 To Allah is your return, and He is most capable of everything. Alright guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new, my name is Bobby. Guys, it has been quiet around Hamza Yusuf. However now, finally, he pops back up on the scene and talks on the current situation in Gaza. Today we're gonna check out the channel Kim Iverson, I never heard of her before, interviewing Hamza Yusuf and they're gonna find out what Islam really says about Jihad. This should be a pretty interesting watch. I'm very curious to hear what Hamza Yusuf has to say about Jihad. I already hear the Christian apologists in the background screaming. First and foremost, Jihad does not mean automatically war, it means struggle and it can be a variety of struggles. Back in the day in Africa during the colonization of the French, you had a phenomenon called the Jihad of the pen. So essentially Jihad can be any type of struggle that a Muslim goes through. But no, we're not here to deny that Jihad can mean war as well. And what is so bad about it? You're telling me actually that Muslims have a war conduct? One of the 99 beautiful names of Allah is al-Hak, which means the absolute truth, the absolute reality. And if we reflect upon reality, what is reality truly? Reality is what it is. You cannot change it, you cannot impose your will onto reality. If you are for example a vegan and you go into a forest and now you see a bear. You can take your vegan ideology into that forest, but you're not going to take it out of it. You can believe that oh, that is such a cute teddy bear, I want to pet him. But the reality is that probably, highly likely, that bear will attack you. So your delusion, your fantasy, your ideology cannot stand against reality. And that is the whole point. In Islam, we are realists. We are realists. We see how the world works in accordance naturally to the world. We act, of course. This is what a true religion does, of course. A true religion cannot go against human nature. And by that standard, we realize that war is a reality. This is what humans have done. This is what humans do. And probably this is something that humans will do till the end of times. War is a reality. Christians like to tell you, oh, just point to the other cheek. That will solve the situation. But meanwhile, America, a Christian nation, is bombarding Arab countries. So this is hypocrisy and Islam clearly stands against hypocrisy. Alright guys, I'm going to keep the rant for later. For now, if you enjoy my work, leave me a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and check out the links in the description box to further support the channel. And now, with no further ado, let's have a look. What is jihad? And what does that mean? Jihad in Arabic literally means struggle. There's no holy war in Islam. There's nothing that says war is holy. War is actually the absence of holiness. War is the failure of holiness. And that's why in the Quran it says whenever... That's pretty disappointing. I didn't expect this whatsoever. Mentioning that jihad means struggle, I did the same thing. That is great. However, then to claim that war is the most unholy thing, that it is the lack of holiness, is actually pretty close to kufr. Because first we have to establish who Allah is. Allah revealed the Quran and one of his 99 names is Al-Qudus, which means the most sacred, the most holy. So now that we established that Allah is the most holy and he revealed the Quran after all, therefore we cannot say that anything within the Quran is unholy. Let's read Surah Al-Bakara. We read, fighting is ordained for you, though you dislike it. You may dislike something, although it is good for you. Or like something, although it is bad for you. God knows and you do not. So we can read very clearly that the most holy one, Allah, God ordained fighting to us. So he ordained war for the most slims. And now you're going to say war is the most unholy thing. That's a very dangerous statement, man. God works to put it out. The fires of war. Whenever the fires of war are ignited, God works to put them out. And that's through people raising people up that are peacemakers. One co-wrote another book, he edited a book on the peace movements within Islam. There are many, many great peace movements in Islam. People forget that Gandhi's main supporters were Muslims. One of the closest people to Gandhi was Abu Qadam Azad, who was a scholar of Islam born in Mecca. Yeah, and absolutely have no issues with this whatsoever. We had many peace movements throughout the history within Islam, in Africa, in Senegal. We had tremendous peace movements led by Senegalese leaders such as Amadou Bamba. But nevertheless, to solely focus on peace and in the same breath, disregard war completely even goes so far to say that war is unholy, is yet again against the Koran. And he was with Gandhi. He was with him in jail. He worked with him and was one of the closest people to Gandhi. And Abdul Ghaffar Khan was the great peacemaker from the Pathan community. Yeah, that's fantastic, but Islam is not just a piece of history. There's been a belligerent element within Islam and I would never deny that. And Jihad can be misused. So Jihad, when the leaders say, you know, this Friday we're going to have a night of Jihad, what does that mean to the average Muslim? Nobody said a night of Jihad. I don't think they would use it that way. Like I said, Jihad, Dushimi struggle, there's two Jihads according to our tradition. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, famously was quoted as saying, when they came back from a military expedition, he said, you're leaving the lesser Jihad to the greater Jihad. And they asked him what that was and he said the struggle against the ego. So the real Jihad is against the ego and fighting the impulses of vengeance. I mean, one of the things about... This is pretty annoying to watch, to be honest. He's just trying to nullify every single thing that has to do with war. Yet again, there is nothing wrong with war. It is mentioned within the Koran. Of course, we're talking about just war. Moreover, we actually do have just war rules within Islam. You cannot say that about any other religion. You find things such as, do not cut a tree. Which other religion is promoting to leave nature alone? Do not kill a child. The same cannot be said about the occupier Israel. Do not kill old people. Again, the same cannot be said about the occupier Israel. Do not destroy a temple or a church. I don't want to repeat myself. Do not destroy any building. Don't kill those who surrendered. Don't kill who ran away. Don't kill a woman. Don't kill a sick person. Don't kill a monk or a priest. Don't disfigure the dead. Don't kill an animal except for eating. Be good to the prisoners and feed them. And do not enforce Islam. Which means there is no compulsion in religion. So Islam has beautiful rules for conduct in war. As I said, no other religion has that. But it has to be emphasized that yes, in Islam there is an aspect of war. A defensive war, expansionist war. All of those rules are found within Islam. Why? Yet again, because it is reality. Islam is not only a religion, but a social construct, a political construct. Islam has a system for everything in human life. This is why we believe that it is directly from God. Because it is applicable in any sense. And therefore, yet again, war is a reality. And therefore Islam shows us how to deal with this reality. You know, I think about even the prime minister, Netanyahu. People forget that his brother Yoni Netanyahu, who was a national hero, was killed by a Palestinian in the raid on Antebe when he was young. And Netanyahu said it was like the heart was ripped out of his chest when he lost his older brother. And so fighting that hatred of the other and being able to forgive, being able to get beyond that, to try to see the pain also of where that comes from. You know, W.H. Auden wrote that extraordinary poem September 1939 about Hitler. And he said to go back and look at what happened in Linz in Germany. Where did this monster come from? And then he said, I and the public both know what all school children must learn. Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return. You know, that's a terrible lesson. But fighting the self to overcome that. You know, we have a default setting. They are a great fantasy story. What evil has been done to Hitler. We get angry easily. Somebody cuts us off on the road. Suddenly we're in road rage. You know, and people sometimes actually become violent and end up like actually killing people over things like that. That's all because there's no spiritual work. You know, we have to be vertically aligned. We're upright creatures. God put the head on the top. He could have put it on the stomach. But the reason should rule the human being, not the heart, the thumos, what the Greeks called, you know, the irascible. Yeah, he now goes into Greek philosophy. I do not know where he has this from. Ultimately, your heart has to be opened up to Islam. And therefore it's not only your rationale. It's not only your logic. So if your head is ruling the rest of your body, I do not see how you will be successful. You ultimately have to act out of your heart. And this is exactly what the Quran says as well in Surah El-Hajj verse 46. We find Allah gives this warning. It is not the eyes that are blind, but their hearts which are in their breasts. So no knowledge, no logic in the world can set you on the straight path. This is done through the heart. It should be controlled. It should be mitigated. It should be constrained. And if it's not, the world could be horrible. And I'll tell you, I mean, I work on myself. I have to work on my own self. But I know like I, you know, I pray five times a day. I read a good deal of scripture. I pray a lot. I do occasional prayers throughout the day. And yet the modern world drives me crazy. So I think about people that don't. There's actually a very wild statement for a man in his 50s or 60s that the modern world is still driving you crazy. So then you really haven't learned anything, man. According to the Quran, this dunya is nothing but the enjoyment of delusion. If you haven't learned that by 50 or 60, nobody can truly help you. This change that you're talking about, this energy, heart, you still haven't completed that. How can you get angry at the world? This is just temporary anyways. Spiritual practices. And I can understand why there's so much mental illness out there. Very striking. Because if you don't have a spiritual practice to remind you about patience and about virtue and about working on the self and struggling with the self, I can see why people lose it. With these groups, these really violent groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, are they getting Islam wrong? Or are they just taking the Quran to the extreme? So the things that we know, like martyrdom, if you die, you'll get like 72 virgins or something along those lines. Or that you can rape women as long as they're not Islamic women. Or take sex slaves, I should say. You're allowed to take sex slaves. There's a variety of ideas that seem to be still very much... There's a lot of ideas in the Bible where Christians are like, Yeah, okay, but that's, we don't really... It's just like old time talk, right? Nobody really does that. But it seems that in Islam, there are factions of people who do actually take... Most Muslims actually believe that scripture. I've never read the Quran, so I don't know. Are they taking the words literally and they're practicing it? Literally, are they perverting the Quran? Are they reading an entirely different book? No, I think the Quran has... There are passages in the Quran that could be easily taken out of context and misapplied. There's no doubt about that. And the same is true for the Bible. Less so. I mean, I think the New Testament probably arguably less so than the Old Testament. But Christians traditionally did believe in the Old Testament, although they do believe in abrogation as well. So a group like... The Muslims are 1.7 billion people. So our extremists are probably numerically... Statistically, not that different from say the Jewish extremists or the Christian extremists. But because our numbers are so great and they're far more practicing Muslims than they are practicing Christians. Okay, where are you going with this, bud? Europe has seen it as a Christian country, but people don't go to church in Europe anymore. I mean, the churches are empty. Even in the United States, the churches are beginning to empty in many places. I mean, the blue states have a much lower rate. So you're saying that even though Christianity is the dominant religion in the world, because there are more Christians at this point on earth than there are Muslims, there's just more practicing Muslims than there are practicing Christians. So there's more religion. I think... Yeah, he's just deflecting, deflecting, talking about all kinds of things, but not really answering the question. How about martyrdom? For example, can we find anything like that within the Koran? The answer is, of course, yes, we can. And Surah Al-Baqara, again, we read, never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead. In fact, they are alive, but you do not perceive it. And here we can see the tafsir of Ibn Kathir. It explains further what happens to the martyr. Their souls are inside green birds that have lambs, which are hanging below the throne of Allah. And they wander about in paradise wherever they wish. Then they return to those lambs. Allah looks at them and says, Do you wish for anything? They say, what more could we wish for while we go wherever we wish in paradise? Allah asked them this question thrice. And when they realize that he will keep asking them until they give an answer, they say, Oh Lord, we wish that our souls be returned to our bodies so that we are killed in your cause again. Allah knew that they did not have any other wish, so they were left. So yet again, instead of deflecting here, Dear Hamza Yusuf, why don't you show those verses? Show that actually in Islam it is a great honor, of course, to die as a martyr. And the same applies to Christianity or Judaism. This is not an extreme stance. This is simply what the Koran teaches. The vocabulary is theocentric. I mean, Muslims say, you know, we used to say things like God willing, God speed. People don't say those things anymore. Even secular Muslims say those things constantly. Insha'Allah, Masha'Allah. We also pray for the dead. If a dead person's mention, we say, God have mercy on your soul. So I think it's just a much more... You didn't answer the question at all. Extended family, you know. Alright, this is it for today. It's a very disappointing video. I don't know what I expected of him. However, I expected a little bit more of course. The question was, what is Jihad? His answer at first was correct. It means struggle, sure. Then to go on this rant of deflection, of talking about peace, yadda, yadda, yadda. We're finding ourselves in a very dire situation. Palestine, Gaza has been occupied for 70, 80 years by now. People are dying on a daily basis. Innocent civilians, children, women are being slaughtered on a daily basis. Nobody is coming to help. The Arab world has closed their eyes. Nobody is supporting our brothers and sisters in Palestine. The only thing that we can do here is spread the information. I never felt so inadequate in my life. Truly, I did not know that this would await me once I revert to Islam. To sit here, to speak on behalf of the people and to not be able to do anything. If I could, I would go to war right away. However, this absolute pathetic that I as a Muslim revert have to think about such things living in Thailand. Not one Muslim government, quote unquote, is standing up for our brothers and sisters. And then we have those great sheikhs like Hamza Yusuf here. Instead of taking a proper position, explaining what is going on. No, he's going to tell you about peace and how much he loves to do spiritual work. All of this absolute pathetic doesn't answer her question and doesn't help the Ummah whatsoever. Truly, I have to repeat this. It's really on my heart seeing this dire state the Muslim world is in. A bunch of corrupt leaders, nobody is lifting a finger. The only hope that I have is Allah, because Allah will punish and judge all of those corrupt leaders that have done absolutely nothing and stayed silent. Alright guys, but this is it for today's video. If you liked it, leave a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and check out the links in the description box to further support my work. And as always, may God bless you all. Much love and peace. Thank you.