 أطفاله من شيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والسلام علي أشف الأنبياء والمرسلين سيدنا ونبينا عبل قاسم محمد وعلى أهلبيته طيبين الطاهرين المأسمين المفلومين ولاعنة الله على عداهم أجمعين من الآن إلى قيام يوم الدين آمين يا رب العالمين شكراً لكم وشكراً for joining us once more on your show back to the basics in which you're joining myself, your host Yahya Seymour live from the holy city of Kerbala one more time. As you all know, we have in the background with us the blessed مقام of our master Abul Fadl al-Abbas and you're joining us for another episode of this show in which we are discussing an approach and how to basically engage with doubts about our religion, particularly doubts in conversation with those who happen to follow other divergent beliefs from our own. For those of you who have not tuned in previously when I am sorry, I would love to contextualize where we have reached in this show but unfortunately I do not wish to keep flogging it at horse and mentioning the same preliminary introductions in every episode. So I would advise you to go back to the previous episodes where you can find these details but for those who are tuning in for the first time briefly to say we are looking at the human intellect and the human intellect in its role in understanding a religion and more importantly understanding how valuable a religion or a particular set of beliefs known as a worldview is. I've previously stated that one of the problems that many of us as Muslims fall into is we analyze our beliefs as isolated beliefs and we attempt to prove the entire Aqeda package by looking at small isolated chunks, isolated beliefs here and there and we try and find evidence in order to demonstrate those isolated beliefs. Now what this leads to is actually a level of frustration where you might prove a particular aspect of your jurisprudence one day and then you'll be called upon to prove a particularly side issue within your theology the next day. And then you might be called upon proving an aspect of your ethics the next day and basically what this does is it leaves someone else to judge you and to be quite frank we don't even know what standards they're judging us by half the time. So we've stated that in order to enter into a fruitful dialogue one of the things we should do is to look at our beliefs as entire packages of beliefs that is to say a worldview. A worldview of course I define it as an interconnected set of beliefs pertaining to how we view ourselves الله أزوجل and the universe around us. So in light of that we had talked previously of how the first question we ought to ask in engaging with any particular worldview is in regards to its recognition and the estimation it gives to the human intellect. Does that worldview perhaps happen to respect and also give the credence to the very intellect you are using to even engage in this discussion? This intellect which I'm using in order to articulate myself in a particular language to put forward certain thoughts and that intellect which you're using at home right now in order to digest and understand the thoughts I'm putting forward are these things which the worldview you happen to believe in respects. Now when it comes to a worldview many of us are unaware of the big questions which worldviews are concerned with. Many of us might have even believed and adopted a worldview which we've never previously really thought to digest or really thought to engage with. Really thought should I be asking these big questions about it and if I don't does it really make sense? So the first question we put forward was does that worldview respect the intellect? And we've shown several examples of different theological schools be it Christian, be it scientific materialistic naturalism and indeed the Salafi school of Islam as real worldviews which don't quite meet the cut and what I mean by that is in regards to how they perceive and engage with the human intellect. Some of those worldviews they might not necessarily deny the value of the intellect outright but what we're stating is that they might as well deny the value of the intellect. It's essentially like a person claiming that there's no such thing as a human language and that words have no meaning but in making that very claim he utilizes human words and expects me to understand the meaning of what he's saying. This is the same way we view such deficient worldviews. World views which might claim to respect the intellect but in reality the very thing they testify to means that we cannot by any means trust the human intellect whatsoever. Tonight I wanted to take a slightly different approach and go on to say what I wanted to go on to say that we need to make sure that our method in calling people to Islam is perfectly consistent with the way in which we believe in our theology. Now that might sound confusing to some of you. What I mean by this is if I'm giving amazing rational evidence for people to come to my religion I need to make sure that my approach to that is consistent. As we said one of the very ways we can interrogate a worldview to see if it stands the test or challenge of being a legitimate and authentic worldview is to ask the question is it consistent with itself and is it consistent internally as well as externally. That is to say if one part of it is entirely inconsistent with another part of it then we know that such a thing is not from Allah Azza wa Jal. Why? Because Allah Azza wa Jal states in the Holy Qur'an for those who are doubting in the Holy Prophet ﷺ that if they were in confusion and doubt in regards to the Qur'an they could look at it and they would see that there is no contradictions there is no inconsistency in it. Why? Because Allah Azza wa Jal is not the offer of confusion or inconsistency. So we need to make sure there is no confusion or inconsistency in anything. Tonight I want to highlight a particular method in demonstrating the existence of Allah Azza wa Jal that is utilized by Muslims of all theological schools and I'm going to demonstrate that if this approach is correct then we have to doubt the very school of many of the proponents who put forward this argument. Allow me to cite this transcript of this particular proof given and we shall see Insha'Allah to Allah where I'm heading with this. And I quote The speaker begins by thanking the organization or the Muslim Student Society for inviting him and he states the following It is common to hear in such debates one side or the other throwing the burden of proof against the other side to give a context he's debating an atheist demanding one side or the other prove that God exists or doesn't exist however I'm going to break this unhelpful tradition and posit that both sides do not have the burden of proof but a burden of explanation. The explanation they must both provide is why does reality exist or why does the universe exist? What is necessary about the universe's existence and what caused it? By universe I do not mean just the observable universe but the actual meaning of the word universe which refers to all things and it is this stark reality that faces both atheists and theists that imposes itself upon all and requires an answer. He states If God does not exist then he must have been at some point an imagined theory in the minds of mankind but if he does exist then he wasn't created by man but created the entire universe and our conception of him must have arose from our thinking or revelation about him as the only possible rational postulate that can explain reality and the existence of the universe. In this presentation I shall demonstrate that God's existence is the only possible explanation for the existence of reality. So far so good and in fact everything he does state in this presentation I agree with entirely and it's a very sound argument. He states In order to demonstrate the necessity of his existence we must first consider how we can know anything or hold beliefs about anything and I like this because it ties into again can we trust the intellect The human brain and its non-physical counterpart the human mind permits us to conceptualize our observations about reality and come to conclusions about the things we observe and the things behind the things we observe This is called rationality or just thinking for short It has one simple rule and that rule is Human thought and knowledge should be based on human sensation brackets and not with assumptions or prejudice In addition thinking shows us that reality has two simple but unavoidable rules What are these rules? Number one The necessity of non-contradiction and number two the necessity of causality of finite limited and defined things Our brains being the products of finite reality are designed to operate and understand the reality it is part of The necessity of non-contradiction is evidenced in that things cannot be both contradictory where something cannot have one attribute and exactly contradictory one at the same time Otherwise it wouldn't exist If we were to ever encounter such an observation the thing must not be what we imagine it to be If we were to get the results of an exam we did And it's said that we got 100% of the questions right We could not at the same time get 100% of the questions wrong The earth cannot both be flat and round at the same time And as I say entirely flat or entirely round The necessity of causality of infinite or finite things is evidenced by the fact that finite limited and defined things have defined attributes about them They have a shape size Mass Amount of energy Volume Color and boundaries We must ask a simple question Why do they have these defined attributes? The question Why is the simple with saying what caused it? If you deny causality you deny the word Why? For all limited things they only have two possibilities to explain their existence Either finite things defined or gave themselves these limited attributes or something else externally gave it to them If they existed themselves these limitations then if they gave themselves these limitations rather then this requires them to have created themselves before they even existed which is absurd because it is contradictory The other possibility is that they always existed But if that is the case then this would be that nothing chose or defined for them were limitations If they exist but required nothing else to define them they should be unlimited but the fact they are not unlimited would disprove this The only possibility that remains is that they were formed defined or created by something else whether a person or a natural process Now many of you might not have clocked on or followed where I am heading by citing this particular theological argument and I've stated it's a very beautiful argument it's a very rational argument it's a very sound argument He states How do I know with 100% certainty that this rock was created? Radio-carbon dating only tells us the immediate level of radioactive decay it exhibits Radio-active carbon dating of course is the process of dating something from the natural world and trying to posit a date for when it came about into existence which I have to compare with assumptions based upon what we've observed in other objects We cannot directly observe the history of this rock So how do we know this rock was created? Please focus on this particular point brothers and sisters Well either the rock made itself while it was in a state of nothingness which is contradictory or the rock never made itself and has always existed if that is so Why does it have the mass color shape and other measurements it possesses for if nothing limited it to its size properties and mass and it depended on nothing to give it its limits then it would exist without limits and be unlimited independent of all things and infinite for if something exists and is without limits then it is unlimited the fact that it is not infinite or unlimited but in fact is defined that is to say it has certain shapes features colors and possessed of these limited attributes leads us to the only conclusion possible that it was defined by something else and formed by an external force slash more fundamental components The purpose of science is to explore what finite things exist by either direct observation of visible objects or indirectly through the effect they have on visible objects Science then measures these finite things by comparing them to the human standardized set of finite units like meters, yards, kilograms and seconds Science then explains the cause behind these attributes and the characteristics of these finite and limited things by reference to other finite things Dear viewers I'm going to complete this article after the break Join me shortly after that السلام عليكم Before the break we were of course discussing a particular approach to demonstrating the existence of Allah عز و جل and we were talking about how our worldview needs to be internally consistent and externally consistent with reality It is not making or befitting of a worldview that it should take an approach in order to bring people to it but in order to maintain them within that tradition and worldview it would have to undermine the very thing it used in order to attract people to that very worldview As I was citing this article I was citing this article which is utilized as a theological rational argument to demonstrate the existence of Allah عز و جل and I want to continue citing it إن شاء الله تعالى The speaker whose speech has been transcribed states the following Science is the application of rational thinking on the physical world and also follows the two underlying principles of non-contradiction and causality therefore we see that theories of science live and die by whether or not they contradict experimental evidence as per the law of non-contradiction قazality is also connected to science because science requires that everything we can see including our own sensations of the world were caused by finite objects that produce these sensations whether we use either our eyes to see them or technological enhancements of our eyes like telescopes or microscopes or by mixing them with chemicals that causally change color if they detect something specific Science then measures the limited physical world by comparing it to other limited physical things Mathematics is nothing but a way to express the relationships between quantities and finite things The thing we call the number line is not an actual line but accounting rule that gives us tools to count finite things Science can only detect limited physical things because at best it can only detect limited physical things that interact with the limited physical things we can see However, as a consequence of this as great as science is it cannot swim outside of the fishbowl of the finite and physical universe no matter how much some scientists call their non-scientific speculations about what came before the universe as scientific theories like the theory of a multiverse or claiming that there was nothing that initiated the big bang all pure speculations without evidence and are about as scientific as the Greek god Zeus or the Viking god Thor The nature of this whole argument is a beautiful one and I believe that the speaker involved has successfully demonstrated beyond any shadow physical or rational doubt rather that there is a Creator God and that the Creator God is the most plausible hypothesis to explain the data which he presents of causality and non-contradiction in the world and more importantly the very things that he brought as evidence just to remind you what he brought as evidence because I think it's very necessary for us to do that he stated what he stated the necessity of causality of finite things is evidenced by the fact that limited finite and defined things have defined attributes about them they have shaped size mass amount of energy volume color and boundaries we must ask a simple question why do they have these defined attributes the question why is the simple way of saying what caused it if you deny causality you deny the word why very simple rationality presupposes causality this causality that which we observe in everything we do be it scientific experiments or just general rationality and this rationality leads us to the following for all limited things they only have two possibilities to explain their existence either finite things defined or gave themselves these limited attributes or something else externally gave it to them and he states again that we know Iraq was created why because either Iraq made itself while it was in a state of nothingness which is contradictory or Iraq never made itself and has always existed but if it has always existed why does it have the mass color shape and other measurements that it possesses for if it did exist infinitely then it would not have these limitations very very beautiful point Insha'Allah to Allah where does this tie into what I've been saying over the past few nights allow me to summarize again what the speaker is saying the speaker is saying that we observe that certain things came into existence why because they have limited defined boundaries this table has certain specifics this book possesses certain specifics we all have certain attributes which show that we are not infinite we were brought into existence something gave us these defining attributes but how did we say that certain schools of thought view Allah as وجل again just a quote from this academic Salafi forum مدسقة أحل الحديث we're told by this scholar Haifam Hamdan the position of the Salaf is simply that our great Lord Allah سبحانه وتعالى has a form which is suitable to His Majesty again a form what is a form it's a set of definitions it's a set of boundaries it's something that makes him distinct from something else what does Bessam Zawadi state he states again that just because Allah does not have a body that does not necessitate He does not have a form even Casper of a friendly ghost in the cartoons has a form and yet no body so if our limited minds could imagine this for the creation then what about the Creator if Allah does not have a form then what are we going to look at on the day of judgment the Prophet said we will see Allah as clearly as the moon on a cloudless night how on earth does that happen if Allah has nothing of Himself for us to see so my question is why is it that when it comes to convincing the atheist when it comes to convincing the non-believer in the concept of the deity these Muslims will utilize arguments such as look at the rock look at the clear defined boundaries of the rock and how the rock shows us that it was brought into existence that someone gave it these boundaries and yet now you look at these Muslims here and they're stating that Allah as the word of God also has a form they even specifically point this out by stating even further that we are going to see him on the day of judgment what are we going to see and couldn't this same argument that you've applied to the creation of the rock and therefore the existence of God not also apply to the version of Allah as a وجل that you believe in could we not also say that the color is that people will observe in Allah as a وجل because what are they going to look at they're going to look at a transparent being are they going to be able to see anything these boundaries these definitions that they're going to be looking at who gave him those definitions who gave him those boundaries did he give himself those boundaries and if he gave himself those boundaries why can he be broken up why are we able to see a corporeal being in front of us why is it that your theology contradicts the very methodology you've been using to bring people to the religion now when you look at this question you're going to be told what you're going to be told the same thing that we've mentioned in the previous episodes which is that we as Muslims do not utilize our intellect in this regard rather we affirm what the text says and we affirm so بلا كيفية we take the attribute given to Allah as a وجل in the text and that is the attribute that we affirm and if the text says that he does X if the text says for example that he runs or he jogs things that I have actually cited their scholars are saying in the previous episodes then he jogs and he runs in a way which befits his majesty but we see that this is not a consistent methodology that they utilize and insha'Allah تعالى will come to this more in the next few episodes but dear viewers I want you to remember that we are people of intellect we need to utilize that intellect and any worldview which undermines the intellect and is inconsistent is a worldview which must be rejected before you discuss with anyone before you discuss the issue of Imamah before you discuss any other issue with anybody ask yourself is the worldview I'm discussing one which respects the intellect and until it's demonstrated that it is do not engage in any intellectual discussions because to do so is fruitless discuss the intellect and how we can trust in the intellect dear viewers thank you once more for joining me from the Holy City of Karbala and I look forward to joining you again tomorrow والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته