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Preserving Faith in the Age of Postmodernism | Webinar
The age of postmodernism embodies great ambiguity, subjective truths, complexity, and contradiction. In this age of great uncertainties, Muslim scholars are required to address the methodology of truth, the weaknesses of postmodern philosophies, the impact of postmodernism on faith communities, and the strategic solutions required of Islamic organizations, scholars, and the community.
Join us for a collaborative webinar between Yaqeen Institute & AlMaghrib Institute as we explore the effects of postmodernism on faith.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Wa salallahu wasalamu ala nabiyyina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een. Amma ba'd, my dear brothers and sisters, Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Welcome to this unique event, a collaboration between Al-Maghrib and Yaqeen Institute, preserving faith in the age of post-modernism. My name is Naveed Aziz and I'm going to be your host and MC for today. And I'm joined with esteemed colleagues, friends, mentors, and teachers. And the schedule for today, inshallah, will be beginning with Dr. Uwaimer Anjum, followed by Sheikh Waleed Basuni, followed by Dr. Nazir Khan, followed by Sheikh Suleiman Hani. So let us begin with the bio data of Dr. Uwaimer Anjum. He is the editor-in-chief at Yaqeen Institute. He is also the chair of Islamic studies at the University of Toledo. He obtained his PhD in Islamic history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought, The Taimian Moment, which was published by Cambridge University in 2012. Dr. Anjum has also translated a popular Islamic spiritual and theological classic, Madarij Salikeen, by Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahullah, the first two volumes to be published by Brill later this year, biznillahi ta'ala. I welcome you, Dr. Anjum, to this panel with your topic of Iman and Postmodernism, Threats and Opportunities. You have 25 minutes, inshallah. Jazakallah khair. Dr. Anjum, you're muted. If you can kindly, yeah, there we go. Thank you very much. Bismillahir rahmanir raheem. Alhamdulillah wa salatu was salamu ala rasoolillah. Allahumma laqad alhamdu lillahi hatta tarda wa laqad alhamdu. Iza ra'dita wa laqad alhamdu ba'ad alrida wa laqad alhamdu. Alhamdulillahi katheeran qiyyiran wa mubarakan qeeyir. Thank you very much for having me. I'm honored to be with such distinguished scholars and for that generous introduction.
My topic today, Iman and Postmodernism, Threats and Opportunities. I'll begin by talking about modernity and then look at how modernity affected Iman, both in its birthplace, which is Western Europe, and elsewhere where it spread through colonialism. And then talk about how post-modernity or post-modernism is a trend that came out of modernity. And in some ways, it's a continuation of modernity. And in other ways, it is an opposition to or internal opposition to modernity. And then, inshaAllah, talk about what that means for Muslims and for our commitment to the universal, unchanging truth of Allah subhana wa ta'ala, of Tawheed, and the commitment to the commands and prohibitions of Allah subhana wa ta'ala as the ultimate truth. So modernity, the word itself means simply now. And in a sense, every age can claim to be a modern age because it is here and now. However, something special happens in starting in 17th century in Europe, what is called the Age of Reason. And then the 18th century, 19th century, and then 20th century, there are certain developments that give Westerners an oversized self-confidence,
which is abetted by their colonial exploits, which makes the story of the West and its struggle with its past a universal story. So in many ways, it was a pretension that a small continent that had been, as far as great world affairs were concerned for thousands of years, had been on the margins of human societies. The great powers had been in what is today known as the Middle East, the Near Eastern region, China, India, even Africa. Europe had really not been a great world power except in as much as Alexander the Great had conquered the Middle East and then went all the way to Central Asia. And in that sense, Eastern Europe, Southern and Eastern Europe had been part of the great, if you will, the big world history, but not so much Western Europe. So what begins to happen is when Western Europeans at a particular moment in history make certain, there is a rebellion against their own past, particularly against the overreach by the Catholic Church, that reaction comes together with certain developments in economics, in science, in politics. Those developments were not taken singly exceptional, but when they were put together, they became extremely powerful and irresistible, it seemed at the time.
And part of that development was with extra wealth, with extra power, and with a new vision of science. That is, science was not invented by the West. In fact, science was something that had been around, and it had been for millennia, and had been slowly growing, that is, human knowledge of our physical, natural world. But for the West, something special happened, which is that this science married capitalism, which married political, a new political formation called the nation-state. And this triangle, science, economics, and political state, reinforced each other in such a way that science now was not merely a pursuit of truth that was, you know, a few rich aristocratic people undertook, and had been in the past, but rather it was something that you could make money from, and you could make weapons from. And when that happened, then all of a sudden the modern state, as well as the capitalists, became very interested. So the rate of change and the rate of development in science became enormously rapid in an unprecedented way, even though one could say that in terms of quality of these changes, there was nothing radically new. But when you put them together, a new consciousness developed, which is that human beings have all of a sudden come of age, that human beings no longer need old myths to live with, that human beings are now the center of the world,
the center of the universe. Along with that came the end of an era of overreach by the Catholic Church. Remember, before Protestant Reformation, for nearly three centuries, the Catholic Church had engaged in crusades against the Muslim world, and crusades had turned entire Western European society into a war zone with nothing to show for it. So it was a very violent and dissatisfied society, and it also suffered from other great losses, such as Black Death, the plagues, and whatnot. And that had led to great disruption in the West in a way that was not visible, not nearly, in the Muslim world, the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, or in China or elsewhere. But this disruption, and then what later became a religious war between Protestants and Catholics, created a new formation, the state, and the state was very good at making war. And because this war also led to the support of science, which could produce now better weapons and better, faster ships, that led to a confluence of a number of trends that became known as modernity. And because of colonial influence, this narrative from one corner of the world became the narrative of all the colonized peoples. And as colonialism, now fueled by new scientific discoveries, powers that historians,
when we look at the world, the changes in the world, you can only say they were accidental or they were Allah's plan, because there is no inherent reason why, for example, the Ottomans, Western European empires, and China, which had been neck to neck for thousands of years, why one would have this great set of opportunities that arose all of a sudden. And then to make things even more interesting, if you will, as for Muslims, from this divine plan that Allah ﷻ wished to test us with, that Allah ﷻ gave an entire free continent, or what would appear to be a free continent, to these competing powers in Europe, the new world of the Americas, which appeared to be free because people there had not yet developed modern weaponry, which had been developed in the Muslim world, in China and in Europe. And that was what gave an extra edge to Western Europe. Holland and then Britain took advantage of this new continent, Spain and other powers, Portugal. But Britain came out to be the winner in this case, fueled by the fact that they also happened to have coal mines at hand. And these coal mines provided free fuel, fossil fuel, if you will, to these competing nation states that are at war with each other. And then they get really good at fighting wars, so they go and conquer more.
And in order to fuel these wars, in order to fuel a new kind of secularism that is emerging, this pushback against the church, they exploit to the maximum possible extent the new continent that they had discovered. And that's where American cotton trade and American slavery became really central. So slavery, exploitation, colonialism is a really central, the fundamental part of modernity. It's not something that happened by way of some bad moderns, but rather some bad modern powers, but rather it was central to modernity. Now, let's change gears and talk about the intellectual aspect of modernity. Modernity became identified with secularism. Now, this, as I say, identified with, in reality, modernity was an extremely complex development. And one of the traits of modernity was an obsession with reason, which was fueled by science. Empirical discoveries and success of science gave human beings a false sense of confidence. When I say false sense of confidence, as Muslims, we could, we had done that for nearly a thousand years. We had talked about the powers of reason and its limitations. But, and we can be critical because we were outsiders in some ways to these developments. But when I say false sense, I mean that today, nearly all modern philosophers and all modern historians of this philosophy in the West recognize that this was a false sense of confidence.
And that this was an arrogance that ultimately ended up giving, leading us to an environmental apocalypse and enormously damaging developments in human habits. And despite the fact that there were great scientific discoveries as well that made human life easier. In one sense, modernity was about rationalization, rationalism, rise of reason, which is different from rationalization, which is you take reason and make that the center of all aspects of life. You mechanize and you turn reason into a religion that gives you ultimate values as well as your procedures. And then another aspect of modernity was what is called this enchantment by Max Weber, the great German sociologist who studied modernity. This enchantment meant that human beings no longer believed in magic, no longer believed in superstition. And along with that, they coupled God and religiosity. An enchanted world was one in which people believe in God and angels and ghosts and jinn and demigods or semi-gods and deities and saints. And the idea of one aspect of or one strand in modernity was this enchantment was pushed back against all of this. Now, one of the aspects of modernity was a great self-confidence in reason.
But from the very beginning, and this, in fact, had happened earlier on with Greeks and then with Muslims, and it was happening again in the West, which is that when people become self-confident or overconfident about the powers of reason, there is often an equal and opposite reaction, which begins to see cracks in this self, in this overconfident edifice that people begin to build up about the powers of reason. In the 19th century, just a century and a half ago, people are talking about getting rid of religion, replacing superstitious, baseless religions that human beings had created with sociology. This is how the science of sociology and modern social sciences were born. In order to replace religion, God was seen as merely a creation of human imagination because we felt terrified by being for having no meaning in life. Today, this is over. This became a narrative that would no longer be sustained. The cracks began to appear within the leading thinkers, leading thinking trends in modernity. People like Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, and today Richard Brody, and one could even say a majority of Western philosophers and Western culture at large has given up belief not only in religion but also reason.
Let me repeat that. That's an extremely important development. Loss of overconfidence has led now to a point where people do not believe in an ultimate truth, not in reason anymore. In other words, reason has become discredited. Science is being contested increasingly. Science is appreciated for its empirical gifts, if you will, but philosophically, even science is no longer a self-evident truth. So both science and reason, rationality, the idea that human beings can now become more rational and produce values that are going to be universal has come under attack. This condition of internal consternations of modernity, internal conflicts of modernity, have become larger than the original trend itself, but they're very much also part of modernity. So this trend is called postmodernity. Now, let's switch gears again and talk about why I say that postmodernity is both a threat and an opportunity. Well, it's a threat because as many Muslim scholars who talk about postmodernity recognize that if there is no truth, then if there is no universal truth that is truly the structure of the universe,
truly what exists and truly, regardless of our knowledge and regardless of human mind, what is universally, objectively, eternally true, if there is no such thing, of course, then there can be no true religion. There can be no serious belief in God. Belief itself becomes impossible because there is no truth to believe in. All things are made up. Yet at the same time, for centuries, it is modernity, it is belief in reason that displaced belief in God, belief in one God in the West, and then through colonialism and through this great defeat that all other civilizations initially felt, everyone else had to respond to this new knowledge, this new science, this new confidence, and most of all, this new power that by virtue of its guns and bullets and ships and tanks and now drones can dominate the world. And through this domination, it creates a narrative of ethics and truth. Now, Ibn Khaldun, Al-'Allama Ibn Khaldun, Rahimahullah, said that those who are defeated always imitate the victors. And those who are defeated imitate the victors in all things because they do not know what part of the victors' life and
profile, if you will, everything that the victors do, all the attitudes, all the powers, all the habits, you do not know which one is so superior to ours, the defeated ones. So you take everything. And if you still cannot overcome that defeat, then you take even more. So defeat then, political defeat, itself does not necessarily need to be cultural, civilizational, and religious defeat. In fact, historically, most political conquests did not lead to cultural, civilizational, and religious conquests. Usually nomads would conquer more civilized regions and then become civilized or become established in those societies and take on the religion and habits of the conquered people. This was not uncommon, and this certainly happened with Islam when various Turkic and Mongol conquerors came from East and West. In fact, they became assimilated into Islam. So Muslims, in fact, had a choice not to be defeated intellectually and culturally, but we were, or at least in part we were. If you look at the big picture of world history, Islamic civilization was defeated, intellectually speaking, was defeated the least, meaning that the rest of the civilizations did not have what it takes to resist at all. China, India, elsewhere, there was no chance, no prayer for any other way of resisting the West.
But in Islam, Islam provided that alternative narrative that was so powerful that it never went away, and in the form of 20th century Islamic movements, in the form of 20th century encounter with the West, Islam came back. And not only did Islam come back, but also religion has now come back as modernity has lost its confidence. Modernity has lost its sense of invulnerability and invincibility. Within the West, there is this condition of post-modernity, and within and elsewhere, there is political uprisings. Muslim world is in a unique situation where intellectually and civilizationally, it remains the single greatest challenge to both modernity and post-modernity, yet politically it is disunited and least capable of resisting. Now, post-modernity, those who argue that post-modernity in fact has, and I'm speaking of Muslims, in the first group, in case people want to look up more about this, Ziauddin Sardar in the UK, a Muslim intellectual, has written about post-normal times and post-modernity as being the end of truth and being a very nefarious development. Even more nefarious than modernity.
Faisal Salman Syed, in contrast, argues that post-modernity in fact has a lot to offer to Muslim thinkers because it can allow us to undo coloniality. It can allow us to fight back through internal cracks. The powers that still are very strong, the powers of false universalism that modernity claims, and the power of self-evident victory of Western science and Western materialism. And I will end by saying that in fact it is the sunnah of Allah that for every great power that rises and rebels, there are others that push back against it. And it is only wise for Muslims to take advantage of those cracks and learn from both and let them defeat each other. And as Allah says in the Quran, that Allah sometimes saves Muslims from engaging in this fighting by allowing people to deconstruct and oppose each other so that Muslims could see what is true in both sides.
The two aspects of post-modernity that I think are seen as very useful by somebody like Salman Syed and other thinkers is the post-modernity's attack against essentialism and universalism. Meaning the idea that the Western truths are universal truths, truths of reason are universal, allows Muslims to dress down modern claims. Yet at the same time, there remains the task of affirming the foundations of Islamic universalism, which is not based on mere reason or superiority of one race or one region, but rather it is based on divine intervention. And as such, it offers a new way to human beings to build our ethics and build our meaning in life based on the divine message. And alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen. I know you've written a paper on Khilafah for Yaqeen and I want to tie in some of your own personal endeavors with post-modernism. There was a quote that I came across while preparing for the panel by Brian Dugan, he's the editor at Britannica. He says, post-modernism is associated with relativism and a focus on ideology and the maintenance of economic and political power.
Now, with your paper on Khilafah, if you can compare and contrast this concept of focus on ideology and the maintenance of economic and political power and how that ties into the Islamic political system and post-modernism, I'd love to hear your comments on that, inshallah. So you're right, absolutely. Ethical relativism is something that has become a condition in the late 20th century, although it was challenged among modern philosophers as early as the 19th century. Meaning, when I say it, ethical truths were challenged. Meaning that people began to say already in the 19th century and much more so in the 20th century that there is no such thing as universal ethical truths. And that, of course, means a serious challenge for the West. The West, Western colonizers had always claimed that they were going to civilize the rest of the world. It was white man's burden to civilize the savage. But if you could not say that the West was ethically superior, the entire colonial project loses its invincibility, its self-evidence. And then the natives, if you will, the people who have been colonized and have been told that you need to be civilized, now they begin to talk back. And Professor Leonard Binder, who is a professor of political science at the University of, I believe, at UCLA, has a really interesting passage in one of his essays where he says that one of the problems with losing confidence in modernity is that we can no longer say that what we are providing to the world, that we are loading it over the world, now it has a rational justification that you should all accept it.
So what happens then if you lose confidence in universal ethics is all that's left is the fact of power, the fact that we need to maintain power. And so that's one aspect of this. Then often it is cultural ideologies that are not grounded in universalism, but rather grounded in particular preferences and commitments that begin to all compete with each other. And that becomes, of course, a great challenge for Muslims because competing ideologies that are all speaking in the name of merely self-interest, hawa, if you will, that it's the women, it's this particular race, or it's the colonized, they should all unite against the big man. And this means that those Muslims, in particular, let me speak of just Muslims, they begin to get involved in these ideas of universalism. So post-modernity has this greatly attractive power of saying to you that we have a share for you as well. Some part of the world is yours, and some part is not. They begin to get involved in these struggles as if they were their own struggles. So post-modernity has this greatly attractive power of saying to you that we have a share for you as well. Some part of your hawa can be satisfied. Fascinating. SubhanAllah. JazakAllah khair. Sheikh, one more question for you before we let you go, inshaAllah, is can you name some specific scholars breaking down specific aspects of post-modern philosophy, like deconstruction and cultural relativism? So I named, for example, two scholars that came to my mind, Ziauddin Tardar and Salman Sayyid, both British Muslims, and they argue on different aspects of this question.
Salman Sayyid, in his book, Recalling the Caliphate, and that ties back to the earlier question as well, but Salman Sayyid argues, and I agree with this part of his argument, that in this world where power is all that is left, if Muslims do not have that power, if Muslims do not have even an imagination, then there is no power. Their imagination, their inner being, they as a people disappear. They are simply then dependent on other people's struggles, and if Islam is to survive, it needs a place in the universe of meaning. Political power is important, but political power in fact itself is a very important tool to allow Muslims, even those who are not living within it, those who are outside of it, to identify with an Islamic civilization, because in this struggle between modernity and post-modernity, ethics, reason, family, environment, everything is being destroyed. And we seem to have no way to put any brakes on it. In other words, we need to check out and start over again, intellectually speaking. I do not mean to say that we need to sort of physically separate ourselves, but intellectually, if you do not have any anchor in which you can identify and you can ground your own meaning, then it seems that we have nowhere to go. And that is what Sayyid calls the caliphate, and that to me is a very important part of the argument of the caliphate.
JazakAllah khair. Thank you so much, Dr. Anjum. It was a pleasure having you with us today. My dear brothers and sisters, we're ready for now our next panelist, who is my beloved friend and teacher, the vice president at Al-Maghrib Institute. He's also the department head of theology and ethics as well. He's a graduate from Jamiaat al-Imam with a bachelor's and master's and a PhD as well. What I love about Sheikh Waleed, for those of you that haven't seen it already, he has a series of Facebook posts that talks about his stories with scholars that some of us may be familiar with, like Sheikh bin Baz, like Sheikh al-Albani, Sheikh ibn al-Uthaymeen, ar-Rahimahum allahu jami'an. So if you haven't checked that out, please do take the time to check that out. Sheikh Waleed al-Sunni will be speaking about the role of imams in the community's preservation of iman. And Sheikh Waleed, you have 25 minutes. BarakAllahu khair. JazakAllah khair. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Thank you, Sheikh Naveed and Dr. Anjum for such an enlightening talk. And I also would like to thank all the panelists with me today. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reward you all and accept from all of us our effort. It's such a great pleasure and honor for me to have this special session joined with Yaqeen Institute. And I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to replicate this type of activity that we do together as a community organization who cares about the community, cares about society, cares about knowledge, cares about empowering people with the most powerful tool that any human being can possess, which is knowledge.
Talking about the role of imams in supporting or preserving people's faith, it's a quite big topic and I will choose several points that I hope will be relevant to those who are listening as imams or non-imams. Also imams here are not restricted only to the one who lead the prayers, but the one who lead the community at large. And starting from the people who are in this level of scholars and ulama in our community, going all the way to the other side of the spectrum or to the, you know, may not insult at all, but the other side, which is just the people who are activists and community and do work because both are so important to have in our community. One of the biggest mistakes that we can think that one of them will replace the other, when the ulama or the mashayikh think that they are a replacement for the activists or people who are active in social areas, political areas. And also it will be a fatal mistake for those who are active in social and political issues to think that they are replacement for the ulama or the ulama have no role to play. The way the community, the way the society should be built as the Prophet ﷺ built it, where all of them work together, not all the sahaba or ulama.
There is a few muftis among the scholars, but also there is leaders. There is the leaders of the army and people who are good in judging between people, people who are good in different areas and teaching and education and social issues, taking care of the poor and looking after the needy and so forth. So when I talk about the imam, I talk about mainly focusing on the religious leaders, but also I would like this to be used and benefited by all type of leaders that we have in our community. Number one, I think the most important point in my opinion on how can we play a major role in supporting the faith and the imam of people in post-modernism and in a time where you heard how things are changing. I think that is a natural phenomenon in human beings, that human beings are constantly changing, constantly evolving in all aspects, physically, socially, intellectually and so forth. Anyway, it is so important as we see these changes happen in the mind and the heart and in our community and our society at large, that our imams and our leaders will be present in people's life. It is so important if you really want to make real change, you have to be with people, you have to live with people, they have to see you, they have to feel that you are accessible, that you are someone that they can talk to, they can relate to.
And knowing what is going on in the community, what is happening in people's life, what kind of crisis, what is the trends, what is the new issues that affecting the community and your own community and the society at large. And that is how the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam lived his life. And this is something we should be inspired by the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He was present in his companions and his communities in an unbelievable way. You would be wondering where he get all this time. He will be there when their children just born and they will be brought to him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam when they are just a few hours old. And he will be there when he burying them at the last moment of their life. He will be there so this new born, new member of the society will be among the first thing that they will have. It will come to them which is the touch of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will hold them. They will also get the tahniq which is the saliva of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will reach their stomachs as early as the milk of their mothers. The voice of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will be heard by them as early as the voice of their own parents. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the early morning he was seen going to the servants and the young ladies who were washing their dishes. Washing the dishes you know the dirty dishes in the morning they will go because there is no light so they usually do this early early in the morning. They wash the dishes to make it ready for that to be used during the day. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam passed by a group of worker and people washing
the dishes so Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will reach out and help them and touch that water so it will be blessed so the family will take these dishes back to the family and say you know what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam touched it and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam have his barakah the blessings of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam reached to these utensils and pots and pans. You know and Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will see their children in the roads of Medina wipe over their heads give them a hug play with them to the extent that Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was described in the hadith that the mothers and the parents will bring their infants and they will leave them with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he will play with them and they will even forget about their children. I don't want to use the word like a babysitting no but they will leave their children infants their baby with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam they play with them he loves to have them how many incidents in the sunnah we have that Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam have a child and he urinated in him and Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said no problem just clean it this way or that way and several times not one time a boy one time a girl but that shows you how close he was sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to them making wudu and this six years old boy looking at the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam washing his hand his face then there's a water in his mouth and he was sprayed in the child's face the child laughed and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam laughing that's how he's so close to their children he bring this beautiful cloth and he said what is Umm Khalid this is a young girl she's like not even maybe 10 years old or something like that and he gave it to her it's so silky and nice and beautiful green then he said had a sana ya Umm Khalid this is so beautiful Umm Khalid on you a boy and this girl and
Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was there praying in he will be invited in their homes and I can I can say that I don't have a research to back it up but I from the the time that I spend with the life of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the Sunnah of the Prophet I continue it's almost like every companion has a story to share has a moment to share with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam I'm wondering if I can say the same thing about my community I'm wondering if every Imam and every leaders can say the same thing about their community I don't want us to turn to be politicians who only knows us in the time of elections in the time of fundraising in a time of in a special occasion when I need you but that's the effectiveness of this person's in supporting people faith when there is a crisis when there is a need will be weak but that person who spent and invest so much time with the people being with them definitely their impact would be great in the be shall Allah sallam eat with them sleep in their homes and pray at their homes too many incident where the Sahabi said oh the process I'm praying that spot in my house and it became my masala inside my house he passed by young man who's skinning a sheep and he said young man that's not how you should skin it you can't you're wasting all the meat let me show you so he will roll his sleeve and he will be he will start skinning with the process of them passing by another man cooking and it smelled good he was outside his house and cooking you know meat with sauce and everything that's not good is it ready he said yes you have a lot would you like to taste this you don't love to so simple he's so engaged so Allah Ali value a salam he see the a pacinian young men in the back of the masjid dancing and exciting and he said in Abu Benny are fida play and have fun in the be sallallahu alayhi
sallam there when they are sick to give support to them to pray for them to give support to the family he's there when they die even a young Jewish boy in the last moment of his life Muhammad was there and the hadith the narrator said he said and we were trying hard to catch up with the prophet when he heard that this boy about to die he was walking so fast that they said yeah I mean had to a sub and I'll just know how big we're we're it's kind of very hard to catch up with the problem we have to put in extra effort he care so Allah I said about them he was there for that young Jewish man boy so what do you think of the rest of the companion he was there to handle them and to pass them to the grave he cried over the death of his companions he laughed when his companions had a great moment he helped them financially when they needed it when they need help he was like Allah's one time in one of the car up will let him he's a father for them like his wives were mothers for the believers that's why the Sahaba of the allow an home and the mini narration they would say can the envelope you know what bc sake as if I see how his chin is very light and the skin of his thigh is so white you know what bc cotton or the seals of prophethood in the back of his I can't see it in my I still feel the touch of his hand the gentle touch of his hand I still see as if I see his hair and the and the perfume in his hair as if I still feel that you know gentle call a cool touch of
his hand so soft I still remember you know when he came so close to me and he was his foot touching to my feet all these are code I am coding a part of different hadith and these hadith were said one after the process of them died he's still as if he's alive in their life why because he was there with them because he was so near to them it is it is it's interesting when you look at this then you look at our situation today how close we are to the people and that's how the really matter of the allow animal home at least the one who really made the hugest impact or the biggest impact in their life is because they were there with their students and when you read in the stories of the how when the Hassan Basri died everybody in the bus or left Al Basra and nobody was left in the bus or to pray also in the master when you hear that the I was I all the Muslims and the Christians and the Orthodox Christians all of them came and followed his Janazah and the Jews when you hear so and so when he died so many people from people from other religion even accepted Islam when it they have been said about him Ahmed Rahim Allah that even the priest in his town would love to meet him before him Ahmed died when you when you hear the stories you you will know that this is why it is because those who have invested so much of their time in connecting with people and being there for the people talking to them spending time
with them and never never ever isolated them from the people fame did not isolate them from the people responsibilities did not take away the most important responsibility that fall on the shoulder of any leader which is to be near to the people that he is leading and here there's a few points before we pass this point number one I know to some people said share Annie I'm not very I don't interact because I'm not a very social person blah blah you know but I know everything about people you know some people said I know what has gone on community I know all the problem I know all the new trends you know and I don't need to interact I don't need to talk to people I don't need to be involved you know if you have a social anxiety and you have a problem in interacting with people that's your personality and I understand that respect that but you know what those people have a role to play in community but they're all that I'm talking about today the point that I'm talking about about the people who have the ability to connect with people the people who willing to be available for people to talk to to listen to the people to share with people their time those the people who will affect the most the most effective people you know we're not philosophers it been to me Rahim Allah has a beautiful he mentioned this point a lot of time what's the difference between the influence of prophets and messengers and the influence of philosophers or poets people who make poetry because and literature's these those three type people are also soldiers and leaders Kings he said all those people people of great influence
but he made he always tried to compare between the influence of each group and he's no doubt the prophets and messenger and their followers they are the most influential people and that's historically proven because nobody nobody have made change like prophets and messengers recently I was invited and I talked to a person an official person from France and we're talking about friends and what's happening in France and I said I have a question in your opinion who will last longer Islam or the Republican of France what do you think from a very pure scientific point of view you know who will last longer Mohammed sallallahu alayhi wa sallam or you or your president or whatever it's not out blogging the history and the future everything's I know because these ideal the influence of prophets and messengers same by the way applied to Christianity the Judaism you know the influence of prophets and messengers are so great and one of the reason of it to me to talk about it's because that attitude of the prophets and messenger and their followers you're not like we're not we should not play the role I'm like you know I make theories and I make I give people directions from hot bottle Juma up high there and I know nothing about people that's not acceptable that's not that that's not going to strengthen the faith of our community in my opinion they should interact with another point is also taking consideration by the way being active online doesn't make you an activist I'll say this again being active online doesn't make you an activist being there online for the some imams you know how a virtual masjid virtual center virtual this virtual that I understand I think it is important for us to be where
the community are where the youth are and I know that they are in the social media and you know virtual world and I do recognize and I say it is important for you to be there but also it is important not to be only there you know there is a time and that's that's now a hype and trend how far we going to stay like this how long and it's still I don't know you know but I'm hundred percent confident that this will not stay this virtual world will not stay forever it's going to change and also you can see today the people are at once and this pandemic have proven how much we want to meet one another we want to be with one another and it became something so at least in many aspects it became something that's very annoying just to be not able to interact because we are human beings and human beings are social by nature and anyway without going into much details but I do believe you should have presence in social media but I do believe social media is not enough you know you're not going to change your community just by giving lecture on zoom or giving a talk in youtube or tech talk fatwas no listening to people talking to people interacting with people another point being with people being involved in the community being participating in the community okay it doesn't mean that necessarily that you agree with everything that people doing that's not what it means to be near and and and and social with people no sometimes it require from you to say that's wrong to say that's not correct you know as a beautifully been said we are to each other sometimes like the tears that why yes tears are you know when it comes they said it wash your eyes but it's tear it's like the hand a dirty hand and a clean hand you need to rub it yes rubbing maybe it's a little bit
you know rough but it needed to clean the hand another point it is important for us to teach people what was benefit for them what is beneficial we are not in a business of entertaining we are not in a business of looking what will make people more followers to me you know this technique of marketing it's technique but it's sad when it became a goal it's not a means okay we would always look for what people need and we make sure that we introduce it to them in the way they like also it is important for us to focus on the principles if you study the history of anyone who make a great change who have a great influence those people usually focus on the principles on the fund in the fundamental issues it is important for us today in a time where you know we start questioning things and things changing is to bring people to the principles of Aqidah the principles of the principle of theology and the principles of the principle the foundations the fundamental issues in a lot and to focus on it as the kind of Islam then you talk about the love of Allah submission to Allah what is means the avoiding all form of shirk focusing on these and going bring it back to the basics it's a fundamental issue here if we want to save the Iman of people we have to build a strong wall doubts it's always been there you know raising doubts about religion and questioning it's always been there it's relevant to how strong or weak it is what is really it's based on how strong and weak you are
as a Muslim also it is important to teach people how to recognize the truth we are living in a time of Google live global information the globalization of information where basically you have access to information we have to teach people tools we have to teach people how to recognize the truth and how to recognize the people of truth and how to recognize falsehood and to recognize the innovators and to recognize that the deviant ways it has to be clear that there is how and there is battle there is truth and there's falsehood and it's not just relevant and it encouraging people to learn the deed I do I'm very alarmed by how and knowledge is not something that of interest in people today like and all type of knowledge by the way there is so much information but there is very little and very little knowledge and that's very alarming very scary you know so focusing that's part of strengthening Iman focusing on the issue of teaching people and expose people to knowledge making people love knowledge work on improving I'm not seeking or asking for people to be student of knowledge and she will come off this now but I want knowledge to be what direct any movement knowledge is a base of any activity that we do it's it's the foundation that we put for any work that we're going to do in community and society also knowledge is the foundation for any religiosity religiosity if it's built on blind imitation that's not how it is Islam Islam start with a car read knowledge is not memorization Allah didn't start the Quran with memorize the start of gun with a car read your ability to read your a bit to educate it is one of the reason
for you to be strong in a time of fit and Rahim Allah Omar when he said the fuck go come on to so would have knowledge before you become in charge and become leaders and Bukhari made a comment he said what about the unto so what do and Bukhari said and after you become a leader you should continue learning another point it's important as well in strengthening Iman please watch out don't be fit enough for people what that means even the sort of the Allah and he give an example he said if you say something that people will not comprehend people cannot understand it will be fit enough for some of them it will be a source of confusion and I do believe we as a leader can be a fitna a source of confusion for our followers in two ways sometimes by the way we say things and by our actions as well watch out what kind of subject that you have to say watch out what okay I think I'll end up in three minutes sure inshallah be careful of the issues that you you mentioned the way you say things the topic that you bring up you know and also your behavior can be a big fit I will never forget somebody came and crying to me because there is one famous daiya you know there is a scandal about him and he said I'm losing my faith that's wrong he should not and I talked to him about a faith is not related to people but also this is something we should be careful about you know your associations your your your positions your statement can speak and can cause a lot of fitna so be careful another issue that I saw like just give you a practical example sometimes we became fitna to people when everything we say a different of opinions this is different opinions this is different means by the way al-khilaf in itself is laisa bi-hujja since there is a different opinions it doesn't mean that
it is halal for the person it doesn't mean that that's why Shafi'i rahim Allah in his book al-risalah when he was asked what about the khatila of the different opinions among the scholars before us would that make it automatically permissible to choose anyone he said no khalil khatila for Allah would Jane there is two type of different opinions one is haram and one I can't say haram it is maybe not the strongest opinion in another word there is halal more terrible there is a difference of opinion that based on evidence based on correct foundation but if the difference of opinion based on how our ignorance wrong fundamentals or principles that's not an opinion that it is even recognized in Sharia and that's one of the major difference between you know those who studied the elements studied the knowledge according to the way of the early generations and the way of based on table Sunnah because we do believe mother by the Huckley love but there is half and there is one and the wrong it could be something that you are excused for because of your ishtihar but still it's wrong you still get reward for your ishtihar but still it is wrong it cannot be especially in an area where there's a contract you cannot be both correct anyway but but the point is this is this is today is became a very common thing and what it led to led to to everything it is possible and I gave them felt in every matter so there is no more foundations there is no more principles you know the issue of coming out and this is fit now when you start criticizing the Muslim ummah the history the traditions the the the overseas they are ignorant no one of the previous scholars is this or that you know what you are shaking people's believe you to be very careful I do have a lot of reservation about a lot of Muslim Institute and organization locally and international but if I come and I openly destroying it and raise doubt about its
validity or it is trustworthiness while I know it is the only thing available now and it represent Islam it's not a smart thing it's not ever a smart thing to do and please stay away from the shahd fatwa the shahd opinion if you have a stranger or a rare position that you take don't go public with it just keep it for yourself or those who ask you personally another one about being fitness to people if you want to break if you have a breakdown don't do it on social media if you have a crisis in your life you know don't bring it to social media deal it deal with it with your therapist okay go to your best friend and talk to him about it don't go on social media said I go through this I have changed I have a crisis in my life no that's fitna for people if you want to be a leader act like one I think the common last year I there's a lot to be sad but but it will say one of the most beautiful you can do as a leader is to leave behind you great leaders I've been had a Rahim Allah when he talked about a bit a Mia he said something I just want you to think about he said well I'm you come in Hassan a tea how the raja wasn't anything of virtue I can think of for a bit a Mia except and I mean has an attitude in your claim and let me cover a little while more for cool McConaughey wasn't for anything of any the only virtue if this is the only virtue of the media had that he have brought or have any taught and and and develop someone like a little claim it's enough because of no pain Rahim Allah is it one of the greatest scholars the moment Muhammad ever have seen I think that's so important for us that you know
that you build in your community people who are great leaders great responsible leaders there is there is a lot of better talk that's gonna come shalla from the rest of the Mishaya but I'm very happy again to be with you guys thank you very much and the son of a local how to live our account but a glove fix it does that come look at I feel so bad that I had to cut you off I hope in the future you do get an opportunity to do the complete lecture because there's a lot of credit that can be said in Shala does that come look at a check thank you so much my dear brothers and sisters we are ready now for our next presenter who is also a dear friend of mine someone that I was fortunate enough to have in my city of Calgary for two years of hunger and law and that is none other than dr. Nasir Khan who is the president of your team Canada and the director of research and strategy at your keen Institute he's also a neuroradiologist and assistant professor at McMaster University he has a jazz in Quran hadith and in Akita and he's also consultant for the Manitoba Islamic Association committee so it is with great pleasure and honor that I introduce dr. Nasir Khan who is going to be speaking about the relationship between post-modernism and atheism and dr. Nasir Khan you have 25 minutes JazakAllah Khair. JazakAllah Khair Sheikh Naveed I just want to confirm you can see my screen okay yes that's correct all right perfect Alhamdulillah. Bismillah Alhamdulillah was salatu was salamu ala rasool Allah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala Allahumma allimna ma yanfa'na wa zidna ilma ameen rabbal alameen. So I'm going to build inshallah ta'ala on the two excellent presentations that we've already heard from Sheikh Waleed Basyouni and Dr. Owey Maranjum and we're going to explore a little bit further some of the intellectual ramifications of post-modernism and some of the
consequences that Muslims should be aware of and the implications of post-modernist theories. Now we as Muslims we recite 17 times a day the verse in Surat Al-Fatiha in our prayers, ihdinas sirat al mustaqeem. We pray to Allah subhana wa ta'ala guide us on the straight path and there are several implications of that statement that is a weighty statement of the implications of that is that we believe there is such a thing as a straight path there's a right path and a wrong path we do not believe in the ambiguity of relativism and endless interpretations we believe that there is a right path towards Allah subhana wa ta'ala and we believe that guidance comes from Allah subhana wa ta'ala. The famous scholar of Islam Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim rahimahullah who Sheikh Waleed Basyouni was just mentioning at the end of his talk, Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim in his work on the life of the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam, Zad Al-Ma'ad Fi Hadi Khayri Al-'Ibad, he begins the work about the life of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam by talking about the concept of guidance and he explains that there is no doubt that the the key to success in this life is in following guidance and that is the reason for which Allah subhana wa ta'ala sent the messengers and so the the the better the best we can do is to revive the teachings of the messengers to to try to emulate the path of the messengers and and to follow their guidance and that's how we escape confusion in in our lives and so what are the implications of that and how do we as Muslims striving to follow the path of the messengers and the guidance of the messengers how do we understand the sources of confusion that arise from man-made ideologies and and how do we critique those appropriately now when it comes to the topic of postmodernism of
course you know we we need to ensure that we understand what postmodernism is because many of the critiques that are leveled at postmodernism tend to be oversimplifications or caricatures of what postmodernism actually is and and that's in part because of the difficulty in defining postmodernism why is it difficult to define what postmodernism is for at least two reasons the first is that postmodernism itself is you can say is generally against the notion of definitions in that it is anti-essentialist right one of the central ideas in postmodernism is is combating essentialism and essentialism is trying to narrow down and pin the essence of what things are and that's what definitions do so the postmodernism sees definitions as unnecessarily restrictive and confining they might say don't pigeonhole us we're not all you know thinking the exact same thing we're raising different questions and different ideas the other issue is that postmodernist philosophers are a group of fairly diverse thinkers and and their concern is not to try to align themselves with a particular madhub you know they're not trying to outline their madhub and say that you know this is the martha med the relied upon position of our postmodernist method this is part of our school of thought this is not part of our school of thought that's not their concern and so when you have these different thinkers you know each with their own nuances it can be inevitably we can end up generalizing and oversimplifying when we try to characterize the movement of postmodernism as a whole and postmodernism of course is not just confined to the field of philosophy it's a much larger trend that's impacted philosophy language arts and culture generally to
the extent that one can say that it's it's rare that you can find an aspect of society that has not been touched by the influences of postmodernism whether it's popular culture media academia activism postmodernist ideas have influenced everything around us and so that's why it's very important for for us to be aware of it because we're either aware of the influence of postmodernism on us or or we're not aware of it there's no there's no other option it's not that we we're in a existing in a vacuum where there is no influence so we need to be aware of what the ideas of postmodernism are so that we can we can be aware of those influences and some of the central ideas in postmodernism are the rejection of a notion of universal truth and grand narratives and we're going to talk about that in a little bit more detail but fundamentally postmodernism is challenging the conclusions of modernism and challenging the ideas of modernism so where does modernism come from if we want to talk about postmodernism let's go back and just briefly recap what is modernism and dr. Wehmer in his presentation provided a much more detailed explanation of some of the societal and economic trends and historical trends that led to to the birth of modernism but just to quickly recap you know to provide us all a quick summary modernism is seen as going back to the European Enlightenment where there's this opposition to traditional authority religious dogma and the light of reason is going to save us all from that so that's that's the idea behind the European Enlightenment and so it led to the birth of this this movement that that viewed human reason to be supreme and to be the supreme path to the liberation of human beings and with that there's several you know corollaries there's several things that came along with that one is the emphasis on
individualism we are all different individuals who all have faculties of reason on our own we can all think for ourselves every human being thinks for themselves and and you know that has implications for pursuing democracy and as a political system emphasizing equality and also the emphasize on emphasis on individual human rights in our in our system of ethics so there's a there's a large emphasis on individualism there's an emphasis on rationalism and science is specifically scientific rationalism science is seen as that objective path to obtain universal truths and with the emphasis on individualism and rationalism there is also liberalism as well and the the freedom of individuals is something that's heavily emphasized freedom of thought for individuals to come up with their own conclusions and thoughts and freedom of expression now the European Enlightenment was largely a reaction to the dominant trends of Christian Europe at that time and so when we contrast you know the experiences in in Europe with trends that were happening in the rest of the world we find there are differences and so one of the points that was mentioned earlier by Dr. Wehmer is that there's this kind of colonial projection of the experiences that of one particular region of the world to the rest of the world and the assumption that all these experiences apply everywhere else and if we if we contrast between you know three different modes of thinking so let's look at modernism post-modernism and compare it with traditional traditional faith for example and specifically in our context we mean traditionalism in the Islamic sense a commitment to the Islamic tradition the traditional values and beliefs upheld by Muslims what what are some of the differences between these different ways of thinking well you can
see that for modernism there's taqdeem al-aql right there's the ultimate emphasis on the intellect as the arbiter of truth the the human reason is what's going to define for us and establish what truth is and that's going to set human beings free from superstitious ideologies and and backwards way ways of thinking now post-modernism comes in and and challenges that and one of the things you'll see is that post-modernism its strength is that it's very effective at showing where modernism had unwarranted assumptions and is very effective at undermining some of the conclusions of modernism and so there may be critiques that post-modernism has towards modernism that Muslims can can benefit from but we also have to be aware of post-modernists the the ideas within post-modernism which are which are also problematic so we neither toss it out completely nor accept it completely we have to be critically minded about that and we this is no stranger to the Islamic tradition we see that you know for example Sheikh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah rahim Allah in his works when he's critiquing his opponents who are advancing Aristotelian reasoning and theology he often draws upon philosophical critiques from from Ibn Rushd for example who is somebody who he disagrees with but he's able to see the the utility of some of Ibn Rushd's critiques in opposing you know the over-emphasis of Aristotelian thought in Islamic theology so we can see that post-modernism successfully undermines some aspects of modernism but it also leads to other extremes so while modernism places disproportionate emphasis on human reason post-modernism on goes to the other extreme and says well there are no universal truths to begin with there are no universal truths everyone has their own truths everyone has their own beliefs everyone has their
own stories that they tell and on the other hand what traditionalism does and this is specific something specifically unique to the Islamic tradition is that revelation is the guides the human intellect it's not that the human intellect is in opposition to revelation but rather the human intellect properly guided by revelation can attain the knowledge of the truth so revelation is the arbiter of truth there are you know our faculties of reasoning and sensorial perception are fundamentally limited we as human beings cannot know all things an ant walking on the surface of an object does not have the level of apprehension of that object that that a creature like yourself would have when you look at that object and in the same way we as human beings we know that there's a dimension that is our animal vibe that is beyond our faculties of perception and even the world that we we encounter we only know encounter the superficial aspect of that world yeah I don't wanna bother him in a higher tedonia right we were only encountering the most superficial aspect of the reality in which we're in but we recognize that revelation provides the final arbiter of truth modernism also says that reality is best understood by logic and science and post-modernism goes to the opposite end and says well there is no objective way to understand reality that's your own fiction whereas traditionalism grounds us in the middle by saying no the logic and science have a role but they don't provide the supreme you know be all and end all of human inquiry there are other ways there are other tools in our epistemological apparatus that is our way to understand the reality around us the human being is guided by you know the fitra the nature upon which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created us the natural disposition of human beings and then with the human
faculties of reason and perception alaqa lual hiss and then guided through the revelation that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has revealed through through is his messengers and prophets throughout time so that's how we come to know about reality now when it comes to science modernism champion science and technology as the key to human progress and certainly we see the benefits of science and technology all around us whereas post-modernism is heavily critical of that and views you know the explanations of scientists as just explanations of another social group in a position of power science offers its own mythology its own stories just like other groups have their own stories and explanations and there's no need to privilege the explanations of one societal group over another whereas from a traditional lens from the the lens of the Islamic faith what we can understand is that science actually only works because of faith if you look at the history of science and the developments that took place in science the reason that science works is because we understand that there is a natural order behind the laws of nature that we're describing we believe that there are even the terminology laws of nature comes out of a traditional theological outlook where we believe that God Almighty has has designed the universe and ordered it according to fixed unchanging principles so the idea that nature around us follows regular patterns that is an idea that emerges out of faith and that's why science works you couldn't do science if you expected that the laws of nature were changing constantly or that they were constantly in flux the very reason why an experiment is reproducible is because we believe that the laws of nature tomorrow are going to be the same as the laws of nature today so science properly conceived is actually an exploration of the divine science the ayat al-kawniya
the signs of Allah Subhan Allah in the universe all around us rather than this inflated view of scientism that you often get from the proponents of modernism this idea that science is is something that replaces religion replaces faith and can answer everything adequately we don't need any other forms of explanation whatever we can test and observe of in a naturalistic sense that's the only thing that exists that scientism is actually irrational and actually undermines the mission of science now as well you know the the explanations according to modernism have to be grounded in nature in the sense that the proponents of modernism are proponents of naturalism if it's not something that I can test or observe of with and and you know study in my laboratory it's not something that exists according to modernism whereas with post-modernism you know explanations are grounded in power dynamics between different groups within society in traditionalism these kind of the explanations that we see that are invoked in in science or the explanations that are evoked in political studies these are all tools that have their utility but ultimately explanations are grounded in our understanding of the universe as a whole understanding of the universe as a creation of God Almighty as a creation of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala so traditionalism reorients our lens to see all old routes of meaning as going back to our understanding of Tauheed the oneness of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala now the final point and this is really key to understand for for our stance towards modernism and post-modernism is that both modernism and post-modernism endorse a type of skepticism with modernism there the the skepticism that was endorsed was one that was primarily
directed towards the traditional structures within society traditional religion religious dogma traditional forms of authority but with post-modernism that lens of skepticism is directed towards you know all of the things that modernism heralded as as being great achievements and so that lens of skepticism is directed back to at modernism so both modernism and post-modernism fundamentally preach an attitude that tells you to distrust you know information that somebody is providing you be suspicious of it and demand proof for it how do you know it's true and this is something that i've i've written about in greater detail in an essay called atheism and radical skepticism ibn taymiyya's epistemic critique looking at the relationship between radical skepticism and and atheism but for the purposes of this discussion today it's important to know that you know modernism and and post-modernism both partake in a type of skepticism now traditionalism has instead tells us to respect authority that's grounded in knowledge authority is not absolute it's not that you blindly follow what what somebody's telling you but rather you respect expertise that has been acquired as a result of knowledge and you know as you heard in the previous talk by sheikh walid the the people of knowledge are ones that have to be engaged in the community and in the service of the community it's not a position of a you know a tyrannical relationship between people of knowledge and the community but traditionalism inculcates within us a respect for for the authority that is grounded in knowledge now understanding these different trends between modernism post-modernism and traditionalism one thing that we can say is that modernism sealed its own fate in other words modernism contained within it the seeds for its
very own destruction modernism dug its own grave it prayed its own janaza because what happened was by by placing so much importance on radical skepticism in order to try to undermine the truths of religion modernism gave birth to it gave birth to the very skeptical attitude underlying post-modernism and so what post-modernism did is it just took that same skepticism and it turned it turned it around and aimed it back at modernism and the ideas and ideology that modernism was championing as as ultimate now skepticism is often presented as the antidote to dogmatism but in practice it it really breeds the worst kind of dogmatism because when somebody is so prepared to to argue with any new information that they're getting they actually become even more dogmatic with what they already have and they're more resistant to any new information and new understandings so the real antidote to to being overly dogmatic is humility and that's what islam preaches as the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said in allah that rarely allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has revealed to me that you must humble yourselves so that a person does not boast over another does not transgress over another so the limit the the safeguard for us is not to have a type of radical skepticism where we're trying to question everything but is rather to humble ourselves now in light of the the time limitations i want to go through some of the remaining material a little bit more quickly but the one of the important ideas in post-modernism is the idea of questioning grand narratives okay everybody has these stories that they they tell about society about life about the way things are and post-modernism tells us we should always be kind of questioning these things so the post-modernist seeks to challenge authority
and resist consensus when you think about it those ideas in in their essence are actually antithetical to what uh you know what we learn from islamic orthodoxy which is we we understand that there is importance to consensus right in our studies of usul al-fiqh we'll learn that the unanimous consensus of scholars is a proof it's the strongest proof that one can use in fiqh in islamic jurisprudence so uh consensus has weight and we have we uphold the authority of tradition so post-modernism seeks to go to the margins and and and to overemphasize a dissent whereas uh when we say uh you know we want to to understand ahlus sunnah wal jama'a we're trying to understand islam according to the way of the tradition that passed on from the prophets or some and jama'a the way of the community we want to be attached to the community we want to be attached with the mainstream understanding so the idea of attaching yourself to the mainstream that's something that differs from the trend in post-modernism finally um the quranic message provides us with the ultimate narrative and we know in the pond that uh you'll encounter passages which talk about the skepticism of the quraish towards the quran and you know allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says for example when our signs are recited to him he says legends of formal former people and that's exactly you know what the post-modernist would want us to say about religious narratives these are just asaal these are legends of of ancient people everyone has their own stories we could come up with our own stories if we wanted to as the quran mentions they they may say if we wanted to we could say something like this but allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the quran
insert the process allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says bring a challenge and bring a source a a book from allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that is a better source of guidance uh than these two the the the quran and the the tawrah uh follow it if you are uh true in your claim so bring a better source of guidance and then live by it what the quran is doing is it's challenging us uh to find a better source of meaning there is no better explanation or way to ground the meaningfulness that we find in our lives except in uh the message of tawhid and so uh you know when allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions uh the the dispute with those who deny the resurrection in certain israa for example uh allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says they will say who's the one who's going to bring us back say it's the one who brought you into existence in the first place when every human being confronts the question does life have a purpose does it have an ultimate conclusion who brought us into existence we're confronted with the reality of the fact that every waking moment of our life we experience life as conscious minds as sentient beings and we have a choice about that that we have a choice to either consider that meaningful or to consider that meaningless and the conclusion of naturalism the conclusion of post-modernism the conclusion of modernism is basically to render that that meaningless because ultimately if we're nothing more than collections of particles that exist without rhyme or reason then our conscious experience is just a happy accident of those particles interacting but rather islam tells us no that that that experience that you have is is one that has meaning do you think that we created you allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
aimlessly without any purpose and that you would not return to us now when the you know the the believers are instructed to tell this to the disbelievers in this passage in surat al-isra allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says you know they will they will shake their heads in derision towards you like this kind of sarcastic okay sure you believe in these tales you know their their their condescending outlook and they'll say when is that going to happen when is that day of resurrection going to come say it may be very soon now what you can see from this is that one of the fruits of post-modernism even though many post-modernists may try to distance themselves from it one of the fruits of post-modernism is in fact nihilism that the idea uh that there is uh no ultimate value or meaning uh in in life and the reason for that is because when you question that there's an ultimate truth behind our existence that there are universal truths that apply in all times and places what you are doing uh is is you're also uh leading to uh nihilism to the question of denial of all meaning so in conclusion uh inshallah what i want to conclude with is that many muslims in their dawah they're familiar with the new atheist movement which kind of champions modernism and the scientific rationalism the european enlightenment and they're familiar with that movement but they're less familiar with post-modernism which uh you know leads to a type of relativism and dismantling of power structures traditional sources of authority and grand narratives and it's important for us as uh as muslims to acquaint ourselves with this so that we're better equipped in our dawah in our understanding of the different trends in society around us uh hadha was allah was salam abadak ala nabiyyina muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmareen jazakallah khairan barakallah fi doctor nazar jazakallah khair thank you so much that was a lot
of information in a short period of time and you were speaking a thousand words a minute i really appreciate what you had to say dr nazar jazakallah khair thank you so much um inshallah we will proceed with our next presenter for today and he is our final presenter uh from the panelists and he is none other than my good uh friend and colleague uh sheikh sulaiman hany sheikh sulaiman hany is the director of academic affairs at al maghrib institute and also a research scholar for yaqeen institute so he brings both of these institutes together mashaAllah tabarakallah he memorized the quran at the age of 14 and he has ijazah in multiple subjects he's earned a master's degree from the university of jordan uh in sharia as well as a master's degree from harvard university so sheikh sulaiman hany i hand it over to you jazakallah khair wa barakallah fi kum i ask allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us from amongst those who benefit from what we hear and i ask allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive us for our shortcomings to guide us to guide others through us and to make us a reason for others to be guided jazakum allah khairan shaykh navaid barakallahu fikum for hosting this uh with a wonderful host barakallahu fik and alhamdulillah for the blessing and the opportunity of connecting with yaqeen institute and al-maghrib institute crowds and audiences for the sake of the betterment of the ummah and improving our understanding and our approach to some of these relevant issues and jazakum allah khairan to dr anjum and shaykh waleed bastioni barakallahu fikum as well of course dr nadir khan barakallahu fik i feel like every one of these uh sessions was limited in time meaning we could expand upon every one of these in a much longer discussion inshallah and i will try with the short time that i have inshallah as well to uh condense what it is that i want to uh basically share for the the mass audiences inshallah
i do want to give a disclaimer of what i'm going to discuss is condensed from a seven hour seminar that i've given on post-modernism which i hope inshallah soon to record and publicize and so there will be many things that i don't touch upon that alhamdulillah were adequately addressed uh by all the amazing speakers before me and i i want to touch upon these in a way and a direction that inshallah is as relevant as possible to the everyday muslim around the world being in the law i don't want to go on defining post-modernism for by now i hope that you have a general idea of the different viewpoints about what post-modernism is and how it relates to modernism and what muslims need to be aware of and the significance here in terms of morality secularism dawah our approach our islamic institutions our organizations the everyday muslim parents the everyday muslim college students so i want to touch upon three points in particular inshallah number one the truth about the truth and the incoherence of post-modernism when it comes to certain aspects of it relating to truth and falsehood relating to the binaries what it sees as binary uh zeros and ones number two post-modernism and shahawat desires uh egoism hedonism nihilism as well and number three what it is what it is that we can do inshallah what it is that we can take from this and uh follow up with in an everyday way to implement some of the uh reminders and some of the points that we've addressed with nila as for the first in terms of the truth about the truth we're living in the beginning of the third millennium in which many people are naturally looking at these statistics of secularism and atheism uh and now 300 years after the birth of the age of secularism and assuming that this is the most secular uh basically exemplification of mankind the most secular that the world has uh been since uh you know we we go back as far as
possible to documented history and the reality is we do see of course traditional conceptions of knowledge and religion being redundant in everyday life with many people today in western nations and other nations as well where people are pursuing worldly pleasures pursuing individual expression more than anything else where people have masha'allah a much higher standard of living and comforts and conveniences in this life and also the the attendant pressure to work harder so that you can play harder to work harder in a neoliberal world in which due to all that we have of wealth and consumerism and products and services people are pressured to play harder as well to consume as much as they can in this world and this seems to replace some of the and the the majority of other worldly or religious or transcendent pursuits relating to salvation relating to god relating to death relating to purpose relating to the afterlife so as we're looking at the the onset of this uh millennium this is the the impression that we have but there is an argument within some strands of postmodernism that there is a return of the religious and i know that this seems to contradict the statistics on atheism or seems to undermine the impact or effects of new atheism but there is a different type of religion or religious approach and this of course goes back to definitions and language how it is that people are defining religion so there is a post-truth a post-religion a post-skeptical approach to life that is being created by people individually rather than established and proven and in in in one of the earliest novels fiction novels in 1965 considered one of the first post-modern novels one thing that i want to touch upon i think many people can relate to today and this helps us to understand the impact of postmodern
thought on the world one of the main characters is experiencing this moment of existential confusion seeing above her zeros and ones the binaries and wondering about these binaries and how far they go and how densely packed they are and being confused about either a zero or a one being the ultimate reality so the character's dilemma is one that people see and observe today that life is either a zero or a one that it's either about transcendent realities and truth and absolute truth and absolute meaning or there is none and so we see with the multiplicity of options that due to the age of secularism and the abandonment of god many people are finding that a an abundance of options and a multiplicity of options is leading to this confusion that it's either multiple ones or multiple zeros which which is it and oftentimes we see in postmodern thought it's not easy according to postmodern thought to discriminate between truth and falsehood or even to to prove a truth amongst many falsehoods but the reality is when allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions to us an-nur, the light, the path, the truth, it is one light, one truth and many dhulmat, many darknesses and also layers of darknesses this assumes this postmodern approach to religion assumes that there's no way to really know the truth about the truth or to establish a truth and what's interesting is we see with everyday discussions with people who feel confused about religion stuck in nihilistic worldviews or dealing with atheism as a pitfall as well that as people are moving away from religion again defined in a very specific way religion as defined as something anchored in worship of god anchored in a specific type of systematic beliefs and rituals and institution a community a congregation it's being replaced with what a self-made spirituality outside any formal structures it's based on your experience your
creation of truth your own reality and it has no doctrine no scripture it makes no claims to philosophical coherence or truth this is the trend of people today hoping for and looking for a a spiritual but not religious approach and in reality this has of course religious connotations and baggage what's interesting about this brothers and sisters is that it points to the inherent disposition we have the fitrah that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created us upon fitrah allah allah subhanahu wa ta'ala created us with a fitrah a faculty a natural disposition innate knowledge a sense of truth a sense of higher purpose beyond the physical world beyond materialism beyond just empirical observations recognizing god recognizing purpose and this is not something that is arbitrary and so many people today are shifting towards this spiritual but not religious approach of hoping for the benefits of spiritual beliefs in their lives in a spirit in a being in a purpose in a reality that is beyond the physical but not humble enough and not wise enough to submit to god and to worship allah subhanahu wa ta'ala after seeing the proven truths after establishing the the proofs and the truths of islam what i want us to consider is that much of the the truth about the truth and many of the discussions about relativism seen in post-modern philosophies can be summarized with one thing which is that many relative fallacies or relativist fallacies manifest in post-modern thoughts amongst the average human being today when people say in everyday culture especially in the united states in canada in many of the western nations when people talk about my truth and your truth or our truths what do you mean by truth here and you find that subhanallah even in in academia in many of the leading institutions and ivy league schools certain colleges like divinity school at harvard
certain colleges are known for watering down the the reality of truth or advocating for a post truth or an arbitrary truth or claiming that people who believe in an ultimate truth or one truth amongst many falsehoods that this is extreme or that this is radical or this is absolutist and the reality is when people speak about my truth and your truth they confuse in everyday language and language plays a great role in post-modernism they conflate one's belief with with one's truth and there's a very simple way to explain this and i know this sounds reductionist i want you to consider the example of a social justice activist who says you know this is my truth this is what i believe and you ask what do you mean by your truth and your belief so the the activist says for example i know this is a silly example they say i believe that jerusalem is the capital of canada and you ask you believe that or is that the truth and they say well that's my truth then you say that's not the truth and the response is well that's my truth you have your truth and i have mine now i know this sounds like a reductionist example but this person as many people do today confuses linguistically for other reasons uh in terms of ideology confuses their belief for what is true and so no you might believe that jerusalem is the capital of canada but it's actually the capital of palestine you might believe for example your friend says his truth is that there are aliens in his closet and although that sounds ridiculous there are people who believe as dr now that mashaAllah established in his article on your institute there are many people who believe for example in lizard people right and and i know this sounds silly to some people but i want you to consider the example of a person who tells you they believe there are aliens in their closet you would laugh and you say well that that's not true i i checked your closet there's nothing there and then they say that's my truth don't attack my true don't invalidate my truth are you confusing
beliefs with truths and this is this sounds like a very simple uh explanation and reductionist example uh pertaining to uh the the relative approach of post-modernism but this is how many people behave today this is how many people think today and yes there are some things that are based on opinions and preferences but there are established proofs there are established truths and so when we talk about being explicit about the truth brothers and sisters the most important point you can take from this is that we should understand that uh wishy-washy language is very problematic and psychologically it is very damaging uh dr justin barrett the the uh author of born believers uh argues about this and discusses this at the end of his uh text and i believe all people should read this this book today he talks about the the importance of raising children with very clear language language is very important when you address people publicly when you post on social media when you're volunteering when you're an activist when you're a scholar and so on and so forth and you water down the idea of truth to multiple valid truths when in fact there is an ultimate truth you you endorse a post-modern approach to truth and this is extremely dangerous and parents as well with our children and husbands and wives and other people as we are talking about my truth and your truth in reality we should establish what we mean when we say a truth and distinguish this from a belief system and talk about the truth the ultimate truth with a capital t t very confidently with clarity may allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us and forgive us for shortcomings allahumma ameen this is the first point the second in terms of morality and desires post-modernism and shahawat how do people approach uh morality and what do people mean when they say linguistically and again an everyday example this makes sense to me this does not make sense to me many disputes many arguments many debates would be disregarded avoided overcome altogether if
people were to recognize the importance of moral reference points and objective morality how do you know something is crooked if you don't know what a straight line is and how do you know what a straight line is if you don't know what something crooked is in other words for you to claim that something is crooked you must know what a straight line is for you to claim that something is evil or bad in terms of politics sociology religion something is true or false you must know what the reference point is you must be coming from a reference point so we look at the links between post-modernism and shahawat desires post-modernism and modernism in general are interesting if you consider them completely distinct world views and approaches to life and of course in all the different disciplines in art and literature and language and so on and so forth but although modernism emphasized you know intellect and reason and more than anything else and critiqued the the church and religious authority post-modernism has many overlapping areas of interest with modernism and it does challenge reason and it does focus more on personal desires individual expressions there is in a way a worship of the self in post-modernism Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la reminds us about this 1400 years ago and people were reminded about this throughout history فَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَهُ هُوَىٰ do you not reflect on the one who takes his desires her desires as a god as a deity the person who does so inevitably will find themselves as far away from truth as possible as far away from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la as possible I do believe that the approach of many philosophers discussing the shifts and the the overlaps between modernism and post-modernism I believe they are lacking significantly especially when you look at some of the handbooks and text when you look at the Cambridge companion to post-modernism it misses a point that we have been making time and again in the Islamic sciences from the the first generations over the centuries
and you look at the age of secularism in the 17th century the abandonment of God was not truly due to reason alone it was not only because of al-aql and it seems like this is the case when we look at some of the the ideologies and philosophies that were propagated written developed during that time I don't believe that it emphasized al-aql alone and we see of course many other approaches in philosophy we see hedonism we see instant gratification discussed in the 1700s in the 1800s as well I strongly believe that the main handbooks are lacking because they do not they do not approach us from the Islamic perspective in terms of the combination of shahawat and shubuhat in terms of desires and pseudo-intellectual doubts or arguments calling people to abandon God and the afterlife an ultimate purpose ultimately through the cover of pseudo-intellectual arguments and philosophies this is going to naturally lead people to the worship of the self and the pursuit of one's own desires for there is no other truth that they will find out there that is justifiable the nation-state does not suffice for many people despite the fact that the nation-state is one of the most powerful religions in many western countries today look at for example one aspect of shahawat just one particular one that all people can relate to today and this is with regards to consumption and I don't mean food but food is a part of it I mean consumerism in general look at the hyper consumer society we are in and the powerful marketing machines that understand the psyche of human beings and they utilize basically marketing and branding in very powerful ways and of course these can be utilized for good and for evil but look at the defining traits some of the defining traits of postmodernism pertaining to instant gratification consume consume consume as much as you can and as quickly as you can instant gratification and in this particular age of consumerism we look at examples like the holiday shopping seasons we look at black friday this is to bring home the examples here we look at the the
winter holidays that for many people in many nations today people are shopping they are purchasing there is definitely an increase in terms of hyper consumerism you can see manifestations of neoliberalism all around the world and look at the behavior of human beings and look at what the the approach of postmodern scholars and academics have stated with regards to the advent of the internet and the technology that we have the internet with all of its potential good and evil has opened up the door to endless virtual shopping malls countless entertainment options it expanded the reach of consumerism and it reinforces and reinforced social isolation which is subhanAllah magnified through this global pandemic today magnified in ways that for many people they are realizing the the consumption that comes about through technology the second thing we keep in mind is that many shoppers today may Allah protect us all have become part of a great capitalist hedonistic experiment in which happiness and purpose and validation is intertwined with consumption habits and so the consumers trained to regularly focus on trivial matters temporary objective superficial habits rather than something that is divine transcendent lasting objective in terms of its ends we we consume as Muslims of course like anyone else but we consume with purpose with caution with wisdom it's not forbidden to consume it's not forbidden to have desires to have shahwat but there is a way to live beyond the physical and the limited carnal desires that we have and to live for a greater purpose and we might even argue that with the damage of consumerism on the environment on the nafs on society and the the ultimate pursuit of tranquility and the worship of Allah and something that is lasting we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us consistent in seeking his pleasure we see the many people who have immense wealth and yet they are empty inside and we see many people who find no happiness in their material possessions and others who have very little or relatively little physical wealth and material
wealth they are psychologically fulfilled and they are tranquil they are not distracted from a greater pursuit and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reminds us and reminds people throughout history until the end of times you have been distracted by the mutual rivalry and consumption of more and more and more we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to protect us in our consumption habits and in fact again we can argue that from the Islamic paradigm we might say that it's better to be minimalist during this age many people find that this emptiness inside can only be fulfilled by a spirituality beyond the religious or a meaning that is arbitrary tied to physical products or packages arriving at their homes every day and when there are you know shopping seasons and holiday discounts they have FOMO fear of missing out so they are rushing to buy things because they don't want to miss out on discounts how is it that subhanAllah we are addressing all of this and we have all of these reminders and we have all of these resources alhamdulillah as Muslims and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to protect us and yet many Muslims and many people don't have FOMO fear of missing out when it comes to ultimate salvation when it comes to ultimate objective meaning when it comes to the afterlife I mentioned before the story of a graduate student at Harvard who became a Muslim because in his pursuit of meaning he found that these philosophies were lacking so he said I ultimately created my own arbitrary meaning I tried to create my own meaning but at the end of it I found myself running out of tranquility through what I created because it wasn't tied to something objective or independent and that led to his pursuit of religious studies and Islam alhamdulillah he became a Muslim what I want us to consider when it comes to these matters and at the end of this discussion control what you consume of this life so that your nafs is not overpowering you don't allow what you consume to control you keep your dunya your life
your worldly possessions in your hands and not in your heart for you will inevitably and we all will part from it and you will only take to your grave and to the afterlife that which you prepared of good deeds we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us the good of this life and the good of the next life Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reminds us in the Quran man kana yureedul hayata al dunya wa zinataha nuwaffi ilayhim a'malahum feeha wa hum feeha la yubkhasoon whoever desires only this worldly life and its temptations or luxuries we will pay them in full for their deeds in this life and nothing will be left out ulaika allatheena laysa lahum fil aakhirati illa an-naar however these people they have nothing in the hereafter except the punishment of the fire this is because of their rejection of the truth rejection of the ultimate truth rejection of uh worshipping Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and focusing on everything beyond just the physical desires what are the two solutions that I will ask you to consider inshallah number one what you consume of anything of any ideology in books in movies in lectures countless entertainments the websites that you visit what you consume of any ideology including post-modern ideology influences you directly and indirectly this includes scholars activists the everyday Muslim the everyday parent may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us be cautious and protective of your soul and your afterlife filter out what you watch what books you read what websites you visit and of course the things that your children are exposed to at a young age and build for them the Islamic epistemology the Islamic approach to these matters so that when they are basically in the midst of the multiplicity of options and all of these zeros that they focus on that one they focus on that truth and they realize that the truth is very sound it's very rational it's intuitive it covers all of the basis of being as human beings may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us and number two is to focus on beneficial knowledge critical thinking skills and epistemology and we have many ways to do so many institutes alhamdulillah many organizations and of course some of these organizations at times we might have shortcomings may Allah forgive us we would need
people brothers and sisters who are sincere and care about the well-being of the ummah and the world at large to advise one another in a very gentle strategic wise way to be very honest to be very cooperative to be a part of the community and have a sense of belonging in the community so focus on building yourself in terms of the knowledge the institutions that provide this knowledge the critical thinking skills that are required it's not enough to have preventative care to protect yourself and be cautious it's extremely important to make dua and follow up with action Allahumma yas'aluka ilman naafiAAa wa rizqan tayyiba wa amala mutaqabbala the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam would pray after the morning prayer he would supplicate oh Allah I ask you for beneficial knowledge beneficial knowledge pure sustenance and accepted deeds we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us all beneficial knowledge to protect us from falsehoods Allahumma ameen again the more uncertainty there is in the world the more beneficial knowledge you're required to seek the more uncertainty there is in the world the more beneficial knowledge you are required to seek the more uncertainty there is in the world the more beneficial knowledge you are required to seek and we have Alhamdulillah the resources for that through Yaqeen Institute and Maghrib Institute and many others may Allah subhanow taala accept from all of us protect us all and guide us to be sources of light for the world sources of truth for the many falsehoods in society sources of guidance for the many people of misguidance in the world and we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept from all of us. Allahuma ameen. Wa salli lahumma ala nabiyyina Muhammad wa ala aalihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. BarakAllahu feek shiekh Suleiman. JazakAllah khayr. Really appreciate that. And folks that are still tuned in we are coming to a conclusion very very shortly. We have short presentations by Al-Maghrib and Yaqeen. So we have sister Hafsa from Al-Maghrib that's gonna tell us a little bit about what Al-Maghrib is up to and what you can look forward to in the future and that'll be followed by brother Sheikh Omar Khan inshallah who's gonna be telling us more about Yaqeen as well inshallah. So sister Hafsa you can go ahead inshallah. JazakAllah khayr Sheikh.
Assalamu alaikum everyone. It's an honor to share the stage with our esteemed speakers even for just a couple of seconds and I ask you guys to hang out with me inshallah as I go through some of the exciting things that Al-Maghrib is up to. Alhamdulillah you guys know Al-Maghrib as an institution that's been kind of at the forefront of Islamic education and Alhamdulillah we've also been involved in a variety of projects that further the purpose of our community and to give that allow us to provide confidence and conviction to our students Alhamdulillah. So I'm gonna quickly share my screen if this will allow me to and allow you guys to have a little peek into what we're up to right now. So first of all Alhamdulillah we have our amazing project known as Faith IQ. Faith IQ is an online platform where students can submit their questions that are pressing that are relevant to their struggles as everyday Muslims. Submit them to the platform and have them answered by our respected shiukh Alhamdulillah a couple who are present Alhamdulillah today. Next we have Quran Revolution. Quran Revolution is a method for students to to learn how to perfect to beautify and and perfect the recitation of the Quran via a very convenient online platform and an app with the support of TAs and a supportive community online Alhamdulillah. Next we also have Faith Essentials one of my favorites. Sheikh Waleed is a regular Alhamdulillah the MVP of our platform Faith Essentials which is an extensive online learning platform that is a complete resource for the everyday Muslim with very professionally recorded online courses, Q&A portals, live sessions and so much more. It's a wealth of content Alhamdulillah and it's our pride and joy at Al-Maghrib Institute. Next we have our interactive sorry our online seminars which are another recorded and very professionally edited platform that allows students to benefit from our extensive seminars in a flexible and powerful way across the globe. And finally my current favorite right now is our virtual seminars. COVID has been kind of a unique challenge for us as an institution but we've also been able to rise to the occasion and to exceed our
expectations in terms of the quality of education that we can provide virtually live online in various time zones around the world and Alhamdulillah it's been a pleasure to do so. We've also been dabbling a little bit with the biggest project that we've invested in Alhamdulillah over the past decade which is Al-Maghrib Kids and I'll stop sharing now inshallah because this is so new we've just announced it across our platforms and we're working very diligently to bring the same level of confidence conviction and excitement about the deen from that we have as adults to the youth Alhamdulillah and helping them through their foundational years. You can find out a lot more about everything through Almaghrib.org and follow us because we do a lot of free programming for the community especially during these tough times we have a lot of things coming up especially coming up next week from December 21st to 25th across our social media platforms and I look forward to seeing some of the exciting things that Yaqeen is doing as well. It's an honor to share this platform and to kind of merge our families our communities together and I look forward to so much more of that inshallah coming up. Shaykh Naveed I'll pass it back to you so that we can hear a little bit from Yaqeen Institute. JazakAllah Khair, that was a great update and now we have with us Shaykh Omar Khan who's going to be speaking about what Yaqeen is up to and what we can look forward to them from them inshallah. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu JazakAllah Khairan Shaykh Naveed it's a pleasure and as Hafsa is honored I am even more honored to take that Hafsa mashallah to be here and to be with the speakers mashallah JazakAllah Khairan for that I'll just briefly inshallah go over one thing you know the speakers did such an amazing job in this eloquent job alhamdulillah presenting what we need to be hearing about what we need to be talking about and the steps we need to be taking as community leaders and whatnot at the Yaqeen Institute mashallah we have created as you guys know many many research papers and a lot on our website you have infographs and videos but the question is how can we simplify these great topics and these great pieces of information and bring it to our community our family members to our friends and so alhamdulillah I'm here to present very
briefly Yaqeen conversations and so imagine if instead of having a long you know theoretical topic where you have to pretend and start speaking like Shaykh Suleiman Hani you can actually just say you know what let's cool things down let's bring things back let's calm it down and let's kind of have a discussion or a conversation the Yaqeen conversation is an amazing way to discuss these deep topics that are core and fundamental these issues of Islamophobia these issues of fundamental beliefs in a very nice and light method we've been using it for youth we've been using it for families we've been using it for adults alhamdulillah we would look forward to you guys trying these things out so go ahead and take a look at Yaqeen Institute.org slash conversations what you're gonna find mashallah is that we've taken some of the most tricky and difficult topics that Muslims are facing and we've turned them mashallah into a card deck where basically you can discuss you can share your personal experiences thoughts and it's guided so that inshallah we can together come to a better conclusion all of these link back to Yaqeen articles and they all cover amazing topics some of the topics that we have covered as you can see over here why does God allow evil to exist how can we empower ourselves in COVID and uncertain times how does God or why does God ask people to worship him how can we combat racism in our communities why do bad things always happen to me these are questions we hear again and again and mashallah we're trying our best to have webinars like this to create partnerships with great organizations like Al-Maghrib but inshallah we want you guys watching here to take the next step go online download some of these card decks you can print them out if you want to have them for fun and find people in your community discuss engage so that we can keep this conversation going Jazakumullah khair and everyone I'll pass it back on to dear Sheikh Mehmet. Jazakumullah khair Omar thank you so much much appreciated so my dear brothers and sisters we are ready to conclude today's presentation as we mentioned it was our first joint collaboration with Yaqeen Institute and Al-Maghrib and inshallah you have many more to look forward to bi-idhnillahi ta'ala so we will be continuing our education series
both with Yaqeen and with Al-Maghrib throughout the holidays so continue to check out the Facebook pages to keep up to date inshallah and obviously check out the websites now concluding remarks what I wanted to share was a quote by Ibn Al-Qayyim rahimahullah where he talks about how from the traps of shaitan in terms of affecting our iman are two pathways our spirituality which is through our desires and our intellect which is through doubts now what you've learned today inshallah is a foundation in terms of how to counter the doubts that may come from post-modernism and how to tackle them what I also want to conclude with is the spiritual nature of everything that you learn everything that you learn is meant to increase your iman and bring you closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it is imperative it is imperative that the knowledge that you build resonates in your heart and that heart will only resonate with that knowledge if it is pure and it is clean and in our times increasing istighfar increasing our salam salam upon the prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam increasing our dhikr and dua all of these things need to be increased to purify our hearts so that the knowledge that we receive makes us reach that level of certainty in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam in the revelation that has come through him as well so I believe both of the things go hand in hand and it was a beautiful synergy between yaqeen and al-maghrib today and I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blesses both institutes Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blesses everyone that participated and presented jazakum wa khayran to all of our mashayikh and our teachers that presented in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it heavy on your scale of good deeds as well as everyone that tuned in and listened it is a Saturday and it is you know the holiday season so there is a lot going on in our personal lives but the fact that you took time to learn about your faith and strengthen your iman and strengthen your understanding of Islam and protect yourself
from doubts I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes it heavy on your scale of good deeds as well with that all praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and we seek his forgiveness for any sins or shortcomings or misunderstandings that may have been presented and all good is from him alone jazakum wa khayran everyone subhanakallah wa bihamdik ashhadu an la ilaha illa ant astaghfiruka wa atubu ilaik until we see you again wasalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
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