Lecture
51 / 84
17
Social Justice
Islam, A Coherent Social Justice Tradition | Omar Suleiman | 16th MAS-ICNA Convention
22
Jurisprudence (fiqh)
Appreciating Scholarship: Intro to Islamic Law - Tesneem Alkiek | Yaqeen in NY
26
Islamophobia
How Yaqeen Heals Internalized Islamophobia - Dalia Mogahed | Making Principled Progress
29
Education
How Yaqeen is a Resource for Our Community - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Making Principled Progress
34
General Psychology
Spiritual Personality - Zohair Abdul-Rahman | 2018 Yaqeen/MAS Academic Conference
35
Social Justice
Conflict Resolution: The Line Between Justice and Peace - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Lecture
47
Identity
Keeping Masculinity from Trending Toxic - Dr. Jonathan Brown | Reframing the Gender Question
The Rising Tide of Atheism - Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy | ICNA 2019
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin in the name of Allah, the most merciful, the grantor of mercy. All praise and glory belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Certainly Allah is deserving of the best thanks and the most beautiful of praises. Those that we say and far above and beyond anything we can ever say about Him. And we testify that no one is worthy of our worship and our devotion and our love and obedience in the absolute sense of those words but Allah and Allah alone, the true supreme king. And that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam was in truth without doubt his prophet and his servant and his messenger whom he sent as a mercy to the worlds. We just want to welcome everybody again to this Yaqeen session on the rising tide of atheism in Muslim communities and what is it that gives atheism or atheistic lifestyle sometimes traction among American Muslim youth in particular. And so atheism is certainly on the rise in post-Christian America. Globalization kind of sends this everywhere, this phenomenon everywhere. But what is it, let's start there, that makes it so appealing? You know in the research that Yaqeen Institute has done on the pathways to doubt, perhaps all of those many pathways that you can find on our websites and the infographics that web them out for you, they can be summarized into two major pathways or two major reasons that make atheism so appealing, find so much traction among our youth. And these are intellectual reasons like atheism seems to be the more scientific answer or the more logically consistent answer or the only logical answer, there's no viable or substantial contender in the intellectual sphere but atheism. That's the presumption. And so intellectual reasons. But also emotional reasons. So the convenience of atheism to
fit in, to have unrestricted access to self-gratification or immediate self-gratification and also to escape the hot seat, the societal pressure in a time when Islam and Muslims maybe look down upon, stigmatized or antagonized. And so it usually happens as a combination actually of those two. And I'll give an example to draw it out. So usually it'll happen with a young American Muslim who's born to immigrant parents and the back story to their gravitation towards, their shifting towards accepting atheism is that their parents left the Muslim majority country looking for a better tomorrow for themselves and their family. And to be perfectly frank, usually winds up in an over focus on tomorrow and they kind of lose sight of what's happening today. And so the parents, their finances and also their value systems, these kind of disadvantage that American Muslim brother or sister, that American Muslim child or adolescent or teenager or young professional in many ways. You know, money doesn't grow on trees, so no you're not going to get a brand new pair of sneakers every month. No, we don't date, so you're not going to prom. Yes? And so between the finances, their perspective on finances, their blood, sweat and tears came into it because they felt disadvantaged, they had to work double hard being the migrants that came over, the first generation that came over. Their kids actually have to abide by that. And because they come with a different
value system, usually a far more conservative, far more restrained, far more disciplined value system which is informed by Islam. The child feels like I'm getting picked on, I'm the weirdo, I'm the oddball out. And what that does for the child is it actually increases their desperation to fit in. They become more and more and more panting after approval and validation from their peers. And then add to it the intellectual side now. On the educational front, this child goes through 12 years of schooling where they are fed to their fill content that reinforces the greatness and the supremacy of Western civilization, right? The explorers and the discoverers and the artists and the literarians and the inventors and the generals, all of that is getting pumped inside of them. And then on the opposite end, in terms of their Islamic education, the best of them go to Sunday school, speaking about the vast majority. The best of the vast majority go to Sunday school. And the best of the vast majority are going to Sunday school, which for many of them is not very informative, not very intellectually stimulating. They may come out of 5, 6, 7 years of Sunday school not even knowing the meanings of Al-Fatiha or not even knowing the meanings of Qul Hu Allahu Ahad. So they're essentially incapable of identifying the reality of their religion or the reality of their God that they're supposed to be worshipping and devoting their lives to. And so the outcome of all of this is that by high school or by college, when the peer pressure increases and the Western philosophies really get anchored inside the person, when
these things come together, this young American Muslim believes they have a very legitimate reason to escape, a very legitimate reason to justify their departure from the religion of their parents. It's very convenient and it makes sense. And then my parents don't really, really practice anyway, so they probably don't really believe it either. They're just doing it because their parents did it. And so I'm not going to restrict myself in the age of opportunity and disadvantage myself without justification. No, I'm not going to be part of the herd. I'm going to be open-minded. I'm going to find acceptance when there's no reason for me not to be accepted. I'm going to choose the agnostic route, the secular route, the atheistic route. So they have no community basically to make them feel welcome as Muslims and validated as Muslims. And they have no immunity from the onslaught that is pulling them away from their Muslim identity in terms of it being an actual religious identity and not some just inherited culture. And so that is where we are now. We're seeing the rising tide of atheism find traction because of that void, because of those factors among American Muslim youth. They think they're being open-minded. They think they're being logical. They think there's no reason for me to be guilty about walking away from Islam. Why? And so I'm going to be that skeptic. I'm going to be that open-minded person. I'm going to be that reasonable person and say we have no right to say that Islam is true or that anything is true at all for certain anyway. Many of you hear that line all the time. There is no such thing as absolute truth. That makes about zero sense to be honest,
but it's an extremely convenient line and so when you hear it you go, whoa, that's deep, profound. No such thing as absolute truth. And I constantly remind the youth that whenever someone tells you, because I remember the first time I heard it in college, there's no such thing as absolute truth, you're supposed to say, hold up, is that statement true or not? When someone tells you there is no truth, then that would also mean that their statement, there is no truth, is also untrue. Because if there's no such thing as truth, then everyone needs to just turn off their screens and zip up their lips and shut their mouths and shut down their thinking because there's no such thing as thinking. What are you pursuing? If you're thinking, your conclusions, what's right and what's wrong, what should and what shouldn't be. And so if there's no such thing as truth, then that person has no right to say, there is no such thing as truth. Because they're implying that it's true, that there's no such thing as truth. Is that clear? That's important. Okay. Why do we live in a secular age that is post-religion, that has walked away from religion, that has been liberated from religion, this is how it's framed to us. What created this dominant narrative in our times that because we have no immunity to it, we swallow it up? It's because you need to understand your time and your place. You need to understand your context to be able to understand why this finds traction in us. The past few hundred years, 400 but mostly post-enlightenment, the past two, three hundred years in particular, the western world has advanced and sophisticated and improved the quality of life and improved the sophistication, the technology that allows for us to have so many comforts and expedite so many needs
of ours. All of this improvement in their lives, the transformation of their lives for the better, and it is for the better, we recognize that improving our ability to manage pain and sickness is an improvement. We believe that being able to build a higher building with an elevator is probably an improvement. We do believe that cars and planes and trains, this is a good thing. But they were able to walk forward into becoming at the forefront of the world when they walked away from their religion. Is that clear? When they walked away, when the split happened between basically the church and the rest of the world. The church stayed behind and the rest of the world moved forward. That's how it worked. So they see a return to religion as like a very dangerous fantasy. Religion is what shackled us. Religion is just superstitions. Religion is not provable. Religion is just backwards. And so the notion of religion means the dark ages are coming back. And that's why they are traumatized from religion and don't want to hear about religion and just say, oh, we respect all religions. We love them all equally. If you believe they're all equally worthless, it's not very impressive for you to say you respect all religions. We respect them all, just please don't talk about them. Please just put them away. And so this is an important concept for every Muslim to understand for themselves or for their children. The collective Western experience is traumatized from their religious experience. They realize that man will never be free. Man will never advance. Man will never develop and sophisticate and find tolerance
and coexist until we walk away from religion. And that is why you will hear many a times in school, all religions are man-made. Or on the streets or in office, it's alright, I respect all religions, but at the end of the day they're all pretty much saying the same thing and they're all man-made. And once again, we have to point out, when someone tells you all religions are man-made, don't just swallow that. You're supposed to say, hold on, how many religions have you studied exactly? To help them realize that you have been traumatized by one particular religious experience and so you generalize like all people do when they feel betrayed, when they feel anger. They say, always do this, you guys never do that. Whenever a person gets angry, frustrated, they generalize. And so that generalization of all religions are man-made is just another reflection of a frustrated people that felt betrayed by religion, that it was a tool used to keep us oppressed and used to keep us backwards and the moment we let go of it, things finally started improving. But that was the Roman Catholic experience with Western Europeans and then it certainly affects the American demographics, the American population as well. When someone tells you all religions are man-made, you say, hold up, how many religions have you studied? And then you tell them, what do you know about Islam? And of course you can't say these things if you don't know it yourself. If you kind of graduate beyond the unacceptable, insufficient Sunday school quota of education in your Islam. Say, what do you know about Islam? What do you know about the history of Islam? What do you know about the contributions of Islam
to the world? Read books like The Rise and Fall of Islam by Abul Hasan Al-Nadawi, which is in English, I hope it's as good in English as it is in Arabic. Unlikely, but it's probably still extremely compelling in English. So look that book up, Lost Islamic History, books to this effect. You know, in a book called The Making of Humanity, and I always like to quote this because many a times Muslims, they like to quote the golden age of Islam and scientific contributions and we should, we should quote these things in the right way for the right reasons. But in the book The Making of Humanity, Robert Brafault says something that we must never forget. He says, we do not owe the Arabs just several scientific contributions. He means the Arabs because the Islamic civilization was centered around the Quran and the Quran is in Arabic, even though it's universal in its message, its language is Arabic. And so that became the anchor for the civilization. So he means the Muslims. He says, we do not owe the Arabs just a few, several scientific contributions, some inventions. He says, Europe owes the Arabs its existence. The existence of the Western world, which now today took the front row and became the modern world, would not have happened without Muslim civilization. And so that tells you something about yourself as well that you need to know. Your religious experience, historically speaking, even if not in your life, is completely opposite to the religious experience that you are hearing about in the West. The same way they advanced at the expense of religion by walking away from a religion that was man-made by a man from a certain time and so naturally in another time it will expire, it will become obsolete and irrelevant, your religious experience
is completely different. Your religion is not a man-made religion made by a man from a particular century. Our religious experience was the opposite. Our golden age, historically, was when we were closest to our religion. When we were most serious about our deen and best understanding our deen. And our downfall as a civilization, the Muslim civilizations fell when they let go of their religion. It's the exact opposite scenario. Is this clear? Okay, good. The third and last point we need to cover for the next half hour of this talk or a little less than that, inshallah, is the existence of God himself, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Is that an unintellectual position? Is that wishful thinking? Is that blind faith? There is no blind faith in Islam. There may be blind surrender after you're sure that this is God speaking. Okay, then I'll surrender to him out of trust and out of logic that I should not presume to be as wise as the most wise. No way. So blind faith, no. There is proof for God's existence? Absolutely. The first thing we have to say about proofs for God's existence is that many people, when they demand proof for God's existence, they're insisting on scientific proof and that is just part of the overreaction of the secular age. What do I mean? To insist that there must be scientific proof and any other kind of proof is unacceptable and this is incorrect and imbalanced and a very flawed premise. And it just reflects
our over-dependency on science, our obsession with science in the modern age. Is Islam against science? Absolutely not. But Islam also guides you to remembering the limitations of science. Science can never deliver you to an absolute truth. That's number one. Can never deliver you to an absolute truth. Do you know why? Because we are the practitioners of science. We observe and so we assess things, we document, we hypothesize, we test, we conclude. Science is based on observation of human beings. Our observation, our ability to observe is constantly improving, meaning we're constantly getting past some of our flaws in our ability to observe. Does this make sense? Like a long time ago we could only see with the naked eye, now we're able to see with a microscope and then after that a telescope. And then we could only see certain wavelengths of light to begin with and now we can see using the x-ray or now we can use different spectrums. But these are all improvements. How do we know as human beings that all of the ways that we have been able to observe things so far, even with all the technological advancements that help our observation of the world around us, of the tangible physical world, how do we know that is not any more than 1% accuracy? Like how do we know that there cannot be a time when we can see things 99 times better than we can see them right now? We have no reason to believe that we can't. It's pretty actually clear, the hunch, the theory that the things we don't know are actually far more than the things we do know. And even Allah Azza wa Jalla says that in the Quran, وَمَا أُوتِيتُ مِنَ الْعِلْمِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًۭا And you have been not granted of knowledge except that which is little.
So that's the first thing. Science can never deliver you to an absolute truth because science depends on observation and our ability to observe is so limited. You know, though he is marked by many as an anarchist when it comes to economy, but they once time asked Noam Chomsky, what do you think of science? He said, I think science is very utilitarian, it's very useful, it's very good. He said, but you know, there's a philosophy behind science. There are certain assumptions that are made about science that we just have to be cognizant of, as if like science is so perfect. He's saying, to me, science is like the man that's looking for his keys under the street light. So, they came to him, they asked him, what are you looking for? He's looking around the street in the middle of the dark. And he said, I'm looking for my keys. They asked him, where did you drop your keys? He said, I dropped them across the street. They said, then why are you looking here? He said, because the lights are here. That is the example of science. We have no choice, no ability to look except where the lights are. And whomever Allah doesn't grant the light to, there will be no light. That stands true even on a physical level, even not just the spiritual light. So, the over-dependency on science is a problem. It's part of the phenomena of our age. Because science helped and religion didn't, so we're like banking everything on science. Science cannot deliver you to absolute truth. Number two, science, even if we had 100% accuracy, accuracy for what? To see the seeable. Science only deals with the seen realm, the physical world. Science does not address, nor will ever have access to the unseen world, the ghayb, the metaphysical. That's why you know that famous Russian astronaut, I forget his name,
during the Cold War when there was the space race on who's going to get to outer space first, when they launched their ship and he got to outer space, he said, I'm here and I'm confirming that there's no God, it's official. Really? You know, I think it was Mufti Menk, may Allah preserve him and bless him. He said in response to the guy who said, I'm up here and I've confirmed there is no God, God does not exist, I don't see Him. He said, no, no, no, you will see Him, you just wait till your oxygen runs out. But that's the idea, it's not about any sort of advancement or distance. This is not part of the seeable world. This is a dimension that Allah has veiled from the dimensions that human beings have access to in order for the purpose of life to be actualized. Part of the purpose of life is to test your belief in the unseen. So there's no fix, there's no cheat code where you can get past the veils of the unseen and access it. And science, all it does is see the seen. It sees the physical world. The metaphysical, the unseen, is beyond the realm of science to begin with. Another problem with science, by the way, is that science cannot answer questions of purpose, questions of meaning. Like, yes we exist, we can prove that we exist, because you know, here's the list of scientific proofs that we exist. It cannot tell you why you exist. You know, one of our researchers at Yaqeen, our brother Asadullah, he says, you know, people always say, I will not believe that God exists unless you show me scientific proof that God exists. He tells them, but do you believe that love exists? Can you show me a peer-reviewed scientific journal that proves that love exists? Do you believe that justice exists?
Do you believe that racial equality exists? Can you give me scientific proof for justice existing, or for racial equality existing? And that's a long discussion that some people try to claim that there's a chemical reason for us to believe. But by the way, that explanation which Sam Harris makes in his moral landscape book, that there's a landscape in your brain that determines morality. So basically it's chemicals. Basically what he's trying to say, if his theory was right, then it can't be right. But if his theory was right, that means there's no such thing as love. Love is a trick in your brain that chemicals kind of like quick fire, and they make you feel like you're in love. It means there's no such thing as justice. Justice is an imaginary thing that a certain blend of chemicals in your brain tell you this is justice. The point being, science cannot explain meaning. Science cannot make aesthetic judgments. Science cannot prove the sunset is beautiful. Science cannot prove justice or love or many of these values that we all believe in exist. It cannot explain meaning, another limitation of science. The last thing that I'm going to say about science is that we assume that science is objective. Like science is fair. Science is the only way to not be biased, and that's why we're going to use science to determine whether God exists or not. But here's the problem. The problem is that who practices science? Human beings. And human beings aren't always fair. They may not always tell you the results of the scientific experiment. Or they may tell you the truth about the scientific experiment, but not tell you the whole truth. Because we all have interests, and we all have agendas, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but to believe no conspiracies exist at all is pretty naive, right? I mean, shaytan did pull a conspiracy on Adam, alayhis salam, didn't he? I'll tell you another experience, a scientific conspiracy experience that you all went through. Everybody's talking about no sugar now, right? Everyone's talking about the dangers of sugar and no sugar.
This is very recent, because in 2015, the Harvard Business Journal came out to say, it turns out that so many Harvard scientists that were pumping out journals that were talking about the scientific dangers of fat, which basically got everyone's attention on fat, and got policies written on regulations for food to regulate fat, that whole 50-year story was funded by the sugar companies to distract people from focusing on sugar, which is far more dangerous than fat. So it's true, fat is dangerous, that's a scientific fact, fine. But is it the whole truth? So science isn't always as objective as we think. Similarly, you can find a lot of research on the fact that the scientific research that strengthened the theory of evolution was subsidized and was standardized and was pushed, whereas the other scientific theories regarding evolution, they were looked down upon and they were bullied out of conversations. And so it makes it look like the entire scientific community has agreed on evolution, because whatever part of the scientific community didn't agree on it, they were kind of like disadvantaged in their careers, and their research wasn't getting the same traction. So you only hear that 99% of the DNA between humans and chimps match. You will not hear that they didn't even do a full study on anything more than 2% of the DNA. So the full story is, at best, according to present research, you only know about a match of 99% of 2%. Science is not always as objective as we think, because it's done by human beings and human beings have interests. They have agendas as well. And so being overly dependent on science for proof that God exists
is not a very holistic approach, and it's not a very safe approach at all. So what are the proofs for Allah existing? You'll find a paper at Yaqeen on the Qur'anic case, or the case of the Qur'an and Sunnah on the existence of God, by our good brother and researcher Justin Parrott. The proof for Allah's existence is undeniable. The strongest proof, to be honest, for Allah's existence is within you. It is the fitrah, that every single human being is programmed to believe that God exists. There are many people that have written books about this, non-Muslims as well, theists, people that believe in God. The book, The God Gene, is one example of that. Basically he argues there that there's a genetic reason for us to always believe in God, because all humans believe in God. Atheists will come back and say, yeah, yeah, it's kind of just like in evolution, when we were evolving into better forms, we chose to believe in God, because it makes us more productive, and it betters your survival potential, that you believe in something greater than yourself, so you don't lose hope, and you don't become despairing, which is a problem on its own that I won't address. It's a very flawed argument. But the idea is that atheists themselves do not argue the fact that we all believe in God. It's hardwired inside of us. The debate is why do we all believe in God? Why is that a non-debatable, factory-installed, consistent state for all of us? That is the fitrah, that is the natural state that Allah created all of you in. You know, in Russia, when the communist regime was at its height, atheism was stuffed down people's throats in the systems, the educational systems and otherwise. One generation, just one generation after communism falls, people stop being forced into this indoctrination that God doesn't exist.
Today now, just one generation later, two generations later, you have 85 to 90% of the populations in Russia and in Poland, they go right back to believing in God. Why? Because that's the reset button. That is the factory settings. That is the natural state. The Prophet ﷺ, he gives an example of this in a very beautiful hadith. That believing in God is not learned. You have to unlearn it. It's automatic. He says every human being is born upon this fitrah, this natural state of recognizing their creator. He said, and then his parents turned him into a Jew or a Christian or a fire worshiper, meaning they indoctrinate them into a different direction. But then he gives a simile to this, which is very beautiful. He says, just like the animal that's born full and wholesome, though its parents were missing their ears or their nose or other limbs. So basically, the superstition practice or like a religious ritual, a very inhumane one in Arabia, where they would cut off the ears or the nose of like an animal, a sacrificial animal. And so he's saying this animal that's amputated, when it has a baby, does the baby come out without its ears and without its nose? No, it comes out in its full form. Right? Likewise, no matter what you do to people, the next baby comes out, they go back to believing in Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, believing in God. And so we may be in a civilization now that tries very hard to cause people to accept or convince themselves, but true colors always come out. Right? They say that, I know a brother who says one time, he was telling a Muslim youngster, that everyone believes in God. He said, no, I don't believe in God.
He said, no, no, you do believe in God. You just have some untangling to do. He said, no, really, I don't believe in God. He said, no, no, you do believe in God. You just have some misconceptions we can talk about. He goes, no, no, I don't believe in God. He said, no, believe me, let's just give me a minute, we'll talk about it. He said, I swear to God, I don't believe in God. It's just, it's humorous, of course, it's part of the culture, the lingo of the culture. But it also speaks to the point that there are no atheists on a sinking ship. There are no atheists on a falling plane. Whenever Allah Azza wa Jal chooses for wisdoms that He knows, to give people the gift of desperation, to recognize their powerlessness, they look outside and they remember what they believe deep down inside. They believe what they believe all along. That's why Jafar bin Muhammad, one of the great Imams, Imam Jafar, when they asked him, what is the proof for God's existence, because these questions, by the way, Shaitan always poses them. It just never became civilizational the way it is today. For reasons that we'll talk about in our next lecture, Inshallah. They told him, what are the proofs that God exists? He said, have you ever been on a ship? This is the Quranic story, he's repitching it to him. It's all throughout the Quran, this image. Have you ever been on a ship and the waves are real high and you're sure that you're dead? And just when you're about to die of terror, you just feel deep down inside that there is someone out there that if they wanted to save you, they could? He said, yes, he said, that's God. We all know this. And this is the anchor, by the way, even to rationale. Because if you're going to just doubt everything, then you're never going to get to any answers. There has to be something that's unquestionable. Or else you're going to doubt the explanation. And then you're going to doubt that you even exist to hear this explanation. How do you even know that you're not inside the video game of some alien right now? Right? So there has to be something that's unquestionable. Allah hardwired something in you, this is your base, your anchor,
that's unquestionable, which is belief in Him, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then after that, here are two proofs that basically bring you to the real proof, to the strongest proof, the proof of fitrah, the proof of your natural state. They basically like remove the dust, they remove the layers, the peels of conditioning that happened to you. Those are mentioned in the Quran, which are reason, like logic, and revelation. What Allah revealed, subhanahu wa ta'ala. So, reason, like logic, so many proofs for God's existence being logical. You know the famous cosmological argument they call it, you don't have to remember the big words if they're too difficult, but cause and effect, causality, cause and effect. Everything that exists has something that caused it. You don't know an exception to this rule, right? But there has to be, logically speaking, one exception to the rule. Because if everything, logically speaking, has something before it causing it, right? This will go on forever. Nothing will ever be caused. So there has to be a start, there has to be an uncaused cause, there has to be a first that's not dependent on anything before it. And that is Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, even as He described Himself, by the way. Allah la ilaha illa huwa al hayy al qayyum. He is the eternally living, He doesn't have a beginning, and He is al qayyum, He is the one that sustains everything else. So everything has a cause. But if this turns into an infinite regression or an infinite rewind, you won't have anything. Everything will be waiting on something before it forever, and so nothing would exist. And so since things exist, and they're caused by other things, we need to say logically there has to be one exception. That exception is Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this is in the Quran.
Allah says, أَمْ خُلِقُوا مِنْ غَيْرِ شَيْءٍ أَمْ هُمُوا الْخَالِقُونَ Were they created out of nothing? No, you don't know of anything that just came out of nothing. Everything has a cause. أَمْ هُمُوا الْخَالِقُونَ Or did you create yourselves? Are you the creators of yourselves? Also illogical, right? Also contrary to reason, because you'd have to be here to bring yourself here. Very circular, doesn't make any sort of sense. Also of the proofs of reason, or the arguments of reason or of logic that stir your fitrah, that stir your fitrah to make you realize what you know, remind you of what you're sure about, the existence of God, is what they call the argument of intelligent design. Just take a look around. Step outside your bubble. Look up from your screen. We're in a jungle right now, the concrete jungle. Step outside the jungle to the natural world. Look at the design of Allah عز و جل in the natural world. Could all of this order, could all of this balance, could all of this equilibrium come out of this order? Makes absolutely no sense. One of my teachers, he would say if I took this little ink pot, you know the ink pots? Long time ago they had, you know, feather in ink pot, right, calligraphy? Okay. The ink pot, and I smashed it on the ground, and it wrote out, Rayyan, it's my man from Allentown, it wrote Rayyan, would you believe me? Say, no, you're cuckoo, you're out of your mind, right? What if I told you that I threw the ink pot on the ground and it said, Rayyan thinks Shinawi's lectures are mad boring. He'd say, no, now you need a straight jacket, not just medication. Like, we gotta put you away. What if I told you I smashed the ink pot on the ground, and it wrote a 300 page biography of Rayyan?
What if I told you I smashed the ink pot on the ground, and I'm dragging this deliberately, and it wrote the encyclopedias of their world with their expansive accuracy and coverage? All of the encyclopedias of the world, and all they contain are not as sophisticated, as complicated as a grain of sand in this world. Out of a smash, out of a bang, out of disorder, and again, even if we're going to say a bang, where did the chemicals come from? Causality, where did they come from? You can't just begin your story from the middle. Like, how did it come it came as a big bang? Okay, the chemicals that banged, where did they come from? You're cheating. And that's a very interesting point you should always recognize. Atheists are not really offering you a full world view. They don't agree on the origin of the universe, because they were not there, and Allah did not allow them to be there, nor will they ever be able to figure it out on their own, had Allah not told them. Allah says in Surah Al-Kahf, I did not allow them to attend, witness the creation of the heavens and the earth. That's why their theories on the origins and on beginnings are always variant, always differing. But anyway, intelligent design, you look at the design of this universe, and you need to realize there's something very special here. And you can look in the simplest of things. You know, it was said that Al-Imam Al-Shafi'i was asked, as proof for God's existence, and he said, the berry leaf, the leaf of the berry plant, they said how, he said a worm can eat that and produce silk, and a cow can eat that and produce milk. Hey, that rhymes. Unintentional. He said another animal can eat that and produce worse smelling things. Waste. He created all of these different
intricate factories, processing plants, that take the same ingredient and put out different products. It was said that Al-Imam Ahmad bin Hamadah was asked, what's the proof of God's existence? He said, the chick, the chick inside the egg. He said it's locked inside walls that are like air proof, and it survives. And it knows it's supposed to break the walls of its world only at the time, it knows how, and it knows when, only at the time when it can survive outside the egg. And for the right amount of time, before permission to exit, before it is safe to exit, it has its food and its storage and its oxygen with it. That is enough of proof for me that God exists. Look at the small things. The smallest designs. It was said that a person tried to challenge Abu Hanifah, one of the great four Imams, what is the proof that God exists? He said, okay, I'll debate you, but just like, let's meet later. And so Abu Hanifah, rahimahullah, he attended the debate late, deliberately. And he said, I'm sorry I got here so late, it's just that I couldn't cross the river to get to you. But, you know, alhamdulillah, like a tree fell all by itself, subhanallah, and it got carved out into a canoe all by itself, subhanallah, and I was able to, you know, get to you. He said, you're a liar, like you're crazy, you expect me to believe that it just happened all by itself? And so he kind of like smashed him before the debate even started. He said, I refuse to debate you. If you have concurred, agreed with me that it's insane for us to believe a canoe was designed all by itself, then for certain the cosmos were not constructed and designed all by themselves. Also of the proofs of God's existence is experience. And that's a huge
one, right? Our personal experiences should not be discounted. And even if you don't know what to make of your personal experiences, because you're given by society so many reasons to interpret your experiences in ways that are secular, in ways that make you suspect God, not be sure about God, then the prophetic experience, how do you deny the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam? We have experienced the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam, the most documented man in human history. His teachings, his message, his influence, his accomplishments, his prophecies, how do you ignore that experience that human beings for certain were encountering? And the proofs of prophethood series, another set of papers that can avail you on Yaqeen's website. And of the proofs is revelation. It's of the greatest proofs of the existence of Allah Azza wa Jal is the gift he sent us, the words he spoke to us, the message he communicated to us in the book of Allah Azza wa Jal in the Quran. The last thing I want to say and I'm closing is that some people believe in God or choose to remain believing in God just in case. And sometimes, many times, atheists, they say that's ridiculous, that's Pascal's wager. So Pascal's wager is basically the idea that you should believe in God. If you have to gamble, then gamble on God, meaning you should believe in God because the potential benefit of believing in God is far greater than the harm of not believing in God. For sure in Islam, we're not calling for flimsy faith like believe in God just in case. But if right now you're still exploring, discovering what
you may not have learned in Sunday school, you may not have yet comprehended about your religion or the proofs of your religion or the reality of the secular age and how it is conditioned me more than I realize. If you're still traversing those waters, may Allah protect us and you and grant us all sincerity. Pascal's wager is a pretty smart move because you believing in God, even if there's no hereafter, right, is better for you and better for the world around you. Like people that believe in religion have far greater, statistically speaking, results in terms of reporting life satisfaction, life satisfaction, quality of life, reduced stress rates, less suicide. You will be happier yourself by believing in God. That's one. Number two, you will make this world a better place. Statistically speaking, a person is more than likely to donate to a charitable cause when prompted or keep ties with the family even if there's drama in their families than someone who doesn't believe in religion, doesn't attend religious spaces would. They're far more likely to do it and so that makes the world a better place. And then if there is a hereafter, that's certainly a better safe and sorry position to have because if this life is going to end and you turn the screen off and nothing happens, you didn't lose much, right? You still lived a good life and you still kind of move this world inches for the better. Alhamdulillah. You may not say Alhamdulillah if you're an atheist but I'm talking about someone who's trying to understand which of the two I should take. Take this one. But if you were to disbelieve in God, your life will be far more stressful, far more miserable. The bonds in your family
and in your community and your philanthropy, your altruism, your working for others statistically, numbers wise will be far reduced and then if it turns out there is a hereafter, that's not the position that you would like to be surprised about, that you thought it was totally wrong and it turned out to be absolutely right. And so we say that just as a stepping stone to continue your journey, to continue exploring and at the end of the day, if you are sincere and you are trying your best, Allah Azza wa Jal will never let you down. Allah Azza wa Jal will open the gates of certainty and conviction and tranquility and faith for you. May Allah fill our hearts with faith and our minds with knowledge about Him and make the very best of our days the day that we meet Him.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
