him bring a delegation and come to Suleiman Alesana now the interesting thing is then comes the verse Carla this is Solomon aleihsalaam yeah a you hell Mela hey you

come here teeny bit are she her cobbler Enya Tunis Muslim II that who will bring her throne to me before they reach us so they've set off from where they are they it's gonna take a good while before they come obviously back then so who can bring me the throne because hood hood had praised he said oath yet mean cool Alisha she's been given everything and after saying everything he said well haha he said god damn that throne that

is something you see now so what kind of the pinnacle what the almost a landmark of her Majesty was this amazing throne that she had just as in the time of the British and the East India Company you see the peacock throne of the Mughal dynasty in India became like an emblem it became symbolic of the great majesty of the moguls and hence they wanted the Peacock Throne this was something that they were like we want we've heard so much about this throng we want the pick up thrall I suppose and then there's the

game of thrones with it's kind of thrown in me but the point is that thrown sometimes are so powerful like this people want them now the question with this verse is caller a free terminal Jin Lee freed from the Jin and I'm gonna come to the TVs said I'm an RT kabhi cobbler and Takumi McCormack before you stand from your mom I will bring it well in me alayhi laka William a me indeed I have the capacity to get that done what is sorry man Allison I'm talking about

where a crossroad people one group of people that have zoomed in their reading who can bring me her actual throne and they're reading that a Jim as in mystical demons like all like these characters that we can't see the jinn have said to Solomon aleihsalaam that one of them who is called efreet which is like a powerful person or powerful gene I suppose by this narrative by this group he's saying I will bring it before you stand up this

is out one see that in my understanding doesn't make much sense and I'll tell you why in a moment because we are zooming out and taking a look Maulana Abdul Karim al a theory in his stuff seed and other people have said in orbital both are highlights that gene here was referring to a group of people does this not the jinn and how do we know this because let's take a look at the verse of the Quran where Allah speaks of a Shaitaan can Amina gene for facet on Amira P yet Imam no we could to

be all these people will highlight the majority of the Muslims surprisingly actually I don't agree with them on that but look they themselves accept the majority of the Muslims do not believe they say that Shaytan was from the gym they say that he was something created and genie just meant a group that you can go to any tough scene read the verse of the ayah can I mean L Jin that Shaitaan was from the gene for face economy Robbie because gene just means the unveiled the kind of the thing that is veiled the the

kind of like a selective something that isn't seen so and then there's the gene which are a creation because they are also veiled from from us being able to see them as in what are these things they're in a total different realm now most of them are first seen in say that verse they does not mean Shaitaan was from that gene they just mean he was from something that we didn't couldn't see we didn't have access to that's what they mean and that's actually most of them for sitting and they say that surprisingly that the majority of

Muslims accept that so here at mawlana sheikh abdul karim la3 writes in his Tufts in all return was our that there was three groups of people that the army of solomon were divided in three he had his intelligence here which were a unique it's a bit like how governments today have so you know they will have so in America they will have their CIA for foreign things and then he had his manual army which were the intz he just referred to them and in Smith's man and

people say well duh but even today we refer to things as manpower that is the manpower he is brought the manpower and he says and then he had a unique like a skill like a group a department that that were kind of supreme they also dealt with internal matters but they were supreme an example today to say if I if I was speaking about America would be like the FBI and you would have the normal police and have the FBI and you'd have foreign like CIA so this three division that you have an amusing America just because it's so popular as an example but otherwise all governments

pretty much have this in the UK in the UK whether it's going to be the mi6 for example I suppose mi5 looking internally but you do also have the National Crime Agency looking internally now and then you have the regular police force manpower in this way in a similar kind not the same but a similar kind of division Solomon had splitted had split sorry his his his kind of manpower overall forces and hence he had one of the most powerful kingdoms on earth in his time this is how its explained in the tough seed of orbital Gaspar now to

me that does make sense and I'll explain so a powerful person from this division says I will bring you now what does bring you the throng mean was Suleiman Alison I'm asking them to go get her throng see we zoom in that's fine go get her throng we zoom out that's a huge problem why it's theft this is theft we are assuming that Solomon Ali Salaam is stealing that the throne of another Kingdom

he's just saying because there is no war between these people he we're assuming he's saying to his people go steal her throne and that's okay for a prophet to instruct people to steal Thrones just to impress her because the reason he's gonna bring the throne is just to impress her we're gonna see that in a moment so he's gonna steal it without her permission that's you see you zoom out that's a problem you zoom in it's like well okay we're just reading it as a story now what was he saying and who can bring me her throne as in who can bring

me like onto it who can make you know you've praised her throne so much make bring a throne for me like that get it done who can get it done and this person who is very capable says I can make a throne like hers before you get up from this gathering armed every day what's transmitted in scriptures is that Solomon would generally sit after sunrise after a little while till noon and that was his mom it was a royal maqam a royal sitting now he would sit there and he would deal with people's and the person said before

in a day before you get up I will get this I will make you a throne like hers but then listen call le the end ah ho l mu min al khattab a person who had the in the science of the knowledge of the Kitab he said Anna Atika be cobbling here today la Couture folk before in a glance I will get it done for you fala Mara are almost occur and Linda then when Solomon Sri Paula Harmon fugly Robbie Lia blue any ash

guramukh for he said surely this capacity God has tested me with that will I be grateful despite having all this power and then he says woman chakra for in the Maya she coral in FC woman Kara for in Nairobi honey uncaring and he says indeed whosoever is grateful allah is you know he says that he's grateful for he only does good to himself and whoever disbelieves and that Allah is surely rich and generous and that's an interesting thing but I'll just say come to that in a moment who was this person that said to Solomon

I will get the throne some people many more first Serena I've said this was a person who had knowledge from Allah lawful Mahfouz and mystical powers and he created it in a blink and he created this and zoom in it's justice it's a narrative is paranormal you zoom and that's a problem because these things don't happen like that now what's an alternative narrative that actually makes sense and once again in the tafseer orator was Baal Cher Abdul Karim Allah Abdul Karim Allah sorry he writes that this was a person who

HEPT he had detailed descriptions this Khattab of key features of key of landmark whether they were events or landmark kind of icons he had these things and he said I've actually got a descriptive detailed description of this massive throne the way like the peacock throne was described in so much detail with all its fine I think qualities to the British in a similar way this had been described and he has it written he's saying I can I can make

you from that so meaning it will be spot-on not just this person saying you know he can make it from his knowledge like he's heard about it but I have a detailed descriptive and people say there were drawings of it and things like this and so I can make it like for like and this thing of before you return to this coupling yesterday like a thoughtful before you look at this matter again what is a figurative speech of before you look at this matter again not that before you blink as in literally because once again that's problematic when you zoom out because

things like that don't happen so he does create this throne now Solomon al-islam is incredibly impressed with this gnome then he says look all Aniki rule aha are shahe number attached at the mtech unum an takuna mean and levena latin this is an amazing ayah because you can understand in so many different ways Nakuru many people understood here that this means and you can take that understanding it means disguisey because

they believed this person went and stole her throne and i've said before it doesn't befit prophets to steal Thrones okay to me that's a blasphemous allegation but nevertheless a lot of Muslims went with it they believed that Solomon had her stole throne her throne stolen and it was brutal back so he said disguisey nikiro that's one way of looking at it the other way of looking at it is he had it like for like made but then he said top it even

further make it even more glorious and he said make it so you know what it's already amazing take it up a notch to that extent that by doing so lucky ruler haha that even her throne she will be literally when she thinks looks at this throne so she will neck here and test and kill our shall be more our belly had a lot that she looking at this

throne thinks damn and I thought mine was good you seen nikiro lahar and I like that that way of reading it other people took it in the other way that he meant disguise it but I mean both the verb can mean both things so it's okay now the interesting thing is look fella my dad when when the Queen of Sheba arise when bilities arrives assuming her name is bill piece she arrives Kayla you see when you arrive at a royal palace in the past you had to come into a waiting

area you arrived and then you are received like you're kind of like brought in and the fascinating thing is you see Fallon Majid it is said to her Solomon doesn't say it is said to her that you know take like take a seat and then she's asked is your throne also like this a haka there are cookie you know like that you see some Muslims understood from this that he's saying oh is this like your throne by the way and she's

saying yeah it's kind of like that to me is a bit of a a kind of dull understand see the other understanding is it said in a in a diplomatic but there's a hint of kind of like hmm you know this is just a waiting room this isn't even the way the King sits that's inside this is that this is just where the guests sit and is yours wrong by the ways your throne like this and

she says and no more or less but it's more or less like that because you see the whole point was she saw that damn and one of my best landmark icons is my throne and they have one which tops that and it's just in the waiting area Wow you understand and and so she responds and know who you know it's it's like this moralist she doesn't say it is

it because even she feels like damn you know because she doesn't want to say to me Lois oh he's exactly like it she just says perhaps what routine la Lima mean Cobley hakuna muslimeen and then she's invited to enter the palace of solomon fella who'd Felisa and it's so majestic that when she steps in she thinks it's water falen Mara Alto has a but to Luger Rakesh efforts on Satya so she lifts up her dress to kind of because she thinks she's stepping into

water and he says announcer Homer Adam Minka why he says it's just glass but it's not water and then she eventually becomes Muslim and the story said states that generally I'm as far as I'm aware that she marries Solomon but that that has another interesting point in it by the way that you know people say oh my god how did she reveal her lower legs and oh my god and what's this about and then the Mufasa Dean have had to kind of do a crowbar to justify that story look it is what it

is and you know and the whole point is that this is in the Quran it's stating that obviously if it was an obscenity then it won't be stated in the Quran and it wouldn't be happening in front of prophets but the point is that this whole story the reason I mentioned this story is just to kind of highlight that we when we approach the Quran we have different ways we can either take things as mythology as kind of like myths that paranormal events or we can zoom out and

take a holistic picture and I would advise that we do take a holistic picture another good example that is given often is oh sorry another story that often comes up is Jesus in the cradle now that when America comes to the people bringing Jesus with her this is the verse of the Quran and many people assume that at this point Jesus is a little baby they're assuming this they assume that the people are accusing her of adultery although in the Quran it doesn't mention

any way that her people ever accused Mary of adultery that doesn't say later people did like hundreds of years later they did but in Mary's time when she arrives with Jesus they didn't now the question is when CH Mary alaihe salam arrives with jesus how old is jesus now one good thing would you see if we're just zooming in we can just read it as a story like oh and and it doesn't state but it implies that maybe he's a baby is just saying she brought him to carries what does that mean Tamela who you know like bring that that mean you can mean carry on

like horseback or on a donkey or on something it can like in the quranic comes that when the people come to you to the prophet leta mila home so that you can carry them it doesn't mean that's a verse of the quran it doesn't mean that the profit would carry these people it meant that you take them on the camels so it can mean that or it can mean physically carrying now many Muslims have gone with the fact that this here was Jesus as a baby but what they didn't do is look at the Christian sources because look Jesus is an incredible figure of the past to other communities whose also speak about

him now about Jesus ELISA LOM we know that when Jesus is born he doesn't I mean I know they take him to Jerusalem for the quick within the 40 days the ritual but then Jesus according to certain narrations he's taken to Egypt because of King Herod Herod the Great he was kind of butchering all babies under a baby boys under a certain age so they take Jesus away to Egypt and then he returns after a few years the Bible does the Bible speak of Jesus coming to

Jerusalem now most likely Jesus would have once he returned to - to - to Judea the Middle East he would have visited Jerusalem often especially since it was a pilgrimage to do so at least three times in a year that Passover and so on the all Jewish males once they were of a certain age would visit now the interesting thing is the Gospel of Luke actually does have a narration of when Jesus is around 12 years old what's interesting is that he is brought to

Jerusalem and then when Mary is she has brought him she in the Gospel of Luke when she is heading back they realized in the journey just into the journey that Jesus is missing so she searches for Jesus she comes back and searches for three days it says and eventually Mary is incredibly stressed out with not being able to find Jesus as you can imagine her baby I mean she's lost him she eventually finds him in the temple she finds him in the temple of jerusalem

debating the elders you see now that's really interesting it's fascinating because you see in the verse of the Quran they when Mary approaches these people they say to her what have you brought you know your father was a decent man your mother was a decent man what kind of child is this which many Muslims wrongly assumed or speaking about adultery now once again I do this why I do like this tafseer of Maulana Abdul Karim Allah sorry he highlights

this very same point he highlights that this was actually Jesus as stated in the Gospel of Luke he had been there for a few days and he had been trying to debate some of these elders in their understanding and naturally they were annoyed they didn't like I mean they didn't even like grown men debating them let alone a bloody child to them thinking that their attitude was this just a bloody child this is why should we listen to you they wouldn't listen to men so when she says that look you know

like whoa don't blame me like speak to him like what has he said and they say you know kafir neukölln woman cannot feel mad disappear how can we speak was just in a cradle he was in a cradle just a little boy you want us to speak to a little boy now we are the high priests of the Temple of Jerusalem to me that interpretation fits with the reality fits with you see when we zoom out it still fits the problem with the other one is we can read it and then Jesus said to them look in me Abdullah I am

the servant of God you know that he has blessed me he has made me kind to my mother he has made me Harambee wily dirty now the thing is this question that why is well why root to my mother you know why am I here why why stress this point because marry most likely would have been a bit upset as well because one he was missing for three days according to the Gospel of Luke and so she would have been incredibly terrified I mean she would've been really relieved to have found Jesus at least and I'm but she would have been very terrified as well and and also a

bit upset that what we you know why did you disappear and him responding in this way and then saying that Allah has told me poor too that we should pray and to give in arms to give charity and you see this this message once again telling it to the high priests who were all about just making money you know because the high priests were making they were rinsing the people they weren't really about giving charity and stuff so to me this narrative makes a lot more sense rather than saying oh look he was a child he spoke to them he did this

because when we zoom out we know that look the Jews generally did not believe in Jesus from a child and they don't even believe in him when he was a grown up now if they had seen a speaking baby surely that would have affected some of the Jewish people surely they would have thought this is a sign they would have believed surely they would have done something I mean babies don't speak like that not like adults so to me that doesn't add up then because we know they didn't accept Jesus we also know Mary was never accused of adultery in her lifetime because if she was she would have been killed

there was no way on earth they would have ever let Mary go because she and her being a woman was even more defenseless they would have just killed her the Jews I mean they you know they attempted to kill Jesus and you know in in their version they killed him in their version and the point is they had that power so to think that oh along comes a woman and they think this woman and then and Miri wasn't from some prestigious family with all these kind of Defense she's very defenseless if they thought she'd commit adultery they would have just stoned her to death and killed her but that doesn't happen in reality so

when we zoom out it doesn't add up it's too it's too convenient this story you know it doesn't add up when you step back you know that hmm neither did was there any miracles neither were there any accounts of this kind of stuff and not knowing what the general Christians who who transmitted in their version of authenticity I know that there's questions with the authenticity but well that's my point so I hope this gives shed some light people on why and how I believe we should engage with narratives in the Quran that when we step back it should

still fit it shouldn't be something that only when we're so sumed in it doesn't matter you know oh yeah this flying people Solomon is flying on a magic carpet this is what a lot of people believe they believe that Solomon had like a magic carpet and or some people believe he had a cloud and he's just fly on this cloud and used to go around the world on a cloud or on a magic carpet and this kind of stuff and you know all Jesus speaking as a baby you're doing these but when you zoom out none of these things add up so the other narratives all add up and they are in out of seer the problem is that many

people don't push them why because they themselves they too caught up in this kind of mythological perspective that they've had since they were children and they're not created a not people of critical reasoning say this is the problem you know we don't have we lack scholars who have who have critical reasoning and we don't have that so cool