 وصلاته والسلام على أشف الأنبياء والمرسلين سيدنا ونبينا أبن قاسمي محمد وعلى أهل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المعصومين المبلومين ولعنة الله على الدائهم أجمعين من الآن إلى قيام يوم الدين آمين يا رب العالمين يارب العالمين ونحن أردت لنا أكثر من الأسلحة بشكل أفضل ومن أعلى الأسلحة تحاولنا أن نرى الأمر موجودة بشكل موجودة ونسألنا بأسلحة موجودة بشكل موجودة بشكل موجودة ونرى الأمر موجودة في نظام الملعب لكن نظر at our religion as an entire package, an entire interconnected set and system of beliefs as opposed to just a series of isolated beliefs which should be justified, explained away and thoroughly analysed individually because as we've stated we as human beings have a limited amount of time on our hands because we do have a limited amount of time on our hands and I realise that time is indeed of the essence I have wasted much time trying to give a brief demonstration of how this particular method would work in application in applying it to other worldviews in our engagements with them and yesterday I laid out more of a comprehensive framework as to how we should analyse a person's worldview not necessarily by asking them for a label because at the end of the day a label does very little justice to the individual we speak to a label could mean a thousand and one things and unfortunately today we as Muslims particularly we the Shi'a the followers of the original Islam as was taught by the Holy Prophet Muhammad ﷺ we all know what it's like to be conflated with others who call themselves Muslims that's not to say that every single non-Shia is a bad person but what I mean is that unfortunately Islam receives very negative press in the limelight in today's day and age and so we're not strangers to the need to go beyond merely simple labels and conflating one person who labels himself with one word as the same thing as the other person that labels himself with the same word someone might traditionally say that I lean towards the right wing of politics or that I'm traditionally conservative and depending on what era you belong to that is going to be seen in a particular way likewise someone who said 10 years ago that I'm a liberal it might have had very different connotations to someone that says it today and again depending on what country you're in that would have very different connotations to what it would mean in another country so when we say that I'm a Muslim or I'm a Shi'a these things all have very different connotations depending upon the context so in analyzing world views in asking these bigger questions these major questions which show us how a person's thinking is shaped we're able to go beyond merely looking at the labels but unfortunately in dare I say the time constraints that I'm faced with in the duration of a half an hour live show it's been quite difficult for me to address some of the concerns that the viewers who are following me may have and I was blessed this morning to receive some concerns by a brother who's been following along and so I'd like to address those concerns today insha'Allah to Allah tonight I'd like to address those concerns before we move any further on with the concept of the world view but once we have these out of the way insha'Allah to Allah we will be applying the discussion of world views and starting in a very very basics that is to say we will not be discussing other schools of Islam rather we will be discussing how we build and construct our very own world view but before I do so allow me to just clarify some of these questions which the brother asked and they were as follows the brother was quite concerned over my portrayal of a particular school of thought of the Muslim theological schools which of course is the Salafi or more popularly known as the Wahhabi School of Thought now I don't particularly encourage people to call from Wahhabis because they don't like this title but in theory they are the very thing which is known as Wahhabis by the popular media for the sake of politeness and dare I say etiquette will be referring to them as the Salafi or the Atheri School of Thought from now on insha'Allah to Allah the brother asked me in regards to whether or not my portrayal of the Salafi School of Thought was one which was accurate to the claims that they make for I had stated that the Salafi School of Thought undermines the intellect in its attempts to engage with theology and I had stated this quite categorically I had stated quite categorically that it therefore excludes itself because it doesn't make the cut as it undermines the ability to trust the reason and in doing so reduces itself to an absurd worldview which is not worldview being followed I very much stand by what I said and some might take issue to that due to very same reasons that the brother who contacted me this morning took issues to this particular statement which is that he had seen certain statements attributed to people that we could call giants or very revered figures within the Salafi School of Thought who had stated otherwise and the two that he brought up or the one that he brought up rather but I will increase him by giving him a second name too who says the same thing is of course Ibn Taymiyyah Ibn Taymiyyah has a whole work which is four volumes pertaining to the apparent conflicts between the intellect and textual sources and how we are ought to engage with such apparent conflicts and contradictions of course Ibn Taymiyyah argues that there would never be such a contradiction because the sound intellect would not contradict the textual sources or revealed sources of Islam likewise the second name which I will add to the list of quotations of people who say something similar is his student أمن القيم الجوزي أمن القيم الجوزي in his book سواق المحركة likewise states the same thing he states that the intellect does not or the sound intellect does not contradict the textual sources of Islam so given that they have stated this given that they have made these statements very clear in their works why is it that I have stubbornly misportrayed them in such a way that I have said that they do not believe this the very reason and a very example I gave the brother this morning when I responded to him was that sometimes people might make a claim but for a methodology belies that claim it essentially falsifies and means that whilst they make a claim they don't really believe it so an example of that that we're going to see in شاء الله تعالى throughout the duration of this show is those who claim that they don't believe in a divine superpower and how at times they contradict that very claim in their behavior this phenomenon is what we know as in the English language as cognitive dissonance to hold two apparently contradictory beliefs and I would argue that those who happen to follow the Athery methodology or the Salafi methodology in theology very much fall under this set of adopting two contradictions at the same time the first contradiction or the first belief which contradicts the second I should say to be precise is the belief that they are actually respectful and give a level of position to the human intellect because this claim is laid out particularly by Ibn Taymiyyah in this four volume work and by Ibn al-Qaim and Josie so they do make this claim but then I have argued that the methodology they utilize essentially belies that claim and renders that claim to uselessness allow me to give further analogies if we are to state that we respect the intellect but then we are to suspend the usage of the intellect when it comes to understanding very key doctrines which on the apparent or anti-rational or irrational to use the word for negating rationality then we are not respecting our rationality I have said it before there are three different types of beliefs there are rational beliefs there are irrational beliefs and there are non-rational beliefs it is necessary for me to clarify all of these prior to moving on any further for I believe this is where the area of confusion that the brother fell into was caused rational beliefs are those beliefs which align with human rationality that is to say they are fully aligned with the intellect and nothing contradicts the intellect nor is a stumbling block for the intellect in accepting them now before I move on any further allow me to state this it is very necessary for us to define what the intellect is in order for us to have this conversation Imam Assad has kindly defined the intellect or rather described the intellect may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him as that by which Ar-Rahman is worshipped but this is a description it does not tell us much about the intellect other than it has a key role in our salvation and in our Iman so what would be a good and act description of what the intellect is the intellect is essentially the gift which every human sane individual has been given by Allah and when we look at the very key basic agreed upon principles of the intellect we could say they are the three laws of rationality what are the three basic laws of rationality they are basically number one the law of non-contradiction that something cannot be 100% right and 100% wrong at the same time that one thing cannot be the opposite of the same thing at the same time that makes perfect sense this cannot be a book and the opposite of a book at the same time I cannot be a finite human being but at the same time be an infinite deity these two are contradictions and contradictions never meet at the same point this is the first law which governs the intellect the second law which governs the intellect is known as the law of non-excluded middle which is to basically affirm that something is either a thing or the opposite of that thing and there is no third option so this is either a finite object or it's not a finite object there is no in between option to those two options and so we have essentially eliminated that something is either a thing or it is not a thing there is no third alternative and the last principle which governs the human intellect is of course the law of identity that the thing in front of us is the very thing that it is it is not something else it is these laws which govern the human intellect and allow us to utilize our intellect and allow us to understand the phenomenon around us in using these laws we are able to trust our rationality and in doing so we are able to live functional lives without going crazy on a daily basis dear viewers let's go for a short break and when we get back I will summarize the laws of the intellect and what the intellect is so essentially we are stating before the break that the intellect is the thing which functions three basic rules and every sane human being would agree that these rules are the things which govern the intellect this is what we mean by something to be أقلي or non-أقلي if something goes against these three principles then it is by very necessity non-intellectual it is against reason so for example to me for me to say that is all-powerful but then has limitations would be for me to make an irrational statement allow me to repeat that again something which goes against these very three basic laws of rationality is what we would call irrational that is to say it goes against everything we know due to our rationality so for me to say that is the infinite creator and is all-powerful and was not created but then for me to say that he has limitations and has a form this would be an irrational statement it goes against everything I know rationally and so it would be to contradict my reason it would be unreasonable this is an irrational statement an irrational statement is one which directly clashes with human rationality but we have a third category of beliefs which do not necessarily conflict nor contradict our rationality we call these beliefs non-rational beliefs or some people would call them I personally don't like this term because it's very confusing but super rational or super rational that is to say above rationality these are things which now transcend the laws of rationality but by transcend we do not mean that they are in conflict with the laws of rationality but rather they are beyond the remit and scope of rationality so allow me to give an analogy which I constantly give when a mother gives birth to her newborn baby often you would find that a mother is able to sacrifice herself immediately for that newborn baby but this goes against everything we know about the concept of human love why? because love is not normally something experienced between two people that do not know one another rather love is an expression of a feeling or an emotion which is developed between two people that have a knowledge of one another and an understanding of one another you do not normally find that a man is willing to sacrifice his life and holds someone so dear when he has never met such a person before in his life likewise you would find the same as true of females rather we would be willing to sacrifice ourselves for people like our mothers our sisters our wives our brothers our fathers our grandparents our best friends perhaps why? because we have formed a relationship with such people we know them and we know their value to us maybe very subjective but this is the rational process which goes on in our mind yet a new mother who's just given birth to her baby this willingness and this insistence to be willing to go to the death to protect that baby is not one which makes sense to us rationally speaking it goes against all observable trends and the reason for this is we traditionally understand love to be something which is understood on the basis of our daily interactions so this would be a non-rational belief or another non-rational belief would be our understanding of certain ريبي concepts by ريب I mean in Islamic theology those things which are of the unseen those things which we have never seen before and we know about them merely from being told these things via news so for example the belief in the jinn is not necessarily a rational belief which we would arrive at using the intellect the belief in these unseen beings known as the jinn is not something that you and I would naturally if sitting on a desert island think to ourselves wow there are these unseen beings and they are known as the jinn no because we cannot observe them using our rationality nor can we observe them using the five senses and therefore this would be another non-rational belief that is not to say irrational this is to say non-rational we know about them through our knowledge of receiving information in revelation so these two things must be distinguished and why I say this is because there is a big difference in believing in that which is non-rational in addition to a very rational basis and submitting to those things which are irrational I had already shown and demonstrated in one of the previous episodes that one of the very best arguments for demonstrating the existence of Allah depends upon us utilizing our rationality to know that anything with limitations anything with a distinct set of qualities these qualities which we can see are limited is a created object I know that this rock did not bring itself into existence because it has a certain color and it has a certain dimension did it give itself those dimensions? no because had it been infinite then it would not be finite likewise if I am to believe this in order to exclude the rock from being my creator or being infinitely there I would also have to exclude from my theology the concept of Allah being limited in his shape and his dimensions and yet there are certain theological schools which would tell you that he is limited in his shape and his dimensions this would be the difference between someone affirming that rationality never goes against the revealed text and someone actually applying this case now the brother also asked me but Atharis or Salafis are not the only theological school which are non-sheer that is to say there are other Islamic schools of theology which are not sheer and yet nonetheless believe that we do not have to believe in this literally and we do not have to literally affirm that Allah does have limitations but بلا كيفير or without going into the howness of such my response to such a brother is that is true there are other theological schools which are not sheer and we will be engaging with them when we reach them I did not merely intend to highlight the Salafis from the start but rather I intended to demonstrate that there are certain schools of thoughts within every ideology who don't make the cut for having a long and prolonged discussion with them rather they are excluded from the very start due to the lack of a role that they give to to reason in addition to revelation so now the question comes in very quickly how do I deal with those traditions which tell us not to think about the self of Allah Azawajal the vat of Allah this is very simple to think of the vat of Allah Azawajal would be to involve ourselves thinking of things beyond the scope of time and the vat of Allah Azawajal the essence of Allah Azawajal is something which would be again irrational and non-rational for us to even try to assume things about it we are not claiming that Allah revealed these things and therefore we are going to suspend judgment no, there is a clear cut difference and insha'Allah in the next episode I will also elaborate more upon these differences it is very important to understand these differences because we are not a blind textualist school like others we promote to elevate the status of reason as Imam Al-Sadaq and the other mams have described it it is like the imams and prophets it is a hodja brothers and sisters thank you so much for joining us tonight once more and I pray that I have been able to elaborate upon this topic to the best of my ability if anyone has any further questions I'm at your service and I pray I will be able to answer them thank you for joining us once more from the holy city of Karbala والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته