Latest / After Maghrib 🌙 / Blindly Following Religion (Ft Shaykh Sadiq Meghjee)

Transcript

Blindly Following Religion (Ft Shaykh Sadiq Meghjee) · After Maghrib 🌙

• 0:00
  All the blaham and shut down like you know, James Mallahu,
• 0:02
  Ahmad Rahim, Islam Alayka. Welcome back to the Aftermarket
• 0:06
  podcast. This is a slightly different
• 0:08
  conversation to what we usually have today.
• 0:10
  We are talking about whether we blindly follow the religion of
• 0:13
  our parents. Now, when I say that we not we,
• 0:16
  we don't literally or metaphorically mean parents.
• 0:18
  Some may take it literally and some may not, but we want to
• 0:21
  really get to the bottom of this question.
• 0:23
  Do we understand what we believe in sometimes?
• 0:26
  Are we too gullible or do we ask too many questions?
• 0:28
  And at what point does asking questions become dangerous or
• 0:31
  deterred? So Charlotte, we have a lot to
• 0:33
  discuss, a lot to unpack. As always.
• 0:36
  We have a great panel who's on my left?
• 0:40
  And before we introduce the Sheikh formally, as always said.
• 0:55
  Ali. And I didn't shake your hands
• 0:56
  yet. Sorry.
• 0:58
  And how you doing, Al Hamdallah? Al Hamdallah, in usual
• 1:03
  aftermarket of fashion, said Ali.
• 1:05
  How are you? Al Hamdallah, now that I'm
• 1:08
  seeing you. Yeah, it's been a while.
• 1:10
  We've seen you. It's.
• 1:10
  Been a long while, although people see us every week in
• 1:13
  Shala on the podcast, I haven't seen Ahmed for about just over
• 1:16
  10 days, which is good to be back in your presence.
• 1:19
  My wife complaints I I see her less than I see you so it's been
• 1:24
  a while. Shala's a blessing.
• 1:26
  Hamdallah, how are you doing, Mohammed?
• 1:27
  Al Hamdallah, all good. It's been interesting.
• 1:29
  Shah Ramadhan. Interest a good thing?
• 1:31
  Yeah, I've been a little bit unwell over the last few days,
• 1:33
  but. Al Hamdallah, Hamdallah.
• 1:36
  And look, we have, we're really honoured to be joined by Sheikh
• 1:38
  Sadek, make you who I'm sure many of us in the audience know.
• 1:41
  And for those online, if you don't know him, I'll, I'll very
• 1:43
  briefly introduce the Sheikh Sadek Mekhdi was born and raised
• 1:46
  in London and trained as a financial accountant.
• 1:48
  In 2015, he went to Qom for Hausa studies for seven years.
• 1:52
  His interests are in theology and intellectual history.
• 1:55
  He currently works as a finance manager in central London while
• 1:58
  also continuing his Islamic studies.
• 2:01
  Sheikhna, it's so good to have you on.
• 2:03
  How's your Shahar Maldan been so far?
• 2:05
  It's been a blessing. Sometimes I think how were we
• 2:09
  able to fast a couple of years back in the summer when fast for
• 2:12
  18 hours, 20 hours, and right now we're breaking fast at 6:30
• 2:15
  and it's quite hard. So I found the little, you know,
• 2:18
  Ramadan comes with his blessings.
• 2:19
  It gives you that strength. And, you know, we try to make
• 2:22
  the most of every moment that we have there.
• 2:25
  Yeah, yeah, it's been, it's been something, hasn't it?
• 2:27
  So for, I mean, in Aftermarket of fashion, for those who don't
• 2:29
  know, when we have a guest on, we usually like to get to know
• 2:32
  our guests off the member outside of the workshop.
• 2:34
  So we're going to, we're going to put you to a little quiz
• 2:36
  here. I know I haven't prepared you
• 2:37
  for this. I'm going to ask you to rank
• 2:41
  five of your favorite Iftar's. OK?
• 2:44
  But the trick is I'm going to give you one and then you have
• 2:48
  to rank it before you know what the other four are, if that
• 2:50
  makes sense. So for example, if I say Nando's
• 2:53
  as the first one, you say #3 But then that obviously means your
• 2:56
  number three slot is taken. Makes sense.
• 2:57
  Got it, got it. OK, cool.
• 2:58
  Sounds interesting. MO, do you want to do this with
• 3:00
  me? Yeah.
• 3:00
  OK, jump in. So OK, so we first start.
• 3:03
  Do I have to say them in order or?
• 3:06
  Can I just start with the first one?
• 3:08
  OK, all right, cool. Let's go with.
• 3:10
  OK, the first one is chicken biryani.
• 3:12
  Chicken biryani, you got so interesting. 5.
• 3:14
  If it was lamb biryani it might be a bit different, but chicken
• 3:17
  biryani I'll say probably it's 3.
• 3:20
  OK, Three interesting. Safe.
• 3:22
  OK, All right. Mushkaki and masala chips.
• 3:26
  Oh. For those who know me, that's a
• 3:27
  number one, number one, number one straight.
• 3:30
  Nothing. Better in life, nothing better
• 3:32
  in life. I'm happy with that right now.
• 3:34
  Give me that right now. OK, this is a good one.
• 3:37
  Say, Ali, this is your favorite one.
• 3:38
  Believe it or not, a sad one. Oh.
• 3:41
  Kukupaka. Not bad.
• 3:45
  What does it mean? Oh.
• 3:46
  It's like coconut curries. It's the samosas.
• 3:50
  My gosh. OK, for me that's a 1.5, but
• 3:53
  yeah, a 2A2. You should put it in second
• 3:55
  sleeve. Yeah.
• 3:56
  OK, so two. OK, nice.
• 3:57
  OK, cool. And the fourth one.
• 3:58
  Beef lasagna. Oh, that's a 5.
• 4:01
  So there's a lot involved in that.
• 4:02
  And then I feel bad because I know how hard it is to make a
• 4:04
  lasagna, so I feel bad for the person who cooked it.
• 4:07
  Yeah. Definitely I had that for hard
• 4:09
  to do believe it. Or not.
• 4:10
  Oh gosh. And #5 Jimmy Uncle KFC.
• 4:14
  Oh. Gosh, if I put him at full, I'm
• 4:18
  forced to, with all due respect, to do me until that is a great
• 4:20
  meal. If I had the ability, I'd
• 4:22
  probably put him at #2 But yeah, that's going to be a. #4 good,
• 4:26
  OK, alhamdulillah, I hope that we, we, we're all not craving
• 4:29
  it. I mean, I had lasagna today, but
• 4:31
  I don't think I'd put it as a #5 but look, alhamdulillah, we've,
• 4:35
  we've had some great meals, don't we?
• 4:37
  And although this is kind of separate to our conversation,
• 4:41
  I'm going to change the topic slightly and jump straight in
• 4:43
  talking about God. So look, this is this is
• 4:47
  something really exciting. There's a lot to unpack here.
• 4:50
  Chef, where do you where do we kind of begin with this
• 4:52
  conversation? Gosh, we're going from zero to
• 4:55
  60 in like one second here. So going by the idea of blind
• 5:00
  following, we can first try to understand what does the Quran
• 5:03
  have to say about the idea of blind following.
• 5:05
  If we want to go and start from somewhere, we should at least
• 5:08
  try to make our starting point something Quranic, something
• 5:11
  Islamic. And when you look at the Quran,
• 5:14
  when it talks about the ways in which people believe, there are
• 5:18
  three essential ways that the Quran speaks about it.
• 5:21
  The first way is when Allah condemns the Arabs at the time
• 5:25
  of the Prophet for simply blind following.
• 5:27
  When the Prophet came and he said, I have a message for you
• 5:30
  or either be Allahum to Allah, Ilama and Zalallah, they will
• 5:34
  say husband like what we have, what our forefathers have given
• 5:39
  to us is enough. Like they didn't even take it
• 5:42
  for a moment to compare it and say one second, you know, let me
• 5:45
  see what he's bringing. Let me see if I can benefit in
• 5:48
  some way. Let me compare between what I
• 5:49
  have now and what he's ringing me.
• 5:53
  They just said enough is enough. We're not even interested.
• 5:56
  And then Allah follows in those verses and he says that even
• 6:03
  though their forefathers and those, their parents, they
• 6:06
  didn't know anything. It's like the blind leading the
• 6:08
  blind Hola. Yeah, to do Hola, yeah, to do.
• 6:12
  And they were not guided. And you see this over and over
• 6:15
  again, that when it comes to the Arabs at the time when the
• 6:18
  Prophet came, that Allah condemns them.
• 6:20
  And then in another verse, which is really crazy, you have Allah
• 6:23
  says in the Sharad, the world behind the law, that the worst
• 6:26
  of creatures, Allah doesn't even honour these people.
• 6:29
  That's calling them as humans. He says in a shadow dawab and
• 6:31
  beasts, creatures, someone bokmon aladeen Allah.
• 6:35
  There are those people who don't they're they're dumb and blind
• 6:40
  and they don't think, they don't reason, they don't think about
• 6:43
  what's going on, what they're being challenged with what
• 6:45
  they're what's coming forward. So that's the first category you
• 6:48
  could say that is blind following.
• 6:50
  Then you have a second category of verses where Allah commands
• 6:55
  and encourages us to think Afala yanduru IL El ibel Ek for
• 6:59
  holikatas. Do they not look at the camel
• 7:02
  and how it is created? What ELA summer Ek for offerat
• 7:05
  and the skies? Look at the beautiful skies and
• 7:07
  how it's created and other places.
• 7:09
  Allah says afalaya kaloon afalata the balloon.
• 7:12
  Do they not think? Do they not think So Allah's
• 7:14
  come on and constantly think, reason, contemplate, reflect.
• 7:18
  Why are you not reflecting? Some verses?
• 7:21
  Allah says Siru fell out of here.
• 7:23
  Allah's giving a command to go on holiday, go and travel.
• 7:27
  Go and travel and see, see what? See the civilizations before
• 7:30
  you. So maybe this verse wouldn't
• 7:32
  apply to Dubai, but if you go to Turkey, for example, you want to
• 7:35
  go see what's going on there. Go have a look at the
• 7:37
  civilization that was there previously.
• 7:39
  Some parts in Europe, great civilizations that you have this
• 7:41
  great heritage. Go look at people who consider
• 7:44
  themselves to be great. What's their end?
• 7:46
  So this is something that Allah says as well.
• 7:48
  Reflect and travel or travel with a purpose is that you
• 7:52
  awaken that intuition, you awaken that reflective side to
• 7:55
  you. Then there's a third way that
• 7:58
  Allah speaks about learning and forming belief system, which is
• 8:02
  a dialectic and educational process.
• 8:05
  We have a verse that says first alu al al hebra, first alu al
• 8:08
  evic, sorry, first alu al evic. In that go and seek the people
• 8:13
  of knowledge, the people of remembrance.
• 8:15
  If you don't know. So here Allah is saying that
• 8:18
  there's a hierarchy. Now, sometimes you need an
• 8:20
  expert, sometimes you need a guide.
• 8:22
  But this isn't like the first category.
• 8:24
  In the first category was the blind leading the blind.
• 8:27
  Here all are saying no, find the Aluvik, those who are worthy of
• 8:31
  being asked and ask them if you don't know.
• 8:34
  So you see these three different categories that we have going
• 8:36
  on. And when you see that, sometimes
• 8:38
  it makes you think, OK, what am I doing?
• 8:40
  What's going on with me? Am I simply a Muslim?
• 8:44
  Because this is something I found my forefathers on.
• 8:47
  Am I sure because this is something I found my forefathers
• 8:50
  on. Or have I taken a step back?
• 8:54
  Have I reflected and I come to this decision rationally,
• 8:58
  consciously, through evidence, through reason, etcetera,
• 9:02
  etcetera. So that's kind of like the way I
• 9:04
  would begin this discussion. You look at that and then from
• 9:07
  there you can take it to another stage.
• 9:10
  I really love those points and I think we can all resonate with
• 9:14
  that, especially the Quranic reflections, and it's a
• 9:16
  beautiful way to start this conversation.
• 9:18
  However, I see it sort of also from a different angle and it's
• 9:21
  not just blindly following. It's inheriting religion.
• 9:24
  And I think many of us here, Hamdullah, have been born
• 9:27
  Muslim, born Shia and also handler for the blessing of
• 9:30
  having the head start to gender. I think from that aspect.
• 9:33
  So that's one, one good thing. We can say we can be thankful to
• 9:36
  our parents for allowing us to be raised in a Muslim household.
• 9:39
  But then I think a danger comes with that as well.
• 9:42
  There's certain baggage where if we're just born Muslim, there's
• 9:47
  we're not doing anything. We're just, you know, taking,
• 9:50
  taking everything for granted, just being sheep.
• 9:53
  If I can use that to apologise people and there's nothing to
• 9:57
  gain in this life. So this is Hala, this is Haram.
• 10:00
  I go to sleep, I go to work, I eat, sleep, repeat, eat, sleep,
• 10:03
  repeat. There's no meaning in life.
• 10:05
  But the moment I think we sort of appreciate what we have,
• 10:10
  we're no longer blindly following because I think we can
• 10:12
  only blindly follow religion. The way I see it, if we were
• 10:15
  given this, if we were nourished with Islam, for example, rather
• 10:19
  than being held and guided and supported, we're just told what
• 10:23
  to do. So there is a danger I would
• 10:26
  say, could I could be, I can fall track to this.
• 10:29
  Is that because I was born Muslim?
• 10:31
  I was born on the path of what else do I have to do?
• 10:37
  What steps do I have to do to ensure that I can reach that
• 10:42
  status and gender and to be in the presence of Rasul Allah
• 10:46
  Muhammad sallallahu alaihi? I think it's interesting as well
• 10:53
  because I think as Shia, when we grow up in our communities, we
• 10:56
  have our separate communities and we all go to mosque.
• 10:59
  And I think that generally people like when we make a
• 11:02
  comparison with like the Quran or the Arabs of Quraysh, there's
• 11:06
  a very tribal aspect and you know, a very like ignorant
• 11:10
  aspect. But I think we're when we're
• 11:12
  growing up in our communities, we kind of assume as well that
• 11:15
  our communities are based on asking.
• 11:18
  Our communities already have a level of guidance.
• 11:22
  So I think it makes the people that are growing up in these
• 11:24
  communities more kind of confident or more laid back in
• 11:30
  in being critical and asking questions because they would
• 11:34
  assume that the elders in the community or the leaders of that
• 11:38
  community have already done the job.
• 11:39
  For them, well, if they asked the wrong questions.
• 11:41
  Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. This is this is the thing.
• 11:45
  And do you know what I'm really sorry to drop, but you know,
• 11:48
  being, I mean, the majority of us in this in this hall are are
• 11:50
  courgiles. And for us, we when we trace our
• 11:53
  ancestry back, we understand that there was a point in
• 11:55
  history where one of our ancestors or a group of our
• 11:58
  ancestors had critical thinking and because of that came to the
• 12:02
  path of Amidamot Manin. He followed the path of Laila
• 12:05
  and Allah and there was a sadaqajari involved.
• 12:09
  And now imagine till today, there's hundreds of thousands of
• 12:11
  us around the world who on on A5 time daily basis are reciting
• 12:15
  the words of, of namaz and, and professing the shahada and all
• 12:19
  of these things, reciting the Holy Quran.
• 12:22
  You know, God bless whoever that was because the South Kajaria to
• 12:24
  them is going to be crazy Inshallah.
• 12:26
  But that critical analysis just went to show them our ancestors
• 12:31
  didn't inherit the religion of their ancestors.
• 12:34
  Rather, they thought about what they were following.
• 12:36
  And this kind of brings us on to our next point because again and
• 12:39
  again we talk of course about the Allahabad name of Salaam,
• 12:41
  what they gave to us, what they taught us.
• 12:43
  And on, on numerous occasions they talked about asking,
• 12:47
  asking, asking Imam Hussein Islam on the day of Ashuraah
• 12:52
  before the whole in, in that 2-3 hours segment when he approached
• 12:55
  the enemies, the army of Omaha bin Sa'an.
• 12:58
  And he said to them, who are you fighting?
• 13:02
  Look at who you're fighting. Who is the grandson of, of
• 13:04
  Rasullah on this earth? And also he said, if you're not
• 13:07
  a believer and you don't believe in Latin Allah, at least be
• 13:09
  free, free, you know, think, think, think.
• 13:12
  He tells Minimot Manin when he says Saluni, Saluni, he's asked
• 13:15
  me before, before I leave you, you can either either ask the
• 13:18
  right question or you can say like, what do they say?
• 13:20
  Say it. How many hairs are on my head?
• 13:21
  How many hairs are on my head? A waste of a question?
• 13:24
  So, you know, are we asking the right question, Cher?
• 13:27
  And are we as a community, especially of youth, are there
• 13:30
  signs in our community that we are asking the right questions,
• 13:34
  that we are critically analytical in our approaches?
• 13:37
  Gosh, you guys have all said some great things.
• 13:39
  So I'm going to try, I'm going to try and go through the whole
• 13:41
  journey that we just had. So 100%, when you're blessed to
• 13:45
  be given the truth from infancy, it's very easy to become to take
• 13:50
  it all for granted. And it's very easy to take this
• 13:52
  whole idea of being on a, you know, intellectual journey, on a
• 13:58
  journey of reflection and contemplation.
• 14:00
  It's very easy to take it for granted and the words of the
• 14:03
  Imams themselves like you touched on are key.
• 14:07
  We have a hadith from Imam Sadaq Alayhi Salaam where he says to
• 14:10
  his companions Alaykum betafako fiddin that upon you is the deep
• 14:15
  thinking of religion. But it doesn't stop there.
• 14:18
  The Imam says which is interesting.
• 14:22
  The Imam says don't be like the Bedwins.
• 14:24
  Then in the Tafsi, it's the in the commentary, it says in the
• 14:27
  Hum Jahiluna Betdin that they were ignorant of their religion.
• 14:31
  So even though we've been blessed and 100% we need to
• 14:34
  agree, I think we all agree as on this podcast, none of us are
• 14:38
  blindly following our forefathers.
• 14:39
  Let's get this out there before the parents start protesting
• 14:43
  Alhamda. We're fortunate.
• 14:44
  It's a dialectic. It's an educational system.
• 14:46
  We go through the system. We're taught why we believe what
• 14:48
  we believe. If we, if any of the kids here,
• 14:50
  but to be asked, you know why you actually, for example, I'm
• 14:53
  pretty sure they'll have the evidences at the tip of their
• 14:55
  tongue, Alhamda. That's how good the educational
• 14:56
  system has been. So let's not think anyone is
• 14:59
  blind following or anything. But however, that being said,
• 15:02
  there still needs to be that continuous impetus for learning,
• 15:06
  for growth. There can never be an end to
• 15:09
  growth to to the whole intellectual journey.
• 15:12
  Sorry. In terms of your last point you
• 15:14
  said is are there signs? Yeah, like when you when you as
• 15:17
  like someone who's who you've been born and brought up here,
• 15:19
  you you've lived through the the society here.
• 15:21
  You understand the challenges that we face as a community,
• 15:24
  especially in the millennials. Do you think do you think we are
• 15:27
  equipped prepared for especially for the the whole of the holy
• 15:30
  Imam. There's a lot to Allah for just
• 15:31
  Sharif because we are we look at the holy Imam and the holy Imam
• 15:35
  and his last letter to his fourth Wakili.
• 15:37
  What did he say? He said follow those with
• 15:39
  knowledge in my absence. And we hear about all the hadith
• 15:42
  which talk about the Reformation of of the religion Aslah Haddin,
• 15:46
  which we know in Mohammed Hussein Islam said on on Yamala
• 15:49
  shore. So when you look at us as a
• 15:52
  community and as someone who's studied and someone who's
• 15:55
  travelled, how, how does it make you feel?
• 15:58
  Are you filled with encouragement?
• 16:00
  So I put it on the spot. I think when you look at the
• 16:03
  community or the society in general, you can kind of see it.
• 16:06
  You can kind of observe 3 different groups.
• 16:08
  So you have one group who are very proactive when it comes to
• 16:12
  matters of reflection, thinking, and thought.
• 16:15
  And this group are people who are very well versed with the
• 16:17
  religion. They're always reading books,
• 16:19
  they're always engaging in majalis, they're always at the
• 16:21
  front of seminars, they're always speaking to scholars.
• 16:23
  They've got a very nice strong social circle.
• 16:25
  And what categorizes or what differentiates these this group
• 16:29
  is that they're proactive with their learning.
• 16:31
  Then you can say there's a second group who are a little
• 16:34
  bit more reactive. They're not proactive in the
• 16:38
  sense that they're not looking to put themselves out there.
• 16:40
  They're not pushing themselves beyond to make sure that
• 16:43
  education is going strong. They're more reactive, they're
• 16:45
  familiar, they're reflective, they're involved, but they're
• 16:47
  not like the first group. Then you have the third group
• 16:50
  who are passive, meaning they're happy just to go whichever way
• 16:54
  the wind blows. You know, one day it'll turn to
• 16:56
  the magi list. They've got one speaker, they'll
• 16:58
  listen to him, they'll enjoy. Then they'll go back home, and
• 17:00
  then the next month there'll be another program exactly the
• 17:03
  same. It's passive, there's no
• 17:04
  involvement. So when you look at these three
• 17:06
  groups, you say alhamdul, there is a wide spectrum you could
• 17:09
  say. However, that being said, the
• 17:12
  group that is more passive, there needs to be more done to
• 17:16
  ensure that they can encourage and get involved with the
• 17:19
  religion a little bit more to get them thinking a bit more, to
• 17:22
  get them more involved in that religion so that it doesn't
• 17:24
  become a subconscious activity for them.
• 17:27
  Just to kind of add to that, with regards to critical
• 17:30
  thinking, how would you say is like the exact perfect point
• 17:34
  where you are taking yourself out of doubt into actual
• 17:39
  certainty? Because a lot of people that
• 17:40
  I've come across that, you know, critical thinking is sometimes
• 17:44
  it is a, it's a, it's a, it's something that plays on, on
• 17:49
  certain people whereby like you ask someone a question and
• 17:52
  they're supposedly a critical thinker and they'll say to you,
• 17:54
  OK, it's either option A or B. Some people have said C, and if
• 17:59
  C is true, then possibly D And then at the end of the day, it
• 18:03
  doesn't seem like that person even forms an opinion at all.
• 18:07
  And I feel like sometimes I'm like, do we have that liberty as
• 18:12
  Muslims to just not have an opinion on things and be
• 18:15
  critical to a certain extent that we don't actually reach a
• 18:19
  conclusion? How how do we make sure that we
• 18:23
  are critical enough that we are able to form an opinion?
• 18:26
  But also remain critical enough to challenge it.
• 18:31
  Challenge. Exactly.
• 18:32
  That is a brilliant point. And I think the problem we get
• 18:34
  from that is when we talk about critical thinking, sometimes we
• 18:38
  mistake or we confuse what critical thinking is within the
• 18:41
  Western tradition and what critical thinking is within the
• 18:44
  Islamic tradition. And it's important that we
• 18:47
  differentiate the two because we're going to use these terms
• 18:49
  loosely, you know, critical thinking, free thinking, open.
• 18:52
  He's an open thinker. He's a, he's a, he's someone
• 18:55
  who's open minded. And it's important that we make
• 18:58
  it clear that when it comes to the Western tradition, for
• 19:00
  example, for them, the only thing that the only tool in
• 19:04
  their epistemology or the only tool that they used to know is
• 19:07
  this rationality, this cold pure reason.
• 19:11
  And for them, there's nothing else that is of value beyond
• 19:14
  that. So if you come to an opinion or
• 19:16
  you come to a belief through something else other than that
• 19:18
  pure cold reason, for them it has no value.
• 19:21
  Whereas when you look at the Islamic tradition, the idea of
• 19:24
  reason and the apple, even though reason isn't necessarily
• 19:27
  the best translation for apple, but we have this problem.
• 19:30
  And for those who are familiar with Arabic, it's impossible to
• 19:33
  translate things from one language to the other.
• 19:35
  But let's say when within the Islamic tradition you have the
• 19:39
  idea that reason and revelation, for example, are always
• 19:41
  complementary. It's never the case that one is
• 19:45
  against the other. What our philosophers and our
• 19:47
  scholars and our theologians have always said is that reason
• 19:51
  has its domain and revelation has its domain.
• 19:54
  Once reason is begin was able to establish the validity and the
• 19:58
  value of the revelation, then reason needs to know that there
• 20:02
  are certain things it can't get involved with.
• 20:05
  The problem we have in the Western tradition of critical
• 20:08
  thinking. Which is the modern tradition
• 20:10
  that become popular in the universities post 17th century.
• 20:13
  You have modernity, you have enlightenment.
• 20:15
  Is the idea that anything other than this rationality is not to
• 20:20
  be valued. And that can lead someone into a
• 20:22
  slippery slope whereby they end up with no opinion whatsoever.
• 20:28
  Not only with no opinion whatsoever, but it becomes hard
• 20:30
  to establish the value of religious ideas because some of
• 20:34
  these religious ideas are based on revelation.
• 20:36
  They're based on religious experience, and if you're
• 20:38
  someone from within that Western mindset of pure reason, it's
• 20:43
  very hard to substantiate that. Is that is that to say, though
• 20:46
  that revelation isn't always in line with reason.
• 20:49
  No, not at all. They're complementary, OK, But
• 20:51
  there are certain arguments that revelation will bring that
• 20:54
  reason will not be able to directly support because reason
• 20:58
  is essentially can be reduced as some sort of empirical
• 21:02
  scientific method. So would you say there's an
• 21:04
  element of, of asking the right questions to the right point?
• 21:07
  But obviously when you get to a point where you, where you're
• 21:09
  looking to manipulate the truth or for example, where you're
• 21:12
  looking to, to ask for the sake of incitement, that that's when
• 21:16
  it becomes dangerous territory. Because look, with being frank,
• 21:20
  but without being specific, one of the, one of the issues that
• 21:23
  we face as as a community in the West is intellectual
• 21:27
  manipulation of ideologies. You know, we look at ideologies
• 21:31
  within communities and those who have asked questions and maybe
• 21:34
  gone arguably too far to some and maybe to some not enough,
• 21:38
  but and are taking people along with them to the point where
• 21:41
  people are saying this guy's, he's challenging the status quo.
• 21:44
  I like it. It's it's provocative.
• 21:46
  And do you know that kind of mentality?
• 21:48
  So is it the right thing to do? Because of course there's a
• 21:51
  hadith and middleman where he says, look for the truth and
• 21:54
  then follow it. Don't look for the, don't look
• 21:56
  for people and then follow them. So how do we kind of ascertain
• 22:00
  where, when I analyze myself, my own near my own thought process,
• 22:04
  am I doing the right thing? Am I following the truth?
• 22:06
  Where do I begin on on an individualistic level of
• 22:09
  reflection? So there's a couple of things to
• 22:13
  unpack the but what you say in in our own personal journey,
• 22:16
  what we essentially need to do is to sit down with ourselves
• 22:19
  initially at the beginning and inspect what is it that I
• 22:22
  believe? What are the things that I hold
• 22:25
  dear? What are those things that I am
• 22:27
  absolutely convinced on and what are those things that I pretend
• 22:31
  I believe in? What are those things that I
• 22:33
  would die for? Once we can establish that, the
• 22:36
  next question we need to ask is why do I believe those things?
• 22:39
  On what basis do I believe those things?
• 22:42
  And Alhamda, inshallah, if we've all had the right education and
• 22:44
  the right upbringing, there'll be some very good reasons behind
• 22:46
  that. But what we also need to
• 22:48
  appreciate as well is when it comes to the reasons why we
• 22:52
  believe in things, it might differ based on peoples in life
• 22:57
  experiences, their own temperament, their own
• 22:59
  intellectual capacity as well. So we have a tradition for
• 23:02
  example, where Imam Sadef, I believe says faith is of many
• 23:07
  different levels and it's like a ladder.
• 23:10
  So the person on the second rung or the ladder shouldn't look
• 23:14
  down at the person on the 1st rung and say to him, we don't
• 23:16
  have anything luster Allah shape no why?
• 23:19
  Because if he does that to the person below him, someone above
• 23:22
  him might do that to him. But rather you should speak to
• 23:25
  them with leniency, with care, with love and hope to persuade
• 23:30
  them of whatever you believe in. So when it comes to this idea,
• 23:33
  perhaps there might be people who are intellectually
• 23:35
  manipulating others, the ideologies on a personal level,
• 23:38
  when we ask questions, there are a couple of things we need to
• 23:40
  keep in mind. One, are we being sincere?
• 23:43
  How sincere are we being in the way we're questioning in the way
• 23:45
  we're asking? And even if you go back to the
• 23:47
  verse of the Quran, Allah says first alu ahleddict in quantum
• 23:51
  la TA Ala moon. So if you get to a point where
• 23:53
  you know and you're still asking questions, that's a bit dodge,
• 23:57
  isn't it? What's going on there?
• 23:59
  Why do you still now? He's trying to wind people up.
• 24:01
  He's off to something, He's got ulterior motives.
• 24:03
  There's an agenda. But if you know that you've
• 24:05
  asked and you've got an answer. Again, it's not the case that we
• 24:10
  need to reject it initially. One of the things within the
• 24:12
  Islamic tradition when it comes to seeking the truth is that
• 24:17
  we're told that the truth can take a time.
• 24:19
  It can take time for you to digest.
• 24:21
  Within the Western tradition, there's impatience.
• 24:24
  If I don't understand it, that's how I'm going to reject it.
• 24:26
  You throw the baby out with the bath water.
• 24:28
  There's a certain element within Islam, for example, within
• 24:31
  religion, I don't understand. 99% I can fully understand.
• 24:34
  I understand the philosophy behind prayer.
• 24:36
  I understand the philosophy behind unknown jihad, for
• 24:38
  example. But, you know, when it comes to
• 24:40
  women's rights, that small thing, I don't really
• 24:42
  understand. So what happens?
• 24:45
  That's it, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:46
  You end up throwing everything out the window.
• 24:48
  You're no longer must learn. You're going to be patient.
• 24:51
  You're going to understand that perhaps there are things right
• 24:53
  now, based on your ability and your capacity, you don't
• 24:56
  understand. But it's a bit arrogant to
• 24:59
  assume that simply because I don't understand it, it's a
• 25:02
  problem. And I think we see that when
• 25:06
  there's like differences of opinion between different
• 25:08
  scholars, like they may have one understanding on a certain
• 25:11
  matter, etcetera. But Chef, I want to go back to
• 25:14
  the points you mentioned earlier.
• 25:15
  You mentioned three groups and I want to speak about the the
• 25:17
  third group, the passive group that you mentioned.
• 25:20
  And I and I and I think it's only fair that we focus a little
• 25:22
  on that group. So I think that's the most vital
• 25:24
  group when it. Comes I think it's the majority
• 25:25
  as well. The minority will be the ones
• 25:30
  who are active. They're driving the, you know,
• 25:32
  the intellectual discussions. And I'm sure we all have in our
• 25:34
  social circle that one guy who will always send you that
• 25:36
  lecture with a timestamp from like 21 minutes where the
• 25:40
  scholar said something and he's like, oh, did he pick this up?
• 25:42
  It's like, it's like I didn't ever listen to a lecture, like,
• 25:44
  let alone at one point. So you'll have those who are
• 25:47
  already proactive, Mashallah. You know, you mentioned any
• 25:49
  topic. They'll be able to tell you the
• 25:50
  speakers and, you know, they're well on.
• 25:52
  But again, it's the minority. The majority will fall into the
• 25:56
  second group and the third group.
• 25:58
  Would you encourage all of those people in that third group to be
• 26:02
  as critical? So for example, like you
• 26:03
  mentioned, things are based on people's intellectual capacity,
• 26:07
  their mums, they say, you know, speak to people with with their
• 26:13
  level of intellects. Is it necessary for everybody to
• 26:16
  try and be a critical? Thinker So can I add to that
• 26:19
  question on top of that as well? But for example, is there also a
• 26:22
  responsibility on the ulama? Because for example, in the case
• 26:25
  where you of course you're trying to bring the community up
• 26:28
  intellectually with you, but for example, is there a
• 26:31
  responsibility on an island when they visit a centre, they visit
• 26:33
  a community and they present a high level topic.
• 26:37
  Let's see, a concept which has been debated for hundreds of
• 26:40
  years in the Hauser, you know, dialogue between the most
• 26:43
  classical of scholars. And then you're going to a
• 26:45
  community and there will be people in the crowd who may not
• 26:48
  pray or struggle with hijab or listen to music and so on and so
• 26:52
  forth. Is that an injustice being done
• 26:54
  to the community or to the scholar?
• 26:56
  And whose responsibility is it to assess it?
• 26:58
  Gosh. 2 great critics. You made a very good fun.
• 27:01
  I wanted to get back to you first.
• 27:03
  Do you mind repeating that? Sorry.
• 27:05
  So I was saying, is it? Do you?
• 27:09
  Is it? Is it required for everyone to
• 27:11
  be? That's a very.
• 27:11
  Cool thinker considering that we mentioned that intellectual
• 27:15
  capacities are important in this journey.
• 27:16
  Like some people and most people, I would say, if you have
• 27:19
  an average IQ and you're thinking about religion,
• 27:23
  religion is, is, is very, there's a lot of depth in a lot
• 27:25
  of things. And you know, you're talking
• 27:27
  about rational principles and philosophy and all of these
• 27:30
  things. Like can the normal average
• 27:33
  person that I don't know tend to stand more be be expected to
• 27:38
  critically think about everything that they hear on the
• 27:40
  member? That's a very good point.
• 27:41
  I, I think we need to separate the two ideas of one, someone
• 27:44
  being a critical thinker and another someone being on their
• 27:48
  own intellectual journey where they're searching for the truth.
• 27:51
  Because you can search for the truth without necessarily being
• 27:53
  this critical thinker who's analyzing everything.
• 27:55
  And he's got his head in the books and, you know, he's trying
• 27:57
  to make himself in a walking talking encyclopedia.
• 28:00
  You know, that's one type of person.
• 28:02
  But to exact, to extrapolate that and say we need to expect
• 28:05
  everyone to be like that, that that's unfair, that's
• 28:07
  unpractical. And I think society will implode
• 28:09
  if that was the case. I mean, not everyone is built
• 28:11
  and has a capacity to go deep into research, but what is clear
• 28:15
  and what is very important is that everyone is on their on
• 28:19
  their own intellectual journey. And at the end of the day,
• 28:21
  everyone must have evidence for what they believe in.
• 28:25
  It's like when you go in to prove the SO.
• 28:27
  What kind of evidence though? How deep?
• 28:29
  What it depends what the requirement.
• 28:30
  It depends. So our scholars actually looked
• 28:35
  into this in depth and they said when you believe in something,
• 28:38
  there's three different categories again that you can
• 28:39
  believe in. You can believe that you have
• 28:42
  absolute certainty in something, which is kind of like
• 28:44
  mathematical certainty, 2 + 2 = 4.
• 28:46
  Anyone says 2 + 2 = 5, you put them in the mental asylum
• 28:49
  because that is so clear cut for every single person.
• 28:52
  So you call this like absolute certainty.
• 28:54
  Then there's a level below that. We're just kind of like a
• 28:56
  psychological certainty. You're pretty sure, you're
• 28:58
  convinced it's very unlikely that someone will ever change
• 29:01
  your opinion. And you could say that's the
• 29:03
  second level. Then you have the third level,
• 29:04
  which is like a like a lower level of conviction.
• 29:07
  You're convinced on something. You take it as a working
• 29:09
  hypothesis. Sure, someone might present
• 29:11
  research to you or so they might argue with you one day and you
• 29:14
  might change your mind. And those are the three levels
• 29:18
  in which you can believe in something.
• 29:19
  Our scholars have the opinion that you don't necessarily need
• 29:22
  to have absolute certainty in everything.
• 29:25
  You have absolute certainty that 100% certainty in the core
• 29:27
  structure of your religion. Is there God?
• 29:29
  Yes, 100%. Did he did that God send a
• 29:32
  prophet? Yes.
• 29:33
  Did that profit a point in maiden Mormonian, for example,
• 29:35
  you say yes, so in this core skeleton that you have, there's
• 29:38
  100%. But then when it comes into
• 29:40
  matters where the scholars have echtela for difference of
• 29:43
  opinion there, you're going to have to tone that down a little
• 29:46
  bit. Otherwise what's going to happen
• 29:48
  is you end up arguing with everyone.
• 29:51
  And we know from history as well, our scholars themselves
• 29:53
  have these differences of opinion.
• 29:55
  So take for example the idea I believe in God, sure I will and
• 29:59
  I will not disagree with any Muslim in the world when it
• 30:02
  comes to the the belief that is there a God.
• 30:06
  Well, I will disagree with that Muslim on is that God?
• 30:09
  Just that's a different point here.
• 30:13
  Is there a God is referring to the absolute skeleton of that
• 30:17
  belief that I have. There is a God 100% certainty
• 30:20
  can't change no matter what. Hold the gun to my head, do what
• 30:23
  you want. Pay me $1,000,000, maybe 10
• 30:25
  million, but you know, if the price is right, who knows?
• 30:27
  But you know, is there a God that is 100%?
• 30:31
  But then come down a little bit and say, OK, this matter of the
• 30:35
  prophet did, did the prophet do this?
• 30:37
  OK, that's I might have a difference of opinion there so
• 30:40
  that my certainty might drop from 100% to maybe 95%.
• 30:43
  And then in different historical matters, for example, again,
• 30:47
  you've got to tone it down a bit.
• 30:49
  But in terms of what we're required in the skeleton, yeah,
• 30:52
  you can say 100%. But then when it comes to those
• 30:54
  matters that are secondary, less influential on the actual core
• 30:59
  of our beliefs, you can say you can tone it down there in terms
• 31:03
  of the point about the responsibility of the scholars,
• 31:07
  or that's a very interesting point.
• 31:09
  And it's a very heavy point. And I know from my time in the
• 31:11
  halls, it's always, you know, you're, it gets drilled into you
• 31:15
  as a culture that there is so much responsibility on your
• 31:18
  shoulders, the weight that you have, the respect from people
• 31:22
  that is put in their heart out of out of response of you having
• 31:27
  studied and you being in the educational institution of the
• 31:31
  imams. Now you have a responsibility to
• 31:34
  go back to your community and lift them up.
• 31:36
  And again, it's hard for a scholar as well, because if you
• 31:39
  go into a community, you have, like we've said, you've got a
• 31:41
  whole spectrum of people. Well, what's important is that
• 31:44
  you have, for example, a multifaceted approach, You know,
• 31:45
  OK, one group of people require this approach, another group of
• 31:48
  people require that approach. And that's why when you study in
• 31:51
  the Hausa, especially in Oman, in Iran, one of the scholars who
• 31:55
  you are sort of introduced to is a scholar by the name of Shahid
• 31:59
  Mahdi. Now, Shahid Mahdi was a big
• 32:01
  figure in Iran. And one of the reasons why he
• 32:04
  became so important is he took ideas from the Holser and he
• 32:08
  went to the lay to the public and he was able to teach them.
• 32:11
  Yeah. And what he'd find is he'd go,
• 32:12
  for example, from the seminary in Pom to Tehran, and he's at a
• 32:16
  university. And imagine this is pre in
• 32:18
  Kelab, Iran as well. This is pre Iranian revolution
• 32:21
  Iran. You've got communists in the
• 32:22
  university. You've got all sorts of a
• 32:24
  Marxist. You've got atheists, you've got
• 32:27
  capital, you've got all sorts. And he's there on the pulpit,
• 32:29
  not on the pulpit, but on the on the podium.
• 32:31
  And he's preaching and he's talking, and all of his lectures
• 32:35
  have been compiled into books. I know.
• 32:36
  And you can read through them and they're very interesting to
• 32:38
  read. And it gives you an insight to
• 32:40
  the depth of the thinker and the importance that we need for a
• 32:44
  thinker like that. So again, for the scholars,
• 32:47
  there's a huge responsibility. You need to know the problems
• 32:49
  that we face, the issues that we face.
• 32:51
  And you know, we're facing so many issues.
• 32:54
  It's not enough to simply come from the East or have your head
• 32:58
  in Islamic studies and then try to apply it.
• 33:00
  You got to live with the people, you got to be with the people,
• 33:02
  You got to understand what the problems being faced by the
• 33:05
  people. And then you can start to help
• 33:07
  out the community. I really.
• 33:09
  Appreciate the point where you mentioned the the burden and
• 33:12
  responsibilities on the scholars.
• 33:14
  And I think we take, you know, those who are most learned than
• 33:16
  us for granted. We forget like they've put like
• 33:19
  almost a lifetime dedicated to researching and trying to teach
• 33:24
  the world about Islam and making clarifications and letting us
• 33:27
  understand why the rules of Allah are made in a specific
• 33:30
  way. And we just want to come up with
• 33:32
  our own, you know, answers and opinions And this this, this
• 33:36
  modernist has something wrong and everything.
• 33:37
  So maybe that's a discussion for a separate occasion, but I want
• 33:41
  to come back to critical thinking.
• 33:44
  And I say this why rather Muhammad Ali mentioned the point
• 33:49
  just early on before you start answering the question.
• 33:52
  Scheckner when he said, does everyone have to ask a question,
• 33:55
  am I right? Because they won't have to be
• 33:56
  put to call on their thinking. And I think it's critical
• 33:59
  thinking is the most important bit in this whole conversation
• 34:03
  from the way I see. And the reason is because we
• 34:05
  have the likes in the early Islamic history of Amar of
• 34:08
  Nyasar, where he was raised in an environment surrounded by
• 34:14
  idolatry and jahiliya ignorance and everything, Yet he took it
• 34:19
  upon himself to take a moment and reflect and ponder and say
• 34:24
  this is his right. And he saw Rasul Allah, Muhammad
• 34:28
  sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and he was swayed towards him.
• 34:32
  Although the majority of that time surrounding him were all
• 34:36
  worshipping idols, he had the moment of critical thinking when
• 34:40
  he was like, you know what, maybe there's something more,
• 34:42
  there's something greater. There is, there is a Lord who is
• 34:46
  not this idol. And he made that choice to
• 34:50
  accept this now and accept the message of Salaam Muhammad.
• 34:53
  And that had an effect on his parents.
• 34:54
  They later then also converted. So there was like a chain, a
• 34:57
  continuous chain. And you mentioned, for example,
• 34:59
  the 1st order to, you know, embrace the school of Ellen Bait
• 35:03
  and how this continues on this very day.
• 35:05
  But I think it's bigger than just, you know, accepting Islam
• 35:08
  because if we're going to be critical in every thought that
• 35:12
  we have, we may start questioning everything and
• 35:15
  falling out the fault of a slam completely.
• 35:17
  Yeah. I mean, the reason why I say
• 35:19
  this, there was a discussion I had with a group of people.
• 35:23
  I want to mention hijab where there were a few sisters in the
• 35:28
  in in the gathering where they said like, why should we wear
• 35:32
  the hijab? And one of the brothers answered
• 35:34
  a very nice points. It was like, just because you
• 35:37
  haven't understood hijab doesn't mean all our scholars, our
• 35:42
  Annamar, our inner Rasul Allah is wrong.
• 35:45
  Just because your critical thinking or your, you know, how
• 35:51
  can I say conclusion on the matter of hijab, You came to the
• 35:55
  conclusion that you don't have to worry as long as I pray and I
• 35:58
  fast, etcetera, etcetera. So here questions like that.
• 36:04
  Are they a danger to us and future generations?
• 36:08
  That's what I want to get to is I want to understand when we say
• 36:10
  critical questions, what is a critical question?
• 36:13
  What is that turning point? Where is this question going to
• 36:15
  take me to gender or is this question truly going to make me
• 36:19
  come out the falls of Islam because it's dangerous and we
• 36:22
  are encouraging people to turn on their thinking hats, for
• 36:25
  example. But what is that question we
• 36:27
  should be asking I. Don't have a I also, I want to
• 36:30
  add on to that as well. Yeah.
• 36:31
  So by the way, I'm going to test your memory because you spoke
• 36:34
  quite a bit you gave. Me a hard question you're going
• 36:37
  to give a hard question, not a hard question I.
• 36:38
  Mentioned hijab for a reason, because we have, believe me
• 36:41
  guys, 10s and 10s and 10s of messages that come to the
• 36:45
  aftermath regarding the hijab. Both of you here will attest to
• 36:48
  this. Continue.
• 36:51
  OK bro, you made me forget my question you know?
• 36:55
  What I went through, man. Yeah, you know what actually go
• 36:59
  with him and then let me let me remember.
• 37:01
  Well, I was thinking, gosh. You can.
• 37:04
  Always agree with this question. Gosh.
• 37:07
  So if I understand correctly, the issue is that sometimes we
• 37:10
  can ask questions and if we're unhappy with the answers, that
• 37:14
  might push us to a negative or bad situation or bad place.
• 37:19
  If I was if I was referencing this conversation without hijab,
• 37:22
  their point was the word hijab wasn't mentioned in the Koran.
• 37:25
  Although the the discussion said no, there's other other meanings
• 37:28
  to like Kemar and things like this, but the fact hijab wasn't
• 37:32
  there, that was the conclusion confidence they have to
• 37:34
  actually. So I don't want to get dragged
• 37:38
  into the whole discussion of hijab, but if we use it as a
• 37:40
  case study, for example, someone comes and they say I don't
• 37:42
  understand hijab, can you explain it to me?
• 37:44
  Sure. There's there's nothing wrong
• 37:46
  with that question. That's a beautiful question that
• 37:47
  shows that the person is thinking.
• 37:49
  And one thing we need to realize is that sometimes when we doubt
• 37:52
  something or when we we want to question something because it
• 37:55
  doesn't feel right. It's very similar to someone who
• 37:58
  goes to the gym. They've worked out and now they
• 38:00
  get a bit of pain in their arm. That pain in the arm is proof
• 38:03
  that that workout is working, so long as they don't RIP my
• 38:05
  muscle. Similarly, when we get doubts
• 38:08
  and we get questions, it shows that our intellectual journey is
• 38:10
  going somewhere. We're facing something, we're
• 38:12
  face the challenge, we're facing obstacle.
• 38:14
  It's unlike that third group, that passive group I spoke about
• 38:17
  who just go with the flow. Like those guys won't ask
• 38:19
  questions. What's going on?
• 38:20
  Is this something the lights on up here?
• 38:22
  No, they're just going with the flow.
• 38:23
  But someone who comes and asks the question, take your job for
• 38:25
  example, they say, okay, what's the philosophy of hijab?
• 38:28
  The hijab isn't mentioned in the Quran.
• 38:30
  The Quran says cover the bosoms. It doesn't say cover the head.
• 38:33
  You know, there's iktelaf, we have some for kaha who say this.
• 38:36
  Some say that am I required to cover the feet, am I allowed to
• 38:39
  wear nail Polish, etcetera, etcetera.
• 38:40
  The question in hijab can extend on so many different levels.
• 38:43
  The key thing is to realize that look from the perspective of the
• 38:47
  scholar. Someone comes to you with that
• 38:49
  question, you can try to answer them.
• 38:51
  Sure. The philosophy of hijab is
• 38:53
  chastity, it's modesty. We have this Delhi, we have this
• 38:56
  evidence. This is something that the
• 38:58
  Prophet has given us. This is something that is the
• 39:00
  religion very. You won't be able to find any
• 39:03
  scholar who disagrees and those scholars who do disagree, they
• 39:06
  themselves are a very, very minority opinion and they have,
• 39:10
  for example, they'll say mustahab or something.
• 39:13
  The key thing is to realize is at the end of the day, if
• 39:15
  someone has that question and you try to tell them that, you
• 39:18
  know, this is the reason why Islam says and if they say,
• 39:20
  well, I not going to accept that and what can you do?
• 39:24
  Honestly, what can you do? We live in a world today where
• 39:26
  people are so bombarded with so many different information and
• 39:29
  so much date that it's very hard to then say, well, this is the
• 39:33
  way you have to think. At the end of the day, if
• 39:36
  someone has thought about it and they don't accept it, the least
• 39:40
  you can do is try to do doubly to try to convince them.
• 39:43
  Failing to do that, you just have to pray that each other
• 39:46
  they find the right way. So honestly, there's there's no
• 39:49
  other way to to look at it. And especially in today's world,
• 39:54
  people have the freedom to go and you can say one thing,
• 39:57
  they'll go and find a scholar who says something else.
• 39:59
  And before you know it, you're having to argue not against this
• 40:01
  sister or this brother, but against the scholar that they've
• 40:04
  brought. And that's even harder as
• 40:05
  someone who studied and someone who's, you know, because you'll,
• 40:08
  you'll say something. And I say, well, actually, do
• 40:10
  you know, there's this hadith and this scholar says that about
• 40:13
  this hadith. And that's opposite.
• 40:14
  It's like OK. That's his opinion.
• 40:16
  It's like, OK, my opinion is this, if it convinces you,
• 40:20
  great. If it doesn't, go and find out
• 40:21
  what's going on. See if that helps out.
• 40:24
  But at the end of the day, you can't go beyond that.
• 40:27
  And even in the Quran when Allah speaks to the Prophet, Allah
• 40:30
  says Lester, I let him be mosaic there, that you are not a
• 40:33
  security guard over them. At the end of the day, you can't
• 40:36
  force them to believe. And this is the interesting
• 40:39
  thing about belief is that I can't force you to believe in
• 40:43
  something. You have to come to that belief
• 40:45
  yourself. I can't force you.
• 40:46
  If I say to 2 + 2 = 5, we match the example.
• 40:49
  No matter what I do to you, you will never get to a position
• 40:53
  where you believe 2 + 2 = 5. I could torture you, God forbid
• 40:57
  I wouldn't. I could feed you beef lasagna.
• 40:59
  I could do anything. But you will never get to that
• 41:01
  position where you believe something you don't, you're not
• 41:04
  convinced in. Yeah.
• 41:05
  Yeah. And this comes back to, again,
• 41:06
  the problem that we have today. There are certain things that us
• 41:09
  as Muslims, certain things that us as Shia extended will be
• 41:14
  exposed to different ideas. And we see this in Muharram for
• 41:16
  example. Someone comes, I disagree with
• 41:18
  this practice, so OK, you disagree with it.
• 41:20
  This is the reason why I do this practice.
• 41:22
  Oh, but this scholar says this practice is XYZ.
• 41:26
  OK, that's his opinion. I respect that scholar because
• 41:29
  that scholar is still within the framework of our face of our
• 41:32
  mother. But this is the way we practice
• 41:34
  and this is our evidences for it.
• 41:35
  If you want to disagree with it, that's fine.
• 41:37
  This should be free to disagree. Unfortunately, we should be free
• 41:40
  to disagree. There's nothing else we can do.
• 41:42
  Like on what else are you going to do for someone to believe in
• 41:44
  something you can't? So, Mohammed, you thought?
• 41:46
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 41:47
  So. 1. Side, just before you start,
• 41:49
  we'll do your question. I have a last question, maybe
• 41:51
  say it does and then we'll open up to the audience.
• 41:54
  Charlotte next 10 minutes or so. Yeah, I just want to take
• 41:56
  another angle. So to that angles what?
• 41:59
  Angles you take it. This way, one more angle.
• 42:04
  You're talking a lot about knowledge, right?
• 42:06
  And we've spoken about the complementary nature of reason
• 42:09
  and revelation. What I wanted to kind of explore
• 42:12
  was what role does emotion play in all of this?
• 42:15
  So for example, I was just thinking like a like a letter
• 42:19
  crossed my mind. There was a letter that Tushi, I
• 42:21
  wrote to one of the imams where they said it was one of those
• 42:26
  typical ones. You know, I'm living far away
• 42:27
  from you. I'm an aquador Mahalimuddini.
• 42:30
  Who should I take my religion from?
• 42:31
  And the Imam says to them that farj alfi farj alfidina fidina
• 42:37
  fidina nikuma ilah mussin and fi hobbina, right?
• 42:42
  Go back to somebody that has grown up loving us, right?
• 42:46
  So that emotion of love of albeit you know that pure like
• 42:52
  raw passion that all Shia have, right?
• 42:54
  When we grow up, we go to Muharram, you do the lap on, we
• 42:56
  listen to the majalis. That emotion.
• 42:59
  Is that something that has value in purely inheriting?
• 43:04
  Or. Because obviously as a kid, you,
• 43:08
  you're, you're coming to a mosque and you have all this
• 43:10
  imagery and art that you're, that we try to instill in our
• 43:15
  children. We want them to inherit that if,
• 43:18
  if anything, right. So is that something that has
• 43:22
  any inherent value in the, in the religion?
• 43:24
  Does the religion encourage us to try and give our children
• 43:28
  that terribly or get them to inherit those kind of that
• 43:31
  emotional value at all? Would you say, do you think that
• 43:35
  that angle is is part of this wider discussion?
• 43:39
  It's a very good question. Going back to the Quran,
• 43:42
  initially we have the verse in the Quran that says Kuno and for
• 43:45
  second were Helicum Naran that protects yourself and your
• 43:48
  family from the fire. Now, again, you could turn
• 43:52
  around and say, well, I shouldn't be spoon feeding my
• 43:55
  child a religion. You know, I don't want him to
• 43:57
  blindly follow. I want him to get to the age of
• 44:00
  20 and come to his own rational conclusion that, you know, this
• 44:03
  is their religion. But at the end of the day, that
• 44:05
  runs against everything you know about how life is.
• 44:06
  A child needs that support. You can't say, well, because
• 44:12
  that child doesn't have the evidence to believe in what I'm
• 44:15
  telling him, I should therefore refrain from teaching him.
• 44:18
  You could argue that, but that's a very absurd argument to take
• 44:21
  because what you're saying is you want to raise your child in
• 44:24
  a bubble of anything. That's not going to happen.
• 44:27
  If you don't teach your child, other people will.
• 44:29
  And that's something we don't realize.
• 44:31
  And that's something, you know, the problem we face, for
• 44:33
  example, when you put kids in school, if you don't raise your
• 44:37
  children right, other people will be teaching them.
• 44:40
  And in fact, we have a hadith where the Imam says, teach your
• 44:43
  children our hadith before the mortjar get to them.
• 44:47
  And the mortjar were a sect that were around at the time of the
• 44:50
  Armenians. And you could imagine they were
• 44:52
  essentially the first liberals. You know, they were on the live
• 44:55
  and let live vibe. And the Imams were like, no, no,
• 44:57
  no, yo, no. Make sure you get to your
• 45:01
  children with our hadith before the liberals do, before they
• 45:07
  come and pollute them and corrupt them.
• 45:08
  Now again, you can say, but Imam, that's not fair that you
• 45:10
  know, the children haven't gone through that process of argument
• 45:14
  of reflection. No, these are children and it's
• 45:16
  your responsibility to then teach them.
• 45:18
  Then when they get to the stage where you've now trained them,
• 45:21
  you can now give them the evidences.
• 45:23
  And again, this might be a bitter pill to swallow for some,
• 45:25
  but if they reach that stage and they reject your evidences, OK,
• 45:28
  that's, that's not right. That's not right.
• 45:30
  You might have failed in upbringing them or they might
• 45:33
  have a better opinion than you because in what you're bringing
• 45:35
  your children may not necessarily be the 100% truth.
• 45:38
  They might take it a next step. They might be like that forger
• 45:40
  who decided to turn against the Hindu forefather and become a
• 45:44
  Muslim. So there's that there as well.
• 45:46
  So definitely emotion is a passion that should be
• 45:49
  respected. It's a human.
• 45:51
  It's part of the human experience.
• 45:53
  To say that there cannot be emotion or passion in our
• 45:55
  beliefs is to say that human should be robots, which we're
• 45:58
  not. We're not robots, you know, we
• 46:00
  live life, we form attachments. We go Zyada, for example.
• 46:04
  And you know, everyone remembers that first Zyada that they go
• 46:06
  to, you go to Hajj, you go to Ahmad.
• 46:08
  Everyone remembers that first glance at the Kaaba, you know,
• 46:11
  being in Mashchul Haram. These things have importance.
• 46:13
  They have attachment to them. And again, a critical thinker,
• 46:17
  and this is where we go back to the whole Islamic critical
• 46:19
  thinker and the Western critical thinker.
• 46:21
  The Western critical thinker will say your religious
• 46:23
  experience, like what value does it have?
• 46:26
  Whereas the Islamic critical thing will think, hold on a
• 46:28
  second, that religious experience that I had gave me
• 46:30
  that. It gave me that conviction.
• 46:33
  And again, it's not acting without evidence.
• 46:35
  There is a reasonable basis to act according to that religious
• 46:39
  experience. So I think that that leads me on
• 46:42
  to, to my last comment or question before we open it up.
• 46:46
  And, and that isn't in terms of the children and the, and the
• 46:48
  raising of children as Hadith. And he says that the hearts of
• 46:54
  the children are like uncultivated ground and they
• 46:57
  will accept whatever is put inside them.
• 46:59
  That our, our youth, our children are, are vulnerable to
• 47:03
  a degree, but also have the ability to accept Huck and
• 47:06
  accept truthhood. And, and that is of course, the
• 47:09
  responsibility of parents. I think that's why on on a
• 47:12
  personal level, we feel so passionately, especially in
• 47:15
  Islamic media in terms of bringing content which is
• 47:20
  credible speakers, which are reliable in, in a way which is
• 47:24
  not just educating, but also enticing and engaging and also
• 47:27
  entertaining as well. Kind of on a slight tangent, the
• 47:32
  work that we tried to do with After Mugged Up is, is that in
• 47:35
  in itself has tried to have diverse opinions to educate the
• 47:37
  youth and the big TV, which of course is is the kind of mother
• 47:41
  umbrella body of of after mugged up is is doing that as well.
• 47:44
  And of course, this is a community which is supported the
• 47:46
  channel for so long. And, and, and now of course,
• 47:49
  Adebay TV's Speaking of Kids has just launched its first kids
• 47:53
  channel, which everyone can watch as well on, on Amazon Fire
• 47:56
  Stick, on Google Chromecast, all of that stuff.
• 47:57
  Just shout out and let me know if you want anything.
• 47:59
  Because this part of the advert on the yeah, yeah.
• 48:02
  Yeah, it can be done. Will will we get a butter to say
• 48:05
  skip? Will that will that come?
• 48:07
  No, no, monetize, subscribe. Monetize But the the the last
• 48:11
  comment or question I have is just reminding me when you
• 48:14
  talked about parents, look, when we talk coming back to Ashura,
• 48:20
  he had that in his heart, like he had that critical analysis.
• 48:25
  You know, he let the Holy Imam lead Salah.
• 48:28
  He said this is the this is the son of Fatimah.
• 48:32
  And then on, on Yamala Shura, he had that yakin in his heart or
• 48:36
  that moment that that he saw, as we see in Hadith, heaven and
• 48:39
  hell in front of him. He had to make that decision and
• 48:42
  he walked towards the Holy Imam. He turned his armour around to
• 48:46
  his back so his front was exposed.
• 48:49
  He's telling the Imam symbolically, I'm not here to
• 48:52
  fight, I'm not here to attack. I'm coming to you as a lowly
• 48:56
  repented man. He lowered his head.
• 48:57
  He walked to the Holy Imam and he repented.
• 49:00
  And the Holy Imam said to him, your mother named Yahor as a
• 49:04
  free man and today you are free. And that moment, that last
• 49:08
  minute action of goodness or that sincere, you know, we say a
• 49:12
  NIA Safia, like a pure sincere NIA was worth it.
• 49:16
  And now we look at Horn as an example, you know, 1400 years
• 49:20
  later. So the point I want to ask is
• 49:23
  when we say, do we blindly follow the religion of our
• 49:25
  parents? At least from my perspective,
• 49:27
  no. We owe our parents everything,
• 49:29
  mothers, fathers, grandparents and beyond, and generally
• 49:32
  speaking metaphorically as well to our elders in the community,
• 49:34
  those who've established these massages and have allowed us to
• 49:37
  get to where we are medalists, all of these things.
• 49:41
  But Shefna, what would you say to those who are listening at
• 49:44
  home or maybe even in a crowd who are young parents or even
• 49:46
  elder parents and, and, and any message you have for them?
• 49:49
  Because we've talked a lot about the youth.
• 49:53
  Oh gosh, that is a lot there. The, the way you were building
• 49:56
  that. I thought you would ask
• 49:57
  something else. Yeah, I was messing, praying
• 49:59
  something else. But you went off on what advice
• 50:01
  can, what advice can we give parents to children?
• 50:03
  Yeah, or not even advice, but just like a message you have for
• 50:05
  them or anything like that the. Message I have for parents back
• 50:08
  home. Oh gosh.
• 50:10
  Recognize that your children are going to grow up in a different
• 50:13
  environment to you and it's going to be tough for them and
• 50:17
  it's going to be tough for you. Seeing how they react to the
• 50:20
  different challenges that they're facing that you didn't
• 50:23
  face. And understand that you need to
• 50:26
  be that supportive figure in their life.
• 50:28
  Make sure that they're getting the religion.
• 50:30
  Make sure that they're getting that religious upbringing.
• 50:32
  But at the same time, come across as a friend.
• 50:34
  Be that friend to them, be that support to them so that when
• 50:37
  things get hard for them, they can turn to you.
• 50:42
  All right, I think we'll we'll, we'll be there.
• 50:46
  Enough, bro. Let's have a last Salwat Ala
• 50:47
  Mohammed Ali Mohammed do. You want me to break down how to
• 50:53
  critically think for a child is that that was kind of.
• 50:57
  Saying that would be crazy. Whole lot of discussion. 3 Three
• 51:00
  ways you can get your child ahead of the stage.
• 51:04
  All right, so we'll open up to the audience now just to remind
• 51:06
  us that we have about half an hour left before we conclude the
• 51:09
  whole event. So please keep your questions to
• 51:11
  a maximum of 30 seconds to a minute.
• 51:15
  Please be respectful, of course, mindful that this is being live
• 51:17
  streamed and will eventually go on YouTube as well permanently.
• 51:20
  Have we got wireless mics, AV team?
• 51:23
  And can you, if possible, raise your hand if you have a question
• 51:25
  on the sisters or the gents, please, for the show?
• 51:30
  So we have a question here for a brother at the front and if you
• 51:35
  don't want to ask publicly you can also DM us on after Muglib
• 51:40
  and also follow if you're not already and subscribe.
• 51:44
  Smash that I. Have we've had a we've had a
• 51:46
  question sent in by text as well.
• 51:48
  So we have a question here with a brother.
• 51:50
  Let's spin that. Give it a tap.
• 51:57
  Hello Sir Aneko, thank you very much for the talk.
• 52:00
  It was very beneficial. There was a verse that came to
• 52:03
  my mind. You got you.
• 52:04
  You were talking about parents and children.
• 52:06
  So Prophet Ibrahim, when he received a dream to sacrifice
• 52:09
  his son, he immediately asks his son or what do you think?
• 52:13
  Even though it's a command from Allah and I think Sheikh Saheh,
• 52:16
  he's the one that brought up to me and he was saying even though
• 52:19
  he's receiving wahi and direct command, he's still asking his
• 52:22
  child, what do you think about this?
• 52:25
  And he's still taking his advice and stuff like that.
• 52:26
  Could you maybe share like some thoughts about that or comments?
• 52:29
  It seems like it's very important to this discussion.
• 52:31
  So. Yeah, so in terms of that story
• 52:37
  about Ibrahim, I can't remember the actual Arabic, but the story
• 52:42
  goes when Ibrahim had his dream, he then asked his child, what do
• 52:48
  you think about what's happened? And it's Mariel responds, if
• 52:52
  Almat Omar that do what you're commanded.
• 52:55
  And that itself shows that Ibrahim was engaged in this
• 52:58
  Tarbia, in this cultivation of his son from a very young age to
• 53:02
  make sure that there is that understanding of religion.
• 53:06
  That is the understanding of Dean there.
• 53:08
  And that's a very important lesson for all of us that our
• 53:12
  children are an extension of ourselves, that when they
• 53:16
  succeed, we should feel happy and not.
• 53:19
  And the best type of success we can give them is success in the
• 53:23
  Dean, success in the religion. Any questions from the sister
• 53:30
  side, perhaps on the brother side?
• 53:37
  OK, remember you can send them in on on Instagram or if you've
• 53:40
  got any of our details, welcome to the message us.
• 53:42
  We've had a question now are you going to go for it?
• 53:44
  No, go for it bro. OK so thanks man, put me on the
• 53:48
  spot. Kids now have an insane access.
• 53:53
  Sorry. Kids now have access to an
• 53:55
  insane amount of social media. Is there ever a point where you
• 53:58
  should tell them to stop questioning if they're
• 54:00
  overcomplicating it or if you think the concepts are too
• 54:03
  difficult for them to understand?
• 54:04
  And then it was given 2 examples, the LGBT movement and
• 54:08
  hijab of. Course, there's a lot to unpack
• 54:12
  there. Definitely unlimited access to
• 54:15
  social media for children is extremely harmful.
• 54:18
  I don't think that's controversial.
• 54:19
  In saying that, I think unlimited access to social media
• 54:21
  for adults is very, very detrimental and very harmful in
• 54:25
  terms of unlimited access to social media for children.
• 54:28
  We need to realize that social media has, it contains a lot.
• 54:32
  And when we say children, I'm not sure what age the questioner
• 54:36
  has in mind, but I'm thinking, you know.
• 54:38
  Teenagers. Teenagers.
• 54:40
  OK, so teenagers, there's a little bit different dynamics
• 54:43
  there. They need to be given their
• 54:44
  freedom. But at the same time, it's like
• 54:46
  when you see a tree grow. When you plant a tree and it
• 54:49
  grows a little bit, you tie it to a piece of wood to make sure
• 54:52
  that it always goes in the right direction.
• 54:54
  If you leave it, it starts to go a little bit wonky and then
• 54:56
  before you know, the tree will collapse on itself and it won't
• 54:58
  grow into a nice, strong, sturdy tree.
• 55:00
  The importance there is parents are aware of what the children
• 55:03
  are or the teenagers are up to. And this is also a
• 55:07
  responsibility for the parents that they can't be so clueless.
• 55:11
  Like having three kids of my own, sometimes I see other
• 55:13
  parents and you know, they've got, they've given a mobile a
• 55:16
  device to their kids or, you know, you have this kid has now
• 55:19
  got access to social media. He's on Instagram, he's on
• 55:22
  Twitter, whatever. And you're like, what's going on
• 55:24
  there? How, how has that happened?
• 55:26
  And I think the more we can actually realize that no, not,
• 55:29
  not free access to social media for children isn't necessarily
• 55:32
  the best way to raise a child because you're, you're now
• 55:35
  competing in parenting with other people on the Internet who
• 55:40
  you don't know, you honestly don't know.
• 55:43
  And we have so many cases of grooming going on over the
• 55:46
  Internet, so many cases, ideological grooming as well,
• 55:49
  like this questioner says, like they get inundated with so many
• 55:52
  questions that you get flustered as a parent, like, where do I
• 55:55
  begin? Where do I go to?
• 55:57
  Who do I go to? And often it's better to be
• 56:00
  preventative or be cautious rather than try to seek the cure
• 56:03
  afterwards. Because you'll get to a stage
• 56:05
  where you'll sit down with your child or your teenager and
• 56:09
  you'll realize the way he thinks is completely different.
• 56:11
  If you've got a child who's grown up in the social media,
• 56:13
  he's grown up in the modern age, you know, it's arguable to see
• 56:18
  how much religion has had an influence on him.
• 56:19
  And then you try to sit down with him and you say, yeah, God
• 56:21
  said this. It's a lot for you.
• 56:23
  Like, honestly, it's a lot for you.
• 56:24
  What do you mean God said this? This doesn't make sense to me.
• 56:27
  And that's the problem. It doesn't make sense to me.
• 56:30
  Now you as a parent have to go and undo all that.
• 56:34
  You can't undo it. All the guys in high school as
• 56:36
  well as GCS, ES, when's going to give you time to do that?
• 56:38
  OK, You'll send him for Ziata trip in the summer.
• 56:41
  Hey, two weeks, you know, he'll, he'll vibe, he'll enjoy it,
• 56:44
  he'll come back and then before you know it, it's back in the
• 56:46
  old days. So it's very hard to actually
• 56:48
  undo the damage that can be done if we're not careful with our
• 56:52
  with our children. We've got we've got quite a few
• 56:55
  that have been sent in, but before we get to any from the
• 56:57
  crowd, OK, so we have two brothers here.
• 57:02
  Let's go to to uncle at the front please 1st and then maybe
• 57:05
  jabber after. It was a.
• 57:13
  Good talk to hear that there are people who are thinking about
• 57:18
  our religion and more about deeper insight.
• 57:22
  But as you have said, there are three groups, one is active, one
• 57:26
  is passive, and one is in the middle.
• 57:29
  So The thing is we should all focus because in our community,
• 57:34
  as you have said, our we have been guided by our, we are, we
• 57:41
  have been guided by our parents. Our parents, we were coming to
• 57:46
  the mosque. They didn't have any education.
• 57:49
  They were just coming and hearing the preacher what they
• 57:53
  say. And sometime it is so difficult
• 57:57
  to understand what they are saying.
• 57:59
  So they were just as if there is no reason.
• 58:03
  Now we have education and our children will have education.
• 58:08
  So they are opening their mind in that way.
• 58:12
  Instead of them taking other ideas of other communities or
• 58:19
  other religion, we should embark them and find out that this is
• 58:24
  the way to do it and give a reason why you are following it
• 58:30
  rather than just listen to them hear about it.
• 58:34
  So if there is a way of united all the communities and doing
• 58:38
  something that will help our children to understand that if I
• 58:42
  don't understand, I can go and ask somebody, but I can't go and
• 58:47
  ask Sistani all the time. So the other thing is merger.
• 58:53
  There are so many merger in Qom, in Iraq, in Iran, Syria.
• 58:59
  They are following others. Now if they have a unity, one
• 59:03
  body, then we can also form ourselves stronger unity.
• 59:09
  Otherwise we are dividing. One is thinking this way, one is
• 59:14
  following that way and there our children are going astray in a
• 59:21
  way they are not encouraged to think positively.
• 59:25
  And what is the truth about it? Sadh, thank you.
• 59:29
  OK, I'll work backwards. So in terms of unity in the
• 59:32
  Maraja, that's something I wish, but that's not a comment I'm
• 59:34
  going to open up because that's above my pay grade.
• 59:37
  So how? Much should I get paid?
• 59:40
  That's above my capacity or my ability.
• 59:44
  It was a very nice comment you also made that we also have to
• 59:46
  appreciate that when our parents came here, they didn't have the
• 59:48
  opportunity to delve into religious matters.
• 59:51
  I'm, when you speak to the elders of the community, they'll
• 59:53
  tell you that when we first had our center, where was it in
• 59:56
  Hammersmith, I'm not sure if you remember before we had Stanmore,
• 59:58
  you know, in the 80s, they would say that they would struggle to
• 1:00:00
  find even halal food nearby. And it wasn't until Mullah Oscar
• 1:00:03
  came, it wasn't until people actually learned, well,
• 1:00:08
  actually, no, you need to go and buy halal food.
• 1:00:10
  You can't just go and buy from any Tom, Dick and Harry on the
• 1:00:11
  streets. So we do need to appreciate that
• 1:00:13
  there is that journey as well that our community has been
• 1:00:17
  through and we're blessed to be at a time where, you know.
• 1:00:19
  I myself came out of the Maduesta system here before I
• 1:00:22
  went to Iran, so there's a lot that I have to be appreciate and
• 1:00:24
  thank my community for. There's also a very nice point
• 1:00:27
  that Uncle made is that there isn't a safe space, for example,
• 1:00:32
  for someone to come and say I've got doubts.
• 1:00:35
  Well, I want to speak to someone, not just anyone.
• 1:00:37
  Like the Quran says Faisalu Aladdik.
• 1:00:38
  Not just come to anytime, Dick and Harry, who's read a little
• 1:00:41
  bit, but actually speak to a scholar, speak to a thinker
• 1:00:44
  who's grounded in religious sciences.
• 1:00:46
  And this is unfortunately a failing on our community part.
• 1:00:50
  Not this community, but you could say perhaps the wider
• 1:00:52
  community that there aren't institutions, there aren't
• 1:00:55
  people who are readily available who can be spoken to to help
• 1:01:00
  people on their journey. Because sometimes it's very
• 1:01:02
  difficult to get your doubt answered in from the member.
• 1:01:04
  For example, it's very difficult to find your your issues
• 1:01:07
  answered from a specific book. Sometimes you need to speak to
• 1:01:09
  someone and get to the core of the issue, have them understand
• 1:01:12
  you, let them speak to you on a personal level.
• 1:01:16
  So again, this is a failing that we have, and I hope that it can
• 1:01:18
  be addressed soon. Excellent.
• 1:01:24
  We've had a bunch sentence. Yeah, we've got two questions
• 1:01:27
  that are quite similar, so I'm just going to read them
• 1:01:28
  together. So we've got one brother who's
• 1:01:31
  written Saddam. Many aspects of religion are
• 1:01:33
  taught by our parents. Many aspects of religion are
• 1:01:36
  taught by our parents stem from a cultural background rather
• 1:01:39
  than Islamic. How should youths navigate this
• 1:01:42
  when there are certain aspects that parents impose on their
• 1:01:45
  parents that aren't necessarily Islamically valid but are rather
• 1:01:48
  cultural? And the other question is how do
• 1:01:51
  I tell my parents if I think a cultural practice has no
• 1:01:54
  religious basis? Now we get into the topic of
• 1:01:59
  Islam versus culture. I think it as a general
• 1:02:02
  principle, Islam never came to eradicate cultures per SE.
• 1:02:07
  What Islam tended to do was give principles through which culture
• 1:02:10
  can be valued. It can say if this culture, for
• 1:02:14
  example, violates certain Islamic principles, and that's
• 1:02:18
  problematic. If it doesn't violate these
• 1:02:21
  principles, then there's no issues.
• 1:02:24
  But again, it's important to understand that those are
• 1:02:26
  cultural practices, not religious practices.
• 1:02:29
  And it's fine if someone wants to act in a way that's according
• 1:02:31
  to the culture, so long as it doesn't clash with an Islamic
• 1:02:35
  principle. In terms of how you approach it
• 1:02:37
  with your parents, again, that depends on the dynamics of the
• 1:02:39
  family. You got to make sure that you
• 1:02:41
  approach your parents with wisdom, with kindness.
• 1:02:44
  You can't come at them and say, oh, dad, did you know what
• 1:02:46
  you're doing is completely wrong and this is not based on
• 1:02:49
  anything. And while you might have good
• 1:02:52
  intentions, that's just going to cause friction in the family.
• 1:02:55
  It has been looking and think, I didn't raise a condescending
• 1:02:58
  child and put all that effort into you to turn out like this,
• 1:03:01
  you know? So it's important that when you
• 1:03:03
  keep in mind that your father's, your parents have the best
• 1:03:06
  intentions for you. And if there is something that
• 1:03:08
  they're doing that isn't necessarily Islamic, sure, raise
• 1:03:10
  it to them in a nice way. But also on your side, really
• 1:03:13
  ask yourself, is this cultural practice against Islam?
• 1:03:18
  I mean, if it's not against Islam, is it really worth the
• 1:03:20
  battle with your with your parents?
• 1:03:23
  You want to go against a traditional, especially if it's
• 1:03:25
  not causing harm. If it's a if it's a practice
• 1:03:27
  that people do. I mean, a random example, for
• 1:03:30
  example, when people are getting married, getting married, they
• 1:03:32
  have, I don't know, Shah Ratashadi much less or they do
• 1:03:35
  this. Like in all honesty, that's not
• 1:03:36
  based. I mean, let's just say it's not
• 1:03:39
  really based in anything religious.
• 1:03:40
  But again, if it's a practice that brings people together, if
• 1:03:44
  we. Can give.
• 1:03:46
  You an example, I mean, that just came to my mind.
• 1:03:48
  I don't want to go too much into that.
• 1:03:49
  I don't know why it came to my mind.
• 1:03:51
  But we have practices, for example, that parents do.
• 1:03:54
  And you know, with all due respect, our approach and our
• 1:03:57
  intention can be like, this is not from the Dean, but I can see
• 1:04:01
  beneficial things coming from it.
• 1:04:03
  And from that perspective, if we change our mindset, we go from
• 1:04:06
  being very strict and rigid and very black and white to actually
• 1:04:11
  understanding perhaps there's a greater Islamic ethos that we
• 1:04:14
  can implement here. OK.
• 1:04:17
  Can we have that? Yeah, sorry.
• 1:04:19
  I was going to say, do we have any more floor questions?
• 1:04:21
  Before we go back, Jaber. And any from the sisters as
• 1:04:24
  well. On the side.
• 1:04:25
  We have one as well from the system.
• 1:04:26
  We'll go to Jaber after Jaber if we I was done already.
• 1:04:29
  OK, let me get Mike to the sisters, please, if possible,
• 1:04:31
  please. Slam Nekum, we have one question
• 1:04:35
  from the ladies side. Is there any benefit to blindly
• 1:04:39
  following in some scenarios? Following on from the example of
• 1:04:43
  hijab, if there is not full certainty about the meaning
• 1:04:47
  slash reason to wear hijab but continuing to wear it while
• 1:04:50
  seeking that understanding as in this example.
• 1:04:53
  Once you get that full understanding, there may be
• 1:04:56
  social deterrence or other deterrence stopping you from
• 1:04:58
  wearing the hijab sounds. Great.
• 1:05:00
  Question. I opened the can of ones.
• 1:05:06
  You tend to do that. Thing sorry to checklist.
• 1:05:10
  So can I just understand that question correctly?
• 1:05:12
  So what you're asking is, is there any value in blindly
• 1:05:16
  following something that we're not 100% convinced with?
• 1:05:19
  So IE with hijab, if I don't, if I'm not convinced that I need to
• 1:05:22
  wear it, but I still do, is that problematic?
• 1:05:24
  Is that the question? Yeah.
• 1:05:26
  I mean, that's, that's the core issue here, that there's many,
• 1:05:30
  many things that we will question that we won't
• 1:05:34
  necessarily understand the answer for.
• 1:05:38
  And that itself is not problematic because we know and
• 1:05:46
  we're giving ourselves time to get to that position where we
• 1:05:49
  can't understand it. There is a problem, for example,
• 1:05:53
  if it happens with the actual core of religion.
• 1:05:56
  When it comes to matters of belief, blind following in
• 1:06:00
  belief is problematic. If I believe in God because I
• 1:06:04
  have been told to believe in the Osola Dean.
• 1:06:09
  So when it comes to the Osola Dean, if I believe in what I
• 1:06:12
  believe in because my dad told me and I have no evidence for
• 1:06:16
  doing so, that's very problematic.
• 1:06:20
  That's very problematic. And this is something that the
• 1:06:21
  Quran condemns. Interestingly, some scholars
• 1:06:24
  have even said even if you're on the right religion and you
• 1:06:27
  believe in Allah and you believe in the Prophet, but you're doing
• 1:06:29
  so from blind faith, that's still problematic.
• 1:06:31
  You need to have evidence to support that.
• 1:06:33
  When it comes to Fudu or Deen, your practice, your Amal, your
• 1:06:37
  actions, what the Fukaha tell you, what the Maraja tell you,
• 1:06:41
  there's slightly a little bit more difference.
• 1:06:44
  Different approach there. Because the idea there is that
• 1:06:47
  when it comes to certain Islamic practices, we won't be able to
• 1:06:52
  fully understand the reasons why.
• 1:06:54
  You get an example with Salah, for example, we can fully
• 1:06:57
  understand the philosophy of Salah, the importance of Salah,
• 1:07:01
  the importance of prayer. This is something that we call
• 1:07:03
  agree is and this is something that even atheists will say that
• 1:07:06
  when it comes to religion, one of the biggest benefits of
• 1:07:08
  religion is it grounds you with prayer and it grounds you with
• 1:07:12
  faith. But when it comes to why is
• 1:07:14
  Salah, for example, five times a day, why do we do, we'll do this
• 1:07:17
  way? Why do we do this?
• 1:07:18
  Why do we do that? That's, that's an jurisdiction
• 1:07:21
  where we just have to say, you know, I've established God up
• 1:07:24
  until this point. I've trusted in the prophet,
• 1:07:27
  I've trusted in the Quran, I've trusted in the imams.
• 1:07:30
  I trust in my scholars to convey what is held within that.
• 1:07:34
  And as an extension of that, this is what I've been told.
• 1:07:38
  Hopefully I'll get to a point where I can accept this.
• 1:07:40
  And this is another thing. Hopefully I'll get to a point
• 1:07:43
  where I can accept that this action is required of me.
• 1:07:48
  But in terms of blind following in the action, sure.
• 1:07:51
  I mean, I'll give you my example.
• 1:07:52
  There are so many things that I do on a religious basis.
• 1:07:55
  I don't necessarily know why we do that.
• 1:07:57
  We all do this. I mean, if you pick up the the
• 1:08:01
  Rasala Amalia, for example, of Sajistani, there's like 4005
• 1:08:05
  thousand rules in there. You're never going to get to a
• 1:08:07
  position where you know the reason behind everything.
• 1:08:10
  But of course, you left on it. Why?
• 1:08:12
  Because you know that this Rasala, or what's included
• 1:08:15
  within this is based on this chain that first we accept that
• 1:08:19
  when it comes to God, I have evidence, then the Prophet, I
• 1:08:22
  have evidence, then the Imam, I have evidence, then the
• 1:08:24
  scholars. Then in that extraction process
• 1:08:28
  it flows down and you say, now I've got FIQ, I've got Akam,
• 1:08:31
  I've got rules. And when it comes to these
• 1:08:34
  rules, I don't really know. There's a limit to what I know.
• 1:08:38
  And if I say that I will only do what I know, then we're saying
• 1:08:43
  that our level of knowledge should always be at the same
• 1:08:45
  level of gods because we're saying now there's nothing that
• 1:08:49
  God can tell me to do that I will do unless I understand it.
• 1:08:53
  I mean, where does religion come into this end?
• 1:08:55
  Where does the element of faith come into this?
• 1:08:56
  Where does the element of submission come into this?
• 1:08:58
  And I know for the sisters, it's hard.
• 1:09:00
  I mean, the hijab seems to be quite a big issue.
• 1:09:02
  So I appreciate that the sisters have a bigger challenge because
• 1:09:06
  from the guy's perspective, we could be going through a lot of
• 1:09:09
  doubts, but you would never know.
• 1:09:12
  But from the sister's perspective, it's a little bit
• 1:09:13
  harder because if they're going through doubts, you can see it.
• 1:09:15
  Maybe the hijab will come off, you know, start to lower a
• 1:09:17
  little bit. And then one day it's not there
• 1:09:18
  and, you know, OK, wow, this sister's really struggling with
• 1:09:20
  her faith. But from the brother's
• 1:09:22
  perspective, we don't really have that.
• 1:09:23
  Maybe you'll shave the beard. Well, I don't know.
• 1:09:25
  Having a beard now is quite trendy anyway.
• 1:09:27
  So even if you leave the religion as a guy, you'll
• 1:09:29
  probably still keep a beard. So from our perspective, there's
• 1:09:32
  nothing that we can really give off that shows doubt.
• 1:09:34
  But from the sister's perspective, I appreciate it's a
• 1:09:37
  lot harder. And everything I've said, you
• 1:09:38
  know, it's easier saying than done.
• 1:09:41
  Yeah, I want to get that caveat. So all right, I think we're
• 1:09:44
  taking this last one or? In this one.
• 1:09:47
  Is a very stand more ask question.
• 1:09:49
  So we've got salams. So both I do.
• 1:09:52
  Want to be invited back here? So it says Salam.
• 1:09:57
  So both Sheikh Jawad Somali and Sheikh Mohammed Hindi have
• 1:10:00
  approached the subjects of relationships with Allah from
• 1:10:04
  two different angles. How do we explain to kids that
• 1:10:07
  neither is incorrect? That's the that's the question.
• 1:10:13
  Has anyone been attending the lecture so they can tell me what
• 1:10:15
  the different angles are? Is 1 like a spiritual angle and
• 1:10:17
  1A traditional? Angle I think a funny a funny.
• 1:10:20
  OK, so one's a funny. Even if it's not just
• 1:10:23
  specifically on the the two respected scholars, but also on
• 1:10:25
  a more general basis that you may have differing opinions
• 1:10:28
  which you know two things can be true.
• 1:10:30
  So what we need to understand within ourselves and perhaps
• 1:10:33
  create a culture of this understanding, is that when it
• 1:10:35
  comes to Islamic approaches, our approach to religion, our
• 1:10:39
  approach to God, there are multiple methods that we can
• 1:10:42
  adopt. There is essentially 4 different
• 1:10:45
  methods that we can take that fall within the framework of
• 1:10:49
  Islam or Islamic sciences. 1 is the philosophical method, one is
• 1:10:53
  the spiritual method, one is the theological method, and one is
• 1:10:57
  the traditional method. And what we find in history is
• 1:11:01
  that we've had scholars of all different flavors, all different
• 1:11:04
  varieties, and fair enough in what they say, in what they
• 1:11:07
  believe, they might at times contradict to one another.
• 1:11:11
  We need to appreciate that within Islam we have this
• 1:11:14
  freedom. It is in the case of
• 1:11:17
  one-size-fits-all. Someone might have these
• 1:11:20
  spiritual inclinations. They might be more interested in
• 1:11:23
  Irfan, for example. And for them, it's all about
• 1:11:26
  mysticism. They want to understand how to
• 1:11:28
  get close to God. They want to understand, you
• 1:11:30
  know, the secrets of Salah. They want to be able to converse
• 1:11:33
  with Allah. And then you'll have, for
• 1:11:35
  example, the traditional who's like, no, my method to God is by
• 1:11:38
  following.com. I need to do this, this, this,
• 1:11:41
  and that's how that's what God wants from me.
• 1:11:44
  And then you'll have the philosopher who'll say, no, my
• 1:11:45
  understanding and my approach to God is based on utilizing my
• 1:11:48
  intellect and getting closer to God, etcetera.
• 1:11:51
  We have this plurality, we have this diverse approach in
• 1:11:55
  methodology and it's always existed.
• 1:11:57
  If you go back to the times of the the Imams, we have
• 1:12:01
  companions who are on this different approach as well.
• 1:12:03
  We have some companions who are a little bit more traditional,
• 1:12:06
  some companions who are very theological, very philosophical,
• 1:12:10
  some companions that were quite spiritual and the Imam would
• 1:12:12
  speak to each on their own capacity and the Imam would
• 1:12:16
  nurture this difference because at the end of the day, human
• 1:12:19
  beings are of different temperaments.
• 1:12:21
  There is this difference of opinion or this difference of in
• 1:12:25
  methodology or approach that is respected and celebrated within
• 1:12:30
  Islam. And how we teach our kids is by
• 1:12:32
  saying that there are multiple approaches to God.
• 1:12:36
  And what's important again, is we maintain ourselves within the
• 1:12:38
  skeleton structure. Like I said, when it comes to
• 1:12:40
  the core beliefs, a theologian and a philosopher will always
• 1:12:44
  agree that God exists. But when it comes to proving
• 1:12:49
  that God, the philosopher might say, well, I prefer the
• 1:12:51
  ontological argument. The theologian will say I prefer
• 1:12:54
  the cosmological argument and when you look at the debates
• 1:12:57
  between the two, the Mottakalim will attack the philosopher
• 1:13:01
  before believing in this proof, but they both believe in God.
• 1:13:04
  So why is he attacking a proof of God?
• 1:13:07
  Does that mean he is attacking God?
• 1:13:08
  No, according to his methodology, that proof is not
• 1:13:12
  valid. And the philosopher vice versa
• 1:13:16
  and the Mystic vice versa. The Mystic will come and say
• 1:13:18
  there's no proof I see God. And the theologian, like what
• 1:13:20
  are you talking about? You see God, how do you see God,
• 1:13:22
  etcetera, etcetera. So there is this diverse
• 1:13:26
  approach within our scholarship and this is something we just
• 1:13:28
  have to find a way to appreciate and tolerate.
• 1:13:30
  I think we should celebrate as well.
• 1:13:32
  Celebrate. Because the difference in
• 1:13:34
  dialogue has got us to where we are as a community, diverse and
• 1:13:36
  and multicultural. We've had an abundant number of
• 1:13:41
  questions that have come in. So thank you so much to everyone
• 1:13:43
  who's asked. Before we get to maybe the last
• 1:13:46
  sentient questions there, any last questions from the crowd.
• 1:13:50
  We have a brother here. If I can get your question, if
• 1:13:52
  you could keep it, if you don't mind to, to a minimum in terms
• 1:13:54
  of time and then we'll have one last question which we have to
• 1:13:57
  choose from, from a few. Unless there's a question from
• 1:14:00
  the sisters side. Unless there's a question from
• 1:14:02
  the sisters. Is it about your job?
• 1:14:04
  I'm not the right. Person so of course there's
• 1:14:08
  importance given to critical thinking and the chronic verses
• 1:14:13
  we discussed in the beginning of the podcast.
• 1:14:15
  I think brother Mohammed mentioned this earlier.
• 1:14:18
  Is there a benefit in having like, is there a downside really
• 1:14:25
  to having a large majority being passive, especially when you
• 1:14:29
  start a community and you want to keep it?
• 1:14:31
  You know, let's say the coaches when they started became Shia,
• 1:14:35
  then Al Shariz afterwards. So is there a downside to it?
• 1:14:39
  For example, the Don core, you can say like Tomas Son or
• 1:14:43
  Sigartha where people start doing critical thinking, which I
• 1:14:47
  built a foundation and it could push some people away from the
• 1:14:50
  religion if everyone starts doing, you know, critical
• 1:14:53
  thinking. So.
• 1:14:58
  So the question, if I understand correctly, is that is there a
• 1:15:01
  harm in too many people doing critical thinking?
• 1:15:04
  Yeah, OK. So from a community perspective,
• 1:15:06
  the more the more people that don't critically think, the
• 1:15:11
  better because you want to run a community where you don't have
• 1:15:14
  much obstacles, you don't have people arguing on every little
• 1:15:16
  thing that you do. You want to run a community on
• 1:15:19
  one principle, one ethos, one guide and take everyone with you
• 1:15:23
  from A to B. If everyone starts critically
• 1:15:26
  thinking you're going to have riots, you're going to have
• 1:15:30
  arguments non-stop. So from a community perspective,
• 1:15:34
  it makes sense. You want to centralized
• 1:15:35
  everything. You want to keep everyone from
• 1:15:36
  the same page reading off the same page.
• 1:15:40
  But again, that doesn't mean, and I want to be clear again
• 1:15:44
  here, that that group that is passive just because they're not
• 1:15:49
  critically thinking. And again, not everyone needs to
• 1:15:52
  critically think. We, we touched on that and I
• 1:15:53
  hope we did touch on that a little bit, that it's not all
• 1:15:56
  about critically thinking. It's about making sure you're on
• 1:15:59
  your own journey, that you're traversing, you're changing your
• 1:16:03
  ideas, you're exploring. And to be honest, someone who
• 1:16:06
  reaches the age of, I don't know, the age of 40 and the age
• 1:16:08
  of 50, and he still thinks the same way he did as he was 15 and
• 1:16:11
  20. And where did those 30 years
• 1:16:13
  ago? What, what was he doing?
• 1:16:14
  And it's very interesting. We have a hadith from Amir Al
• 1:16:16
  Mutmaneen where he says ratayoshakh a habu ilaya minjala
• 1:16:21
  Dil Hollam, that the opinion of the old man is more beloved to
• 1:16:27
  me than the zeal and the passion of the youth, which is
• 1:16:31
  interesting. Why is Emile Morman in saying
• 1:16:33
  that? I mean, you could do a whole
• 1:16:35
  thesis in psychology about the stages of human life and how
• 1:16:39
  your ideas change. The Imam is saying that when
• 1:16:41
  someone goes through life, their opinions will change.
• 1:16:44
  When you're young, you're passionate, you're easy to jump
• 1:16:48
  into things. You don't have a commitment.
• 1:16:50
  If you change your belief on something, it's easy.
• 1:16:53
  You don't have a wife to worry about.
• 1:16:54
  You don't have kids to worry about you now.
• 1:16:57
  When you get older, you now have a family to care about.
• 1:16:59
  So if I change my opinion, how am I going to raise my kids or
• 1:17:01
  my new opinion, for example? There's so many other things.
• 1:17:04
  When you get older, you start to realize that people will make
• 1:17:08
  fuss or argue over everything. So if you're someone who's into
• 1:17:10
  polemics when you're young, you're excited.
• 1:17:13
  You want to see what the argument's about.
• 1:17:14
  You want to go debate. But as you get older, you
• 1:17:16
  realize polemics what really, what do you really get out of
• 1:17:19
  that? You just get higher blood
• 1:17:20
  pressure, You know, you might get into a fight.
• 1:17:23
  What does polemics get you? Again, you get older and you
• 1:17:25
  realize, well, perhaps polemics isn't the best way to talk to
• 1:17:27
  someone. It's more about a conversation.
• 1:17:29
  And Emilia Mormon touches hits the nail on the head there.
• 1:17:31
  He says, I prefer the opinion of an old man over the passion of a
• 1:17:36
  youngster. That youngster hasn't seen life.
• 1:17:39
  He doesn't know what's going on. There needs to be that
• 1:17:42
  trajectory, that evolution, where you go from that passion,
• 1:17:45
  that zeal to understanding and being wise.
• 1:17:48
  That's the. Thank you, Chuck.
• 1:17:50
  We have, I know we've, we've only got a couple of minutes
• 1:17:53
  left, but I want to merge. They're not too similar, but
• 1:17:56
  they're both relative on culture.
• 1:17:59
  Let's come back to culture. So there's a question that came
• 1:18:00
  in from the sisters saying what if there are practices that our
• 1:18:03
  relatives do that are clearly wrong?
• 1:18:06
  Do we avoid being around them potentially resulting in cutting
• 1:18:08
  them off and then being upset and and similar on on the topic
• 1:18:13
  of culture, how do you tell the difference between something I
• 1:18:16
  don't understand because it is cultural and not from religion?
• 1:18:19
  It's something that I don't understand because I might, I
• 1:18:21
  might lack the knowledge or wisdom.
• 1:18:23
  How can we tell it apart in order to decide whether I want
• 1:18:25
  to follow it or not? They be actually quite
• 1:18:27
  different. They are different, you know.
• 1:18:30
  So in terms of the first question, what was it?
• 1:18:32
  Culture that's Haram. Yeah, you can see here so.
• 1:18:34
  OK, well, if there's practices that our relatives do well, if
• 1:18:37
  something's Haram, then you know.
• 1:18:38
  Yeah, I think the sense of how do you treat that, especially
• 1:18:40
  when it comes to citizen and all of that stuff.
• 1:18:43
  Well, the key thing here is what we have in life is you have
• 1:18:47
  conflicting interests. On the one hand, you have
• 1:18:49
  something that's Haram. On the other hand, you have
• 1:18:52
  relatives that you need to keep happy, for example, or you have,
• 1:18:55
  I don't know, parents need to keep happy.
• 1:18:56
  Or you have a job that you need to work.
• 1:18:58
  You will always have conflicting interests.
• 1:19:01
  This is the nature of life. And what we are required to do
• 1:19:05
  is understand in what scenario do I prioritize for example,
• 1:19:08
  avoiding the Haram over hurting my family Because there could be
• 1:19:13
  some circumcert some some scenarios where perhaps hurting
• 1:19:17
  the family could actually be more detrimental then avoiding
• 1:19:21
  that. Ad check so it says here from a
• 1:19:22
  sister, EG attending a mixed wedding.
• 1:19:25
  Attending a mixed so I I don't we.
• 1:19:26
  Don't want to get into that. Yeah, we don't want to get into
• 1:19:28
  that. Honestly.
• 1:19:29
  Go to sistani.org. You'll find your answer there in
• 1:19:32
  terms of take the step back and realize in life, you'll always
• 1:19:35
  have contradictions, you'll always have conflicts.
• 1:19:38
  Life is nothing but conflicts. You know, I want to do I stay at
• 1:19:41
  home with my family? Do I go out with my friends?
• 1:19:43
  Both of these decisions are decisions that you can make, but
• 1:19:46
  each of them will have consequences.
• 1:19:47
  This is a conflict. Life is about conflict.
• 1:19:49
  Every choice that you make, you might not realize it, but you're
• 1:19:52
  choosing between different things.
• 1:19:55
  Here in this scenario, you've got Haram.
• 1:19:56
  On one hand, for example, you've got upsetting the family.
• 1:19:59
  You need to realize, is it a serious case of upsetting the
• 1:20:02
  family? For example, is it going to lead
• 1:20:03
  to Katarahem? Is my mom going to, you know,
• 1:20:06
  disown me? Is there a case where I can show
• 1:20:08
  my face for 5 minutes, say Salaam, and then leave?
• 1:20:11
  There's so many variables involved.
• 1:20:13
  It's very hard to say this is how what this is what you should
• 1:20:15
  do. And in fact, if anyone did say
• 1:20:17
  this is what you should do, that's problematic because all
• 1:20:19
  these scenarios in the real world have so many variables and
• 1:20:24
  things that you need to consider before you can actually go and
• 1:20:26
  make that decision. So I can't pass an answer on
• 1:20:29
  that, but it's that take a step back, understand at the moment
• 1:20:32
  what is more important for me. And if you make that decision
• 1:20:35
  with good intention and Shala Allah will make sure it's a good
• 1:20:37
  outcome. OK.
• 1:20:38
  And the very last question for this evening on a similar note
• 1:20:41
  as. Well, you can see here how do I
• 1:20:42
  tell the difference between something that I don't
• 1:20:43
  understand because it might be cultural or maybe because I
• 1:20:45
  don't have the knowledge or wisdom.
• 1:20:47
  So I think essentially they both start the same if there's.
• 1:20:49
  A If there's something that you're not quite sure of and
• 1:20:52
  you're not sure whether it's culture and religion, they will
• 1:20:54
  both start off as the same. As you begin to your process of
• 1:20:57
  questioning, of of asking, of trying to find out where does
• 1:21:01
  this practice come from, it will hopefully become more clearer.
• 1:21:04
  So for example, if there's a practice that's done in our
• 1:21:06
  community and for example, the Iraqis don't do it, you're like,
• 1:21:10
  why do the Iraqis don't do it this year as well?
• 1:21:11
  What's the example I need to back that?
• 1:21:15
  Or you could do the other. Way around if there's something
• 1:21:17
  that. You know, we do, sorry, the Arab
• 1:21:19
  is do that. We don't do what's going on
• 1:21:21
  there. Is it cultural?
• 1:21:22
  That's one way you can find out. Is it cultural?
• 1:21:24
  Is it religious? If it was religious, then
• 1:21:25
  everyone would do it. If it's cultural, then only one
• 1:21:27
  part of the world do it or one ethnicity do it.
• 1:21:31
  And that way you can understand, OK, Is it cultural?
• 1:21:33
  Is it not? And again, if it's cultural, is
• 1:21:35
  it harmful? Is it upsetting anyone?
• 1:21:37
  Is it causing problems or is actually, I don't know, a way to
• 1:21:39
  bring people together? OK.
• 1:21:43
  Thank you very much, Jake, left side.
• 1:21:44
  And I'm Mohammed Wah Ali. Mohammed.
• 1:21:50
  I also want to apologise because we had a few few more DMS on
• 1:21:53
  the. Instagram and a few more people
• 1:21:54
  message me as well, so please forgive us.
• 1:21:57
  Hopefully the chef will be hanging around after for a few
• 1:22:00
  minutes. What's for food?
• 1:22:01
  Is there mushkaki Coco Kaka? My number one, my number one,
• 1:22:05
  yeah. Yeah.
• 1:22:06
  You've done and listen. To those who are newcomers to an
• 1:22:12
  Aftermarketer podcast, really hope you enjoyed the
• 1:22:14
  conversation. We try our absolute best to
• 1:22:16
  bring you conversations which are engaging just as the one we
• 1:22:20
  had now was, was truly fascinating and hopefully
• 1:22:22
  beneficial to you all as it was to us as well.
• 1:22:25
  Please stay in touch with us, subscribe to us on YouTube,
• 1:22:29
  Spotify, Apple. We try and release reminders on
• 1:22:33
  every couple of days on on Instagram as well if you follow
• 1:22:36
  us on Insta as well. And lastly, subscribe.
• 1:22:40
  Anything else saved almost subscribe like free time.
• 1:22:42
  Yeah, it's got to be done. You you pretty.
• 1:22:44
  Much said everything. You read my minds.
• 1:22:46
  And as you do. Always on every episodes, I do
• 1:22:49
  want to say like a little small activity for a few seconds is.
• 1:22:53
  Who has heard of the aftermath of podcasts before this
• 1:22:56
  collaboration with a hard youth Show of hands?
• 1:22:58
  Yes, at least. OK, if you'd like.
• 1:23:03
  From those show of hands, how many of you are actually?
• 1:23:06
  Subscribers to our YouTube, you're allowed to be proud when
• 1:23:09
  you raise your hand for those who didn't.
• 1:23:11
  Keep their hands raised. Please subscribe.
• 1:23:13
  Hit that. Smash that subscribe button like
• 1:23:15
  yeah, yeah, rather, Ahmed says on every episode, like chef net,
• 1:23:18
  you have to say they're not getting fat, they're not getting
• 1:23:20
  they're not getting food now they're.
• 1:23:20
  Not they deserved everything. The Stanmore community are
• 1:23:23
  amazing, you know, Hamdullah Ahmed said.
• 1:23:25
  He's happy that he's having a conversation here because it
• 1:23:28
  feels at home, it's really emotional and it's very true
• 1:23:30
  that we've been able to to. Like bring this vision to light
• 1:23:34
  and bring it home. So, you know, it's an honour and
• 1:23:37
  especially to to be with you. Cher.
• 1:23:39
  Thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity also.
• 1:23:41
  Yeah, since we're doing shout outs and subscribing.
• 1:23:45
  Everyone make sure you do. TuneIn to jump man night we.
• 1:23:48
  Have theological discussions every week.
• 1:23:50
  We've got exciting stuff coming up as well with regards to FC
• 1:23:52
  over the Quran. I've had some recent stuff about
• 1:23:55
  AB Sox as well. So if you're in university, make
• 1:23:57
  sure you tune in. And that's yeah, certain,
• 1:24:01
  certain. Thank you very.
• 1:24:01
  Much everyone and I'm Hamad Wali Mohammed.