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Prove that God Exists, with Sh. Hamza Karamali | DoubleTake S4 E1
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No matter which religion a person is born into, we all eventually face the same question: “Do I really believe in God?” The Qur’an tells us that the signs of His existence are spread all over the world around us, yet today, more than ever before, people are saying it’s not enough.
Is it possible to prove God’s existence? What is the strongest argument for His existence, and do we have evidence for it in our tradition? Beyond proving God’s existence, how do we know that He is worthy of worship?
In the Season 4 premiere of DoubleTake, host Mohamad Zaoud talks to Sh. Hamza Karamali, founder of Basira Education, about proving the existence of God.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullah. No matter which religion a person is born into, we all eventually face the same question. Do I really believe in God? The Qur'an tells us that the signs of His existence are spread all over the world. Yet today, more than ever before, some people suggest that that's not enough. So the question is, is it possible to prove God's existence? And what are the strongest arguments for His existence? And of course, what is the evidence? Welcome to season four of Double Take, a podcast by Yaqeen Institute about the questions and ideas around Islam and Muslims that give us pause. Remember to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcast. If you want to share feedback with the team, you can reach out directly using the link in the show notes. And I have one more link for you to check out in this episode, and that is we're launching a brand new companion newsletter with sneak peeks and extra content. Check out the link in the description. Today, we're discussing the existence of God. And my guest is Sheikh Hamza Karam Ali, founder of Basira Education. Sheikh Hamza earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in computer engineering at the University of Toronto, after which he moved abroad to study the Islamic sciences full time with traditional scholars in Kuwait, the UAE and Jordan. He has a bachelor's and master's in Islamic law and legal theory from Jamia Nizamiya in Hyderabad, India. He specializes in developing authentically Muslim responses to atheism. Enjoy the episode. Sheikh Hamza, Salam Alaikum Warahmatullah and welcome to Double Take. Wa Alaikum Salam Warahmatullah Wa Barakatuhu. Thanks for the welcome. Sheikh, one of my goals for Double Take has always been to better understand the doubts about faith that I've seen around me, including from my friends and my family members. And one of the
most challenging topics that comes up in conversations is atheism. And I know, I know people who say that they no longer believe in God and others who say that they never believed in him to start with. Many factors contribute to this like misconceptions about who God is, or bad experience, bad experiences that they might have had with supposedly religious people. But frankly Sheikh, sometimes people ask me to prove God's existence and I can't really say to you that I have a clear, succinct and easy answer up my sleeve. So inshallah, today I'd like you to guide me through this. So Sheikh, we're going to start with a very simple question. Prove to me that God exists. Good question. So before we start, I think it's important for us to understand that the conception of God that's out there in the mainstream is not our conception of God. So if you take atheists for example, they have in their mind when they say I don't believe in God, they have a particular idea of God that they don't believe in. They're thinking of a man in the sky, Zeus, Apollo, the flying spaghetti monster, and that comes from a particular historical background. And so all of these arguments that are prevalent in the mainstream, they arose from a Christian context in Western Europe and then these arguments, they made their way to America. People like Aquinas, people like Descartes, William Paley, others, and they argued for the existence of God that's consonant with the idea that God sent his son to die a painful death on the cross and that son was God. So when we look at the arguments like the form of the cosmological argument that's
prevalent, the form of the ontological argument, even the argument from design that we as Muslims, we hear, we engage with when we see theists, Christians engaging with atheists, the idea of God there is not the same as our idea of God. So I think before we go in to answer this question, we need to understand what do we mean by God and is the proof that we are using, does it take us to that conclusion? So Muslims, we have a rich tradition of arguments for the existence of God that aren't well known in the tradition that we find ourselves in today. So I think that's the first step. Okay, I mean I'm going to ask you to explain the different arguments that us as Muslims and then just the general public have about the existence of God, but then if you're saying we need to define God, let's do that now. There are different definitions to God as Muslims, what do we believe God to be and what is that, why is that distinct, like what makes it distinct compared to others? So Amir bin Tufayl, he came to the messenger of Allah and he said to him, he said he said, what do you call us to? This is a polytheist and the Prophet said, I call you to worship Allah. And then he asked a very interesting question, he said describe him to me, what is he made of? Is he made of gold? Is he made of silver? Is he made of iron? And then a surah that we all know, was revealed. So this surah was revealed to correct the conception of God because the polytheists, they had an idea of God, but it wasn't the right idea of God. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he said, the huwa here means, it doesn't mean he,
it means that the great matter is that Allah is absolutely one. There's many important things in this surah, but I want to focus on one part of the surah where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Allahus-samad, as-samad. As-samad in the Arabic language refers to alladhi yusmadu ilayhi fil hawaij, the one who you go up to, metaphorically, to have your prayers answered. You raise your hands, you ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to fulfill your needs, and the entire universe needs Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. All the needs of the universe are fulfilled by Allah, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doesn't need anything. So this idea of a God who is needed by everyone, but he himself doesn't need anything, as-samad, samadiyya, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says he's ghaniyun a'anil alameen, he doesn't need anything, everything else needs him. This idea is central to the idea of Godhood. That's why we worship him alone, because no one else can benefit us or harm us, and we need him completely and utterly. So that idea, it needs to be the conclusion of an argument that we make for the existence of God. So I come to you, Sheikh, or one of your friends or neighbours comes to you as a Muslim, and you describe to them your definition of God, our definition as Muslims, of God, and that is, when you recite Surat al-Ikhlas, that's a very succinct definition of what we believe, it's very different to other gods that exist in other religions, there is nothing like him, that's what we believe as Muslims, that everything depends on him, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and he depends on no one. And so this neighbour comes to you and asks you, who is your God, you explain that, but
then he says, prove to me that God exists. The way that I would do this, I wouldn't actually, I wouldn't give a conception, I would just jump right into it. And so he said to me, but this is important for us to understand what I'm doing and why, right? So he says, prove to me that God exists, so I would say something like, if you look at the universe, the universe is in need, it's contingent, that's a technical term, might not use it in an everyday conversation, but it means dependent. Everything in the universe needs something else to make it the way that it is. So when I look outside and the wind blows, I say, well what made the wind blow? When the sun is shining, I say, what made the sun shine? When the sky is blue, I said, why is the sky blue? What makes the sky blue? So everything that we observe in the universe, it needs an explanation. It's not the way that it is just like that. So we search for explanations. Scientists search for explanations and we search for explanations. So what the explanation is, we have to kind of put a pause on that, but just see that everything needs something else to make it the way that it is. Then we say, okay, now what is it that made everything in the universe the way that it is? The prevalent philosophy of our times is a philosophy of materialism, and this is what atheism comes out of, and it's the idea that other things in the universe make things in the universe the way that they are. It's akin to idolatry, because idol worshippers believe that their idols are made of gold and silver and iron, as we saw. They have an effect, they make other things the way that they are. So today we believe that nuclear fusion is what makes the sun shine, that differences in air pressure are what make the wind blow, and
chlorophyll photosynthesis is what makes plants grow. And so we point to other things in the universe. So now what we need to do is we need to show that actually it's not these other things in the universe that are making these things the way that they are, but it's Allah directly, the one on whom they're depending. So we set up, we say that, okay, let's imagine a line of people. There's a person at the front of the line, and he leans on the person behind him, and so he's depending on the person behind him. So the person behind him could be holding him up, but let's say that this person is also dependent. He needs to be supported. So he leans back, they're both now leaning back, they're looking for something to hold him up. So there's a third person, just happens to be a third person. This is, you know, philosophers do, they come up with thought experiments. So then, but then the third person, he leans back, and then the fourth and the fifth, and I see this long line of people as far as the eye can see, and they're all leaning on each other, but I can't see the end of the line. What do you think will be a reasonable conclusion? That there's something holding them all up. That there's something holding them all up. Because if there was nothing at the end, no mountain, something, then they would all be lying on the ground. And the thing that's holding them all up, it can't be held up by anything else. Because when one thing leans on another, and the second thing leans on the third, then the middle thing isn't doing anything. They're both leaning on the third one. So as you pile up things that are leaning, then you're not actually improving the situation, you're making the problem worse. You don't have one thing to explain, you have two, three, four, a million things to explain. So when we look at the universe, and we say that something else in the universe made this thing the way that it is, well, then we need to say,
well, what made this other thing the way that it is? And we search for another explanation for it, and then we go to something else in the universe, and then we go to something else in the universe, and it's a never-ending process. It's called the progress of science, and it's useful, because it does give us insight into the way that the world works, but it reveals that everything is actually depending on someone who doesn't depend on anything, and that's God. The technical term for this is a necessary being. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He says in the Quran, Surely Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala keeps the heavens and the earth in existence, lest they disappear. It's a very common theme in the Quran, everywhere. So this is, that's how I would explain it. It's called the argument from contingency. Yeah, I've heard it. I mean, I've heard various people mention this argument as being the strongest argument for God's existence. Me personally, I mean, I listen to it, alhamdulillah, I believe that there's Allah, and I believe in surat al-ikhlas, and that's enough. I believe in it. But if I wanted to poke holes in this argument, just as a simple layman Muslim, or non, you know, an atheist, you know, there could be some holes that you could poke, you know, number one, if we're going to use these kind of, the analogy that you mentioned, with one person and someone else is holding that person up and vice versa until forever, what's to say that that just doesn't continue? You know, what's to say that that's not everlasting? If you're telling me that, you know, the sun is contingent on something else, and this planet's contingent, and this whole universe is contingent on something, what if, why can't that be an everlasting kind of proposition?
If we assume that's true for the sake of argument, then that leads us to a situation where the things in the universe have nothing to depend on. And so when you say that it goes on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever ends, then there is, everything is dependent, it's waiting for something to make it the way that it is, and it never, and there's nothing there. So it shouldn't exist. So the fact that the things exist is evidence that there is a being that is holding everything up and making it exist, making it the way that it is. Sheikh Hamza, you're saying to me that this contingency argument is probably the most, the powerful, most clear argument for the existence of God. And if I understood you correctly, you're saying everything in the universe is contingent on something, and therefore there must be a necessary being. At the end of all that, there's a necessary being. Not at the end of all that. Not at the end of all that. But directly there. So this isn't saying that this is... So there's a different kind of argument called the first cause argument, where there's something that activates the next thing, which activates the next thing, which activates the next thing, which gets to us. If you look at the universe in this way, then you get to something at the end of it all. But what we're saying is, it's not a first cause argument, it's a dependency argument, leaning back argument. And what that reveals is that right now, right now, the one who is running everything is God. Okay. I mean, and I want to speak about that point specifically. So imagine my son or my daughter in a year 10 kind of playground. And throughout 13 years of their life, in their schooling life, they're taught science. And they're taught that with enough time, you could explain anything through science. And let's just
say they agree with you. The colleagues, the pupils in the playground agree with my son, that everything is dependent, and therefore there must be a necessary being. There's a big jump to be made from there, to agree that there's a necessary being, to then agreeing that that necessary being is a God. How do I make that jump? So again, this is actually the most common objection online you'll find, is that you prove the existence of a necessary being, how do you know it's your God, or the God that you worship? And so I think that this argument doesn't take you there. This argument just says that there's a necessary being. So what is God? God for us, Ilah, is the one who's worshipped. Al-ilah huwa al-ma'bud. So there's this idea that this being, it's obligatory on us to worship this being, and he sent the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as his final messenger to call people to worship him. So this now is not an argument for the existence of that being, but it's an argument for the fact that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is God's genuine message, a genuine messenger from that being. And that's a separate argument. So that's Muhammadur Rasulullah. So what I would say to this thing is that, excellent question, and we can get to another argument, we can go there, but first I want you to understand that whether or not, whatever the answer to that second argument might be, this idea of the universe depending on a necessary being is something that's a valid conclusion, a compelling conclusion. There's also another way to do it. You can actually do a survey of what other religions believe about God. And so you say, okay, well, let's say that there's a necessary being, let's
compare, let's look at Christianity. Is their idea of God consonant with this argument? It's not, because they believe in a God who died on the cross. Is Hinduism or some other polytheistic religion, is it consonant with this idea? It's not. Judaism is actually quite close, Sikhism is quite close as well, but there's some subtle differences. And so I would go on these two, these are the two angles that I would take. Okay, and so I'm going to ask the question again, if you don't mind, respectfully, Sheikh, just so I can internalize it. How do I go from accepting that there's a necessary being to accepting that there's a necessary being worthy of worship? So there's two things. There's worthy of worship and obligation to worship. So worthy of worship means that this being deserves by virtue of who he is for us to worship him. And what's worship? Worship is that we place all of our needs at his door and that we don't go to anybody else. So this is something that is very clear from this argument, because the one who you would go to to fulfill all your needs would be the one who actually fulfills all your needs. So if you go and you ask somebody else, then it's just like you're knocking on the wrong door. So he is the one who is needed by everybody, doesn't need everything. So it makes sense that you would actually worship him. That's what worship is. But then has he commanded me to worship him? That's a separate question. And then that comes from proving the genuine messengerhood of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, proofs of his prophethood, that he was truthful, he brought
miracles, the miracle of the Quran is still there, and other aspects. Jazakallah khair. I guess what you're saying to me, Sheikh, is so long as you acknowledge that this necessary being, everything depends on that necessary being, then the logical conclusion is that that necessary being, I need that necessary being to exist. And I depend on that necessary being and therefore, I must respect and acknowledge and worship that necessary being. I don't think that's not too big a gap to jump. I think it's pretty logical if you just go down that route. I do feel like I want to hear some of the other common arguments for the existence of God. I understand from you that the contingency argument is absolutely front and centre because it's very clear. And, you know, with an open mind, you get there right away. How do I prove in other ways that God exists? So there's many ways. There's a Christian philosopher called Alvin Plantinga, about 40 years ago, he wrote a paper called Two Dozen or so Theistic Arguments. So philosophers are coming up with new arguments all the time. Classically, I think there's been something called a cosmological argument. A cosmological argument is a family of arguments that argues from causation and origin of the universe, that there's a first cause or the universe began to exist. There's something called the ontological argument. Descartes is famous for making that. It comes from the idea of God. Many Christians actually make this argument. It's a uniquely Christian argument. Can you just describe it for me, please? Just so I can kind of understand. It says that the idea of a perfect being, I can conceive of it. Therefore, that perfect being exists because existence is a perfection.
And if he didn't exist, then I wouldn't conceive of it. That's a rough articulation. It's not a good argument. I don't think it's a good argument, but it's there. It's out there. What would you say of the arguments that exist are good arguments, are acceptable arguments in our doctrine? The good arguments are, they're all arguments that are refuting materialism, but they don't actually get to God. So what happens is that there's a family of arguments, among them is the argument from design, which is very popular amongst Christians and also Muslims. And that's this idea that the universe, the precision in the universe couldn't have come about by chance. There needs to be a designer. And you bring these amazing things in the universe and you say that, look, God must exist. So the way, what this argument is basically doing is it's saying that according to a materialist, everything is happening through the laws of nature and atoms and molecules bumping into each other. And in this worldview, there's no purpose. There's no design because an atom cannot consciously choose to make something a particular way. So you bring design and precision and it just blows this idea out of the water that it's just atoms and molecules and materialism and that's all that there is. But it doesn't actually get you to a necessary being. It just says that the prevailing atheist assumptions are false. And there's a number of arguments that are like this. So the moral argument for the existence of God, it falls in the same category. It says that morality is not something that can be explained naturally through the methods of science. So therefore, they jump to God exists.
But I think that the more precise way to articulate these arguments is to say, therefore, there's something wrong in the prevalent materialistic approach to what we're looking at. I think we were talking earlier, you had a couple listed. Can you remind me what they were? Yeah, I mean, ones I've heard was like design, morality, intuition, fitrah, in Islam. So intuition, fitrah, what that is saying is that we are hardwired to believe in God. And that's true. Like there's psychologists have done studies of atheists raising kids saying God doesn't exist, God doesn't exist. And the kid says God exists, God exists. And these are documented. So that's true. We are hardwired. But technically speaking, it's not an argument. Because you make an argument when something needs to be proven. If it's hardwired, it doesn't need to be proven. So there's a family of arguments there as well. They've been developed by Christians. But I guess the fitrah argument, it puts you into a problem, which is that a Christian will say from fitrah that they believe in their conception of God. And we'll say from fitrah that we believe in our conception of God. So there's a deeper engagement that needs to happen in order for this argument to be really compelling. And there's work that can be done. But everything ultimately will, I think, contingency is something that sheds light and will illuminate and enable us to build on all of these arguments towards a good direction. So the fitrah thing is, I think, it's just that the argument from contingency is so intuitive that you can actually see that it's true in a second. And so when you have, before materialism, this is what people thought.
So there's this famous statement of a Bedouin who was asked, how do you know that God exists? And he said that, Al-atharu yadullu alal maseer, if you see footprints in the sand, it means there was a traveler there. Wal ba'ratu tadullu alal ba'eer, and if you see a camel dropping, it means a camel passed. In other words, if I see a footprint and I see a camel dropping, this is an effect. There's something that made that effect. And then he said, if you look at the universe, the heavens and the earth, there has to be someone who, they're effects. There has to be someone who made them the way that they are. And that's God. And so this is, and if you go to a five-year-old and you go to a five-year-old and you say, you say, my son, who made the sun? God made the sun. God made the moon. God made the stars. God, he'll just believe in it, right? He'll believe in it naturally because he's hardwired, but also it's intuitive in the sense that it's a very simple argument. But the problem now is that we have a pervasive materialism that's coming in through the vehicle of modern science. And so we need, the reason why we need these arguments is to deprogram ourselves. And so that's why they get a little bit more complex. So science is the big thing. And I think that what we also need to do is, there was a question, there's an important thing that you put your finger on. Which is that child in the playground who's in science class, and he sees things in one particular way. So, and what I'm describing here and what the Quran describes is something that's very different. So we need to also make sense of what science is saying in light of the argument from contingency. Sheikh Hamza, we started this interview by me asking you about, you know, how you would prove God exists. You jumped straight to the contingency argument. And inshallah, there's still a couple of more questions I have to that.
You also mentioned the various other arguments that exist out there. If I understood them correctly, there was an argument on intuition, fitrah. I guess that tendency to believe in God. And I'd love to hear from you more on that. There was an argument about design. If I understood correctly, that, you know, when you look at the signs that exist in our universe. If you look at animals and, you know, our plantation and molecules and the universe. You get to the conclusion that something must have designed it. They're so perfect. They're amazingly designed. And if they're designed, they must be designed by someone. There was a morality argument. You're saying that science can't really explain morality. Therefore, there must be a being, a supreme being who has explained or provided for our morality. Have I understood those correctly? So there were those three plus the contingency argument, if I was to summarize. Yeah, that's good. That's a good summary. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is another one, another one important one. Do you mind just explaining that one one more time? Yeah, so the Kalam Cosmological Argument, it says that the universe began to exist. Everything that begins to exist needs, in the common articulation, it says needs a cause for its existence. I prefer to say need something to make it exist. Therefore, the universe needs something to make it exist. So historically, Muslims, we had philosophical arguments for the fact that the universe began to exist. And in the modern age, with the discovery of the Big Bang, that's revitalized the argument and sparked a number of conversations amongst philosophers and scientists about the implications of what scientists say about the Big Bang for the existence of God.
There's been a trend of atheism associated with the rise of modern science. And this was associated with the idea that the universe has existed forever. Because if the universe has existed forever, then if you don't do contingency, then in the minds of people, it doesn't need anyone to make it exist. So this continued for a while until scientists, they discovered the fact that the universe is expanding. And if the universe is expanding, then if you go back in time, then there needs to be, it can't get smaller without end. There needs to be a start point. There's other lines of reasoning as well. And so now, if you have, you know, you high school students, like there's an age to the universe, right? So if you Google, like, how old is the universe, they'll tell you the universe has an age. If the universe has an age, it means it has a beginning. So now, and this now shakes the foundations, the atheistic foundations of science, which were that the universe doesn't need anything to make it exist. So now there's the debate, the philosophical debate now is over, if the universe began to exist, does it need something to make it exist? Or does it not need something to make it exist? So you're saying to me that with the growth of modern science, we can come to the conclusion that the universe did begin, you know, began with the Big Bang. So I'm asking you in light of that, as a Muslim, how does that lead me to the existence of God? So let's put like Muslim aside, but just anyone, like anyone, if the universe began to exist, then it needs something to make it exist. So the Kalam Cosmological Argument, from my perspective, and from the perspective of theologians, theologians who, like Vazali, who modern philosophers draw on to make this argument,
they say that the reason why the universe needs something to make it exist is because it's contingent. So what does contingent mean? It's dependent. So if something, if the universe did not exist, and then it began to exist, it means that existence is not intrinsic to it. It means something else needs to make it exist. It couldn't have made itself exist either, because in order to make itself exist, it needs to exist and then make itself exist, but it didn't exist. So the fact that the universe began to exist is evidence for the fact that someone made it exist. And if we take that same argument of leaning people, you can come to the conclusion that the one who made the universe exist did not himself begin to exist and doesn't need anyone to make him exist. So it's the same family of arguments. I want to ask you then, how does Allah describe his existence? You know, when I read the Quran, I hear verses, Inna fi khalqis samawat laa. When Allah describes the universe, and it almost sounds to me like he's SubhanAllah, describing the design argument, if I may say so. Is that the most common kind of theme in the Quran when it comes to proving the existence of Allah? And in our heritage? Yeah, design is a really important part of the arguments in the Quran. But it's always built on top of the idea of contingency. So what you do is you look at the fact that the universe is contingent, and it needs something to make it the way that it is, and so there's a necessary being. And then design tells you that this necessary being has wisdom, has knowledge, has power, can do anything. So, Inna fi khalqis samawat wal ardu wa khtilafil layli wal nahar. Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, differences of night and day, ships that sail in the sea, animals, and so there are signs.
And classical mufassirun like Bailawi, they would say that these signs are, and the commentaries on Bailawi would say that these signs are the contingency of the universe, the fact that the universe began to exist. And then on top of that, they then indicate God's knowledge, will, and power. So that's what design does. So design, it shows me that God is the one who's chosen to make everything. So if you, for example, look at something that's the human eye, you know, like it's exquisitely designed. You have a lens and the light comes in and it focuses it on the retina, and you have rod cells and cone cells, electrical impulses. You can see that all of these things were made by somebody who has tremendous knowledge. So the contingency arguments just tells me necessary being. But when I now look at the things that this being has made, it's like, subhanAllah, he's so knowledgeable. He can do anything. InnaAllaha ala kulli shay'in qadeer. And it allows the power of the verse to come out. If you don't do contingency first, then you come to this and you say, well, it's just evolution. It's just a scientific explanation. And then you have to kind of struggle against materialism. And so the power of design is released when you look at things first through the lens of contingency. And you say, alhamdulillah rabbil alameen. Right, so alhamdulillah. What is it? All praise is deserved by Allah, rabbil alameen. Rabb is sustainer, the one who makes everything the way that it is, makes the universe the way that it is. This is an adjective. So the scholars of tafsir and usool, they'll say that the purpose of this adjective is to describe why. We say that, alwasfu bilmushtaq yush'iroo bi'aliyyati ma minhu lishtiqa. So if I say alhamdulillah, all praise is deserved by Allah. Why?
Because he is the one who is making everything in the universe the way that it is. So when I see something beautiful, Allah deserves the praise because he's the one who made it beautiful. When I realize something, I understand something, it's not because of how smart I am. It's Allah that deserves the praise because he's the one who creates the understanding in my mind. So alhamdulillah rabbil alameen, it has design in it, it has contingency in it. They come together. So when you don't have this, when they don't come together, then you can get a scenario where you have a Christian and they say that there's design and that means that there's a supernatural being. That laws of nature don't explain everything, there's a supernatural being. And that supernatural being is God. But that supernatural being can die on the cross, can die a painful death, can be contingent. And so you get into a conception of God, it allows you to get into a conception of God that the Qur'anic argument would not allow you to. Sheikh Hamza, you've given me a lot to think about and I think intellectually you got me there. You helped explain to me the various explanations of God's existence and you focused on the contingency argument which frankly is, I mean now that I think about it, it's not new to me but the way you explained it is certainly new. So I appreciate it, Jazakallah khair. If I was to say you got me there intellectually but I'm still kind of not feeling it. You know, I've explained it to my neighbor or I've explained it to the kid in the classroom and they accept the arguments but they just don't feel like God exists. What is your response to that? So I think there's two things.
I would recommend, I have a course online called Why Islam is True and a book also that goes along with it. And I walk through these arguments in a lot more detail and explicitly engaging with atheist arguments. And so it's important to deal with the rationalities of this because when you consider what other people are saying and the Islamic responses to it and you see response, response, response, response, it helps nurture your faith and conviction. The second thing I think is that it's important to understand that this argument is tied with our spirituality. So the Prophet ﷺ, he taught us to remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala before we eat, to thank him after we eat, to remember him as we put on our clothes, to remember him as we leave the house, to remember him as we come back into the house, before using the bathroom, after using the bathroom. And all of these duas, if we internalize them, if we say them, if we remind ourselves of them and we remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, if we pray, you know, the prayer, the sujood position is an internalization of our dependence on the one who doesn't need anything. So a healthy, lived life of spirituality and remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, recitation of the Qur'an, in light of the argument from contingency, it deepens it and it gives you a feeling, iman, that inshallah you can carry through in the rest of your life and inshallah to the akhirah. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala take us all to Jannah and we all meet there. Ameen. JazakAllah khair. Sheikh, we set this episode up so I can ask you a final question, which is, I don't think I've seen this online at all, and it's really like a 30-second pitch. So if my nine-year-old niece comes to you and says, prove to me that God exists, what is your pitch to that nine-year-old?
I'd say, my daughter, if you look at the sun, it needs something to make it shine. And if you look at the wind, it needs something to make it blow. The one who is making these things happen is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. If he didn't make it happen, then how are they happening? So to a nine-year-old, that's what I would say. BarakAllah fik. Sheikh, jazakAllah khair. We've gone from the existence of God to something much simpler. We're going to ask you a set of rapid fire questions. I'm only giving you a handful of seconds, a few seconds to answer each question. Some of them are very easy, but inshallah, we'll get to some exciting ones towards the end. So question number one, we haven't asked this question a long time because this is the first time you're on Double Take, so you get this question. Your favorite qarat, reciter of the Qur'an? Min Shawi. I accept that. What's the last book that you were reading? Oh man, I should show you. Can I take a video of my desk? Yes, please. Can you bring up some books? Bring some books up. Okay, so this is the Ahya Ulum al-Din by Imam al-Ghazali on the importance of having a good intention. This is a little book in Arabic about how the Muslims discovered America before Columbus. This here, this is a book about the Muslim judicial system and how concepts like innocent until proven guilty, separation of powers, is something that's a uniquely Islamic concept. This is a draft of my Why Islam is True book that I'm working through and editing. Mashallah, jazakallah.
So I guess I read a lot of, this is a seerah of the life of the Prophet ﷺ, 16 volumes with commentary on it. It's the month which many people say he was born in, so I'm looking through that. So I'm constantly working to solve questions, so I kind of use books all the time. So it's not, I don't kind of sit down and read one book from beginning to end and then another book and then another book. Jazakallah khair. You certainly have the most dynamic answer to that question. Barakallah fiqh. Hopefully another simple one. What's your dream breakfast? And I know you're living in Turkey, so I have an idea. Pancakes and cream and honey and blueberries. You lived in Canada. If you were to have dinner with one person who's alive, who would it be and why? With my mother. Because she cooks the best food and because I enjoy her company. And if someone who has passed away was to join you for dinner, who would you choose? It can't be the Prophet ﷺ of course. Imam al-Ghazali. I kind of know the answer to this, but if you had unlimited resources to put together the ultimate service for Muslims, what would it be? To have a resource where you can show why Islam is true online, in print, for free to everybody all over the world. It takes the arguments of the Muslim scholars and it articulates them in a modern idiom and engages with modern ideas. I hope I got that in 30 seconds. Sheikh Hamza, Jazakallah khair.
Those who are interested in Sheikh Hamza's work, you can see and follow his work at albasiraeducation.org. Barakallah fiqh Sheikh and inshallah we look forward to many other episodes on DabbleTech. Thank you. Thank you so much.
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