 Let, insha'Allah, us begin with a very brief exposition of this the rational and The spiritual proofs for the existence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala In terms of a map of what we would like to cover this brief summary is in reality a longer seminar of about maybe four hours or so That's part of the applied seminars of the Sahaba Seminary The seminary has about 32 applied life seminars on different topics This would be the topic of the theme of setting the record straight But there are seven other themes and the idea is that these are intensive I'll meet cha Allah discussions on contentious topics in modernity but we're going to try to extract elements of that seminar only Because we have an hour with one another and then perhaps some questions after Maghrib Salah so We'll be looking at the following a brief discussion of yakin very briefly or certainty and then We will pivot from that to Why is our age and age of so much doubt? What is the Philosophical basis behind that then the idea of do we really need? Any arguments to prove the existence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Do we really need? arguments to do that Then let's look at some rational arguments in brief four of them Many of you might know about these arguments But the brief discussion of these four arguments that are very powerful the first one is probably the most powerful argument for the existence of Allah and Was expounded by our Scholars our scholars of Scholastic theology or kalam and then let's look at the spiritual arguments for the existence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala By select Hikm of the new Ata illa Rahm al-awta'ala Very very moving very powerful very rational spiritual Proofs for the existence of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Then a discussion of how do we lose yakeen and Then how do we inshallah? gain yakeen That inshallah is what we hope we can cover in an hour Select acts aspects of the of the applied learning seminar. We will not go into much depth because of time Time makes it impossible so to begin The rarest and most precious gift that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given human beings Is stated in a hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahbur sallam in which he says Ma nazala fil arad shay'un a qallu min al-yakeen But there has not been revealed to earth or not descended upon earth meaning the inhabitants of earth Anything rarer More precious more rare than yakeen And he says in another text sallallahu alayhi wa sahbur sallam naja awwalu hadhi l-umma bil yakeen with Zuhd the first of this ummah the earliest generations They succeeded and were saved by Yaqeen by their certainty So We have Yaqeen from the text as the rarest gift from Allah Azawajan We also have from the from the text the idea of Yaqeen being That which gives us salvation But that that would save the earliest generations and there are many there are many other beautiful texts on The topic of Yaqeen as well from Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahbur sallam and of course It's easy to make the argument if we ponder. Why is why is Yaqeen so valuable? Why is it so transformative? Because belief in Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala and certainty in that belief is going to mean Belief and certainty in his names and attributes belief and certainty in the arcane of Eman The integrals of faith which is sort of the the context of our existence that I live in a world Where Allah is I live in a world where the angels are I live in a world That is connected to an other world of judgment. I live in a world where Allah has sent Prophets I live in a world where Allah has revealed himself and what he wants of me the context of my existence So if I have Yaqeen, I'm going to have Yaqeen in The environment and the context of my existence and then I'm going to have Yaqeen in the Nbiya I'm going to have Yaqeen in Sayyid al-Nbiya Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam go to have Yaqeen in what he brings I'm going to see every aspect of the shirk as True as real as Beneficial I'm going to take seriously every command of Allah subhanu ta'ala. We're to take Seriously every prohibition of Allah ta'ala. Nay, I will take seriously every mustahab I Would take seriously every makru Nay, I will make everything Either mustahab or farad. I will focus my life On Fundamentally that which Allah loves which are the mandatory acts and which are the mustahab acts That's what he loves If I had Yaqeen Everything else I would strive to leave and avoid because even though it is not Prohibited it's not what he loves and I have Yaqeen So I will live for only what Allah loves I will live in thee in the envelope of Allah subhanu ta'ala's Mahabba It also means hafiqa cum Allah as we saw today that all of the akhlaq all of the akhlaq brought by Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Inna maa bureth tu li utami maa makari maa akhlaq. I was only sent to beautify I was only sent to perfect beautiful virtues and norms of living of conduct Akhlaq. I would take all of those akhlaq seriously if I had Yaqeen and so you can see how having Yaqeen Something that we might say yeah, but can Yaqeen really do it? Yes, it can and it's not something small. It's something great. It's something great grand Yaqeen is ihsan in another way of looking at it. Yaqeen is a level among the levels of ihsan to worship Allah as though I see him And if I don't see him I know have Yaqeen that he sees me and that as we said will transform my entire life and Yaqeen lives as you know not in the mind Where does Yaqeen live? In the heart, in the qalb Yaqeen is a spiritual emotion It's not an idea. We all know what I yaqeen means Certainly, you know what it means to believe in something as though you see it as though you have tasted it as though it is palpable observable As though you are living seeing quote-unquote the divine Meaning Allah is so real to you in every sense. You're so aware of him subhanah in every sense It's like you see him subhanahu wa ta'ala and The place of that is not in the mind because we know we all know what that is Intellectually, I'm discussing it with you intellectually whether I feel that whether I experience that Truly whether I taste that spiritually with my heart. That's a different discourse So knowing something mentally versus experiencing it is very very different and what we're speaking about here The Yaqeen that transforms is that Yaqeen that has resided in my my qalb So Sayyidina Abu Bakr radiallahu ta'ala Was a Siddiq and When the ulema speak about him they said that he didn't he didn't excel the others Upon the opinion that he was the best of the Sahaba, but they are other opinions like say na'ali radiallahu ta'ala as well There's also an opinion among some of the ulema But upon the opinion that he's the best or even if it wasn't the best of the highest and greatest he excelled them not because of The great Proportion of his Salah and he made a lot of Salah Yes, yeah That Shay'ul Makr of your Colby something that penetrated his Colby something that entered his heart of Certainty and he was a Siddiq meaning to testify Sincerely to Allah's existence. That's another way of saying perhaps Yaqeen, but We live in an age of doubt of incredible doubt That has started historically at a certain point in our Modern history you could say and has stretched and stretched and stretched and now we live in the shadow of immense doubt in the divine in The values of the divine in the unseen in general and That affliction that terrible affliction Affected the Muslim world you could say fundamentally after the fall of the Ottoman Khilafat and was exported from the republic and Mustafa Kamal To the rest of the Muslim world And those ulema that lived in that very momentous time like sheikh al-Islam Mustafa Sabri Rahm Allah ta'ala he speaks about the export of that to Egypt for example and what he found in Egypt of immense entrenched secularism even at the ranks of some of the Egyptian elite Olamah and then to the rest of the Muslim world Pakistan and others later on to the extent that this incredible nagging doubt about the constants of our Dean affix us at the level especially of the elite so this philosophy it has many causes of them perhaps Main cause would be philosophy of materialism That only the material exists materialism as a philosophy Only that which is observed Truly exists and has value materialism philosophically and practically Materialism in terms of the way in which we live Muslims and I would say non-Muslims and Muslims That we live practically Though we may not believe philosophically in materialism We may live I may live the life of materialist That is my connection and my awareness to the non-material world is Very very dim It's not real. I don't see it as real You know the wall between between this world and the reib For the early ones was very thin Very thin almost some of them not not even there You know a gaze through this world into the next world. It was very accessible they lived in Their emotions in their mind in their in their hearts as though they saw the The as though they were you know seeing Jannah seeing not and these Ultra super material realities were very true very real. They never doubted them but because of materialism as a Philosophy the idea of all that exists really is matter and what can be experimented upon That generates a practical materialism, which is that I therefore live for a Life of only a body I Live to eat to drink to be entertained to find ways to satisfy my sensual pleasures I Find different ways to entertain myself different ways to satisfy my carnal pleasures more eating more drinking That's the way I live and that's the life of of a materialist That's a life ultimately over hedonist which stems from Unfortunately a break between Me and my ability to interact with the unseen. It's like the density of matter The thickness of the density of matter Bars and veils me from the unseen and my interaction with matter with the world with things and my Attachments essentially my attachments my alaqat might I'll look at my attachments to things are so powerful and strong They firm the foreground of the way. I think the way I feel the way I live Because of those strong attachments Those strong attachments of the nefs or the lower self Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says the alamuna Vahiram in al-hayat in dunya. So we know they know the apparent of the world They know and now we see how true that is how much do we know about? The apparent workings of the world How much do we know what are the things that human beings are able to by Allah's permission? accomplish To innovate not to create but to innovate and to discover and to generate Incredible incredible things Ya alamuna Vahiram in al-hayat in dunya. It's only you know the the face the superficial face of This world and dunya means the lower world if it's something is dunya it means Adjective to mean low close to you, but low because dunya is a lower world It's a lower form of existence It's not a higher form of existence It's the form of existence in which my body resides But where my calb resides where my roh resides is a higher and more noble It's a richer form It's a form of existence that has more dimensions and because it has more dimensions than a 4d world More levels of freedom and more levels of happiness the realm of the calb of the soul and the realm of the of the You feel like sacred aspects of Who I am? Well, um, I mean I hear what you have a fellow so they know You know the world the apparent of the world, but I mean I hear what that which is to come Or that which is beyond the world whom rafilun they don't know anything of that They are heedless of that and therefore very famous Scientists as you know very very famous scientists may know a lot externally of things but in terms of their realities and meanings the deeper meanings and the unification equation of Tauheed Which they are searching for mathematically? They have no idea We are like children kindergarten children when it comes to the higher realities the noble realities the truths behind What exists Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the infinite Subhanahu wa ta'ala to know the infinite You know the Muslim who knows the infinite the simple Muslim Muslima Let's assume uneducated That knows Allah ta'ala That knows the infinite and that loves the infinite that worships infinite Her compared to who? The greatest of the astrophysicists Quote-unquote greatest Who's better? Who's smarter? Who's smarter? Who knows more? Who's richer? Who's safer? Who's better? Who would you want as your neighbor? Who would you want as your mother? Who do you want as your father? Who would you want as your friend? and every realm The simplest mu'min, mu'mina You know and I'm saying this because I have someone in mind very simple You know didn't have an opportunity for education You know my grandmother. I would I would I would I would give anything to live her life If I could live like her and And die in the way that she died If I could give up everything that I know Of secular knowledge I would I would Because of the value the value of someone who knows the divine the infinite subhanahu ta'ala and therefore Do we really need To prove Allah's existence Only because my iman is not strong enough only because I don't have yapi To be very fair but also very direct Yes, it might help. Alhamdulillah. It would help some of us maybe strengthen our iman And those who don't have iman they may bring iman By the rational proofs for Allah subhanahu ta'ala's existence But for example a few days ago was traveling Kasih Muhammad knows him one of the one of the students of the Sahaba online program brother Yelchin and one of the students to be in the seminary is in the left and He said well, what are you sharing of applied learning seminars? And I mentioned at one point probably we'll be doing the rational and spiritual proofs for Allah's existence So he said Is he that distant that he has to be proven Is he that distant that he has to be proven And He's taken that from his other learning of what the alama especially in the spiritual sciences have said regarding this point, but the point being that the mu'min the Muslim mu'mina with iman and of course yakin With yakin. We don't need anything. We've already seen it with our hearts. We already know it with our hearts You will not increase me by giving me a mathematical or rational proof. I know it That's what yakin is but even with iman Do we really know it in some sense because it is part of the fitrah? It is part of the fitrah before My fitrah was bent and warped and changed When Allah subhanahu ta'ala says Him When Allah subhanahu ta'ala Extracted when Allah extracted from us In that plane of souls Beyond this dimension beyond the time as we know it when we were all present in some way In the divine presence and Allah ta'ala extracted from our minzuhuri him In some sense from our genomes could say from our genetics In a modern way the riyata whom everyone to come Everyone to come in that in that world of souls of plane of souls was there was extracted You know from my DNA whatever was to come because it's all written. It's all encoded Allah has encoded it already And a very powerful meaning of his qada and qadar. It's already encoded. That's his control over me subhana Not that it denies me in any sense free will I have free will and I have agency But this is the extent of his power over me. It's all in me. It's all encoded every detail of What I'm going to be I'm going to grow what hair is going to go white and At deeper levels of meaning that's only what we know what about other aspects of encoding Emotionally and otherwise subhana subhana So at that moment Allah ta'ala says elastu bi rabbikum am I not your Lord and We said We said I said you said you said it You said it in your spiritual memory You know if we go beyond the amnesia That comes with being a human you and I said Bala of course We didn't even say naam because of the way which was a less to be a big one to say naam. Actually, that's wrong answer Bala, but of course that to a key that emphasis. Yes You are indeed our Lord so we know that instinctively and in the fitrah in that promodial Essence of who we are that Is an experience we we we experience Allah We read Allah ta'ala signs We receive the Wahi from Rasul Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and we accept it's from Allah ta'ala's Rasul and beloved and all of that confirms what we already know It's meant to confirm what we already know and there's a story of It's it's known in the in the in the study of a key than Calam the old woman and Imam ar-razi When Imam ar-razi was visiting At that point Nisa poor and He was with an entourage of students and you would know imam fakhudin ar-razi Masha'Allah Master in the rational sciences and in the Islamic sciences in general a giant in that field Rahim Allah ta'ala and he was with his entourage of students and Then he passed an old woman and the old woman said who is he she asked one of the students who who is this and They said this is This is ar-razi Who is ar-razi they said he is a scholar and he he has He has jam'a al-fadali. He compiled a thousand proofs Rationally now About the existence of Allah subhanu ta'ala And then she says is he really that great She says if he didn't have a thousand doubts he wouldn't have created a thousand proofs If you didn't have a thousand doubts, you wouldn't have to need a thousand proofs, of course Imam ar-razi Did not have a thousand doubts. He's compiling it because We have a thousand doubts what the alama need to do is not because they do it because they need to do it They do it because we need it So Imam ar-razi doesn't have a thousand doubts that he's now intellectualizing through the proofs of kalam Nonetheless the point being you see from her from her perspective And then the students told him of that and then his famous words. Allahumma Imanan ka imanil Ajais. Ya Allah give me Iman like the Iman of the old woman of the old woman You know, let me die in that state of Iman that ultimately doesn't have any Don't Because of course you can have a lot of rational knowledge Doesn't mean You don't have any doubt And the nature usually of rational knowledge and argumentation is as always a counterpoint Point counterpoint point counterpoint point counterpoint as Imam al-Ghazali Rahm al-Ata'ala says it doesn't lead you to yakeen By itself the rational sciences They're very powerful and very helpful and very important But they don't by themselves lead us to yakeen. So That said we're still going to look at some of the rational proofs and some of the spiritual proofs of Allah subhanahu ta'ala's existence Very very briefly and we're going to look at the link between the two So we've chosen to do the spiritual proofs as well Because of a reason which inshallah hopefully will become apparent and They're both linked anyway The rational proofs actually flow into the spiritual proofs and the spiritual proofs are themselves very very profoundly rational and we will see that essentially the Quran Contains all of them in a nutshell in a non-didactic way. Allah subhanahu ta'ala Some have argued of the ulamas Allah is not proving his existence in the Quran Because that doesn't need to be proven Allah is not proving it in the way in which the rational sciences would do that Allah is mentioning many things about his creation and implicitly the ulamas derived certain proofs and all of them are actually derived if you look here Carefully from the Quran actually But Allah ta'ala is not expending his energy to convince me that he exists subhanahu He is appealing to my fitrah To confirm what I should already know and Telling me many things that if I do Will make my faith stronger There are many things that we do with practice that give us doubt See we're the sources of our own doubt in many ways. We are the doubters We we generate our own doubt by doing things like like what for example Please forgive me I Would not I would not eat or drink in a class again But I think I think I may have to What would be Will be one of the things that make us doubt That we do Excuse me Yeah We disobey Allah ta'ala we commit the loop and When we commit the loop jizaki love it. We are not listening to that love it. I was hoping someone would do that We commit the loop with this obey Allah subhanahu ta'ala and what does that do? It darkens our hearts and When the heart is darkened It can't perceive properly. It's veiled. It's like a mirror that can't reflect and then I can't reflect the realities of the unseen and Then I start to doubt and how did the doubt start not because there was a doubt in reality because I disobeyed Allah ta'ala and that has a Trace and a thought they could leave them been after every them every disobedience has an Impact a residue and that residue darkened my heart and then my heart was dark I couldn't see and because I was blind. I said there was no light But there is light. I just can't see it I'm to blame and much of atheism by the way follows this path Rarely do you ever find Now a pure hearted obedience to Allah Allah loving practicing atheists Often you find those are immersed in something and want to justify their immersion in it Emotional atheism self-serving atheism not rational atheism because they want to continue their life of disobedience And they don't want to be held to any account and any standard and Allah ta'ala speaks about that in the plan very powerful ways So by committing the move You know They say See at them boo Buriedal kuffer that them the disobedience is like the male man of kuffer because after a while of Continuous disobedience, it's going to lead me small sins big sins It's gonna leave me on the path of the biggest sin, which is kuffer. That's often what happens But we may not connect it. We just think about it while he's got a rational objection. Oh a lot's happening inside deep within the the iceberg of the self That psychologically emotionally is justifying So-called ideas and attitudes and philosophy. So the four arguments one is I'm sure you've heard of many of them the contingency argument And the ulama have have discussed They've discussed all of them and actually to be honest our olama have discussed them and then later Western philosophers came like Thomas Aquinas and others and in many cases they pond no problem to take From those who come before you but to attribute to them what you took and and then after a while it becomes now like actually they the Progenitors and originators of these arguments and even some Christian apologists for example one of them, you know He calls when he you know when he when he brings his Contingency argument and he mentions the moment of the Zali he calls them the Persian philosopher The Persian philosopher Because they want to hide the fact that of these powerful rational arguments came from from our Alama and they're part of our legacy. So the contingency argument The they call it the kalam cosmological argument the fine-tuning argument and The mathematical argument and their others and some are stronger than others and some are not very strong That sometimes might be Might be used these would be I think all of them the strongest of the arguments that exist. So from the Quran So let's look at the contingency argument very briefly. So From the Quran Say that Allah ta'ala is one Indivisible Allahu samad everything needs him. He needs nothing. That's the idea of Allah ta'ala's samadiyah Allah ta'ala is completely independent Everything needs him He needs nothing In another text. Yeah, you and Nass and tumul fooqara'u ila Allah Or you who believe or humankind excuse me and tum you are al fooqara you are the needy for Allah You need Allah ta'ala. Well, I will go on you and Hamid and Allah ta'ala is free from all ones Allah ta'ala is self-praising And tumul fooqara and tum al fooqara. You are the truly needy for Allah subhanahu ta'ala. So the argument essentially Says that being existence being is of two types Munkin possible being and wajjim necessary being Okay, Munkin possible being is Being which is everything in the universe that cannot create itself Meaning its being is possible It's possible that it is It's possible that it is Not it didn't create itself All right, it's merely possible to exist. How do we know that at one point? It didn't exist How do at one point it's gonna stop existing? It's merely possible being munkin al wajjur or contingent being We know that because when things pop up You know, whenever I see things I know they didn't at one point exist, right? This water bottle didn't simply exist imagine if it just popped out of thin air and then I said You know, that's how things are They just pop into existence Well, I know that's not how things are Things were not and then they were now Contingent beings cannot give themselves being Right there munkin. They're only possible. It's like the scale is is balance being non-being Right, it's balance Something has to come and do what? Tilt the balance to give it being because rationally and this is now a rational proof of the strongest rational proofs intellectually You're compelled to accept this Meaning this proof is so strong rationally the human rationale the human intellect is forced to accept this argument Necessarily meaning yakinin if you use a rational logical standard Because it's true the premises are true things don't pop into existence right Now the scale is balanced being non-being Something has to come to tilt the scale to being right Now if that not if that contingent thing is prep is is relies on something else So someone made this microphone Right Let's say all the parts of this microphone someone made it or who made that person who made that person So if a contingent thing relies Yes If a contingent thing relies on another contingent thing Fine But that contingent thing needs to rely on another contingent thing. Are you with me? Because it can't bring itself into being it needs something else to bring it into being that thing can either be Contingent or something else which was you know, which we'll look at now, but let's assume. It's a contingent being so let's assume You know, this is actually a very good example a man who's standing For him to stand he needs to lean on someone Are you with me for him to stand he can't stand by himself He needs to he needs to to stay standing he she needs to lean on someone They need to lean on someone as well because they're contingent too They have to and like that everyone is keeping standing existing quote-unquote existing Existing with this metaphor of standing Right, and there's a huge domino of people leaning on one another like that Now what if it continues indefinitely? What if this contingency Continues indefinitely and there's an indefinite line of people leaning on someone else if there's an indefinite infinite contingent chain Will the first one exist because the chain doesn't end it's still characterized by contingency The last person has to be what? Standing firm and leaning on something or leaning on a rock or leaning on something that exists by it by itself Because otherwise the chain would not exist the first man would if it's an infinite Regress of contingent possible beings It won't exist The fact that it exists tells me that at the end of the chain there is a being who's not contingent There's a being whose Being is wajib. It's necessary They're the source of their own being Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala of his very special sifat attributes is wajib al wujud Allah ta'ala is a necessary existence in no way contingent that means no space no time no change It means many things But if I don't premise rationally a wajib al wujud at the end of the chain What I see and I know exists cannot exist. It's merely an illusion Because the contingency doesn't end you see that it's only contingent meaning it's not It's not real. It hasn't formed into existence So this is actually one of the most powerful arguments rationally for the for the Certainty of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's existence. It's a rational argument and the intellect is compelled to accept it The idea of being which we all know exists and contingent being which we all know is contingent We have to premise at the beginning of that chain and Necessary being wajib al wujud and this is one as I said one of the most powerful arguments that the ulama developed Now there are other arguments but We live in a contingent world of time and time is moving very quickly There's the cosmological argument basically the universe it has been proven in science had a cause Scientists cannot hide behind the fact that the universe could be eternal The Big Bang has been affirmed scientific universe was expanding because it's expanding it goes back to a finite point That point must have a cause because everything in the universe has a cause and we know that Rationally intuitively it is axiomatic No, scientists can say this doesn't have a cause it just is No one can say that right and so that universe must have a cause what made the universe and You have to again you must your compelled rationally To premise that there was the beginning of the cause But the universe was the beginning of space and time That cause has to be beyond space and beyond time it has to be and Even if you proved something beyond the finite Singularity that must have a cause and that cause is the cause of space and time and the cause of everything that happens Then there's the fine-tuning argument, which I'm trying to appreciate Experientially because I'm not a scientist in any way shape or form My last the contact with science was probably great 12 or 13 But the universe Operates what's called, you know in quantities and constants. These are the you know the the constants that govern the universe like the gravitational constants like the weak forces and the strong forces these mathematical physical Constants in physics, I guess you'd say physical constants. I suppose they govern the universe to make life possible right and what they found is that These constants like for example the gravitational constant, right? It is so finely tuned All right, the gravitational is so finely tuned to such an Astronomical degree of precision That the slightest most minuscule most astronomical change would make the universe life prohibiting So for example the gravitational constant if it varied In one to the ten of sixty Right one to the ten of sixty is like point Sixty zeros I'm going to do something. Point 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0. And I'm only at 30. Add 30 more and then put a 1. So point 60, 0 is 1. If it changed the slightest, life would not exist. That proves there's a designer. It's so finely tuned. It proves that there is a designer. And I was watching, though it's to a certain extent not relevant for my life, but I was watching Richard Dawkins. And he says, in his own estimation, he says, if there is an argument for God's existence, this is it. And yes, I could be a deist. But then you'd have to prove to me, you know, Isa alaihi salam and other things about Christianity and Islam, which I'm not interested in, but the idea of a God, he goes, if there is an argument, this is it. Because he realizes, actually, and he realizes probably a lot more than he gives off, or he's not realizing enough, that this is compelling for the scientist, compelling to prove there's an incredible astronomical level of fine tuning in the universe, and that it simply cannot have come by chance. We have created everything in proportion, Subhana. Everything is created with the most delicate, the most fine, the most perfect proportion. Let's look at the spiritual proof. We'll skip the mathematical proof. So, what do the Alamana of the heart say? One of them says, Ibn-u-Ata'illah. So with your permission, we'll do this. I really feel we need to cover some of the spiritual proofs and not gloss over them. So those of you, if we need to finish, let's say, ten minutes with your permission, I do that after Maghrib. Is that okay? And then we can delay questions after that. If you like, but if there's anything, because there are aspects of this that are very practically important, like, how do I build Yaqeen? So we have to cover that, but I don't want to skip some of these very powerful spiritual proofs. So, he says, and he was an Alam, Ibn-u-Ata'illah. He was an Alam, a proper scholar and a proper man of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, of insha'Allah the awliya of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in his hikm, in his spiritual wisdoms. He says, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, speaking about, he says, abaa halaka entandura nafiil mukawwanat, Allah ta'ala has allowed you to look and contemplate what is in creation. So you have to follow me now. Allah has permitted you to gaze upon what is in creation. But Allah did not allow you to stop your gaze at them, at created things. Then he says, he quotes an ayah from the Quran. Allah says, say, ponder what is in the heavens. And then he says, subhanahu wa ta'ala, then he says, Ibn-u-Ata'illah, Allah has opened for you the door of understandings. Because he did not say, walam yakul, Allah didn't say, ul-n-duru al-samawa, look at them. Said look through them, didn't say look at them. Because if Allah said look at them, li-alla yadullaka ala wujudil ajram, because if you look at them, it will only point to you to the existence of them, forms. Do you see that? What's he saying? What's he saying? It's very beautiful. It's Allah wa ta'ala. So rational, so meaningful, so moving, basically yes. What they're made, they're created, they're contingent. What is the necessary being who made them and what are his attributes? Look through them, see through them the attributes of the maker. Someone makes a painting. You look at the painting and what you're seeing in the painting or the work of art is what? You also see the attributes of the painter, what he must be like, or even a mathematical equation. You're looking at the mind in some way, the way in which they did the equation or they solved the problem, something about the inventor or the discoverer. In this case, this portrait, this art of existence, what does it show you? That thing, that thing, that thing. What does it show you of maker's nature, names, attributes, beauty, majesty, limitless, infinite, Al-Khalaq, Al-Musawil, the designer, Al-Mubdiyya, the originator, Al-Basit, the expander, Al-Wasi'a, look at the ocean, Al-Wasi'a, the infinitely expansive, and, and, and. So he says, Allah Ta'ala is telling us to look through them, not to stop at matter, not to stop at the firm to see beyond the forms. He says in another hikm. He says, Al-Haqqu laisa bi mahajubin, Allah Ta'ala is Al-Haqq, Allah of His names, Subhana. Al-Haqq is what? The reality, the truth, but the reality, the reality. What is really real? Is a contingent thing real in itself? Is a contingent thing real in itself? Why not? It needs something else to make it exist. It's not real in itself. It is real. It exists. But it's not inherently real. It needs something else to make it be. If that thing was not there, it would not be. It's dependent. And to mul fukhara. You are needy for Allah Azawajal. You need Allah. Every, every atom and subatomic particle needs Allah Azawajal to be. Without His Mashi'a, it would not be. Nothing would be. I would not be. My abilities would not be. My body, my mind, my feelings would not be if He was not. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So, Al-Haqq, the reality, the truth. Laysabi Mahjub. The truth is not veiled from you. Al-Haqq, Laysabi Mahjub. Allah is not hidden from you. Wa innama al-Mahjubu anta anin nathari ilayh. You're veiled from properly seeing Him. You're veiled. Al-Mahjubu anta anin nathari ilayh. Why? Because if lo hajabahu shay'un, if anything veiled Him, if you say Allah is veiled, where is God? Why? Where is God? You know, does God exist? You know? Show me. If you say Allah is veiled, if anything veils Him, if lo hajabahu shay'un, if anything veils Him, la setarahu ma hajabahu. If anything veils Him, then that which veils Him would cover Him. Does that make sense? What would cover Him? Wa lo kanalahu satirun, la kanali wujudihi hasirun. And if something covered Him, it would restrict His being. Because what? It covers you. If something covers you, it limits you, hasir. It limits you in some way. Wa kullu hasirin li shay'in, fahu lahu qahir. And everything that limits you has power over you. Wa hu wa lqahiru foqa ibadih, he quotes the ayah. But He is the overwhelming power over everything. Did you follow the argument? He has power to limit everything. He is Allah, nothing can limit Him. If you say, where is He? You're saying He's covered, He's veiled. If you say that, it has limited Him, that can't be God. Allah must be what name of His, to be Allah. You should know. Allah must be adhaahir, by virtue of being Allah, adhaahir, the apparent, the obvious. He must be, because nothing, think about it, rationally now. Allah knows what some of His ibad, some of the great awliya or alama, what they know experientially of this. But rationally, because how can He be limited by anything? How can He be veiled by anything? How can He not be so obvious, because anything that veils Him limits Him. That which limits Him has power over Him, subhana. So He is adhaahir. If He is adhaahir, then what's the question? The fact that I can't see Him, what does that mean? I can't see Him. The fault is me. The fault is my eye, the eye of my heart. If the eye has a disease and can't see, we don't blame the nobles. We blame the eye. And if the eye can't see, we fix the eye. We don't deny the nobles. That's irrational. If you define God as He must be defined, you have to define Him subhana as adhaahir. Meaning He is fully manifest. The next question which is the more important one is, why can't I see? Why can't I see? That's the question we should be asking, not does God exist. Now what's wrong with me? Why can't I see God? If God is God, and we define Him as God, and I think everyone would, then these flow almost compellingly. Something that's a bit more sophisticated. Anyway, we'll just do maybe three or four of them, insha'Allah. How can it be conceived that something veils Him? Now He's in full force to explain this concept of Allah's manifestness. He says, how can it be conceived that something veils Him when He is the one who manifests it? I mean He is the one who creates it in the first place. How can it be conceived that something veils Him when He is the one who is manifest through everything? Meaning everything in creation manifests that He made it, because as we know now, it's contingent. So how can anything veil Him when He is the one who is manifest through the nature of everything? The nature is saying, I didn't make myself, I was made, if things could speak, if things could speak, they would be saying what? La ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah. That's what everything would be saying. I didn't make myself, I was made, and everything is pointing to Him. How can it be conceived that something veils Him when He is the one who is manifest in everything? Meaning that everything is a manifestation of His names and attributes. How can it be conceived that something veils Him when He is manifest to everything? Everything knows Him and is in praise and tasbih of Him? Alam ta'ra annallah yusabbihulahu ma fis-samawati wal-arath wal-tairu saafat. Don't you see? Alam ta'ra, don't you know? Don't you see that everything is in tasbih of Him in the heavens and the earth? So how can it be concealed when everything recognizes Him and is manifesting His existence through praise? How can it be conceived that something veils Him when He was the manifest before the existence of anything? And He continues, and continues, and continues with this line of spiritual, rational argument that other commentators who came later, like Ibn Abbad would say, if this was the only hikm in his work, that's enough, because he makes you, I think it was Ibn Abbad, another commentator on the hikm, famous Alam as well, who said that he brings you through this to Yaqeen, that in this spiritual, rational language, he takes you to Yaqeen. It's just a very beautiful hikmah that deserves probably a lot more study and pondering, most importantly. And the last hikmah, for us, no ashraqa laka nuru Yaqeen. If the light of certainty would shine from you, if my Qalb would light up and illuminate with the light of certainty, you would see the hereafter so near that you would not have to go to it. If the light of Yaqeen manifests in your heart and you had that Yaqeen, and it manifested with this nur of Yaqeen, like Yaqeen is a nur, nur allows you to do what? To see that which you couldn't see before. So suddenly this nur of Yaqeen, like a son of Yaqeen, bonds, you could say, in your heart and it lights up with a special light, not regular light, special light, not even, you know, gamma rays, beyond rays, spiritual rays, they illuminate reality such that you would see the hereafter so near, you don't have to even go to it. It's so close. You hear me? Because going to something means it's far away, right, it's distant. And then he says, and you would see the beauties of the world, those things that are contingent and needy. But because we don't have that sight of Yaqeen, we see them as real and certain and permanent. While I have seen the beauty of the world, you would see all the beauties, all the beauties of the world, that I find beautiful, all of them, suddenly with the light of Yaqeen, everything that is beautiful in the dunya is now clothed and eclipsed in extinction. Because I would see it as needy, contingent, doesn't subsist by itself, it's not permanent, it's fleeting, it's only there because he willed it to be. I would see every beauty in the world cloaked in an eclipse of extinction. So those are some of thee, of the hikmah, what do you think, beautiful, aren't they? Imagine, you know, from what gives one iman as a student of ilm is to see the likes of this from our lema, to see this is who they were, this is who Allah chose to protect his deen, the likes of Imam Al-Razi and the likes of this alem, Rabbani ibn Atta illa. This gives you Yaqeen, when you see them and when you live with them and if Allah gives us a chance to interact with some of his special ibad, our teachers, that develops one of the most powerful ways of Yaqeen, one of the most powerful ways of Yaqeen in Allah and in his Rasul, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, now, simply this, we discussed it, the source of Yaqeen is the qalb, the heart, right? Because he said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that in the body, inna fil jasadi mudgha, in the body there is a piece of flesh, the same entity, there is an entity. If it's good, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, all the body is good, and if it's bad, corrupt, all the body is bad, that is the spiritual heart, this could not be more explicit, that everything about me is rectified when my heart is rectified, it's clean, it's purified, it's adorned with beautiful attributes, it's purged of its ugliness and its disease, and that's why the field of tazkiatunna, the purification of the nafs, has always been at the center of the Islamic sciences, in addition to the other sciences, it's always been that way, except in postcolonial times, where we've forgotten much of that, for many reasons political and otherwise, but the idea of having a healthy heart, a healthy mirror, to reflect, to see, to know, because the heart is like a mirror, therefore the cleaner the mirror, the stronger the reflection, the more the yakin, because I see the world as it is, I see the nobles as they are, they're not inverted, the convexities, the concavities in the mirror do not distort the nobles, I see it as it is, and that's only because the mirror is cleaned, and the mirror needs to be cleaned, the qalb needs to be cleansed through tazkiat, a process of tazkiat, or ihsan, and because the qalb is the seed of how I know, how I feel, experience how I will, when it is not clean, purified, that is often the result of doubts, shakr, and often the result of doubts about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's existence, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions this very powerfully in the Qur'an, and of course the heart is not cleaned because of the impact of the nafs, if we had more time we would explore this more, the lower self, and the drives of the lower self, the ideological drives, the ahwa, and the sensual drives, the shahawat, the sensual drives, they suffocate the qalb when they're out of balance, some drives must be, I'm a human, but when they're excessive, those shahawat they suffocate the qalb, when my ideological, when my philosophical ideas are in contrast with Allah's sharaq, that also suffocates the heart, so Allah ta'ala says, speaking about this deeper incentive, this deeper driver, Allah ta'ala says, when they are on the ocean, sailing on the ocean, when they're on the sea, they're calling upon Allah with sincerity, utmost sincerity, why? Why do you think psychologically human beings do that? You're on the sea, it's not like taking a yacht, just sailing along the shore, you're in the midst of the sea, there is no land, there's only horizon everywhere you look, and you're very vulnerable, and you're very scared, even the season of them, and at any time the winds could come, the waves could shift, the currents could take you, it's very, very God inspiring to be on the sea in the sense, especially in those days, right? So now they're calling, they're in complete ihlas, and then Allah saves them, ilal barri on land, idahum yushrikun salli, they reject him, liyakfuru bimaa aateena hum, waliyatama ta'u fa sofa ya'alamoon, of the ulamaa that saw this, some of my teachers, hafidhum Allah, that conveyed it to us, that other ulamaa actually didn't see even, Allah ta'ala gave them abaraka in terms of this, because the Qur'an is limitless, why do they suddenly reject him when they get to land, liyakfuru so that in order that they can reject what he gave them, so what Allah gave them, now they can use their atheism to say he didn't give me this, and why would I want to do that, why would I want to reject and not acknowledge what Allah gave me, waliyatama ta'u so I can continue to enjoy life in the way that I want, because I want to lead a life of sin, I want to lead a life of freedom of my lower self, I don't want to acknowledge I've got a responsibility to be grateful to Allah, I don't want to acknowledge God gave me that, God gave me that, God gave me that, I don't want to do that, and I don't want to feel guilty when I sin, when I disobey Him and I know it's wrong, I don't want to feel guilty and then have to say staghfirullah, I want to just continue living the life I want, and so when I'm on the sea and I'm fearful and afraid and very aware of my neediness and poverty and indigence, I'm a great slave, and when I get to land, liyakfiru now in order, I reject Allah in order to be ungrateful, waliyatama ta'u and in order to continue to enjoy, without having any moral responsibility or accountability, and that's very powerful psychological dimension of atheism, maybe there are some atheists that are genuine rational atheists, and if they are and they're seekers of truth, Allah will guide them, Allah will always guide one who has sincerity, if someone has sidq with Allah, even though they're not Muslim, Allah will guide them, for sure, but many are simply atheists in this sense, there's no reason, there's no true reason, it's just this, I want to live this style of life and I don't want to be encumbered by this thing that I have to acknowledge called the Divine, and then I have to live in the way the Divine wants and I have to give up all of my privileges, give up all of my pleasures, I don't want to do that, and so I reject Him, and that very powerfully in this ayah is conveyed. So how is Yaqeen lost, Hamdou we seem to have time, did the adhan go? It's going down, okay, let's continue until the adhan is called, unless if you have time, shall we stop? Okay, how is Yaqeen lost? Now you know, one way, practically, what did we say? Do you know, any time I disobey Allah ta'ala, any time Allah says, do something and I don't, any time Allah ta'ala says don't do something and I do, any time that happens, I'm affecting the equilibrium, transparency of my heart, and then I'm not going to be able to see properly, or feel properly, or will properly, right? Allah ta'ala says, this rust has covered their hearts based on what they used to do, to work. On that day, they will be veiled from their Lord, that day hereafter, but it could be that day these days. I keep doing what is wrong till my heart gets covered, and on that day, that appointed day in this world, I'm now veiled from Allah, and when I'm veiled from Allah, what do I express? There is no God, where is this God? My family was Muslim, they made me Muslim, I started to doubt, I'm a free thinker, I started to use logic, I started to interrogate my culture, my traditions that chained me, and they constricted me and I wanted to be free, and I met other people and they told me to be free. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, all talk, talk, talk, in reality, this is what it is. This obedience to Allah, many times, that caused that. We stop there, insha'Allah. We continue, insha'Allah. I think we ended at the ways that Yaqeen is lost. We said, very importantly, practically speaking, for me, Dhunub, this obedience of Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala, as one of the principle ways in which my heart is clouded and covered, and then I'm not able to see truths and realities and Haqqa'iq, I'm not able to experience them emotionally, I have no access to them with my emotional faculties, and then I don't seek them, and then I may end up justifying that state that I led myself into. Number two, real and virtual sahba. Real sahba and virtual sahba, I think we may have spoken about that before, perhaps in Jumu'ah today, the powerful effects of fellowship, of companionship, of sahba, that we know through the texts of Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that we know through behavioral psychology, socialization, we know that as a truth of development, of personal development, and of personal change, that the people that we are with, we will absorb their values, we will absorb their way of life, we will absorb their deen in a matter of time, and only a matter of time. None of us are immune in that sense to the impacts on others. Texts of Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam are prolific on this issue. Someone, a human person is with the one they love, with, with, with in the Akhirah, we will end up with them in the Akhirah. If we love Firaun, if we love his like, his ilk, we will be with them indeed in the Akhirah, wa liyyadubillah, and we will be with them in Dunya, not only physically but with them, meaning will be their allies, will have a solidarity, intellectual solidarity with them, emotional solidarity, a mental union with them, we'll think like them, we'll frame the way in which we see life as they frame their lives, we are with them because of the powerful impact of love, of that attachment and that connection we have with them. And so one of the ways in which I may lose mayaqeen or may lose even my iman wa liyyadubillah is constant exposure to not rational argumentation but doubts, shubuhaat, specious arguments in the guise of good arguments, how many bad arguments are there clothed in what seems to be the truth. Most human beings, do most human beings think clearly? No, most human beings do not think clearly, very few human beings actually think clearly. And so when we expose ourselves to that sea of public opinion and everyone has an opinion, especially online, everyone is so quick to draw their guns like a gunslinger and give their opinion on every single issue, we are going to be affected if we keep hearing that and we interact with that and we fill our time and it'll begin to inundate our consciousness and all of those specious arguments will take form in our minds and will affect us. And so part of maintaining our yakin is to be careful of what we allow into the gates of our heart, our minds, our eyes, our ears, our tongue, our hands in terms of what we do, what we write, our feet, where we go and so forth. And lastly simply the law of entropy in the sense that the mere passage of time, if we are not making an effort, commensurate with the forces against us, we're going to be losing the battle. In order to repel the negative energies and messaging and propaganda and public relations campaigning against Dean and the values and constants of Dean, to do that I must be making an equal and opposite energy positively speaking by way of i'ilm, beneficial knowledge, not just any i'ilm, but i'ilm nafya, not any i'ilm i'ilm is beneficial, i'ilm can be junk i'ilm for me, it doesn't help me in my relationship with Allah SWT, it only might increase me in stubbornness and in arrogance, but beneficial i'ilm is an energy, positive spiritual energy that fills me up with potential energy to obey Allah Ta'ala, the will of Allah SWT, abundance in remembering Allah SWT and making that a regular habit, mental and heartfelt habit of mine, to be in Allah Ta'ala's remembrance, dua'atu Allah SWT regular diet of dua'at, connecting in sahba with Rasulullah sallallahu ta'ala aleyhi wa aleyhi wa sallam in salawat, salawat in sahba, because he, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam hears, knows, is informed of that, and he responds to me, so i'm in a sahba with him, a sahba of meaning, only Allah knows what that would be in the beyond realm, of course now as Muslims the density of matter, we might bucket that, well the one who created the laws of life created the laws of death, and the one who makes the living here makes those who we think are dead here, and the one who makes the living respond makes the dead quote unquote respond, and death is anything, nothing except a journey into another realm, so to be in sahba with Allah in zikr, to be in sahba with Rasulullah sallallahu ta'ala aleyhi wa aleyhi wa sallam in salawat, to be in muraqabah, to be aware of Allah watching me regularly, constantly, Allah's gaze upon my heart, Allah's gaze upon my mind, Allah's gaze upon my words, and who is Allah in his infinite beauty and majesty subhanam, and to feel that, and to get used to that, and to begin to alhamdulillah screen and filter what i allow into my mind and heart to be the door woman, the soldier at the gate of my heart, to not allow in of feelings of emotions of ideas anything that Allah subhanahu ta'ala does not love to be the security guard that should be my full time vocation, and part time engineer, full time doorman of my heart for Allah subhanahu ta'ala, foot soldier for Allah to protect my heart, and maybe Allah ta'ala will then increase my rank and grade if he loves, if he wants subhanahu ta'ala, so those would be some of the means and ways of developing yakeen practically, essentially as you would have realized hafidakum allah, the field of tazkiyatun nafs, all of what i'm mentioning is really in the realm and field of what we know to be purification of the nafs, that signs that the ulama, our deen has spoken about extensively, and that always was umbilically related to and the rational sciences, amal actually, the ulama when they speak about yakeen, they speak about amal develops yakeen, ibadah develops yakeen, that makes perfect sense right because as i am involved in quality ibadah, my heart is cleansing, when my heart is cleansing i'm developing yakeen, salah is probably one of the most powerful cleanses of the qalb, when i'm in salah and with Allah subhanahu ta'ala in that intimate discourse with Allah, intimate communion with Allah subhanahu ta'ala, i am in the divine presence and i'm drawing from if you like the light of the divine presence subhanahu ta'ala and that has an effect on my qalb and it has an effect on my yakeen, that sense of Allah ta'ala's watchfulness i take outside of salah that concentrated communion with Allah ta'ala and the energies i'm meant to attain that then allows me to survive and to insulate myself from the negative pressures around me and inside of me until the next salah in which i recharge and renourish myself and reconnect with Allah subhanahu ta'ala through another quality salah and so the cycle of cleansing continues through the most beautiful ibadah and miaraj of salah, every salah is a miaraj of my heart to the upper realms with Allah subhanahu ta'ala as it's meant to be so those would be hafidukumullah some of the ways in which practically speaking we can develop yakeen we can safeguard ourselves we can protect those divine values that we are meant to uphold that we can also assist our beloved near and dear ones our children our wives our husbands to be able to alhamdulillah hold on to the constants the constants the unchangeable constants of our deen what we're speaking about here Allah and the integrals of faith and islam they're not variables our deen has variables our deen has aspects that change that must change to preserve welfare but the deen also has constants we must never compromise constants with that inshallah i will take your permission to close the very brief summary of the longer applied learning seminar about god is the spiritual and rational proofs for his existence with your indulgence for five minutes i would like to simply share a very brief presentation about the sahaba seminary and then inshallah we can open up the floor for your reflections comments and even questions inshallah so the seminary in a few minutes inshallah the seminary is the um actually let me just say this the seminary is sort of the final the final um fruit if you like of the sahaba fellowship program in person with sheikh mokhtar maqrawi which ran for three years in istanbul in person one year and then we were needed for another year and we needed for another year and in that sahaba the emphasis was on learning beneficial on practicing what we learned on developing and reforming our akhlaq and of learning by fellowship with our teacher and with one another and then when covet came the program was transformed into an online program as a sort of an experiment can we do it and alhamdulillah it was very successful and so we had a first class of sahaba online class one and then we added we had many students sahaba online two and currently we have essentially one and two and then we decided um just a few months ago to launch a seminary a five-year program that would inshallah combine both online sahaba within person sahaba in istanbul from time to time during the year for those who would like to experience that the seminary was the dream of sheikh mokhtar for 20 years before this fakir went to study in cape town uh south africa um we were reminded to think about our own institute that teaches within the envelope of teskia to nefs with an emphasis on akhlaq and an emphasis and an emphasis on uniting the rational and spiritual sciences so 20 years later uh it appears that sheikh mokhtar would like very much to launch that so this was a dream for 20 years and what follows is merely a brief exposition of what the seminary is so i think you would know most of this anyway with that introduction what is it an institute of higher learning uh essentially three purposes you could say to anchor every muslim in islam's spiritual and rational legacy number two equipment with the knowledge and skills to safely navigate the challenges of modernity meaning practically the challenges of our age we learn not to learn we learn to change to become we learn not to learn uh as an academic exercise we learn to apply and project what we learn on life and third to ensure that whatever we learn we practice uh that whatever we learn we do and that islam is not as you know about being islam is about becoming why because the knowledge we learn must give me an experiential emotional connection of love of hope of fear of longing with allani's rasul sallallahu alaihi wasallam knowledge must not be dry and hollow and brittle it must produce an experiential relationship with allani's rasul sallallahu alaihi wasallam it must transform and reform my akhlaq because my akhlaq the way that my heart my qalb is in reality it's inner face faces akhlaq is the touchstone of my muslimness and my spirituality tasawuf or teskia is all about akhlaq if i don't have akhlaq uh no matter what i say i am not on the path of teskia to nefs and to live a life inshallah with our own principles of what is true freedom and incidentally a much greater wider experience of what freedom is and what happiness is who is a student you are the program was structured in such a way to be very flexible and customizable so anything from if you want four hours a month that's it by one of these learning seminars which we we would offer inshallah once a month if that's all that you wish to do for four hours so be it up to six or seven hours a week and what's in between one could do an hour and a half one course one could do three hours at an advanced elective you could do the learning and fellowship class which is a practical class that adds another hour and a half any or all of the above what does the graduate look like well would have a high spirituality quotient sq inshallah a high iq but the iq falls within the sq meaning to be spiritually aware and sensitive would have a refined character this would be a good student a serious good student inshallah refined akhlaq practices what he or she knows and is able to navigate and travel through modern life and the challenges of modern life with a compass and that compass is a dual compass it has a rational face to it and a spiritual face as well uh who is our founder and mentor sheikhuna muhtar maghrawi um who um we've been learning now with for many many years uh he is as you know i think just as a kind of in um some data uh who does not know sheikh muhtar okay that's interesting that's good to know so sheikh muhtar is um he's he's um he was born in Algeria with most of his life in the united states i met him 20 plus years ago uh he's a scholar that's very well versed in the Islamic sciences in all of them uh he's an astrophysicist he's got his PhD in electrical engineering i have his transcripts um uh they're all they're all uh you know a a's a pluses i graduated magna cum laude in in physics uh probably out of the ulama that i have been very blessed to meet and study with uh many of them um i would say probably the most gifted both spiritually and rationally and a lot of experience in mentoring learning practicing counseling um he was the imam in upstate new york and then plano in florida he's now in istanbul how do we realize our vision four components ilm knowledge practice amal fellowship sahba and applied learning so knowledge is essentially eight modules each has core courses and advanced electives and specialized studies only for arabic students we have the element of practice to practice what we learn gradually and slowly together over the course of the year the importance of fellowship i said both online and in person and applied learning this is an applied learning seminar we have 32 of them that are meant to project what we learn on the issues of the day the example of study streams just be very brief one can be a self-paced student at your own place you could choose the e jazza route or a certificate route by doing the core courses where you could do more uh and do the advanced electives and be an honor student uh here's an example of okay so here are the eight modules that are offered throughout the year in five weeks uh in five week um i guess uh modules test get to mess legal theory and objectives of the law usul ufik and maqasid but with a practical emphasis to learn the aspects well to learn usul ufik to appreciate our scholarship and then to learn it by learning aspects rational aspects of the objectives of the law and axioms of the law to apply in life and where we teach that module is by case studies that deal with issues in life ahmet got a scholarship to do football at american university and he wants to join the nfl should he do that he's young he's impressionable he's somewhat practicing islamically the program at the university is primarily football focused he wants to do academics but perhaps most of his time will be devoted towards football he wants to get into the nfl so now after you've learned aspects of usul ufik and maqasid how would you think through this rationally as mom or dad and then we have other you know 12 or 13 case studies but to teach it in that way the reality of the realities of rasulullah his special islam his special maqam quran tafsir aqida hadith thick politics culture and history here's an example of tezgah what it looks like in those five years you'll see that year one introduction year two at the core courses are more advanced studies year three the spiritual wisdoms of ibn atah illa year four the hearts diseases and cures year five the topic of yakin and the graces of calamity at the advanced elective level which is optional you can see that it gets even deeper into subjects like spiritual mindfulness like the words and poetry of islam scholar sains the evolution of spirituality the spirituality of the self and lastly contentious issues in spirituality an example in hadith which i won't do it's more technical as a science but basically everything i would say this everything that you would learn in an academic program in a postgraduate study of serious islamic studies almost all subjects are included in one way or another here and so the inshallah the intent is the aim is very serious and very broad and very deep in hadith studies when we're looking at orientalism for those who wish you don't have to the methodologies or the methodologies of the muhadithun if that interests you and at the core level essentially everything you need to know foundationally as a muslim by way of islamic aim fellowship as i said briefly it's in line and and also in person we will be allowing and welcoming students to come and visit some of the modules of the year to spend some time in istanbul and attend classes and attend the vicar circles and to travel inshallah with us and to see the history of that beautiful beautiful city and the applied learning seminars there's eight themes and we have 32 of them that fill in these themes growth and productivity setting the record straight which is this one this one falls under that theme it's about the existence of god family and youth education in history society technology art and aesthetics yes poetry for example and art what happened to the islam in monana rumi for example is one of the courses the erasure of islam in rumi's poetry why how did it happen activism and politics yes and travel and nature here's an example of for example just setting the record straight these are the seven courses in that theme new age spiritualism or spirituality the polemics against rasul allah salam and their responses the idea of the kharijite mentality what is it and why is it so dangerous perennialism a critique of perennialism god is the place of the weak hadith in islam a very systematic study of that and the idea of for example under setting the record straight in terms of amal we would have a class fellowship and practice in which we would learn together to incorporate a daily routine over ibadah step by step by step so that over the course of the year i can build up a habit of let's say morning and evening at khar and we learn to practice that together at khar after salam dua for example a regular dua acts of service that's part of the word giving sadaqa part of the word so a regular program over ibadah we also have what's called sitting still sessions where we learn to sit still in ibadah and learn to still our minds our bodies and to focus our hearts and minds in ibadah if you like guided meditation properly defined and then a remembrance with sheikh muhtar every week uh those are some of the teachers and sheikh muhtar is the is the senior founder and teacher and that's it jizakumullahu khairan if you want any information we have the prospectus available as you would say prospectai and and the and the flyers forgive me now your questions whether on this topic or whether on um the topic of the existence of of the divine bismillah can you see this one yeah okay can you hear okay yeah very good so um you know how to say it without calling prayer you say that bear witness that you know a lot and you bear witness that so bearing witness is you know you gotta be typically present sometimes you know that's how you get to be a witness but i guess it all comes down to your feeling that you have your feeling in your mind that's how you're bearing witness without seeing and bearing witness to the public yes jizakumullahu khairan the idea of shahada so even before the adhan the calima of shahada you know the word of testimony is la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulallah we call that the shahada or to testify right literally to testify shahada you shahidu means to see to observe to testify to something and yes we use that in the physical sense like a mushahid is an eyewitness right a shahada is also a witness that you have let's say graduated you get a shahada meaning someone now in a more metaphorical sense witnesses or testifies that you are competent so you get a shahada a certificate that's also you know uh linguistically in arabic allowed a certificate the idea of affirming affirming so it has this material dimension but it also has an intellectual dimension in the case of a certificate you know those uh the ones who issued the certificate didn't watch me take the exam all of them watch me study watch me get they testified in that sense that yes i passed the exams and i'm eligible to be an engineer for example it also has a spiritual meaning of testify the spiritual meaning is i'm testifying with my heart yes my mind intellectually but my heart my heart testifies and when the heart testifies it's like the heart is seeing quote unquote in the way the heart can see like when you i see the truth what does that mean i see the truth yeah i see it it means i i witness it i know it i'm certain of it not that i see it with necessarily my eyes so this idea of shahada at an intellectual level shahada at a spiritual level so when we speak about shahada in the ultimate level it's my heart sees the truth of a noble it sees it it knows it meaning it knows it with your team and there are different levels of knowing the ulamas say the different you know there's a type of you when i know something and by description the example they like to give is honey let's say i've never experienced honey and someone describes honey that's one level of of knowing you describe it and of course you can describe it very elaborately you know the chemical components the viscosity the liquidity you know you can be very precise but i only know it by description that's any secondly you bring me honey now that's a ziyada that's an increase in my knowing it's a different that's now now i'm witnessing it with my eyes see the first one was a mental witnessing now i witness it i look at it i uh i play with it i spoon it up i observe it i smell it i touch it right then what do you think i do as the third level of knowledge i taste it i taste it so the ulamas say that like that there's different levels of my e-man corresponding to levels of increasing certainty and yakin i know something i know it i have imam in it but then i know it and then i taste it so they call it though the ulamas of tasawuf what they call it they call it though the heart tastes it experiences a reality and that experience of the reality because the heart is also a faculty of cognition it's a locus of cognition of understanding of experience of seeing with the lens of the heart that's a type of knowing that's very very powerful and that's yakin so i see with my heart that's what the muaddin is saying it's really beautiful where would you find this level of beauty in any dean the muaddin who's calling you to adhan which hands down istanbul is king probably over the entire muslim world not only that but the every muaddin allahu akbar have you been have you heard every muaddin is selected may Allah bless them for his voice and everyone is a pleasure to listen to there is not one of them that doesn't call you your heart emotionally to come and pray that's the intent and rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam chose the muaddin like that for a not just anyone gives adhan there's a reason of who you choose to give adhan and so he selected special people to give adhan because of the effects of what that adhan is meant to produce adhan is meant to make you want to go to salat not you know hope the muaddin just finishes please please finish please no that's the opposite effect it's to come to salat to be a hujjah against the khalq so the muaddin you know from that high place of course in the minaret well loudspeakers but from the heavens is calling right ashhadu don't you see no matter what you're involved in how engrossed you are in whatever you're doing at that moment don't you see that only Allah is truly al haq don't you see the veracity of rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam calm now that you saw how can you not come to salat now that you saw you know shahada how can you not come to success allahu akbar Allah is greater than everything it's like Allah is greater dot dot dot you fill in the dot because it's not Allah al akbar but Allah is the greatest actually Allah is great for dot dot dot there's an ellipsis at the end of that you fill in at that moment you feel sad you feel down absorbed in this absorbed in that can't feel like you can do it Allah is greater you fill in at that moment what is great for you and remember Allah is greater and that's how he ends and then of course the mu'min the muslim you just have to respond the adhan could be we could we could reflect on the adhan and the beauty of the adhan in the meanings of the adhan subhanallah but at the very least alhamdulillah the idea of witnessing afirakullah any of the sisters the right okay that's a good point did you hear that the fine tuning argument i'm going to try to summarize it you you um please please do correct me the fine tuning argument is very powerful argument for the existence of god meaning those very fine tune constants that govern the laws and forces of the universe so how do we reconcile those now these fine tune laws that are done in a way to make life permissible and not prohibiting how do you reconcile that with the idea of miracles which are the breaking of natural laws well um in one way is because they're both Allah's laws so Allah creates that law and Allah subhanahu ta'ala decides to suspend that law right to begin with this idea the law by itself is a creation of Allah they're not they're the laws of Allah in nature they're not the laws of nature they're the laws of Allah in nature and so rationally it is possible that the law can be suspended there can be another law that supersedes that that's rationally possible why does Allah do that because when a messenger comes he is a human he makes a claim what's the claim i speak on behalf of god he makes a claim it's a very serious claim i speak on behalf of god and he's human now people might say prove it i mean anyone can make that claim prove it so the margin that comes rationally for this what happens she says okay i'll prove to you i'm the prophet of god i will do exactly this in this way at this time that which is an impossibility in the natural world and it happens exactly the way in which he says the natural law is suspended in the way that he says his claim therefore is true or false rationally speaking true and then through the muadjiza the nubuwa is established through the muadjiza the suspension of the natural law which can only take place by who the creator of the natural law and so his claim of being a representative of the divine is now established rationally by the suspension of the natural law and that's essentially the idea of why is there a muadjiza that breaks natural law because of the the logical rational proof of the claim of prophethood by a prophet and that's how Allah does it to show that yeah he is human but he is my representative because i change laws for him in the way that he said would be done and it came true and therefore it gives it gives those who have doubts about the prophethood or messengerhood it firms them in their faith that yes he does speak on behalf of god because that's a claim that must be tested other people tested in other ways they see the akhlaq of someone like there were many that saw rasulullah some says and said that's not the face of a liar because of who they were with their fitrah with their mind with their soul that was enough of a hujja he has to be a rasul and then the idea of prophecies as well he prophesizes something that could not have been known in that detail except if it came from someone who spoke on behalf of the divine who has knowledge of the future so those breaking of the natural laws as it were are for the purposes of uh of affirming nubu and risara hafidhikillah ism the contingent argument i believe the simulation there so specifically if there's this chain of contingent beings how do we know there's no contingent beings between us i don't know what simulation theory is oh it's the theory that we are in a computer simulation this was created by some really intelligent beings and right now we're in a computer simulation so the question is how do we know for god's sake even if god does exist right one of his creation could have created even if god exists one of his creations could have created us how does that follow that doesn't necessarily follow for me in a simulation in a computer simulation so but if we hypothesize a computer simulation we can hypothesize anything so what if that quick question right so i'm just saying that it's how do we know we're not in a simulation well because the contingency says that every contingent thing must have a non contingent being to give it being so how would simulation theory for example discount that it wouldn't uh my question is okay so so basically at so basically at that point the contingency argument holds right and we're looking at a necessary being that is not contingent right now the next question would be how do we know we are in a simulation i don't know we're not in this or what is a simulation you know define a simulation is this could be defined existence as a simulation okay so then it's a simulation i mean this existence i i think we have to define or what is simulation what do you mean by a simulation uh i don't know you know so how about the fact so is this understanding correct that in Islam we believe that this revelation connected to god that we have is a direct connection so the masses are done but then directly by god too much which would mean that there are no intervening contingency between us and god there are no so okay so now so the issue of simulation is a separate issue now now we're not speaking about the idea of simulation we're speaking about how do we know there are no contingent beings between us and god but that's a different question theoretically than the idea of simulation right except that those beings could have created us in a simulation that was sort of like that but what you're right they don't have right i mean you promised a necessary being the contingent theory holds and it depends on what we mean by simulation if we call life a simulation yes we're in a simulation you call life uh you know unless now you're saying in your definition of simulation you you're you're you're you're you're defining it in some normative way like a matrix like the matrix that's a different discussion but you know if you define life as a simulation yeah if you define it as that uh but what would be definition of the simulation so let's let's let's put that aside and the idea of you know could there be a contingent being between me and god well there is i mean i have mom and dad they made me you know my existence is contingent upon you know the union of a man and a woman to make me they are the quote unquote cause of my existence right if we speak about cause in the scientific material sense the effective material cause of me being brought into this world i was not brought into this world by simply the divine command kuhn and then i simply existed like say na adama alaihi salam i came through a chain of causes they are in that sense quote unquote intermediaries always between me and god because he has chosen to create uh in this way through apparent cause and effect however however the cause of mom and dad's union to make me was not inherent in them they did not have the inherent power to generate me it was a conferred power in reality the mover the causer the musabbab if you like the cause was allah subhanahu ta'ala but he created natural laws or for example a union between a man and a woman to produce uh to fertilize an egg to make me so i i do come i i do come into existence through a series of contingent causes yes but the question is who gives those causes their effective cause allah subhanahu ta'ala and so the idea of me being caused by contingencies that's a given that's operating at the dimension of science but in the dimension of islamic reality aqida allah is the effective cause of every causes mashallah who can mamaa lam yasha lam yakun allah whatever he wills will be whatever he doesn't will will not be he willed that cause he willed it to be like that he willed it for me to come through procreation he willed it for me to develop in these stages so they are immediate causes between me and god if we speak about the natural world are the immediate causes between me and god in the spiritual sense yes i mean i learnt what is good through rasool allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam does rasool allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam benefit me yes of course he benefits me but is he the source of benefit no but of course i'm benefited by rasool allah yes he benefits yes he he benefits me even in the bar azah realm he benefits me by his dua for example i am benefited by the immediate causes that allah ta'ala creates even at the spiritual realm nonetheless no muslim would ever believe that rasool allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam is the effective inherent power to produce the cause no one would believe that shirk only allah only allah has that power has that ability but life is you know you could say that these immediate causes are the laws of allah nature by you know biologically molecular biology biology physics science chemistry those are all allah's immediate causes in the natural world that he decides how things are run but all within his will never exiting his will subhanahu ta'ala so i would say probably that will allah knows best yeah bless you okay the best approach well i'm stumped the best approach i don't know the best approach maybe some possible approaches would be well i can say this as personal experience um that i found that when we study the quran within a certain envelope it produces uh greater fruits and the envelope of studying the quran is the envelope in which everything in dean is studied which is my experiential relationship with allah subhanahu ta'ala and i mean by that is simply this allah created me this finite flawed human being and allah gave me a gift of a kalb of a spiritual heart and that spiritual heart was gifted to me to know the infinite how miraculous is that to know the infinite to experience the infinite at my human level of course and to love and to work to attain the love of the infinite who does not need anything allah created me to know him and he doesn't need me and doesn't need what i do and everything i do in relation to his infinite beauty and majesty is nothing but yet he created me to know him and he says that if i grow to know him and if i love him and worship him and recognize him he will give me his hub love the infinite hub love of the divide what could be a more noble quest for life what could be the most noble purpose of existence that could compare to a relationship with infinite beauty and majesty now in this life allah ta'ala sends me letters of guidance truly love letters from the divine and i don't mean that in that very sheepish way hub love letters from the divine to help me grow to help me know to help me change to help me realize his infinite beauty and majesty to show me his names and attributes and this collection of letters this collection of of messages of of care and solicitude and kindness and caring infinitely at every measure and metric teach me the context of my existence my environment the arkan of iman teach me the map of my existence the arkan of islam teach me how to live the thick the law at the family level at the personal level at the sacred level at the secular level at the business level all because i meant to in the laws and purposes and prohibitions i meant to connect my heart to him more and more and more and more and to reach by the end of my life the door of nearness to the divine in this life before the next this is the purpose of the intelligent wise human being and the intelligent wise muslim to reach the door of nearness to the divine with my heart before akhira now my son and daughter that's what you were made for that's what you were made for you the pearl the pearl between both worlds this world and the transcendent world you're the pearl that is meant to go beyond the angelic world and the pearl that is meant to be his steward in the material world this is the quran so understand the quran and everything in it in this frame in this context in this spiritual relational context between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala understand it as for your benefit Allah doesn't need me he doesn't need to give me laws because he wants me to follow them he doesn't need the laws he doesn't need my obedience he doesn't need my disobedience i harm him nothing whether i'm good or bad and so when i engage with the quran i am engaging with my mind and my heart and my senses together in this context and that's how i read the quran so i read it as you know a miracle to me and then as i read the quran and as i study it and as i help my children to study it as a parent i am manifesting the beautiful akhlaq that i want them to be that is i am in this description maybe is a sort of a representation of the akhlaq the teacher or the parent needs to have with their child that is when i teach my child the quran i am a seeker of Allah like him i'm on my journey like him and we're walking together it's not didactic you know it's not instructional you know it's not a relationship of of of if you like rigidity but it's a it's it's a walk if you like hand in hand in general i would say that perhaps that might be one approach by which we would endure to our loved ones the quran so they love to read it they love to ponder its meanings they love they love to dive into the seas of the quran one of my family members hafidallah every day she spends about probably an hour with the quran and she reads and she ponders and ponders and ponders and um and it's such an act of love and there's so much richness that she draws from the quran in terms of meaning of lessons that pertain to me to my day to my affairs to my life guidance truth and it increases her every reading in more and more certainty and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows that if we approach the quran with that Siddq that sincerity a Siddq safe on the earth they say Siddq is Allah's sword on earth it's not placed on anything except that it severs it meaning that anything is possible with sincerity so that sincerity of purpose to come to the quran with my full mind and heart in loving submission to hear what my most loving lord has to say to me that will produce inshallah much fruit and a relationship with the quran uh that will um will will animate my mind my heart to continue with the quran I will know who I am just some maybe one idea uh many of you parents would probably know better more experience that's one way perhaps uh that we can help ourselves engage with the quran ourselves first I must engage with the quran before I want my children to engage with the quran they must see in me uh a love and a devotion to the quran they mustn't see in me simply someone that barks in order to do or don't and that I'm not the example of truly someone who loves the quran and I can't fake it I can't fake it to my child do with the quran without me being a lover and a beloved of the quran when I'm that then it's easy when I'm walking the path then Allah facilitates so much from my hands but from him I become the mediating agent as an instrument of his khayr for my children that I have to be a vessel of that khayr first the one who doesn't have can't give the one who doesn't have can't give if I don't have it I can't dispose of it if I don't have a love for the quran how can I give it to my children if I don't have a love for Rasulullah sallam how can I give it to my children you know the children will see through that hypocrisy that petty hypocrisy and it will produce a cognitive dissonance in their minds which will confuse them even more so I have to be the change I have to be the change I want to see in my children I have to be the change I want to see in my children and then Allah gives barakah and facilitates because of siddq siddq the first initializing condition of any change personal and at the level of the family and brother level is siddq without that initializing energy and burst of sincerity with the heart everything is everything is very difficult with it everything is remarkably easy O Allah the lower self the lower self the nafs is what is necessary for life to be a test otherwise who would be angels if we didn't have a nafs if I didn't have a nafs I'd be an angel I would have no internal negative drives and impulses and then there would be no test there would be no meaning to reward and punishment there would be no meaning to accountability there would be no meaning to jannah or jannah so my nafs is the field of my test but it's also the field of my purification see there's this incredible duality Allah is laqif Allah ta'ala is subtle that is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brings about incredible change in ways that you would never think that are inconceivable imperceptible beautiful change through means that are you would say impossible so the nafs is the obstacle but it's the field at the same time it's the obstacle I have to confront it the what the olama teach us is the nafs is the idol within it's the idol within and it is actually the worst enemy because shaitan became because shaitan became shaitan because of shaitan's nafs that means the nafs is worse than shaitan shaitan only prays on my nafs he became shaitan because of his nafs so that proves the danger of the nafs so it is the idol you know the idol within that must not be worshiped and obeyed at the same time that it's the obstacle and the wall it's the field of light it's the field of travel to the divine I have to trip I have to go beyond my nafs to enter into Allah ta'ala's nearness so some of the olama like sheikh abul qadr el jilani Allah ta'ala says you know he says one step when you've arrived one step and you've arrived at Allah's nearness what's the step beyond the nafs traverse the nafs a step beyond the nafs and you have arrived at Allah's nearness because your nafs would then be we'll always have a nafs but it would be balanced we're human we don't annihilate our nafs we don't eradicate our nafs we'll always have a nafs the idea is for the nafs its drives excessiveness to be stilled to be brought into quiescence for it to be balanced so it's not driving me motivating me inciting me to evil it's not if you like my lord and master so that idea of the nafs is both the challenge of the field of training because as I grow and I'm traversing the field of my nafs I'm learning about what I need to change oh that's interesting look at that look at what lurks inside of me have to fix that and then as I grow whoa look at that I didn't know that existed that feeling that propensity that disease of the heart that delusion that self admiration that ostentation that stingiless that miserliness that anger that love for leadership that love and attachment to the things of the world so as I'm traveling the field of my nafs uh you could say like the netherworld of my nafs right I'm learning about myself and as I go through it alhamdulillah with Allah ta'ala's grace and with struggle and with the tools of teskiah to nafs I'm traversing it until when I reach the furthest boundary of my nafs and I have gone beyond it there lies the shore of nearness to the divine now I'm at the sea of just metaphorically because some of the u'allama mentioned this especially shekh abul qar ad-dillahi allah then I flown with my heart and landed at the sea of the shores of nearness to Allah ta'ala but for the bird in me to fly I have to unshackle myself from the attachments the non-shari attachments specifically the haram attachments the makroh attachments of my nafs I have to de-chain bit by bit by bit to then fly to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so I have to have that at the same time it's the challenge but it's the field of training and the field of journey and Allah joins between the two in a very beautiful way it must be that way to come to me must be that way and that's how I willed it to be for a wisdom for my wisdom and then as we are journeying through the nafs we need to be increasing in our feelings of shall we say contingency turning to Allah even more the more I know me the more opportunity for me to know him the more I know me the more I should be turning to him the more I find in me oh my god yeah Allah help me that is a chance to increase my neediness of him and that neediness says Allah ta'ala when he describes in the Quran Zaka and the categories of Zaka Zaka is only for those who are poor in the legal sense but Zaka in the metaphorical sense God's gifts are for those who express their need to him they're only for those if I think to the divine I'm fine would he give me anything what if I say ya Allah I need you know ya Allah I need ya Aziz uh mellid the lead oh exalted one who is for the humiliated one besides you yeah oh you have all power who is it for the weak besides you yeah oh the self-enriched one who is it for the poor one except you the more I increase in need the faster the journey and that's why the ulamas say the fastest door to Allah ta'ala they say that the quickest way to Allah ta'ala is the door of bankruptcy and the greatest veil to Allah ta'ala is the veil of I I am I can it's me the fastest door is a door of need the fastest door is a door realizing my contingency and so that's how they all connect these spiritual and rational proofs they converge on the idea of need and contingency