"Extremism is not the Problem"

Image source.

"Extremism is as American as Apple Pie." Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

"Violence is." Argues Hamza Yusuf, especially when talking to Amerikanos about Muslims. He points out that Amerikano culture is based on all kinds of extremism. If you think that's true, be sure you don't know basic facts about Amerikanos :P

He's not arguing about 100% elimination of violence, rather persecution of dissenting voices, and dominance of one strand of thought over the other.

Without being apologetic about anything, one founder of a school of Law Imam Shafi or perhaps Imam Malik was asked by Khalifa Mansoor: i want to implement your interpretation on all of my dominion. To this Imam replied in an emphatic nay. In the presence of other towering luminaries and in the light of one's legitimate right to recourse to a differing expert opinion, he refused this historical choice that could've influenced heavily the religious and legal history of Muslims, perhaps. It is exactly the betrayal of tradition that sects have taken up arms against each other while we dialogue non-Muslims with such civility that bewilders a local who had the nightmare of watching sectarian strife. Of course, honorable, respectable academic intra-dialogue is only necessary and perhaps sufficient if executed.

Reflections on my Faith Islam & how Muslims Encounter Faith Today

In the Name of Allah; I seek refuge in Allah from the evil of Satan

[Forgive v poor sentence structures & grammar.]

Like Imam Ghazzali (r.a.) i've immutable belief on 3 things:

- In the Existence of Allah (swt) - is there any doubt about Allah?
- The Day of Judgement
- Truth of the institution of Prophethood

With these beliefs, one may presume that there is no room for skepticism, not that kind which doubts one's own existence. But, that is not the case- one can still have doubts about one's religion with these beliefs. When we're born we become Muslims, Christians, Atheists, etc., if we were born in that particular family. But, its only with the dawn of consciousness, if you might call it, that we're sometimes forced to reexamine our acquired belief, perhaps due to external stimuli or even due to one's own disposition to question things. In this age, former is more true than the later. Nonetheless. Having watched videos/stories of so many converts to Islam - be them atheists, Christians, etc. - it was either of the two, while predominantly external stimuli played a greater role, thanks to 9/11, terrible news about Muslims, new Biblical scholarship that proves almost all the stances of Islam on Christianity such as tehreef or human interference in Bible, etc.

Muslims rarely venture into uncomfortable waters of examination and use of intellect, especially those who're not well trained in traditional Islam, because the students of Qur'an and Sunnah know the proofs, evidences, and narrations of the truth of Islam. Nonetheless, overall atmosphere is that of fear when it comes to talking to people of other belief and to those having no faith at all, except, perhaps, in the desires of their nafs. (I'm not proposing that their kufr is due to following their desires of soul, merely, but perhaps a historical process that led to 'the eclipse of soul and intellect', namely modernity or renaissance, which has very well defined features, that really closed their eyes to Divine Realities.)

This is not how our great scholars of the past behaved. Imam Abu Hanifa used to debate (in most beautiful manner) with atheists in the masjid saying to the effect, "Let's see what you've got." Imam Ghazzali wrote in his autobiography that he had (so deeply) analyzed the skeptics and atheists that they could not hide their real reasons for disbelief. This is very interesting.

It is high time we see/question things logically - because logic can even give us life through Islam or kill us with disbelief. It is only those confused people who're afraid of not talking to other. We've to start from understanding the hidden assumptions of this deen and that of disbelief. Our assumption is that there is an Unseen, and we believe in it, we believe in the ghaib. Why we believe in it and we humanity cannot risk not believing in it - this is the point from where the discussion may start. And, everything that is Islamic worldview is very logical and is very clear. Most of the rational people in US or West who came to Islam came to it because they could not bring an argument against islam that Qur'an or Muslims could not refute or at least provide an equally logical perspective on that.

In the end, i'd like to say that because of our heedlessness in acquiring both Islamic worldview and modern sciences, our own brothers and sisters are becoming mental victim of a Dajjalic civilization that is based on the idea and force of deception and deceiving people from seeing things the way they actually are. Biggest enemies of Islam are living within us, and they just like us, but it's logical fallacies they're really a victim of; a lack of clear understanding of world, matter and soul.

wa ma taufiqi illa billah

Defend your Property

i used to wonder that if i die defending my property, home, family, etc., would i be martyr or what. Literally that. And, to my amazement, i've found the answer in an article of the murder of an Arab military office as a civilian in US by a couple of young looters outside a shopping store. Hamza Yusuf in that article mentions a hadith that if someone dies protecting his property, he's a martyr. SubhanAllah.


Moreover, when i wondered on how i got the answer, i forced to praise Allah for how he guides people and their curiosity gets fulfilled from unexpected places. This is not the first time this has happened with me....

Semantic Madness: Equal Hes & Shes

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf mentions in his talk on Women and Islam that he was attending a Philosophy class and the instructor said that to use pronouns as "he/she" combined so that both male and female pronouns occur at the same time. He asked, why do they need to do that? And, the instructor said not to invoke gender biased. Shaykh said, "What about genetic coding?" On being asked about it, he replied, "Male chromosome has both X & Y, representing male and female, but female has only her's. So is nature being biased here?" This is true for word he because it includes both sexes. He also mentioned that British have resisted this 'semantic madness', they don't wanna change their language - which as other languages is not biased.

A quote on the endeavor of Ijtihad in Islamic Law

Hamza Yusuf writes in his historical-juristic essay on the rulings of Islamic law on chess:

Contrary to the Orientalists’ claims that the gates of ijtihad were closed in the ninth century CE, ijtihad has always been an active endeavor of the community of jurists throughout the Muslim world.[4]

In the foot-note # 4, he writes:

The only closure—if there was one—was on what is known as “absolute ijtihad” that historically was achieved by a handful of scholars in the early part of Islam and later considered impossible to achieve. However, although many consider this door closed and locked, it has always been viewed as a door that is possible for one to enter, if one has the key. [Emphasis added.]

Shaykh gives a talk to school pupils

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf gives a very useful talk, followed by an interesting Q & A session, to school children. His words are filled with actionable advices and a jihad against modern inventions that affect children negatively, especially, addicting, useless video games, TV, consumerism, etc; and expounds timeless values for humanity from Hadith of Prophet Muhammad.



Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Of a court jester of Prophet Muhammad

Prophet Muhammad actually had a court jester, amazing, whom he loved.

Once he directed a blind person to do a thing. That man went and started beating Hazrat Usman, who was praying, in the mosque. And after prayer he inquired, "What's going on!?" He said, "I thought you were such a such person. Nouman told me to that." And Nouman snickering in corner.

Prophet used to smile on it. And Prophet was also called by a scholar a laughing Prophet. His face used to be filled with smile. But he never laughed out like we use to. And what a beautiful thing is said in the Quran, "And He is the One who made you laugh and made you cry."

* Notes taken from a talk by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf. Watch.

Much Islam, not Allah?

I was moved by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf's criticism on Muslims that these days they talk much about Islam this, Islam that, but there is little remembrance of Allah Himself... Meditate on it, and compare the behaviour of those before...