Is your heart still facing the right Qibla? Shaykh Abu Aaliyah Surkheel

Shaykh Abu Aaliyah explores modernity as a philosophical worldview that trades meaning for power, examining how Muslims can navigate these challenging waters while preserving their faith and purpose.

• Modernity is not about technology but the philosophical assumptions underpinning our world for the past 300-350 years

• Most people today don't realise what they've lost as meaninglessness has become the default philosophy of our culture

• Muslims are susceptible to "ideological osmosis" – absorbing modern ideas even while practicing their faith

• Rather than building a competing "juggernaut," Muslims need an “ark of salvation”, built on Quran, Sunnah and scholarly consensus

• We need scholars who understand both traditional Islamic knowledge and modernity's philosophical underpinnings

• Consumerism is perhaps the most spiritually destructive aspect of modernity, directly feeding into "hubb al-dunya" (love of worldly things)

• Many Muslims have become fixated on outward expressions of faith while neglecting the purification of the heart

• The path forward requires "shrinking our souls" rather than expanding them – cultivating humility instead of self-promotion

• Muslims must position themselves as healers offering the balm of Tawhid to a spiritually wounded world

• True progress isn't measured by how far or fast we move, but by maintaining our direction toward Allah

Receive one of 25 free copies of "A Muslim's Guide to Modernity" by leaving a thoughtful comment about what you've learned from this conversation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Islamic Guide to Modernity
• 10:42 Understanding Modernity as a Philosophical Worldview
• 30:13 The Loss of Meaning in Contemporary Society
• 47:10 Building the Ark of Salvation Against Modernity
• 1:07:17 The Role of Scholars in Addressing Modern Challenges
• 1:28:25 Rowing Upstream: Resisting Modernity's Current
• 1:46:45 Consumerism as the Most Destructive "Ism"
• 2:02:38 Healing Hearts: Islam as the Solution to Modernity's Crisis

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

As-salamu, alaykum wa rahmatullah.

Speaker 2: 0:02

Wa alaykum as-salam, wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh Sheikh.

Speaker 1: 0:04

Abu Alia, our beloved Sheikh. How are you? Alhamdulillah, mashaAllah. May Allah bless you for coming. Jazakallah khair, JazakAllah khair, Allah bless you. So I had a conversation with Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad a few years ago.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Allah bless you.

Speaker 1: 0:18

And he talked to me about this was in his college. He said sign your book for me please. I was like oh, wow. And he was very humble, as he is, and he was talking about modernity, the impact of modernity on the Adamic nature, the Adamic spirit, and it kind of opened my eyes to a few things. And, as part of Islam21C's transformative, campaign-led approach, we are focusing on the kind of products or evil products, if you like of modernity, like hopelessness and lack of meaning and suicide, guarding innocence, the whole LGBTQ plus movement, feminism we're trying to advocate the power of a Muslim woman and talking about the homemaker and the mother as the base of civilization, fighting against Zionism and so on and so forth, and there'll be future campaigns that we're going to be focusing on. We're not going to be talking about these today, but we're going to be talking about something maybe more important, because these are the kind of products of modernity. And you have written an amazing book, a Muslim's Guide to Modernity, and it's around 60 essays. And before I start to ask you certain questions and tell the audience that they're going to get free copies and how they can get free copies, tell the audience that they're going to get free copies and how they can get free copies.

Speaker 1: 1:44

I just want to read Yahya Burt's summary of the book, because it is a great summary. You actually said give it a read. I read it I was like wow. And he's the research director of Ayan Institute. So he says obviously you're known as Abu Alia, but also your name is Sarkhil Sharif. Obviously you're known as Abu Alia, but also your name is Sarkheel Sharif. And he says Sarkheel Sharif's 60 wide-ranging essays provide way markers for the faithful Muslim adrift in Western modernity. The essays are models of brevity and lucidity and they chart a sure course through modernity's choppy waters, striking a middle path between tradition and reason, isolation and assimilation, repose and action, and conservation and change. It can be warmly recommended to anyone seeking thoughtful and relevant answers to living authentically as a Muslim today.

Speaker 1: 2:43

Wow, alhamdulillah. He was very generous with. Wow, alhamdulillah. He was very generous with these words Alhamdulillah, and they're true. They are a representation of the actual state of affairs. So, shaykh, before I get into the first question, I'd like to say to the audience that we're going to give out 25 free books. How can they get a free book? They have to comment on the youtube channel and the best comments we're going to send them a code. I've spoken to the publishers and when they put the code into the website, they're going to get a free book. That's very novel, alhamdulillah. And, by the way, brothers and sisters, the code has to sorry. The comment has to represent the book in some way, what you've learned with regards to the podcast and the conversation that we'll be having now, inshallah. So, sheikh, first question, and I've written these down you open the book by describing modernity as humanity trading, meaning for power. Do you believe most people did today are even aware of what they're giving up?

Speaker 2: 3:53

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wassalaat, wassalaam ala rasulillah maw'ad trading meaning for power, I mean. First and foremost, I think it's worth being clear from the outset that when we talk about modernity or when the book talks about modernity and in this discussion modernity is not referring to technology and the latest gadgets modernity is referring to the philosophical assumptions that the modern world is based upon and has been since the last 300, 350 years, more or less. So. Modernity is first and foremost philosophical, before it is practical or technological or even scientific. With that out of the way, the question about do are most people aware? I'm guessing, because I don't know for sure. I'm guessing that we as human beings not just we as muslims, but we as human beings tend not to have a bird's eye view of things. It's not human nature to have a bird's eye view of the big things in life and the big happenings. We tend to be, uh, short-termist by nature and we have to really go against the grain of just what it is to be humans, to be long-termists, to be macro thinkers rather than micro thinkers. Otherwise it's the nitty-gritty practicalities that we're concerned with. In that sense, I suspect most of us wouldn't be aware of what we've traded, of what we've traded. I think if we were born in the kind of what do they call the generation so, from the post-war, they're kind of baby boomers, and then by 19, mid 1960s, which is kind of my generation, we're kind of I think we're generation X, and then you have the millennials. I think somewhere between baby boomers who are still around through my generation up until the millennials, there is a possibility that if we think hard enough or if we've grown old enough, we can look back and we can sit back and say, ah, we now have X, very good, but we've traded, we've lost something in return for this good thing. But for most people I suspect they're not aware what they have lost, simply because they may not have been around when the thing that has most preciously been lost they weren't. They weren't there. So most people.

Speaker 2: 6:55

Two things about meaning. One you'd have to live in a more meaningful age when life, even here in the in in the West life, was more than just being a consumer. 1970s of Britain had more meaning. There was a sense of community, there was still a kind of religious spirit, even if Anglicanism and the kind of Protestant faith was rapidly diminishing. But there was still a sense of meaning beyond my life as an individual or individualism. But by the time we come into the mid-80s and onwards, the Americanization of British culture ensures that meaning is rapidly kind of lost. Culture, uh, ensures that meaning is rapidly, um, kind of lost.

Speaker 2: 7:48

Once you kind of buy into the fact that you know it's all about kind of as the saying is, to go sex, drugs and rock and roll, it's all about just enjoying life and consuming and shopping, um, you lose the whole idea of what. What is it mean to have meaning, to have purpose? So I don't think a lot of people think about that. But let's just take, say, christians or traditional Jews or let alone Muslims, who do have an idea of meaning. And there are others beyond them. Beyond them, if you're young, like you know, if you're, if you're born, like in the last 20, 25 years, and so you're native to all this technological culture and whatever, you probably don't realize how life was 30, 40 years ago, 20, 30 years ago, to even realize that we've lost meaning in fact.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Meaning, in fact, meaninglessness is almost the default philosophy of our culture as a whole. The world, the universe, came here through the Big Bang, by just a cosmic fluke. Nothing was purposed, nothing is pre-planned, everything just happened randomly. If that's the narrative that most people do kind of lean towards, if not grasp as a creed, as an Aqidah, then life is meaningless and the only meaning that there is is is what we make of it.

Speaker 2: 9:26

And so you have these existentialist writers, you know, back in the early 20th century, albert camus and all these other people. They're saying look, you know, life is absurd. You know we're, we're a small planet and a big universe specks on this planet. We're insignificant, big universe waste of space. Life is absurd if you think about that. Suicide, existential angst, despair, psychological crippling. Don't think about that, enjoy yourself, live life for every moment, be hedonistic. And that's what many of these existentialists wrote about that we need to make our own meaning up. And so young people today I, I suspect, um barring the exceptions probably don't realize meaning has been lost. They just assume, like we all would have assumed, things have always been as they are. Allah knows, allah knows best.

Speaker 1: 10:33

I think an interesting way to summarize what you just said is modernity has replaced ultimate meaning with a kind of replace ultimate meaning, with a kind of self-imposed meaning, just like children when they play in a playground and they play cops and robbers. So it's like pretending to have meaning, indeed, indeed, which is quite a vacuous Sheikh.

Speaker 2: 10:59

It is, but when you don't have, I mean from a theological point of view, absolutely, but just from the human narrative, when people don't have, I mean from a theological point of view absolutely, but just from the human narrative, when people don't have meaning. I mean this was already acknowledged, as I said, by early philosophers in the 20th century. They understood that if there isn't meaning, ultimate meaning, people will flounder in their own despair. And they were beginning to see suicide become more of a phenomena than it had ever been. And angst born of existential angst, not your clinical angst, but angst that, wow, I'm just part of a big cosmic fluke, there's nothing more to life and I'm going die. Is that it end of? So they said look, you know, if we don't create fictional meaning, because it is a theological fiction, we're just gonna have living corpses. So, in one sense, once you understand where they're coming from, you think, okay, well, they, what else could they do for us who? We've got the healing balm of tohid? Tohid is the, it's the healing for life. It then reminds us that it's not about me wagging my finger at them and you're existentially lost, and so on and so forth. What kind of life is this? It's having pity on the victims of modernity in the monoculture, having that rahmah, because the souls have been shriveled and they don't realize it. So how can we restore vitality and life to human souls? Really, it's the adamic, it's the, it is the adamic project, as uh uh, sheikh abdul hakim murad was speaking to you about.

Speaker 2: 13:02

And back in, I remember, back in 1998, 1997, 98, when I first read that term in the context by him, I mean, first and foremost I didn't really understand what it meant and in the context of the overall article it was even more puzzling. But the more I thought about it I thought subhanallah. I feel personally I'm not using my dawah as a healing, I might be using it as a stick. And it was the first time I I remember consciously thinking what is my dawah, my personal dawah, really about? And it was a time for me to kind of change. I remember it was like late 90s, not I don't like to use the word ideologically, but kind of spiritually, theologically. It helped me really rethink my ideas and connect myself to traditional Islam and traditional scholarship.

Speaker 1: 14:00

You mentioned the existentialist, which is very interesting, one of the most pessimistic ones. I think his name was Arthur Schopenhauer.

Speaker 2: 14:07

Yes, absolutely, schopenhauer.

Speaker 1: 14:09

Absolutely, he's a father, I think I cried when I read some of his stuff, like he was talking about and you've articulated it in a very concise and profound way. He said he, rather the world, never existed. Then he tried to almost justify suicide. Absolutely, you didn't choose your death. You didn't choose your birth, but you could choose your death. Absolutely, it's insane. I think they even articulated that it was one of the greatest forms of freedom absolutely.

Speaker 2: 14:37

In fact they do. They do. It's insane, absolutely so. If if someone has the time to read albert albert camus outside, it's a translation from the French. He wrote in French. It's a really slim volume. You could read it on a long train journey maybe.

Speaker 2: 15:07

I couldn't imagine one couldn't imagine how such a slim book could lead to so much depression, and it made me think that if this is what some human souls harbor, this is not something to be gleeful about. From the point of Tauhid, of Abrahamic monotheism, it's something to be really sad about because it is the greatest tragedy in the Adamic story that you have people like this. Never in human history have we had this en masse. Even polytheists, idolaters. They have an overarching right. There is a supreme power or supreme powers. There is something beyond us.

Speaker 2: 15:49

The Greeks had it, the Persians had it, the Romans had it, the Jews, the Christians, everybody's had it in different ways. The Chinese had it that there is something beyond us. But the modern world comes along and says no's all materialism, it's, it's all naturalism. What you can touch is what there is nothing beyond. And then they have to have a philosophy that deals, that helps human beings cope. We are now humanity in our coping stage and this I can't think of a better word and it might sound harsh and perhaps it is overly harsh, but this kind of virus contagion has caught on to the rest of the world and the people of Abrahamic monotheism need to see, need to take responsibility of healing so can you have in modernity a practicing muslim, someone who does the five pillars, and also be affected by the sense of meaninglessness or that they act as if things don't have ultimate meaning?

Speaker 2: 17:10

um, if the few people that I've come across over the decades is anything to go, go by meaning, if these anecdotal encounters that I've had at least reflects anything, then unfortunately I think the answer is yes. It does seem quite counterintuitive. How can someone who is a muslim, who has iman, faith in allah, the hereafter and Allah's active involvement on earth, in our life as we speak, how can they also have an idea or a sense of meaninglessness? I'm not saying that such Muslims aren't Muslims. No, it's that they have that conceptual belief that every Muslim is required to have, but at the practical, day-to-day level, because we're porous creatures. It's not that merely because I'm a Muslim I'm somehow shielded from everything, everything bad or all false un-Islamic ideologies. No, the nature of human beings is that we're porous. We get influenced, even when we don't realize it.

Speaker 1: 18:29

Okay, Second ideological osmosis.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Absolutely, absolutely. I remember something from a old kind of 1980s biology, um, and we have kind of dr salman off camera who can kind of speak more about that. Um, but we are, we are porous creatures and ideas do filter into us. So at the practical level, there are some people who their their belief might waver, or is wavering, because it's hard to avoid. We might say, okay, I'm not going to listen to these, any philosophical talk, fine. But then I turn on the TV, I surf the net, I pick up a magazine I mean just casual banter conversation at work. The ideas are there. I'm watching something as innocent as Star Trek, okay, but there are philosophical ideas that come through that In one episode maybe not harmful, a few episodes I might have subconsciously bought into some of those ideas. Maybe not such that I'm a flag carrier, but it's kind of filtered there's a few drops of that idea, um.

Speaker 2: 19:51

So it is important that we have, as muslims, a, a living connection to the quran, not to be scholars, uh, not even to be theologians, just to understand the basic message and not the message of I must pray five times a day, and the message that there is God, allah, that he is active now. He's not the creator, he created and somehow stopped somewhere. He's creating now, he acts now. He acts now. Okay, and even though we, you know, theologically we don't believe Allah acts in time and space in the sense that we corporal human beings do, but he acts now. And if we remember that life has purpose meaning direction, in fact everything has purpose, meaning direction, even if we don't know the finer details, then alhamdulillah, that's a type of inoculation, but we just need to be reminded of it because one of the as, as you well know and we've kind of discussed this in one of our podcasts, I remember one of the reasons why the quran describes human beings as in San is they say in San, from the root word at.

Speaker 2: 21:10

Etymologically it either comes from miss Ian, forgetfulness, or once being sociable and familiar. And in fact, because they're not mutually exclusive, both can apply. But man is insan because of nisyan forgetfulness. And Quran, or revelation, is a dhikr, a reminder, because man forgets, so God reminds, and so we need to have that constant connection with the Book of Allah. So the short answer to your question um, can that happen? I think to some degree it can happen, um that muslim faith can be quite weak and fragile and can then take on board some of these ideas. But there is still hope because we can always go back to what is true no, I, and all of I, echo that.

Speaker 1: 22:03

It's good that you said that, since you've got more experience, so I could anchor off that now, alhamdulillah, I agree, I think there's a bit of a mixed bag. So you'll have people maybe practicing their religion, but from a kind of cultural, ethnocentric perspective, indeed, but things that give them real meaning is actually going on holidays, buying things, indeed, looking good, and maybe it's a bit of both, and it's it's one of the challenges of modernity. So this leads to the second story.

Speaker 2: 22:31

I so, therefore, I think that short answer of yours, I think, has expressed it far better than my kind of 10 minute waffle no, not really, because it takes.

Speaker 1: 22:39

You know, the great, the great chefs they might. It might take them 20 years to come up with the greatest recipe, but it would take them 20 minutes to teach the disciple.

Speaker 1: 22:48

Allah bless you, and there's more meaning in the 20 years, right, I raised this at Cambridge University. I said to some guys, which echoes what we're saying about meaning, I actually want your thoughts on this. So I said to them if you had a movie, halal, yeah, great movie meaning. Everything is the same narrative, actors, actresses, everything, yeah. And you have two versions of it, identical in every way. One was made by AI and one was done by humans. Which one would you rather watch? Now, intuitively, I'm like I want to watch the one made by humans. Which one would you rather watch? Now, intuitively, I'm like I want to watch the one made by humans. It took time.

Speaker 2: 23:29

It's grounded in something and probably the heart has been poured into it at some level.

Speaker 1: 23:34

You know what one of the students said I don't care, subhanallah, and that, for me, is a massive massive Eye-opener.

Speaker 2: 23:41

It's an eye-opener though.

Speaker 1: 23:45

Because for them, it's about utility. Now, subhanallah. It's not about meaning anything grounded, it's about does it fulfill my desires, subhanallah. So modernity really in some way, especially from the existentialist perspective, because they say I am the giver of meaning. So what they're basically saying is this they're moving away from لا إله إلا الله to لا إله illa ana.

Speaker 2: 24:06

Subhanallah. He's mad, isn't he? Subhanallah.

Speaker 1: 24:09

There is no deity worthy of worship but Allah. Now they're saying there is no deity worthy of worship except me.

Speaker 2: 24:13

Subhanallah.

Speaker 1: 24:14

So second question Well, there was, you know, fifth question, but the second main question. Could I add two points?

Speaker 2: 24:22

No, of course, absolutely so. I mean there is an essay in the book, the 51st essay, existential Angst and the Modern World's Crisis of Meaning, and people can read that essay. It's not a very long essay Existential Angst and the Modern World's crisis of meaning but one of the two. There are two pieces of poetry, one very old and one the last two, three hundred years, it's more recent that help us remember how, as Muslims, we're supposed to see the world. So one of them is really classical and students of knowledge, let alone seasoned scholars and uama, will know this. So one of the early Arab poets, he said and I'm not quite sure if this Arab poet is pre-Islam, I'm not quite sure or just within the first two centuries of Islam, ibn al-Atahiyya, anyway, he says fa yaa ajaban kayfa yu'sil ilahu am kayfa yajhidu jahidahu. Fa fi kulli shay'in lahu, ayatun tadhullu ala annahu wahidu. O wonder how can the deity be rejected or by the denier be denied, while in everything there is a sign by which his oneness is testified right, and that kind of reminds us, as muslims, that everything has meaning to us. Well, life has meaning. Death has meaning. Illness has meaning. Marriage has meaning. Marriage has meaning divorce has meaning the various kinds of animals and fish in the ocean and life above us has meaning. Everything is invested with meaning, and all of that meaning also points to Allah, subhanallah.

Speaker 2: 26:19

Okay, the other one is one of the great Moroccan spiritual masters of maybe 200 or less 200 years ago. When I came across this, like a decade ago, I was just completely awestruck with it, because it's just so Indeed. Existence is meaning set up in forms. Any who grasp this are from the people of discernment. Wow, and that's really what Islam is about is helping human beings to see meaning in their life. And then ultimate meaning. We need to be the Ahlul Ibr because we see that the Qawn is Ma'anin, qa'imatin Bisoor. It's meaning set up in an outward force.

Speaker 1: 27:15

That is very beautiful. Subhanallah, that is very, very beautiful.

Speaker 2: 27:19

It's also. It's also tells you how well sometimes spirituality can encapsulate the reality of theology.

Speaker 1: 27:30

That's actually true. My mum is Greek Cypriot, my dad's from mainland Greece and when I was, I went to Cyprus with my mum and hanged out with my auntie quite close with my auntie and there are Cypriot proverbs proverbs, right, and she says something quite fascinating. Obviously they come from a christian tradition, but she said people used to fast a few days before they come up with the proverbs. Yeah, and I don't know why this has came into my mind because, um, even in other traditions, like the separate tradition, the christian separate tradition, etc. They come with some very deep stuff. And it just came to my mind for some reason.

Speaker 2: 28:07

Indeed.

Speaker 1: 28:07

And there is a Cypriot saying that says and I try and say it in the Cypriot dialect which means whoever hasn't spoken has been buried alive. Yeah, I thought that was quite deep actually.

Speaker 2: 28:24

But then, to be honest, the Greek tradition, you know, not just talking about Eastern Christianity, greek tradition, but before that philosophical tradition, it's kind of like second to none in the world right, yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:41

Well, yeah, I mean it's created up some problems, but yeah absolutely, and and many of the greek philosopher.

Speaker 2: 28:47

philosophers weren't hedonists, but they were people who had, in their own sense, very spiritual lives well like socrates.

Speaker 1: 28:56

Isn't it, socrates, that he believed in one god and yeah, no.

Speaker 2: 28:59

So I'm not talking about um, theologically, I'm talking about that they would understand that training the soul oh, absolutely withholding from frivolity and those kind of things are things that we need to do because it helps us grow into what we are like Irish, italian ethics, ethics, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 29:19

And there's a Turkish saying as well I say it to the Czechs a lot which echoes some of the meaning stuff In your shrouds there are no pockets. I know it sounds so simple, but these things are so profound. Sometimes you get the best wisdom from popular, amongst the masses that think about things. It's so true your shrouds have no pockets, subhanallahallah. So second main question, second main question you speak about the juggernaut of modernity and you actually explained to me what juggernaut means. I thought it was a big boat or something, but you explained it's a massive vehicle, right that? So you talk about the juggernaut of modernity. So modernity is this massive vehicle. So how could muslims build a vehicle to survive the juggernaut of modernity? So modernity is this massive vehicle. So how could Muslims build a vehicle to survive the juggernaut and what would it look like?

Speaker 2: 30:10

So obviously this is not a theological answer or a fatwa of any sort, because it's quite a subjective, artistic kind of answer. It would seem to me and not that I know it's best that because Islam sees itself as Deen ul-Fitr, the religion of the innate human nature, that we wouldn't build a juggernaut. A juggernaut, a big, massive lorry or a truck, has that idea of modernity and steel and pollution and noise and it's all the kind of things that you kind of are kind of spiritual pollutants. I would imagine that we wouldn't build a juggernaut as much as to use a classical scholarly phrase, safina to najat, to build an ark of salvation, kind of a little bit out of timber, a little bit more natural, but does the job. But as you mentioned before, modernity is a juggernaut and it's going one way and people, whether it's Muslims or even other people, who have disagreed with modernity over the decades, over even the last century, have found that if they go against modernity, hardcore, I mean, you're just smacking your head into a really seriously big, heavy, fast-moving juggernaut and that doesn't really seem to be the wise way and we needn't repeat the folly and the mistakes of people before us. Um, but safinatun najat najat, the ark of salvation, um, there's a phrase in one particular hadith, but the hadith has some discussion about its authenticity. It's probably what we want and what would be that Arq of Salvation? Well, at the theoretical level, we believe it to be the Qur'an, the Sunnah and the Ijma, the scholarly consensus. These are the three infallible fundamentals. In practice it would involve a lot of things.

Speaker 2: 32:34

I think I've got a note here to read the second article of this. I'm going to try to do that. Of course, the Juggernaut of modernity, kind of that makes sense. Page 27, if anyone is kind of watching the video and wants to follow this. So it's Second article, page 27. I think I have a few lines there that I would like to read.

Speaker 2: 33:04

All right, so Islam is an inherently conservative tradition, in that a cardinal tenet of this tradition is to conserve and preserve revealed truths. Pivotal to this preservation are the ulama, or religious scholars. One hadith says this knowledge will be carried by the trustworthy ones of each generation. They will rid it of the distortions of the extremists, the false claims of the liars and the misinterpretations of the ignorant". It's a sound hadith. But such conservatism can be a double-edged sword, for although it may be able to preserve what is essential or precious, or being open, forward-thinking and exclusive. It also has the potential for being closed, highly sectarian and exclusive, and, regrettably, a few of the more ultra-conservative ulama or scholars for want of a better or fairer description tend to characterise this narrowness only too well.

Speaker 2: 34:03

Now I want to add this was written in 2012 and I remember writing this from an earlier article that I wrote in 2010. So we're talking about 12-13 years have gone past and things have greatly improved, I think, at least for the Muslims in this country. It's not to say there aren't issues, but we are. Our Conservatism is still there, alhamdulillah that we're conserving, revealed or trying to conserve revealed truths. But we also understand that the Sharia allows us to tweak some things Okay, through our fiqh and through the foundations of the usool al fiqh, and so it doesn't always have to be so stagnant. But that requires a deep theological and juristic mind to determine what can be tweaked, how and where and how much. So, if we bear that in mind, we need to have, we need to produce those types of scholars and thinkers who can gel, reveal truths with modern life, so that we, as Muslims, cannot just survive.

Speaker 2: 35:15

I don't think our goal should be survive. It should be to thrive, not just to survive. Why? Because the healing of Tawheed, the healing of Abrahamic monotheism, was never meant to be kept in my cupboard as Muslims, you know. There it is and we show it to people in our jar. Look, I'll open it up. No, it's meant to be shared with everybody. Our religion, our deen is not for people living in caves. In fact, the Quran says never did we send a messenger except from the people of the towns or people living in caves. In fact, the Quran says never did we send a messenger except from the people of the towns or people of the cities. Okay, for sure, some of the prophets headed for the hills on occasions. Okay, but that was a means to the greater goal, either to flee persecution for a time being, but the idea was they were people of towns, of urban life, because Tawheed, abrahamic monotheism, is for urban life.

Speaker 2: 36:09

We need to create ulama thinkers who can help gel this and arrive at these kind of goals. We need institutions. We now do have individual organizations and individuals within those organizations who are committing their whole lives to reaching out to others in Dawa. They must be supported every Muslim in the UK, every Muslim living outside a majority. Muslim countries as minority, compute communities.

Speaker 2: 36:42

Wherever in the world has a duty of dawah Most Muslims. It's better for most Muslims not to try to do dawah with their mouths because we're not articulate enough, we don't know how to answer some of the objections non-Muslims have and many non-Muslims come with either heavy baggage or really deep philosophical conundrums that the average Muslim, we don't have a clue. But there are individuals alhamdulillah, allah bless you and increase in goodness and institutions. If I can't do dawah through speech, and perhaps I shouldn't even attempt to, let me do dawah through two things my character and my support of those institutions and individuals who can and are doing that. Otherwise, I might find that on the day of judgment I'm pulled up for not fulfilling a fard, an obligation upon me.

Speaker 1: 37:49

So what I'm getting from your answer here about the juggernaut and the vehicle, the arc of salvation, is that we need to have religiously trained ulama and we need to have ulama who are able to deal with the trends and the issues of modernity and we need to do dawah, support dawah in some way, absolutely. So this links to my third question, which we connected to the question concerning the ulama. So you emphasize in the book the need for Muslims to be intelligent and informed in their faith. I want you to connect this to the ulama. So how do we make or help the ulama Because you address this elsewhere as well how do we get the ulama to be able to address modernity in an effective way and how do we get Muslims to be more informed in their faith?

Speaker 1: 38:48

And I'll repeat this again, just in case you forget what is the most common misunderstanding that Muslims have about Islam, iman faith. So there's three kind of points here. So how do we get because you know, addressing this juggernaut is the ulama. The ulama have to be able to deal with modernity. We also have to have dawah and do dawah and support dawah, and the ulama have to be able to apply their ilm in a modern sense to be able to address this issue, and Muslims need to be informed about their faith and connected to that is is well, what's the greatest misunderstanding, or the most common misunderstanding that they have?

Speaker 2: 39:35

So it's been about since the mid-80s, but let's just say from the mid-90s, practically so about 35-odd years, since I've, kind of Allah's allowed me to rub shoulders with some serious sheikhs and scholars from a variety of places around the world and from a variety of kind of traditions and methodologies. So I don't personally buy into that kind of generic populist thing that, oh, we don't have proper scholars today. I think that is not only an insult but it but it comes from people who probably couldn't haven't spent time academically with any serious scholar to realize. However, having said that, there has always been a concern, even amongst the scholarly class, that and I'm talking about for over 100 years years how do we keep up with this thing called modernity? The initial reaction of muslims, muslim scholars, was to think that modernity, really the crux of modernity, is in its technology and its technological prowess. So perhaps if we modernize our armies and if we industrialize along, say, same lines as Western Europe or the United States, we too will catch up with the main players, and then they realize that kind of maybe. That's not exactly the case, I hope and I believe that such scholars from the early early 20th century or the late 19th century will be excused for kind of misjudging the nature of modernity, but for sure, by the late, by the 80s, largely due to people from the perennialist movement who attach themselves to Islam, we had a really good body of literature, books and discourses telling us what traditional patterns of life, including traditional Islamic patterns of life and theology, and how they can and cannot square up with modernity. And that project began from there and we're kind of well into that now. And so we do have whether it's especially in Turkey or individuals, as in CMC, cambridge Muslim College, here in England and elsewhere in the world we have institutions and individuals who are really doing great jobs, who are really you know, and there's some really good material out there in Turkish, in Urdu, in Arabic and obviously in the kind of dominant global language, in English. We're now beginning a consensus is beginning to form, slowly and steadily, that, yeah, modernity it's a philosophical thing, no more, no less. And people are now, institutions are now taking steps to get on with the real world.

Speaker 2: 42:56

Two things the rest of us Muslims should know that whilst that work needs to be done, it doesn't need to be done by every scholar. So we still need scholars who can give day-to-day fatwas. We still need scholars who can give us immediately. Well, should we have been praying with one line apart in the mosque during covid or should we just be, you know, shoulder to shoulder, in the same light. We need fatwas, like you know, we for now, because we still need to firefight and we still need to just deal with the practicalities of life, and so trained muftis who understand these issues are always needed.

Speaker 2: 43:38

And these are micro issues that require quick thinking and quick answers. I can't wait 10 years for a covid answer. You know, like two, four years ago, it has to come within the day. But the other type of thinking, the macro thinking, which is where the book, like muslims like to modernity, comes in, it's where people like, uh, sheikh abd al-hakim murad comes in Macro thinking. We need more Muslim scholars to get involved with macro thinking and understanding the philosophical underpinnings of modernity.

Speaker 2: 44:14

But that also, unbeknown to many, requires a deep attachment to our spiritual tradition as well, because the theological and spiritual things are so, so linked, and I gave you an example of that in a spiritual poetry which speaks about a theological reality Absolutely, and it helps to kind of deepen that understanding in a way that perhaps theological words might not have done and that I think is not happening as fruitful as one might have hoped. It is happening and there's a lot to be optimistic about, but I'm not quite sure and it's just my perspective, my window into the world, so I could be wrong. I'm not quite sure it's happening as much. And the other thing is we. It doesn't help when we keep getting sidetracked and I mean this in the spirit of the brotherhood of the ummah or sisterhood of the ummah Sidetracked by politics. Politics is always going to be needed and it's always going to be happening. It's just the applications on the desktop that have. You just have to press and click on. That's fine, but make sure the operating system is as up-to-date as possible. Others will find that the applications don't run as well. So whilst we can't ignore the applications on the desktop, they have to be there. But actually it's the operating system which is the real crux of the matter and it's the macro thinking which is our operating system. And I feel that a lot of overemphasis is going.

Speaker 2: 46:08

Historically, there's a big reason, and I don't think I have the ability or the prowess to sum it up in a short discussion, but historically there's been a great reason why Muslim scholars pronounce upon political things not too much, if at all. I'm not talking about barring a few unfortunate scholars who kind of capitulated to dunya and you know, being government scholars, we've always had that minority problem historically and other scholars have always expressed surrender against their fellow scholars of why are you becoming so worldly, why are you rubbing shoulders with the palace so much and compromising? But that hasn't been the story of the majority of scholars, that has never been the story of the majority of scholars and I'm not quite sure it's still. I'm not quite sure it's our story still. Except that the modern world with modern Muslim states is you have the official Mufti, you have the official Grand Mufti, you have the official Islamic body and it's official because the state has made it official. But that doesn't mean that they're government scholars, it just means the state is involved more than it should be in religious matters. That's one of the oddities of a modern Muslim state.

Speaker 2: 47:23

But I feel that a lot of work kind of needs to be done and ulema who are trained theologically and juristically need to think twice of how much they want to get into headline politics. Why? Because headline politics and on the street activism demands a type of sacrifice, time and orientation. That is not conducive to deep reflective study, research, macro thinking, connecting the dots absolutely not. They each have their own place, but I I don't think it will be healthy for Islam and the Muslims in the future if we just think, oh, let's do everything all together and be a jack of all trades. That tends to be. Then our political outlook tends to be very infantile and pathetic, or, and our theological, spiritual outlook about what modernity is tends to be infantile or pathetic, and Allah knows best.

Speaker 1: 48:38

So what I'm getting from this is that the ulama, when modernity came, saw modernity not as an ideological worldview problem or philosophical problem, but rather they saw this as a technological and material advancement problem.

Speaker 2: 49:00

So it would appear through the literature.

Speaker 1: 49:03

So what I'm getting from this is trying to read between the lines and connect the dots is that in order for the ulama to address modernity effectively, they have to understand modernity as a world view or a paradigm that says things or has answers to you know what is the source and nature of reality? This is not as ontology in philosophy, but forget big words. What is knowledge? What is true, what are the sources of truth? Epistemology, ethics, what is right, what is wrong? Anthropology, what is the human being? So it's a paradigm, it's a lens. So if you have green coloured lenses, all you can see is green, or if you have cracked lenses, you're going to see reality in a skewed way and modernity is cracked lenses. And what we're saying is Islam has the correct lenses to see reality for what it is.

Speaker 2: 49:59

So I get that from you however and you have expressed it beautifully yet again, mashallah.

Speaker 1: 50:05

I'm standing on your shoulders perhaps the thing I want to press you on this, sheikh, which might be even difficult to answer. We don't know. It's a. It's a big project. How do we get the ulama to actually get this, especially in the west, and and actually have projects and statements and institutions and narratives and campaigns that see sees islam as its own worldview which obviously they do because they know Tawheed but to also see modernity as having its own worldview, its cracked lens? Because I see this from a Da'wah perspective, not from a scholarly class. That's not my realm, but you'll have people answering questions in the Da'wah assuming the assumptions of modernity, right?

Speaker 1: 50:54

Yes, you had this with some du'at and some so-called people of ilm, students of knowledge. They adopted an excessively empirical or an empiricist ontology or epistemology, because the west does that, modernity does that, we have that in our tradition too. But we also have something else. We have a very liberating type of sources of knowledge. We accept valid testimony, for example.

Speaker 1: 51:18

So when the issue of preservation of Quran came about, they just adopted a kind of a false assumption of modernity and they didn't realize it. You have this in fiqh when it comes to women's issues and gender issues. It's actually a serious problem, sheikh. Indeed, yeah, massively serious problem. They don't understand that many of the things that they're saying has some assumptions that are not necessarily in line with the Islamic tradition, so I'm not saying everyone's like this, because, as you said and I'm echoing what you just said lots of great work is happening. People are moving forward. We're not in the same place where we were in 2012, which was the date of that particular essay, but then what do we do, though? How do we get people whether it's du'aad, whether it's activists, whether it's ulama to get them to be able to understand that effectively and to internalize it?

Speaker 2: 52:11

so, if I'm to be perfectly honest, um, my late wife, rahmatullah. Sometimes we'd have a discussion on something. She too was someone who was in the dawah early on in the in the mid 80s or the late 80s, and also um schooled in in some of the traditional sciences. I used to think, being a child, of being a person who was a teenager in the early 80s, a child of the 70s and 80s. I used to think it's a man-woman thing, and maybe there are. There are things to do with maleness and female nurse that play a part.

Speaker 2: 52:57

But when it came to issues like I Would always have, I would generally have something very philosophical, theosophical, theological to say. And my wife, my late wife, rahmatullah Ali, would say okay, but what does that mean practically? How does that change the price of bread? And I would say I don't know. And she would just I remember the answers would be hmm, like that, hmm, and it made me think I need to kind of think how to. But the reality is you only have so much limited time, limited energy, limited capacity, like myself, and so really I can only do this much. So that is my poor excuse of saying I probably don't have really practical answers of what to do. I just have small anecdotes that I think we should be aware of this, that and the other, but they're just small little things rather than broad sweeping. Here is a plan.

Speaker 2: 53:58

I don't have a plan of action for that specific question and all that knows best my, my small things will be um, it is important for scholars and students of knowledge to really work on our own spirituality, because one of the things is, you get to a certain level of learning and then you think, generally, I know there's a bit more to learn, but generally I'm, I'm okay. And what are you going to tell me that you know, you haven't, you're not schooled, or anything like what do you know? But actually, uh, non-scholars or students of knowledge who are not scholars, they still might have some brilliant things to say. And so, for example, I read a book, a booklet about politics and poetry. What's the sister's name? Suhaima Manzoor. Are you aware of her?

Speaker 1: 54:45

Suhaima Manzoor, I'm not very good with names.

Speaker 2: 54:48

Okay. So she's a young sister here in the UK I don't know, she can't be more than mid-twenties or even if that and one book she wrote it's a slim volume on politics and activism and her thoughts and I thought, subhanallah, and I really benefited from that book. I doubt if she's a scholar. I'm pretty sure she's not from the back page credentials and it's not as if she's got decades of experience in even activism. But Allah has blessed her with something to say that people do need to pay attention to Hikmah yeah, absolutely. And Allah places that wherever he wills Absolutely. And in order to benefit from other people's wisdoms, we need to kind of have, we need to. Our egos need to shrink. Basically, the nafs needs to shrink. We need humility yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 55:44

Umar ibn al-Khattab, radiallahu anhu, said that if you're humble, allah will give you the gift of humility, subhanallah. Have you ever seen an arrogant person who's wise? Subhanallah. You may have the wise guys, but that's like Matthew and stuff. That's so true. Look at Musa and Khidr. Musa was struggling to be patient and he was humble because he acknowledged Allah has given you knowledge that I haven't been given and I want to get it from you. And at the end, he revealed the hikmah, the wisdom behind all of this stuff.

Speaker 2: 56:17

So that would be one quick thing. The other thing is but you're, giving the answer though, Shaikh.

Speaker 1: 56:21

I don't know if you realize. Oh right, Okay.

Speaker 1: 56:25

So if you can tease out the answer there, the answer is we need to be people of hikmah, we need to be able to apply ilm in a particular context to achieve an Allah-pleasing goal. Okay, alhamdulillah. And that means it would raise the question well, what is our context? What is modernity? So, the minute you Because remember, if you want to, the Salaf would say there are too many people of ilm, not enough people of hikmah, yeah, so, people of hikmah, yeah, so you want to please Allah, you want Allah's word to be the highest, you want to affirm Tawheed, we're living in a particular context. This is modernity. Now, to have hikmah, you have to be able to apply ilm in that context to achieve that goal. So that means you have to find out what the context is.

Speaker 2: 57:06

So there is one hadith that comes to mind and it is mentioned in the book. Even though one or two contemporary scholars have made it authentic. Most classical scholars have considered its chain of narrations, the various chains of narrations, to be shaky, but overall the meaning is sound. So either it's sound in and of itself you know, through support and whatever or it's sound in meaning, and it's a hadith which says, attributed to the Prophet, that you are living in an age in which your scholars are many, your ulama are many and your khutaba, your preachers, are few, but then there will come an age in which your preachers are many and your scholars are few". This is authentically reported from the words of Ibn Mas'ud, so we don't have to kind of worry about oh, is this a piece of fiction or fabrication? It's not. It's authentic, wise knowledge, and that's one way of saying that we might, we need to be aware of just knowing lots of things about Islam at the kind of fiqhi level this, that and the other and but the real, deep people who can connect us to Allah in the times that we live, they're not going to be many in number, by the nature of the age and by the nature of just how knowledge diminishes. My second point, though, from that thing about wisdom is it also helps.

Speaker 2: 58:34

I feel this is probably an exaggerated way of looking at things. That's from my idiosyncratic life. I don't like it when we over, we just get stuck in the past. Over, we just get stuck in the past. Oh, you see, we had Ibn Taymiyyah and Fakhruddin Razi and Al-Ghazali and Ibn Hazm and all these other polymaths we did, but why are we going for the past? Where are our polymaths today? It's a bit like back in the 90s. What I didn't used to like is you know what Islam gave women? The rights to own their property, the rights to own their property, the rights to inheritance, the rights that islam gave, gave. And I used to sit there in some of these talks, being part of the talks myself, thinking about what are we doing for muslim women today? I mean, you know, the non-muslim probably is asking fine, but what are you muslims doing today? So, in the same vein, what are we? We can harken back to the great polymaths, some of whom I've mentioned, from the scholars, but what about us today?

Speaker 2: 59:38

It's clear that the world is far more complex and far more interwoven as a web, as a nexus than it was two, three hundred years ago, let alone, you know, five hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. And it is also clear to most that really competent fiqh and fatwas can only be as competent in as much as they understand the time and the place and the age and the overall trend. They don't have to be macro thinkers, but real healings I don't like to use the word solution, but real healings comes by macro thinking and that wisdom to understand how revealed knowledge should be implemented in this age and to what degree. I'll give you one small thing, which is not a new thing. It's scholars have said this in the past. But today's religiosity, I feel, has missed the point. So we find, on the whole, religiosity is do lots and lots of outward things. Alhamdulillah, most preachers and du'a know that they should emphasize the obligations before the non-obligations to people, the fara'id or the wajibat before the mustahbaat, the nawafil, the recommended and optional matters. I think most people know that, alhamdulillah, and even from the lay people they have an idea of this, alhamdulillah. But when it comes to beyond that, it seems me so I could be wrong again, but it seems to you from all that I read and listen to over the decades that people are so obsessed with.

Speaker 2: 1:01:22

The way you become religious and the way you deepen your islam or spirituality is you do more Nawafil, more recommendations outwardly. As Ibn Rajab says, that's never been our path. From the age of the Sahaba, from the age of the great Imams of the past, up until now, the way has been that actually, after the Fara'id, the inward and outward, the obligations of the limbs, the obligations of the tongue, the obligations of the eyes and the ears, after the personal obligations, the way that we deepen our spirituality is by doing some outward recommendations, optional deeds, maybe an optional fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, for example, or maybe a tahajjud there, maybe reading a little bit of Qur'an there. But after one or two bits of that, most of it is the heart's purification, increasing in tawakkul, increasing in zuhud, increasing in rida, in contentment with Allah, increasing in khashay, in being in awe of Allah, because a little bit of working on the heart is equivalent to loads and loads and loads of outward deeds, by consensus of our scholars. So the way that we deepen in our Islam is obligations, a few outward recommendations that you can keep up consistently. By your nature you might be disposed to fasting much more than reading Quran, then do fasting more than Quran. Try not to do both in equal measures, when your heart will be in fasting but not in reading Quran, because you know your attention span is about 0.02 seconds or it will be.

Speaker 2: 1:03:16

And Ibn Masud was like that when he was asked why didn't he fast? As prolific as other Sahaba, and he was already a skinny person. He was physically skinny shins, everything skinny. That's the description we have of him, a mountain of knowledge, but physically skinny. All right, um, he says uh.

Speaker 2: 1:03:37

And ibn tamir makes this point. He says that when I fast I become weak, and when I weak I can't read the quran, the book of allah, to reflect upon it. He, along with ibn abbas, after the khulafa Rashidun, are the two greatest people in understanding the Book of Allah and the whole of the jurisprudence of the Khufans, the Hanafis in this case. Their pedigree starts with the likes of Ibn Mas'ud and Ali. And so he leaves off one act, one option. Why? Because he knows it would diminish his other act. We need to, if we're going to spiritually evolve, at least we need to learn some of the wisdoms from our spiritual masters so that we can grow in a proper way. Otherwise, all that I'm seeing is people think, the more I tell others of these, more sunnahs more, and they're outwardly somehow that's going to deepen their spirituality. It never has and it probably never will, except the rare exception and and, as they say, um uh, uh uh. The rare is like the non-existent Al-Aziz kal-Ma'doom, the rare is like the non-existent.

Speaker 1: 1:04:59

So this links to reminding you about the third point of this main question, which was what is the most common misconception Muslims have concerning faith, the deen. And I want to get to the next question, which is you talk about that Muslims have to roll upstream. Yeah right, which is tough work. It reminds me of being on those, you know, the sprint machines, the treadmills and, putting it like you know, five, six percent, and then you're sprinting and you're gritting your teeth. Your gums are bleeding.

Speaker 2: 1:05:26

Rather you than me.

Speaker 1: 1:05:28

Yeah, yeah, so I had to do that for the boxing training. So the issue here is I want to know if we're rowing upstream. Right, modernity is coming down. We're rowing upstream. What is the one thing, or couple of things, that we have to resist, like no compromises at all? Right, so two things here. What's, in your view, common misunderstanding amongst modern muslims about the deen faith, etc. And when we're roaring upstream, as you advise us to do, when modernity is coming down, what is the one of two or three things that we have to resist?

Speaker 2: 1:06:03

no compromises, um, as regards to common misunderstandings, uh, with those who are muslims but they're not quote unquote observant muslims or practicing muslims. I think one of the common misunderstandings with those who are Muslims but they're not quote-unquote observant Muslims or practicing Muslims, I think one of the common misunderstandings is that, generally, if I kind of do La ilaha illallah and maybe if I have intentions to go to Hajj when I'm 40 or 50, hopefully that will kind of cut it and I think we need to kind of remind people that, yes, you're right, la ilaha illallah is the key to paradise, but every key has ridges and those ridges are the obligatory duties and we need to at least do the obligatory duties of trying to do them. I think that misunderstanding, alhamdulillah, around the world might be lessening for a for a short period, before it becomes worse again, according to the end times narratives, but I think more and more people are waking up to that. If it's practicing muslims, I think what I have mentioned here seems to be my observation. We, we have become fixated on outward islam, uh, to the point of an unhealthy obsession, and it's actually coming from top downwards, and that's never been a healthy thing and it's never been the way of our ulama, our leading ulama, our leading imams of our blessed tradition have never shepherded the people like that, and I think part of that is not just the Muslim fault. It's a problem of modernity, because modernity always deals with superficial solutions or outward solutions, and I just think that's just part of the time that we live in and that leads us to the question of that's.

Speaker 2: 1:07:49

Part of rowing upstream is to realize that we need to bring to Allah a sound heart, not a sound, necessarily sound body, and if our hearts aren't sound, we might find our, find, our outward actions aren't even accepted. They don't have quboolya. May Allah protect us. Yawma la yunfa'u maalun wa la banoon illa man atallah bi qalbin salim, that day when neither wealth nor children will benefit anyone except he who comes to Allah with a heart that is sound and no doubt at all, as per the well-known hadith in Sahih Muslim Inna Allaha la yunthuru ila ajsamikum wa la ila suwarikum wa lakin yunthuru ila qulubikum wa. Allah doesn't look at your forms and your appearances, but he looks at your hearts and your actions. No doubt, actions account, but an outward act of prayer done to the perfection of how an outward act of prayer can be performed with a heart that is full of riyah, for example, showing off, or a heart that is full of ghafla forgetfulness, so it's absent. Then what value does that prayer have? It has very little value and it might have no value with Allah on the day of judgment. Okay, we need to be careful.

Speaker 2: 1:09:03

So, whilst outward actions are important, beyond the obligatory outward duties and the obligatory inward duties, we need to focus our tarbiyah on a few outward sunnahs, but mostly inward sunnahs. Such that, such that, barring the issue of between the shafi'is, for example, and the humblies, the humblies will say that shaving the muslim man shaving the beard is um. The humblies will say that shaving the muslim man shaving the beard is um is that's the, that's the mu'tamad, that's the authority to position in the humbly school, uh, whereas it seems to be the mu'tamad position in the shafi school that it's not haram. So it's possible, following shafi fiqh, that you could still be, not have done anything haram and a muslim man not have a beard. I I hope that um. Maybe someone could chase that up from a proper Shafi'i qualified scholar, but that's what I remember. My wife was a Shafi'i and she was quite seasoned in her Shafi'i, so I kind of remember, recall that.

Speaker 2: 1:10:04

But the point being is barring things like that. Our Islam could possibly be such that you wouldn't know that I'm a Muslim and I could be a very, and I could be one of Allah's awliya. Obviously there would be some outward things, but let's just say I didn't live near a mosque whereby so I wasn't, I didn't, you know, I wasn't praying congregation in the mosque, I was praying congregation at home, for example. Barring the issue, and let's just say this Wali happened to be a Shafi'in. For some reason, he couldn't grow a beard because he's like kind of, I don't know like he's Caribbean, sometimes Caribbean, or he's Chinese. Sometimes Chinese people can't grow beards. Sometimes they can. American Indian, or an American Indian yeah, absolutely Native American, for example, you might find that. Or an American yeah, absolutely native American, for example, you might find that your Islam could still be something very beloved to Allah.

Speaker 2: 1:10:57

The emphasis here is not on giving up outward deeds, and outward deeds aren't important. The emphasis here is how important inward deeds are and that it's the inward state of the soul that we bring to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and the outward follows, and I think there needs to be a redress on that, not because the Rand Institute in 2008 brought out something. We need kind of spiritual Sufi Islam and that can have more truck with us and they will fall in line with our securitization plans and whatever. No, simply because actually true tawhid is an inward reality before it's an outward reality, and our ulama have expressed this in untold ways Ibn al-Qayyim, ibn al-Rajab, al-ghazali, even. You know, one of the great pieces of wisdom anthologies we have is Kitab al-Hikm, ibn Atayillah al-Iskandari. Ibn Atayillah, you know, maliki jurist top notch, and then he took to the spiritual path and then produced a phenomenal writing out of which comes that, the Hikm Al-Ata'iyya, which really every serious student should acquaint themselves with. It's absolutely amazing. The dawah needs to re-correct itself, it seems to me, and I'll run as best.

Speaker 1: 1:12:37

Okay, you've just opened a massive door there, sheikh. So I'm going to get back to this, because this seems to be one of the crises of modernity that we've misunderstood the fact that Islam is internal and external and they come together. But before we get into that, I want to focus on this other question, which is you could see modernity as a set of isms, because you've mentioned before physicalism or naturalism, and in your book you talk about science and revelation and you talk about the kind of different isms or themes or trends within modernity. And you talk about the kind of different isms or themes or trends within modernity, of all of these kind of disputatious doctrines, if you like, which ism is the most spiritual destructive?

Speaker 2: 1:13:20

so before I answer that, the last part of your question, uh, rowing upstream, uh, what? What should not be done? I mean the idea of ouring upstream I'd like to say, just in the book it's from a really lovely passage for uh, written by the late martin lings, where he speaks about, um, that you know, once upon a time, uh, when modernity first came, okay, people realized that they needed to row upstream. And then, as time went on, they had to row upstream even harder and harder. But then modernity got into full swing and after this, while it's human nature that some human beings still, you know, I'm rowing, rowing upstream, but I'm not getting anywhere. You know, in physics, displacement, I mean, I may have been rowing for long, but I've only kind of moved one centimeter from my point of origin, right, okay, um. And so shaitan then whispers into you look you, what? If you turn the boats the other way around and went with the stream, in a short time you'd cover so much distance.

Speaker 2: 1:14:17

And so Ling said that slowly and steadily, the boats started turning, one by one by one, to face the way of the current and they went down and they said and then at some point they said, hey, look, look, join us, we're progressing, we're moving with the current and it's the nature, because you can see, I have moved and I'm moving fast and you lot, you're still kind of almost stationary. But the perceptive heart knows that it's not about how fast you move or how far you move, it's the direction that you move. Muslims are incredibly Qibla orientated, not just qibla orientated in prayer. Makkah, okay, mosques are the best at that. Okay, yeah, the mosque committees, 1960s, 1970s mosque committees, god bless them. And and the and the muftis, that used to be a set, they were early, you know, like you couldn't go like a hair's breadth, okay, like it, you know, 0.01 nanometers short and that's it, invalid prayer. But muslims are a qibla oriented, direction oriented not just in prayer, but heart wise. The heart must always be directed towards allah, okay, and to have that awareness which is why the word taqwa is the most common theme in the Quran, because it's an awareness, a consciousness, the heart's direction, or qibla, is Allah Jalla Jalaluhu. So we should.

Speaker 2: 1:15:41

The thing that we need to be careful is to stop rowing or to think that, merely because people are speedily heading downstream, that that is a good thing. No, because not everything that is good. Not everything that progresses is good. Cancer progresses, yes, but no one would say it's good. In fact, we need to ask, quote you in that, it's in the book, it's in the book as well. I, uh, in fact, we need to ask, and the book. And the book asks the question and explains it from the words of Gay Eaton, the late Gay Eaton. We need to first ask what progress is. And progress, in a nutshell, without reading the book, is anything that brings us closer to the divine reality and in conformity with the divine will is considered progress in Islam Anything that takes us away from Allah and.

Speaker 2: 1:16:40

His loving submission or His obedience is considered anti-progress. And that's not to say that our Muslim countries and states and their economies and their societies shouldn't function better than they they're doing, you know, by worldly standards and statistics. Some of them are failed states and whatever. But as you quite rightly pointed out in our discussion, sometimes you might be statistically a failed state, but you are people full of Iman, but still it doesn't give us an excuse to be a failed state. But all it means is that that's not the ultimate measure of human worth or human greatness. In fact Iman is. We should just remember that. And we should also remember that what is the purpose of the world? The purpose of the world, by its nature, is Ibtillah, is trials, tribulations and tests. Liyabluakum, ayyukum, ahsunu wa amalakum. Allah created life and death that he may test which of you is best in conduct. If we think the world can be utopian in any form or fashion, we fall for the same myth that early 20th century utopian movements fell for and we show that we have misunderstood the Book of allah. There is no utopia on this earth. There is trying to work for justice, some stability, but utopia is only jannah, okay. Anything else outside that cannot be a utopia. Ibtillah is the nature of the world and we should just remember where allah put us in this world. In Islam, the world is not. The importance of the world is not for what it is, but what it can supply us with, meaning that it gives us an arena to learn and develop our Adamic potential. To learn and develop our Adamic potential, love of Allah, obedience to Him, restraining the ego, patience, service to others, standing up for justice, reliance, tawakkul, fear and hope in Allah, so on and so forth. And that's why on some occasions there occasion with the Prophet told people look, help this needy person, alleviate whatever difficulty he or she is having.

Speaker 2: 1:19:24

Then there was some occasions, as you recall in the sound hadiths, A person came up to the Prophet and he or she I think it's a, he, he had leprosy. And Ya Rasulullah, please it's a she please make dua to Allah to cure me. And what does he say? If you wish, I will make the dua, and we know that when a prophet or when the Prophet makes dua, it's accepted, it's qabool, okay, right, if you wish, I can pray to Allah to remove it, or, if you wish, you can have patience, which will be better for you. So she said, ya Rasulullah, then at least make dua that in that state, in that fit of epilepsy, my clothes then become revealed, to reveal my nakedness. But you'd think, hold on a minute, wouldn't the answer be just pray for her cure.

Speaker 2: 1:20:20

Same hadith, hadith in Bukhari Blind man comes to the Prophet. Same thing If you wish, I can pray to Allah for you. Why? Because the real goal is to develop the Adamic potential In this case here it's rida bil qada to have contentment with your lot in life and still be connected to Allah. We Muslims now think that the ultimate end goal is somehow political stability, and though I'm not saying that we Muslims believe in political instability in fact it's completely the opposite which is why khuruj and al-hukam you know, rebellion against a wicked, unjust Muslim ruler is generally considered a no-no, to the degree that there is a reported consensus about the issue. Why? Not because Islam says, have ugly rulers and misfits, but because normally it involves anarchy and it involves civil war, and it's better to have a harsh stability than no stability at all.

Speaker 1: 1:21:31

Yeah, the primacy is on stability.

Speaker 2: 1:21:33

Indeed, indeed. Otherwise, islam doesn't believe in throwing out the furniture and the furnishings of the room just to have a tiny, just to have clean walls.

Speaker 1: 1:21:42

It's interesting. You said this because we were doing an interview with Sheikh Haytham and he said that the default position is tests for people's lives, and I haven't really heard it articulated this way. Jazakallah Khair, Sheikh. So tests become a means if we react to those tests or respond to those tests effectively to actually bring out the Adamic potential.

Speaker 2: 1:22:07

Absolutely Otherwise. Allah has creatures that glorify him 24-7. Yes, why would he want this fractured Adamic creature? Because there is a potential in every Adamic person, every human being, to rise higher than the station of angels.

Speaker 1: 1:22:27

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:22:28

But that only comes when the metal is tested yes and that can only happen at the human level, through trials, tribulations, vicissitudes, fitness on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 1:22:40

The root word to uh, yeah, to purify it, yeah, but so you actually revealed your scum comes out, who you really are comes out or you're purified. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That's the nature of Tesla, absolutely. But one would argue as well, sheikh, maybe, that no one's going to call for utopia. They're almost impossible. Even amongst the Sahaba, there wasn't a utopia. We know the history. However, isn't an act of taqwa to be on the path of commanding the goodidding the evil, wanting Allah's deen to be superior, wanting to have, you know, a political or powerful entity that actually can showcase the light of Islam to the world, even if that cannot happen? But pursuing that path, if it's based on righteous intentions, it's based on that. You know, qalb-in-salim, that sound hard, that they want to do that. That's not a blameworthy set of action, surely?

Speaker 2: 1:23:40

uh, for sure, let me give the quickest, shortest answer. For sure, that is not only not blameworthy, it's praiseworthy. Okay, so there's no doubt about it, and a Muslim can't be in any doubt about it. That's the outlines. The quibble comes in the details.

Speaker 1: 1:24:01

I've asked this because I don't want you to be misunderstood. Allah bless you.

Speaker 2: 1:24:04

Allah bless you. So politics is part of life in Islam. Siyasa we might discuss what the area of Siyasah actually is, but let's just keep it general. And having social political rules over us that govern us, that reflect the dictates of Tawheed and and prophetic guidance is also part of Islam. It just happens to be that part of Islam that doesn't have as many explicit details as, say, the rules for pilgrimage, ablution, prayer or something like that, but it has guidelines and that is an obligation. It is a profound mistake, but it has guidelines and that is an obligation.

Speaker 2: 1:25:04

It is a profound mistake from those good people, those few good learned people, who are beginning to say that we don't need a caliphate or the Sharia to be the dominant legislation. If they're saying if by that they mean we can't have a 7th century Meccan Arabia or a 9th century Damascus polity, that's ridiculous and we would have to agree with them. But if they're saying no sharia, that that the laws should just be what they are now kind of liberal, democrat, whatever then that's not how they should be for majority muslim countries. As regards to non-muslim countries, that's a different story. Um so, uh. So let's be clear. Clear on that. However, it seems to me and again, this is my window into the world. So if you feel this is really out of sync with reality, but I do try to be, I do try to make a distinction between anecdotal things and trends. Not every anecdotal episode signifies a trend and I do believe we're closer to trend than anecdotal here.

Speaker 2: 1:26:31

I think sometimes I think there's some element of confusion amongst the du'at and some of the Mashayikh, some of the scholars or Shaykhs students of knowledge about this, whilst there is a fringe voice even today around the world, including here in the UK, that seem to be so royalist that muslim ruler on the planet today, rather than being unfit for purpose, are like allah's greatest awliya. I would be surprised if there is a single wali from any ruler for the last hundred years. There might be one or two, who knows. But to feel to be royalist and defend every mistake and to believe you can't criticize an act of the ruler that is done publicly and widespread is to go against the Sunnah. To criticize the ruler there are texts there that don't allow that and there is a majoritarian understanding that it serves no benefit and the texts are alluding to that. But criticizing the public action is allowed, providing it doesn't lead to greater harm. I mention that because that's a fringe there.

Speaker 2: 1:27:58

The other thing is there is no politics in islam and I think generally most muslims are aware that that's not quite what islam says. But what we do find is in here. Just talk about the uk. Why are people talking about? We want this land to be a sharia land, when the common notion of Sharia is penal codes, hudud, punishments. If you say Sharia to someone, muslim or non-Muslim generally, that's the first thing that they have in their mind.

Speaker 1: 1:28:32

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:28:36

If people think a rule of Allah, a penal code of Allah, is more important than Allah and his Tawheed, they need to read Sira and Sunnah again. There seems to me to be no reason whatsoever, except in an academic situation, whereby we need to be calling for the implementation, as they say, of the sharia. We need to be calling to restoring the remembrance of god into people's hearts, who are either largely becoming atheists or atheists, or indifferent to allah, nihilistic, nihilistic, nihilistic yep, or. And we just need to be calling to basic Abrahamic Tawheed, which then requires for us to say, like you know, engage that issue of why is there something rather than nothing? Otherwise, as Ibn Taymiyyah says and again it's in the book, in the modernity book, the actual long quote that the first migrants to Abyssinia, the first mostly migrants to eat to Abyssinia, some of who died in Abyssinia before they came back six or seven years later to Medina, went to heaven without any Sharia. In fact, the Negus, that particular Negus himself, who doesn't even, isn't even able to proclaim his Islam publicly, let alone other things.

Speaker 2: 1:30:08

And Ibn Taymiyyah says there is also a question about how much was he praying? Because he didn't have. He was always watched, with attendants and courtiers and whatever, but he goes to paradise. That's not an excuse to not pray. That's not an excuse to not pray. It's the emphasis here is in our context, the only justification for living amongst our non-Muslim fellow countrymen, countrywomen, is dawah, and that dawah needs to be to Allah and Tawheed, and we haven't spent enough time on that or enough clarity on that. And the proof is atheism has grown in the presence of large, increasing populations of Muslims. Atheism has grown, I mean, and even sorry, even if we say it's grown on the back of, of Anglican Christianity, but it's grown, I get.

Speaker 1: 1:31:00

But I think what you said could be summarized with the narration of Aisha when she said if the ahkam were to come first, like don't drink alcohol, we will not have listened. But basically the foundational worldview aspects. So I'm mentioning this because you're not negating the fact and it could be in certain specific cases, that you could talk about Manushae law in a particular context, if the context is relevant to a particular person, if he's an economist, for example. Indeed, and giving down to an economist, say, look at the economic values and principles of Islam, what does that say about Allah's Tawhid? Absolutely, you could do it that way.

Speaker 2: 1:31:40

But it's all Tawhid-centric, absolutely Good, absolutely. You could do it that way, but it's all Tawheed-centric, absolutely Good, absolutely. And in majority Muslim countries, you know, we would hope that the Syrian government Alhamdulillah, would you know, of course, it's had years of harsh atheism. We would hope that something of the beauty of Tawheed and Sunnah will be even more established on the land as it's being established.

Speaker 1: 1:32:06

It reminds me of what I say in my private conversations, which I try and make my private conversations and public conversations the same, but sometimes they're not, which is a good thing. Sometimes they're not, which is a good thing. But when I speak to brothers, I don't really speak about rulers at all, like by name. And if you see a tweet I did 10 years ago, I probably deleted it and there's a reason for that. It's in my kind of I'm 44 now right, and it makes you a sheikh.

Speaker 2: 1:32:40

So you're not a shah, but you're not a shah. But you're not a youth anymore.

Speaker 1: 1:32:43

I have a family right and I'm thinking to myself do I manage my family optimally?

Speaker 2: 1:32:47

Sorry, you do know. Just right, there you do look like the president of Syria.

Speaker 1: 1:32:51

You know what. Someone else has told me that before.

Speaker 2: 1:32:54

It's just been on my mind for a while now.

Speaker 1: 1:32:58

Maybe we're like twins, who knows? So, you know, I say, am I perfect in managing and leading my family? No, and I think the family is a microcosm of state, the macrocosm. That's why I don't talk about anything, because you don't know what the hell's going on. It is actually 4D chess. Right, Don't get me wrong. You could talk about policy actions, public actions, principles, but to like gun down, I just I like to stay silent because of what you said as well.

Speaker 1: 1:33:30

Now, many brothers may disagree with me, but I think it's it's it's more conducive to humility, because we can't even effectively manage our families, and now you want this guy to effectively manage a state, and the state now is so different from the state 100, 200 years ago.

Speaker 1: 1:33:46

There are far more variables in place. I'm not saying you should excuse everything, but you need to just calm down and talk in a probabilistic way. Don't talk about it as if you go. Why from Allah that what you're saying is absolutely true, and I just find this arrogant in my view, and it's not, it's not echoing the heart that Allah wants, I think, in my view, in my view and I could be totally wrong, and I'm known to be, like you know, involved in both camps. You know, do the dawah work. You know I help with ideological stuff on the frontiers, this, that and the other, but I have my particular position. Can you manage your family, my brother and it's very interesting. If you don't mind, let's do a tadabbur on the 8th chapter of the Quran, the 73rd verse, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about the disbelievers.

Speaker 2: 1:34:34

He says the disbelievers are remind us of the verse so it's chapter 8, verse 73.

Speaker 1: 1:34:39

Allah says that the disbelievers are Awliya of one another, the guardians, the protectors of one another. And Allah says if you do not do the same, there will be Fitna on the earth. There will be fitna on the earth and there will be Fasaadun kadheerun, there will be great Fasaad. And then Allah mentions about, like he's indicating, the Ansar al-Muhajireen, those who fought jihad fi Sabilillah, those who followed them after. Then, after what does Allah say? But your family have prior rights over you.

Speaker 1: 1:35:13

I'm thinking to myself how did Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, not how? But Allah inserts the family in the context of the macro global struggle. You know, jihad for you, protectors of one another, fitna in the world, facade this and that, the other, the mujahidi and this and the other, and all of a sudden, but your family have prior rights. And that indicates to me there is a kind of necessary connection between what's happening in the family and what's happening globally and around the world. And I just want people to reflect. You know, many of us can't manage families properly, let alone the state. So just chill out, bruv, as we say.

Speaker 1: 1:35:54

So I don't know what you think on that one Sheikh.

Speaker 1: 1:35:57

Because I went through the whole Quran in English this year. I hardly read it in Arabic. I wanted to just do like. You know, my first language, I think it wasn't Greek, it was English and although my Arabic is not great but I'm continuing the point is I wanted to focus on a language that I could really internalize, and I did this, and I want to tell you something which I think is actually very important from the Qalb-e-Saleem perspective here. So this is what I did.

Speaker 2: 1:36:25

SubhanAllah, yeah, yeah, yeah, mashaallah, that was some tadabbur then. Yeah, it was life-changing.

Speaker 1: 1:36:31

And I came to the conclusion anyone who reads the book of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala and they still have a massive sense of arrogance. They're in a very dark place.

Speaker 1: 1:36:40

Masha, I also revealed that the quran. You don't read the quran, the quran reads you, and you know. The whole issue about sacrifice came about. How, you know, am I a person of sacrifice, which we really need? Hard work is easy, chef. The most difficult thing is sacrifice. Can I sacrifice my wealth, my, my, my you know what people think about me my life for the sake of Allah, and that you have to have a certain level of spirituality, which is like and that really kind of disturbed me, I think, yeah, so anyway. So, anyway, I thought I wanted to share that. So, question, sheikh, notwithstanding all the stuff we've spoken about so far, what ism, amongst the kind of different isms within modernity, is the most spiritually or islamically destructive, and what can we do about?

Speaker 2: 1:37:27

it um, from what I recall, section three of the book is modernity and its isms yep, and I address five or six isms there. There is consumerism, which I call crack, oh wow you, you address islamic feminism.

Speaker 1: 1:37:40

Uh, feminism, you are a very brave Czech. What are the other isms? You have Islam, freedom and liberalism, liberalism, transhumanism, transhumanism, perennialism and salvific exclusivity.

Speaker 2: 1:37:53

Perennialism is the last ism Consumerism and consumerism.

Speaker 2: 1:37:57

Out of all of those, it does seem to me that consumerism because it's related more so to Hubud Dunya in a very direct, stark way than the rest of the isbudunya-ism, the love of the world-ism which really is exemplified by today's crack consumerism, today's turbo-consumerism, transhumanism, is just the kind of almost logical I mean it's illogical from faith, but logical conclusion of the nihilism, the existential angst-ism that starts, you know, 100, 150 years ago, product of modernity. Why? Because one of the things modernity says is that the past is never where the glory is. The future is where the glory is. The future is where the glory lies, wherever, whenever. That future is okay, uh, and part of that trajectory is that there are, there is has been lots and lots of money since the 1960s been spent to slowly and steadily acclimatize people to transhumanism, which is whereby we might become human beings 2.0, new versions, because we are so embedded with tech, brains linked to computers, computers in all that kind of business, and there's a discussion about that and where Muslims stand with all that. But really you can probably just still leave. That isn't. But the whole thing of feminism, all of this kind of, is connected to the love of the world and the uneagerness to meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, or not even thinking about meeting Allah SWT. So it would seem to me, but it's one of those things.

Speaker 2: 1:40:07

I think that you can point to any one of them and say that is the bigger problem. It's a bit like saying students of knowledge, you know, especially when we're young, we're all kind of like without the nur of the teacher to guide you. We generally were quite pathetic and we think, you know, we just argue for. I just remember this argument one time on the early social media, on the early internet times, and some of the graduates of some you know Islamic university and some of the other students, they're all arguing what is the worst of the innovators. You know some kind of debate that had no relevance to the outside world innovators. You know some kind of debate that had no relevance to the outside world. And you know, and there was big, huge arguments, unfriendly as well, some of the same. It was the khwarij, you know, it's the murjia, no, it's the jamiya. No, it's the rafid, no, it's. But in the end, each one of them you can say, oh, and the and they are the ahlul bida, worse than the yahood and and and you know, from one perspective, sometimes it's that thing. From another perspective it's that thing.

Speaker 2: 1:41:08

And more often than not we human beings talk from perspectives rather than from a bird's eye view, because seeing the wood through the trees is not normally human nature. So, when it comes to the isms, if someone says, well, I think feminism is the biggest thing, fine, I get it. I get why someone could say that it's certainly important. Transhumanism no, that's the worst thing. Perhaps in the long run it is because actually transhumanism is taking us away from the Adamic nature that we've been created on. But some people will say, like I'm saying, consumerismism, just because it's more about the heart being attached to other than allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Otherwise, or perennialism, is a big problem because it's saying that even after islam and the quran there are, there are, there are other valid ways to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has, in the Qur'an, explicitly said there isn't any more. Yes, there might be ignorance of what Islam is, and so there is a kind of a leeway or a latitude, some amnesty on the day of judgment. But that doesn't mean that the way that they chose in their ignorance was valid. It just means that they might have an amnesty for not knowing islam. Yes, then, that's two different things. So, wallah, but for me it just does seem that, even in our dawah.

Speaker 2: 1:42:35

So I think to myself, early on, early to my personal experience, early on in Facebook, when I was trying to come to grips with this particular social media phenomenon, I was on Facebook. I thought, oh, this is handy. And then it said you have to do this, this, this, and if you post regularly, and then monetization. And I didn't know this and I had to ask someone. You know, am I kind of being blessed here? No, it's a generic thing. If you and I said what do you have to do? And then I'm listening to this brother explain that this is what you have to do, and I said so you keep posting and you keep building up your following and whatever, whatever, which means then you have to keep posting so that you can build up your following. And I said, oh, right, okay, and he said but isn't that a good thing? I said, yeah, obviously, if you have more followers and your message can get out. But then what are you posting for? And he stopped. He said, oh, I've never heard anyone say that. I said well, isn't?

Speaker 2: 1:43:33

I would have thought that would have been an obvious thing, because ikhlas is always sincerity and the motives behind our acts of worship or our seeking closest to Allah and our Islam is like kind of second to none and we are in that state whereby we are so tempted to do that, and that is a manifestation of Hubud Dunya. Hubud Dunya also is a case of and there's sometimes a fine line between wisdom and Hubud Dunya, and Allah is Merciful and he would accept our well-intended mistakes, inshaallah, and case of and there's sometimes a fine line between wisdom and buddhah, and allah is merciful and he would accept our well-intended mistakes, inshallah, and mistakes that come with a from a good nia, inshallah, likely to do less damage than mistakes that come from when the soul isn't oriented properly. Um, but it's a mistake nonetheless sometimes. Sometimes we're trying to explain Islam to non-Muslims and we actually change the rule.

Speaker 2: 1:44:26

Sometimes you might be in such a climate that if you say the raw truth, even with the greatest wisdom, the backlash is not just to you but to Islam as a whole could be severe. Maybe I can imagine security states or tougher security states than we have here in the UK. The United States, for example, is an obvious one Whereby it might be a bit tough to even discuss some of the things that we have here, but otherwise you get, you know, homeland security knocking on your door. So one might have to be far more wiser than perhaps I've been here. So that could happen.

Speaker 2: 1:45:04

But when it happens intentionally, because you just want to be liked by people, let us be. Let us wanting to be liked is so that, because liking me will be a means of liking Islam and Allah, not that I just want to be liked in myself. So I just think that not enough time has been deliberated over our social media engagements and how that plays with our ikhlas and how that there isn't significant elements of hubud dunya but otherwise. My short answer is I feel consumerism is the bigger ism of all of them, even though all of those isms have their disastrous consequences in one way or the other, and we ask Allah for safety and Salaam.

Speaker 1: 1:45:53

Ameen. So two final questions. So obviously, in your book you go through many things. You even go through God, science and Muslimnessness. You know modernity in the melancholy moods, muslim identity and meaning. You go through liquid modernity, question of politics, challenges of faith, the role of the scholars, modernity, isms.

Speaker 1: 1:46:16

So, as I said, go in the link in the description below. All the comments that we think are great comments will message you with a discount code and you go to that link, the publishers and you get a free book. We're gonna give out, inshallah, 25 free books and shall not let you do that. And please read it big, even though some of these essays are quite concise as well. But the multi-layered, they're like onions. They won't make you cry out of any pain, but maybe out of existential agitation, yeah, and your soul being provoked to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So two things. You said consumerism is the main ism, that's the biggest problem, and you also had an argument to say it could be the others, but because there is the kind of detachment of the heart from Allah.

Speaker 2: 1:47:06

And it's also because, when the Prophet was asked numerous times, one or two are very explicit nations will soon summon each other to attack you as hungry giants swoop down upon a plate of food. They said, ya Rasulullah, is that because that day will be small in number? He said, rather, you'll be plenty in number, but you'll be like the froth or the scum on the ocean waves or in the torrent, and Allah will take the fear out of the hearts of your enemy and cast into your hearts weakness. They said, ya Rasulullah. What is the weakness? He said love of this world and hatred for dying. Love of this world and hatred for dying. The reason why a scholar will jeopardize his or her scholarly integrity normally to get money is a hubb d-dunya reason. The reason why we may show off in our acts of worship is a hubb d-dunya reason. Really, a lot of it will come back down to something to do with the overt love of this world.

Speaker 1: 1:48:01

Well, this is extremely civilizational as well, because our civilizational problem is not that we need more numbers, we need more quality, and you've been focusing on that. It's not just the numbers, it's not the actions, it's the ihsan, it's the excellence, it's the quality and wahan. That feebleness, as you said, is love for dunya and fear of death. There is another hadith that has been attributed to Hasan al-Basri and he relates the Prophet, so he misses a Sahabi. Now, generally speaking, they say you could take it as a Hasan, as a good hadith, because of who he is and maybe because of the social political environment. He didn't mention which Sahabi it was Allah knows best but he mentions something similar which he says I think it's in Tirmidhi that love for dunya is the root of all evil. Yeah, so that echoes what you've just said as well.

Speaker 1: 1:48:50

The only reason I remember this I'm not a hadith specialist and you say perform my hadith understanding is weak, my hadith sciences is weak, so I don't want people thinking that I've mentioned this as if I'm someone special. I only remember this because I had to check out this hadith, because I put it in my book. That's the only reason I remember this particular hadith. So people don't miss. Think that I'm actually throwing this out there as a flex. It's not a flex.

Speaker 2: 1:49:10

So I just want to be clear on that. Could I have a diversion on that point? Yeah, but I'm going to give you those two last questions though. Yeah, okay, the diversion is one of the issues within contemporary Muslim discourse and scholarship we need to kind of be clear of. Is, and you can see this more so with Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal and the Hanbali scholarship think that if a hadith is not sahih or hasan, is not authentic or sound, it not only cannot be used in Islam, it shouldn't be used, it can't be used in fiqh or anything like that. This actually is not the opinion of any major classical jurist, it's a modern opinion, and I'll give you one example, just so that people can chase up this and rather than kind of think, oh, what is the speaker saying, he's got you know. Just go and chase up the fact that Imam Ahmed on one occasion Abu Ya'la records it, so does Ibn Rajab in the Tabiqatul Hanabilah. Imam Ahmad is asked about a particular hadith and he said in it is such and such a narrator and he is weak, and the hadith is weak. And he actually explicitly says the hadith is weak, daif. At some point in time, imam Ahmad is asked a question and he gives a fiqh ruling using this hadith, using the hadith that he declared weak Ibn Rajab. And that doesn't happen once or twice, it happens quite a few times. The humbly scholars who know Imam Ahmed'smed's work, you know like the back of their hand, say that's because imam ahmed, as a hadith master, muhadith tells it as it is, like a hadith scholar. Hadith contains a break, a cut. A weak narrator is going to not be authentic. Uh, hassan al-basasri, a major tabi'i, narrating from the Prophet. There's a break in the middle. So there's, it's a mursa, it's a hadith mursa According to the hadith scholars.

Speaker 2: 1:51:34

But according to the jurists, if a mursa al-hadith, like the hadith of al-Hassan, for example not that particular one that you're nourishing, but a Hadith or a Maudi Hadith, if it has Amr action upon it from either the Salaf or a group of the Imams of the Salaf, then that becomes a corroborating aqarina, a corroborating factor why we can use that Hadith in Fiqh.

Speaker 2: 1:52:02

So one of the contemporary humbly jurists from Iraq today, he makes a really nice point and he says look, don't impose, oh you modern observant Muslims who say, oh, the Imams like Imam Ahmad, al-shafi and Abu Hanifa, and these people they had their weak, weak hadith and their mother can take weak hadith, he goes. It's true, but they all had a principle, the three that I mentioned much more than Imam Shafi. Imam Shafi has has it lesser in his school, but Malik Abu Hanifa and Imam Ahmad have a lot in their school that the weak hadith or the mursal hadith can be acted upon if there is a qarina in fiqh. So the the this particular, uh, contemporary, humbly athlean jurists were saying look, you may want to follow contemporary hadith scholars who are authenticating and weakening hadith, but don't impose that upon the islamic tur surah, on our heritage, when we've already taken that into consideration.

Speaker 1: 1:53:05

And what's interesting, shaikh, this is not a deviation. This is actually the crisis of modernity. Absolutely Because, remember we said modernity is like a worldview, it's a paradigm. It talks about what we should know, what we shouldn't know. Right Indeed, we're supposed to have knowledge.

Speaker 2: 1:53:24

So yeah, epistemologically, those who say only the Sahih hadith can be taken in fiqh and na'qa.

Speaker 1: 1:53:27

it's a modern thing We've never had that through our classical heritage. So they've been infected by modernity, whereas the pre-modern scholars, they knew from an ilm al-hadith point of view that it was maybe a cut hadith or….

Speaker 2: 1:53:39

But epistemologically, there's a qareena corroborating evidence which is the amal of the salaf, the amal of a group of salaf, the action of. So yeah, the truth.

Speaker 1: 1:53:48

Value of that particular hadith becomes increased because they saw everything together.

Speaker 2: 1:53:52

So let me give you an example of that. So, after after we buried my late wife during the burial my late wife during the burial, after she was buried, and Shaykh Haytham made a dua and he said some really powerful words. Allah bless him and increase him in goodness. I just said I'm going to do the practice of talqeen instructing the deceased with the kalima, as per the school that I follow, as the Hanbali school, and I did it really quietly Normally you can say it loud enough. But one, there were a lot of people there, mashallah. And two, I know that this is going to be controversial and I don't want anything to kick off at my late wife's whatever. So I really hurried it and did it really quietly, even though when I came home a few days later, when I thought about, I thought I wish I'd done it a bit more proper anyway. So some days later a brother came up to me and said um, you know what did you do? I said, oh, um.

Speaker 2: 1:54:53

So there is a mildly weak hadith in the in one of the ta'barani collections ta'barani collections that says um, that, uh, that, instruct your deceased with what they said in their life la ilaha illallah, ibn al Qaym, rahmatullah alayh, but you can also find this in other major humbly scholars works.

Speaker 2: 1:55:15

But he says because the people that I want to reach out to will read Ibn al Qayayyim, rahmatullah alayh, he says exactly what other typical humblies say. The hadith is known almost by Ijma' to be mildly weak. They point out where the error lies in what narrator. But Ibn al-Qayyim says but there has been a continued practice upon talqeen from the age of the salaf which validates its practice today. That's one of more than a dozen examples in the humbly school, let alone the hanafi or the maliki school, and to some degree in the shafi school, of the fact that epistemologically, the modern Dawa, or the large voice of the modern Dawa, are so out of sync with the Torah, with the tradition, with the heritage, and it's really difficult to see how that's going to change, because modernity has this thing that if you shout loud enough that echo chamber becomes normalized.

Speaker 1: 1:56:26

So two last quick questions. So you said the ism amongst modernity which is more problematic is consumerism. You linked it to the love for the dunya. How do we solve that problem? And the last question I had was give us some words of hope how to address modernity and what are some key points you want to talk about, to advise the Muslims on how to showcase Islam in a meaningful sense that you're giving the world the light of Islam by giving the right meaning to people's lives.

Speaker 2: 1:57:13

Overcoming khubud dunya. An overt love of this world, more than more than naturally, is there and, of course, like natural love. By natural love I mean we love to drink something cool on a hot day, yes, we love family, friends, we love ease, so on, and so those are natural things that islam has no problem with. But over, overt love, clingy love, whereby we love the world so much that it will either make us do haram in pursuit of it or we leave an clearly established obligation because of it, then in that case the dunya has become a source of sedition, of fitna for us, whether in the form of wife, husband, children, money, house, reputation, career, whatever it be. That's the measure.

Speaker 2: 1:58:07

Dunya becomes worldliness, becomes problematic when it diminishes our drive for Allah and the hereafter, and if it causes us to sin, at that time it becomes absolutely problematic. Otherwise, it's problematic in that it diminishes, without being haram, our desire for Allah and the akhirah, and it competes with the love of our hearts love bit for Allah, bit for dunya. When we can't be like that, our hearts can't be divided like that. When we love something of the world, it should be for Allah SWT, and that obviously is a very high spiritual state that we ask Allah SWT to help us attain.

Speaker 1: 1:58:56

Ameen.

Speaker 2: 1:58:57

So how to work on that Generally? I mean, there's no one short answer, but it is by understanding what Allah has said about the ephemeral nature of the world and how kind of generally valueless it is in the sight of Allah and that it's a means to an end and the world is a place not in and of itself. The world is not for what it is but for what it can allow our potentials to become. Secondly, are we comparing anything to any, any creative thing, to allah's love? We need to focus on allah's love so that the the light of, of Allah's love begins to kind of like outshine everything else. Otherwise, we're doing our own selves a disservice to our Adamic natures. Otherwise, it's a matter of rolling up our spiritual sleeves and trying to, as where and when we can. Trying to shrink ourselves and shrinking ourselves.

Speaker 2: 2:00:04

Our egos is a difficult thing today. If we were living in 1970s Britain, for example and I remember the 70s, even early 1980s, but definitely 1970s you you'd find the British understatement always pleasantly putting yourself down. You've done this great accomplishment, but it was teamwork and that was something prophetic. That came probably from an earlier time and it probably has its Christian heritage. Anyway, point being is it is prophetically grounded somewhere. And then we chose to be the Americanization of our culture. Right, we're now out the window, but we've kind of all become Americans. In that sense. I'm not saying that there's no good in that country. There's a great good. I mean, it's one of the great modern experiments, the United States of America, and it has some good things and some really disastrous things, and but there's a lot to learn from there.

Speaker 2: 2:01:07

But the point being is, nowadays, even we Muslims it's we think, even we practicing Muslims, and that shares and scholars and art from amongst us. It's about growing our souls rather than shrinking our souls. But the whole of Revelation is teaching us to shrink our souls, to not leave any vacuum, to do what has to be done and then step out the limelight so that the glory can be all for Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And if we want a glory in a glory, ibn Atta'illah, rahmatullah alayh, says then glory in a glory that never vanishes, his glory. Otherwise there is no. There is no intelligent person should ever glory in a glory that vanishes, that is temporary, because it's then not glory. And so you and I know akida wise, that allah is the creator of our acts. Okay, so even when we do huge religious accomplishments of worship and obedience and charity and whatever it be, knowledge, but actually in, actually, in the end, that's Allah's doing a favour to us and we don't get into paradise through our deeds alone anyway. And so when we remember these things, it helps us to shrink and we just see the lives of the Prophet and the Sahaba.

Speaker 2: 2:02:37

How is it that, because you mentioned Sayyidina Umar ra a few times, but when we know authentically he is on his deathbed and he's reciting that couplet, that piece of poetry, which the lady I shall also decides oh, that I were a blade of grass, meaning that grass isn't held to account. There's no to believe, there's no accountability for grass, yeah, but the process, I'm said you know the process of Prophet promised him paradise whilst he was walking on earth, and Shaytan and Ibn al-Khattab never takes one valley except Shaytan. Take the other valley. Why is this? Why is this Adamic soul? Why is it on his deathbed? He's weeping, fearful that, oh, that I was a blade of grass, because he knows it's all about divine generosity. It's no more, no less. It's not about, it's never about us, right?

Speaker 1: 2:03:44

so how do we reclaim meaning for ourselves and for the wider community?

Speaker 2: 2:03:48

maybe could end with some words of hope it's kind of kind of you know me enough by now, over the few years that we've kind of really got to know each other. Allah bless you and increase you in goodness, that I feel that my writing I tend to be comfortable with my writing. I feel that mashallah, you know, with a few edits here and there, it's kind of done. Well, I think my speech is generally waffle, so I think if someone listens to this particular podcast and the way that I've attempted to put things across, bearing in mind how, in at least on two occasions, you've said a one line or a two liner, that has been more effective than I think my whole 10 minute spiel has the audience to, rather than not to leave them with anything. In a few words, I I would really encourage, not because it's gonna somehow profit me, but really I just want us to all of us, you know to be able to connect to all our better and to be more effective as therapists and healers in in modernity, because the world does need healing. It doesn't need any more shouting out. It doesn't need for me to put down another person and tell them how wrong they are, such that I can feel elated about myself. What it needs is we need to be healed, and the Prophet was sent precisely with that healing. Sometimes healing is like you know, it's tough love, you know, there's no doubt about it. But inshallah, it's healing, though right. So all I can say is look, intelligent Islam. We generally, once we've learned that, look, I have to pray and fast and there's some rules of wudu and things like that.

Speaker 2: 2:05:47

If you feel that you have the temperament of character, patience, forbearance, ready to a bit thick skin and you are you, you are articulate by nature. Not every human being, not every pious human being is articulate and you are articulate by nature not every human being, not every person as human being is articulate and you are articulate by nature then maybe, inshallah, connect to uh, connect to institutions like sapiens, really like yourself, uh, okay, uh, because I know you do mentoring and and things like that, because you'll probably find that, inshallah, that is the, you know the groove in the record, that is the niche that Allah wants for you. But if you're not like that, if you're not thick skin, or if you're not articulate, and if you have all those qualities that make can make the dawah so cringy, don't, don't, don't jeopardize your salvation, but find your own path to allah, through service to your parents, service to your neighbors, helping the brothers in dawah physically driving them, supporting them with your wealth because now you've got a good paying job or whatever, or 101 000 ways of helping and being righteous. But what we do need in all of this is the shrinking of the self, and what we do need in all of this is language. Of course it's dawah, of course it's tohid, of course it's sharia, of course it's sunnah and all the. But actually, when I'm, when I'm reminded that the Prophet and Tawheed is healing, it's therapy, it's the soothing for the souls, for the anxious soul, it makes me see myself in a different light and it makes me look at the world in a different light. I think, alhamdulillah, more of us are becoming relatable as du'aat callers in the West, where shunning unnecessary foreign embellishments that we don't, sharia doesn't require us to have, doesn't require me to wear an Indian, pakistani khamis or a Yemeni shawl. You know, these things can be very mashallah, you know, when we go for occasions and whatever mashallah we might do that. But we need to be relatable, not just the language we speak, but the way we dress, the ideas we communicate. We need to be concerned, and I'll just end with this. Really, the book is very thorough, it has a wide sweep. So it's there, but let's try to have some of that prophetic compassion.

Speaker 2: 2:08:31

Modernity, day by day, has victims. The victims are normally struck with existential angst of not understanding what on earth I'm supposed to be doing here on earth and why does everything seem pointless? My generation has left my children's generation my youngest is 25, my oldest is with an earth and a planet and a society which is far more unstable, unproductive than what we had in my generation. That's not their fault. The social media age has made the world more angry, and expressing that anger has almost become the default norm. So civility now is a rare commodity. But it's not any one person's fault.

Speaker 2: 2:09:32

And we have things over the horizon loss of jobs, teachers out of jobs because an AI can do it better, doctors out of jobs because an AI could do it better, so on and so forth.

Speaker 2: 2:09:43

Initially, five years, 10 years, 20 years is going to be a major upheaval, and in upheaval times there are scapegoats, there is even more anger, and so we must not forget that our job is not to get caught up in the anger and the rage, but to be level-headed enough to remember that we're meant to be healers through Abrahamic monotheism, through Tawheed. Otherwise, we fail, we're not fit for purpose, we fail what we're meant to be here for. So, whilst it's important to be aware of those things and to have some knowledge of what people now call future orology not what technology we'll have in the future, but how that technology may or may not shape society that's what future orology is about. Rather than predicting tech, whilst we might be getting into all that, we need to know how to heal our own selves and those immediately around us, and maybe even society as a whole. May Allah ask Allah for it.

Speaker 1: 2:10:48

Ameen, jazakallah Shaykh, may Allah bless you. Jazakallah for coming. Not many people may be aware that relatively recently, your beloved wife passed away. I just want everyone to make dua for her and grant her janat al-firdaus, to grant her the highest level of paradise without any reckoning, and to make it easier on you and your entire family.

Speaker 2: 2:11:11

May.

Speaker 1: 2:11:11

Allah bless you, sheikh As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-s-salām.