Transcript for:
Exploring Islamic Philosophy and Theology

H so let's uh talk about Islamic philosophy um what are the the core building blocks that Islamic philosophy is built upon the core building blocks well I think first of all uh Islamic philosophy has has two roads um one of them is the philosophers themselves people like alindi Al farabi aasa and they pursue a very specific philosophical tract but because they were believers they obviously bring in Islam to some degree the other tract though is really a philosophical track that's profoundly roed uh rooted in the Islamic tradition itself and so you see the flourishing of it with people like Al gazali um and then ultimately moving into the great Scholastics of the Islamic theological tradition so these are the people like sadin tazan [Music] Umi and they're using the philosophers but they're really integrating them into the Islamic tradition so it's a very rich tradition but it's rooted in the Quran and and I think it's it's rooted first of all in the idea that um the world is created that the that there is a an ex nio creation of God so they're very interested in in proving or giving rational beliefs for that so the calam cosmological argument comes out of that this idea that uh to prove the world had a beginning um something obviously at the time the philosophers who were the scientists of that time did not believe and so it's very interesting that the prophets asserted something that would have been anti-scientific and yet today scientists are asserting what the prophets had asserted you know so and also the end of the world that the world comes to an end so I think there's uh there's a very rich Islamic philosophical tradition it it it eventually moves almost entirely into uh a religious metaphysical tradition and it's kept alive today largely by the Shia community so the the Shia have a great uh philosophical tradition that they still adhere to in the Sunni World there are still Pockets but overall it's it's more become a formal uh tradition where more dogmatic where they learn uh dogmatically the text as opposed to really delving deep into the philosophical issues but there is a Resurgence of uh of Cam and of philosophy amongst uh young Muslims so it's it's interesting let's go back to the origin as you said in the in the two foundations one is the pure philosophy and one is the philosophy embedded in the religious tradition what are some examples of each and how do they artic ulate well I think what happens with with the Arabs I mean obviously the Arabs before Islam are relegated to uh an a pretty provincial isolated area the Arabian Peninsula you did have some Arabs in in the Levant in in places like Syria and uh what was then um uh known as sham by the Arabs which is uh Israel Palestine um Syria Lebanon in that area you you you did have uh Christian Arabs and so they would have been exposed to some degree to the uh the Byzantine tradition the philosophical tradition of the of the uh Byzantine uh Christians but the the Muslims discover uh the Greeks and I think that sets off a a a new trajectory because prior to that they were definitely rooted in in their tradition but suddenly they discover the Greeks they also discover Christian theology so the Christian theology suddenly kind of excites them I mean I'll give you an example uh there's there's a verse in the Quran that says that Christ is the K which could mean logos I mean it means word but obviously it could mean logos so this was a question that the the Christians posited to the Muslims if Christ is the the kma the logos is is God's logos Eternal and therefore is Christ Eternal so you can see see the syllogism being set up there and um and so that was a first kind of shock to them and that develops What's called the kamam tradition of having to deal with questions that are being posited to them because I mean I think any faith becomes challenged when it steps outside of itself and suddenly it's confronted with other positions other views and uh I think it makes face stronger especially when it's challenged by even within itself by heretical ideas um and this is you get the dialectic between heresy and Orthodoxy and then very often there's there's a synthesis and so I think that's what's happening in that early period with these philosophers they're they're thinking deeply about issues they're also beginning to organize in a way because the Quran is is a book that that comes with very um it's a nonlinear book and so it's it's speaking in first person second person it's something in Arabic called iltifat which is very unusual so God's changing uh you constantly we you I he and so that creates a kind of um vertiges uh experience when reading the Quran for people are not accustomed to that the Bible is much more linear so when they when they meet the Greeks they kind of are are confronted with a much more structured way of of viewing things and so that begins to emerge a kind of structured uh philosophy and and it becomes highly developed and I think a lot of uh the most educated Europeans and westerners generally know the incredible debt that Western Civilization has on the Islamic tradition including the Jewish tradition which um im's famous phif which is the aims of the philosophers was translated into Hebrew and became it was it was really kind of like a dummy a Philosophy for Dummies but it became a major uh work and in fact uh uh Professor cherto who was at Columbia University did his PhD on the influence of gazali on the rabinal tradition um what are some of the fundamental ontological aspects of Islamic philosophy obviously God is the preeminent um element but one question that comes up in various Traditions is the world that God created real or is it just sort of the emanation of God in some uh in some um um almost virtual sense right and I think the Muslims generally our tradition adheres to a kind of correspondence theory there is an idea that God has created a world that is matched with the mind that it's not a trick it's not a Darian you know cartisian uh demon who's fooling Us in some way we're not in the Matrix that my experience of you that you are objectively real to me and that my mind experiences you and and and that I can assume that you indeed do exist and we can exchange ideas because our minds are designed to be able to collaborate in that way so I think the the Muslims really do believe that there there are many verses in the Quan that say that God created the heavens the Earth with truth and so there's an idea that that uh truth is here and that that this the the the beautiful word in Arabic for world is which means the instrument of knowledge and so the idea is that the the particulars of the world um are meant to take us to an aggregate that leads to an understanding that God created the world and so it's designed and our minds are designed to to to move towards a knowledge of God there's a beautiful book that was uh written called it's a famous book The awake son of the awake but it's a philosophical musing by an andian philosopher that actually had influence in the West and his idea is a kind of Robinson Caruso character who comes he's on a desert island he has nobody and he begins to just reflect and his reflection ultimately takes him to God and so the Quran definitely has this idea about if you reflect deeply you know there are many verses in the Quran telling us reflect deeply think about these signs and the fact that the the Quran calls um there are two signs the signs that are actually the verses of Quran are called signs so they need to be decoded but then there's also the idea that the greater world is it's a natural theology approach it's a natural Theology and I think the the one of the beauties of the Quran is it's it's constantly tell you know some people think religion is is telling us to stop thinking and just simply become dogmatic and and just be fistic and and the Quran is saying think haven't you looked at the at the camel how it was created you looked at the winds how they work in such magnificent uh order so there's this idea that there's order in creation and that order has to have some design I mean one of the reasons that the Quran uh gives for um for understanding God is that there's a kind of providential um care that God has given us and and there are many verses that tell us about the blessings like having you seen how everything is we made the Earth there's a beautiful verse that says we made the earth a bed for you and and in the commentaries they say it's it's neither too hard like rock so you couldn't build on it nor is it too soft like sand so you couldn't live on it but he made it in that middle area like a bed you know you don't want a bed too hard or too soft and so those are the kind of blessings that uh and then food the diversity of food all these things the idea is to reflect on these and to to kind of come to conclusions that there's there's a Creator behind this there there is a source behind this it's an intelligent source and it's a source that that speaks to us through these these individuals the great Jewish prophets um uh we believe that uh Christ obviously is one of the prophets not Son of God but a prophet and then uh the prophet Muhammad so there is and that's not it's not limited to the Jewish prophets um there's a belief in the Quran tells us that every peoples have been given prophets so the Asian peoples had their Prophets The you know the native peoples here in America had their prophets everybody has been given some kind of access to this um Supra rational world uh because our intellects science has a has a ceiling there's there's an unknowable uh aspect of what what's beyond that and so uh that's where metaphysics comes in hamsa I'd really like to understand the Islamic god um I am more familiar in terms of conversations with the God has portrayed in Christian philosophy to a lesser degree Jewish philosophy um and I know there are great similarities but let's drill down to the Islamic God I've heard of the 99 names I understand the apophatic tradition that we can only know God in the negative because God's Beyond being uh which I thought uh what little I've read of Islamic philosophy seeing God as be Beyond being not a category that even can be conceptualized was was very um enlightening very exciting to me so I want to understand the the depth of the nature of God or Allah right soah the the the nature of God you know the idea of God first of all is is a is a very human idea this concept that that there's a there's something Beyond us there there's a Creator you know the the idea of recognizing our own createdness that we weren't here and now we're here and we know that soon we will not be here other people will be here and and so the the Jew the Jewish understanding of God which which comes into the world obviously with with the the great Jewish tradition um basically morphs into Christianity which has a very different view of God and then about 600 years later the prophet comes and and really is addressing both the Jewish and the Christian understandings acknowledging the Jewish god but criticizing the Christian God and so there's this idea of restoring a kind of radical monotheism to God so I think that's at the at the heart of Islam is to restore a radical monotheism to God that God is one without any Partners without any personas the persons of God the the the Triune God and so for Muslims the we learn about God first and foremost from the Quran but outside of that there is also an understanding in our tradition that you should not be your belief in God should not be a type of imitation of just simply uh something that drives atheist crazy uh why believe in God cu the Quran says so well how do you know the quran's from God because God says so where does he say it in the Quran so there's this idea of trying to get out of that circular reasoning by by really coming to a natural philosophy and a natural understanding of God so you have those two tracks if we look at what the Quran says about God the most fundamental thing it says about God is there is no God there is nothing worthy of worshiped except the one true God the name Allah there's a different opinion about it but one of the opinions is it comes from which means to bewilder or to perplex um iloh is in in uh in in the Jewish tradition they they have Elohim in Arabic these These are related there are others Muslim Scholars say Allah is just uniquely a name that has no derivation that it's the personal name of God it's like John or Mark Is the personal name of a human being and so Muslims try to understand God through uh the Quran first and foremost and the most fundamental verse that tells us about God is uh the 112th chapter which is a stunning uh summation of the reality of God so it says say God is one and one is not a number in the Arabic tradition numbers begin with two so say God is unique God is one Allah Allah God is cannot be there there's there's no holess to God God is is whole God is infinite um God has no needs and then God did was not begotten nor did he beget uh and then finally there's nothing like unto God so any idea that comes to the mind one of the things that I learned as a a student of theology was anything that occurs to your mind God is other than that so we cannot conceptualize God God has no gender um unfortunately in Arabic you can speak uh without the problem of masculine feminine like uh you can in Persian in English we have he and she and it and so generally the Quran has been translated with the the masculine but there's no masculinity associated with God God is a possessor of majestic attributes and a possessor of beautiful attributes but that verse according to our theologians uh looks at the these eight aspects the first God is one it means that God is neither composite he's he's he's simple he's neither composite nor are their Partners there aren't Gods beside him so it negates those two aspects Allah he neither has need uh and everybody is in need of God so he he has no needs he's free of needs and defects and then he is neither caused nor does he cause anything in an arist artian first mover sense like like that's connected with the cause so he neither causes uh in in in a in in a you know a a cause and effect sense nor does is he caused himself and finally there's nothing like him he has no peer and he has no opposite so that really sum up it's it's an extraordinary chapter because the even a betan can learn that and I was once uh in uh in the United Arab Emirates and I was with some ban and they asked me what my religion was before Islam and I said it was an Orthodox Christian and they said what did they believe and I said well they believe Jesus Son of God and then one of the young bedan and they had their sticks you know that they have for camels and he said uh well that makes sense because you know he didn't have a a a a father so God must have been and his father and the other bedin took his stick and hit him on his knee and said he neither uh begotten nor was he begotten and it really struck me these were illiterate people but this verse you know this this short chapter made him a kind of Theologian um how do you contrast the two ideas that God is beyond categories which you describe very eloquently in in the so-called apophatic tradition that you can only know God is in the negative negative as opposed to Asser and yet on the other hand you have the 99 names of God which are all positive affirmations sure great question so first of all the idea you know the Aristotelian categories begins with substance and then it's got It's got all of these predicates that go with that so God is is not a substance he does there's no genus God is outside of the idea of genus and species so we can't Define him in a tradition way that logicians would have used in premodern logic um but at the same time and this is where you get in our tradition what's called T which T is like Transcendence that God is transcendent utterly Transcendent but also that God allows us to know God and the way God allows us to know is through attributes and but those attributes have to be understood in a kind of mathematical sense of any number over infinity is zero so the idea that it's approximations so we the 99 Names tell us that God is merciful and compassionate those are the first two attributes in the Quran so how do we know mercy and compassion well the Quran says look into yourselves you know that that we have been created in this metaphysical image so that we can know this imod Dei that we can know God through reflecting on ourselves and that's why the great polymath Persian polymath raahan says that every book that has ever been revealed has said in it know yourself and you will know God in some way or another and so self- knowledge is what will take us to a kind of knowledge of God and that's a natural theology too that's a natural theology absolutely and so so the the names there are 99 Names there's actually 121 names in in the Quran but there are 99 that the prophet said whoever memorizes them and knows them will enter Paradise if they if they know them yeah and so like the Jewish tradition has 72 names of God in some of the iterations um so the idea that God has multiple names in fact in our tradition there are names that we don't know God has withheld names from us and there's a beautiful prayer of the Prophet every name that you have taught to a prophet or taught to someone or you have kept uh in your own knowledge so that God has infinite names because he's infinite in in Islam what is the nature of the person and normally we ask is there a non-physical component that makes us who we are um is it some kind of spirit is there an immortal soul in the platonic sense uh what makes us mentally human beings right so so the the Quran gives um five different words that compose the human being it gives it gives a word akal which means it's a difficult word now because we intellect means something very different to Modern people than it did to premodern people because intellect is from Latin this idea of being able to judge between things um but in in Arabic the is is is a immaterial that moves towards intelligibles so it's an immaterial quality of the human being that moves towards intelligible so if if if I'm studying mathematics my my intellect is moving towards these abstract entities we call numbers uh that are intelligibles and then we have the Quran has what's called which is HEB so this is this is the spirit when it's directed towards the Ultimate Reality which is God and and not to the intelligibles and then The NPS is the next one nefes in in Hebrew also is the idea of the soul but it's the soul when it's directed towards worldly things the more lower things generally and so and then it it talks about the uh the body itself uh that we have we have this body and then it talks about the heart so these are the these are the heart represents emotion the heart represents intellect also the Quran says they have hearts but they don't reason with them and so there's this connection between the and so the in Arabic the heart comes from a word which means to oscillate between two opposites so it literally can mean to be turned upside down so the idea is that that our hearts move towards good but then sometimes they can move towards the opposite and that's the Human Condition you know our lives have a mingle there's a moral component to that there's a moral component exactly so the heart is is related and then there's other words like fuad is another word it very rich words so that's the benefits that the heart gets from perceiving reality so so if we take all five or six together as a composite uh what does that imply about the nature of the person that we're very complex okay we're very complex we're very complex and that we have we have a natural uh movement towards the good so this is understood that the the soul wants to know God the soul was created to know God and that's a natural movement towards good when when Aristotle says in book one of The metaphysics that all humans want to know that is very consonant with a Muslim understanding that they want to know reality which is God and and this is what uh is is in our tradition is called the the intellectual potential what the Scholastics call the apprehensive appetite apprehensive meaning quick to understand the desire to know and so the the human being is is a composite of Heaven and Earth and this is why we're we're we're we're we have an Angelic nature and then we have a beastial nature and these two are are very often in this kind of antagonistic relationship so God put the head on the top he put the thumos the chest in the middle and then he put the stomach and the genitals down below and that's the order for an upright person yeah to be following you know so reason should govern uh emotions and appetite when it gets turned upside down that's it's it literally means to be turned upside down so when it gets turned upside down the human being now is is completely uh discombobulated you know he's completely uh now now these are attributes in the sense of of the expressions of of what a person is but what what is the U kind of the the the mechanism that that's causing that because you can I mean from my old science and Neuroscience I can make an argument how all of those things are reflected in the brain and that's all you need to do that uh on the other hand some people talk that you have to have an immortal soul that that that creates that so those attributes are they they each have a different kind of character the body is that's going to obviously be physical emotions are one thing and intellect is another nees and ru pardon that's that's my knowledge of Hebrew not Arabic so but but there a you know obviously great correspondence um and and so those are slightly different categories right and so H how how are they generated what is the mechanism well there's an immaterial soul in our tradition I mean we believe that God uh breathes into the human being the the the nees you know the the the soul and and and that that's what us and that's why if you see if you see a dead person you know I I've washed many bodies I I worked in an intensive care unit and saw many people die there there is such a extraordinary difference between an animated living human being and a corpse right I mean we can just see that's something profoundly uh Missing there uh with the loss of that that breath you know the which in Arabic uh the the the word for soul is related both R Andes are related to breath and so this idea of this Spirit um the Native Americans used to use the pipe to show the the the the the breath so that they could see that it was a it was a human and not a you know not an inanimate type of spirit so I I think the the soul is the the Quran the definitive verse about the Quran is they ask you about the soul say the soul is from the command of God and you've you've only you you've only been given a little bit of knowledge we just don't have the the knowledge we believe in the soul and in fact Raab says the great Persian polymath he says that the Ancients considered crazy anybody that denied the existence of the Soul because it was so self-evident and and so I think the reductionist model to Neuroscience I mean we don't know Consciousness we don't really still know what it is we we can understand the heart Ware but where's the software where's the cloud you know I mean the the premodern had the idea of the agent intellect which is kind of like the cloud and and then and then the intellect itself which is the soft you know the hardware but Consciousness what is that what is the light big big debate in the philosophical Community all of whom may be atheists but they have very different views on the nature of Consciousness and the requirement of something not physical in our sense of physical today that's necessary right um and the abrahamic Traditions at least today have a an immortal Soul as part of the tradition it's less clear some would say it's not in the Hebrew Bible um and the the Hebrew Bible talks of a resurrection as opposed to an immortal soul but those are different kind of debates if you look at the the brain itself the Triune nature of the brain I mean we have this R stem this Reptilian Brain which is you know it's this ancient survival brain and then we have this midbrain but on top of it is this extraordinary neocortex and again it's top to bottom it's you know there's an ordering there and so the challenge I think for Muslims we are challenged to use our reason uh to to to Really uh take hold of ourselves to discipline our souls the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him he said that the intelligent one is the one who disciplines his soul or her soul and works for what is coming you know both in this world and the next but particularly in the next and and he said the fool is the one that lets the soul do as it pleases you know do what thou wit the the the thma you know the uh the Abby of thma rabes is there a distinction between the person and the self you know I think person is more in the Christian tradition it's a it's a very important concept because of the persons of God uh and obviously the human person but even in Arabic I've kind of looked for a corresponding word and there really I don't think there is you know the the same idea uh but the idea that each one of us is an individual and that each one of us is created by God and should have the Dignity of the one created by God that's very important and assuming there is some kind of immortal soul and that comes from God um how does that happen or when does that happen and I'm not asking about an abortion issue when it happens that's irrelevant to to what I'm interested in what is relevant is um is it a specific Act of God that picks an immortal soul for you and picked one for me and picked one for everyone everyone has their special nature uh that God picked an immortal Soul or is it something that's sort of part of the process of the natural creation that a soul sort of comes with the package because of the structure of the reality that God created so is it is it a a sort of um not mechanical thing but the way God created things Souls come into bodies or does God have to take an individual effort for each one on a particular basis so yeah so I would say that the the soul uh it's the Quran says we were created from One Soul okay yeah and and and but then there's a particularization of all the souls and they were all in the loins of that first soul and God brought them all forth as Souls so we have been in another world um and all the souls came out and and the and and God says to all the souls am I not your lord and all the souls answered in affirmative and then we come into this world and what we need is recollection there's an idea that we have to remember so the Quran is constantly telling us to remember that Covenant to go back which was before our birth which was before our birth and so so that's why when the child comes into the world the very first first thing that's done is the the the the person should whisper the aan the call to prayer in the ear of the child and then give it a date uh on on the tongue and and it it's if you remember the Covenant you will have the sweetness of God's blessing that's a nice metaphor yeah and and so that's really how how does that tie into an Eastern reincarnation kind of yeah there a little bit of a resonance there there's some resonance but we don't we don't believe in in reincarnation in that way what what we do believe the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and this is very interesting from genetics he said that every soul that comes into the world was prepared by every previous ancestor that had all the way back to its first ancestors so they all participated into the coming in of existence of that soul and there's a very interesting verses about how God has um which is literally to to bring together in this combinatorial fashion each individual unique human being so so our genetic composition is completely unique for each human being and that is somehow related because we believe in the there a non-physical genetic genetic as well as exactly I think it's both and so and so in terms of coming in the soul coming into the body according to our tradition it comes in the vast majority of Scholars say 120 days there is a a smaller minority and and I'm amongst them that says it's around 40 days um after conception after conception yeah and I think the the the embryology shows that now based on certain I would be skeptical of that but you would expect me to be skeptical of of numbers and specificity like that but what's interesting to me have God created all this this universe of souls or this one soul that everything is part of is there therefore a finite number of those that once once you once you've a portioned that one Soul into all of its pieces you got nothing left or does God have to recreate something more uh well we believe that God's recreating it in every instant so but but so there's this one big soul that God created originally that had it says we were created from one soul and that's that's what we would call Adam okay but there was a a physic some substance non-physical substance called it's non-physical we wouldn't call it a substance yeah it's an immaterial spirit it's an immaterial substance can be immaterial yeah that's true in the in the Catholic tradition yeah so so it's an immaterial Spirit uh and then it's can it be cut into infinite number of pieces or or I mean I don't know that's God's know do everything I don't know I know very little I feel embarrassed yeah impostor syndrome yeah what do we know really I mean we're we're all here trying to learn yeah saying looking at the world's religions U one um notal point is the the nature of ultimate Ultimate Reality in the abrahamic religions of course it is God in various um different ways of perceiving God uh and in some Eastern Traditions Buddhism in particular but aspects of Hinduism perhaps some Chinese philosophy um the the dominant uh Essence is is is a kind of Consciousness a cosmic Consciousness an all pervading Consciousness in which our Consciousness is a is a a part of or some sort of a segmental pro process uh how do you uh now obviously Consciousness is is a critical factor in the philosophy of mind we have we really don't understand what it is to have this in felt inner experience um whether the Neuroscience alone can explain it U many people would be in doubt of that I I'd be among them at least even though I was a neuroscientist by training um but from an Islamic point of view as you look at Consciousness as it has been uh as it is seen in this larger sense big Consciousness or Cosmic Consciousness what's your reaction to that and how do you articulate the Islamic beliefs with that right so the the idea the word itself I think is relatively new it's really you know it's it's something a 20th century Obsession about Consciousness I think the premodern would have had a very different view of things um in in our tradition knowledge God has absolute knowledge knowledge of of all things um knowledge of God self and that knowledge we have been given a portion of of knowledge but it's it's very limited but it enables us to know God and there's this idea I think that the the the Mind itself we actually believe in you know these these uh what are called degrees of existence so one of the degrees of existence is um a mental existence that things have mental existence so we can think of things like I can think of a unicorn um and and that has a mental existence it doesn't have a extra mental existence as far as We Know I mean in our whales an interesting unicorn in in the sea but um the idea that we can God has given us imagination that we can we can think of things that uh never were and perhaps never will be all these contingent possibilities and that gives us an indication that God is has infinite possibilities that God can actualize an infinite number of because we our minds represent God in some way it's it's an indic it's an approximation we can imagine things that don't exist it's God has given us a a something of an understanding of of of reality and and that's why our attributes of hearing of seeing of sight of of of consciousness of intellect of imagination that these are all things that enable us to somehow get some approximation but the the most important thing in our tradition is this idea of waking up that there's an idea that we're actually asleep so Imam Ali said all of humanity is asleep and and when they die they wake they wake up and then he says die before you die so there's this idea that we're actually not conscience that we're actually asleep we're we're dreaming and so there's this idea of Awakening to reality Awakening and that something that can occur in Life or has to wait till after it preferably occurs here if it doesn't occur here it will occur with the Great Awakening which is death yeah so so so there's this idea of death before death the idea of we have a word in our tradition called f which is almost identical to nibana in the P or nirvana in this it it means to be blown out and so it's the idea of of having the self blown out so that it can perceive reality uh and and and uh is that in um cor Islam or is that in the that's in that's in chlam that's in traditional mysticism well the thing about when they talk about Sufism and mysticism all of the Muslims were were were had some commitment to mysticism all of them that IB T uses the word f Scholars that are traditionally associated with a kind of anti- mytical Doctrine they use these doctrines um they were first formulated by a great bagdadi scholar IM juned um and and they're accepted by the Muslim so I I believe it's core Islam and and I I'm not saying that as some kind of heterodoxical Islam so yeah there is an understanding that that we can wake up to reality in life and that's called we could call that the path of sanctification so so the other path is the path of Salvation which the vast majority of humans take and that's just getting by there's a bare minimum a baseline of practice that if you do that your promise salvation but there are those in the world that that it's not enough for them they want to know God here and now they they really want to experience God and they set out on that Pursuit and it's a dangerous Pursuit because it's it's uh it's there's a lot of thorns on that path what kind of thorns well self- delusion is a big one you know to think that that you've actually had some kind of arrival um there's there's a great Zen story about the the the the the enlightened monk that came to talk to all the Zen um and then uh he said all Enlightenment is um is an illusion and so everybody left except one and he said what are you doing he said well I've been sitting here thinking I'm enlightened I realize it's just early senility so I mean there is delusional States and people fall into these states and that's why humility is so important in our Islamic tradition the prophet said I was Comm anded to be humble despite being a prophet so that no one would see themselves better than another and that's why a true a true sage in the Islamic tradition sees everybody as better than them even the ignorant ones because they might have an excuse with God because of their ignorance whereas somebody who knows has no excuse uh and is there something like a cosmic Consciousness that that pervades reality that's independent of God or not you know I just I'm a little hesitant to use words that are outside of our tradition there's an understanding that God has absolute knowledge and and his knowledge is uh is everywhere that God's knowledge he is with us wherever we are his knowledge is with us he knows God knows everything God knows what's happening and so in that way um God is mindful of his creation and in fact the Quran says um there's an amazing verse that says that we will show you our signs on the self and in the Horizon until it becomes clear to you that this is truth and then it says does it not suffice you that God is witnessing all things so this idea that things could not exist without the witnessing of God kind of the the idea that you know and this is as you know in physics this idea of if the Observer is not there does it exist well for us if God is Not observing us we don't exist uh what what about the creation of Consciousness itself our awareness that that requires some sort of an IM implantation of a soul from God absolutely it's a light we believe that Consciousness is a light that God has placed into the human being and and that this is not metaphor this is not metaphor it's a light it's something that has a n that that's a non-physical something I I'd say nonic a spirit spiritual light and and it and it's it's resonant in each person has their own and and and the mirror of the Soul has to be polished because the the light cannot shine through unless there's a polishing and the polishing of that is mindfulness is remembrance of God that's how one polishes the soul and and if that polishing occurs then reality begins to uh present itself as it is reality I'm so most people when they think of the Islamic tradition think of a lot of rituals and and a lot of experiences people praying five times a day facing Mecca um various kinds of uh mysticism athetics aesthetic practices each religious tradition has its own set of uh of practices so what I want to understand is uh in the Islamic tradition what is theimportance of of uh of ritual and and the traditional behaviors but more importantly why do those behaviors um facilitate the the ultimate goal so uh miss the the prayer itself is is really the central pillar that holds the tent so to speak up and and obviously the the very first pillar of our tradition is there is no God but God and once you accept that and then you accept that the prophet muh mammad peace be upon Him is the messenger of God then he tells us what God wants from us and one of the most important things is is prayer itself that it's actually good for us we believe that God has no need of of his creation that there's an abundance that God has and and the creation comes out of that abundance but it does not come from need it comes from nature uh that that it's it's the nature of God to to be a abundant and so giving us participation in being this this extraordinary experience and so prayer is actually a form of gratitude and it's a form of reorienting because the the world you know the Vanity Fair idea that the world is a place of heedlessness it's a place that we can easily fall into heedlessness and forget ourselves in fact the Quran uses that term to forget the self several times they forgot them eles and so God forgot them and and remember me and I will remember you and one of the things kicker guard said something that fascinated me he said that one of the most dangerous things in the world is to Lose Yourself that it's a he said it's it's the easiest thing in the world to do he said you can lose your wife or your spouse you can lose your your hand you can even lose five Kruegers or dollars and and and recognize it but he said but people lose themselves all the time and they're completely unaware of it that is why the the the the prayer brings us back it reorients us I mean reorient to to to go back to the east you know to to go back to where the sun is rising to where that light is coming forth you know that's the essence of the prayer and that's why it's the fundamental practice of every devout Muslim coupled with that is also quranic recitation this idea in in the Hindu tradition they have the sh which is this idea of remembering the scripture because the scripture brings us back the scripture has all these reminders that there there's the fragrance of death on every page of the Quran it's reminding us that we are temporal beings that life is very uh fragile that we can lose our lives at any time as Hamet said the Readiness is all you know it's it's the preparation for for meeting God and the prayer itself um what what what are the essence what's the essence of it how long is it what it's not long there are five prayers the first one is at dawn so when the first light comes each one is different yeah so yeah each one is different so we wake up uh we're encouraged to wake up Before Dawn and do night prayers so that's called night vigil um so that's that's uh very important the the Christians the Catholics also have night vigils so so the idea is we get up at at dawn as as a baseline you can do other practic and then you do a ritual washing which um you know the in the jewi have the Mikvah you know you have certain ritual Washings well we have which is akin to the Mikvah and then we have Wu which um a beautiful translation of that is lustrations because it it it's something that brightens you and so we wash um before we pray we wash our face our hands up to the elbows and then our feet and then and then we and wipe our heads and that's just to prepare ourselves to enter into the divine presence and then you come to the prayer and it's you say God Allah abbar and and you make that motion of just it's it's like putting everything behind you like the whole world behind you and you're coming into the presence of God and and the and the every prayer has to have the fa which is the first chapter of the Quran and it begins in in the third person but then it goes to the first person so it's the idea we come in to the in this kind of absence of God we enter into the presence and then it's to you alone we worship and so um that that is to reorient every day and then at when the when the sun meet goes to the Zenith and moves one degree that's the second prayer so it's all according to the Sun and then when the Sun reaches when the shadow reaches its length after the Zenith then again we do the afternoon prayer uh and they have different circuit it's like it's about 5 minutes I mean you could do it pretty fast it's better to do it properly but some people do it quite fast um and then you have the the sunset prayer and then the prayer when the light of the sun is gone the last prayer so we pray five times a day bare minimum there's 17 different circuits of the prayer so what does that mean 17 in other words the standing bowing prostrating sitting that's one circuit okay and each each prayer has like the first prayer has two of those oh okay yeah and they actually make the human form and they actually spell out the name of the Prophet also in Arabic oh yeah and he's considered the perfect man peace be upon him and so uh again they're five times a day and this and there are 17 positions no there are 17 circuits so standing bowing um standing again prostrating sitting prostrating standing that's one circuit okay the human body and there there there are 16 others like that yeah there's 16 yeah you you'll do all together 17 during one day okay all right so two in the morning four at theor four at assur three at the sunset prayer and four at the night each one is a different sequence the same oh so each of the S7 are exactly the same exactly the same oh I see so you don't have to worry but the ones at night are out loud and the ones in the day are silent because there's a cosmology of you know very akin to yinyang you know the idea of the day is is a you know it's it's a time of the outward and so the prayer is Inward and at night it's time of the inward so the prayer has the outward manifestation there's a lot of that cosmology in is there any numerology significance to the five times a day or the 17 different there is there there are sacred numbers in the Islamic tradition so obviously um one is the most sacred and like I said it wasn't considered a number and then um five has obviously a cosmological uh reality traditional World Views had the four elements and then the quintessence so there are many things and then seven is another number it's a perfect number between you know it's the four and three addition so Muslims tend to shy away from too much numerology there's a recognition that it's real and that it it does have significance 70 is a sacred number 99 is a sacred number 33 is a sacred number how about 17 for the different uh uh circuits yeah I don't know the significance of that but these are things that we call uh superrational like God has kept things of why he does things but we know like for instance I mean cortisol levels are highest at that point in the morning uh and definitely we also know like grounding now the importance of grounding the importance of actually you know just um grounding our bodies to the Earth so and that's why it's actually a a a want of the Prophet s alai to actually pray directly on something that comes from the earth is there any uh intercession objective of of pray of this kind of prayer absolutely so so are you able to ask Allah to do things and I mean we we tend to we ask God to choose for us like we have a prayer called thear you know they say more tears have been shed over answered prayers and unanswered prayers I think there's a lot of Truth to that um we tend to ask God if this is good for us then make it happen if it's not then divert it from us so but we do ask the things that the prophet ask for good health well-being we pray for people other people we ask God to give them good health or make it easy their sickness things like that and is that is there an increase likelihood of those things happening if you you know there's a difference of opinion there there's verses in the Quran that say had it not been for your prayers of intercession uh then there God would not give you uh that attention but there's also an idea that the fundamental purpose of prayer is a display of our humility and our need of God that the idea of God knows best what's for us so whether it's answered or not we don't really put a lot of it'd be nice when prayers are answered right but but it's not something that oh he didn't answer my pray prayers you know he's he's angry at me no it's he didn't answer my prayers it must be better for me that they weren't answered ham does Islamic philosophy have the problem of evil which Christian philosophy and to a lesser degree Jewish philosophy have wrestled with well first of all I think the fact you said to a lesser degree Jewish philosophy I think that's true of Islam also it it's not the same type of problem as it is I mean Islam is certainly not manikan it doesn't separate this idea of you know good a good God uh aan and azda or the devil having some kind of independent power but um evil is understood in the Islamic church we have six uh core beliefs that every Muslim has to believe in and one of them is called the which is often translated as fate I think a better translation for it is the measuring out and and that's of Good and Evil that God has measured out in other words God allows uh these things to happen in the world for a purpose um God does you know we can distinguish obviously uh you you're well aware of the the distinguishing between moral and natural evil so we as moral agents we have free will and so human beings can perpetuate great evils on other people and there are reasons for for that and one of the fundamental reasons is it enables certain things to happen like for instance if there was not uh oppressors there could not be the patience of the oppressed there could not be the display of the virtue of the oppressed there could not be forgiveness these are all very important God forgives and so judge not LLY be judged you know as your the standard by which you judge so too shall you be judged so the idea is that you know we want to forgive we want to overcome certain qualities of the Soul so I think the the in Arabic the word for evil sh is is not equivalent although if you go back into Old English it perhaps you'll find some equivalent in Old English evil I think eel it comes one of the word meanings of it is defect you know it also mean illness and so I think that's closer to the Islamic understanding that that that evil is is a is a a want or a lack of and that's one of the meanings of privation yeah so so in Arabic for instance um uh poverty is an evil not because it's morally wrong but because it's a privation so anything that's a privation or a defect is a type of evil um in terms of natural and so there's no distinction be between them in terms of that that term a privation versus an affirmative uh evil that somebody perpetuates a crime or well and that would be a lack of goodness I mean there there there's a privation of goodness in in the perpetration of the crime that's it's a it's an absence of goodness or an absence of uh of adequate standard of living is poverty and those are equivalent right but it's also there's another people argue that they're really not equivalent I know I and I think there's an argument for that but I think one of the things if you look for instance in Hebrew the word for sin is uh in Arab it's also and in Greek it's they're all archery terms to miss the mark and so the idea is that everybody wants good everybody even the evildoer wants good but the problem is they the the light of the intellect has not been polished and so they're looking through this opaque lens and and and it's muddled for them so they see an apparent good as a real good they they think pleasure for instance you know raping the woman they're going to get that good which is the pleasure they want from that but that's what they're seeking but it's a sin they've missed the mark you know the the the proper way would have been to to court uh the person and and for things to be consensual so that's that's our understanding that there's a kind of ignorance if you look at the the soul when we get the idea of the rational Soul being reason and then the erasability the the will and then the appetite that that the sin of each one the sin of the rational soul is ignorance the sin of the the the emotional soul is malice right it's malice the the the will and then the sin of the appetite is is is inordinate passion so ordering this is really fundamental to our tradition and and we are challenged to do that and if we do that we will not fall into the type of evil but you can't have a kind of evil at each level absolutely okay and now uh one of the uh problems that that Christian philosophy wrestles with enormously is did God create the evil and Christian philosophers large part go to extreme ex perhaps tortuous logic to explain how God did not create the evil the moral evil any kind of evil yeah see I mean I mean God the earthquake that happened in in Turkey recently I mean that that's a natural evil obviously and it's devastating but from from our perspective God one brings good out of evil which is very important uh two one of the things that human beings because of our heedlessness we're so accustomed to the goodness of God that we forget him uh in fact there's a verse in the Quran what has diluted you from your generous Lord and in the commentaries they say he put the answer in the the question it's his generosity so God we so used to like right now everything's fine if suddenly it started shaking we would become aware of the blessing of the Stillness but we're not we're heedless of it so when these things happen in fact Crispus actually argued that that these are actually proofs for the existence of God things like hurricanes and floods and things because the the order that we're so accustomed to from God is disrupted and it it you know the Arabs Say by opposites things are known so it's by that that chaos and disorder that comes into the world that we know the the blessing of the order so I think you know Muslims don't have I I've always been I think marveled at the the fact that they don't have the same type of problem that they really have a kind of stoic uh view of life that's very interesting U does U the distinction between God allowing the evil for good purposes and God God creating the evil is that a a distinction without a real difference I mean I think in some ways yeah I I think the fact that God is a creator of all things yeah and and so evil is part of the of the creation and it serves a function it serves a purpose uh it serves one the the function that without it many Goods would not be realized uh one of the most important ones is that good people actually combat evil because spiritual warfare is part of life on Earth and so it's very important uh the great Persian poet roomy said sometimes we take up the sword to take swords out of the hands of Mad Men you know that there there has to be an opposition and and so in terms of the purpose of the world evil serves a very important purpose and without it uh there there would not be many Goods that God uh clearly wants to realize in the world yeah so so you'd have no problem saying that God created the world and evil with evil in it we believe that we have to we have to believe it I mean I I think that's more logically coherent than trying to parse the difference between God to get it out because then it it limits God's uh omniscience omnipotence right didn't God know that they would be evil and and then this idea I mean I think it's a problematic syllogism you know that the atheists use this idea that you know is God all good if he permits evil and all powerful and he permits evil then he's either not all powerful not all good but if his permitting it is for a a greater good then I think that I mean a surgeon will cut off an arm uh to save a body so we we can't you know there's a beautiful Persian uh proverb what does the ant know of the pattern of the Persian carpet you know it's it's we're just so limited in in our knowledge but I mean look at like in in Turkey one of the things that really struck me was all the goodness that came all these people that in in cold they could have stayed in their Apartments they left from all over people from Ukraine and Russia both came people that are fighting each other in in Ukraine they both sent people to help save lives so they're killing lives in Ukraine I mean there's a there's a irony there but there's also something really powerful about tragedies and about natural evil that it brings out the best in most people the problem that comes up is that in general your argument works but there are lots of specific people you know rational sentient human beings whom it doesn't work because they were the ones who died or the child who got brain cancer or million other examples um and so I is it fair for God to create a world where I can benefit cuz I've helped the poor person but that poor person you know has died or something I got the benefit because I was so beneficent and so I benefited but that person you know suffered in order for me to benefit well this is this is Ivan's argument in Brothers K off it's a powerful argument I mean children right the suffering of children it's powerful argument but in the end I think we we have to choose we have to choose and and there are those of us who choose to believe in the goodness of God and that these are for a purpose and I and I think it it it one it it's definitely a healthier uh perspective because the other perspective I think leads to a type of uh either nalism or despair or and and and and I think there's a reason for that I think God's created us in that way you you have emphasized in in your writing uh the concept of suffering a great deal which has resonance with much in Buddhism for example in terms of the the importance of suffering in the world I recognize suffering uh of course everybody does but I don't do it in my worldview anywhere near as much as you do so enlighten me in terms of the importance of appreciating suffering as the vehicle uh to understand reality understand god well I mean I've seen people I've seen I you know I was a registered nurse and worked in in a hospital and I've seen people in immense suffering and I've seen people handle it in ways with faith that uh people without faith were incapable of handling it uh and I think that um I I I genuinely believe that suffering is something that is just it's the first Noble Truth it's part of the world and and we have to hopefully avoid it as much as possible I mean who wants to suffer unless you're a masochist you know but I think we also have to embrace it when it comes to us and and try to see the wisdom in it um I saw an amazing interview with Christopher Reeves where he said that he chose that the world has purpose and that this event that happened to him had a purpose that he chose that as opposed to just wallowing in his anger and resentment at God or no God at the pure uh AR arar of the Universe I mean these are all choices that we make and I think the most intelligent choices the most hopeful choices and the most necessary ones for our well-being are the ones that recognize that there there's purpose and reason in that and I think we've all suffered I mean this is something at different degrees obviously I mean there's different degrees of suffering but we have all suffered and it's something that we share as a human species and and I think that if you're empath it enables you because of your own suffering to to recognize the need to help others and and and these are the benefits of tribulation that's one of the great benefits of tribulation I had a I had a uh a wonderful experience of that once that um but I'll save it for another time what don't you okay well I just this woman uh was listening to a talk that I gave she was in um she was in England driving on the on the highway and it was called the seven 17 benefits of tribulation and one of the benefits was that it enables other people to help you and right then her her tire went flat she told me this story and she pulled over and this wonderful man came and changed the tire and and there was that exchange and I think that's something very human I'm so what is Islamic philosophy's approach to death life after death the sequence of events what happens I think this this is something that I actually uh came into Islam because of that so I had a near-death experience so death was very real and I decided to go through all the world scriptures from the perspective of death and it was the Quran that really struck me as the one that dealt so much with death there was just so much in there about death um there are two chapters that devout Muslims are every day Yasin and and wa and they're both basically death meditations uh the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said to do much remembrance of the the destroyer of pleasure meaning death and not in a morbid way but just in a way that makes us aware of the fragility of life so that we get more out of life that that we the the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said wake up in the morning not expecting to see the e evening and go to sleep at night not expecting to see the morning and so devout Muslims try to live their lives with this like we do death meditations and so I ended up actually writing for the study of Quran many many years later the article on death in the Quran it was kind of a it was an amazing uh just I think uh event for me Dr Nar asked me to do it and I've had to read the Quran for from that perspective and I was just struck how it's it's the fragrance of death is on every page it's just really quite stunning so for us when the soul dies there's a separation from the body and um and the uh the body becomes there's a kind of hyperconsciousness that that occurs in the soul in the soul it suddenly wakes up and and real and then there's immense amount of remorse for most people um because they realize that things that they did were not appropriate for what they are right right it's like Mr Bean playing the devil and saying to the atheists in hell you must feel really stupid today it's kind of that idea like yeah that it was real and there's a verse in the Quran that says when they're awakened from their graves they say glory be to God who has awakened us from our sleep so there's an idea that death is an Awakening from the sleep of this world now that is immediately after after death or it sound like yeah no it's it's immediately after death yeah there so is is there the concept of a resurrection absolutely and it's a bily again bodily Resurrection like the Catholics so it's a bodily Resurrection which will combine with the soul but the soul has an independent existence a very hyper real existence after you die and it's the immaterial soul so it's Consciousness as well yeah so you have Consciousness it's it's a first person Consciousness first person conscious and then and you have you have all your memories from the past yes and then when you're put into your grave there's a sleep you go into a sleep where the body does or the soul the the body and the Soul are are re not in a living sense like if you open the grave you're not going to see life but there is a reuniting if the soul was scat if the if the body was scattered like in uh in cremation and then people thought that we're told that God and it's mentioned in our tradition that God will reassemble from all of the parts of that and then and so that's a resurrection that's there's a resurrection so but in the grave you're put into a sleep there's an initial questioning in the grave uh who is your god who is your Lord that's the qu first question what is your religion and who is your prophet and and there's two angels that come in and they're very intense and they ask these questions to the soul and then and then this is that before the resurrection this is before the resurrection and then after that uh it's the the grave is either like a a very unpleasant place or it's a very pleasant Place depending on how you lived your life and then what happens is there's a sleep that goes and then that sleep will be awakened with the blowing of the trumpet so the Muslims believe like the Jews and the Christians that there is a a blowing of the trumpet at the end of time when all the souls are brought forward I just want to get the sequence again so when you die the soul separate has a hyper awareness and a Consciousness first person awareness the body is a corpse and is in in the grave right there's a um let's let's leave that let's go to the end and then come back so then then the then the Soul uh after a time that we don't know there'll be a resurrection the soul is reunited with the body it's it's kind of the body is a permanent body though it's not it's not it's not the same whatever God gathers together it doesn't have to be the same Moes has to be the same form because our molecules change all the time anyway so can't be every molecule but a physical form it's reunited it's kind of questioned kind of a kind of a like like a PhD exam you know then there's then there is they're brought first to the the uh they're all brought to a plane and the plane is described as as white uh and and and they're all naked and and the prophets White said won't people be looking at each other and the prophet Sall alaihi wasam said it's much more ominous like you're not going to be thinking about that yeah and then and then and then they move then they go to each prophet and they ask them for intercession and so the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam finally they go to the prophet and they ask him for intercession and he's the one that says I am for it which is one of the meanings of Shiloh so we believe that Shiloh the scepter is given to Shiloh so he that place cuz Shiloh in Hebrew one of the meanings is the one who it is for so he says I am for it and he intercedes for Humanity in our Traditions uh peace be upon him and then the Judgment comes because people it's like you want to but it's individual judgment it's not it will be but it's like people want diagnosis you know they just want what's wrong with me doctor and just it's there's a relief in the diagnosis so that's the kind of idea people want to know what their Destiny is and so then they they they go and there's a a weighing of they're given their their each person is given the book of Deeds of everything they did it's all recorded the Quran says we have recorded everything and it says it's in a digital book it literally says Digital Book yeah that we have recorded everything there's nothing that has been omitted but it's there is a kind of Sony Pro Cut because we believe repentance can actually edit your book so if you repented for sins they can be removed from that book of Deeds kind of a blackout like AET do exactly like a reaction and so and so then you're given the book and then your your your Deeds are weighed in in Scales like in the ancient Egyptian tradition yeah the soul is weighed you know so they're weighed and depending on the balance uh it depends on is it a bodal decision either you go to paradise or heaven or or hell yeah it is it's it's well there's also a kind of purgatory there's something called which are is neither in Hell nor in heaven um and there are people obviously that can get out of hell also so hell is not permanent it's it's not it is permanent for some people but many people will get out uh through intercession uh through purification spending some time uh in I mean the word is it possible for everyone to get out or some people there are opinions among some of the there are certain Scholars that had those opinions but that's not the normative uh tradition but there are uh there are Scholars that did uh hold that is there any tradition of universal salvation in in yeah and there's a book written by Muhammad rustum that has that uh on universal salvation the Islamic tradition but like I said it's not the Orthodox position um there was a position from uh one of the uran scholars that eventually hell becomes they become nun the people so they it's like an acco they become accustomed to it but the Quran is pretty clear that it's it's Eternal punishment and there are many verses although there's an interesting position in our tradition so if God makes a promise he has to fulfill it uh because that's his nature but if he makes a threat um it's actually considered acceptable for him to to not fulfill the threat because even in our tradition if I say to you if you come to my house I'm going to really you you'll see what I'll do to you and then you show up and I'm say come on in that would be seen as a good thing like I've forgiven you and so that idea about God is that he can forego a threat uh but not how do you distinguish between a threat and and a promise well the the threats are the threats of punishment th those are threats but there are promises uh also of punishment so so he will so yeah you have to be careful and that's the idea and then there's this idea of aat um which is a a bridge between uh paradise and underneath it is hell and every human being has to cross that and then the prophet described these um massive scanners that come and scan the soul and and if the soul is it it will clamp onto weak souls and pull them and the soul will pull with the with with to keep them on the path so that they could get across and the ones that don't make it are literally thrown into hell and this this process occurs after after the Judgment that goes across yeah and then the people that get across every Prophet will be praying for their community so Moses will be praying for his community Jesus for his community probably the Buddha for his community every every uh Prophet or messenger I mean there are people that believe that Buddha was a a a one of the messengers it's not in the Quran but there are Muslims that now right after death The Immortal soul is has this hyper aware State U but it's not going to heaven or hell what is it what do it due to the during the interim period before the resurrection yeah there's a lot of debate about that about what that is because it's it's it this group is they see the people in heaven uh but they're not in heaven and so there are some that argue that that's to uh it's it's to prepare them like like the seven story Mountain well well who's in heaven because I thought nobody gets Heaven before the resurrection yeah no that the well the martyrs are in heaven okay so we believe that Martyrs are in heaven yeah the the martyrs go straight to heaven but normal people don't go straight to heaven they they have to go through the Judgment everybody has to go through the judment yeah okay so but so then the souls after they leave the body before the judgment and the resurrection they can see the martyrs in heaven right but some it's a pretty sparse Place compared to the great majority we also believe children if you're if you die before um puberty oh I see and they're they're in the um the care of Abraham okay yeah good who's a even even aborted children even aborted children even aborted children so there must be the spontaneous abortions that happen right for and they'll intercede for their parents because they lost the child and there must be a time frame before we're out of time now oh no I mean a time frame for the the abortion I mean is it wouldn't happen one second after conception yeah exactly so there'd be a kind of cut off point where where you make it yeah okay well I mean all these systems are are fascinating that at what the human mind can construct and put together together some logical ways I'd be shocked if any of this were you know true to the last word but you know well here's here's something to think about um there's a verse in the in the the uh there's a tradition in the Hadith which says uh the afterlife is what no eye has seen no ear has heard and has never occurred to the human mind and so these are again all approximations like what what is going to happen we these are approximations for us to understand it but we do believe in these resurrections and there are many Muslims that take these very literally I'm the the historical knowledge is that the relationship between Islam and science uh during the the flourishing of Islamic civilization Middle Ages was the richest in the world at that time that Islamic civilization was the was the font from which much of science began to develop from uh and yet in in today's world much of the Islamic world is not in it it has that same view of science how can you characterize the relationship between Islam and science particularly you know questions of evolution which is obviously sensitive in parts of the Christian uh tradition um how does the relationships roll relate well I think uh bah in the early period the Muslims uh were encouraged by the Quran to seek knowledge the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him in many uh Traditions said to seek knowledge there's a tradition seek knowledge even unto China uh that every believer has to seek knowledge and so Muslims were synus wherever they went I mean they went to junda shapur they learned the medicine from the Persians they went to India um we have wonderful early books where they were quoting Hindu sages um they went to the Greeks they translated all the Greek materials into um into Arabic so they were just I mean they were just filled with a incredible appetite for knowledge and did that all over the world and then they were fascinated by geometry because Geometry The Sacred science they really understood geometry as as a a a discipline that that really can hone the intellect into perceiving order uh and and also the idea of demonstrative proofs that have a type of certainty in them so they really develop mathematics and um I think they were fascinated by everything about the world and wanted to know it and understand it and and and one of the interesting thing David berlinsky in his in his book on um on this this the self he he has a a book U where he talks about if you took uh modern American academics and put them into Scholastic Europe like 13 Century he said they would acclimatize very quickly with the dogmatism because we're so dogmatic here it's the books on human nature and then he has uh he said but if they were put in 10th Century Baghdad at the height of the Muslim he said they would be bewildered by the the variety of opinion and the differences and the the the robustness of the dialectical exchanges between Scholars so I think that's I think there's a lot of Truth to that the Muslims were they were real Seekers and over time there's a curval line linear reality to all civilizations and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him told us that the Muslims would decline uh so he did describe that although he said towards the latter days there would be a Resurgence um but they they fell into a kind of decline in the sciences and um today what what is the what is the the Orthodoxy in terms of a approach to science whether it's cosmology or whether it's Evolution I think Muslims are very open to science uh that many of the Great uh scientists today are actually Muslim there are many people at Harvard MIT at uh you know there's Turkish scientists Arab scientists Persian Indian I mean I there's great physicists that there's a Muslim that won the Nobel Prize for physics so I think they they have a respect for science um in terms of evolution I mean obviously evolution is nobody can deny certain aspects of evolution they would be denying empirical evidence that I think is very strong but the idea of Randomness the idea that that God is playing dice uh with the universe as Einstein said I I don't think any Muslim could accept that um uh we also do believe in the in the original creation of Adam moris bu made an argument that things evolved but the human being did not that he was put here in the process of evolution I think that would probably be a closer idea for most Orthodox Muslims but there's also Evolution there's Steven Meyer is doing some really interesting work uh there's a a book called theistic Evolution which is I think edited by him but challenging a lot of the assumptions and I think that he's convincing a lot of people that the the model that that evolution presented this idea of Simplicity down as foundational is is not holding a lot of water so I think you know we we have to see science can become very dogmatic and uh and not allow for alternate um perspectives and and and I mean Thomas kunun scientific revolutions you know the these are these are realities that that theories break down so we don't know and I I think for me personally I tend to I mean I think anybody denies design obviously Dawkins would say you don't understand Evolution you know but but I just feel like it's so evident I mean the opposable thumb the eye the ears you know I mean there's a there's a falcon you know the design of the nose of the Falcon because they dive at 200 miles per hour and the design prevents their lungs from exploding so there's so many things even Darwin said that damned eye you know because like how did the eye evolve with the with the incredible complexity because we don't we we think colors themselves I mean the world might not have any colors colors might be purely a subjective experience but what what a God to give us [Music] colors yeah I so there are different positions that one could take on Evolution uh you can have a um a broadly deistic Evolution where God put everything in place from the beginning but then it naturally developed without any intervention you could have a theistic Evolution where God set it in motion but needed to intervene at places to create uh step function differences of different however many times you think God may have done that right uh and then of course you could have no God and just The evolutionary process and you know I think it's not difficult to explain all of the different facets of why things look like they're designed because in a sense they are design EV Evolution would say they are designed but through the long process of evolution the the person that has the better eye will will likely Escape The Predator versus the one that had the poorer eye and so that process develops so but in but how did it start I mean the cell first cell look origin of life is is is still I mean thank God for the design of the nose we both have problems holding up our glasses so that's good um but you know if we had a different nose we could invent some other other thing to do that um but in in in the Orthodox Islamic tradition today which obviously it's not not Pur random is is there a theistic Evolution or you know I perceived that there's a lot that don't believe in evolution at all sure I think the majority of Muslims don't uh there are people writing now on theistic Evolution uh there's recent books on on the idea so I think it's it's a being debated but the idea of Randomness is absolutely unacceptable what I would say and I have said this before if evolution were true hypothetically if evolution were true and God used the mechanism of Rand Randomness like obviously it's not random from God's uh knowledge but if he used that like God made us to learn through hidden Miss I mean that's how we learn as humans so if he created a whole creation like that I think that that's perfectly possible and and compatible with um God if that if if that was that was true but from God's perspective if if we can even use that word I mean language breaks down when we talk about God yeah but but from from from that reality there's no Randomness every the Quran says there's nothing there's not an atom that God is not aware of so everything is in its place everything is fulfilling its function everything is doing what it was intended to do and and we believe that about God so I I think um these are debates that are continue and they're interesting ham so what are the Deep fundamental metaphysics the ontology in is Philosophy for example um abstract objects the platonic heaven where forms exist uh is that is that does that is that present in Islamic philosophy and if there are abstract objects how does that relate to God well the in the story that the Quran gives us about the first human being the first Consciousness you know the the was Adam and Adam was shown everything and and he named everything now fzi one of our great metaphysicians said that what he was able to do was to see the universal in the in the particular and and abstraction is the the ability of the human mind to see one out of many universes one out of many and so this is the human mind was was created purposely to see the one out of many because all ultimately it just see the one God out of out of the many variants of of God's creation and so that the abstraction is the great gift of the human mind that we we can abstract that we can you know AB in Arabic means literally to make naked to Denude and to get to the essence of a thing and this is why a human being can categorize things if if if I say to somebody you know could you get me a glass they go to the kitchen I don't have to say which glass you know in some kind of nominalistic idea that every single glass is unique no he has the universal concept of glass which enables us to talk so we're constantly talking with abstraction there's no way we could speak or communicate without abstraction so those abstractions are a gift from God and it was designed for the ultimate abstraction which is to see the reality behind the multiplicity which is one and that's why we're we're called those make one that's what the Muslims are they are those who make one they make God one in their understanding because there are others that make God give God multiplicity or deny God and then make the universe a God because there's no such thing as an atheist every if if somebody says I don't believe in God they have to believe in the universe they have to believe in materialism so what they're doing is they're giving the attributes of God to other than God and that's the essence of shik in our tradition which is the worst sin which is to associate with God what cannot be associated with God okay um so that would seem to indicate uh a a nominalism where the human mind abstracts the ideas of the universal uh from the particulars but there's no self-existing Universal yeah you get into big debates these are metaphysical problems um and obviously Hume and his ilk completely dismiss them as just uh a waste of time but there there is an idea um of what are called Source forms or archetypes that everything is coming out of these Source forms and that's how we recognize them in this world different way to conceptualize yeah so there is there is this idea Muslims tend to be realist in the traditional sense of that word not the modern sense of it so we're not we're not idealists like like Berkeley's idea of the world where it's just a perception in the mind of God real yeah yeah no it's there are real things but then there are also things that have uh an an extra mental existence you know that okay well that's different than we're if we we have the ability to abstract something that's something we're creating as opposed to like numbers do numbers exist yeah exactly right so numbers are AB pure abstractions I mean there's no there's no number in the world it's the mind that gives the world number Senna has a whole section about that but is is that something that we're inferring by language and therefore it's it's kind of a fictionalism to have a universal or is there some fundamental Universal perhaps that God created or some relationship with God um that we're then able to perceive yeah and I think these are the debates that the metaphysicians have and I don't it's not a dogmatic view in the Islamic tradition so there's no there's no fixed dogmatism on that um how about the relationship between God and time which uh to me is one of the deep probes of both time and God um and the question is uh is god um clearly God has no beginning and no end but that can be understood in two different ways one is that there time is real and God is in time but God never had a beginning and never had an end and then will never have an end so it's a it's a an everl ing situation or is God not in time God that time is something that God created and therefore is not in time and is some sort of a a changeless time out of not in in existence and is eternal in the sense of having no participation in time um it there's no difference in terms of God always being there but a very deep difference in terms of the nature of God and how we relate to God sure so I think that um the in the Islamic tradition God is creator of time that God uh if I think Muslims would adhere to the Aristotelian idea that time is the measurement of motion and so God has no motion God is not there's no space that God Moves In God is infinite and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him saido not reflect on the Infinity of God but rather reflect on God's attributes because like caner who worked on actual Infinities you can go mad thinking about infini so he actually prohibited us from doing that but but we believe that God is infinite which means there couldn't be any time for for an infinite uh being I mean the fact that we can understand the concept of infinity is quite stunning that God's given us the capacity to understand something that has no limit um but we don't accept actual Infinity like some of the modern uh mathematicians um which would create logical inconsistencies like the part being greater than the whole um so we we believe that God is the creator of time that God um is can cannot be um he he cannot be contained by time so time space is is is a pure creation and we're in it and then there is an idea that we move out of of uh time so the last day is called the last day because because there's no more uh Reckoning of time and after that we move into God's sort of sphere of dimensional world there's a there's an understanding in our tradition and and and the Latin Scholastics have it and I don't know if they got it from the Muslims I I have a suspicion that they did but I might be wrong and that's uh in in the Latin TR they call the nans the idea of the Eternal now in Arch it's called which means exact the same thing the Eternal now so God said do not curse time because I am time in my hand is the night and the day and and the idea is the D there is defined as the Eternal now God is Not time in our concept of time okay the Eternal now is a very powerful concept now in uh the the the Christian scholasticism and some Modern Believers say if you say that God is not in time there are other attributes of God that has to come along with that and that God can't change that God is impassible that nothing can have an impact on God which seems to undermine intercession prayer I mean you didn't do a lot of complexities of God is out of time right um well we yeah we believe that that God is we're not processed theologians yeah go God is God is God and and in the end of the day we that's why we put put our head on the ground there there's a kind of submission at a certain point of of of the intellect just to say that this this is beyond my it's beyond my pay grade but it's not beyond my pre grade oh okay that's nice nice phrase uh but then the intercession every prayer can God listen in in in time and even one of the great uh Egyptians said that prayer was solely for a display of submission before God and but the Quran and the Hadith indicate that God does answer prayers so that's the normative position that God will answer prayers but obviously the knowledge of God is is absolute it's not that there's this idea of afor knowledge of God is already presupposing time yeah so so if God is just Eternal and and God's knowledge is absolute there there's no past or present there's just pure knowledge and so God can answer the prayers yeah it's not a problem for me so what's the Islamic view of the world to come what will happen to the world itself and obviously our ourselves as individuals in it so the the world this world is called dun in the Quran and dun means the lowest so we're literally it's all up from here yeah so the the dun is the lowest and there there's the the dun is also a kind of illusory world so it's more the the the world of King lear's kind of the Court comings and goings you know so so it's the life of this world and then there's theam which is the world that is The Epiphany of God's attributes where God's revealing him uh God's uh attributes to the world and that's a positive thing so there's a negative and a positive to this world there's also a corresponding negative and positive to the next World also and how does that work so there's Heaven and Hell okay yeah and so he Heaven is an abode of complete peace and hell is an abode of distance from God and and and that's the real essence of hell is to be to be distant from God and and these are the choices that humans make according to the Quran um people in in in our tradition uh faith is Vol is from volition faith is actually an act of the will the Quran says oh you who believe believe so it's an imperative and and and the source of the execution of an imperative verb is is the human will so we will ourselves to believe the will to believe that we have to believe in God and that and that becomes a choice and that choice will determine uh one's afterlife so if one chose correctly then the afterlife is in a blessed Abode uh Paradise is a place that um is is seen it's a place in under which rivers flow there are rivers of milk and honey but again these are all approximations I Abbas the great commentator on the Quran who was a companion of the Prophet peace be upon Him Abbas may God have mercy on his soul he said that all of the quranic descriptions of the afterlife are approximations they're just ways uh of us to get some glimpse of what the afterlife is but we know that when the person enters into Paradise they repeat over and over peace it's called the the Abode of peace and so this is what everybody's seeking in the world and that's a permanent it's permanent that's right that goes into eternity a Eternal so the the human soul is considered a Eternal it has a beginning but no end okay but but is it still in in time because we no God is not in time so the soul then enters into the same sphere that God is in outside of time after the Judgment it's Paradise it's pure presence it's pure it's pure presence it's it's it's the the the total experience in the in the present now yeah and the highest is presence of God so the highest is the beic Vision Muslims believe in the beic theic vision yes so the the the Muslim approach is similar to the Catholic approach well there's there's gradations of paradise and there's gradations of hell just like there's gradations in this world the Quran says the gradations of the next world are greater than the ones of this world there are more so like how give me an order of magnitude you talking about s eight or no no I 10 trillion yeah it's I think it's more like 10 trillion I mean okay well okay well that's good I'm look I you're closer than I am I think so that's that that that's good it's good to know the order of magnitude yeah and so he and can you make transitions after that or once you got a one of your no no there's you can make Transitions and that's why praying for the dead is so important here because praying for the dead helps the dead there's a beautiful poem by uh Martin Lings about praying for the dead and he goes through each religion how they all pray for the dead and then he says can these and these and these be wrong you know why do we pray for the Dead um in in purgatorio the if if you remember the people on on on each of The Terraces they say tell them to remember us when they go back you know they're begging him to have them pray because it will help them in their afterlife so so we do intercede for the dead we pray for the dead and that's why we say peace be upon him God have mercy on his soul we we don't mention dead people without praying for them Muslims devout Muslims will always will always say like if I mention IM gazali I should really say may God have mercy on his soul so any any it doesn't have to be an exalted dead person no like any any dead Muslim any dead Muslim would you say that for a non-muslim if they die I mean we no we we wouldn't it's it's like the Catholics the traditional Catholicism we we we're we we pray for our dead um but we can ask that God give them the best of what he gives the people in their in their faith and after at this time when the soul is into this atemporal space with God or in hell and all these gradations is does the Earth still exist the solar does the physical world still exist or that's all B the Earth is recreated it's recreated it's recreated and it testifies against anyone who polluted it or oppressed it and what what's on it go God God actually gives it the ability to speak the the Earth will speak yes the Earth will speak our hands will speak our tongues will speak the eyes will speak the eye will say he made me look at this the ear will say he made me listen to this the tongue will say he made me say this the hands will say he made me do this because they don't want to they're blaming they're blaming the soul because they don't want to go to hell oh like what did they do to deserve that right so so there that's a good point yeah so so the Earth is raised up animals are raised up any animal that was wronged will have it every dog has its day I mean in Islam that's actually true how deep does that go does it go to you know flies and mosquitoes no I don't think so I I think it's the sensient beings yeah and so at some point there's a cut off there must be I mean I I I I can't say for certain because there's nothing definitive in our tradition but I would think logically so a pet that I had as a child yeah pet if you abuse the pet it will have its day yeah yeah and and testify against me yeah um okay uh but at the but but at that time will there still be Recreation of people on earth or will the earth be Barren no the Earth will it won't okay so once it's done it's done it doesn't recreate there's no other worlds and other the prophet peace be upon him he said that the afterlife to this world is like a V this world is like a small iron ring in the midst of a vast desert yeah so so the dimensions of the next world are much greater than this world so this is called the mul which is God's Dominion but then there's above this there's a dimension called the malakut and then the jabarut divine presence so there's different dimensions and we say this world you don't mean just this Earth You mean this whole the the empirical world the whole universe yeah this is all called a so so like this Heaven is called the heaven of the dya there are other heavens above it yeah above it metaphoric of course of course U what about the um the current activity ities on this world in terms of an end time for the this world that's very prevalent in Jewish and Christian yeah we have a very strong eschatological es so so what what are are there events that will occur yes that will lead to the well one of the things I mean the Hindus it's it's actually similar to the cuga this idea of the the Dark Age the last age the Propet predicted that children would would be in utter Rebellion against their parents that fornication would become prevalent um that swearing would become prevalent he said that foul language would become uh consistent he said the Arabs would VY in in building tall buildings he said that the goat herders would build uh skyscrapers he said that the uh the buildings would in Mecca would reach the the pit the tops of the mountains um he told us that who said this the prophet Muhammad was all recorded yeah he said that um uh that um that people he said that people would sell their souls for a p poultry price of the Duna and this is always been the case but in the end it's exacerbated by the numbers of people that do these things um he said religion would be on the way and Atheism would be on the wax in fact he said that the end of time won't come until there won't be anybody that says Allah Allah God God on the earth so in this world The Atheist will eventually uh be the dominant yeah group uh and what are some other signs like the miti he said that that that that time would be speeded up he said a a year would be like a month a month would be like a week a week would be like a day and a day would be like an hour um he said blessing would be taken out of people's lives um he said that people would become obesity would become prevalent obesity obesity he said that he said uh that uh he said that also that uh H uh hemorrhoids would become pre prevalent yeah he said people wouldn't move um he said that uh uh people would um would uh bring their uh their spouse close and distance their parents um he said that people uh would um he said people would say rumors and they would immediately reach the ends of the Earth it's actual Hadith yeah he said they would say rumors and it would be and he said that people would believe Liars more than they would believe truthful people he said trustworthy people would be deemed treacherous treacherous people would be deemed uh would be deemed trustworthy and then he said and then he called a group The Roa in Arabic he said and they and the r with manifest and they asked him who who are they didn't know that word and he said insignificant people that would talk about global events like just and then he said people would make money from talking uh does anybody set dates is there any tradition you know it's well known in religious tradition that it's always unwise to set a date right people still do it they do it yeah uh the famous one back in the 18th century which was called the great disappointment yeah so so the the the basically the prophet said that the signs will come near so he said that there were lesser signs and then there were the Great Signs so the Great Signs will be he talked about sink holes that there would be many sink holes in the world he said that earthquakes would become prevalent um he said that uh um he and then eventually uh there's uh he said that there would be smoke that covered the people's cities um that would become like a a torture like anab and he said that um he said the Antichrist would come so the Muslims believe in an anti-risk phenomenon called the M which literally means the impostor Christ and he he's somebody he's a world leader who comes at the end the prophet said that he will travel like a CL like a wind that leaves behind a cloud trail so and he said he'll visit every city in the world in 40 days it's quite stunning uh and uh he said that um that he would uh have mountains of wheat he could command the the rain clouds the clouds to form and Rain to fall all so he could just command this guy so he' have all these powers and that's why the the the Muslims um are told not to give any consideration towards the latter days of Miracles because there would be so many miracles in the latter days that traditional peoples would be SE would see as Miracles that just become common experience for like talking to somebody on a he also said that people would talk uh to they would leave their families and on their on their sides would be things that would enable them to talk to their families it's a Hadith I'm not making this up yeah and that's very similar to the Christian tradition The Book of Revelation and uh the Book of Revelations is a very his hadiths are very specific The Book of Revelations has is open to a lot of interpretation yeah but I mean yeah St John of Damascus was uh sorry not St John St John of the Book of Revelations um definitely had some extraordinary vision and and saw things but there's a lot of interpretations in Christianity of what that means saying the specificity in the Muslim tradition is much greater I I I've never seen and I've had an interest in the signs of the end of time I've never seen a tradition that has the the the remarkable number and the the incredible detail that is given uh in the science of if you were to tell me a secret that I promise not to tell anybody do you have your own sense of when that might occur what generation how long well in our tradition there's three uh last days uh the first one is your own personal death y that's easy yeah and so you should always be read for the end of time because the end of time's coming there's a great song called hello God Goodbye World hello God you that's always coming that I'm with you on yeah and the second one is the death of a generation the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said that in a 100 years there won't be a living Soul on the Earth and so a death of a generation is like the World War II Holocaust generation you know they're they're going to be gone and they we'll we'll have their testimonies recorded but they're gone they won't be able to come out and tell us their first experience right um and then you have the End of Time the End of the Age which there's massive uh Earth disruption the prophet the way it's described in the Quran is going to be like one of these terrible apocalyptic films where where everybody's running to and fro also the prophet said that people would run to and fro all over the world and he said that uh the pen would become prevalent uh which is very unusual for an illiterate Society because the Arabs were lit but he said everybody would have pens and so do Muslim Scholars or speculators think that you know it could be our age or the next hundred years or Thousand Years years I khun the great historian said that one of the The Faults of the sufis is they always predict the end of time it's never a good thing but what we know is it's 1400 years closer than it was when the prophet told us it was near ham U one of the things we hear about all the time in the common vernacula is get to know God how do you know God but from a philosophical point of view uh So-Cal what's called theological uh uh anthropology to really understand the process what what are the the components of the pieces to answer that question in a uh in a philosophical manner how can we know God right so the the Islamic tradition recognizes four main vehicles to knowledge of God one is uh pure reason the other is the data of the senses that Aid reason and then experience uh especially mystical experience and finally Revelation itself so these are the fundamental means by which a human being can come to know God so the idea pure reason would be the a priori uh knowledge that we we begin to explore for instance we ask the question why is there something rather than I've heard of that question yeah nothing that's a big one and and and then also uh time itself the concept of time uh movement uh change all of these things also in metaphysics the the the really big questions of of the one and the many you know the idea of of these the being itself like because being is something that we we live in like the fish that might not be aware of the water you know so many of us don't really contemplate being itself and so metaphysics becomes the examination of being itself not particularized being but the very phenomenon of being itself and then is there something Beyond being so I think that there are different ways obviously I mean there's there's the famous five ways of uh of aquinus uh which obviously come largely from Aristotle but also from the influence of avasa on aquinus uh the Muslim really focused on the calam cosmological argument the idea of asserting that uh there could not be an infinite regress uh that an actual Infinity was impossible that there must be a beginning and if there was a beginning who tipped the scales if if you have the scales of nothing and nothing and then now there's something who tipped that scale and so the preponderance uh of that scale then is is is so the first category in essence you don't need sense data for I mean you just need to to be in the world to think about yeah and then sense data is is that we we are surrounded by things there's clearly design in the world I mean Evolution has an explanation for that uh which challenges uh many Believers but essentially we can see that there is design um there's a wonderful poem by Robert Frost accidentally on purpose which looks at that idea of just things move towards design and we can clearly see that our bodies have functions and purpose and and so looking at that reflecting uh the great uh Theologian Imam aladi uh God have mercy on his soul he said that if somebody really wants to know God they should study anatomy and physiology and people do have that experience some people the opposite they'll say oh the eye is not really designed that well I had a physiology Professor that said that you know but there's also divinely engineered obsolescence I mean there's just falling into old age I mean this is part of God's plan for us um and then and then mystical experience is very powerful I've I've had those experiences not everybody has them but people do have them people have dreams people um have profound experience of Oneness um people uh experience God a great example of that is the is the Wonder wonderful philosopher Eda Stein who was an atheist she she was raised in a in a a Jewish family but she became an atheist and she had a mystical experience in a in a cathedral in Cologne and then she read um uh St teres de aa's biography and she said by the she read it all night and by the morning she was a Believer so what is that and then there's an experience of a of of of meeting a a saint and you know I feel like I've had that experience um saintly people are very powerful you can you can feel the spiritual presence um and finally Revelation and Revelation uh comes with its own proofs in essence uh I think one of the great proofs of the Old Testament is the is the Jewish uh story itself like H how how God chose this small group from you know I mean they were in the Sinai desert they could have just disappeared and yet today they're they're here and and they're also uh they're people of of great intellect and people of great study I mean all the Nobel Prize winners I mean for me I think the Jewish Community is a proof of God because of just the fact that they're designated in this book as having this kind of special ontological status amongst humanity and and we see the the extraordinary influence yeah as you know each of these categories can be um subject to critique and absolutely and and have different interpretation uh my own sense uh to speak personally just as between you and I no you know nobody else is watching um I would be most suspicious if if in my case in with number three uh if I had an experience or I had a dream um which I haven't I mean I've had a lot of Dreams some of which I thought May meant anything and I can honestly say that not a single dream in my life life has ever meant anything in reality um one time I thought it might and it didn't so but if it did and know if I did have an experience I maybe it's my problem I wouldn't trust it I because I would like to believe I would like to be a believer I'm not running from it and then suddenly I have to be pulled there's verses in the Quran that say that those who don't believe would like to be Believers well not everybody but a lot but I I I put myself in that category I would like to be I think I think I think that you just haven't realized that you are a Believer CU I think you're obsession with this obsession is good word yeah with this search for the truth but you know moving closer to the truth I you know I think closer to truth not the two truth okay good point yeah no no definite article yeah but but I think that search one of the things that Imam Al gazali says that if a man is is sincerely seeking the truth and doesn't achieve it before his death yes that that God that that is actually a uh serious consideration oh good good so I have a chance I think so okay if not if not I hope you'll help me no I hope so I you know I yeah I mean I think we can't there's so many human experiences that cannot be taken only God can really assess them I mean I just people that if I was born into a family with a mother who's addicted to crack cocaine and I'm abused as a child my whole life I mean am I going to have a good opinion of the world or of God I mean these are tough things to understand that you know the mystery of iniquity and it's it's a great mystery yeah so anyway as I said I I I I would like to believe I I I wouldn't trust my own feelings but you know we'll we'll see and uh and and there's a lot of delusional people yeah sure yeah IM gazali says some of the most delusional people are the mystics like so he actually says that yes that's good so you know all all four reasons are good the caution is good and the extra caution about you know self- delusion and maybe I'm super sensitive to that U because of my desire well I think fallibilism is extremely important for a Believer I think it's absolutely essential that we have a fist uh perspective that I think I'm right but I could be wrong I'm say in the early days of closer to truth um I had the privilege to spend really two days with Alvin planer and one of his questions that he had posed which I saw in his work was does God have a nature like a human nature or does God have its own nature and I was just uh um startled by that idea that God could have a nature or it's something we should explore and I enjoy talking to Al and a few others uh but I'd love to get an Islamic perspective on that question I mean the the word b the word in in English comes obviously from a Latin term NATA and uh and the idea has something to do with birthing and same with the Greek Fus you know it's it's the idea of coming into being or being born uh so using it in in that way obviously we we would reject that but the idea of Nature and I think it is used in Christian theology as indicating the essence it's also one of the meanings of the word in English um so from that point of view definitely we would believe that God has an essential uh nature the the the essence of God for the Muslims is unknowable that only God knows uh God's Own Essence uh but we we we understand God as having an Essence but also acts and attributes so the acts are both they are Eternal and and and uncreated and then created acts also um and then we believe that he that God has these attributes um and many of them obviously are mentioned in the Quran and some are withheld from us uh I think the Old Testament and and the New Testament also have attributes of God the the the essential attribute is Mercy according to our tradition that is the essential attribute of God and in fact there's a uh a famous Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam PE be upon him that that he's speaking on behalf of God not from the Quran and he says that God says I have derived the womb which in Arabic in Hebrew also in Arabic it's I have derived from the womb the womb from my name the merciful which is Rahman and so anyone who severs the womb is severed from my Mercy in other words kinship bonds and maintaining them and having compassion for uh for people people and and the fundamental kinship bond is that holds us all together is that we are all children of Adam and Eve that and so you're my brother you're a distant brother but you're my brother in humanity and that's why Imam Ali said that everyone is either a brother in religion or a peer in this uh created fraternity so that that's really important so God wants us to express his attributes in the world and and so like showing Mercy but there's also the attribute of uh of of Vengeance that God does take Vengeance for for wrongs that are done that are not repented of and so that's part of God's nature also is that God takes revenge and so he's a majest God is a majestic uh Creator but he's also a beautiful Creator and these aren't mutually you know contradictory um the the the primary word you use is merciful as as the as the primary Essence I think in Christian philosophy it would probably be love love yeah how do those articulate obviously they do articulate together but to uh privilege Mercy over love what does that connote well I think yeah that Mercy is I mean one of the the meanings of it if you look in Latin is the idea of Grace has the same root meaning and so it's it's really about Grace um and and uh Mercy is is is showing it's obviously I think it it emanates out of it has to emanate out of a Kind of Love I mean God has a love for his creation which which is universal and then and then there's a specific love the love of the righteous so there are many verses in the Quran God does not love the wrongdoers that's in his in the specific love of God but creation itself is is obviously I mean God loved his creation yeah and there's um there are Arguments for some philosophers said that God had no choice but to create it wasn't like God had to make a decision but God was sort of I don't know forced is the right word but it was the only way it could be is that God created yeah we would not we wouldn't accept that because there's nothing that compels God outside of himself but the effulgence this idea of what's called f the Bounty of God that it's it's part of God's nature to to express uh that Bounty the reason when I first heard um planning's idea about God having a nature it just seemed to I don't know lower God and the idea of God being Beyond being and you can't even use any characterization o of God and nature seemed to undercut that in some way but but I guess you know I got used to it I mean well also I mean languag is when we talk about God we're we're ultimately stuck with human language for in for instance just gendering like Muslims do not believe God has a gender yeah and yet uh in the English language we're tend to force to use one of two genders yeah and and it is makes it would just be make it impersonal yeah and it is for something that doesn't have reason yeah so it would be that be unacceptable inappropriate yeah what I try to do is try to use the word god double God so if I had to say if if God wanted to do something then God rather than that's what I try to do I'm trying to get out of gender language but it's not easy no and and and it's it's slightly awkward English yeah it is awkward English and Dr Thomas clearly translated the Quran without any gender with God and and he I think he did a really extraordinary job that's good yeah ham there are many questions we can ask about God and one of the most profound to me is is God necessary now we're using the word necessary in its philosophical sense not in its in its in its common connotation because commonly we say sure God's necessary there wouldn't be a world you know we need God that's not what it means it means is is uh to to the degree that uh under different structures or different states of Affairs of all reality is there a possibility God could not exist and certainly from the judeo Christian tradition uh the classical one that God is necessary but what do we mean by necessary because um I can conceive of the universe coming into being or being existed thing without coming into being without a God so I don't see how God is logically necessary the way a logic a a a married Bachelor is impossible so it is it is necessary that a married Bachelor does not exist that's necessary because it's direct contradiction in terms of definition but I can conceive of a world where God is Not uh God is not needed so God does not seem to be logically necessary uh what's the Islamic tradition on the necessity of God well yeah B I think that first of all the idea of the of the necess necessity of God comes from a Muslim philosopher which was aena and his his argument was the argument of from contingency this idea that that if you have a contingent world meaning a possible world because we could have many many possible worlds we could have a world where we were simply blobs that um you know lived in glass bottles and uh were always existent we we can conceive of amazing things or everything in the entire history of the world is exactly the same except that when I put my finger here versus I put my finger here that's two different worlds right everything else is exactly the same and so it's literally Infinity of Infinities of kinds of contingent worlds exactly that's for and so here we are in this contingent world and the idea is that the principle there then of sufficient reason asks for a an explanation that makes some kind of sense to a contingent World aisa's solution to that was there must be then a necessary being that has a seity this idea that that there's no explanation for that that reality exist meaning that the entity in itself has all the requirements for existing self- sustaining does not need anything is incomplete one of our definitions of God is the one that is independent of all things and yet all things are dependent upon that God and the essence is existence Essence is existence is not a predicate that explains exactly because then it would come out the the the accidents or the the the attributes then would come out of the the essence and then and then you get into all these theological problems so that that is I think the the traditional view but conceivability is one of the phenomenon of the phenomena of the human mind I mean the fact that we can conceive of all these things now the question is again it begs the question your question of the definition because we can talk about God Einstein had a vision of God but it certainly isn't the god of the theologians uh Spinosa you know many many people have had uh so if we're talking about the God of Revelation if we're talking about the God of Abraham that is a personal God that's a God that's actively engaged right with the the creation and so that I think a lot of people will debate about but I think most people our belief is that there is a kind of principial nature in the Quran it's called that that people let me give you an example fzi the great Theologian uh Persian Theologian he said that that causation causality is a fundament mental aspect of the mind and he said you can take an infant and you can um hide and throw something in front of the infant the infant will not assume it popped into existence it will literally walk around to find the source and he says causation is a fundamental desire of the human being and so we're that is essentially what metaphysics is it's trying to get to the first cause like where did this all begin so Aristotle has you know his argument from motion but that is that's a philosophical God that's not the god of of Revelation that's not the god of creation X nio that's the god that is the first mover who's connected with creation as a cause and effect connection that can't be parted and so the universe exists forever with alongside God so AV aent you know there there's debates about in the Muslim tradition but Imam Al gazali completely rejected that idea and so Muslims believe in in creation XO so the ground of being where does that come from where and what sustaining this there there's a verse in the Quran that says God is witnessing all things so that that witnessing is sustaining existence and there's a verse in the Quran that's with the most famous verse which is called the The Throne verse that says uh God there is no God but God uh the living the the the the the sustainer and then it says neither sleep nor Slumber takes God and in the commentaries they say if if that was true the whole existence would disappear I mean one of the most fundamental things about the world is that we assume its continuity like we get up in the morning I I planed to come here to talk to you last night I didn't but really if if we believe it just popped into existence randomly we have to conceive that it could just pop out of existence I me the alternative is that it it always was uh Bernard Russell in his beron Russell in his famous debate with ceston um copon eloquently put forth the arguments you and I probably agree with in a much better way than I could ever do brilliant brilliant man and and Russell got up and said the universe just is and that's all and sat down um that's a glib to me that's a very glib answer you know first of all that was probably during the time Fred hoy's steady state was still very that's noer true I mean and then you have okay so we had the big bang and then it's the Big Crunch and then it starts again but then you have an actual Infinity I mean in the end I really believe we're just making choices and and I choose that to me you cannot convince me that there's not an intelligence behind this I just can't believe it yeah and and and we're not debating that at this point what we're debating is the source behind that which given this conversation I'll give you as God uh what is the necessity of that God is it this absolute logical necessity there as they say in every possible world that we can conceive of there's no way we can conceive of a world without God which would make it logically impossible and I can conceive of a world without God yeah exactly it's because you have the ability to conceive all possible things uh in your all contingent things but I would say that that that this this creation is is always going to compel us to ask that question and and um I believe that the prophets I mean one of the most interesting things about the prophets is they don't contradict one another they really do say the same especially the abrahamic prophets continually say there's a God he's going to judge you and you better behave and I mean every PhD disagrees with his the the previous guy his mentor Aristotle disagrees with Plato philosophers are always disagreeing with with their mentors but these prophets are very consistent and they told us the universe had a beginning nobody believed that at the time they just thought it was always here now we actually do believe that it had a beginning and they told us it has an end I mean I think that's a very compelling AR but one of the things about God is he has left it he has not given us a criminal uh uh type of evidence it's not Beyond a reasonable doubt he has made it clear and compelling evidence and I think for for the principle of sufficient reason the most clear and compelling argument is that there is a God behind creation and if that's the case I would give you just three categories I'm sure there are many others that that God's existence God's Own existence and God's Own Self uh can be at the most extreme logically uh forced and there's no other logical aspect it can be some kind of metaphysical which is not quite at the level of logic or could be just factual which is a nice way of saying brute fact you know we it just is not not that we don't know it's not an epistemological question it's an ontological fact that it God just is and there is no metaphysical or logical reason for it it's just a brute fact it's the ultimate brute fact I mean th those are three possibilities most philosophers who were Believers that I've met again in the Christian tradition desperate ly want it to be a higher level of necessity so they want it to be logical and are don't like it to be a brute fact factual necess even though it's still a necessity even though it's still God U and you know I I I'm I don't know because I want it to be right I don't want it to just be making God more than God really is yeah that's a very interesting point because um ultimately God is more than anything that we can conceive of God being I think that's the answer we have to accept yeah again we Muslims put our head on the ground there's just a submission ham the question of whether God exists has always haunted me and it's something that's very uh personal um and one of the ways that I get at that question is not to go through all the proofs or disproofs I mean that gets you know pretty ex boring after a time you go it over again but rather to assume God exists and then ask what are the kinds of traits that God would have and then look at those traits and are they coherent do they make sense is that possible and that can reflect on whether God exists now one of the uh classical traits of God that you read about that is uh accepted today to some degree but was highlighted during the high flourishing in the Middle Ages is that God is simple right and simple means that God has no parts and that every one of God's characteristics are not in in uh not the way they sound but in reality are the same so God's power omnis omnipotence and God's knowledge omniscience or are actually the same thing and we just have to separate them because does that make coherent sense that God is simple that that everything about God is really the same thing that we have to disaggregate in our mind because we can't understand it but in Ultimate Reality they are the same right so M I think one of the most difficult things is is is this area talking about the attributes of God and the essence of God uh so in the mesite tradition they they were the same and the Catholics actually took that this idea that the essence and the attributes There's no distinction um the mainstream Orthodox Muslims did make a distinction between the essence and the attributes but not in any way that would infer composition and so it becomes it's it it becomes very very they actually call it which means the very subtle theology that becomes difficult to articulate well um because of the dangers of misunderstanding in it so when we say simple obviously God cannot have uh cannot be a composite uh because one that would end up with a kind of actual Infinity Parts being greater than the holes if it's infinite where the parts come from right where the parts come from and then space the idea of being somehow the part is contained in some kind of space so what's interesting is that that the Christians also believe that God is simple a lot of people don't know that because they think of the the personas right the the persons the three persons of of God the Father God the son and and and and the Holy Ghost uh the Holy Spirit but aquinus is very clear on the Simplicity of God that God does not have any composite and so the person I it's interesting he chose the word Persona in the in the Scholastic tradition which means mask you know it's something so Meister eart argues that the godhead is absolute uh simple Infinity so um I think the word simple a problematic word too because of what it evokes in in yeah it has a connotation to it course so um but yeah we say he's that there's no parts nor are there different persons uh the hypostasis is denied in the Islamic tradition the idea of a trinity and the Jewish tradition and the Jewish tradition yeah I mean the the Jewish theologians and the Muslim theologians really were in concert uh on a lot of things and in fact George ker the Jewish uh Theologian who ran the Boston Seminary said that um the the the the Christians were only half prosites of the noahic tradition whereas the Muslims were full prosites preparing the world for the coming of the Messiah and that was the classical Jewish position yeah that's right that's right u in the Christian tradition today I would say the majority of serious Christian philosophers uh reject the idea that God was simple as a a Scholastic tradition there are a few traditionalists who who maintain that and and I think they they get to that similarly to what you describ that the the essence and the attributes are different but that does not imply that there are parts right which you know is hard to exactly and and and that's why the marites said that the the the ashar and the mat were actually making more than one God by doing that oh that's interesting so they did see that problem but I I think semantic ially if you if you can get your head around it the idea of the attribute is is established uh in in the essence but yet it it it has a distinction as an attribute but it's it doesn't negate the Simplicity of God you know to take it back where I started from now that we've sort of agreed with that and I I you know if I'm going to believe in God U that the explanation you've given would be the way I'd say yeah if I have to make if I have to make a choice I'll probably go follow your Trail oh great but you're a convert but now that I reflect back on it does that make sense does it make sense to say that something that is has no parts whatsoever can do anything that's differentiable because how do you get something that's differentiable out of something that has no parts well I think you know if we think of Consciousness as not having parts and yet we can we can have different ideas our but I can see even if Consciousness has some non-physical component the parts are are are are coming through the parts of the brain and that I know really well that's hardware but but but I mean yeah but we don't but if if we assume that Consciousness is immaterial there's some there's something I I would give you something about Consciousness conscious that may be IM material but the specificity of what we see like the the ability to know that I can phenomenologically see a red is consciousness but the fact that I see a red rather than a green all of that is you also even in modern physics I mean if the veils were lifted we we would see the field and and and in some ways a type of yeah it would be a type of Simplicity and yet there's all these differentiations within the field yeah yeah so I mean this is again whether God is simple and how that works is a deep probe of uh of what you understand God to be and reflects on whether such a being really exists so I think again we the fundamental truth of our God is is that God is absolutely one which is toed and that one is pure Unity so there's no composition there's no per persons there's no uh other gods beside that one true Living God and and that is unique to discern the relationship between God and time to me is one of the deepest probes of God and of time and I want to begin by telling you an observation that I had which really made a profound impact on me as I began to understand this question uh there were two individuals um both of whom have have passed subsequently uh who I greatly admired uh both in the UK both distinguished um phds in physics both strong Believers in Christianity and the Ang tradition you couldn't pick out two people who on their surface were more similar in their background their uh commitment to their faith uh and and their their deep intellectual desire to know God that's the the the background of premise on the question of God and time they were diametrically opposite one believed that God was um uh not in time was Tim less and so existed totally outside of time and the other believed that that was impossible and that God was in time but God was Everlasting without beginning and without end but God was in time and on that point they were intellectual enemies whereas everything else they were exactly the same amazing and and that struck me so in the Islamic tradition has that been a a point of of dispute of how God relates to time not really I think that the the the Muslim OB obviously time is an extraordinary um experience we're all experiencing we're in it and it's and its movement uh and and it's the measure of movement and creation is constantly changing and yet has this extraordinary sameness like the fact that we Central Park is Central Park it goes through its Seasons we walk through it that statues there and yet time those statues are getting older and and things begin to fade and buildings need renovation so change uh is is happening all around us God does not change there there's nothing God is absolute and so God cannot be in time by the very nature of God because God is the creator of time and space God is not in time or space and I think that's that's probably one of the most difficult things for us to get our heads around because we we exist in time and and you know okay why did God create the world 14 billion years ago why didn't he do it 20 billion years ago but that's already assuming somehow that God is in time um and so at creating time is is uh is what God has done and so we have to experience time now there is a a very interesting tradition from our Prophet peace be upon him where he said that God says do not curse time and there are many words for time by the way in Arabic but he said do not curse time and he used the word d dahar in the in according to Imam Jani means all of time in one instant it's it's what we would call he says it's eternity as an inst it's ET presence and so the traditional commentary though is that because the Hadith says in my hand is the night and the day the metaphorical hand of God in my hand is the night and day meaning that time is is you know God has created it and so we shouldn't curse it because it's from God that's one interpretation the other is the idea that God is eternally present and and infinite and and that nans that eternal the Old Testament verse uh that that uh articulates with that is that to God A Thousand Years is as a day and a day as as as is a thousand years the the the Quran quotes uh that and also 50,000 years to indicate that it's it's relative yeah yeah a thousand years you could picked any number you like exactly yeah so so with God it's all yeah no I mean I mean that that that has a coherence to it absolutely co coherent and and we now believe that time Rel created and time is related to the beginning of the universe you can't ask what was before that it's like asking what was before the what is the north of the North Pole it's just a illogical question when time you can't ask what would before for we also have a very interesting concept sorry you were yeah no no it's just that that that um that we go along those lines but it's not sufficient M so I can understand and I respect greatly those uh PE those philosophers scientists who who are believers who believe that God is in time uh you know Pi pick names John poking horn was one of the physicists I was referring to Richard swinburn um and and part of the reason for that I think is to make is to maintain God as a personal God in a real sense as opposed to a kind of a a a a a a tortuous philosophical sense that God from all eternity in the this enormous presence this this single instant of knowing all time in one enormous present that God is sort of knew from all eternity what you Hamza are going to pray for on on uh U March 10th to 2023 and he knew that from all eternity he knew that and he knew how he would answer your prayer at that point I mean it gets torturous well that was n's I think n had the Eternal reoccurrence was kind of if if that was true realizing that there was this kind of Eternal reoccurrence of life because all all of your moments in life would always be present yeah very very interesting so I think people tend to overthink things um and and and I you know like I I just feel like all shut down at that point because our Prophet said don't reflect on eternity U because the the the intellect can't take it and and the there are mysteries in religion um that are impenetrable and and that's where submission comes into it this idea of just submission like I I feel that my life has shown me enough evidence especially providential evidence of of of a a caring loving God that's that's been my it's not that I haven't had really difficult times and I and I haven't suffered and and I haven't had childhood trauma and things that have happened to me uh that that are very disturbing and disrupting but I overall I just I feel there is a Providence in the world working that's that's very powerful and and and I I think also that time one of the things that time expands and contracts for us like I I know we have this concept of Baraka blessing in time so that lives can have much more time than other lives I'm you know we both know that one of the uh strongest the strongest proof that atheist use against God is the problem of evil and it's just it's so obvious if if you pose a god that is all powerful and all good how can you account for evil uh and if you have evil to flip the argument around God cannot be both all good and and all powerful so take your choice God is less powerful than you think that that that would be coherent or is less good than you think and that would be coherent but to bring them together all powerful and all good is incoherent yeah I I don't agree with that for a number of reasons one the assumption that there's evil in the world is one of the moral Arguments for the existence of God because where do we even get the concept concept of evil if it's all just pure Randomness I mean animals kill other animals all the time is that evil is it evil that the lion Praise on on the deer is that is that evil I me we could look at it as evil there's a lot of pet lovers that I I had a coyote recently kill my cat that coyote was evil as far as I'm concerned because I really like the cat but um God is the creator of every it's all his do God's dominion and therefore whatever God does with his Dominion if if I take this coat and you see me burn the coat you can say and this is the brutal answer to this question I like brutal yeah so if if I burn the coat and you say hey that was a perfectly good coat what are you doing well I could know that the coat was actually infected with some kind of thing you don't know why I'm burning a coat but the point is you don't have any business telling me what to do with my property so if the whole world is God's Dominion we have no business questioning God one of the verses in the Quran is God will not be asked about what God does but you will be asked about what you do now that's quite brutal but on the other hand it's not an equal relationship it's not an equal relationship and so for us to kind of put this veilance on God hey that's evil what you did you you allowed Hitler to to to to rise and kill millions of people that's evil what you did you allowed Putin to invade Ukraine you know we can say that but at the same time we have moral agency and God has given us moral agency and so I think just as we can say where is God God can can ask us where were you like where were you because as uh as Burke said you know for evil to flourish it just takes good men to do nothing and so there's there's a lot of Truth to that I mean we have people all over the world that just don't seem to be bothered I mean I walk around yesterday I went just to get a blanket for a homeless person cuz it's really hard for me just to walk by somebody I see shivering and not do something about it but what happens when we live in a cynical world where people just assume these things are normal because they're not something's deeply wrong and and so I think you know religion I don't think people realize the good that religion does and then then the other thing about evil if you look at Doki I mean Doki gives us the best argument for the the problem of evil in Ivan you know about children what did they do to deserve uh the horor because we know there's children being trafficked right now we know there's massive child pornography online I mean apparently these people in uh in uh Scotland Yard they can't even last in those units very long because it's so traumatic we the people in Philippines doing the pts they get PTSD from taking uh things down from YouTube because there's so much traumatic material so there's a lot of really creepy stuff and evil stuff on the planet but at the same time we have to understand that we have moral responsibility as human beings and God has given us a a a free will to do that and so I feel that this idea of evil I what I what Ivan ends up committing suicide you know just going kind of mad right um and then or rather going mad and then uh elosha and father zosima are his representatives of the of the the tradition of belie beling in God and acting accordingly and in the end it's you know har karamazov when he you reunites all these little children so he had great concern about the problem of evil another example is uh hre deak who who uses n and dovi as the two quote unquote prophets of the Modern Age and he shows how one gives us an example of of of coming to terms with the evil in the world by believing in God and working to ruce that mitigate it and the other is n who tells us we have to become gods look I I appreciate that but let's look at it from God's perspective uh the Muslim tradition and I assume you believe that God created the universe and had had uh conscious knowledge of and knows everything what the universe will be so I think you know therefore in in the simple syllogism you believe that when God created the universe God knew the extent of evil that would that would exist right is that that's absolutely true yeah um and and and and therefore God was was happy quote unquote to create a world that had all that evil well I think to to fulfill the purpose because you know Helen Keller once said the world is filled with with sorrows and travails but don't forget it's filled with the overcoming of Sorrows and travails I think there's more people every mother that takes her child to the breast you know every mother that gets up with that cry in the night you know every man that goes out you know and risks his life you know to save uh people the fireman who goes into the building I mean all these things are happening all over the world and and I think it has to be 5149 there has to be more good than evil I don't think God would sustain a world that had more evil than good so I actually I'm just on the side of good and and that's where I want to IDE yeah and certainly that's that's legitimate but the question is why is there the 49 I mean could you create a world could God created a world um God had a choice and create World God did create a world without evil it's called Paradise yeah but didn't put us in there not yet not yet right yeah but that that's the patience here and and and the Gratitude and the virtue of partic participation in being and couldn't put us in right away well and avoid the then we wouldn't have known we would just be there we wouldn't have known what I mean one of the things about human beings is the incredible ingratitude that human beings uh display and one of the things in the Quran the devil swears an oath I will lead them all astray except your sincere servants and you will see that the majority of them are not grateful and so there's this desire to remove gratitude from human being like I feel grateful I genuinely feel grateful and I I always wonder about atheists like how you know if if you had the if you had the sunrise or the sunset once a year every human being would go out there to watch it every year it would be this amazing display one of the reasons I person but people see it every day and it's no big deal one of the the reasons I believe that there's so much Atheism in the modern world is that artificial light has just completely obliterated the heavens when I lived in the Sahara many nights I was in tears just looking at the stars you know and the Bible reminds us that the heavens declare your glory um I I I just you see those stars and Plato said that God put the order of the stars in the heavens so that we might see them reflect on them and desire to bring that order down as above so below so I I just feel like people if they would wake up to uh to reality to if they would wake up to reality I mean I I don't think we do enough as even with all the evil in the world yeah it's horrible and and I could I think I could make a great argument for why religion's horrible I think I could make a great argument for that I I could I could help you with that yeah so but I could make an argument that without religion it's a lot more horrible I'm uh uh of all the Christian philosophers that I have spoken to um all but one to my recollection would vehemently uh fight with me when I would say uh is God all powerful is God all knowledgeable is there evil in the world yes yes yes you believe in God then God created evil I mean I'm trying to be a very simple approach to it and I'd get fights back and and never make any progress uh there was one who was different from that who said that there's no way to get out of this God created evil and went through the process um I really don't know the Islamic view of whether God created evil so Muslims believe that there's something called the which is traditionally transy to say is fate Destiny but it the root meaning of it is the idea of measuring something out so there's an idea that God cre has measured everything out he's given us enough rope to save us or hang us and so moral evil is a result of the sinfulness of of human beings so what what comes from that and there's also an understanding that a lot of natural evils uh are are either one of two things that God is there's there's a punishment that could be involved it's not for us to decide but it could be a punishment or it could be uh an elevation in rank and to take Martyrs amongst them for instance our Prophet said that anybody that dies from a house collapsing on him is a martyr it's a martyr's death so they go straight to heaven um so all the people that died in in in in in the earthquake uh by their houses collapsing on them they're considered Martyrs um so and also dying of sudden death is a martyr's death um like in a car accident falling from your animal um dying uh from uh like a stomach cancer or something like that is a martyr's death so they're there there are many deaths the prophet said that are martyr's deaths because of the the intensity of the death and and also the lack of time sometimes that people have to make amends and do these things so I think uh we believe that God created everything but we don't attribute evil uh to God as a kind of um just appropriateness so we we have a we have a formula that the prophet gave us that said all of good is in your presence and evil is not a attributed to you but we believe that evil is part of God's creation God obviously created um the evil in in the world by allowing it to happen if it's moral evil and and then by uh uh the the events of natural evil that are clearly created by God yeah so on the moral evil um God certainly allows it because if you believe in God and it's happening then then then it's obvious that God allows it if you still want to believe believe in God um but you roll you you roll it back to say when God created the universe did God know that that evil would would occur absolutely yeah I mean uh so-called open theology in in the Christian tradition modern today not mainstream but but not not in significant would say that the future is open and God God is omniscient in ter that God knows everything that can be known right but the future cannot be known because it it hasn't occurred yet so God is we're not undercutting God's omniscience because we're saying that like can God lift a a rock that's too heavy to Li you know logical inconsistent logical so there's no there's no undermining of God with a logical inconsistency so they say the future is a logical inconsistency to know so that's a coherent explanation it may not be satisfying to you but it's a lot or to anyone it's a but it's a logical consideration there's a famous um Saint in in Turkey who who had his students and he wanted to appoint uh somebody to follow him so he asked all his students to reflect that night on what would they would remove from the world if they could and so the next day he comes and the first says I'd get rid of murder because it's the worst thing and the next one says I'd get rid of alcohol because it's the source of so much evil I'd get rid of adultery I'd get rid of they all give giving their things they take out of the world and it got to the Saint marz affendi and he said I would not take anything out of a world that God created for its purposes and and so that's just I think a very Muslim view of things that that there are wisdoms and God knows why and there that I mean there's a theodicy of the grand scheme of things right that that we just don't know but God does bring good out of evil and then evil serves its purposes uh in that people rise up and oppose it uh that people uh bear the the the burdens of of Oppression um and still maintain faith in God there's there's a wonderful it's not a true Hadith but I like it anyway um that says anybody who reaches 80 years of age still believing in God Is Forgiven so I got a couple to go so I'm almost there yeah but but I think the idea if you live long enough you're going to see a lot of very troubling things that's a great one I like that yeah even if it's not true it's not a real one but I'll quote you yeah know that's that's uh that that's very good um but the the overarching point though is that either God knew or didn't know the amount of evil in the world but God created the the universe and once you reach that nodal point uh you know you you have to make a choice yeah and one of the things that I find really interesting like I've been in a lot of places in the world and the people I've seen that suffer the most often have the most profound belief in God and the people that sit around with their kind of wine cheese and crackers discussing evil you know and why I don't believe in God they actually very often have wonderful lives and there's kind of an irony in that yeah that is true that that is true uh you know it's um I'm not I'm not I'm not sure that that gives an answer to the question it's kind of a sociological observation yeah and it's fair it's a fair one um I I just uh uh I just think that I mean there needs to be a coherent approach to God I mean if I'm going to believe in God then we need to have a coherent approach and and to and to Sherk from the idea that God is om omnipotent and omniscient and yet distinct extinguish it and yet the evil is something that is God has allowed in order for us to have free will with the Free Will defense the theodicy of Free Will That's a classic defense in terms of we need need of that and that only deals with moral evil it doesn't deal with natural evil exactly exactly and and it doesn't deal that effectively with moral evil yeah because now we have sociologists I mean that's one the thing doeski points out is that the that the time is coming when they'll tell us there is no crime because the sociologists are going to say well the reason they did this is so there's kind of a hard determinism that says oh that criminal couldn't have done anything else given the life that he was given so there are those arguments and again I think I personally believe there's compelling arguments on both sides and you have to make your choice uh I've chosen the sight of God and other people chose the side of either nothingness Randomness or the side of the devil well I hope I'm not in the a category you know it doesn't seem like that but yeah seem like a mench I'm the classic abrahamic religions all of them certainly believe that God intervenes in human Affairs both in our personal lives and in the the flow of history and nations in one form or another um the question I always have is is how how does God do that um and there are radically different ways that sophisticated philosophers in the Traditions who are believers explain that how what is the mechanism by which God has done that um what is the Islamic view well the is the Islamic view now the Islamic view is that God is actively engaged in every instant with creation sustaining it um and without that active engagement that their existence would not be here the other thing is the the providential care the the protection I mean one of the things that we see in the world is is that generally things are like we're things are peaceful and in in the vast majority of places people feel a kind of security in their person and property those are those those are great blessings they can be disrupted but that in some ways is a proof of our natural inclination to kind of uh experiencing order um and and one of one of the ideas about any gross disruptions that happen to human beings the idea like of an earthquake is there's all this order and then suddenly all this chaos comes in but then there's a restoration of order and that's to remind us that order is the norm that that experiencing order is and that's one of the great blessings from God so God in essence throws these wrenches in our works uh in order for us to grow and and always I I haven't met I I've met several people that have been in prison unjustly I have a friend Tobias tubs who spent 28 years in prison African-American beautiful man and he he spent his time he said okay is this what God wants from me and he spent his time helping other people in prison he helped thousands of inmates who were there for crimes uh so a man who was there without crime could help all these people he chose to do that that was a choice and uh and I I've almost every person I've ever met who's been in prison and I spent time unjustly in when I was in West Africa uh in in jail that was horrible experience but when I saw the notes I was only 19 years old but when I saw the notes um that my friend who was with me had written he sent them to me a couple years ago and I and I was telling him oh this is a great blessing this only happens to people close to God like prophets and things like Joseph he was in prison like that's how I was I and I was happy that at 19 I had that vision of the tribulation was actually from God one of our great Mystics uh said that one of the things that will mitigate the pain of his tribulation is to know that God is the one uh trying you and and and so these are things that we grow from like I said I've I've met several people who've been in prison and they've all said to me the same thing was the best ever happened to me and I wouldn't want to go to prison I hope it doesn't happen to you or anybody I know but there are people that do get great benefit from actually being forced to confront themselves in a way that they'd never had before and I think tribulation does that for people so when when when God intervenes in in the world uh I mean there are two there are several different mechanisms by which God can do that uh God is sustaining the world so at any given Nexus God could change things can fiddle with the dials at any point in the world if God's sustaining uh that that's one way it's sort of an active proactive in time kind of reaction to man move things the other way it says that somehow from all creation God sort of knew what things were happening so that God could create a world in which he did not have to intervene but all of the activities that would have occurred God knew beforehand something like a deistic type deistic but it's it's it's a philosophy called middle knowledge where God had a infinite number of choices of Worlds that you could have and part of this is to is to harmonize human freedom because if God is continually manipulating things maybe we don't have as much freedom and to be sure that God's Providence is secured so that the the outcomes of various things are absolutely 100 % known which you know human freedom and God's absolute Providence seem like they're philosophically contradictory at first and so how do you deal with that so do you privilege one over the other human Freedom versus God's Providence I mean there is a kind of self-determinism there there there is an idea that that um things are faded and and that we we accept that but at the same time we we believe that that we do have free will so it's it's kind of holding those two uh in a kind of balance and that's why whenever anything in the past has happened we just say mashallah God has uh willed that and and that according to the Quran is to free your heart from the stress of oh God if I only this had if only done that if I had only done that that it eliminates that problem that's that's good it works it works it it does work it's true or not irrelevant it works yeah it works and it's very effective and that's why Muslims tend to be fatalist about the past but they're not fatalist about the future they believe that we have choices and so you know there's a a Trope that says oh Muslims are fatalists but it's not actually true we we do believe that God has given us the ability to choose and even if we have Neuroscience that tells us oh before you make the choice there's already things there's a lot of problems happening in your brain and things like that but that would be God's a for knowledge preparing you for the choice that you are going to freely make it doesn't the these things for believers I mean that's why you know in essence religion is kind of in in the paparan sense you know it's non-falsifiable because we really can come up with some kind of solution to the problem and it drives people that are you know not Believers a little crazy but I you know I just feel again that um we're we're going to search for the best answers and maybe there's answers that we haven't found yet that we'll found maybe maybe uh these great beasts of computers are going end up telling us things that we I doubt that but that's my my own person but who knows so I mean look we have free will we have God's Providence um and it it it seems to me that you if I heard you right that you have to be a little soft on both in order to harmonize them because some people say that's not true say some you can keep them both hard and and maintain some logical principle but I don't see that I like softening both of them because then they work yeah I we're in agreement on this IM Ali was once asked do we have free will or we is there just choice and he said lift your leg right leg and he lifted his leg and he said now without putting it down lift the other one he said I can't he said it's between those [Laughter] two so you know I mean we didn't choose our parents despite what new age people say you know we did we didn't choose you know the type of Health we would have there well there is a some level of choice in health but generally if you had bad genes you didn't choose that yeah ham all of the abrahamic religions uh in their in their uh Essence believe in Divine Providence but there's a distinction between what it means as I've uh discerned it between those who believe that Providence means that God will know the total outcome of the world maybe individual Nations uh and that the end result is certain and that things will be positive the devil will be put in prison or whatever whatever it is uh and and others who believe that not only that but God knows every single event every single movement of every single molecule in every single part of the universe and that's what providence means uh in the Islamic tradition which are the two something in between how do you deal with Divine Providence I they're both uh from a Muslim perspective they're both absolutely true so on the one hand the the creation is moving towards a Destiny and and that Destiny will be fulfilled in another world and and there's a providential care and assuring that that happens and then on the other hand we believe that God is is directly uh engaged in every instant with the the creation sustaining it and according to the dominant uh understanding actually recreating it in every instance so there's a kind of occasionalist belief that many Muslims hold so that means that God is is is providentially taking care of for instance we actually believe if if we took your temperature or my temperature right now it' probably be around 98.6 in our in our measurement with Fahrenheit that that's that's God that's doing that and and if it goes up that's God God if it goes down that's God if if your blood sugar you know you take sugar and the insulin's released that's God so that's Providence for us God is in every instant taking care of us and then when it goes wrong it's also god um that is uh does that lead to a fatalism or on one hand or a diminishment of free will on the other well that's a good question I think there's there's on the one hand it does give us a kind of acceptance of things but on the other hand we do believe that we we do have free will in that limited area of our agency that God has given us will that volition that we are we are volitional creatures and we have moral agency so and in fact like kard um you know we believe that every instant in essence is a it's it it's a it's an ethical Choice that's being made um even stronger position than God knowing everything is in essence God causing everything uh and the occasionalisms believe that of course but it it is uh it is a it is a way to intensify strongly God's involvement in the world and basically that um that says that in the causal process of anything going on that God is is has an active role as opposed to just setting the stage and let and the Act and the actors meaning the molecules doing their thing right that at every stage God is is in those uh in the in the causal chain which is why the Mystic who experiences God directly sees that reality um there's a great uh Egyptian scholar and Mystic who said uh when did God when was God absent that God needed to be proved to exist that for the Mystic God is never absent and there's a there's a tradition where the Prophet Muhammad said as people draw closer to God God becomes the eye with which he sees the ear with which he hears the tongue with which he speaks the hand with which he grasps the the leg with which he walks so in other words there's there's an experience of that divine um reality how how um ex uh what's the extent of the belief in occasionalism where God is involved in the causal chain of everything that happens is that is that mainstream or not it's mainstream I I I think that would be the dominant belief there are people that believe in secondary causation but the vast majority of Muslims uh would hold at least the scholars I mean a lot of common Muslims might not know but that is the view of IM gazali of many of the Great Scholastics of Islam and it became the dominant Creed it it it's uh I the way I put it is there's there's the quantum and the the Newtonian so at the Newtonian we believe in in in secondary causation that that if if I if I harm somebody I'm responsible for the harm God didn't cause it I caused it um but at that Quantum level we would say that that everything is created by God it sounds like a contradiction though because the quantum level sits below the Newtonian in a sense and that's the real stuff that's going on well I mean I think they're both real we we're living I'm not going to walk through the wall I'm not going to jump off this building I mean we're we're living in a Newtonian uh world of Newtonian physics of cause and effect but there is a world underneath it that I mean they're challenging even the whole concept of cause and effect now at places like CERN that is there really cause and effect it's it's it's a longer conversation but the the concept of um of occasionalism though some have said um had undermined the process of science because if God's involved in all causation then science takes a a lower position uh in the yeah I don't I yeah I don't that argument does not convince me at all because first of all the Muslims when were at the height of their um certainly their their prowess civilization they were at the Forefront of Sciences and many of them were actually occasionalist so it didn't stop them from working with the world that God has given them I mean the the the foundational text that we believe by Imam Nasi says that the reality of things is fixed it's you know it's fixed and and the knowledge of those things is realized so so and then it talks about the the way that we know those is through uh facts and through um through the five senses so so empiricism is real for the Muslims I mean we believe in empirical science at the same time yeah and I think there's you know there's a type of uh challenge for people to hold contradictory uh thoughts in their mind Einstein I think said it was a sign of Genius so I think the Muslims maybe had a type of Genius that people haven't really appreciate it I'm each of the abrahamic religions believes in an end time in the sense that there will be a closing of the age of human uh activity as we have known it for at least in in written history four five 6,000 years um and that the there will be a that God will be have some kind of intervention in Judaism they're looking for the Messiah and Christianity they it'll be this the return of the Messiah and Islam is a kind of a a prophet who will come uh I'd like to understand from the Islamic point of view uh what the end time means what are the signs that you would look for and then maybe how it articulates with the Jewish and the Christian view sure bah so the the end times is uh first of all very much part of Islam in in one of the most famous traditions of the Prophet peace be upon him he he talked about uh he he was asked by Gabriel um what what is uh Islam and he he gave him uh the Five Pillars and he asked him what is uh Iman faith and he gave him the six articles of faith belief in God belief in the Angels belief in The Messengers belief in the books belief in the last day and believe in the uh uh the idea of the this kind of fate or the measuring out and then he asked him about the signs of the end of time and he said the the one asking does not know more than the one the one being asked does not know more than the one asking and so so then he said then tell me its signs so he gave the signs and in our tradition there there's the Lesser signs and then there's the greater signs so the Lesser signs are many in our tradition I mean there there's really a lot of very specific signs of the latter days um where the Prophet Sall alaihi wasallam said that there would be widespread knowledge he said inanimate things would talk um he said that um you that you would find men being satisfied with men and women being satisfied with women would be much uh very widespread um he said that people would walk they would uh spend their time with musical instruments on their heads which nobody understood at the time um he said that people would have on their sides they would have things would tell them what their family was doing at home um he he said that uh people would travel uh between the cloud and back to the Earth um many many signs uh that he said uh that metal would speak um I it's very interesting signs he said that the the skyscrapers would uh that there would appear buildings that would reach the mountaintops he said that the the destitute a Arabs would compete inv vying to build bigger and bigger buildings uh the he literally said Des goat herders amongst the Arabs would compete to building higher buildings um he also said that um that there would be uh Wars like the Christian tradition wars and rumors of wars um he said that uh that people would speak and their lie would reach the Horizon instant mously so many many signs that uh that he told us about but then there's these Great Signs um certainly all the smaller ones one could say as you've described them today yeah they're already here and yeah and I think many Muslims have felt that these they a lot of Muslims I've heard they ask me are these the latter days you know they they they kind of feel they think you know they think I know I don't know but yeah they but they do feel like you know at Le the latter days legiate question seems like it is a legitimate question in the end the Muslims believe so so these major signs we believe in this antich christic uh world leader that comes called the Messi we also believe in the second coming of Jesus um who is we believe is the Messiah that the Jewish Community missed um and that he will come at the end of time um so you believe it that that the that Jesus return as the Messiah is a sign of the end times or that is the end that is that's we're almost at the very end yeah when when Once Jesus returns but there will be a period so how does that differentiate from the Christian view well the Christians see Jesus as part of the godhead so which I mean there is a sophisticated Catholic and Orthodox tradition of the Dual nature there are some Christians that believe in in the monit nature uh I think a lot of Evangelical seem to believe that Jesus is god um but uh yeah so they believe that he's coming back as as God you know okay but in the Muslim Tris but Jesus is coming back he's a prophet as part as part of this process any other prophets coming back no but some say that Elijah is I mean there is a belief in in Elijah as an immortal that's see another Jewish guy in there Elijah is very interesting yeah um how how about the what I read about the you know kind of I forgot the namei or something thei so there is a belief in the Mahi um that's a dominant belief but there are there are Scholars who believe that there's no mthi except for Jesus that Jesus is the mthi but the dominant belief is that there is a a person who comes back and revives Islam and unites the Muslim Community uh when the world's filled with a lot of Injustice and uh I mean the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he predicted he said that Islam would last 30 years as a political phenomenon only 30 years and when his grandson Hassan that was literally at the 30-year point and then he said it would become uh monarchies and then he said the monarchies would be followed by tyrannies and the Tyranny the the monarchies would be followed by tyrannies and they would be horrible and then said then it would uh go back to a the prophetic model which Muslims understood to be the mahed um it's very strong in the Shia tradition um I think some of the Shia saw Barak Hussein uh Obama as kind of a a sign of of of because Hussein is is held very high in both Sunni and mus Shia but particular in the Shia tradition yeah so he disappointed them in the end I think so uh so with the if the the Mii mahadi comes back unifies the Islam is that a sign of the end or is that the end itself it's not the end no so the end eventually there's there's an understanding that it will go back to the loss of that prophetic tradition and then there will be uh you know a terrible War you know that happens uh a kind of Armageddon type scenario and then basically the worst people will be left and then the end comes and then what happens how do we make it better does God intervene in some way just the afterlife that there's a closing of the earth oh yeah so the human species comes to an end oh it gets it it it's it's it's it starts bad gets worse and then it's destroyed destroyed so at the end is very different than the Christian and the Jewish tradition which has God come coming back when Jesus comes back then he takes over the Earth and reforms the Earth and makes peace to go out from Jerusalem well there is a period like that but it's followed it but that oh so then it's followed because in the in the the Christian tradition that is the end and and therefore that's a a new beginning and and and that and that's the permanent the new Heaven and the new Earth here here yeah we don't believe that but you you said that that no we move to another dimension so you would have that as a kind of a false hope yeah if that happen so other people think it's the ultimate but you think that well I think there's a lot of um there's a certain iteration of Christianity that is looking forward to the end times oh sure we're not sure we're not like Muslims don't like in the Jewish tradition you're actually you should avoid being bringing near the end times the Muslims have the same idea you don't want to be a sign of the end of time right yeah you want to be a a zadic you know we call sik same word yeah yeah so that's our goal is to is to Forstall because we want to keep the the theater of Enlightenment the Christians like to see some Christians I don't think all not all sure I mean the a lot of the fundamental would see the end because after that then Jesus would come and the world would be peaceful Forever After but you're saying the end time is going to be totally removed and we're going to move to another dimension and then that's that's that's when the end comes and and the the there's a there's a a tradition it's almost is similar to The Rapture the idea that you know that people are are removed the Believers and then there's there's only left the disbelievers and and then it's all right well I hope I'll go with you yeah yeah well uh it's very easy and then you're you well I'll take your hand I'm so what may seem like a very triy and obvious question why believe in God um I like to ask a different people because uh this the general answer I know I mean I think everybody sort of knows why we why some people think we should believe in God uh but I like I like to hear the nuances the way people describe articulate so from a Islamic point of view from your your own personal view I mean what is the benefit for believing in God can I ask you a question yeah it's a fair so what's the best answer you've ever heard for that have you thought about it yeah no I I I I'm not sure I I can tell you that there's a best answer um the the answer is generally operate ative in terms of the person what's how it'll benefit you and what's the benefit for you and um you know it I guess what I'm looking for is answers that are not as obvious as that sure well for me I don't feel like I have a choice I I don't really I could give you a lot of wise um but for me God is so self-evident that to not deny him would like being denying my own existence personally I I really I really feel that I just it would I really feel it's impossible for me to not believe in God um because I just it everything to me confirms God and and I've seen that in my own life and and I feel you know I have there's a wonderful poem by Robert Frost about looking at the ocean you ever seen that poem you know the people along the sand they they yeah look one way they turn their Backes on the land they look at the sea all day well and then he says the land may vary more but wherever the truth may be the the people turn their backs and and look at the sea and and it it strikes me as why do people look at the ocean because the land does vary more what is it what's the fascination with looking at the ocean and I feel like a Believer is the ones that he's looking at the ocean and and the disbeliever is looking at the land and then when the believer sees the whale he ah look at this turn around look did you see and then it's gone and I and I feel like when you when you accept God God will continually show you reasons to continue to believe in God and when you reject him there's a verse in the Quran that says that we will remove our signs from people that show arrogance in the earth and they can see every sign and they will not believe and so the most important thing is is you know the Catholics have this tradition of the Skeptics prayer which I actually really like this idea of just saying God I don't know if you're there but if you're there help me find you and and I think if somebody really genuinely prayed that prayer I think I think God would show up and so I I just believe God is real and I believe that God does present that reality to people that are willing to just humble themselves and say I believe yeah I I I easily can see myself in that position because I really do want to it's it's just that I worry about fooling myself um I'm not worried about others fooling me I'm egotistical enough to know that no one can fool me you can't fool me but I can fool myself so that's what scares me well the devil might be able to fool you too well you know I I I I maybe I should worry about that they they say they say his you know tillard famously said his greatest was convincing people he didn't ex exist right yeah so um you know again I think I'm very much in control of what I believe and how I believe and how I articulate and to myself but I I really do feel fooling myself because I really do want to believe yeah and it's very easy for Hope to swamp reason uh and yet I understand that reason in its its rigorous sense may be an an inhibition to see God because many people have told me that many people criticize what what we do the the part of closer to truth that deals with meaning and search for God by saying it's all intellectual and you can't intellectually um know God that you have to do it experientially and my comeback to that is is not that they're wrong right they may be right but I cannot discern the difference between the wheat in the chaff if there's any Wheat at all I can intellectually but I cannot experientially right and uh uh and does that put me in in in an impossible situation where I'm rejecting the only real evidence right well I think again another why is for me is that it seems to be the the the most obvious explanation for being here and and being as coherent as we are the fact that our minds are so beautifully uh correspondent with with creation itself I mean h how how could we know something like like the universal law of gravity like H how could our minds be so match to the universe to know that H how could we work out things like fine-tuning and the anthropic principle um how could we determine Van Allen's belts and these things I mean it's quite stunning what the human mind has been capable of doing and and that mind is is constantly generating thought and where where does that thought come from uh J J roomy says silence ask God and the answers will come I'm so one of the the atheists primary points um in disproving God is the severe contradictions in religious teaching certainly among the major religions of the world that there are points of obvious contradiction um and so the fact that uh these contradictions are so obvious invalidates them all um and so we have a choice we recognize the contradictions sure there are some similarities they all seem to believe in something beyond the physical I mean when you devolve down to the commonalities among the religions which some have tried to do philosophically John hick famously is looks to the real and but when you when you when you look for the lowest common denominator you you don't wind up with very much uh so how do you respond to that well I mean I would say that one I I personally love religions like I've I've studied religions uh both academically and and also just out of personal interest um so I do love religions I think there is immense amount of Truth in all the religions that I've studied especially the world's great religions the ones that have large numbers of people um but they they obviously there's difference there's a lot of dub tailing I mean there's a lot of things that that we agree upon but there are differences so uh in the Islamic tradition we we're a supersessionist religion so we do believe that Islam came and abreg hates the previous dispensations but it acknowledges the previous dispensations um if there's differences it's because they've been changed or altered that's how the Muslims view it um but Christians as well and they just had one less to uh to right exactly but but the abrahamic tend to the Jewish and the I mean the the Jewish tradition believes in the noahides right but they their uh their mandate is toach yeah the nodes for the the rest so the 613 is for them but the seven is for everybody else it's a lot easier um but the Muslims actually believe that all peoples got had prophets All Peoples the Quran is very clear that there's been no people except they had Messengers sent to them so there are remnants and traces of prophetic tradition all over the world which is why you have a lot of these themes and a lot of the morality I mean there's differences but there's a lot of similarities so the we believe that we acknowledge the previous dispensations and and and also the Muslims have traditionally allowed them to to coexist with them in in Muslim states so the Muslims always protected the Christians I mean they periods they're bad periods but uh by absolutely true Yeah by law they had to but I mean there's bad rulers like we had a ruler in the 11th century in Jerusalem that burnt down the Church of the Seiler but the the the ruler right after him rebuilt it you know because it was just an act of Madness so and the the Christians historically have lived with the Muslims there's 12 million Christians uh in in at least eight I think but closer to 12 in in Egypt the Copic Christian church was protected even though they were persecuted by the byzantines so the Muslims have recognized that the Jewish Community Bernard Lewis wrote a book about how much better Jews fared in Muslim lands than they did in Europe yes for sure um it wasn't perfect that was a a low a low herdle yeah good point yeah and it certainly wasn't perfect you know but but there are periods of great collaboration between the the Scholastics amongst the Jewish and and Muslims um and then also in in India there there's some bad periods but there's also periods where people like darush shaku darush shaku the great Mogul Prince of Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal he actually translated the upanishads into Persian uh and the upanishads are really consistent with Islamic teaching uh Muslims any but Muslim that read the upanishads would feel like they were reading Muslim commentary and he actually felt the upanishad were mentioned in the Quran darak yeah so the first translation of the upanishads into European language in English was done from Persian from a Muslim translation of a Hindu text so I think Muslims have been taught to respect religions um but we do believe that Islam superseded uh the previous uh dispensation so let's let's follow that the dispensation we're talking about was obviously the Hebrew Bible and then the then the Christian dispensation which changed that in their perspective and then the the Islamic tradition did that but how how then did the Islamic tradition deal with other non-abrahamic religions because there was nothing to supersede in a sense if you're dealing with with Hinduism or or Buddhism right and and a lot of Muslims considered Hinduism that we we can't assert it because it's not mentioned in the Quran the Quran does mention lesser lights distant lights and and so the uh the Muslims many of the Muslims felt like aloni did a whole study of Hinduism and in fact one of the great es farini um in his book on heresiology actually has a whole chapter on Buddha which I wrote about I have a article called Buddha in the Quran and uh he makes an argument that he said if what the Buddhists say is true then he's Al which is the green man who's mentioned in the Quran and Buddha is often portrayed uh in Green Jade uh in any case uh I I have no problem believing that these were um Revelations and and dispensations I mean the vast majority of Hindus believe in one God there you know a lot of Muslims think they're idolators but a true understanding of Hinduism is actually they believe in in in uh this ultimate I mean they have the the um the trity you know the the idea of um Brahma and Vishnu and and uh Shiva so yeah yeah um but if if the Muslim tradition says that that each each peoples have their own Prophets The Assumption is those prophets are saying some things that are not accurate or not true well they spoke for their time so sometimes it's it's cultural uh their laws would differ but the ultimate truth of one God uh the prophets speaking through that one God or you know avatars or however you want to call it and and and then and then the idea of of a a judgment that these these would be considered fundamental and beliefs is that good enough to make it like the noahide laws from the Jewish point of view would give non-jewish people if they fulfill that really kind of the same yeah and it's an easy ticket seven not 613 right yeah uh so on the train Bound for Glory yeah so but is does the the Islamic tradition how how do you then view the other Traditions who who didn't become Muslim but maintained either the old dispensation the Quran says in the fifth chapter that we have given every peoples a a a sacred law and a minage and a way of of a methodology to follow that and had we wanted God would have made all of them one so VI with one another in virtue and so there's a kind of withholding like we do believe that we have superseded the previous religions but we recognize that there's a wisdom in that God has left these religions in the world and they're and we are not allowed to force them to become Muslim they become Muslim with their own choice and God will judge them on the day of judgment we cannot say I cannot say if I say you're going to hell I've done a sin I cannot say that I can say that to no individual I can say that to no individual as a Muslim but yet as a Muslim you do believe that the only certain where you'd be 100% sure they'd be in Paradise is that is being a Muslim a true Muslim a true Muslim yeah not the you know the true Scottish fallacy I don't like that fallacy you don't know that one the true Scotsman yeah fallacy you know it's like uh you know he the the Scottish man's reading in the newspaper that somebody got raped you know he ah a Scotsman would never do that and the next day he finds out it was a Scotsman he said Well a true Scotsman would have never done that yeah that that was one of those good I'm so I think we could say with some confidence that the abrahamic religions worship the same God the Islamic view may be that it uh it's um it it is more of an accurate description having superseded the Christian former Christian and Jewish the Christian would say they they have superseded the Jewish the Jewish would say you guys think you've superseded us but we're the real truth so all right we'll sa that but I don't think any of them would would would fight with the idea that you're worshiping the same a god although the Trinity throws a little bit of a of a of a wrench into that wheel at least from the Jewish point of view and I think from the Muslim point of view um so question is uh do the major religions worship the same God and and there are two things two questions I have for you to to tackle number one is because Christianity has a trinity uh is that the same God that is uh worshiped by the name of Allah or the Tetro grammaton the four you know the name of the Hebrew God are though is Allah the same as the Hebrew God and is Allah the same as the Trinity let's deal with that as one question and the other question is go further a field Hinduism and then Buddhism which really doesn't have a god um but has sort of a cosmic Consciousness quasi god right and Hinduism has God which is a god that is this is my words not theirs derivative from a Brahman from a from a a cosmic Consciousness sort of cosmic Consciousness uh um Evol devolves a God or God emerges from the cosmic Consciousness but is definitely secondary to this fundamental Consciousness uh so you know handle it well I think there yeah B I think that one of the things is there there's all these different perspectives that people are looking from uh there's that famous story of the elephant you know somebody The Three Blind Men one of feeling yeah Indian story feeling the trunk feeling the stump feeling the ears everybody's right and everybody's right but but at the same time they're all wrong yeah so so I think to God is so beyond anything that we can comprehend and so all of these languages are attempts to articulate something that ultimately is in ineffable you know the the the Dow which can be named is not the Eternal Dow one of my favorite verses it's a beautiful verse yeah and so so I think we for Muslims Allah God and and Allah does really mean God the Christians use Allah in in Arabic so so they actually call Jesus the son of Allah um and people forget that and and uh Aramaic also uh in I did not see it but apparently in the uh the The Passion of Christ um when when the figure is on the cross he says IL which is yeah it's Hebrew Aramaic Elohim yeah this is so in Arabic is is God like we have Muslims named Abdul the son of the god so Elohim um so so I think Jews and Christians worship the same God conceptually also Christians worship the same God but the conception is different and from our perspective and from the Jewish perspective it's not a correct perception because they they they have made uh these personas the hypostasis they've they they've given God three in one um and and so for Muslims that that's problematic so we don't we don't believe in God the Father God the son and then the Holy Ghost and then there's a lot of Christian differences about does the Holy Spirit emanate from the father and the son Cod Eternal and we can spend the rest of Eternity debating that so so for Muslims we we we believe that if we're talking about the creator of the heavens and the Earth however we conceptualize that we're talking about the same God we might have misconceptions about the attributes or how we describe that God but it's the same God and that's why I believe I mean I've heard many Christians say oh Muslims they worship a different God Allah is not God and and I think first of all they need to study more Christian history because the I have to say I find it incredibly ironic that the Catholic Doctrine since 1832 is from St Thomas aquinus and St Thomas aquinus quotes Muslim theologians and philosophers constantly um after Augustine some of the most quoted are uh iban rushed aoiz and and I Cena aasa so aquinus benefited greatly from from Muslim theologians and Scholastics and some of his arguments are from them yeah no doubt so and and I think the educated Catholics people like my my friend Dr Robbie George at Princeton I mean these Catholics that are educated they know that the Muslim God is is is the same God but they they believe in the Trinity and uh that's why Muslims can marry Christians and Jews uh they cannot marry pagans but they can marry Christians and Jews Pagan is just is defined as anybody outside of the uh the abrahamic faith yeah okay so Hindus and Zoras were traditionally treated as people of the book like they they so the dominant opinion of the Muslims is that all peoples are to be uh respected even the pagans and and they can live there is a minority opinion that only abrahamic peoples can live under Muslims but but it's never been practiced um and so what about the the Hindus and then and then the Buddhists who don't even have a god they have something fundamental that maybe something like God but it's certainly it's impersonal they have something of ultimate concern and they do have a sense of reality and I think the Pew polls show that almost 70% of Buddhists in India believe in God and I think a lot of Buddhists do believe in God I think I think so I think so I mean I know American Buddhists that believe in God yeah but but that's sort of an individual decision and it's not part of the a syncretic approach to I mean Dr Thomas clear was probably the foremost Buddhist scholar in the United States and greatest translator of Buddhist text into English I mean he really saw Buddhism as ACH technique that all religions could benefit from yeah and a lot a lot do a lot a lot of people think there's no incoherence in being a Buddhist and and a Jew at the same time right but if you look at the doctrines that's not that's just not yeah well there's a lot of different doctrines in Buddhism I mean if if we read Dr clear saw the prophet Muhammad um prophesized in the dhap I think everybody sees everything and I get I get letters every week who people find uh you know the the secrets of quantum mechanics in the aads or in the numerology in the Bible I think there is some truth to the the aish maybe yeah yeah well you know Ian but this there's a lot more speculation and hope than I think than reality and it's not depend it shouldn't be dependent upon that should not be if you're looking to try to prove the revelation of these scriptures by scientific um uh prean uh I think you're in trouble I although I I do think like the Quran to me um if people are willing to put in the time they're very powerful arguments in the Quran that a lot of people aren't aware of you know I mean there are like syllogism syllogistic arguments that that are that are there for people to ponder and the Quran does call us to reflect so one way that atheists make fun of religious people is that if God is all powerful God created the universe and God created the world and God's all good this should be the best of all possible worlds and philosophers again mainly in the Christian tradition go through various complex arguments to show that creating that that's not an effective atheistic argument because creating the best possible world is a logical impossibility because whatever you can imagine is the best possible world I can add one more sentient being who becomes GES to heaven or whatever and that's a better one than that you have you said that's the B then I can add another one and it goes on and so it becomes logically impossible to have the best Possible's view is that a legitimate question to ask you know if God had a choice some say that God didn't have a choice but most abrahamic um deep thinkers believe that God had a choice God did not have to create the world that God God created the world out of love and a desire to share his godness with other sentient creatures I think that's a dominant theme in all the abrahamic religions um and if that's so you know why didn't God create you'd have to assume God created the best one or God created an infinite number of ones and would just happen to be one of them right well uh there's a very interesting volar as kandid you know making fun of Professor pangos going all over the world to find out is this the best of all possible worlds I mean he was making fun of German philosophy but uh he ends up in Turkey uh and and they they find the the Sufi you know and and then they go to the Sufi and ask him is this the best of all F worlds and and uh he he gives them quite a a harsh remark and then they they see the Turkish man T eating the the sherbet and just at total peace and then candid says H what's the secret of life he said tend your own garden and and so they end up doing that and every once in a while they have their debates but uh I I think there's a lot of Truth to that tending our own Gardens here in this world um in terms of being the best of all possible worlds there's a famous statement of uh that is attributed to IM which means something like there's not in this contingent World a more wondrous world uh and and his book were burnt in Andia for saying that so the Muslims of Spain actually burnt his books and rejected that statement but I think because they thought that it was a kind of heretical uh statement to suggest that God could not make a more uh perfect world um because that seemed to limit the power of God yeah I just I think they misunderstood the statement because I think what Imam gazali was saying saying was that for serving the purpose this is the best of all possible worlds for serving God's purpose in creating the world that this is the best of all possible worlds it serves that purpose but the the the the the paradise is infinitely better than this world that we're in now but it's the best world we have for now and so we have to take care of it and and uh I mean one of the uh my my father's teachers Mark voran once said that the that he he loved he didn't like dactic literature he loved literature that that just presented the world as it was and he said Shakespeare loved the world he loved the world with all of the characters with iagos and and uh you know all the the the good characters and the Bad characters you know he loved it all and I think uh he said in the way that God must love his world that he's created with everything in it CU it is perfect in that way and there's a verse in the Quran that if you if you look to the world you will not see any flaw in it and then it says return your glance and look again and you will not see any fault in other words if you're seeing a fault the fault is in you and and there so that's an argument that that that this is the best possible way yeah exactly and and so there's there's a wonderful uh tradition where the Prophet Muhammad said uh that when you wake up in the morning if you find good then praise God but if you find other than good then blame only yourself M because you're not seeing the good you know God looked upon the world and saw that it was good and so the it's all there to serve a purpose especially for the believer because we're accepting whatever God presents to us uh with a submission so may God give you good health but if if I if I was afflicted with some disease as a Believer I would hope I don't I don't know how I would react but I would hope that I would react appropriately which is to accept the the the the tribulation that God's given me and and uh I mean it doesn't mean I can't work to treat it if I could but I should still accept it with a submission and so I think from that point of view everything in the world is is good for the believer are we forced in our theological commitments to say that this is the best possible world that God uh could have made for the purposes that God has even if we can't understand it are we forced to that conclusion is there I don't think so yeah I don't I don't think so so what's the alternative what would be the alternative then I mean I think we could conceive of many things in our minds we could conceive of no we can conceive but but I'm asking if you compare a better world a better world would be that instead of being 56 I was you know 6 feet tall you know that would give me better skill maybe I would been a bit better basketball right yeah so that's a better world but is it you know but that's not I wouldn't criticize God for having sub-optimized the world because I'm not 6 feet tall right exactly I I mean I think that's that's the proper position to take you know that we should be pleased with what's God's given us and and and just be grateful for what we have I think um the prophets peace be upon him he said always look on people that are less fortunate than you and never people that are more fortunate than you because it will give you gratitude in your heart I'm so the question of what is God's relationship to abstract objects sounds like it's a very abstract question but it it really looks deeply into the AY the this the God's Independence and God's total control of all whole reality which is a fundamental characteristic belief of certainly the abrahamic religions uh and and the problem goes like this if you believe that abstract objects like numbers logic propositions uh universals generalities uh are somehow really existent like you cannot imagine that 2 plus 2 is not equal to four and even if there was no world that would still be a true state and even if nothing ever existed if the statement would be if something existed and if there were two and two things would always be for I don't think anybody disputes that the question is is what is the grounding for such abstract objects because if they ex exist necessarily meaning there's no way they could not have existed it means that that was not created so many believe that it's impossible for God to have created 2+ 2 equal 4 because there's no alternative what God could make 2 plus 2 equal 5 that's impossible so 2 plus 2 equal 4 and so if you have all these things then God is surrounded from all eternity with a blizzard a snowstorm blizzard with all these abstract objects floating around that God somehow has to deal with now that doesn't make sense either yeah so you have you have two sets of circumstances that seem to be universally exhaustive um neither one of which makes sense right so how do you deal with that question well I think yeah for us the abstract ideas have what we call which is a a mental existence um and then there's the extramental existence of the created World um the mental existence the ability to abstract is a fundamental quality of the human mind uh the ability to and it's to take the universal uh out of the particular so that but I can nowhere in the world point to the universal man I can't but the Universal Man exists in my mind if he didn't exist in my mind I wouldn't know what a particular man was right and so abstraction is one of the great gifts of God and it's essentially the ability to see the one in the many which is one one of the I me this is a fundamental me metaphysical um Pursuit of understanding the the relationship of the one and the many so so in Arabic the word abstraction is means to Denude to literally uh to strip of any clothing so you get to the form and you see the quiddity the the Mahia of the thing the I mean quiddity quid actually comes from the Arabic they they translated it from the Arabic Mah what is it and and that understanding that the human mind is capable of that ability to perceive with extraordinary uh Clarity what a thing is is a gift from God now that the are there these un platonic archetypal universals somewhere in a perfect world is there the perfect circle is there the perfect horse is the all of these things are in the knowledge of God and and and and and we we have I have no doubt about that I mean God has knowledge of all things and then he has given us some uh infantism portion of knowledge to let us to understand knowledge to give us a glimpse into that God is the knower uh he's given us this infantism ability to hear to let us understand when God said he hears and sees all things so these are all approximations but but but in reality they're canceled out in the knowledge of God so anything that we understand or know I mean numbers are fascinating because numbers are abstractions a lot of people think that numbers have some kind of extramental existence but they don't we're the ones putting the these two chairs together and a nominalist would say there's there's no two chairs there's this entity and there's this entity it's your mind that's playing a trick on You by pulling those together so that abstraction though of knowing what a chair is I mean there's a kind of fuzzy logic obviously but uh where you get into is is it this or is it at that anymore when's a table not a table you know but but the if the abstract object is is a a conscious imposition of your of of our ability to make sense of reality and and therefore that generalization doesn't exist it's like it's anomalous or a fictionalist approach uh and and and I mean that's one expl ation other people say that you know you're you're denying the reality of something that you can't get rid of you can't get rid of these numbers no matter what you do uh if there was no humans who could conceptualize this you know before you know 10 billion years ago the universe was still there there were no maybe there's no life they exist yeah but yeah but the statement was just as true then with no conscious beings around to conceptualize than it is today uh with God yeah except God if if God would if God exists so therefore some people say that these abstractions are ideas in the mind of God because they have to you can't get rid of their existence but you rather and and again don't want to differen you from the Islamic or Muslim tradition but what are the Muslim Traditions about dealing with these abstract objects are they uh creations of God are they fictions that they're really don't exist that just are imposition right so so there there's definitely the aspect of that they exist in the knowledge of God I mean they they have to like God has knowledge of them and in that way they have what would be akin to our mental existence I mean if I have you know if I have the concept of fire in my head it's a it's a mental existence of the fire it's not an extramental existence or my or my head would burn yeah right so so God has knowledge of all the abstractions but he has given us the ability to abstract because he wants us to see the one in the many he wants us to see the one behind the multiplicity of this world I mean one of the reasons why the Muslims were so obsessed with tessellations is because they go on for Infinity so it's this kind of replication uh and and and so all our mosques are filled with these tessellations a Russian scientist mathematician worked out there were only 17 possible infinite Tes 14 are in the Alhambra Palace so so that's the one and the many presenting itself geometrically to people you know to see that and so but again it's seeing the one universus seeing the one out of the diversity is the ability of that's why we're mu we are makers of one the only way we can communicate is through abstraction the only way we can say these words is because we have we've abstracted their meanings and we all of the particularization of the world are understood through abstraction we we couldn't talk about you know I need a cup of coffee right now if if somebody didn't have the universal concept of a cup of coffee so it's quite stunning I mean abstraction is is fascinating it's important and and it's what it's what gives us our minds ham the Islamic tradition is very rich in its uh uh geometric architecture in its uh in its mosques especially the great mosques or just marvels of of of architecture um what is it about that architecture that that creates a Sacred [Music] Space I think that Sacred Space is a very interesting concept um Sacred Space and there's also sacred time so for instance every religion has times that are more yeah uh important for the religion than other times um in our tradition uh the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that the whole world has been made a place of devotion for me the the whole earth he said misid he called it a misid a place a mosque so the whole earth is a mosque and this is why Muslims like Christians wor Worship in the in the church I mean they can pray in other places but their worship is in the church the the Jews in the synagogue so the Muslims can pray anywhere on the earth as at because the whole earth is a mosque so in that way the whole earth is Sacred Space uh for Muslims um and then there's sacred time like Ramadan is a sacred time um so what makes it sacred I mean the first thing and the most important thing is that in our belief God has designated these places and these times uh to get closer to him there are certain times like the prophet Muhammad said that the last third of the Night Before Dawn is the night when somebody is closest to God and and I once saw an amazing uh a man who does zen bows the archery bow he was Japanese man and he said the only time he could make it was the hour before Dawn because he said it was the time when his ego was was absent and he said that the degree with which his ego was in the bow was a defect in the bow and I just thought that was so interesting because that that would resonate with a Muslim because that time is anybody that spends time before dawn like that hour before Dawn will know the special time and most people are deprived of that time which just a very beautiful time Dawn is a beautiful time um seeing the the the dawn emerge is a wonderful thing also so these These are really important in terms of mosques mosqu can be very simple uh they they are not meant to be have any graven images was very important that's why geometry became a kind of sacred art of the Muslims and caligraphy so you will find in mosques both calligraphy which is celebrating the word because it's abstraction Neil Postman wrote a a wonderful book about the danger of of uh images and amusing ourselves to death and in the second chapter he talks about the decalogue and the importance of not making gra graven images because he said if God wanted a community to abstract and to abstract the greatest abstraction which is an understanding of reality then he would not want them to be distracted by images and so you know Plato also understood that this idea of having these you know that we're already divorced once from reality so if we add images to it now we're twice divorced and and they're very distracting and one of my favorite definitions of evil is from France kfka who said evil is whatever dis dist racts and and uh one of the things about uh premodern peoples the word in English distracted means insane uh Bethlehem was the the hospital for the incurably distracted and so the modern world is a distraction so Sacred Space is meant to remove distractions and that's why it's very important for that space to be a kind of empty space one of the things that when the Roman Emperor I think it was hadrien one of one of the Roman emperors when he went into the holiest of holies on on in the Jewish temple he couldn't believe there were no Idols in it it just it was an empty space and he couldn't understand it he's like what's going on here what are you worshiping yeah no thing and even when we talk about God even though it's permitted to use thing for God to avoid no thing the word in Arabic for thing means that which literally means that which was willed into existence so a thing is already a a a cre phenomenon so God is Beyond thingness in that way how about the art itself in um in mosqu spe specifically the the great mosques with the incredible tessellation uh that is are these geometric uh patterns that uh that cover it and and just give you a a feeling of great space and and great great movement into the into beyond that which you can see well geometry was generally an obsession with the Muslim civilization early of uh uid was translated 34 times into Arabic more than any other language 28 times in Latin but 34 times in Arabic it was a fundamental text that was taught in all the colleges and madrasas of of the Muslim world for centuries and and the reason for that is well one of the fundamental reasons is it it gives you these demonstrative proofs so it it has a type of rationality that shows you in abstraction that that there are things that are that are real and can be proved to be true you know QED that it's been demonstrated and so they love to to to put this sacred uh geometry in their in their mosques to remind people of this other dimension of reality and one of the things that we're seeing now with fractals and as we go deeper we're seeing all these geometrical patterns I mean snowflakes themselves it's just stunning um the the the pilgrimage itself when we go on Hajj there's a circle around a square a cube you make a circle around a cube then you go on a straight line back and forth and then it ends with the point on the day of arat so all of the geometrical uh forms are there the the polygon the circle the circle represents that which has no beginning and that which has no end so it's it's often been a symbol for God uh for for God so you you see all of these different images how did the tessellation begin as a process was that was that an innovation and then well I think there there was some tessellation from previous civilizations no doubt but but the Muslims developed it in a way that I mean people that study uh tessalation study Islamic Art of course yes is there theological meaning to it well it's this idea of the infinite you know the one becoming infinite in divers in many so it's it it has the one and the many contained in the display and it's quite vertiges when when you see it really it has an effect on on on the soul um sacred spaces I think all share a certain commonality even when you go into to a great Cathedral or uh a pagota or Hindu temple um there's always a sense of that this space is different from other spaces and I think it's the intentions of the builders and also the intentions of those who go into them uh to worship so devotion devotion is a beautiful thing