 The respected viewers, thank you for joining us live on this show, live from the Holy City of Karbala in which we are going back to the basics and discussing the most basic and fundamental issues in any disputes, discussions and indeed disputations between ourselves and others who happen to primarily come from other different schools of thought but also those who believe internally within the very map that we believe in and those who claim to follow the same religion as ourselves as well. It's been quite fascinating over the past few weeks. I've been trying my best to lead up to a discussion as to how to build a potential framework for discussing with others and of course we tend to get slightly sidetracked and that's just due to the fact that there's either a lapse in communication for myself or at times we get questions from others. So inshallah ta'ala tonight I wanted to come back to a clarification from not last night but the night before. So those of you who are watching live and don't have the official context for the show can refer back to the episode from two nights ago inshallah ta'ala. Of course since we take a break every Friday that would be not Thursday's live show but the live show for Wednesday night inshallah ta'ala. The questions we received were on that night pertaining to a brother who happens to come from one of the Islamic schools of theology but does not affiliate himself with the Ahl al-Bayt alaym al-salam. He does not affiliate himself with the original Islam revealed to the Holy Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi and I don't say that to insult anyone but rather I mean to say that he aligns himself with a different school of Islamic theology. He happens to be a Salafi and the questions he asked were pertaining to whether or not I had misrepresented the Salafi aqaida. I believed that I had done adequate justice to answering those particular issues but some have felt that that is not the case and so I decided to return to them tonight before we move on to the next real issue which is how to build a world view. How to essentially get into the issue of world view. So tonight we will quickly round off where we had previously begun discussing the questions of the brother. We'll try our best to finish off what he claims I have misrepresented inshallah ta'ala and from there we can move on to the real substance which is how we build a world view. How we start off and how we would go around doing that in particularly engaging with other world views. Of course that would begin at the very start namely how we know there is a God, how we know that Allah az-wajal exists and how we know the attributes of Allah az-wajal. But before we do that the main issue that the brothers felt I had not necessarily adequately addressed was the issue of whether or not I have demonstrated that the particular Salafi school or doctrine undermines the human intellect and rationality and they stated that I had misrepresented the aqaida of tawhid when it came to the Salafi school of thought. So allow me to just quickly address this inshallah ta'ala. In the previous episode in which we discussed this I mentioned the very famous narration on this hadith al-atayt. Hadith al-atayt is of course the famous narration found in Sunan Abu Dawud which states that when Allah az-wajal comes close to the arsh it gives off a creaking roar like the sound which is given when a horse rider mounts upon the saddle of his riding beast. So we saw that the necessity of this narration which was authenticated by numerous of the prominent scholars and for those who do not believe me they can refer to the episode of two nights ago. This particular narration clearly indicated that there was a degree of physicality which gives off this sound because as we know vibrations and pressure aren't caused unless there is physical contact and more importantly what is the throne that Allah az-wajal would actually need to be mounted upon it. So we saw that there was a degree of physicality there. I might not have made that point particularly adequately clear and inshallah ta'ala I hope I'm doing so now but allow me to go further into depth into why we view this as a particularly deficient school when it comes to the intellect. We stated that when it comes to any religious discussion there are two ways to go about a religious discussion. The first is to primarily have this discussion on terms of a rational discussion that is to say without making recourse to any scriptures without making recourse to any particular special or specific revelation that is to say revealed texts which are claimed by believers. So in a debate about God's existence in a debate about the existence of Allah az-wajal we may choose not to actually address the issue by utilizing the Quran as a standard in a debate with an atheist. Why? Because we may feel that look at the end of the day this is more of a rational discussion before we reach a conversation on whether or not the Quran is a believable book is the final revelation of Allah az-wajal allow us to establish that at the very least there is some being which brought the universe into existence and after we've had that discussion we may now discuss the qualities and attributes of that creator but before we do so it's necessary to not presuppose and impose our particular canon of evidence onto someone that does not believe it. So that would be the first recourse of evidence that we would make use of namely rational intellectual evidence but there is of course a second type of evidence we've mentioned it now that is special revelation specific key religious texts which we utilize in order to dispute with others generally those would be texts which they agree to so for example when we are disputing with Christians we may choose to engage using passages from the biblical texts that they already believe in when we're engaging with those who are Jews we may choose to use the Tanakh that is to say the book commonly known as by Christians as the Old Testament and when we're discussing with other Muslims we might choose to make recourse to the Qur'an but of course there is a fallacy which is involved here which is to assume that all of us understand the Qur'an in the same way there's a fallacy involved which presupposes that we all understand what the Qur'an is talking about that is to say we all agree upon these issues and that is certainly not the case we find that when it comes to the Qur'an we do not all agree upon these issues rather we all differ in our interpretation so the main issue of interpretation that we said was a stumbling block for anyone to take the Salafi School of Theology seriously was the way it heavily undermines the intellect I have compared this particular case with cases in other religions before and I think it would be particularly promising to mention how in my humble opinion we see an overlap in the fallacious interpretational methods of the previous distorted religions alongside this distortion of Islamic theology allow myself to give you a personal anecdote which I've encountered in my debates with Trinitarian largely Protestant Christians when you ask them for evidence for why Jesus who was a limited human being a creation of Allah Azza wa Jalla could actually be the divine one incarnate that is to say fully God and fully man according to their beliefs which is called the hypostatic union according to Christian theology we might ask how is it possible that something which is finite could encompass the infinite that is to say how is it possible that all of God in his entire greatness could be manifested into a human body and where's your evidence for this they would respond to you by saying that look when you look at the Gospels when you look at the account of the arresting of Jesus and Jesus is being arrested before he's put on the cross according to their particular account I'm not giving credence to it they would say that the Roman soldiers in addition to the governor asked Jesus who do you claim you are to which he responds I am and they fall back in amazement and they clearly understood from this that he was making a claim to be God now of course the problem of this particular interpretation is that they're utilizing the very enemies of monotheism as an evidence and a testimony of what was understood by the message of Jesus so many Muslims would turn around and say how can you trust the testimony of Roman soldiers when they were the enemies of Jesus why do you trust their understanding of theology here and it's a bit of a dubious passage to use again a non-rational irrational means of interpreting scripture so we find that the Salafi school falls under the same trap to a certain degree and I'd be very curious for anyone that happens to follow the Salafi school to respond to this particular issue but I'm merely bringing it up for now because this brother has felt and others have felt but I have misrepresented the Salafi school what did I state was the problem of the Christian method of interpretation they take the enemy of Jesus according to their own scripture and they utilize him as the primary hermeneutical that is to say interpretational means to reach the interpretation they want so the Roman soldiers who are pagans and biased are apparently the primary source for Christian theology here why is it that we would use them likewise we find that when we come to the Quran according to the translation it states for own said oh chiefs I know not that you have an illa a God other than me so kindle for me a fire oh Hamman to bake out of clay set up for me a lofty tower in order that I may look at or look for the God of mosa Moses and verily I think that he mosa is one of the liars so this is in the holy Quran surah 28 ayah 38 so we what we have here is we have for on saying oh my servants oh Hamman build for me clay bricks so that we may build a lofty tire which goes up into the skies why so that I may look for the God of Moses for the God of mosa aleyhis salatu wassalam anyone in their right mind when reading the Quran in terms of interpretation of the verses is going to think to themselves hmm is there anyone further from the truth that I might choose not to depend upon when it comes to the theology in regarding in regards to Allah Azawajal when it comes to who I'm going to trust in terms of understanding the nature attributes and qualities of Allah Azawajal is there someone that might be one of the people I really don't want to go to when it comes to understanding that without doubt Far'aun is one of the greatest criminals in the history of humanity for he claimed to be God to be Allah Azawajal incarnate he's famous for stating I am your Lord the Most High this is Far'aun this is who Far'aun claimed to be so when it comes to taking theology from someone it really doesn't look like we're going to be looking to see what Far'aun believes but unfortunately on this websites which is written by an individual taken to be quite scholarly what we find on it is the following this website is known the belief is as the beliefs of the righteous Salaf they state as for saying that that the belief that Allah Azawajal is above the heavens is that of Far'aun and not the belief of Moussa peace be upon him is a claim that is refuted by the Quran the sunnah and reason as for the Quran Allah says do you feel secure that he who is above the heaven will not cause you to be swallowed up by the earth when it shakes so she goes on to establish quite clearly in her personal opinion the following Pharaoh used to claim divinity and deny Moussa's call that there exists a deity other than him i.e. Far'aun and he wanted to prove this to the people so he ordered his minister Haman to establish a lofty palace a building which reaches high in the heavens so that he may reach the ways of the heavens and its doors to look at Moussa's peace be upon him gods that is to say Allah Azawajal that he claims exists so the Pharaoh's choice was to climb the heavens based on his belief of where Moussa's God is or was it because Moussa alayhi salam told him that the Lord is above the heavens so they establish this doctrine that Allah is above the skies based upon a rhetorical sarcastic challenge from Far'aun who claimed to be God himself does this seem like rational theology to you inshallah dear viewers we're going to go for a quick break and we'll join you after the break in continuing to discuss this issue inshallah thank you so much dear viewers for waiting patiently during that break even though the wait was not particularly long we were discussing prior to the break the issue of interpretation and rationality clearly we saw here that an ayah is being utilized to establish the location of Allah Azawajal and that location is being based upon what on the statement of Far'aun the statement of Pharaoh the statement of one of the worst tyrants who has become the symbolic archetypal tyrants by which we compare any modern-day tyrant today is it really rational to assume that we could trust based upon this ayah and be twisted interpretation of some that Allah Azawajal is above us because a deluded madman who had let power and fame get to his head who believed that life and death lied within his hands had ordered the people to build a tower going up to the skies is this really proof and if tomorrow one of the modern-day Far'auns of this day and age chooses to build up a tower in the sky and claims to the monotheists that he likewise is going to prove us all wrong by going up to the very heavens and proving that God does not exist would we ever take this to be a statement proving that Allah Azawajal is in the heavens do your viewers we need to use our rationality here we need to ask ourselves these questions in regards to why is it that these so-called scholars these so-called theologians have reached this conclusion that Allah Azawajal is physically above us and why is it that they utilize proofs and evidences of such a nature in order to try and make this claim is there no other rational way of looking at it is there no other rational interpretation of these verses which would say that look the term above the heavens is being utilized yes but does it literally mean that Allah is physically above us and if he is how does that work for those who are upon the opposite end of the globe how does that work for those of us who are in Australia is he below them brothers and sisters we need to start using the intellect adequately Allah Azawajal has given us all an intellect so that we might be of those who reflect and we find that Allah Azawajal says in the holy Quran that had this book been from other than Allah they would have found in it much contradiction much discrepancy much inconsistency and yet for us to claim that we can trust the intellect and believe that Allah Azawajal is physically above us therefore confined and constrained within a physical location is to say that Allah Azawajal has certain dimensions these dimensions of course being to put it quite frankly and friendly limitations limitations or restrictions which if we would look at anything else and see these limitations and restrictions we would never believe this is Allah we would never believe this is God and yet this theology this theology which when you ask them for the proof that Allah has two eyes they would tell you that the proof that Allah has two eyes is that the holy prophet has said salallahu alayhi wa alayhi according to veneration and not our own that the jaal is going to be blind in one of his eyes and know that your Lord is not blind in one of his eyes they extract from this that Allah Azawajal must therefore have two eyes because the Quran does not make it clear how many eyes Allah Azawajal has and of course we don't even like to use this terminology because our imams may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all have interpreted for us what these eyes are they have told us that it is not literally an eye as the people would assume these are not physically body parts but unfortunately there is a methodology which says to you no don't ask any questions don't use your intellect rather ask yourself what did the salaf say what did the salaf say did the salaf say this is there proof in the salaf I ask you this question if the salaf if the so-called righteous predecessors were so incapable of interpreting scripture adequately then what makes them worthy of being followed what gives them any legitimacy and who gave them any level of authority in order that they might interpret for us where is the proof that we are to refer back to these individuals when it comes to the ahlul bayt and I'm a salat was salam we have clear-cut evidence that the holy prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi said I leave behind among you two weighty things the book of Allah and my itra my progeny my ahlul bayt the people of my house we have a clear-cut narration here which stipulates that the ahlul bayt are being left behind and are at the level of the Quran then what does the prophet say sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi he states that the Quran and the ahlul bayt will never separate until they reach him at the lake font beautiful if this is the case sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi why would we go and take from anyone else where is the proof which legitimizes the statements of Mujahid or any of the other tabaeen who give a claim in regards to the Quran and more importantly why do we really care about what they have to say when we look at their interpretations these contradictory interpretations and again truth is not found in contradiction we see that not only did they have deficient theology but they also contradicted themselves on what this very theology is and they applied these rules inconsistently we've seen that they believe in doctrines such as Allah Azza wa Jalla's physical force applying onto the weight of the Kursi the throne of Allah Azza wa Jalla and as a result this Kursi it shakes in the same way that the saddle of a riding beast shakes for its rider subhan Allah is this really what we want to present to the rational world today this worlds in which people are looking at where the evidence for Allah Azza wa Jalla is this world in which people are so far from their rationality today that they can barely grasp things which are from the most basic points of rationality we want to present to them an alternative world view where we say look at the end of the day everything which has limitations is created but not our God who also has limitations who by the way if you don't believe he has limitations you're committing an act of kufr because the Salaf believed that is this really the Islam that we want to be presenting ask yourselves ask yourself from this day do we have a religion which is worthy of presenting to the wider world and more importantly how do we engage with the differences of opinion within the school of thought I already mentioned in the previous episodes to the request of a brother in the email who sent me a particular email asking if I would be willing to debate any sonnies and by that I think he means Salafis because he did mention earlier in the email that I had misrepresented Salafis we find that the way they engage with such challenges is to ignore the differences of opinion can you believe that there is a false notion in this school of thought where you were told to shun people who disagree with you because they're the innovators and shun the people of innovation where are we going to get in rational dialogue if that's the case if we have to shun innovators then where will we get your brothers and sisters I thank you so much for joining me on this live show I apologize that we were not able to get any further into the concept of world views but inshallah tomorrow we shall begin with that particular analysis thank you so much once more for joining me live from the holy city of Karbala assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh