 So before we continue, I want to explain very quickly about a hadith. What is a hadith? Basically, there's two types of hadith, there are hadith that are acceptable, maqbool, and then hadith that are mardood that are rejected. Basically, a hadith describes the actions, or gives the speech, or the tacit approvals of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa la alayhi wa sallam, the ath'al, the aqwaal, and the taqarir. So there's a difference now between hadith and sunnah. Obviously, there's overlap. We draw or extract the sunnah from the hadith, but they're not necessarily the same things. There's a lot of hadith. There's thousands upon thousands of hadith at different grades. We'll talk briefly about that. Anything that is attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the blessings of God be upon him, is considered to be a hadith. But the sunnah of the Prophet, this is what has the sort of providential protection, the protection of Allah SWT. This is the authoritative or normative ethos, the authenticated practice of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa la alayhi wa sallam, and the function of the sunnah as the scholars of Islam say, The sunnah, really what it does is that it exegetes, if you will, or it explains the Quran. So the Quran itself says in Surah Nahl, Surah number 16, verse 44, Allah SWT says that indeed we sent down this vikr upon you, this reminder upon you, speaking directly to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in order for you to make bayan, in order for you to make clear, to explicate, to illucidate, to commentate upon what was revealed to them, to interpret the Quran, the revelation of God. This is one of the functions of prophecy. So just because you read something in a hadith doesn't necessarily mean it's true, even if it's considered to be in a sound book of hadith. There are a lot of problems with with hadith that are graded as sound. There's difference of opinion about them. You might read something that is sound and try to implement it but implement it incorrectly. For example, one of my teachers years ago he quoted a hadith that the Prophet used to eat dates. But what's the proper way of eating it? What's the proper etiquette of the Prophet in your mouth and he spit out the seed? How did the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi sallam, how did he eat a date? He would put it into his mouth with his right hand and then he would extract the seed by turning his left hand over with these two fingers and push the seed out with his tongue but no one actually saw his tongue and then he'd discard or he would get rid of the seed. So he did it in a way where there's a lot of honor and there wasn't, there's no question about having bad adab or having bad comportment while eating. How does a Muslim pray? I mean the Qur'an tells us to pray but how do we pray? Can you pray any way you want to? Can you just kind of follow what your neighbor is doing or what Christians and Jews are doing? Is that how we pray? So the sunnah becomes absolutely indispensable in understanding the Qur'an. How do we send benedictions upon the Prophet? The Qur'an says, Yeah, you who believe, send benedictions of peace upon the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. How do we do that? We have to look at the sunnah or the authenticated hadith. And it's a meticulous science. We don't have to go into it now. It's a separate class but basically for a hadith to be sound. There's a sanad which is the chain of transmission. It has to be muttasil. It has to be linked. There has to be a link, no missing, no gaps in the link of transmission. The famous hadith of mercy has 23 or 24 links in its chain of transmission. This is the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is reported to have said and you'll find it in Musnad Ahmad or Rahimuni, you'll find it in the sky or you'll find it in the sky. But the most compassionate shows compassion to those who show compassion. Show compassion to those on earth and the one in heaven in no anthropomorphic sense will show you compassion. This hadith is called hadith al-Rahma. There's like I said about two dozen or so links in his chain of transmission and it is indisputable. The words of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and this is actually the first hadith that Muslim children in the traditional Muslim world were taught. This would sort of set the foundation for their education about the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, stressing the importance of compassion, the importance of mercy. So the chain of transmission is muttasil, there's no gaps. Everyone in the chain has adhala, they have probity, they're known as being righteous people, they have tam ad-dabt, they have intelligence, they have good memories, there's no hidden problems, right? Which could be anything from like bad grammar because the Prophet, peace be upon him, did not use bad or incorrect grammar. He was the most eloquent of speakers. So this is a very meticulous science, the science of hadith authentication and this is different than sira, right? With sira you have to be careful. A lot of things get into sira that have no chain of transmission, so it's up to the urlama to go through and sort of sift through the sira and extract what is authentic to what is not. Writers of sira tend to exaggerate certain things and it's interesting because the sira is something that is constantly under attack by, for example, Christian apologists, Christian missionaries, they tend to attack stories in sira and many of these stories are exaggerations even according to Muslim scholars. Some of these stories have, like I said, no chain of transmission and no Muslim really takes them seriously, but these are the things that are brought up by missionaries, for example, so basically tearing down a straw man. The example that I give, the equivalent of that is, for example, if I said something like, if I went to a Christian and I said, you know, why did Jesus murder one of his teachers? Now, of course, I don't believe this at all. Jesus, peace be upon him, is a great prophet of God in the Islamic tradition, but just to make a point here. And he says, well, what are you talking about? I said, no, it's what it says in the infancy gospel of Thomas. Well, he would say, well, the infancy gospel of Thomas is is an apocryphal gospel. We don't believe in that. That's what he would say, right? We believe in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, right? So exactly, we don't believe in that. So many of these stories in sira are just, they're falsified stories. No Muslim takes them seriously. There's no chain of transmission and they have nothing to do with our faith. But this hadith, hadith Gabriel, right? This is considered to be a sound hadith recorded by Imam Muslim. It is a very famous hadith. As I said, so the hadith begins and that the hadith is on the authority of one of the greatest companions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, whose name was Omar and Omar was the second caliph in Islam following the first caliph Abu Bakr, one of the most beloved human beings, to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. In generally, the Sunni tradition of Islam praise and love, all of the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, they weren't all perfect, but there's a respect there and that's in contrast to the Shia that don't respect a great number or a majority of the companions of the Prophet. So these are the two sort of major divisions in our tradition, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam and really the, I would say the differences as far as theology goes are minor, they're negligible, some would disagree with that, but the vast majority of scholars on both sides do not anathematize either side, they don't make tuck feel, right? But the major difference is really in probably political theory, political theology, but nonetheless the hadith begins by saying, So Sayyidina Omar is saying that one day we were sitting with the messenger of Allah, and the title of the Prophet, peace be upon him, here in Arabic, Rasul is equivalent probably to the Greek apostle, which literally means one who is sent forth and of course the word for God in Arabic is Allah, and this is the name of God in Arabic, but in all Semitic languages the word for God begins with the alif in the lamb or alif in Lamid, so in Hebrew you have Elo, as the singular and Elohim, which is the plural of Majesty, which we find many many times in the Hebrew Bible, in Aramaic or Syriac, you have Allah, right? So Jesus, peace be upon him, he would have used Allah because he spoke Aramaic or Syriac, so for example in Mark 115, behold the kingdom of God is at hand, so Jesus would have used this name for God, Allah, so the Quran, so in Arabic uses that name as well, so he's saying we're sitting with the messenger of a God, peace be upon him, that to Yeoman one day, and behold a man rose among us, right, so the Arabic here suggests that he sort of just uh seemingly appeared out of nowhere, he was wearing exceedingly white clothes, he had exceedingly black hair, the traces of travel was not seen on him, so you know he didn't have, he wasn't dusty, he wasn't disheveled, anything like that, he didn't look like a traveler, didn't have you know a bag or something with him, and none of us knew who he was, none of us recognized him, right? So this is obviously the archangel Gabriel, right? Gabriel, in Hebrew, which means the power of God, and Gabriel would often incarnate, that is to say assume human flesh in order to teach human beings, right? So this is one of the ways in which the prophets would interact with angels, that the angels would take human form, it's called incarnation, Muslims do not believe that God incarnates, right? So this is a major difference of opinion between a major difference in theology, let's say between Hinduism and Islam or Christianity and Islam and Christianity, so in Hinduism there are countless incarnations of God, is Hinduism essentially a monotheistic religion, that's an interesting question that we can talk about later, in Christianity God did not incarnate except for once, and that was in the person of Christ according to Christians, and we'll talk about that as well. So oftentimes Gabriel would incarnate and he would teach the prophet, he's the teacher of the prophet, although Muslims believe that the prophet Muhammad's rank is higher than Gabriel, his rank is actually higher than his teacher, because the prophet is the best of creation, he is the beloved of God, right? So that's not all about knowledge, right? You can have teachers that are that are arrogant, you have students that surpass their teachers over time in piety and even in knowledge, it's very very common. So Gabriel would come to the prophet, he would teach him the religion or he would bring the prophet Qur'an, he would bring the prophet revelation, oftentimes Gabriel in human form would simply tell the prophet to repeat after him, the prophet would repeat and that's called an exterior locution, other times the angel would come to the prophet but was not seen by him and the angel would dictate to the prophet internally, the prophet would, he would perceive words internally, sounds forming words or vibrations forming words and he would perceive that and then he would just repeat that and that's called an interior locution, so the Qur'an would come to the prophet in both ways and on rare occasion the Qur'an would come to the prophet without any angelic mediation, right? So interior locution without angelic mediation and our scholars like Imam Al Suyuti and others scholars of Ulumul Qur'an or the sciences or I'm using the word science it's sort of the pre-1800 like disciplines of the Qur'an, they would say that for example the last two ayahs of al-Baqarah were revealed to the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, by Allah by God glorified and exalted is he through interior locution without angelic mediation and they mention others too, and the surah that follows it so here we have Gabriel, peace be upon him, the great archangel, he's taken on human form, he's wearing white clothes, very white clothes, he has exceedingly black hair and no one recognizes him, so he comes and Sayyidna Omar, he continues, he says so that he sits right in front of the prophet, peace be upon him to the point where he sort of touches or links his knees against his, so he's sitting right in front of the prophet, peace be upon him, and then Gabriel puts his hands on his thighs on his own thighs and he's listening intently to the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him so here Gabriel appears to be teaching us proper adab, sort of proper etiquette or comportment with the prophet and this is very important for Muslims that we show proper respect towards all the prophets of God, and of course the Quran mentions about 25 of them, but the hadith indicates that there are thousands of prophets, 25 mentioned in the Quran and all of them are respected and loved by Muslims, right, so these include even Adam, peace be upon him, Adam is considered a prophet in Islam, Noah is considered a prophet in Islam, Moses, peace be upon him, and before that Ibrahim, peace be upon him, and or Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac, both of them considered prophets in the Islamic tradition, both of them beloved by Muslims, both of them respected, both of them considered legitimate prophets and righteous, even Jacob is considered a prophet in Islam, so these stories that are mentioned about for example Jacob in the book of Genesis where he's really depicted in a very negative way, right, basically as this kind of trickster, and that's a kind of common sort of literary device or literary character in ancient literature that there's this trickster figure who is considered to be very clever and gets his way by obviously tricking people, and this is sort of praised in the book of Genesis that God has this type of unconditional love for Jacob despite all of his faults, so things like that Muslims will not confirm, so the dominant opinion and we'll talk more about this as well is that when the Quran speaks of the Torah that was revealed to Moses, peace be upon him, it's not talking about what is today considered the Torah, right, because clearly there are stories in the so-called Torah of today that are unacceptable from a theological standpoint, from the Islamic theological standpoint. There are many things in the Torah that we consider to be accurate and even true, but at the end of the day Muslims don't rely on any other scriptures, all of these scriptures from the perspective of the Quran and Islam have been abrogated, Islam has its own scripture, it is the Quran, Islam has its own sacred law which is derived from the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him. So anyway, we were talking about proper comportment with the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, the Imam of Medina in the second century, second half of the second century, or right in the middle of the second century after Hijrah was Imam Malik ibn Anas who died I believe 179 Hijri, students would come to him and they would study fiqh, they would study jurisprudence and they would study hadith and when they would study fiqh he would immediately begin teaching that, but if they wanted to study hadith he would prepare himself, oftentimes he would go, he would take a shower, he would wear white clothes, he would tie his turban, he would burn some incense, right put on some musk, why would he do that is because he's going to teach the words of the master Muhammad, peace be upon him, so out of respect for the words of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, ibn Mubarak mentioned something interesting, he mentions that one time Imam Malik ibn Anas as we said the Imam of Medina he was teaching his famous hadith book al-Mu'ata and as he was relating a hadith of the messenger of God, peace be upon him, they noticed that he would cringe in his face for a turn pale and this would happen over and over again, but he wouldn't stop the hadith of the Prophet, so after he was done with the hadith he told his students to look between my shirt and my back and they saw that a scorpion had lashed him something like 14, 15, or 16 times, but he didn't want to cut off the speech of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, so he continued with the hadith, so Gabriel, he sits in front of the Prophet, peace be upon him, sort of locking his knees and listening intently and then he says however, Ya Muhammad, so he calls to the Prophet, peace be upon him by using his first name, and this was something that is prohibited to do, the companions did not do that, they use the title of the Prophet, even God in the Quran does not address the Prophet directly by using his first name, he speaks about the Prophet by using his name in the third person, Muhammad the Rasulullah for example, but when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is speaking directly to the Prophet, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la uses a title, Ya Ayyuha Rasul, Ya Ayyuha Nabiyu, why does Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la do that? It's because Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is teaching the ummah of the Prophet, how to address the Prophet, so here however Gabriel is saying Ya Muhammad, so the ulama say here that Gabriel is posing as a Bedouin to conceal his identity because the Bedouin were a bit rough, they were a bit rough around the edges, or the ulama say that this prohibition is not for the angels but only for the human believers in the Prophet, peace be upon him, so in that sense then Gabriel is actually sort of subtly revealing his identity Nanda Lassi says, Ya Muhammad, akhbirni an al-Islam, tell me about al-Islam, of course, this is the name of the religion, but in this hadith according to the scholars of hadith, this seems to be a reference to the sort of exoteric or exterior aspects of the religion, what sometimes philosophers of religion call the sort of lateral or horizontal aspect of the religion, of course it means submission, submission unto God, faqadur Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi sallam and then the Prophet responded to Gabriel by saying al-Islamu an tashhada ad la ilaha illallah right, so Islam is to witness or to testify that there is no ilah, there is no deity, there is no god, except Allah, except Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, so there's no ilah, nothing deserves worship other than Allah, nothing deserves worship, nothing other than God has divine attributes, nothing other than God has the intrinsic ability to help and or harm you, so this is what is testified on the tongue right, so this is the first pillar of Islam, and tashhada, shahada to testify and is done upon the tongue la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah, this is when a convert wants to become Muslim, a proselyte becomes Muslim, they will utter the shahada, it will say ashhadu, I witness, I testify and la ilaha illallah, there's no ilah, there's no deity, there's no divinity, there's no other person that has divine attributes that deserves or merits worship other than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and I bear witness that the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is the messenger of God, so the Prophet himself, this is what he says here, al-Islam number one and tashhada is to testify that there is no deity other than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam is the messenger of God, it's one of my teachers he said here, this is something interesting, la ilaha right, that's atheism, there is no God, illallah except Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or except God capital G, so moving from atheism into deism now, that there is a God and that this God is the sort of great architect of the universe, the creator of all things, wa anna Muhammadar Rasulullah and now we move into theism, so from atheism to deism to theism, so deism God is just impersonal right, but when we say Muhammadar Rasulullah and Muhammad is a messenger of God, this reveals the personal aspect of God, how does it do that, well it shows or it is evidence of God's loving nature that he sends human messengers for the guidance of humanity, right, so through his prophets, divine eminence is revealed, this kind of closeness that God has to his creation, it is through the prophets, this is how God reveals his loving nature, so the Quran says, I always refer to this as sort of the equivalent of John 316 in the Quran, this is 21107 of the Quran, which the prophet in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is speaking directly to the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and he says we did not send you except as a mercy to all the worlds, right, that the prophet peace be upon him is the greatest manifestation of God's mercy because the prophet is the greatest messenger of God, he brings us total guidance, guidance for all the world until the end of time, and of course all the prophets are manifestations of God's mercy, want to use that term incarnations of God's mercy, right, not incarnations of God's person, that's a Christian belief, right, that is intimated at least in the New Testament Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, but that's a Christian belief, so the prophets are examples of God's mercy in the Islamic tradition, even Jesus peace be upon him in the Quran is also called a mercy, we will make Jesus a sign of God, a great sign, and a mercy from us, right, so we're moving from atheism, and of course atheism is a position of belief, so there's a difference between a position of knowledge and a position of belief, right, there are two positions of knowledge, there's Gnosticism and Agnosticism, right, so most atheists, for example the late Christopher Hitchens, famous atheist author of this book, God is Not Great, which has been definitively refuted by the way by Berlinsky's book, David Berlinsky which you should get, and John Lennox also has an extraordinary book as well, nonetheless Hitchens always used to refer to himself as an agnostic atheist, meaning that he is going to live his life under the assumption that there is no God, but he doesn't know for sure, cannot prove that there is no God, so he's an agnostic atheist, right, it's very rare to get a Gnostic atheist, in other words an atheist who who knows with certitude that there is no God, and then of course you have agnostic believers and agnostic believers as well, so then that's the first pillar then, right, there's no God but Allah, and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is a messenger of God, and to establish the prayer, so this is a second pillar, right, and the prayer as Salah comes from a rude word which means to connect, so the prayer is our connection to God, with Tu'ti as Zaka, and to give Zaka to give charity, and the word Zaka comes from a word meaning purification, so this is a type of spiritual purification, and to fast the month of Ramadan, right, one, two, three, this is the fourth pillar, Muslims that are able to will fast the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, as really a commemoration of the Quran which was, which whose revelation commenced during the month of Ramadan, what to touch the bait and to make pilgrimage, if you're able to do so, and that's the final pillar of Islam, to make pilgrimage to Mecca, so this is the Prophet's answer for what is al Islam, right, and again in this context seems to be referring to sort of the exterior aspect of the religion. It is to say upon the tongue, There is no God but Allah, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, messenger of God to establish the prayer, to give the charity, fast the Ramadan, and to make Hajj if one is able to do so. And then Qala Sadaqta, Gabriel said, you've answered correctly, or he confirms his answer. And Sayyidina Omar, he said, فَعَجِبْنَالَهُ يَسْأَلُهُ وَيُصدِّقُهُ. So that was surprising to us that this person is asking the Prophet a question and then he confirms his answer. And this was, you know, you can call this sort of the Socratic method where the teacher already knows the answer, but the teacher wants to honor the student and have the student give the correct answer. Qala, فَأَخْبِرْنِ عَلِيْمَانَ. Now the second question, tell me about Al-Iman and which is oftentimes translated as faith, right? Imam literally means to cause safety, right? Safeguard your soul. It's related to the Hebrew Emuna, right? So for example, the famous treatise of Maimonides is called the Shirusha Ashar Iqare Emuna, the 13 principles of Jewish faith, right? And of course the word Amin is related to this as well. So to safeguard your soul, right? So this isn't, you know, blind, Iman doesn't mean that you just believe in something blindly, believe without evidence, you know, belief without evidence, that's not what it is. It means to accept something because the evidence points in that direction and by doing so you safeguard your soul in the afterlife. So here in this context, so we have Islam, it's being contrasted with Islam, it seems to be referring to sort of the inward aspect or vertical aspect of the religion, right? So the Prophet, peace be upon him, he said in Hadith, which is sound Hadith, Al-Muslimu man saliman muslimuna min lisanihi wa yadih awqama qala, that the quintessential Muslim, right, submitter is the one that is he from whose hands and feet, sorry, hands and tongue, hands and tongue, other Muslims remain safe. In other words, the true Muslim is not harming, he's not violent with other Muslims and he's not slandering and backbiting and being calmness towards other Muslims. That's the quintessential Muslim. And then the Prophet also said, al-mu'minu, right, the quintessential believer, right, the quintessential believer, man aminahu nasu ala dima'ihim wa amwadihim awqama qala, that the quintessential Mu'min, believer, right, the one who internalizes the faith, is the one that humanity, humanity trusts with their literally blood and possessions, lives and property, lives and possessions, right? So the sort of field of compassion and love is expanded. It begins with oneself, that's what it means to be selfish, that's what the word idiot means, idios means self, right, the idiot only cares about himself and then it expands obviously to the family and the community and then to the Muslims and then to the whole of humanity, right, the whole of humanity. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he said in a famous hadith which is in Bukhari in Muslim, rigorously authenticated, la yu'minu ahadukum hatta yuhibbali akhihi ma yuhibbuli nafsih. Awkama qala, that none of you truly believe until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself, right, so he loves for his brother what he loves for himself and that hadith I just mentioned is the source of the hadith, as I said, is in Bukhari in Muslim but Imam An-Nawwi also included it as hadith number 13, I believe, in his Arba'een in his famous collection of 40 hadith and in his commentaries he defines what does it mean, who is your brother, right, none of you truly believe until you love, until he loves for his brother what does that mean? He goes on to say in his commentary that means your brother, Muslim or Jew or Christian really your brother in Bani Adam, right, in humanity, right, but he makes that point and one of my teachers said that there are some manuscripts of Imam Nawwi's commentary where that sentence where the Imam says Jews and Christians is taken out of his commentary is apparently there are some Muslims who don't want other Muslims to think of Jews and Christians as being their brothers, which is unfortunate, so you have this tampering with these commentaries but that's an authentic saying from the Imam and that's a sound hadith from the Prophet, so he continues so what is Al-Iman, what is faith, right, what does it mean to safeguard your soul Qala the Prophet said And تُقْمِنَ بالله وَمَلَائِكَتِهِ وَكُتُبِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَالْيَوْمَ الْأَخِرِ it is to believe in God, right, literally to safeguard yourself by means of God or we can just say to believe in God and it's not simply to accept the rational proposition that there is a God that's what Satan did, Satan accepts that there is a God he accepts that wholeheartedly but what is missing from Satan why does the Quran call him a kathar which means an infidel if you want, that's a Catholic word an unbeliever, a rejecter of faith is because Satan does not have قبول and إذعان, right, he doesn't have acceptance he doesn't accept the guidance that comes from the prophets he doesn't have submissiveness or humility towards God, right one of the books in the New Testament which is very close to Islamic teaching is the Epistle of James James obviously is a successor of Jesus according to Christian history he probably didn't write this epistle but it certainly sounds like something that he would have written seems like someone in his sort of school of thought wrote this epistle but he says in there that even demons believe in God, right so it's not just about what one accepts rationally or just sort of accepts in oneself but has no motivation to manifest that faith in action right, so faith and action very very important so to believe in God then means not simply to accept things on reason but to show one's faith as it were, right, to perform righteous actions believe in God and in his angels and in his books, his scriptures and in his messengers and in the last day, the day of judgment this day of judgment has different names in the Quran the day of standing, the day of judgment, the final day, the last day, etc so the prophet here then gives us these sort of six articles of faith right, believe in God, believe in angels and there are four major archangels Gabriel and Michael, Gabriel and then Mikael or Mikael, Israel which I believe is Seraphiel in the Bible or in Israelite tradition and then Israel, Israel is not Israel that's Israel, Israel is also the angel of death and there are other angels mentioned in the tradition as well as far as the scriptures go, Muslims believe in four major scriptures and many minor scriptures that are sort of indicated as well the four major scriptures are the Torah of Moses and the Psalms of David the Zabur the Injil, the Gospel given to Jesus, peace be upon him is that the same as the Christian Gospel or is it the same as the New Testament, the four Gospels it's not an easy question to answer the dominant opinion from Muslim scholars is that those books what the Christians are calling the Gospel is not the pristine Gospel it's not the actual revelation given that Jesus peace be upon him although some of the sayings of Jesus could certainly have been preserved in these four books but that these books they contradict each other and they're written in Greek which is a foreign language to Jesus this is sort of the dominant opinion of Muslim scholars and they're written too late, decades later there are different ways of looking at these things or counterarguments to those points as well but this is the dominant opinion so for example there are indications in the Quran that fabrications, textual fabrications were committed by Christian scribes and Jewish scribes and it seems like there's evidence of this if you talk to textual critics of the New Testament for example there are manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark that end at chapter 16 verse 8 and according to imminent textual critics of the New Testament that's actually the true ending of Mark the oldest and best Greek manuscripts end at Mark 168 what does it say in Mark 168? well it says that on Easter Sunday a group of women, three women they go to the tomb with a sepulcher and they find that the stone has been moved away and there's an angel sitting inside the tomb and the angel says to the women, you seek Jesus who has risen he's gone ahead of you to Nazareth or to Galilee and then Mark says, whoever wrote this Gospel he doesn't identify himself tradition calls him Mark Mark says that the women ran away and they were frayed and they said nothing to no one and that's the end of the Gospel so what happened? it seems like a cliffhanger was Jesus actually resurrected did he survive the crucifixion and flee the city because he's afraid of authorities what happened? and then a century or so later a few decades later, lo and behold you have subsequent manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark where there's now a longer ending as it's called verses 9 through 20 where Jesus actually appears to disciples, to male disciples and he commissions them to go into all the world he tells them that they can handle poisonous snakes and drink poison and no harm would come to them that's just one example so Muslims believe in God and next week we'll talk about we'll give a little lesson on theology what do Muslims actually believe about God? theology, pheos and lagos, right? means speech about God what do Muslims say about God? who is God? do Muslims believe that God is one? a sort of rigid type of unitarian monotheism? do gods believe that there's a plurality if you will and the quote-unquote Godhead as Christians do do Muslims believe that God has attributes? what are the attributes? we'll go into a little bit of that again we want to keep it very basic belief in God, angels the revelations given to the prophets and messengers of God according to Muslim tradition there have been about 124,000 or so prophets although that number is disputed as I mentioned, 25 of them mentioned explicitly 25 or so mentioned in the Quran and belief in the final day so belief in God angels, revelations, messengers they have judgment and that's the sixth article of faith and that you believe in qadr and qadr is difficult to translate divine decree some people sometimes translate it as destiny I like divine decree or divine apportionment and notice here the prophet, he repeats and took me in that, that you believe he repeats that verb because qadr is very hard to grasp it's a difficult thing to grasp that you believe in the divine decree the good and evil of it everything is from God so there's two terms in theology there's qadr and qadah and some of the scholars say that these terms are synonymous others say that qadr is sort of the measuring out divine apportionment as we said God determines all things and then qadah is the playing out, if you will, of that divine decree in space-time in the world so you had groups in the past that were known as the Jabariah absolute determinists who said things like human beings have no free will and so God could not punish human beings because we have zero volition then you have the other extreme qadariah or the absolute libertarians we're not talking about political libertarianism which believes that government should not have a lot of intervention if any in our lives no we're talking about philosophical or theological libertarianism which espoused that human beings have absolute free will they create their own actions in fact God doesn't even know the juziyat or the particulars of things you only know sort of the essences of things so the truth is somewhere in the middle as they say now as Muslims we believe that everything is decreed by God God has perfect knowledge but at the same time human beings are held accountable for their choices sometimes this is called soft determinism or compatibilism that even though everything is determined by God even though God knows everything and has the power to do whatever he wants if an action originated within a person himself from that person's wants and desires and there are moral implications to that action then that person is taking into account for that action ultimately it's difficult to understand ultimately it's impossible to understand so that's why the scholars say here that the prophet repeats the verb believe because this is a difficult thing to believe and it's difficult to think in terms of God's power and knowledge yet he allows us to do certain things and then takes account for our actions it's a very difficult thing to grasp but it's sort of like explaining calculus to a toddler or to like a fifth grader they'll get something from it there's a very limited understanding but at the end of the day the intellect really has to make sajda because it has to make a prostration to God because God's qadr his divine decree is beyond our ability to comprehend if God didn't know what we were going to do then he wouldn't be God that's not a solution to anything but this is something that we can discuss later as well it's akin to what philosophers would call this type of soft determinism that you're still taken into account for your choices but your choices are indeed limited so I think that's a good place to stop for tonight we'll finish the hadith next time and then I'll give you a little bit of theology as well basic theology and the Islamic tradition that'll complete next week that'll complete our section on basic beliefs of Islam and then we'll move in week three into Judaism we began reading the famous hadith the tradition of Gabriel, peace be upon him and we covered most of the hadith just to give you a quick recap we said that Gabriel, peace be upon him, the archangel incarnated basically became a man and came to the prophet Muhammad in the presence of the companions and sat in front of the prophet and asked him a series of questions asked him about al-Islam which of course is the name of the religion itself but we said that in the context of this hadith it seems to be a reference to the exterior element of the religion that which has to do with the body and the prophet Muhammad answered the question by explaining or listing the five pillars of Islam and then Gabriel, peace be upon him, asked the prophet Muhammad a second question about al-Iman what is faith and the prophet Muhammad he described the six articles of faith and that's where we left off he said to the prophet Muhammad he says to the prophet Muhammad he spoke the truth so now we continue the hadith the famous hadith and there's a third question that Gabriel, peace be upon him asks the prophet Muhammad what is al-Ihsan and the root word here is beauty translated in a number of ways spiritual excellence is one way of translating it so we said that al-Islam is a reference to sort of the horizontal aspect of the religion while Iman is a reference to the vertical aspect of religion or that which has to do with the body and the mind and finally we have ihsan, the transcendental aspect of the religion or the relational aspect of the soul of the religion itself al-Ihsan, a technical term for al-Ihsan is tasawwuf according to many of the Ulama it's the same thing they're synonymous sometimes called Sufism but when we talk about Sufism we're talking about Sufism in the context of both Islam and Iman we're talking about spirituality with a cognizance that a true spirituality from the context of our religion is grounded in Islam as well as Iman so tasawwuf is just a technical term for al-Ihsan the aim the aim if you will if we use Aristotelian nomenclature the final cause of the human being in the Islamic tradition is to actualize wilaya or friendship with Allah SWT in other words to make oneself beloved to Allah SWT al-Ihsan of Islamic spirituality and different Muslim metaphysicians and scholars they describe the process Imam Ghazali for example who writes about tasawwuf practical Sufism if you will he recommends that Muslims must sit with scholars they must sit with the spiritual masters and take from their prescriptions take from their different litanies and eulogies and remembrances of Allah SWT one of the great scholars Ahmed Zarouq he said that if you don't have a spiritual master then take as-salah al-nabi as your spiritual master take the benedictions upon the Prophet Muhammad as your spiritual master and Allah SWT will guide you spiritually by means of the salah al-nabi because the Prophet SAW was the greatest of spiritual masters so Imam Ghazali he talks about this sort of three step process of purging if you will the lower self the nafs of vice this is called a kinosis kinosis in Greek or catharsis via purgativa in the Catholic tradition to purge oneself to get rid of these vices what are the vices? these are diseases of the heart the amrad al-kulub the major ones are kibir, arrogance and hasad envi, riyah, ostentation so disciplining the lower self emptying the self of these vices but also then ornamenting the self with virtue so the first one he calls tahliyah this one he calls tahliyah to ornament the self, to take on virtue and of course we know the cardinal virtues of you know adala, shuja'a, khikma, ifa but you also have these theological virtues Imam Ghazali that commemorates 19 or 21 theological virtues like toba, like sabr, like repentance like patience rajah, hope, so on and so forth and then finally you have something called tahliyah this is to sort of manifest the divine ethos at a human level this is when the abd becomes a wali if you will a friend of God because he mirrors the divine attributes the divine names and attributes at a level at the level of a human being so the perfect mirror if you will at a human level of God's names and attributes was the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and Allah SWT in the Quran intimates this when he calls the prophet by two of his own names that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam there has come unto you a messenger from among yourselves it grieves him that you should perish deeply concerned is he about you to the believers he is kind and merciful so Allah SWT is with the definite article in this sort of absolute sense in a sense that is beyond human capability beyond human comprehension but something of that attribute is reflected in the character the beautiful character of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he said in a hadith and there's weakness in the hadith but it's true and it's meaning to adorn yourself with the character if you will of God and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is mentioned in the Quran Allah SWT speaks to him directly in the Quran وإنك لعالى خلقا عظيم verily verily you dominate عالى خلق is usually used in grammar to denote something physical like upon the desk or upon the floor something like that upon the roof but if there is an abstract noun that follows عالى then this denotes a type of mastery or تمكن so indeed you have mastered خلق عظيم a great character, magnificent character because he is a reflection of the divine names and attributes at the human level right Allah SWT says speaking to the prophet in the Quran وما رميته إذ رميته ولكن الله الرماء you did not throw when you threw Allah threw right before the battle of Badr the famous story the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he picks up some pebbles and he throws them into the direction of the mushrikin Allah SWT says to him you did not throw when you threw right very interesting but Allah threw what does this mean does this mean that Allah SWT incarnated into the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and undertook this action that's not what it means it means that all of the actions of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam however mundane they might seem all of them are guided by Allah SWT he is a sanctified agent of the divine and this is the goal for all of us obviously we cannot attain the maqamat of the prophets but we cannot be prophets we cannot attain nabua but we can attain wilaya we can become from the awliya of Allah SWT and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he intimates this in another hadith which is in Bukhari which is hadith number 41 of the arba'een arba'een means 40 but imam an nawa we included two more hadith right where hadith number 41 where the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is reported to have said none of you truly believe until his hawa his hawa is his desires his caprice his hawa is in perfect accordance with what I have taught and what did the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam bring he brought the Quran and his ethos to sunnah in other words he brought al-huda he brought the guidance from Allah SWT and that is perfect imam that's an actualized type of faith is that your desires and wants are perfectly aligned with what Allah and his messenger wants this is a definition if you will of wilayah it reminds me of something confucius says in the analex the lunyu where he says at 50 years old I understood the mandate of heaven and at 70 years old he says at 70 years old my heart's desire without overstepping the line right so he's describing this type of wilayah and confucius did believe in god and the jury is out I mean he certainly could have been a prophet there's a good case to make I think being confucius just as there's a good case to be made for Siddhartha Gatama being Khidr mentioned in the Quran so this is in other words this is mystical union right when your desires align with the guidance of Allah SWT the term for that is mystical union and there's other hadith that intimate this phenomenon hadith number 38 for example in the Arba'een also from Bukhari where the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he's reported to have said let me look at that really quickly here so this hadith qudsi this is a sacred hadith where Allah SWT will speak in the first person so and it's reported from Abu Huraira may Allah be pleased with him that Allah SWT said that Allah says whoever antagonizes or shows enmity towards my Wali towards my friend right again wilaya is the final cause of the human being according to the philosophy of Islam if you will or the psychology of Islam the one who antagonizes this friend of God and I have announced to him war from me Allah SWT declares war on the person who antagonizes the friends of God it's interesting you have a you know a plethora of Christian and Christians and atheists who are basically working full time on the internet trying to discredit and denounce the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam basically it's a everyday verbal assault you have youtube channels with thousands upon thousands of prescribers this is something that Allah SWT our subscribers this is something that Allah SWT tells us about in the Quran this is what he says is going to happen this is just natura wila tasma'unna minal ladhina minal ladhina asshalakoo adhan kathira that indeed indeed in arabic is a lot of emphasis indeed indeed you will hear a lot from those who received the revelation before you the ahl al-kitab and the mushrikin which is interesting the Quran doesn't necessarily affirm atheism they were very very very few atheists in the ancient world there were a few but the Quran does not entertain atheism everyone worships something you're either from ahl al-kitab or you're a believer or you're a mushrik so if you say for example the universe created itself you're assigning to the universe a quality of Allah SWT you're saying that the universe created itself it's the khalaq of it it's the khalaq first of all but then he said no the universe didn't create itself the universe always existed it has a sort of internal pre-eternality that's called shirk an essential pre-eternality that's an attribute of Allah SWT so these are mushrikin basically that's called shirk so you're going to hear a lot from people of different faiths from people that are mushrikin that is going to grieve you adhan kathira a lot of sort of white noise but if you show patience great theological virtue and you guard against evil you guard yourself from this type of thing then that will be the determining factor of all affairs and this doesn't mean that you can't ask questions to seek clarifications asking questions does not necessarily come from a place of doubt we have to remember that as well someone asking questions even if they're difficult questions does not necessarily mean that this person is having issues with their e-man or something like that that we should constantly seek to fortify our e-man but anyway continuing the hadith this hadith qutsi that my servant does not draw close unto me now again the speaker here is Allah SWT on the tongue of our master Muhammad my servant does not draw close unto me with anything more beloved by me than his faraid his obligatory acts of worship and he continues and he continues to draw close unto me with his nawafil with his super-rogatory acts of worship right so you have the five pillars of Islam these are the faraid and then you have nawafil extra for example the five day the mustahab day is the sunnah day and you have sadaqah extra you have the hajj which is faraid you have umrah which is extra that leaves one pillar the shahada is essentially a form of zikr you say it on the tongue as we said you testify on the tongue what is the nawafila of the shahada it is adhkar it is zikr zikr of Allah SWT and additional as-salah it is eulogies and then addictions upon the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam right so the beloved of actions are faraid but then the hadith qutsi says the drawn year unto Allah SWT with the extra credit as you will the nawafil until I love him or her the masculine is used here right the female gender is encapsulated in the masculine gender it is understood to be there until I love him until this is God speaking until I love him and then he says and when I love him and when I love him right when I love him I become his hearing by which he sees sorry his hearing by which he hears in his sight by which he sees and his hand by which he strikes and his foot his ridjil by which he walks and if he were to ask anything from me I shall surely give it to him right if you were to ask anything from me I shall surely give it to him and he continues if you were to ask me for refuge I should surely grant him it right so this that hadith is in Bukhari sound hadith hadith qutsi so going back to the hadith of jibreel alayhi salam okay in the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam this is the description gives here a beautiful description naka tarah so prophet sallallahu alayhi salam says al ihsan spiritual application affection of the soul the relational aspect of the religion the soul of the religion it is to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as though you see him as if you see him if you don't see him indeed he sees you right so as if one is raptured in the beatific vision of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give you a basic worldly example if your boss comes into your office and says make a sale right now and he sits down in your office and he watches you how excellent of a sales call will you make right that's just your boss at work who you might not even like very much as a person but when you worship worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as if you can see Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and we cannot see Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but then know in your very being that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees you and then he says right so there's a fourth question push the pause button on this hadith Islam but there's one more question one more major question there's actually five questions one more major question so tell me about the hour i.e. the day of judgment the hour the word hour in English comes from the Greek hora this is the same word that's used for the day of judgment in the New Testament for example which is written in Greek so it begins with the omega but there's rough breathing so hora that's why there's an h when we say hour so tell me about the hour and he understood this question to mean when is the hour now the hour is close the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam cahatin and he put up these two fingers sallallahu alayhi alayhi sallam the hour and omega are very close like this so he is the eschatological prophet he is the first of the major signs of the hour his coming is the first major sign of a sa'a when you look at the entire history of humanity it's very very close so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam the answer is the masool the one who being asks the question the one who is being questioned knows no more than the questioner the sa'il nobody knows the exact time of the sa'a this is a secret that Allah has kept for himself in the Quran it says they ask you concerning the sa'a when will it be established it says Allah commands the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam to say the knowledge of the sa'a is only with my lord the knowledge of the sa'a is only with my lord so nobody knows nobody knows when it is in fact in the new testament you have this saying that it's attributed to Isa alayhi sallam in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24 verse 36 when he says of that day of that day no if no man not the angels not even the son but only the father now before we continue we have to understand here that these terms father, son, holy spirit these are hebraisms you actually find these terms the sort of ingredients of the trinity the ingredients of the trinity not the doctrine of the trinity the contemplation of the trinity is found in the old testament but they have different meanings so what the early Christians did is they took the terms and appropriated them and redefined them through a trinitarian lens so in the Old Testament in Jewish texts even at the time of Isa alayhi sallam this is a Jewish prophet in a Jewish environment when Jews called Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam there what that meant was ab sorry what that meant was rab so ab father means rab right Isaiah chapter 64 16 atah adonai avinu you are the lord our father this is totally majaz it's figurative language right it's figurative no one means this no Jewish prophet Isaiah did not mean that in a literal sense that God is a literal father that God is my literal father or that God is a literal father of anyone and when I say literal father I not only mean in the literal physical sense but I mean that anyone shares a nature with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala anyone should find quality with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala nobody does we'll get into some of this theology and then the word son right you find this in the Old Testament Israel is my son even my first born in the Psalms God says to David you are my son this day I have begotten you what does that mean what does it mean to be a ben adonai ben Elohim right ibnullah what does that mean in a Jewish context it simply means abd it means slave or servant right and it's a great maqam to be a servant of Allah it's a great station to be the servant of Allah it's not like when we you know we use these terms slave people think of you know slave in a Jewish context like chattel slavery that's what it is right because in that type of relationship the slave is dehumanized humiliated and the only one that benefits is a slave master but in the relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the slave is honored and he benefits the slave benefits we cannot benefit Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala one iota there's nothing that we can do that can possibly benefit him we take all the benefit so it's a great maqam to be the abd par excellence and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam took great pride in the sense that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala frequently refers to him in the Quran as his abd fa awha ila abdihi ma awha right so son in a Jewish context son means abd means servant evad adunay right and father in a Jewish context means rob right so we have to keep that in mind so what does it mean for Jesus to be the son right because in the New Testament he refers to himself more often than not as the son of man and there's different ways of interpreting that it seems to be a way of stressing his humanity or just a way of saying prophet or just human being but sometimes the son now this could be obviously there could be alterations that the text has suffered but again keeping things in a Jewish context if he's the son right so first of all he says we're all children of God right servant on the mount in Matthew chapter 5 also in the book of Luke in the Aramaic he says our father who art in heaven they ask him how do we pray he says pray like this our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name right our father not just his father all of us and again ab means rub so I would actually translate that the meaning of that is Rabbana Rabbana oh our lord that's what it means right so what does it mean then for Jesus to be the son or you know monogenes weas you know the one of a kind son what does that mean well Christians take that to mean that he's the second person of a triune Godhead but it simply means that he's the Messiah right Isa a.s. has this unique title he's a unique abd and the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam is also a unique abd and Musa a.s. is a unique abd right unique abd unique slave of God so anyway going back to this idea of the Sa'a I have to explain this sort of before we get into this so Matthew 24 36 he says of that day no with no man right not the angels Udehahuias in the Greek not even the son not even the Messiah not even this unique servant of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala meaning himself but only the father only the rub only the rub knows the Sa'a the day he calls it al yawm yawm azeem so Isa a.s. here according to a Christian text which is a canonical text authoritative text the Gospel of Matthew the most the most popular Gospel in all of antiquity admits he doesn't know now what's really interesting is later scribes they removed that that statement Udehuias from manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel later Greek manuscripts they omit that so Jesus says of that day no with no man not the angels in heaven but only the father which still doesn't help really because the son is not the father you can't say that the father is the same person as the son that's a violation of trinitarian theology but these scribes whenever they were probably second third century they found it very troubling that Jesus who's supposed to be God doesn't know something because al mutlak very important concept God has these sort of omni attributes he's omniscient he knows everything he's all knowing this is called a qualitative attribute of God God has certain attributes that qualify him as being deity one of them is omniscience sifat al ma'ani we call them an Arabic right al mutlak perfect knowledge doesn't increase doesn't decrease it's perfect so the fact that Isa alayhi salam according to this Christian text whether it's authentic or not Allahu alam it doesn't really make a difference to us right whether it's authentic or not but according to this text he admits that he doesn't know something and if he's God he's supposed to know everything of course in Numbers 2319 this is in the Torah or the modern day Torah Numbers 2319 it says God is not a man that he should lie Numbers 2319 God is not a man is just three words I always have my students memorize it lo yish eil God is not a man lo yish eil not a man is good that he should lie is the rest of that statement so Christians how do Christians deal with this statement God is not a man that he should lie they say yeah God is not a man that he should lie in other words God can become a man and he did become a man he became Jesus peace be upon him and Jesus never lied about that right but that's not the actual meaning of that verse in Hebrew and this is something that rabbinical authorities point out in their debates with Christians this goes all the way back to like the third century Rabbi Abah who of Caesarea who used to debate Christian apologists he said that's not the meaning of it the meaning is whoever claims any man who claims to be God he's a liar right that's the meaning of it God is not a man that he should lie any man any human being who claims to be God is a liar and that's not the only place you have Hosea chapter 11 verse 9 indeed I am God and not a man they are two mutually exclusive entities right so the prophet he's a man the one who has been questioned knows no more than the questioner and he continues so now we have yet another question so Islam, Eman right Ihsan al-sa'a now a fifth question clarifying question number five maybe just 4A question 4A فأخبرني عن أمراتها so tell me about if you don't know when is the sa'a but tell me it signs importance right so why is this important because we need to recognize the signs of our times right and be able to guard or protect ourselves against evil that's why there's a very fairly large corpus of what's known as eschatological literature in our tradition the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he spoke a lot about the portents of the sa'a and the fitan the trials and tribulations that are going to manifest towards the end of time because the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he's not just a basheer he's not just a bear of glad tidings يا أيها النبي إن أرسلناك شاهدا ومبشرا ونذيرا شاهدا ومبشر he gives the bushra ونذيرا and a warner he's here to warn us about things وداعيا إلى الله بإذنه وصراجا ونيرا so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he gives us warning this is part of his vocation as a prophet so what does the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam what does he say he says أنتلد الأمر توربتها عجيب statement he says that the slave girl or the low born base born girl will give birth to her mistress mistress means female master right that a girl will give birth to her mistress or master so the ulama they have difference of opinion about this but generally they say that the meaning of this is that towards the sa'a there's going to be sort of a flood of what's known as filial recalcitrance the opposite of virul walidain the opposite of filial piety which is so important and everything starts at home all of confucius's philosophy begins with virul walidain right you know so bolsters or buttresses are a case for luqman al-haqeem as being as being confucius because he's giving advice to her يا بنيا يا بنيا لا تشريك باللأ إن الشرك لظلم العظيم يا بنيا right he's teaching his son his children so filial recalcitrance so you have this idea now this kind of postmodern philosophy that's floating around in colleges and universities society in general this idea of radical absolute egalitarianism in the society which has never worked history has shown it's never worked higher-archical structures are very important to society those work and they're tried and they're tested that there's always going to be you can't equalize people it's just not going to happen people have different abilities people are born into different types of class and status and wealth there's always going to be a خاص and an عام there's always going to be a noble class or the nobility the nobles if you will influential, wealthy and there's going to be the عام the laity or the commoners that's how it works hierarchies work they work in the workplace they work in educational institutions and they work in the family the study that I cite oftentimes Charles University in Prague where the researchers discovered that households where one spouse is dominant over the other those households tend to be happier and have more children what do I mean by dominant I don't mean that one spouse is oppressing the other one I mean there's a clear sort of social hierarchy within the family a chain of command where the person at the top they are magnanimous in the way that they treat their family but the buck as it were stops at that person they have the sort of final say within the household and this study found that 72% of those happy families were male dominated so there's a reason why Allah SWT says the Quran is not trying to be misogynistic and you know because that's you know this whole idea of patriarchy and we need to smash it I mean good luck with that these things are not going to work so this idea of children now ruling their parents I just saw a thing on the news the other day there's a show on Netflix I think it's called the baby sitters club or something like that where you have this 8 year old boy who's in the hospital a biological boy and you have these doctors that are treating this patient as a boy and then one of his friends or someone a girl comes in and says can I talk to you two doctors outside and this girl who's like 10 years old or something the friend of this boy who's sick begins to just lecture these grown adult physicians I don't care what your chart says look at her it's a girl you know treat her like a girl you're being violent or something you're creating an unsafe space for this girl it's actually a girl so now we just kind of live and make believe land and the doctors are sitting there doctors, physicians in their 50s listening to this 10 year old girl lecture them oh okay you're right very very strange okay so and then he says so that's the first one he says the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he says the slave girl will give birth to her master and then he says something interesting you will see the barefooted naked destitute herdsmen competing in the construction of lofty buildings alright so why these two signs why these two portents so does the scholar say that well one will come very quickly and one will come later or one will come within the family and one will manifest in the society the barefooted naked destitute shepherds, herdsmen competing in the construction of lofty buildings so in other words love of the world the new testament says love of mammon that's how Isa alayhi sallam at least according to the new testament puts it the hadith says love of the world is the head of every type of sin love of the world so this idea of shepherds, naked barefooted now competing in lofty buildings it means that shepherds can take root even in the most unlikely of places in the most unlikely of places simple shepherds bedouins living in the desert intense are now fully engrossed in love of mammon as it were love of the world alright there's a surah of the Quran that that we know very well but we seldom contemplate surah 102 takathur what does atakathur mean it comes from kathir it's form six verb which denotes this kind of reciprocal action so you have this sort of mutual competition or rivalry right for stuff for a lot of stuff al-haqum uttakathur the Quran says that this mutual competition or consumerism amongst yourselves deludes you or distracts you right it distracts you al-haqum uttakathur until you visit the graves right and the meaning is either until you go into your grave and that's really when you wake up because say da'ali said human beings are asleep and when they die they wake up that's when the yakeen thumma kalla sofa ta'alamun law ta'alamun law ta'alamun ilm al yakeen la tarawun al jahim or it means that you should go to the graveyard when you actually go visit a graveyard that's when people start putting things in perspective that's why we should go to funerals somebody dies in your community and there's a janaza prayer go to the graveyard go look at the burial right of competition you have a perfectly good phone you got to buy another phone because your cousin has the latest iPhone your phone is perfectly good but no you have to compete with this person and that's just in one little gadget for people like this they spend their entire lives just ta'alamun very interesting so the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam his two portents that he gives us he tells us basically number one there's going to be a major breakdown of social structures we're going to enter into a type of social chaos and then we're going to there's going to be a sort of dominance of materialism people will fall into total materialism right and another thing he said it's not mentioned in the hadith here but the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he said that there are other signs other portents of the sa'a that coming of the antichrist is one of them if you look at isa alayhi sallam if you look at our christology isa alayhi sallam according to the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam his message is okhrawi it's otherworldly he's talking about moat about death he's talking about akhira he's talking about purifying the world he says the dunya is like a bridge he says the world is like a man who's at sea trapped on a boat completely lost he starts taking after a handful of sea water into his mouth which is representative symbolical for the dunya the more he drinks the more thirst he gets and then it kills him he says the world is like a haggard old prostitute who sticks her hand out from behind a wall which is all bejeweled with rings and nail polish and bangles and wave and over to her they go and they look around the corner and then she grabs them and slaughters them that's the nature of the dunya so the antichrist then the messiah ad-dajjal his message is the is the polar opposite of isa alaihi salam is that salvation is through materialism this is all there is so just enjoy your life right and this is you know the barefooted naked destitute herdsman competing in the construction of lofty buildings that's how the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam described this this phenomenon a very dramatic sort of way of putting it and then he says Sayidina Umar he says then this man left and I stayed for a while and the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam he came to me and said do you realize who the questioner was and Sayidina Umar he says Allah and his messenger know best for inna hujibreel indeed he was jibreel alaihi salam yes the age of horus indeed this is what corolli says in the liber legis allister corolli one of these sort of hidden figures that have so much that has influenced american western society now world the world in an incredible way the founder of the modern religion of theleima which is a type of satanism right he wrote this book called the liber legis which he claimed was dictated to him by a shaitan by a demon named awas which is interesting sounds like wasswas and in that book he says you know corolli says that we're going to enter into the age of horus the age of the child right in other words an age of a lack of discipline an age of just following the hawa right following the nafs an age that it's unreasonable because the purpose of the aqal aqal means to bind something yaqil means to like to the habala camel yaqilha the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam said about the camel running around inside the masjid so whose camel is that that's my camel i've trusted Allah he said tie her down the intellect is supposed to tie down and control the nafs, the hawa, the caprice this goes all the way back to play though we've mentioned this before the rational soul has to be in the driver's seat to keep the appetitive soul and the striving soul in check the age of oris i'm sorry if there's problems with the audio the only one here today inshallah we can work that out God incarnate is an arian and greco-roman concept well arianism is it's hard to pin down arian christology god incarnate is certainly a trinitarian belief that's orthodox christianity right in karanathus est it says in the nicene creed it says in the niceno constantinopolitan creed that god came down and assumed flesh that's what that means incarnation what did arius actually believe most of his writings are lost the exception of most of our information about arius comes from his opponents which you can't really trust can you really trust your opponents to reproduce even according to termotomb christian theologian who wrote the book it's a very good book if i can think of the title a classic classical trinitarian theology right he says in that book tomb he says that it's known that many of the early church fathers they would they would be lie arius they would misquote him they would quote him out of context but something seems to be arius because it's in the nicene creed is the belief that isa aley salam that jesus christ peace be upon him that the son of god and he used that term but not in a trinitarian sense the son of god there was a time when the son did not exist that sort of the the credo of the arians according to the nicene creed in greek there was a time when he was not there was a time when he the son of god was not an arius referred to christ as catisma creation the son is created by that term right so that's sort of one way of looking at arianism the other way of looking at it is well okay that might have been true but did arius somehow still give the son some sort of semi-divine or demigod status certainly how the early church fathers portray him that the early church fathers ironically are defending monotheism in the face of what they believe is a type of bi-theism which is being espoused by the arians so trinitarian monotheism for the early church fathers is a real type of monotheism whereas what arius was saying is that arius is trying to propose that there are actually two gods the father and the son of the arians i think arius believed based on what incursed me as far as my research that arius believed that the son was created at some point that catisma teleon he calls him the best of creation that was arius okay so anyway he says that was gabriel innu gibil atakum You alimukum dinakum. He came to you to teach you your religion. And that's the end of the Hadith, right? Now I only have a few minutes left. I want to just read a few statements from the beautiful creed, very ecumenical, popular creed of Imam Abu Ja'far At-Tahawi, the world-famous creed, which is derived from the Quran, the mutawater of a multiply-attested hadith of our master Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and the ijma, the consensus of the first three generations, the salaf of the Muslim Ummah. Just read very quickly here. He says, so number one, and of course, creed, the word creed comes from the Latin credo, which means I believe, right? So creed in Arabic is aqaida, which is related to the Hebrew word aqaida, like the binding of Isaac, Genesis 22, right? To bind to something, that's what the root is, wahlu l'uqad tatam illisani, right? Release the sort of knot from my tongue, which is the prayer of Musa al-Islam. So these are beliefs that are binding upon us. It's just a list of our beliefs. This is the aim of the creedal theologian, right? The aim of the creedal theologian is simply to articulate our basic beliefs, just a list of our beliefs. And it's different than ilmul kalam, right? Ilmul kalam, or dialectical theology, or possibly a better translation. I don't like speculative theology, but a discursive theology. The aim of the discursive theologian, the mutakalim, is to reconcile our belief, our sacred texts, with reason, right? So it's not just, you know, we believe in God, and this is who God is. It's, you know, is belief in God reasonable? Is belief in revelation reasonable? Is belief in angels reasonable? Right? So here I'm at the highway, he's assumed the role of a creedal theologian, right? So he's not gonna get into a lot of discussion, a lot of dialectics, if you will. So he begins by saying, inna allaha wahidun la sharika la. God is one, and he has no partner. And some of the ulema say here that wahid here denotes a sort of internal oneness of God, that he's one quote unquote person, using the person as an entity which has a personality. One entity, right? Persona or hypothesis in Greek. In other words, the sort of Godhead in Islam is a simple unity, rigidly one, unitarian monotheism. In Christianity, when it comes to the essence, attributes and actions of God, so in our tradition, no one shares in the essence and attributes and actions of God. No one has the essence, attributes, or actions of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, who is rigidly one in internal oneness is wahid. In Christianity, three hypotheses, three persons share in the essence, the attributes and actions of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he says, Don't say three. Salat doesn't mean trinity. It could mean trinity, but it means three. Don't say three, whether it's three gods, right? Another word like a sort of neoplatonic or middle platonic hierarchy of being, where it's really more henotheistic, where there's one major God, but then there's two sort of minor gods that are effects of the major God or the one, right? So the Godhead is sort of three distinct gods that have similar essence. Don't say that. Ola Takulu Thalatha. Don't say one essence in three persons. So this verse, Ola Takulu Thalatha, the way that it's worded is incredible, because not only is it denouncing Trinitarian monotheism, but also these types of middle platonic henotheistic tritheism, all of these types of things, because that was also very popular. This predates Christianity, middle platonic philosophers. They talked about the one, they talked about who caused from his being the logos. They use that term or the noose, the word and through self-intellection, this kind of emanation. And then you have another emanation from the logos, from the noose that created this, what they call the psukei, the psyche, the spirit, father, son, holy spirit, right? Christianity is heavily influenced by middle and neo-platinism, to the point where in the Gospel of John, you see that word, en arque en ha la gas. In the beginning was the logos, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Again, so what we have with Christianity, you have an appropriation of Jewish terminology, redefined through Trinitarian lens. You also have an appropriation of Hellenistic philosophy and theology. Redefined through a Trinitarian lens, right? So with the New Testament books, especially John, you have sort of one hand on Plato and Aristotle, and the other hand on the Tanakh, the Old Testament. And it's really sort of marrying the two together. This is why Imam al-Ghazali warns us in the T'ahafat al-Falasifah, that it's very, very dangerous to get into these, to get into Hellenistic metaphysics. He's not an anti-scholastic. Imam al-Ghazali says in that text, he says, I'm not against the hard sciences, the natural science. That has nothing to do with your religion, right? He says, if a scientist comes up to you and says, you can predict the eclipse of the moon or something, that's fine, don't argue with him. But steer clear of Hellenistic metaphysics, because look what it did to Christianity, and look what it did to Judaism as well. Philo of Alexandria, highly influenced, middle platonic philosopher, who talks about a Deutero Staios, a second god that he calls the Logos, right? He lived in Egypt in Alexandria, that's probably where the Gospel of John was written as well. Anyways, I'm out of time. Inna allahu wahidun la sharika lah. That's the essence of the theology. Wulhu allahu ahad, allahu samad, lam yalid walam yulad walam yakunlahu kufwan ahad. So next week, insha'Allah, we'll continue and we'll go into Judaism. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa alayhi wa sallam. Wa alhamdulillahi wa bi'alameen wa sallam wa bi'alameen. Wa rahmatullahi wa barakat.