 In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, it's an honor to be here. I spoke at this function like four years ago or something. Does anyone remember that? Oh, you're going to get the same jokes, so you probably already did get the same joke. All right, well, I've been tasked to talk about some of the similarities between the Abrahamic tradition. So I want to begin by saying what I believe to be the heart of the Abrahamic tradition. What is the heart? What is the essence of it? So interestingly, there was a rabbi in the second century named Helel, and someone ascribed this to Akiva, where he was asked by his students, what is the essence of the Torah? And he responded with three verses, or Pesuchim, from the Torah. The first verse was Deuteronomy 6.4, which sounds like this in Hebrew, Shema Israel Adonai Ilohenu Adonai Ekhad, right? Here are Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And he continued Deuteronomy 6.5, with all thy heart, soul, and strength, and then Leviticus 1918, and love your neighbor as yourself. And he said the rest is commentary, which is not to say it's not important. They're all important, but he's giving you the essence. And what's very interesting about this is that in Mark 12.29, a scribe comes to Jesus, peace be upon him, and when we say the names of prophets, Muslims usually say, well they should say, sometimes we forget, peace be upon him. And Jesus in Arabic is Isa, a very common name amongst Muslim boys, that a scribe comes to Jesus, peace be upon him, and says, what is the greatest commandment, right? The greatest commandment. And interestingly, Jesus, he quotes these three verses, that God is Ekhad, right? Ekhad, or in Arabic, Ahad. The word Ekhad is in the Quran, right? There's a chapter in the Quran, which is three verses long. It's an entire chapter, and it's only three verses. And it's called, it has many names. One of the names is a Tauhid, which means the chapter of oneness or unity. It's also called Al-Assas, which means like the foundation of theology. The first verse says, say he is God, who is Ahad, who is one and only. So Jesus repeats these verses, right? Exactly what Akiva or Hilal, whoever it's a scribe to, repeats a century or so later. Now one of the greatest scholars of Islam was a man named Fahradin Ar-Razi. Everyone say it, now I'm just joking. We can call him Imam Ar-Razi, Imam Ar-Razi. And he was a Persian scholar. And I heard Persian scholars are like the best, by the way. They're number one in my book anyway. I'm Persian, and we prefer Persian over Iranian, by the way. Anyway, so he said, I'm just kidding. He said, they asked him, what is Islam? And he said, to quote him, he said, He said, Which means, Islam is worship and adoration of the Creator, and showing mercy towards His creation. Adoration of the Creator, mercy towards His creation. And the word in Arabic for mercy is And the word for the womb of a mother in Arabic is So there's a very interesting analogy or connection here that Muslim exegetes like to point out. That the purest type of love on earth is probably the love of a mother for her child. But one of the names of God in the Quran is Which means like the indiscriminately compassionate. And then Which means like more focused love, Intimately loving, indiscriminately compassionate, and intimately loving. So these are the two most common names or attributes of God in the Quran. So there's this whole issue, do Muslims and Christians and Jews worship the same God? This is a big question, going around churches and the God's universities in America. Do they worship the same God? Now interestingly there was a group of, there was an early Christian movement in the end of the first century, early second century called Marcianism. That claimed that the Jewish God was a different God. The Jewish God was an inferior God and that Christ is the real God. And they were vehemently anti-Jewish, right? And they were popular in Rome for some time. It was a little trendy at the time, like the trend, you know, And when I was in middle school, kids used to wear their clothes backwards. It was trendy, I never did it, only once. But then, you know, proto-Orthodox scholars amongst the Christians vehemently opposed them and said, no, it's not a different God, it's the same God, it's the God of Abraham. It's the God of Abraham. But we theologize a little differently. We have a different concept of God. Right? So that's what it is. So Muslims and Christians and Jews, I believe, worship the same God. If you read the Quran, it's very clear, even a cursory glance at the Quran. It's very clear that the Quran, the author of the Quran, is claiming to be the same God who revealed the Torah to Moses and the Gospel to Jesus and the Psalms to David. At least that's the claim of the Quran. So in principle, we worship the same God. In principle. Now we theologize differently. And that's okay. We don't all have to agree. Right? If you look at the nitty-gritty of the theology. So there was a professor at, whoa. That was strange. It just threw me off. No. There was a professor at Wheaton College, Dr. Hawkins, who was terminated from her position because she dared to say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Right? So again, in principle, it is the same God. So we have that in common. Now Muslims also believe in various prophets and you'll have to let me know because I tend to zone out and talk forever. At least that's what my wife says. So you have to let me know when I'm going over the time. How much time do I have, by the way? All part figure. 610. Oh, great. Okay. So it's actually quite surprising for a lot of non-Muslims to learn that Muslims actually believe in biblical prophets. Now the final prophet, according to Muslims, was a man named Muhammad. And the name Muhammad means the most praised. And he was born in Mecca, which is today called Saudi Arabia. And he was a descendant. Uh-oh. Everyone point and laugh. Just kidding. He was a descendant of Abraham through Ishmael. Right? So he's in that tradition. A lot of times people think of Islam. They think, oh, that's just a very foreign exotic. You know, that's the religion on Mars, right? Well, that's the religion of Arabs. The most populous Muslim country is Indonesia. People don't realize that. Malaysia, Indonesia. Because Muslims everywhere, one out of five human beings identifies as a Muslim. Whether they're good Muslim or not, that's a different issue. But one out of five human beings identifies as a Muslim. Right? Sunni orthodoxy is probably the largest denomination in the world. So there's a lot of Muslims around. Right? So the prophet Muhammad is believed to have been the final true prophet of Abraham. It doesn't mean that prophetic figures won't come after him. Prophetic type figures. But Muslims have a very precise definition of a prophet, of a Nabi. And so does, you know, someone like Maimonides. A Nabi Ahmed. What is a true prophet? It's very precise. But there are prophetic figures to come after. There are saintly figures to come after. Like Martin Luther King and so on and so on. And many of these types of people. Mother Teresa. So, but as far as prophet sent with scripture, the door is closed with Muhammad. Now other prophets that the Quran mentions are Noah. Noah is considered to be a prophet according to the Quran. And Abraham, obviously we mentioned that. And Ishmael and Isaac are considered prophets. Jacob is considered a prophet. And Joseph. And Moses. And Aaron. And there's some opinions about the mother of, the biological mother of Moses. Yahobed, who's called Umm Musa, the mother of Moses in the Quran. There's some difference of opinion also about Sarah and Hagar and even Eve as being prophets. Some of the Muslims, a minority opinion, but as a strong minority opinion, amongst some traditionalists that these are also prophets. They're female prophets. And then Jesus is a prophet according to the Quran. So Muslims believe in Jesus, right? The Quran says about Jesus that he was born from a virgin birth. So the Quran confirms this miracle of Jesus. And the Quran calls him al-Masih, which means ha-Mashiach, which means the Christ. So Muslims believe that Jesus is the true Messiah, right? So this is something that obviously Christians and Muslims have in common, a great commonality, right? What is the role of the Messiah? Well, there's a difference of opinion here, right? So Muslims will say, based on the Quran and the hadith, hadith are statements attributed to the prophet Muhammad. There's different grades of hadith. But the sort of sound hadith corpus, what we gather from that is that Jesus was a prophet. He's not the literal son of God, right? Muslims don't believe that God has literal children in the sense that he physically cohabits with women, produces offspring, or in the sense that anyone shares in his essence in pre-eternality, right? So God is, according to Islamic conception, an absolute unity, one person, who's totally unique, right? And Muslims actually believe that this is the teaching of Christ. Muslims actually go a little further. Some people tell me this is a controversial statement. So I'll preface it by saying some people say it's a controversial statement. That Muslims believe that Jesus was a Muslim. What does Muslim mean? So Muslim is the active participle from which Islam is derived from, right? So for example, a Muslim is a practitioner of Islam. So they're not synonymous. So the question, are you Islam? That doesn't make any sense. That's kind of deep when you think about it, though. Am I Islam? Maybe, I don't know. I gotta think of a deep existential question. So Muslim is to Islam as Christian is to Christianity, right? So a Muslim literally means someone who submits to God, submits to God, and is hoping to achieve peace with his submission. The word Muslim is related to Islam, which is related to Salam, which is the cognate of Shalom, right? So in Jesus, in Luke 24, when he goes to the upper room, he greets his disciples by saying, Ereine Hormin, which is Greek, but he probably said, Shalom alechem. Peace be with you. Peace be upon you, right? So this is how Muslims greet each other. Now Muslims pray five times a day as well. Not all Muslims, at least they should. They should pray five times a day. It's mandated. And Muslims pray by prostrating, putting their heads on the ground, right? Raising the heart above the intellect, right? No matter what we're doing, what we're engaged in, unless it's just impossible. If you're at work, you're in a cubicle. The balance sheet has to wait. Gotta go and pray. If you're in middle of surgery, just surgery, I'm just joking. Somebody once said, what if you're like the Super Bowl and you're the receiver and it's the fourth quarter and there's two minutes left and you're gonna miss your prayer? That's a good question. I don't know about that one. So Muslims, they bow. So if you look at like Genesis 17, when Abraham prayed, he put his head on the ground. In Numbers chapter 20, Moses and Aaron, they washed themselves outside the Tabernacle of Meeting. They went inside the tent and they bowed themselves onto the ground, put their heads on the ground. In Matthew 26, he fell upon his face and did worship. So this is how Muslims pray. So the Muslim claim is that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is not the founder of Islam. That's how it's sort of presented in history books, if you will. That the prophet Muhammad is the final prophet of Islam. He's the final prophet, the seal of the prophets. But all of the prophets in that sense were Muslim. And they worshiped God. And the word for God in Arabic is Allah. And Allah is not, again, it's not a foreign God. So where does the word Allah come from? So the dominant opinion, and I would refer you to Edward Lane, the gold standard of Arabic English lexicons, compendium of all these traditional sources. He says the word Allah begins with the Arabic alif lamb. And these two letters, the cognate of these two letters in Hebrew is alif lamed, e'il. Right? So e'il in Hebrew means God. So you have these names in Hebrew called theophoric names. Names that have the name of God within them, like gavri e'il. E'il means God. The power of God, Gabriel. Nika'il. Who is like God? The name Michael is a rhetorical question. The name Michael is a rhetorical question. Who is like God? Hey Michael, who is like God? Elijah. Right? So usually the word e'il appears in the Hebrew Bible in the plural or quite often as elohim. Right? Elohim. Baruch shith barah elohim et Hashemayim. In the beginning, God, plural, created the heavens and the earth. Right? So most rabbis or Judaic authorities and all Muslim authorities, maybe even all Judaic authorities will say that this is not a plural of numbers. This is rather a, what's known as the pluralist magistatis. Right? A royal plural. This is a royal plural because God is speaking from a position of magnificence, an exalted position. So he uses a plural. Right? So elohim. So the word in Arabic is Allah. Now in Syriac, Syriac is the language of Jesus. Right? Syriac is a late Aramaic. Sometimes called Christian Aramaic. I told the story last time about the first female governor of Texas. I'll tell it again. Sorry. I tend to repeat. So there's this anecdotal story attributed to her. Right? But apparently in Texas, in the early 20th century, there was a big debate about should we teach Texas school children Spanish or not? And the governor of Texas, Miriam Ferguson, was there. And at some point during the proceedings, she picked up the King James Version of the Bible. And she said, if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for our children. And it's a problem. Because I would say that most people are becoming more, here goes my, I'm on my soapbox now. People are becoming more and more illiterate. Because people don't know how to read. It's a culture of tweets. They can't hold the thought to really get the meaning out of a book. You need to spend days with it. But people don't have patience. Because, you know, when they read things on the internet, four or five line paragraphs, just give you the gist of it. Right? So someone opened up the Bible. Matthew, who's that? Hmm. Let's try this again. First Corinthians? Okay. Let's go watch a movie. Let's watch some movie about the Bible. Right? Well, let's go watch Exodus, Gods and Kings. That's accurate, right? Right? Noah, let's watch that. The Gospel according to Mel Gibson should be okay. Maybe, maybe not. So there's a problem is that people need to engage with religious scholarship. Right? That is very, very important. So anyway, Jesus spoke Syriac, which is a Semitic language that actually sounds a lot like Arabic. Aramaic. Yeah. Aramaic is Syriac. It's a dialect of Aramaic. It's like Daniel's in Aramaic. There's some books in the Old Testament that are written in Aramaic. So that was a spoken language, Syriac. The spoken language of the populace in Palestine at the time, Palestine, Israel at the time of Christ. The language of the synagogue Liturgy was Hebrew. But Jesus was also Galilean. So he had this sort of, there was an accent. You can tell he was Galilean. Right? That's when Peter was in Jerusalem and he opened his mouth. It's like someone going to California and saying, I parked my car outside. Like, whoa, Boston Urban. There's 23 dialects of English, American English apparently. That's called Boston Urban. I can't do it very well. Sorry, I'm not good at that. Thank you. Yes. So if you heard, for example, the Lord's Prayer in Syriac. Right? There's something called Saja in Arabic where the end of the line is rhyming. And you totally miss it in English. Right? Like in Arabic. That's called Saja. There's a rhyme to it. I told my high school students that study comparative theology. I say, these prophets, they're, they're rapping. But the lyrics are clean and they're wholesome. But it's, it's like spoken word. That's what it is. You know, so Jesus, you know, the New Testament, the originals are in Greek. Right? So scholars in the fourth century, Christian scholars, they translated the Greek originals into Syriac, back into the language of Christ. And they came up with something called the Peshitha. Right? Which replaced Tashin's Dea Tesseron, his gospel harmony, which was still very, very popular in Middle Eastern churches, by the way, in the Arabian Peninsula. Anyway, so in Mark, Jesus says in Syriac, he says, He says the hour is at hand, or the hour has been fulfilled. The hour has been fulfilled. The kingdom of Allah is at hand. So the word that Christ himself used for God was Allah. Right? So it's important that we make these linguistic connections because we're not all that different, you know? We're children of Abraham. And Abraham's a patriarch of Judeo-Christian Islamic tradition. Now, so Islam has five pillars that govern practice. You've heard probably the five pillars of Islam. The first pillar is called witnessing. Here we go. All right. I will. Let me check. Okay. The first pillar is called a shahada, or witnessing. So the Muslim bears witness. There is no God but Allah, the God of Abraham, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. And when the Muslim says that Muhammad is the messenger of God, that includes everyone that the prophet Muhammad said is also a messenger of God. So all the prophets I mentioned, Noah and Abraham and Moses and Joshua is considered a prophet. And Isaiah and Jeremiah, all of these prophets. Right? So a Muslim is not considered to be a Muslim, at least credally, if he says, you know, I believe in all the prophets, but I don't know about Elijah. Then he's not considered. I don't know why you pick Elijah. He was a great prophet anyway. He's called Elias in the Quran. And then the second pillar is the prayer. So Muslims pray five times a day at different times. Right? And you know, there are people who are traveling. You can combine prayers. You can shorten prayers. People who are sick. There's obviously leeway for children. Don't have to pray. The elderly, the sick. Okay. And then we have a mandatory payment of charity to the less fortunate. People that are living at poverty line. And the way that Muslims interpret that is this is not a gift I'm giving to the poor. This is literally theirs. Right? I'm holding on to a right of theirs. I need to discharge of it. It doesn't belong to me. If you have excess wealth, you give 2.5% of the excess wealth to the poor and charity. And then Muslims will fast during the month of Ramadan, which is a 30 day fast or 29 days. There's big moon fighting, moon siding fights, moon fighting. That's a better term for it. 29 or 30 days from dawn till dusk. And it's in the summer because Ramadan, you know, because Muslims follow lunar calendar. Right? At least for religious rites. So Ramadan always falls back 11 days. So when I was an undergraduate, Ramadan was in December. And being the college student I was, I would wake up at, oh, 1 PM. Fast for about three hours. I wasn't even hungry. And then forced myself to eat some top ramen noodles. And that was my Ramadan. But now it's like in July. And I have kids. And I have to go to work. So I don't sleep after the morning prayer usually. So, but, you know, the first few days are difficult, but you get used to it. So the point of fasting is to sort of take the focus of the sort of the physicality of things. The food, right? One must be more observant about what one looks at, what one does with their speech, even controlling their thoughts. It's a training regimen. So the purpose is to focus on the inward, the spiritual. Right? Not thinking about food. You're going to think about something else. Right? You'll be amazed how many times people a day think about food. There's a whole lot of free time that's going to be freed up in your mind. Not eating. What shall I think about? Yes. And then the fifth pillar is the pilgrimage to Mecca. And this, again, is only for Muslims who can afford to do so. Going to Mecca is kind of expensive now. But so people that cannot afford it are excused. Then the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he said that, you know, on the day of judgment, people will have mountains of good deeds that they never did. And they will say, oh my Lord, I never did these things. And then God will respond. But you intended them. And here's something else that a lot of people don't know about Islam. In Islam, people are saved by grace. It's not from deeds. Right? There was a deviant group of Muslims, deviant from the perspective of Sunni Muslims, called the Mu'atazila, or the rationalist, who did believe in sort of a tit for tat, sort of computational weighing of deeds. So God becomes this huge cosmic calculator in the sky. Right? So they constrain God's agency and mercy. But this is not the sort of normative. And again, these are sort of bad words in the academy. But I'm going to use them here. That's not the normative or the orthodox. Yes, I can get away with it. Orthodox position. In other words, the vast majority of Muslims don't believe that. The vast majority of Muslims believe that salvation is through grace. Salvation is through grace. But Muslims don't believe they have personal assurance of paradise. There's no personal assurance. Not even for the martyr. There's no personal assurance. No one has it. So the Prophet Muhammad, he said, wear the two sandals of hope and fear. Hope and fear. In other words, be balanced between the two. Don't have so much hope in God that you start becoming lax on your good deeds. You know, I'm just going to kick back. I'm beloved of God. I'm going to paradise. Hey, why don't you do something about these people being oppressed or what's going on over here? No, I'm cool. What's the point? I'm going to paradise. I'm going to be chilling on couches. And then being filled with so much fear that you start, what? You start despairing of God's mercy. Both positions are incorrect. You start despairing of God's mercy. The Imam here, God bless him. He recited a verse that says, La Taqnatu Me Rahmatillah. And this la or lo in Hebrew is prohibitive. You shall not despair of God's mercy ever. Never despair of God's mercy. And there's a lot of stories that the Prophet Muhammad related demonstrating God's mercy and his grace. One of them, for example, he said, God, he called two men out of hell. Two men were in hell. He called them out. So they come walking towards God. Now God isn't located in space. Right? God is transcendent of space-time and mature reality. This is just sort of a teaching moment. So he calls two men out of hell. And then God says to them, Okay, go back to hell. One man turns around reluctantly, starts walking back towards hell, but is kind of looking over his shoulder. He's walking away like, hmm, like that. The other man turns around immediately and sprints towards hell. So the Prophet said that God asked the man, and God knows best. Again, God knows everything. It's a teaching moment. God asked the man, Why do you keep looking back at me? And the man said, You know when you called me out of hell, I was hoping I'd never have to go back. And God said, You're right, go to paradise. And then he told the man who's sprinting towards hell. Why are you sprinting towards hell? And the man said, You know, I disobeyed you my whole life, but this time I really wanted to obey you. He said, good, go to paradise. So salvation is by grace, according to Islam. The good deeds that we do are for the good of the society. And these are commandments of God. And theologians will also say, they're degrees in paradise. So, you know, recalcitrant monotheists, according to Sunni in Shi'i theology, could actually spend some time in hell for purification if they were lax on their good deeds. Right? So we have the five pillars. We have six articles of faith. The six articles of faith. So again, the pillars deal with practice. The articles of faith are dealing with the internal, with belief. It's called iman, belief. Right? Amuna, iman. So the first one is belief in God. So the first pillar was witnessing that there's one God. Well, Satan witnesses there's one God. But to have correct belief about God. Right? It's like, if you look in the New Testament, it's interesting. In the Gospel of John, pisteuo means to believe. But if there's a dative, this is my contention, by the way, if a dative comes after that, it just means sort of to believe at that moment, contingent belief. But if there's ace means into, and then an accusative, it means to totally surrender. Totally surrender. And have submissiveness and acceptance 110%. Right? So the first article of faith is to believe about, to believe in God correctly with total submission, total submissiveness. Not to make bargains with God. Okay God, I'll believe in you if the Falcons win. And they didn't. And it was a total disaster. What happened? What happened? Anyway, I'm still trying to figure it out. Don't have a theory. Anyway. And then that's the first article of faith. Belief in God. Correct belief in God. Right? And total surrender in submission to him. In the heart. Not just on the limbs. You're not just worshiping God physically. You actually believe and love God. Right? And then, the second article of faith is belief in God's prophets or messengers. We talked about some of those messengers. The major prophets are Noah and Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Then belief in God's scriptures. And there are four main scriptures that the Quran mentions. There's many scriptures. By the way, there's many other prophets. The Quran said, we sent a messenger to every nation. So, Muslims have to sort of stop where God stopped. They can't confirm or deny someone who's not named in the Quran. Right? But it's possible that Buddha could have been a prophet. He falls within that time frame. Confucius. Plato. No, probably not Plato. No. Probably not. I don't know. But there's many, many, many prophets. Right? And then the books, the scriptures that the Quran mentions are the Torah revealed to Moses. 40 nights on Sinai. We gave Moses a point for him. 40 nights revealed the Torah to him. Fihudan wa nur. And it is guidance and light. And then you have the Psalms, Zabur. So the Quran says Zabur to Dawud to David. So Muslims don't really know what that is. It seems like the dominant opinion is that it's referring to the Psalms in the Tanakh. What the Christians would call the quote-unquote Old Testament. And then the Quran says that God revealed the Injil. Injil is a Arabic-sized Greek word. The Greek word is Ewangelion. Injil means gospel. The gospel to Jesus. And what is the gospel that Jesus brought? So the Muslim conception is that the gospel of Jesus is to teach the world the love of God, basically. The path to God's love. In Arabic it's called a tariqa. A tariqa. A tariq, a path to God. How to make oneself beloved to God or to realize God's love for that person. How to make oneself beloved to God. Jesus gives us the way. One of my favorite verses in the gospel of John is the last verse of the prologue. No one has at any time seen God. And then it says, A uniquely sanctified divine being with the lower case D, again I would argue. Who is in the bosom of the father. And father again, this is metaphorical as Muslims see it, not literal. Father ab is a rab, your lord, the one who takes care of you. Isaiah, praise. Atah adonai avino, you are the lord, our father. This is a way of speaking to show God's immanence. So the uniquely divinized or sanctified agent of God who is in the bosom of the father. What is bosom, the chest, the heart of the father. He's beloved to the father. That one exegesato, that one exegetes God makes him known to the people. Gives you ma'rifah, intimate knowledge of God. Ki chafatzdi, velozevach. Ki chafatzdi chesad, velozevach. Vadaat ilohim me'oloth, Jesus says. Quoting the book of Hosea, Indeed I require mercy not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Mercy, knowledge of God. This is what Jesus offers. Oh, Tom Fullery. Shenadigans, yes. Balihu. I have three minutes. And then the final scripture is the Quran. Now the dominant opinion, to be fair, the dominant opinion amongst Muslim scholars is that the Torah and the gospel that exist today are not in their pristine form. That there was some sort of falling away when it comes to these texts. With respect to the Torah, the majority opinion is that scribes went in and changed things. With the New Testament, that's also the dominant opinion, although there is an opinion, it's a minority opinion, that both scriptures in their texts are sound and accurate. But then how do we deal with differences, for example, trinitarianism against, compared to Islamic Unitarianism? Well, according to the latter opinion, the text of the New Testament is sound, but the quote-unquote corruption came with post-apostolic proto-Orthodox Christian exigents interpreting a text without using Judaism as their basis. So, in other words, when Jesus says, the father and I are one, the standard trinitarian exegesis to that is, Jesus is speaking about ha'ma usias, oneness of essence. He's claiming to be God here. The Muslim will read something like that, the father and I are one. Father here really means Lord, means God's eminence. Oneness cannot be an ontological oneness, I would never say that, because he's a prophet, he's a messiah of the children of Israel sent by Abraham. So, he means sort of a oneness of intention or a oneness of purpose. And we find verses like this in the Quran. The Quran says, whoever obeys the messenger is obeying God. Not because the messenger is ontologically God or the same as God, essentially, but because the messenger speaks with the authority of God, the authority of God. And maybe there's time for... I wanted to stir up some stuff for the Q&A session. That was the purpose of the final three minutes. Thank you very much. I have to stop talking or else they're going to throw fruit. That's what they do in a mosque. I'm just kidding. What is sharia law? Oh, okay. Not exactly a softballer. Please clear our mind about what we hear in the media about sharia law. Please discuss sharia law. Okay, the word sharia linguistically means a path to cold water. This is what it literally means. Jonathan Brown, professor at Georgetown, he defines sharia as a process of problem-solving. So sharia is, most of the time, translated as Islamic law. And I guess you can translate it like that. So a lot of people have sort of this warped idea about what is sharia? It's kind of one of those words that scare people. A lot of people think it's like some draconian penal system or something that Muslims, you know, Muslims that want to, you know, re-institute corporal punishment in the streets of America or something like that. There was an American senator by the name of Santorum who gave a one-hour lecture on the dangers of sharia, right? And it was an interesting lecture. I disagreed with almost everything he said. But there was a 20-year-old, 21-year-old Muslim who was there who approached him after the lecture. And he said to him, Mr. Santorum, thank you for the lecture. Can you tell me what are the five maqasid of sharia? So what are the five aims of the sharia? So this is like basic, like first grade level. And he just said, you know, I don't know. That's like the equivalent of me doing this like massive deconstructionist critique of Thomas Aquinas' summa theologica. And then somebody, a Christian stands up in the audience and says, excuse me, sir, what are the four gospels? And then I go, John, George, Paul, and Ringo? So sharia is an indispensable part of a Muslim's identity. When a Muslim wakes up and makes his water ablutions or lustrations, that's the old Catholic word, lustrations, and prays, he's following sharia. When a Muslim gives charity, he follows sharia. When a Muslim is fasting, he's following sharia. So it's an indispensable part of a Muslim's identity. So this idea of pushing out sharia is really sort of a veiled way of saying, let's not have any more Muslims because a Muslim without following sharia is not a Muslim. And again, I think it really comes down to the fundamental misunderstanding of what sharia is. Sharia is also extremely vast. There are some immutables that don't change. These are called thawabit in Arabic. But the vast majority of sharia is mutaghayarat. They're variables. They change. So people say, do you believe in the sharia? Who's interpretation? You put five imams in one room. You get 10 different opinions. If you go to the country of my birth, Iran, and obviously these countries are not perfect, but most of the students at the university are female. The majority of physicians are female. And in Iran, and if you ask them, why is this so? They'll say, this is because of the sharia. Now if you go across the border into places in Afghanistan, women do not leave their homes ever. And if you ask them, why are you doing this? They'll say, well, this is a sharia. So you have massive, massive, divergent opinions of what this actually is. You know, you have Jewish communities in America that follow halak al law. That's the equivalent of sharia. They actually almost have the same meaning. Halak means a way of going. Sharia, a way to cold water. But here's something interesting about the sharia. If there's something in the sharia, if a Muslim is living in a non-Muslim majority land, and there's something in Muslim sharia that contradicts the law of that land, he must abandon the sharia and adopt and adhere to the law of that land. And by doing so, he's actually adhering to the sharia. So that's a very important point to make, right? That there can be no conflict between the Constitution of the United States and the sharia. So trying to push out the sharia, right? Which is a concerted effort. And I think, again, most of the people that are sort of proposing this legislation, they don't really know what it is. They think it's, again, you know, like, corporal punishment in the streets, right? That's sort of the war perception of it. But this idea of let's get rid of sharia, that in and of itself is unconstitutional. Because to get rid of sharia means to get rid of Muslims, and that's not America. So the short answer, again, is that, oh, thank you. There isn't one version of sharia. It's not some law code that was codified 1400 years ago, and here it is, take it or leave it. It's a living, dynamic law, just like American law. Things change over time. Many things change over time. That's the point of having a Congress to make laws, propose laws. Things change, right? It used to be in America that, you know, the mentally retarded were sterilized. And now that's not done anymore. Used to be that people owned slaves. So this is very important to understand the nature of societal law is that it's dynamic and changing. And people forget that sometimes. Okay. What would you say? Here's another softball, I guess. Not really. What would you say to a radical Muslim as to how their interpretation of the Quran can be so different? You know what's interesting is if you look into the hadith literature of the prophet, you know, he prophesized that within this ummah, this nation, there's always going to be this fringe element. And he always described them as like foolish little boys, right? And he said that when they recite the Quran, it doesn't pass their throat, meaning it doesn't penetrate their heart, which some scholars interpret as they don't really know what it means, right? So one of my scholars, an imminent sheikh, he said about radical Muslims or these ISIS-type people, he said they know what God said, but they don't know why he said it. And that's all context. I tell my students the first three rules of real estate are location, location, location. The first three rules of dinner is kabab, kabab, kabab. And the first three rules of scriptural hermeneutics in interpretation is context, context, context. So someone doesn't have requisite knowledge. I mean, that's the whole point of the oral law in Judaism is to check someone's interpretation. If somebody can memorize the Torah, you might think, well, this person's a rabbi. Then you ask him something from the Mishnah, he doesn't know, he doesn't have transmissional knowledge. Knowledge has to be transmissional. You have to study with someone who studied with someone who studied with someone who studied with someone who studied with a companion of the prophet who studied with the prophet, someone from God, so transmissional knowledge is very, very important. And this is important because it weeds out these sort of charlatans or freelance sort of scholars who like to give legal rulings and he's an accountant. It's like, what are you doing? Why are you interpreting the Quran in such ways when you don't have requisite knowledge? Don't even understand Arabic. So context is very important. And I'll tell you a story, a quick story. I always tell the story. I have to tell it again. I was at a church one time and we were having a beautiful interfaith dialogue and there's so many questions. Okay, and then I walked out of the church and there was another church there who did not like the idea that I was inside of a church. So they said, what are you doing in a church? You're a Muslim. I said, we're having a dialogue. They said, you're not allowed in a church. And then one of them, it was an older lady, she had a Bible and she came up to me and she said, why did your prophet go into Europe and slaughter the Europeans? What? I don't know. She said, no, it's very well documented. I said, no, I don't know what you're talking about. He never went to Europe. Who's my prophet, Napoleon? And then she said, and then she quoted a verse from the Quran, right, out of context. It's like, attack the unbelievers wherever you find them. There's a verse that says that, you know? So in order for me to sort of, I said, you know, this verse has a context, right? And she said, no, no, no, no, that's what you have to do. You have to kill all unbelievers. So I said to her, do you think that I think that? She said, yeah. I said, should I kill you now or later? And it kind of confused her a little bit. And she said, well, I don't know. I didn't think about that. And so in order to sort of demonstrate her faulty methodology, I quoted a verse from the Bible out of context. So I said, you know, and I quoted a New Testament because you could Old Testament sometimes say, well, you know, that's been abrogated. So New Testament, Luke 1927. And I quoted from the King James Version and it went something like this, those enemies of mine that do not wish me to reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me. And then she went, what hither, slay? What does that mean? So, okay, I got to bring it down a notch here. So I had memorized this verse because my dad wanted to read the Bible. So I gave him like a King James or like an Oxford study Bible and he's like, I don't know what this is, what's going on here? Is this English? So I gave him the Berenstein Bear translation. There's a Bible for children. It's called the Berenstein Bear translation. Very simple English. And the Talmuds were children. So I gave him kind of covered, you know, the bears on the cover. But there's pictures on the inside anyway. So it said something to the effect of, whoever does not want me to be a king over them, cut their throats in my very presence. Luke 1927. And then I expected her to say, oh, you're taking it out of context. And then I would say, ah, very good. Lesson learned. She said it's not in the Bible. So I said, can I see the Bible? She had a Bible. So I showed her the verse and then she looked at the cover like I switched it. And then she closed it and she looked at me and she smiled and she said, I know who you are Satan. Yeah. A former prime minister of Israel said that the only way ISIS will be defeated is if Muslims defeat it. Do you agree? Yes, I agree. If so, how can Muslims defeat it? So here's the thing. A lot of non-Muslims ask me, why aren't people like you out shouting from the hilltops and condemning ISIS? How many people here have Googled Muslims who condemn ISIS? Muslims who condemn ISIS. How many times have you guys Googled that? You'll find a whole... So here's the thing. I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist. I am a little bit. But the media has an agenda. Of course they do. They need ratings. So there's a book out called Refuting ISIS. It's a beautiful book done by a Syrian scholar. It's been translated. There's something called an open letter to Baghdadi. The leader of ISIS is this man who calls himself Baghdadi. And it has 120 signatories of some of the most imminent scholars in the world who have swayed over millions of Muslims, tens of millions of Muslims. You have 700,000 Muslim scholars and students in India who signed a petition who denounced ISIS. So we go into the mosque and there are actually Muslims telling me, stop talking and condemning ISIS so much. Let's talk about something else already. So we're actually tired of hearing it but non-Muslims haven't heard anything. So what's happening? So the prophet again, he said that this group, they were in the Caliphate of Adi, the fourth Caliph. They were amongst the Umayyad dynasty. They were in the Abbasid. They were in the Ottoman Empire. It's always going to be, when you have a religion that's one out of five human beings, it's inevitable that you're going to have this element. If somebody asks a question, I don't know if it's in here, but what percentage of Muslims are radical? It depends on your definition of radical because I'm radical, dude. Because gnarly, because some Muslims believe that if you pray five times a day, you're a radical. But if you mean like ISIS type radical, it's less than 1% of 1%. I've never met in my life a radical Muslim. I've lived in the Middle East. I've traveled all throughout North Africa, Arabian Peninsula. Of course they're out there. Of course. I've met thousands upon thousands of Muslims. I teach all the time. I travel the world, but obviously they're out there. But I think what's happening with, again, the media is that this element is aggrandized oftentimes and make it seem like this is a real threat and that your next door neighbor might be some secret cell who is really trying to kill you. Oh, interesting. So I don't necessarily blame people for having this perception. If all I knew about Islam was what I learned from mainstream media, I don't want to name any names. CNN. Fox. I would probably revile this religion to be perfectly honest with you. I have a PhD in Islam, and when I hear people on these channels talk about Islam, I have no idea what they're talking about. So how do you discern? God be with you. 20,000 people in America become Muslim every year and people say, oh, that's because it's spread by the sword. Okay. I don't know. Really? Do I have a sword? You know, I fired a gun once. I went to a shooting range. It was a Glock 9mm. It was like 20 feet away. I was like 0 for 6, and I just went, okay. That's enough of that. Yeah. What else do I want to say about that? So again, the guiding lesson here is actually speak to Muslims. I know a lot of Muslims who have never spoken to a Christian, but they have a whole lot to say about Christianity, a whole lot to say about Christians. I have a Muslim friend who lives in Iraq, who is the husband of my wife's Arabic teacher. I speak to him through Skype, and he says there's American soldiers on the corner over here. They're going to slaughter all of us. This is his perception of America, and then he tells me, are you safe in America? How many times have they tried to kill you? How many times have... I've never... How many times have you been struck by a Christian? Never. How many times has he insulted you? Once or twice. But so has my cousin. More than that. This is their skewed perception. Okay. Why are men and women separated at prayer? Aha. So according to our... I don't know what to call it, anthropology, God made men and women differently. So Muslims would not affirm gender fluidity. Men and women are different. They think differently. They act differently. They're physically different. There is such a thing called biological gender. And so God made men very visual. So... I don't know if I should use this example, but every man remembers very vividly the first piece of pornography he ever saw. It's right there. Not me, of course. It's right there. You could have been in fifth grade. It's right there. So men are very, very visual. So in the mosque, at least in the mosque, it doesn't mean women are worse than men or something. Women might be actually better than men because women are not distracted in prayer like men are. Men tend to be more distracted in prayer. So during the prayer, men just need to focus completely on the prayer. Right? And not think about anything else. Because the rationale is a woman in genuflection is a distraction. And I agree. I tend to agree with that. So that's the reason for that. And if you go to like an Orthodox synagogue, women are behind the men, or they're up upstairs. So it's the same rationale there as well. Yeah. How does Islam deal with atheism? And is atheism considered shirk? Shirk means idolatry. Well, my understanding of the Quran is that the Quran does not affirm atheism. My understanding of the Quran is that the Quran is saying everybody actually worships something. Whatever takes most priority in your life is what you worship. And it is your God. There's a verse in the Quran that says, Have you seen that certain one who takes his own caprice and desires as his God? Right? So even if somebody says, well, I don't believe in, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a personal God. So the definition of theism, according to the Quran, is whatever takes precedence in your life. That is your God. So people worship wealth. People worship their egos. People, they compare followers on Facebook. I have more followers than you. You know, there's this guy who says, you know, how many believers do I have? You don't talk about, right? The believers. What? Strange. So everyone worships. So with atheism, you know, this idea, and nobody really believes this anymore, but you know, the steady state model that the universe is pre-eternal in the past. Right? That's the definition of shirk or idolatry. So ascribing to nature or the universe a divine quality of essential pre-eternality that only belongs to God. So that's in partnering with God. That's not really no belief in God. You're giving the divine quality to nature. So you're worshiping nature. Or that the universe just sort of caused itself to come out of nothing. The universe came out of nothing, causing itself. So creating something from nothing is what God does, creation ex nihilo. So again, this is not really atheism. This is ascribing a divine quality to the universe itself. And another way of looking at atheism, I mean, atheism technically means belief in a non-personal God. Right? Theism means belief in a personal God. Atheism, non-personal God. And then deism, oftentimes people characterize Islam as being a deistic tradition. Deistic in the sense of like the platonic God or Aristotelian God that God created everything, but God doesn't really care about us. He doesn't reach out to us. He's kind of a absentee landlord. We can do whatever we want. Never collects the rent. So that's not correct. In Islam, God is imminent. He's transcendent in the sense of physicality. So Muslims don't confirm, for example, divine incarnation. God doesn't incarnate. And that's something that Muslims and Jews have in common. And Hosea 11.9, it says Indeed, I am God and not a man. 2319 numbers. God is not a man. God does not dwell in his creation. The first few commandments of Exodus chapter 20, it says, they're theological, that you shall not make unto thyself the image or the likeness of anything in the heavens above or in the oceans below or on the earth. I'm a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the so on and so forth. Right? However, God is also imminent in the sense that his love and mercy are close to us. So there's a verse in the Quran that says We, royal plural, are closer to the human being than his jugular vein, an internal organ. God is very close. God is someone who is personal in Islam. So when we pray, you saw our prayers, those are our canonical prayers. Those are done in Arabic. Right? But the prophet said He said, supplication is the bone marrow or the essence of worship. Is when you isolate yourself, you put your hands up and you speak to God in a language you understand, because most Muslims, I would say, don't understand classical Arabic. Even maybe most Arabs don't understand classical Arabic. But this is what we have to do. This is our canonical prayer. Right? But the essence of prayer is pouring your heart out to God. And this is very important to mention. How much time do I have? It's 10 to 8. 8, 10. Whoa, so these are kind of duplicates here. What is the difference between Sunni and Shi'a? Okay, I'm going to go a little bit quicker here because there's so many questions and then we're going to have an open mic. So, difference between Sunni and Shi'a. The main difference is political theology, as we heard, political theology. This is the origin of the difference. The origin is who succeeds the prophet. The Shi'a position is a descendant of the prophet. Someone from the family of the prophet will be the rightful caliph. Right? The Sunni position is there has to be some sort of mutual consultation, some sort of governing body or oligarchy or democracy. You know, the Quran doesn't mandate any form of government. The Quran does not say, thou shalt have a theocracy or plutocracy or democracy. No, the only thing the Quran says from a political standpoint was وَأَمْرَهُمْ شُرَابَيْنَهُمْ Let their political affairs be conducted with some sort of mutual consultation. So it's not just one man saying, this is what we're going to do and shut your mouths. There's some sort of mutual consultation. So that's the main difference is political theology. Now over time, you do have theological differences that have crystallized, right? However, the vast, vast majority of Sunnis will not anathematize the Shi'a. They won't say, well, they're not Muslim because the theological differences are negligible. For example, the Shi'a, at least the 12er Shi'a, and there's different types of Shi'a. You have the five Imam Shi'a, the seven Imam Shi'a. They're called Ismailis. The five Imams are called the Zaidis. The 12er are the most prominent, Ifna Ashariah, the 12er Imams. They believe that there's 12 descendants of the prophets, of the prophet Muhammad, that are all infallible. Sunnis don't believe that, although Sunnis believe that those Imams are great men. They would only ascribe infallibility to prophets, not to Imams. So there's a difference there. There's also jurisprudential differences, right? So for example, Shi'a, they tend to combine prayers even when they're not traveling, right? And Shi'a also will tend to wipe over their bare feet during the water ablutions, which is not permissible in all four schools of the Sunnis. So there's jurisprudential differences. But even amongst the Sunnis, there are jurisprudential differences. Even within one school of Sunni orthodoxy, like the Hanafi school, there are various opinions, but those opinions are deemed to be negligible. They don't anethematize anyone. There are fringe elements of the Shi'a that do say, oh, these Sunnis are not really Muslims. They have fringe elements from the Sunnis that say these Shi'a are not really Muslims. The ISIS does not discriminate. Everyone is an unbeliever except for us. That's their position. Why do some women wear a hijab and some don't? You would have to, you know, these questions. I hesitate to answer these questions because a sister should really answer this question. But I will say something. And I'm not considering myself gender fluid right now. I would say that all four schools of Islamic law in the Sunni orthodoxy, as well as the Jafari school, which is the Shi'a school, they mandate a dress code. And the dress code is that men and women have to dress modestly. But again, since God made women so beautiful, they have to do a little bit extra. So they have to wear a hijab. They have to cover their hair and their neck. There's different opinion about the face. There's different opinion about the top of the foot. And there's different allowance for the forearm. So some women choose to do it and some don't. And we're not to be judgmental. Islam teaches us that everyone is in a state of sin. Everybody is in a state of sin. The Prophet said, All of the children of Adam are in a state of sin. But the best of those who are in a state of sin are those who make tauba, tshuva, repentance. So we should not judge people by outward appearance. There's a hadith of a man who came into the Prophet's mosque and he walked in and he had a turban on. He had a long beard. He had a mark on his forehead from the excessive prostrations. And the companions of the Prophet saw this man and started singing his praises. And the Prophet looked at him and said, I see something from Satan in his face. There's something satanic in his face. And the companions said, Whoa, what do you mean? And the Prophet asked him. He said, I'm going to ask you a question. Answer it in truth. When you walked into this gathering, did you think you were the best man in this gathering? And he said, Allahumma na'am. He said, yes, I thought I was the best man. So it's extremely important that I didn't get to this in my talk earlier, but I was talking about three dimensions of our religion. One is Islam, the practice aspect. One is Iman, the faith aspect. And the third one is called Ihsan, which is the character or relational, transcendental aspect. And that this is extremely important. And oftentimes this element is lacking amongst Muslims. That good character, right? You know, there's a hadith that says, takhalakubi akhlaqilla. Adorn yourself with the qualities or characteristics of God. Be lordly, be divine. Kunurabbani yin. Just as God is merciful and forbearing, you should mirror that. This is called mystical union. And this is found in Catholic tradition. This is found in Eastern Orthodoxy. This is found in Islam. It's found in Judaism. Islam, Catholic Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, they actually have the same three steps. The first step to mystical union or having, you know, quote-unquote divine character, aligning yourself with God's will is what Catholics call, via purgativa, to purge oneself of vice. This is extremely important, you know, that people have vices. And it's very easy just to be complacent, to be satisfied with oneself because I pray five times a day. I'm good enough. What Imam Ghazali says, those people are formalists. You know, there's too much stock on the outward. Think about Matthew 23. The seven woes. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees. We have to be fair, not all Pharisees. Right? Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Joseph of Arimathea was a Pharisee. Other Pharisees that apparently defended Jesus. Generally speaking to this group, that's hostile to him. You know, he says, you've overlooked the weightier demands of the law. Justice, mercy and good faith. You strain at the net and you swallow the camel. Ye whiteed seplikers on the outside you are clean. On the inside you reek of death. Too much emphasis on the outer, the exoteric, nothing on the esoteric. The Prophet Muhammad said, the weightiest thing on the scales on the day of judgment is good character. Good character. Right? So, via purgativa. The Eastern Orthodox call that catharsis from the Greek to cleanse something. In Islam it's called tahliyah and emptying out. Echinosis to get rid of vice. How do you get rid of vice? So Imam al-Ghazali, who's the Aquinas of Islam, the Maimonides of Islam, Imam al-Ghazali, he says you have to sit with the spiritual masters and you have to habituate your tongue and your heart with God's remembrance. Then you get to the second step, which is called via contemplativa or theoria in Greek or tahliyah. It's when you ornament the lower self with a virtue and Islam's virtue theory is very Aristotelian. It espouses habitus that if you want a good virtue, you have to fake it until you make it. If you want to be patient, you have to pretend when something happens you have to force yourself to be patient until it's woven into your very nature. It really happens after 40 days, according to Muslim ethicists, if you're doing it right. There was a story of, there was a woman at the graveyard in Medina and she was wailing and she was screaming, she was hitting herself, ripping her clothes so the prophet approached her and he said, ya amatallah is wasbiri wa taqi oh maid servant of God be patient and fear God and without even turning around she said, ilayka anni, get away from me. You've never been afflicted like this. This was my son. My son died and the prophet Muhammad buried six of his seven children but there's no rejoinder from him. He's not debating her. So he just goes home and then the companions of the prophet said to her, you know who that was? And she said, who? One of you? And then they said, no, that was the prophet. So she goes and waits by his door and the prophet comes out and then she says, okay, now I'll be patient. And the prophet said innama sobru fi sodom etul ula. He said, true patience is when the affliction first hits. That's true patience. That's what you have to strive for. So, you know, you don't lose your mind, start kicking and punching people, throw things across the room and then you sit down because you're so tired to go, okay, I'll be patient. That's not patience. So this is a training regiment, right? And then the third step, mystical union is called via illuminativa or theosis or tagilia. All right. This is a good question. I'm glad this gentleman brought this question. Do the oldest existing copies of the Quran support the idea that all the texts are the same or are there actual textual differences? There are textual differences. Okay, so if you look, for example, at early manuscripts attributed to companions of the prophet, there are minor differences in those manuscripts. Now, Islamic theologians have theological responses or explanations for those differences. For example, there's a hadith in Bukhari which is a strong book of hadith and some consider it multiply attested that the Quran was actually revealed in seven dialects of Arabic. That the Quran was actually revealed in seven dialects. So the prophet is Qureshi, that's his tribe, but there are numerous other tribes around him who speak a slightly different dialect of Arabic. So in order to facilitate the understanding of many of the Arabs in that region, the prophet was given a dispensation to recite the Quran in their dialect. And sometimes this means changing a word or two. So those manuscripts bear witness to that fact. But I would say generally there's no major difference. I mean, you're not going to come across a new chapter of the Quran that wasn't there. And no, the differences primarily are of orthography, spelling conventions, and a few synonyms here and there, right? And some vowing differences. For example, one recitation, and both of them are valid in prayer. One recitation of the opening Fatiha, which was recited, is Malikiyon Medin, Malikiyon Medin, which means owner of the day of judgment. And others recite that Malikiyon Medin with no alif. So king of the day of judgment, both are considered to be valid recitations. They're slightly different. But overall, I would say the textual integrity of the Quran, and I would even say the Bible itself is better than most people think. At prayer time, do you say the same prayer, or can you make up your own? Well, if you're praying in a congregation, basically you are... Well, again, there's a difference in ha-ha. Basically, you stay quiet, and the Imam will lead the prayer for you. Right? If you're praying by yourself, you recite al-Fatiha, the first chapter of the Quran, and then you'll recite some three or five other verses from the Quran, whatever you want to recite from the Quran. So you have to know a little bit of Quran to recite. It's like a hundred years, almost every Catholic knew some Latin. Right? So Muslims are like that. If you go to like Pakistan or Iran, non-Arab countries, everyone knows a little bit of Arabic because they have to know how to pray. Right? But again, supplication can be done in your own language at any time. You don't need to be in a state of ritual purity. If you're driving your car, if you're laying in bed, supplication is something that you can do at any time. What can you say to those who are terrified of Islam? How do we educate them that Muslims are not all extremists? By putting this program on CNN. But will it happen? I always encourage Muslims to... You know, and I think right now, there's a trend of, dare I say distrust of MSM, of mainstream media. That's why there's a lot of interest in alternative media outlet on the internet, you know. People want to know what's really happening in the world, and they're just not trusting what people like CNN are saying because apparently they got the entire election wrong and people just stupefied by that. And people were saying on these channels, MSNBC and CNN and Fox News, that there's no way possible Trump could win. It's just not possible. So I think people are... That's why if you go to like YouTube, you'll see people who are political commentators, whether they're conservative or liberal, who have thousands and thousands of followers because that's where the news is coming from now. And I think there's also a concerted effort from mainstream media to paint those news outlets as fake news now. No, we're not fake, you're fake. So I just say, you know, let the best... Let the best people win. As for the corruption taught or thought concerning the New Testament, where does this congregation stand with the majority or minority position? I don't think there's an official position of this congregation. I think you'd have to ask individual Muslims. But I would say, because my dissertation was on this, the vast majority of Muslims will say, the Bible, we'll talk about the New Testament, the New Testament is corrupt in its text. The text has changed and it's corrupt beyond repair. That's the dominant opinion. That's not the opinion I follow, by the way. The opinion I follow is I think the Quran is saying, because there's multiple intertextual illusions to the New Testament in the Quran. The Quran calls Jesus the Word of God. No other Christian text that's canonical mentions that. No other gospel that's canonical except the Gospel of John. If you read the Gospel of John on its surface as a Muslim, you'd be like, whoa, this can't be true. The beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Come on, that can't be true, right? I think there's a different way of reading these things. So Imam al-Ghazali, Imam al-Biqai, Fahradin al-Razi, I mean, these are major big-time scholars, they held the opinion that the New Testament text is sound. The text is sound, but the so-called corruption that creeps into Christianity is from post-apostolic exegesis of these texts that viewed these texts through a very Greek lens and introduced these terms that are not biblical, like hama usias, right? That co-substantial, the father and the son are co-substantial. They would say that that's where, that's where, that, that. So very early on, it's very clear that there were two distinct sort of interpretations of the message of Christ. You have Hellenistic Christianity, and you have Judeo-Christianity, and the book of James and Jude represent Judeo-Christianity, and the other books that represent Judeo-Christianity are not in the New Testament because that form of Christianity did not win the day, as it were, and the definitive canon of the New Testament was, well, the first, the first bishop to name the present 27 books were Athanasias, and that was in 367 of the Common Era, so long after Constantine had converted. So I think there's truth in other books that are not in the canon that represent more a Judaic Christianity. All right. Forgiveness is granted and looks different for religions. If it is by grace for Islam, it can happen, and how does one know? So Muslims believe, I think I left this thing up in the air too, one of the six articles of faith is belief in the day of judgment. So Muslims believe in the day of judgment, God will judge all, and God will send human beings to one of two places according to their heart and deeds. So nobody really, again, nobody has personal assurance. I mean, there is a hadith of the Prophet where he says, whoever says, Allah and that I am his messenger with sincerity will enter paradise. But it's not a personal guarantee. I mean, the Prophet didn't say, Ali from California, he will enter paradise. So we're taught to have hope in God, to have a good opinion of God. When I mentioned earlier about hope and fear, it seems like from a sort of understanding of the text, that there should be a little more leaning on hope, sorry, wearing the two sandals, where you're sort of leaning more hope in God than fear, because everyone's a short comer. So the Prophet said, have a good opinion of God, have a good opinion of God. So what is shirk, and is it the unforgivable sin? Yes, shirk is association with God, with other than God, or associating partners with God. It is considered the unforgivable sin if repentance is not made. However, Muslims are not allowed, it's actually impermissible, it's haram for a Muslim to consign anyone to hell. I cannot tell anyone, I cannot say to anyone, you're gonna go to hell. It's impermissible according to Islam. I've been consigned to the flames of hell many, many times by different people. But I cannot return the favor as it were. So, and that's because God is the changer of hearts, and then people have traumatic lives. We don't know what people have gone through. There are people who are abused as children. You don't know what they've gone through. So, to judge someone, according to Imam al-Razali, in order for someone, it's very difficult, very difficult, for someone to go to hell. And they don't go to hell on a technicality. It's like, oh, I was born in India in, you know, in the year 522 and I worshiped Ganesha and Krishna, so I guess I'm going to hell, right? No one goes to hell on a technicality. Right? It's interesting, the Prophet said that the flesh of martyrs does not decompose and God, he preserves them. They're incorruptible. You go to places in the world that, you know, afflict saints are buried or they're not actually buried. They're in open air tombs. They're not decomposing, and that's something for the Muslim to think about. You know, when they exhumed Medgar Evers' body in 1993, 30 years after he was shot by a Klansman on his driveway, his body was in pristine shape, pristine condition. God will be merciful even if we don't want him to be. We are not God. God is the most merciful of those who show mercy. God knows everything about us. How can we possibly judge someone and consign them to the flames? We don't know what that person's been through. How do Muslims consider what is the kingdom of God and what's their belief regarding this? So, again, there's no, the expression, Malkutha Da'alaha, as I said, in Syriac is a Biblical expression. It's not necessarily mentioned in the Quran. There's something similar that seems to be talking about Paradise. But if you look at, if you look at, for example, Genesis 49 10, you know, Jacob says to his sons, uh, he says, the scepter should not pass from Judah. The scepter, the king's scepter should not pass from Judah. Or the law from between his feet, Adki Yavushilo, until the coming of Shiloh, and unto him shall the obedience of the nations be. So it seems like here, the king's scepter represents prophecy. Prophecy, the Shiloh, whoever that is, Christian exigents believe it to be. Jesus Christ will come from Judah with the scepter. Some say this means king, kingship or messiahship. Jesus says in Matthew, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and given to the nation, a nation that bears the proper fruit. So again, it seems like here he's talking about prophecy. But there's no official Islamic. I mean, that's a Biblical term. So I think it means prophecy, but that's with my own opinion. Where do Imam, yes, where do Imams receive their training? Hopefully from another Imam who has teaching certificates. One of the things about the apostle Paul that is problematic from a Muslim perspective is that Paul tends to take a weakness and turn it into a strength. So in one of his letters, Paul he says, you know, I don't have letters of recommendation. I had my vision. I had an apocalypsis of Christ. So the subtext there according to New Testament scholars is that you have Jerusalem apostles coming into lands like Galatia where Paul was evangelizing and correcting Paul's deviant teachings. Paul calls that teaching Heteras Ewangelion, another gospel. Right? So what does he mean? Letters of recommendation. It seems like these apostles from Jerusalem they have some sort of letter some sort of teaching license from James. James is the brother of Christ whatever that means probably the first cousin of Jesus who is the leader of the Jerusalem Episcopate right? And Gospel of Thomas logon number 12 Jesus says when I'm gone you must go to James the Just for whose sake heaven and earth came into being very interesting statement. So Paul is saying well I don't need a teaching license. I had my apocalypsis. So an Imam who comes to us and says well who did you study with? And he says nobody. I had an apocalypsis. He doesn't have permission to teach the Quran or nothing. He needs to even if he did have an apocalypsis he can choose his credentials right? Somebody wants to operate on me open heart surgery and he says do you have an MD? I had a dream last night and I was taught the finer points of vascular surgery. That might be true. Maybe it was but I'm not going to accept that. When Jesus comes into and Jesus is an exception because Jesus he's a prophet and he demonstrated his prophecy to the Muslim position. When Jesus comes into Jerusalem the Pharisees ask him under whose authority are you doing these things? They want to know who's your rabbi and then Jesus he doesn't give answers very readily. He wants you to think. So he says John the Baptist is he from God or not? And they said we don't know. Then he said that I'm not going to tell you on whose authority I'm doing these things. Should we pay these taxes to Caesar? Whose image is this? Render unto Caesar. And render unto God what is God's? It's a brilliant answer. How will the current I think it's the last one. How will the current administration affect us or us? Us and Muslim relations I guess it means us or us. You know a lot of young people they're almost like they're panicking right now and it's because all they've known is Obama basically. I always calm them down. I remember the Bush years I remember 9-11 I remember the Patriot act I remember Guantanamo Bay these things they come in cycles the world is ebb and flow Muslims aren't sort of neo-Marxist we don't believe that perfect justice will ever be established in the world. I mean we should always strive for justice. The word Muslim is an active participle not passive. The passive is Muslim. Muslim means I'm going to sit back and say help me Lord and I do nothing. But a Muslim is someone who's actively doing something and the prophet said the prophet said in a hadith if the end of time should come upon you and you're planting a seed finish planting the seed you're never going to see the tree the point is just keep doing what you have to do but perfect justice will never be manifested in the world. Perfect justice that's why there's a day of judgment so we have to do our best we shouldn't be alarmist I think the American civic infrastructure is set up so that one man cannot have absolute power he's going to try to do things and his ban was repealed he's trying to rewrite it so those nets are there so we shouldn't be alarmist it's a good system it's a very good system and what's also great about the system is in 20 years or 8 years there's going to be somebody else and unless something crazy happens I always tell as a joke in the Quran one of the major signs at the end of time is the blowing of the trump so it's a good day the prophet said the affair of the believer is always good when he's in a state of hardship he couples his hardship with patience when he's in a state of prosperity he couples his prosperity with gratitude it's all good alright guys let's have another round of applause Alhamdulillah for our great speaker tonight I added that last line for another round of applause