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"Humanity is the best religion" Do I even need Islam? | Webinar
Living in a world where there are competing ideologies, brushed over with “Humanity is the best religion”, it’s sometimes difficult to see why Islam and ethics are needed.
Join Dr. Ovamir Anjum, Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy, Sh. Ibrahim Hindy, and Ust. Hanaa Hasan as they discuss the many questions that come to mind when considering the commands of Allah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. JazakumAllah khair for joining us for our webinar today. Our webinar, Humanity is the Best Religion, quote unquote, Do I Really Need Islam? This webinar, alhamdulillah, is part of our series on ethics and Islam here at Yaqeen Institute. Last year we had an excellent paper by Dr. Uweimer Anjam, who's on our panel today, on the topic of, quote, Being a Good Muslim is Not Enough, Why Ethics Need Islam. We also had a number of webinars last year discussing this topic of ethics and Islam, this theme. We had a webinar last year on postmodernism, preserving faith in an age of postmodernism with speakers like Dr. Nazir Khan, Dr. Uweimer Anjam as well, and Sheikh Suleiman Hani amongst others. And this year we're building on these topics, and we're doing so with today's webinar, which is entitled, Humanity as Religion, Do I Need Islam? And next week as well, there will be another webinar titled, An Unchanging Religion in an Ever-Changing World, Addressing LGBTQ Issues and More, which will explore Islamic ethical framework when it comes to sexual ethics and other related matters, inshallah. And I encourage you to tune into that webinar, which will be on June 16th, inshallah. With that said, let's introduce today's speakers on today's panel. And these speakers deserve much longer bios, but I'm editing it down a little bit, inshallah, just in the interest of time and so that we can pick their brains today. So we have Dr. Uweimer Anjam, who is the editor in chief at Yaqeen Institute. He also serves as the Imam Khattab Endowed Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toledo. We also have with us Sheikh Mohamed El-Shinawi, who is an Associate Director of Systematic Theology at Yaqeen Institute. He studied at the College of Hadith at the Islamic University of Medina and is a graduate and instructor of Islamic Studies at Mishka University.
We also have with us Sister Hanna Aisha Hassan, who is a researcher in international development with a regional specialization in the Middle East. She holds a bachelor's in economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and a master's in developmental studies from the London School of Economics. She is an associate researcher, sorry, an associate researcher at Yaqeen Institute. Her interests include the impact of the neoliberal turn employment trends in the Muslim world and Islamic economic theory. She's also the founder and editor in chief of the Qawariyin Project, an initiative dedicated to reviving Islamic discourse amongst Muslim women. So Jazakum Allah khair for joining us, having this great panel. And we asked a bunch of questions this week on social media, if you've been following us on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, you might have seen some of these questions that we've asked and we didn't answer any of these questions because we wanted you to come to this webinar. So inshallah, I will begin by directing some of the questions we asked over social media this past week to one of the speakers and each person will get a question. But feel free to jump in when someone else has wrapped up their answer to share your own perspective. Let's have inshallah a dynamic discussion. So I'll begin inshallah with Sheikh Mohammed Al-Shinnawi. And the question is one that, you know, all of these questions really are questions that we get all the time, especially from the youth. And the question is, is Allah going to be mad if I don't pray as long as I'm a good person? Fadal Sheikh Al-Shinnawi. Jazakum Allah khair. Assalamu alaikum everybody. Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wasalamu ala rasool Allah, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. Yeah, it's an awesome question, or I love receiving it. I think I like the questions that I think I have answers for more than other questions. But it's an awesome question because I find it first and foremost, a perfect opportunity to to remind people why we are so in need of revelation,
because otherwise we sit there trying to weigh up what is more important than what. And that could be extremely problematic. You know, something that feels worse, feels more objectionable, becomes necessarily the greater sin or the greater crime or the greater wrong. And revelation sort of rescues us from having to figure out, is this like simply moral outrage? Because of the way society has numbed me or carried me unconsciously in a certain direction, socialized me, repeated exposures, societal acceptance or whatever. Or is there actually some magnitude to this act or that act? So moral outrage doesn't always mean moral magnitude. And an easy example of this is like extramarital relations, for example. I'll build up to salah in a second. But extramarital relations, how bad is that? Right. Someone, personally speaking, forget socialization, even who could have committed adultery or fornication, had extramarital relations, could not see it as that big of a deal versus someone again, even without religion for a second, who got cheated on in the past and their partner, who they thought were loyal, fell into extramarital relations. And so the outrage would be very vast, a big disparity. Or another example is violence. You know, when we see five people, you know, gunned down close to home within our societies, that could cause a far greater sense of moral outrage and insecurity and otherwise, versus five thousand people who are killed overseas by barrel bombing and drone strikes. And may Allah bring peace and healing to the entire world. And so this question of how bad is it really to miss out on prayer?
Actually, Ibn Qudamah, the great Hanbali scholar in his book on Tazkiyah, Uqtasar An-Nahaj Al-Qasidin, he says, Have you ever noticed how when people are closer to a sin, to a wrongdoing, they become more desensitized to it? He says, in his era even, and that is why people don't find missing prayer that objectionable compared to missing fasting. He said, and the reason is not because Islam makes fasting more important than prayer. Prayer is the greatest physical act in Islam, bar none. Once you're Muslim, nothing's greater than prayer. Nothing's more fundamental than prayer. He said, but because missing prayer is so much more common, because it requires a greater commitment, a daily commitment, not an annual, what am I, a monster? I'm going to at least fast Ramadan, right? And so fasting Ramadan is more prevalent, and so missing it is less common, and therefore seen as so horrendous, so atrocious, as opposed to missing prayer because people see it all the time, so they automatically assume it's not as bad. And then he gives this other example, actually in that same paragraph, I remember, where he says, imagine a scholar entering to give a lecture or sit at a dinner table, and he's wearing silk and gold, and we all know ABC's Islamic law, silk and gold are not permissible for Muslim men. We would find that absolutely appalling, and we'd like throw the guy out the window, basically. You're no scholar. Open rebellion to Allah's rules and guidance. He says, but imagine a scholar now comes into the gathering, and from the beginning to the end of the gathering, he fills it with backbiting and slander, and baseless ill talk of others. He says, we would all accept that. Why? When backbiting and slander are actually far worse than silk and gold for men, because this one is more common. And so when you reflect on our existence, you reflect on the objective of creation, you reflect on Allah's prioritization of salah, it becomes very clear that missing salah is a big deal, right?
When Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is our reference point, that the very purpose for our existence, and the very reason, as Atta'idah Rahimahullah once beautifully said, why our joints were made flexible was for ibadah, was to serve Allah. Yes, serving the creation is a part of that, but paramount is the salah. It's the first part of serving Allah. And also, you know, it's not like you must do this, meaning like because you're upsetting Allah because he needs it from you. Allah doesn't like for people to take part in self-harm, right? So Allah cares about us. And so he hates and becomes angry when we let go of these foundational elements that will bring us purpose and meaning and connection, which are our greatest needs. And so, yes, it is the paramount fumble to miss the prayer more than anything else within Islam. And we will not be able to connect with Allah, which is our need. We will not be able to be fulfilled by Allah, which is our greatest existential need. We will not be able to purify our hearts and set a right bedrock for our morality, which is such a fundamental moral need. As one of my teachers once said that saying I don't pray, but I still get all those things anyway. I'm fulfilled and I have a pure heart and this, that and the third. Just be careful, because that's almost like saying I have good oral hygiene. I have good teeth, but I don't brush. Right. You could be selling yourself a lie and then getting upset and frustrated when you wound up believing it. And so, yes, missing prayer is quite unfortunate. And it means that much to Allah out of his concern and care for you above and before all. Jazakallah khair, Sheikh Shannawi. I really like how you psychologized the feeling or rather,
Sheikh Ibn Khuddamah, that you quoted, that the way we sense the moral enormity is really an aspect of our social psychology. And there is a, you know, philosophically, there is a term for it, emotivism, which is that it is our emotions that determine what we take to be right and wrong. But, you know, you could imagine in a gang of murderers, for example, good and swift murder would be considered perhaps a good thing. And if you were a coward who didn't want to murder people, you would be seen as, you know, a loser. So emotivism goes only so far in determining our morality. Absolutely, jazakallah khair. I think that's a really good point that you mentioned, too, about how people might think it's a greater moral problem for someone with gun violence in the US, where a few people die and then they don't think it's such a big deal when thousands of people are killed with bombings overseas. And it shows how what we think is good and evil is very, very shaped sometimes by our surroundings. SubhanAllah. But that, you know, that brings us to the next question, which I think kind of touches on this. And the question goes, morals are universal. I don't need Islam or any religion to tell me how to be good. And so this is a very common refrain we hear all the time and kind of connects to a lot of what Sheikh Junaid mentioned in his previous question. And I'll give this question to Dr. Roina. How would you answer this question? OK, Bismillah walhamdulillah, salatu wassalamu ala rasoolillah. So the idea that morals are universal is itself questionable. How do we know morals are universal? If you look at the world, you look at the world empirically,
people disagree fundamentally about what is morality. If you look at their behaviour on any number of issues, you'll find that they disagree more than they agree. But if you dig deep down, you begin to find there are some similarities, but those similarities aren't enough to create common norms. You'll find throughout the world common norms are created in societies through religious norms, sometimes through a true religion given by God and sometimes through distorted forms of religiosity. But religious sanction for morality is universal. In fact, the exception is the modern, some echelons of modern society in the global north, in the extreme rich and extremely short lived recent experiment of humanity that has rejected God. So we should think of this, our culture, which sometimes suggests these enormous lies to us as an exception and not the norm. Right. Just as we know when I sometimes think about the global crisis, global climate crisis and the destruction of the global environment in a very short period of time, human beings have been civilized, used the world, used the earth for nearly 10,000 years. But only in the last 200 years, they have depleted nearly all of the fossil fuels and all of the and caused global warming and destruction of the earth. And, you know, all of the extinction of species and so on in a very short period of time.
This lifestyle is abnormal in anyone else throughout history, whether it's the Greeks or Christians or Hindus or the Chinese or the Aztecs. If they would have looked at modern lifestyle, they would have been horrified by how we consumed, how we would devour and wasted the resources, the earth, the water, the planet, the trees around us. They would have they would have condemned us, but we take it for granted. So. We should therefore not think that more universality of values is itself a self-evident fact, but rather it is a fact that is that is a result of God giving us morality. Right. And. We must therefore ask, why did what is good, what does God make good and. How do we know what is good and. We misunderstand the basic function of life in our secular context. You see, we think that our purpose of life is to enjoy life, to figure out life, perhaps figure out its mechanics, figure out the empirical existence and then enjoy it. And then in our and then create a public order and the life of prosperity based on simply exploitation and then ask the question of why we are alive. Why did where this where did this life come from? We could answer that question that is in the modern secular mindset in our private spaces, if we like.
So the question of morality has become a private luxury, whereas the question of exploitation of life has become the central public concern that defines our life. But in Islam and in fact, in any other religiosity or philosophy before, including Greeks and others, Aristotle and Plato's ethics or early Islamic ethics or the philosophical ethics. You answer the question of what the purpose of life, right. As inseparable from the question of what is life. And when we ask that question, what we learn. That Allah has given us life. liyabluwakum ayyikum ahsanu amala He created life and death so that he may test you who will do good. So you realize that Islam is morality. It's not just that Islam gives you morality and that you can figure out morality another way. No, Islam is God's answer to what is good and what is not good. And so the idea that all men are created equal, this is a self-evident truth, as Thomas Jefferson wrote. This, in fact, was a half truth because it's not self-evident at all. It has not been self-evident throughout human history that all men are created equal, that all humans are equal because they have a soul, was an Abrahamic idea in human history, if you will. That means God sent it through prophets before us. You find this in Judaism and Christianity and most emphasize in Islam. This is not something that you will find if you take away religion, God's revelation from human history. This idea disappears.
I'd love to hear other people comment on this, have some thoughts, but I don't want to take over the conversation, but there's so much to dig into your answer. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to hijack the conversation at all either. Sister Hanna, I'm looking forward to hearing her input as well. I just, as weird and geeky as this may sound, I almost, last minute I caught that my tires were desperately worn out and I had to change my tires. And so I went without an appointment to the tire guy at a store here and I said, how's it going? He said to me, I guess I was thinking about the webinar, right? So I'm not this geeky or that introspective at all. But I said, how's it going? He said, great for me, horrible for you. I was like, what do you mean? He said, there's 13 people ahead of you. And so my purpose is to make money off the business. Your purpose is to get out of here fast. And so, SubhanAllah, you really cannot answer the morality question without, you know, stopping first, the great pause, being thoughtful and saying, where did I come from? Why am I here? What's the point of it all? It's truly fundamental, SubhanAllah. Yeah, I think coming off of that and Dr. Anjum's thoughts. I think for me, this question about morals and universality, that's definitely one element of the conversation. But I think another thing that we need to think about is we need to question if morals alone offer sufficient guidance for us in our day to day life. Because we can all agree that being kind is a virtue. But how do we know when to be kind? If someone is being rude or aggressive towards us, are we justified if we treat them the same? Or should we be the better person and be patient with those who wrong us? If those who are being rude to us or treating us wrongly are members of our family, should that make a difference in how we respond to them?
Where is the line between being patient with a particular situation and tolerating somebody wronging us or oppressing us? And then if we kind of take that question and zoom out to the level of a society, what does that look like for a society? What are the implications on a group of people? And for me, all of these questions show that being kind isn't just as easy as people think. People kind of descend that as a retort sometimes when you're like, you know, what should be the mantra or the guidance for your life? People say, just be kind, live, laugh, love. And I think that this just reduces actually the human experience of what it means to live in a society with other people in this world. And really, this reminds me of the hadith that Dr. Anjum Shahi was saying about the importance of being kind. And you started your ethics paper on the Yaqeen website with this, where Rasulullah ﷺ says, I have been sent to you only to perfect good character. But yes, we have this human impulse to be kind, to be grateful, to be generous. That's present in all of us. But actually, we need Islam and we need the Prophet's example to guide us on how to apply it in our day to day lives. Absolutely. Such an important message that you asked. And I want to go back to something Dr. Raymer, you kind of mentioned as well, because someone on Instagram sent this message, Umme Hala. She says that this is always a discussion with my non-Muslim family. They don't really have a problem with me believing, but they don't see the point of following your religion. There was nothing wrong with you before Islam is what they tell her. You don't need religion to be a good person. And also they say, why show it on the outside, religion is something on the inside. And so it kind of goes to both of what you said, Dr. Raymer, and what Sister Hanna just mentioned. Like on the one hand, it's like you just need to be a good person. But then like Sister Hanna is saying, what does that mean in every circumstance? It's easy to say be kind. What does it mean to be kind in different scenarios we find in life?
But also goes to the question that you brought up, Dr. Raymer, about that we act like morality is a private luxury. You know, you deal with that at home, but outside it's all about exploiting the world. And I think those are two really important points, SubhanAllah, that people need to be aware of, because these are questions that people do talk about so often, even over the dinner table. With that, InshaAllah, let's move to the next question. SubhanAllah, all these questions are interrelated. And so a lot of these points, you know, can be mentioned with different questions. This is a question that says, am I going to hell just because I don't wear a hijab? So Sister Hanna, you know, maybe you could take this question and dissect it a little bit. Yeah, I think, SubhanAllah, questions around hijab are obviously very sensitive for many Muslim women, because hijab is a huge struggle for many Muslim women. It is the most visible indicator that someone is a Muslim in a way that perhaps isn't always the same for brothers. But I think that actually there's two parts to this question. The first part is, am I going to hell? And the second part is, you know, when we use language like just because I don't wear hijab, we're really questioning the value of hijab. What we're trying to ask is, is not wearing hijab a big deal? So in answer to the first question, am I going to hell because I did and didn't do X? I mean, the easy answer and the correct answer to this question is that we don't know. We don't know the fate of any individual Muslim. Nobody has the right to say that anyone is going to hell or heaven, even themselves. This is something that is ultimately only in Allah's knowledge, because only Allah truly knows the scope of our deeds, the state of our hearts, the intention with which we did things, the mistakes we have made, deeds that we have repented. We have repented. What's a better question to ask in relation to this issue would be,
will Allah be unhappy with me because I don't wear hijab? And this is something we can answer. We know that because Allah subhana wa ta'ala ordained the hijab as an obligation for Muslim women, that when we do something to obey Allah subhana wa ta'ala, it makes them happy. Allah subhana wa ta'ala says in Surah Nisa verse 69, And whoever obeys Allah and his Messenger will be in the company of those blessed by Allah, the prophets, the people of truth, the martyrs and the righteous. So when you obey Allah, Allah blesses you. You are among that cadre of people, of those who are blessed, the prophets, the martyrs. So the answer to, you know, are you going to help heaven? We don't know. But we do know that when we obey Allah subhana wa ta'ala, he becomes happy with us. The second part of this question then is about hijab. You know, is it a big deal that I don't wear hijab? Right. Why is wearing hijab so important? And I think that today this question arises because unfortunately, many people have reduced hijab to, you know, just the covering of the hair or, oh, it's just a headscarf that Muslim women wear. And it's really just it's like another item of clothing. And so, yeah, we don't always think of clothing as that big of a deal. Why would wearing an item of clothing, why would wearing hijab be considered such a big deal? But I think that we need to remember that Muslim women obeying the command of Allah subhana wa ta'ala, wearing the hijab constitutes a form of worship. So for every time that they put it on, they are being rewarded immensely for obeying Allah subhana wa ta'ala. And they are doing the same as what the wives of Rasulullah ﷺ did. They're doing the same as what the first generation of Muslim women, the companions of the Prophet ﷺ did, where as soon as they heard about this order being revealed, سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا, we hear and we obey. And not only is there a huge reward in that, as we're saying, but as with all duties in Islam,
there is this significant spiritual element to the hijab that we are sacrificing something for a greater reward in the hereafter. And that is an Islamic ethic of doing the correct action, even if it's hard, obeying Allah because he's our creator and he knows what's best for us with the hope that he will be happy and he will be pleased for us, submitting our desires and not giving in to our desires and our hopes. So this is one element of appreciating the significance of hijab at an individual level. It's not just an idea. But I think that we also need to appreciate the significance of hijab at a societal level and recognize it as one part of the system of social organization that Islam puts forth for the Muslim community, because the verses of hijab don't actually just tell Muslim women to cover up and that's it. When you look at the verses in Surah An-Nur, you see that this verse is actually preceded by an instruction for the Prophet ﷺ to tell Muslim men to lower their gaze. These two verses are also accompanied by other instructions in the Qur'an and the Sunnah for both men and women to observe modest and dignified behavior and limit unnecessary socializing between the two genders. So it's this holistic encouragement of preserving modesty and chastity in the community, not by limiting women for the sake of men, but by setting down a societal standard for both genders that enables the protection of everyone. And this communal element, I think, you know, as Osman left out of the conversation today, people focus a lot on it being a choice or something that Muslim women do individually, or we have to do it out of consideration for men's desires. And I think we don't talk enough about how hijab is just one piece of Islam's architecture against a misogynistic, sexualizing and objectifying culture that unfortunately we do live in today.
You know, the hijab is one regulation of the public space that actually allows Muslim women to interact in the community, not being judged on her appearance, but on what she has to offer as a Muslim woman. So without turning this into a talk on hijab, the hijab is never just hijab. It's important from an ethical perspective for the individual in terms of their relationship with Allah ﷻ and also society as part of a system that is designed to uphold a chaste community and protect women. You know, Sheikh Ibrahim, I know, I understand, I understand what I look like. What if I can just say a word on hijab, right? And this is actually not from me, but from like a sister who's interacting with her. Just I haven't been able to shake off the memory. I was once in Manhattan, New York City after a lecture. A sister came up to me in hijab and she was sobbing. And she was sobbing, asking me the question from the opposite impetus altogether, like, will Allah be upset at me? She literally asked me, will Allah be upset at me if I take off my hijab one block away from my house because my parents will not let me? If they ever find out I'm wearing hijab, I'm going to be sort of like chastised beyond measure. I'll get thrown out of the house. And she was basically her parents are an immigrant couple from, you know, parts of Europe. Let me be a little bit ambiguous here. But parts of Europe, I mean, I don't think it's that big of a deal either. They're from Albania. And you know that the communist scourge or, you know, the anti-religious sentiments. And so I'm not sure if her parents were just freaking out like a phobia of what, you know, religious commitment can result in. Or it was actual resentment that was internalized towards religion. Allah Azza wa Jal knows best.
But she said to me, sort of to the question you asked Dr. Ovemeyer as well, right before Sister Hanna about privatizing your religion doesn't need to be outside. She was telling me before America, before MSA, I thought Islam was just a feeling. I never thought Islam was anything more than a feeling. But when I came and I learned at MSA what Islam is about and the actual definitive guidance, right, the societal structure and otherwise and personal structure. When I actually tasted hijab, right, I can't imagine my life without it because I saw the inside and the outside of the hijab. Right. And so a big part of that is like trusting that Allah did this so that we are not relegated to what we think are our choices. And many times they're just, you know, the choices society is imposing on us. And, you know, we may hear loud voices saying free women and that there could be, you know, a slip, you know, message or agenda here of offering free access to women and reducing their value and their sense of security and their sense of fulfillment in societies. I'll never forget that sister and how much she treasured the hijab once she actually realized what it offers her besides just the psycho-spiritual or the emotive element or attachment that she had for Islam to begin with. JazakAllah khair for reminding me again. Very powerful statements. Yes, mashallah. I loved it. And to zoom out a little bit, why is it that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la cares about what we do in our ordinary day to day lives if we are good believers? Right. Then a question that came up earlier, the religion is in the heart, inside is one thing and outside.
That is a temptation. That is an idea, in fact, that human beings have been tempted by before, but perhaps never as much as in the modern period where religion, particularly starting with certain versions of Protestantism, not even Christianity. We're talking about one version of Christianity and even its modern formulations where the idea that inside is disconnected from outside ever took root. And this is the most untrue idea in our empirical life, because what we feel inside affects our outside and what we see outside affects our inside. So the idea that we can feel one thing inside and be different and disconnected outside is a recipe for psychological disaster. It's a recipe for a culture of therapeutic, you know, of therapeutic sort of access, but never real harmony, never real peace, because your inside and outside have to be in harmony. Right. And you have, of course, traditions in Islam that the Prophet ﷺ cared about how people dress, not particularly what they did, but the modesty and simplicity for men as well as women. There is one hadith where the Prophet ﷺ in Bukhari, the Prophet ﷺ was gifted a robe that had writing on it by an Ansari. And so the Prophet ﷺ, when he was praying, he was distracted by it. And immediately after he finished praying, he sent the robe back to the Ansari and told him to gift me a simple robe that doesn't have something on it because he didn't want him to feel bad.
But he did not even want something as simple as writing that we take for granted. I mean, if you just look at our Sajjadahs, how distracting they are. The Prophet ﷺ knew because of the purity of his heart, the smallest kind of distraction would show, you know, on his, if you will, the screen of his heart. And part of this piety, and to go back to hijab, is Allah ﷻ, from the beginning of the Abrahamic revelation, any other revelation that we know, but it is the Mosaic revelation that we know most clearly, you know, in details. Allah ﷻ has considered our sexual morality as part of our deen, right? So what, and Allah ﷻ cares about it because I believe, as I read the verses and their hikm and the hadith, is that there is no greater competition for the place of God in our heart than sexual attraction for people, especially for young men and young women. Right? And this sexual attraction becomes a cause of shirk that takes the space that belongs only to God. And so managing that through marriage, through, you know, moderation, through protection of ourselves, our own bodies, and of others' eyesight, all of this becomes a deeply spiritual, a deeply godly activity. And that's why hijab and social mores are so central to the divine message. Absolutely.
So this question, the question about hijab, I think there's a thread between it and between the next question. The next question is one that often we get from young people as well, which is, is smoking weed really that big a deal? And I think that, you know, weed in this question really could be substituted for a lot of things, including hijab. Somebody can say, is not wearing the hijab really that big of a deal? Is smoking weed really that big of a deal? Is drinking alcohol really that big of a deal? But you know what's interesting about these kinds of questions is we never really get anybody saying, is backbiting really that big of a deal? Is gossip really that big of a deal? Because I think people recognize, you know, slander, gossip, backbiting, these things affect other people, whereas they think this only affects me. Like not wearing the hijab is my decision. It only affects me when in reality it doesn't. But you know, that's what they think. And they think the same thing. Smoking weed, drinking alcohol, this only affects me. Why does God care about, why does morality and God's morality care about actions that don't really involve other people? So I'm giving you this question, but kind of maybe from that door, is smoking weed really that big of a deal? And Dr. Wehmer, you know, how would you answer that question? Okay. So on when it comes to anything that harms our nafs as our bodies, as well as our soul, we have regulations in Islam. And the model for this is Allah's prohibition of khamr and wine, which Allah ﷻ says creates social disharmony. And it makes you forget to remember Allah. It covers up your mind. All of these are reasons that are alluded to in the Quran.
So therefore, anything, by qiyas, anything that affects our mental ability and our morality is either discouraged or prohibited in Islam. The other principle that we have is la darar wa la darar, do not harm others and do not reciprocate harm. Harming yourself is, of course, one of the sins because our body, and that's another principle in which we differ from liberal, secular morality. Our body doesn't belong to us. It has been given to us by Allah ﷻ. Life is the greatest gift, and we do not have the right to harm our body. So anything that harms our body or covers up our mind or leads us to social disharmony, and social disharmony sounds such a hygienic term, but basically, if you look at majority of domestic violence in the world, particularly in our own neighborhoods in the United States, the number one cause of that kind of harm to women in particular, who are most vulnerable, and is because of alcohol. The breakdown of families and fathers beating up their wives and their children, and there's like one story after another in this culture everywhere about how you hated your father growing up because he came home drunk, and all of that. Of course, these are enormously harmful in the long term, but in the short term, people with limited view of the world do not see it sometimes as such, right? So if you're an upper-class Ivy League researcher, you might say, ah, you know, wine might have these chemical benefits.
So you have an article now in New York Times, oh, you know, wine has some benefits if you're doing it this or that way. But for the vast majority of human beings, it's a disaster. Weed, of course, is a new thing, and through Qiyas, the ulama say that it is harmful, either because it's addictive or it inabrites the mind, or it's harmful in other ways, or it's a gateway drug. But some of the ulama, as Islam is a deen of ease and deen of human nature, sometimes in order to manage pain, if for medicinal use, it may be allowed, right? And even on that, ulama will effectively see whether this promise that it turns out to be true, if, you know, but if that is the case, that it does have some medicinal use, then it may be permissible. But otherwise, it's haram. And more important than the discussion of halal and haram for the believer should be the question of what is good for my heart. And to avoid the shubuhat, Innal halala bayyin, innal haram bayyin, wa baynahuma umurun ushtabihaat aw mutashabihaat that Prophet ﷺ says that haram is clear, halal is clear, and between them is grey, there are matters that are grey. And to avoid them. If you want to avoid angering Allah ﷻ, and I like the beautiful discussion Sister Hannah had of the concern should be whether Allah will be pleased with us. Like that's the ultimate touchstone of morality of good and evil for us. And when you don't know our epistemological capacities of determining whether something is right or wrong, they're always limited. And we know that. So you avoid the grey area.
Right? So avoid doing things rather than partaking in them because if you do so, you are sure as the Prophet ﷺ says in a hadith, you're sure to fall into haram or worse haram. Now, I actually, if I could add, Rasul ﷺ says in a hadith, which is graded as sahih and Ibn Majah, the Prophet ﷺ said he passed by a grave and two men, two graves and Prophet ﷺ said there are two men buried here who are being punished in their graves. And they're not being punished for big things. They're being punished. One, one used to urinate and did not care where his urine splattered. Something as simple, mundane, right? Personal matter like this. But for people around it, it is really, really, you know, really displeasing. Right? And for anybody who cares to pray, it is really inconvenient. But that was one. And the other was ghibah or backbiting, which is, of course, we all recognize as harmful, especially if you are the target of it. So Allah ﷻ, why does He care about human beings living a life that is good with, toward Him and good toward each other? Right? Why doesn't Allah ﷻ just care about, well, you believe, you fear and you offer the right sacrifices, you fear hellfire, you'll be okay. It doesn't matter what you do with the, to these human beings. But the akhlaq, the good manners in our deen are surprising in that Allah ﷻ cares about how you treat His creation, even those who are unbelieving and even with respect to their convenience in this life.
So, for example, if you smile to somebody who has a bad day, who is not a believer, you might say, why do I even look at this person or smile or give up my seat for them or protect their rights when they're unbelievers? They're disobeying Allah. But Allah says, no, that's not how it is. There is a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, You will not enter Jannah until you have mercy for each other. The Companion said, we are all merciful. And the Prophet ﷺ said, I don't mean, I don't mean the mercy or compassion you have for your friends. I mean, I mean mercy that Allah says you need to have is for everyone. Now, what surprises me, you know, thinking as if you will, as a philosopher is why does Allah ﷻ care if someone, some plant, some animal or someone who doesn't care or know about Allah ﷻ has an easier life because of me. Allah ﷻ does. And, you know, thinking certain things for them might be harm. And this like definition of what harm is, seems to be shifting pretty rapidly in society.
And so if somebody says, well, what's the big deal if I smoke weed or what's the big deal if I gamble? What's the big deal if I do these things? Because they don't see the harm in it. But then how do we even define harm? Even from a liberal perspective, how do you define harm? What do you think about like that concept and how, you know, people might not really be paying attention to it? Yeah, you touched on something pretty big and interesting philosophically, which is, of course, the liberal, modern liberal perspective, which, again, I want to emphasize is an exception in human history, not the norm. The modern secular liberal perspective offers an ethics, right, which is what I call levitating ethics. It has no roots. It has no roots in the following sense. It takes the idea of the good, the idea of equality of human beings, the idea of importance of reciprocity, the idea of justice. It smuggles all of these ideas from its Abrahamic host, Christianity or Judeo-Christian tradition. Right. And then it says, I didn't get it from anywhere. Any human being can figure it out. And then philosophy, you know, proceeds a little bit. Nietzsche comes along. Foucault comes along. Heidegger, like this is a complete joke. Of course, there is none of this can be derived merely from either empirical science or from empirical direct observation or logic. We do not know if human beings are equal. Human beings are not equal in any way, in any sense. We are short or tall. We are strong and weak. We are white and black. We are different in every way. So why are they equal? Right. The very idea that we are all human beings. You know, if you look at some of the medieval and pre-modern practices, I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan.
And one of the things that you find in Tolkien, which is who is a very learned scholar of the medieval period, right, that there literally people thought they were different races. Right. So elves and dwarves and hobbits and humans, people actually would think of people who look different from them as different races. It is the Abrahamic idea. It is the idea that comes in, you know, in Islam and Christianity and Judaism that says human Adam and Hawa. And they are and we are all brothers and sisters. That idea is what creates the possibility of humanity. The very idea of, you know, when you say there is a human religion, what is a human being? The very idea of human being is an invention. Humanity is an invention. It's not possible without the Abrahamic tradition. So that's why I call smuggling of liberalism, like liberalism smuggles these ideas and that says, oh, I got it from nobody. And then what happens? First time a serious debate comes around of any on any question. Right. And this is, of course, a famous book, After Virtue, that McIntyre wrote in the 80s and then three, two other books after that. The trilogy is very important in Western philosophical history of ethics, where he pointed out he's a Alistair McIntyre who is a Marxist and then embraced Catholicism and monotheism later in his life. He says that no debate in the liberal culture on any moral question can ever be resolved because there is no foundation.
Because if you're just talking about reciprocity, the neutral ethics of reciprocity, it doesn't resolve problems. So when it comes to abortion, for example, you will continue to debate endlessly when it comes to the question of harm of anything. You will continue to debate endlessly. And then what will happen when you're debating things endlessly in the real world? There is one power that is still going to matter, which is coercive power. So people with money and people with power, they're the ones who will define your society. They're the ones who will decide whether abortion is right or wrong, depending on how much money is on either side. So at the end of the day, it is right. At the end of the day, capitalism wins. At the end of the day, your religion and your values, which you think, oh, I feel that I'm nice and I'm kind. No, you are just following what is in vogue, what people at Gap or Nike or Microsoft decided. And you don't have a chance, poor thing, because if you do not have a religion, if you don't have revelation, if you don't have a way to resist based on some philosophically, religiously, right, metaphysically grounded reality, you poor thing don't even know what you are following. Absolutely. We kind of went into the next question answering it before even getting to it. But it's great. Like the next question I want to ask is like this common question. I'm a human first before I'm a Muslim and humanity is the best religion. But, you know, Dr. Wehman, you basically answered it, really put it on its head there, because I think that main issue that you talked about is that you have to ground your morality, right? Like it needs to be based in something. And if it's not, even if we say it's just reciprocal, you treat people how you want to be treated, et cetera, et cetera, that doesn't solve everything.
Like you mentioned about abortion, if we took religion out of the question of abortion, still people are going to fight about it, because how do you know when the fetus is a human and deserving of rights? And like these questions, even if you removed religion from it, you can't answer them, right? Or especially. And so they just keep fighting about it. And like you said, whoever is stronger, wealthier, will just win those arguments. And so that's really important. And I'd love to hear, inshallah, from everyone else, Sister Hanna and Sheikh Shinawi about that, you know, that concept of just like I'm human first before I'm Muslim. And how do you answer that question? Sister Hanna, all you, you spoke the least. No, no, not at all. I'm interested to hear your take. But I mean, I can't add any too much more to what I think Dr. Anjum said in terms of how do we critically understand humanity? Other than that, you know, if we're going to take a base level definition of humanity as being benevolent or being merciful, are there not times again when justice should be valued over mercy? How do we make these choices? To me, it comes back to what I was talking about in the beginning with, you know, just kind of be kind. These kinds of statements, I feel like they're more, they're more like platitudes that people just say that they don't actually have the philosophical depth and provide people with the tools on how to navigate these very difficult choices that we would have to make in life. I mean, you brought up the issue of abortion that, you know, another issue could be poverty. Somebody could value humanity, but they don't need to think that they need to be generous to the poor because they might think that, you know, people work if they want to be successful. Why should I be supporting somebody else's lifestyle because they have fewer means? That doesn't necessarily mean that they think that people should not be helped if they're on the brink of starvation, but they're not going to help people in a non-life threatening need.
These kinds of questions are the questions that we see society very divided on today. And statements like humanity is the best religion or I'm human first or I'm Muslim actually obscure the need for greater engagement with these issues in a way that can engage with some moral philosophy that has deeper roots, not levitate ethics as Dr. Andjom was explaining earlier. And I think the, SubhanAllah, the conceding or starting from a point of agreement is a good angle to approach people that could be so inundated with what the global elite has smuggled into their worldview, assuming that it is some self-evident truth or what not, truth or what not. Agreeing that human beings that you don't need religion to be a decent human being. This is just, you know, disclaimer, my personal approach. I concur with people. I say, yeah, absolutely. I mean, because we don't believe that human beings are inherently evil for a Muslim, at least. I don't believe we were born into sin. So, you know, having sort of like a partial discernment mechanism that I can see some good on some level or I'm originally inclined to good and it feels good to do good. And so even if I am an atheist, I'll still pay for the person behind me at the Starbucks drive through line. They do that sometimes. I mean, so on. They're like, why? Because we are naturally inherently good. And so it feels good to do good. And that actually turned on its head, this notion that someone once mentioned to me as a retort of sorts, where he says, I don't need the incentivization of a paradise to be a good person. And that question could give a lot of our youth or people in our age just pause like, yeah, why? Why don't I just do good for the sake of good? You're not. You're not doing good for the sake of good. You're doing good for the incentive that you found this internal motivation by virtue of your fitra. But going to a sister, Hannah's point, how do you flesh that out? Yeah, OK, don't murder, don't rape. Fine.
But is that the entirety of good? You know, haven't generation after generation been devastated by the interest bearing dominant financial apparatus in the world? You know, absolute devastation. No other word, you know, should be allowed in this conversation. Why are we assuming, you know, like the issue of even back to like weed and marijuana and so on and so forth? And yes, I know some people will pull studies for you to tell you that it's actually good for you. And that's also a point of agreement. I can accept that potentially alcohol and weed are good for us. And that's why Allah told us that this intoxicant, it has some good in it, but it's evil outweighs its good. How do you negotiate between the good and the evil? And so we as Muslims are just so privileged. We're so lucky for Allah to tell us, you know, قُلْ إِنَّمَا حَرَّمَ رَبِّيَ الْفَوَاحِشَ مَا ظَهَرَ مِنْهَا مَا بَطَنَ Say to them, my Lord has only kept you away from indecencies, immoralities. Some of them are apparent and some of them are hidden. Just know that they're hidden. Like we did not need to live in 2022 to discover that the number one cause of death in America is cardiovascular disease and cholesterol and all that good stuff. A big factor in that is the amount of red meat and pork that people consume nowadays. That's a recent discovery. We've stopped eating swine 1400 years ago. Right. That sort of thing. Same thing. I actually read recently, I'm not fully familiar, regarding a cup of red wine a day, you know, keeps the doctor away. Basically, it replaced the apple. I heard that the person had manipulated the studies and was prosecuted for it. And now, aside from the legal issues, he owes 800000 dollars of repaying the grant because it was it was unethical. His studies and sort of it slipped through the cracks. And so the science will catch up.
The world will catch up. They might. But our dean told us part of being good is being good to God, because that's how you can be thoroughly good. Right. You don't regress. You're naturally good, but you can also regress and you can't fully actualize goodness without God's definitive guidance. So you can be fully good and you can also be motivated consistently like it feels good to do good. But as a sister mentioned, what if someone's treating me evil? Well, I will I, you know, treat them according to their standards or according to my own. Right. So thoroughly good, consistently good. And I have to say fundamentally good, you know, say like just good character is all that matters. Yeah, absolutely. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said this. I can agree with that. But what is good manners? It is to his to the creator and to the creation. And at the end of the day, push come to shove, the creator is more important than the creation. And even if we're good to the creation, even if supposedly hypothetically, we knew how to be thoroughly good to the creation and consistently good to the creation, which is not true. Right. But let's assume it is. How do you even get credit for that? You know, I call it sometimes plagiarized goodness. If I don't recognize the rights of the creator, that's like me, you know, presenting this great contribution in the world in the forms of research. And everyone gives me these accolades and then they discover that I forgot to put in the footnotes where I got my my sources from. And so my source of goodness is my existence, the faculties I have, that kind heart, the money with which with which I am generous and philanthropic and all that good stuff. If I don't give the right to God first, good character with God, then I've plagiarized this goodness. I it's not just like condemnable. This is prosecutable. We see plagiarism as getting expunged from the university, at least I'm sorry, expelled at least from the university.
And so that is why good character must start with God first to be consistent, to be thorough and to give the greatest being our supreme maker his rights and through him the rights of everyone else. Absolutely. Jazakallah khair. We're coming up on the hour, so we're going to have to wrap up. But, you know, such an important topic and a deep topic and one that probably there's a lot more that we could have been digging into. But I think, SubhanAllah, there's a lot to take out of this. I love what Dr. Oaymur said, you know, just saying, you know, I just want to be a good human. Even the concept of human being, the concept of us all being the same and all of this comes from Allah to begin with, from God to begin with, from religion to begin with. Allah calls us Bani Adam, the children of Adam. So he's the one who created that tie in our minds and our hearts to begin with. And so that's such a powerful point if you really just sit with it and reflect on it. And I think all the points that all of our speakers brought up today are so important. I hope, inshallah, everyone reflects on some of the things that have been said today and reflects on their morality, because sometimes we do take it for granted. And the reality is it needs to be grounded somewhere. And the best place for it to be grounded is in our deen, is in our relationship with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. The one who created us knows what's best for us and knows what's harmful for us. So Jazakumullah khair, all of you. And I hope, inshallah, those who are watching catch our next webinar on June 16th, inshallah, on an unchanging religion in an ever changing world, which will be addressing LGBTQ issues and other matters, inshallah. Jazakumullah khair. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Waalaikumussalam.
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