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Books, poetry and ideas
71 segments in 30 recordings · 2016 to 2023 · 0 verified · 36 checked positions · arts
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 10 Mar 2023
10 Mar 2023video
LatestCan a pregnancy last for years, as was said of Imam Malik's birth?
No: reports of years-long pregnancies are best explained by phantom pregnancies followed by real conception, not dismissed as lies or taken literally.
machine7 min 07 s6:54on YouTube
Earlier answers · 70 · newest first
2023 · 1
22 Feb 2023video
LatestDid some Muslim scholars say homosexuality is not haram?
Mufti Abu Layth says he described, not endorsed, a minority view that it is not haram; Islamic history holds diverse views, many scholars' poetry shows bisexual appreciation, and persecution is unacceptable.
machine5 min 43 s16:33on YouTube
2022 · 3
19 Aug 2022video
LatestIdentity, Midnight's Children, the fatwa and the years in hiding
Mufti Abu Layth says Rushdie's lack of a secure identity runs through his books, and recounts Midnight's Children, Khomeini's fatwa and the years in hiding before turning to The Satanic Verses.
machine2 min 38 s25:03on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
What is The Satanic Verses actually about?
Mufti Abu Layth summarises the novel's plot, including the Mahound episode and the brothel whose women bear the names of the Prophet's wives, and says this part, though short, shows the book's hostility to Islam.
machine9 min 11 s32:57on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
Is The Satanic Verses a critique of Islam or an insult?
Mufti Abu Layth says the novel is an insult rather than a critique, since it makes no argument and only portrays the Prophet and his wives offensively.
machine2 min 40 s42:08on YouTube
2021 · 25
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDid Lupe Fiasco's way with words come naturally?
The guest says words did not come naturally: he trained himself by copying words from magazine covers into raps until metaphors and images came easily.
machine6 min 23 s19:40on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do we think in words or in images?
The guest argues that shapes are more fundamental than words or pictures; Mufti Abu Layth says words are also reductive, forcing profound things into limited form.
machine7 min 48 s26:43on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestIs the soul the same thing as consciousness?
The guest describes storytelling as a syncing of minds; Mufti Abu Layth says he feels consciousness is synonymous with the ruh and links people weakly at a distance.
machine3 min 14 s35:08on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDid everyone at the time of the Prophet accept Islam without questions?
The guest says early Muslims, including poets, had real critiques; Mufti Abu Layth says the deen should complement life rather than complicate it.
machine5 min 51 s1:10:04on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhat inspired the story of Lupe Fiasco's album The Cool?
Mufti Abu Layth describes a classical tale of a poet's journey through paradise; the guest explains the resurrection story behind his album The Cool and the slave-ship myth of Drogas Wave.
machine7 min 47 s1:17:52on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is humanity becoming more or less moral?
The guest says morality is remade daily, with no overall rise or fall and no consistent definition; Mufti Abu Layth says he agrees.
machine5 min 13 s1:24:22on YouTube
26 Apr 2021MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is life just a dream in the mind of God?
The guest says life is real and material, the unseen is part of nature, and ordinary people do not need the supernatural.
machine3 min 15 s2:02:07on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What did Ibn Rushd mean by the 'double truth' of religion and philosophy?
Mufti Abu Layth says it is not 'double truth', but he agrees fully with Ibn Rushd that the sharia is built for ordinary people while the gifted can find its deeper meanings.
machine6 min 31 s2:35:57on YouTube
13 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestHow can I be sure my reason is not wrong?
Mufti Abu Layth says al-Ghazali answered his doubt by relying on God; today, he says, the very existence of a consciousness that can doubt is itself the sign of God.
machine5 min 13 s2:52:58on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestAn Urdu poem of living on after the beloved
Mufti Abu Layth reads and explains an Urdu poem on living on after the beloved, a mix of despair and hope.
machine6 min 59 s12:37on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is it haram to believe the universe will never end?
It is not haram: creation, including the afterlife, once brought into being remains forever in some form while still being other than God.
machine1 min 24 s1:34:16on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestDoes Ibn Hazm contradict himself in The Ring of the Dove?
Mufti Abu Layth knows of no contradiction; he describes The Ring of the Dove as Ibn Hazm's mature study of the psychology of love and retells one of its bawdy stories.
machine9 min 05 s28:09on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
An Urdu poem: if anyone asks who I am, say nobody special
Mufti Abu Layth reads and briefly explains an Urdu poem about being nobody special and about a companion whose absence empties life.
machine3 min 05 s11:06on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Who is the Mufti's favourite Western philosopher?
Mufti Abu Layth names no single favourite but likes Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Diogenes, and feels Muslims have been left out of philosophy in recent centuries.
machine1 min 45 s1:23:18on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can atheism explain consciousness?
Mufti Abu Layth says atheists have strong points, but their case collapses at consciousness and quantum physics; atheism only works against Newtonian, institutional religion.
machine4 min 28 s1:42:23on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
A sung Andalusian Arabic poem shared from YouTube
Mufti Abu Layth plays a sung classical Arabic poem and calls it majestic.
machine3 min 48 s20:02on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why does every spiritual awakening story have a time of withdrawal?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees that the ascetic phase in awakening stories is an archetype, like Tolstoy's two plots.
machine1 min 20 s2:04:12on YouTube
26 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Could the hadith tradition evolve like a living organism?
As food for thought, he suggests that the hadith system, like other belief systems, behaves like an evolving organism that drives people to standardise and preserve it.
machine10 min 28 s2:12:03on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
A classical Arabic love poem on how the prophets' attributes are shared out
Mufti Abu Layth recites a classical Arabic love poem in which the beloved gets the prophets' beauty and the poet their sorrows.
machine3 min 46 s7:57on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Who was Ibn Rushd (Averroes)?
Mufti Abu Layth presents Ibn Rushd as a Maliki judge, physician and the great commentator on Aristotle, honoured in Europe but exiled and neglected by Muslims.
machine12 min 46 s1:56:13on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How did Ibn Rushd answer al-Ghazali's attack on the philosophers?
Mufti Abu Layth explains that Ibn Rushd answered al-Ghazali by showing that what he refuted was mostly neoplatonism, not Aristotle.
machine3 min 52 s2:16:37on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
What did Ibn Rushd say about women's abilities?
Mufti Abu Layth highlights Ibn Rushd's argument, 900 years ago, that women equal men in ability and that confining them to the home impoverished his cities.
machine6 min 55 s2:20:29on YouTube
19 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
A risque proverb from al-Andalus: 'the nerves are connected'
A bawdy Andalusian proverb, 'the nerves are connected', shared by Mufti Abu Layth as a joke.
machine2 min 31 s3:09:50on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Poetry: a ghazal on love, beauty and patience
A poetry interlude: he reads and explains a poem about love, beauty and patience.
machine3 min 46 s1:03:06on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is process theology compatible with the Quran?
No: he says its idea that God depends on creation as creation depends on God is not the Quranic worldview.
machine2 min 31 s2:49:23on YouTube
2020 · 17
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why don't madrasas teach the Islamic philosophers and the Mu'tazila?
The guest says traditionalists value only a narrow sliver of Islam's diverse intellectual heritage, ignoring the philosophers, the early Qadariyya and Mu'tazila, Shia thinkers and modernists, and that he found answers on religion and science in Ibn Rushd.
machine3 min 58 s15:30on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Isn't reason subjective, and is something good only because God commands it?
The guest says the Ash'ari voluntarist view of ethics is the real relativism and argues for universal moral values grounded in God's nature; Mufti Abu Layth calls the Ash'ari denial of inherent good and bad nonsense.
machine4 min 16 s29:42on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Where does morality come from if not from God?
The guest says a theist can ground moral realism in God while an atheist who relies on evolution alone cannot, and that traditionalist debaters exploit opponents who know little philosophy.
machine5 min 49 s34:45on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is morality an instinct God put in us?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the fitrah is a hardwired moral instinct of recognising harm and feeling empathy, built on by environment and a collective consciousness; the guest adds that morality can be confidently grounded in God.
machine3 min 30 s39:47on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If morality is universal, why was slavery accepted for so long?
The guest says moral ideals exist in God and humans approximate them; past acceptance of slavery came from not recognising others' full humanity, and ritual laws such as the pork prohibition differ from universal moral law.
machine4 min 24 s43:17on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Does God's morality change over time?
The guest says universal morality does not change, only ritual law: the Quran corrects the biblical conquest narrative by implying the Israelites inherited Egypt rather than slaughtering another people.
machine2 min 11 s47:41on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Do animals have morality, and does that mean morality just evolved?
Mufti Abu Layth sees a sense of justice in primates as evidence of a raw moral fitrah that humans develop further; the guest warns this can suggest morality is merely evolved and says rooting it in God is the necessary step.
machine4 min 06 s49:52on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
If we all recognise harm, why do people still do terrible things?
Mufti Abu Layth says empathy can be overridden by instincts such as power, and that a shared consciousness shapes the moral feel of an age; he notes the Quran commands justice without defining it, which the guest links to the Mu'tazila.
machine4 min 26 s53:58on YouTube
15 Nov 2020video
Is the evil eye based on science?
It rested on the old belief that eyes shoot out rays, which people once took as science; Ibn al-Qayyim described envious 'arrows' from the eye. Ibn al-Haytham and later science showed that eyes only take in light.
machine12 min 34 s28:32on YouTube
17 Oct 2020video
LatestDid Rumi use harmala seed and a DMT-containing reed flute?
Rumi drank preparations of harmala seed, an MAO inhibitor, and was devoted to his ney flute, made from a reed that contains DMT; Mufti Abu Layth says it is very likely Rumi had psychedelic experiences.
machine6 min 43 s11:41on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are psychedelics like DMT haram in Islam?
Mufti Abu Layth does not consider psychedelics such as DMT haram or intoxicants, and advocates them as entheogens for spiritual discovery rather than recreation.
machine9 min 54 s30:58on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestMusic interlude and a remark on poets
A music interlude, followed by a remark that poets keep compassion and free thought alive in the Muslim world.
machine4 min 25 s1:22:56on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
If Muslims focus too much on the beard, what deserves more focus?
Mufti Abu Layth answers by mocking the focus on beards and shaved moustaches, quoting al-Mutanabbi that such an ummah has become a laughing stock.
machine3 min 02 s2:18:44on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
An Urdu poem by Ahmad Faraz: the enemy of my life was once dearer than life
Mufti Abu Layth reads and translates an Urdu ghazal by Ahmad Faraz on a lost love who was once dearer than life.
machine3 min 03 s1:58:38on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Arabic poetry: Antara ibn Shaddad's love for Abla
Mufti Abu Layth reads and translates love poetry by Antara ibn Shaddad for Abla, including his lines of pride in his dark skin and his courage.
machine6 min 19 s2:01:41on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is consciousness in the brain, or is the brain a receiver for the soul?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that consciousness is non-local and the brain a receiver like a radio; the guest disagrees, describing a human as matter plus information that is backed up in God's record and restored to a new body at the resurrection.
machine7 min 51 s2:53:05on YouTube
28 Apr 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Why did Islam not abolish slavery outright?
Islam did not abolish slavery outright because the collective consciousness of the age could not yet see it as wrong, but it encouraged emancipation as a route to that change. Slavery was always wrong, and Mufti Abu Layth says Jonathan Brown's three axioms rest on a shallow analysis.
machine9 min 23 s11:48on YouTube
2019 · 13
17 Dec 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Did ancient civilisations have knowledge that was later lost?
Mufti Abu Layth finds convincing the view that advanced ancient civilisations were destroyed around the Younger Dryas and left knowledge seen in old maps and constellation-aligned sites. He believes the Nabataeans built on earlier sites at Petra and set up devotion sites aligned to its constellation.
machine3 min 55 s14:26on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Moving to Yasir Qadhi, by way of an Urdu couplet on Moses at Sinai
Before turning to Yasir Qadhi Mufti Abu Layth recites Urdu verses on Moses at Sinai and on passion carrying one to one's destiny.
machine2 min 33 s0:01on YouTube
3 Nov 2019Responding to Refutations
Why is Mufti Abu Layth responding to Yasir Qadhi?
Mufti Abu Layth says he feels Qadhi may be in an existential crisis and does not believe much of what he says, and that even hypocrisy should keep some integrity, like the frankly self-confessed fraud of an Urdu poem.
machine3 min 48 s2:34on YouTube
19 Sep 2019Responding to Refutations
Converts who start teaching at once, with lines of Urdu poetry
Mufti Abu Layth continues that some people, as soon as they embrace Islam, start teaching it to others. He recites Urdu and Persian verses, poorly captured in the transcript, on a road that does not lead to a destination and on taking two or three steps without completing a journey, and on embracing even those who are not one's own. He says he has never claimed piety, and cites the Quranic rebuke of those who consider their becoming Muslim a favour. He says it bothers him when he sees this, and that it is not exclusive to converts, as many born Muslims tread the same path.
machine2 min 58 s16:22on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is music with explicit or violent lyrics haram?
Lyrics do not make music haram: Arabic poetry about sex and alcohol was recited in the Prophet's mosque and is still studied by every scholar, and Ka'b ibn Zuhayr recited his love-opening ode from the Prophet's minbar. Mufti Abu Layth does not promote a culture of violence and drugs but says people can judge content for themselves.
machine6 min 34 s15:47on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
If obscene lyrics make music haram, what about the classical Arabic poetry taught in madrasas?
Classical Arabic poetry taught in every major madrasa, from Abu Nuwas to the Hamasa and Imru' al-Qais, is as full of violence, alcohol and sex as rap lyrics, so condemning rap on religious grounds is a double standard. Parents may set their own rules for their children without attributing them to God.
machine11 min 32 s36:43on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Does sound exist if nobody hears it?
Sound, colour, taste and smell are the brain's interpretations of vibrations and waves, so the universe itself is silent and colourless. A tree falling with nobody to hear it makes no sound, only vibrations.
machine3 min 53 s48:15on YouTube
18 Sep 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
What is Mufti Abu Layth's final verdict on whether music is haram?
Music is not haram: no clear sahih hadith prohibits it and the default law makes everything permissible unless proven otherwise. Mufti Abu Layth calls it the nourishment of the soul, notes that sound is only vibration interpreted by a listener, and cites music therapy in medieval Muslim hospitals.
machine4 min 42 s1:06:32on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
What is liberalism, and do liberals have to follow John Locke?
Liberalism is essentially a stance against authoritarianism, not allegiance to historical philosophers. Agreeing with Locke on one point does not make anyone a Christian or bind them to his whole philosophy.
machine6 min 19 s6:24on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Ethics evolve: slavery, human agency and the genetic fallacy
Mufti Abu Layth argues that if ethics do not develop over time and only seventh-century ethics count, one would have to say slavery is fine, since the Quran acknowledged its ubiquity without abolishing it at the time, which he calls ridiculous. He says people hold liberal attitudes without having read Locke or Rousseau, being capable agents, not automatons. By the lecture's logic, he says, everything in Islam first championed by others would belong to them, as Socrates and Plato spoke of God and the soul first, which he calls an infantilising theory. He gives his own opposition to capital punishment, shared by most people in Europe, as an example of a view held without allegiance to Rousseau, Locke, Bentham or Bertrand Russell.
machine5 min 06 s24:46on YouTube
4 Aug 2019From the Mind of a Mufti
Is music haram in Islam?
No: he says music is not haram and is arguably nourishment for the soul, pointing to its use for healing in medieval Muslim hospitals.
machine2 min 39 s0:00on YouTube
8 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
How should Muslims read the stories in the Quran?
Quranic stories can be read as narrative and for lessons, but where they suggest the supernatural we must ask how to read them, unlike myths we never take as real.
machine9 min 32 s1:57on YouTube
8 Jan 2019Ponderings on the Holy Quran
What does the Quran say about kings in the story of Sheba?
The Queen's saying that kings ruin the towns they enter raises the question of what gives anyone the right to rule others.
machine2 min 34 s24:54on YouTube
2018 · 4
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
How do we know mental illness is not really jinn possession?
Mufti Abu Layth answers that an explanation which fits everything, like a child told that cyborgs cause all events, is not thereby true; the jinn have become the Muslim catch-all. Such belief is what Basil Mitchell's parable of the partisan describes, a faith no evidence can shake.
machine5 min 14 s28:46on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What medical conditions could have been mistaken for possession in the past?
Conditions such as palinopsia, where after-images persist, and Charles Bonnet syndrome, where people see faces, teeth and buildings that are not there, have known brain causes today but would once have looked like demons. Oliver Sacks's patient knew her visions were unreal, unlike the persecutory beliefs of psychosis.
machine3 min 58 s36:39on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
If exorcisms and ruqya sometimes work, does that prove possession is real?
No: real symptoms can be produced or relieved by belief alone, as Ted Kaptchuk's study with fake pills and retractable needles showed, so an exorcism or ruqya can 'work' through the placebo effect. Some people would also have recovered regardless.
machine3 min 56 s40:37on YouTube
15 Apr 2018Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
What is the 'jinn of the gaps'?
It is Mufti Abu Layth's name for blaming the jinn for anything not yet understood, as atheists accuse believers of a god of the gaps. He lists conditions such as Capgras delusion, hemispatial neglect, aphantasia and foreign accent syndrome that have or will have natural explanations but would once have been called possession.
machine6 min 34 s48:28on YouTube
2017 · 6
19 Oct 2017video
How was the economy of the Prophet's time different from today's?
The Quranic prohibition came in an economy of finite gold, where wealth could only grow by taking it from others. Money, which Mufti Abu Layth calls humanity's greatest invented story, was later dematerialised into paper, changing everything.
machine7 min 14 s29:45on YouTube
19 Oct 2017video
How did Adam Smith and industrialisation change attitudes to greed and lending?
Adam Smith's idea of the pursuit of self-interest and the industrial-era promise of a better tomorrow changed a mindset in which greed was simply evil and nobody would lend. These are ingredients of the modern economy the Quran did not address.
machine4 min 40 s36:59on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
How do we know mental illnesses are not really jinn possessions?
A theory that explains everything, like a child's cyborg conspiracy, is not thereby true, and 'the jinn' is such a theory for Muslims. Like Basil Mitchell's partisan who rationalises everything the stranger does, this is non-propositional faith that no evidence can reach.
machine5 min 18 s1:19:28on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Could seeing figures or faces that are not there be a brain condition rather than a jinn?
Yes: palinopsia makes after-images persist and Charles Bonnet syndrome makes an overactive fusiform gyrus produce faces, teeth and buildings, as Oliver Sacks's patient saw men with long teeth while knowing they were not real. In the past such visions could only be explained as demons.
machine3 min 55 s1:27:25on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
If someone got better after ruqya or an exorcism, does that prove it worked?
Not necessarily: the placebo and nocebo effects produce real relief and real symptoms, as Kaptchuk's trial with cornstarch pills and retractable needles showed. Some patients would also have recovered anyway and are counted as cures.
machine3 min 56 s1:31:20on YouTube
20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and Superstitions
Could strange symptoms blamed on jinn have medical explanations?
Yes: face blindness, mirror-touch synaesthesia, phantom limbs, alien hand syndrome, the Capgras delusion, hemispatial neglect, aphantasia and foreign accent syndrome are all documented conditions that the past could only call demons. Blaming the unexplained on jinn is a 'jinn of the gaps'; the Prophet's hadith on cures says go and find the knowledge.
machine7 min 56 s1:37:52on YouTube
2016 · 1
15 Mar 2016video
Is morality innate? Language acquisition, divine command, and insecurity in faith
The speakers hold that the Quran treats humans as having an innate moral sense, compared to an innate capacity for language, and say faith should not depend on silencing those who question it.
machine6 min 32 s17:23on YouTube