Articles of Faith - Part 2

Articles of Faith - Part 2

Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Sayyidina Muhammad ash-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. Today, we're going to hopefully look more in depth at the concept of Iman and then Ihsan.

The Foundational Hadith

The hadith, which is the second one mentioned in the book by Imam Nawawi, there are the 40 hadith, is a hadith that was uttered about 80 days before the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam actually died. So, it's considered the best overview of the Islamic tradition. And in the hadith, we saw that the first question was asked was about Islam. And the five pillars were given to express what Islam was. And then the next question was about Iman. And then it followed by a question about Ihsan. And then about a question about time, the end of time.

The Four Dimensions of Islam

If you look in terms of trying to understand this thing in terms of dimensions, you can see these as four dimensions within Islam. The dimension of Islam itself would be the dimension related to the earth. In other words, Islam is an outward practice. Anybody can be a Muslim including a hypocrite. In other words, even a person who does not believe in Islam can be a Muslim. That is possible. So, that is the first dimension. And that is one-dimensional Islam.

Just as you have one-dimensional Christianity, one-dimensional Judaism or any other tradition. We're simply going through the motions. The tradition is not impacting us in any way. And this is, I mean, I like to call it religion. Because I think religion fits into that category. What we term as religious people.

The Nature of Religion

I have a friend who was a crack cocaine addict. And then he left that and he became Muslim. And he ended up, now he works for the state of California as the, he's the head. Or he was appointed by the governor there to be on the task force for drug rehabilitation. And he told me once that, he said, a religious person is somebody afraid of going to hell. But he said, but a spiritual person is somebody who's been to hell and doesn't want to go back.

So, religion is, obviously, some people have identified the human being as a religious creature. And religion, if you look at the original idea there, it's religio means to bind together. Which is not really, that concept does exist and I think it exists in the Islamic tradition as well. The idea, one, you could look at it at a higher level of binding a person to God. But at its more sociological level, it's binding a group of people together. We're bound together by what Ibn Khaldun called Asabiya.

Social Cohesion Through Religion

What holds us together is some type of homogeneity in our beliefs, in our understandings, in our world views. And this is what the postmodernists would call a grand narrative. You have a grand narrative that we all fall under. So, we share a commonality. And traditionally, religion has definitely provided this aspect in cultures. And this is why people who were of minority status in a culture were people that did not tend to share that homogenous world view.

Like in the western civilization, certainly the Jewish tradition has always been marginalized by not only an ethnicity, but a world view. They were different. The same can be said about the Catholics in this country for a long time. The Anglo-Saxon Protestants had very strong numbers. And when the Catholics began to immigrate to this country, there was a lot of problem created because there was a different world view there.

The Dimension of Iman

Now, if we move to the next dimension, which is Iman. And this is the dimension of... If Islam is the horizontal dimension or the dimension of width, then this is the dimension related to a vertical motion. In other words, Iman relates to a person's connection with the Creator or with God in Islam. So, Islam is an outward practice that is keeping people together. And there are social rules that we adhere to. When you move into Iman, this is why are we doing it. It transcends simply the act of doing it, but moves into the realm of why. Why are we practicing these things? The reason that the Qur'an gives should be for God alone. And that would be your vertical dimension of Iman.

The Question of Iman

Now, in the hadith, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is asked, What is Iman (أَخْبِرْنِي عَنِ الْإِيمَانِ - Tell me about Iman). Now, interestingly enough, in the hadith, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam does not actually define Iman, but rather gives us the objects of Iman. What is implied in the hadith is that this is something that the Arabs understood what Iman was.

The Significance of Arabic Language

And just to go in, and I want to digress here just for a second. In this talk, we're going to be looking a lot at Arabic terms, and I'll explain why. First of all, the Muslims believe that the Arabic language is a language of revelation. In other words, it has a unique status amongst other languages. Now, the Muslims would say that that is true about the Hebrew language, that is probably true about the language of Sanskrit, probably true about some original Chinese language, and possibly true about some of the Indo-European languages, like Greek.

But traditionally, Greek is seen as more what they call a sacerdotal or a priestly language, as Latin was for the Roman Catholic Church, Greek was for the Greek Orthodox Church. In the Muslim tradition, Arabic is definitely part of the world view of the Muslims.

Language and Worldview

And there's a theory in linguistics, Sapir-Whorf theory of language, which is also the language relativity theory, which is the idea that a language is not simply a means of communication, but embedded in the language as a world view. In other words, that individuals articulate their world view through their language. And this is important.

Now, just to give you a good example of that, the word in English for reality, right, is related to a Latin word. Does anybody have Latin, know that word? What? Res. Does anybody know what res means in Latin? Thing. Really good, I'm glad. Got some old Latin people around here. Res equals thing. Now, that's a very interesting concept right there. In other words, embedded in the language itself is they're telling you what we think about reality. Reality is thing. There is an inherent materialism in that word. You see, there is an inherent materialism in that word.

Now, to take an example of the word in Arabic for reality is haqiqa. The root word is haqq (الحق) which is the name of God. Al-Haqq (الحق) means the real. And it is one of the 99 names of God. So, embedded in the Arabic language, the perception of reality is already related to something that is beyond this. It is related to the divine. There is an idea in a sense that reality itself is not what we are experiencing in the realm of things, but actually transcends the realm of things. Because in the Islamic tradition, God is not a thing.

God Beyond Thingness

God is not a thing. The word in Arabic for thing is shay (شيء). And shay comes from a word which means that which is willed into existence. So, thing is something that emerges into existence from non-existence. So, reality transcends thing in the Islamic world view. Reality transcends thing.

So, within the Arabic language, we're going to see certain semantic fields that are created by these triliteral roots, that are based on these three roots, that are articulating something very important about reality.

The Root Meaning of Iman

Now, if we look at the word iman (إيمان), which is faith. It's translated generally as faith, iman. Its root is three letters. Alif, meem, noon (أمن). Amina (أُمِنَ) means to be safe or secure. To be safe or secure. Iman is a verbal noun that comes from... There's 15 forms of every verb. So, you literally... Each verb is going to create a whole semantic field by which you'll get nuances of the meanings of the word.

Iman is from a fourth form out of the 15 forms that literally means to make oneself safe and secure. So, the idea here is that faith is an anchoring element in the human experience. And lack of faith is something that creates a type of trouble, of turbulence within the psyche itself.

Faith as Security

Now, we can see this if you're going into surgery. You'll hear somebody say, well, I have faith in my doctor.

Because you don't want to go into surgery not having faith in your doctor. You're going to be a wreck, right? Really, you're going to be a wreck. There's going to be a lot of trauma related to that experience. So, the idea of faith as a securing factor in the human condition.

Now, there's a wonderful... In the Greek tradition, Prometheus gives man fire, which is knowledge. And then, Prometheus is cursed by the gods because the gods don't want man to have knowledge because man's going to compete with the gods. Prometheus, once he's on the rock in Asclepius' play, and Prometheus is bound, they're asking him what he was given, what he gave to man. He said, I gave him fire and I taught him the crafts. And then he said, what else? And he said, I gave him faith. In other words, without faith, the human being is in a hopeless state.

The Necessity of Hope

So, there's an idea that we need faith. If we have all the knowledge in the world, if we know how to do all these things, but we don't have faith in the future, in tomorrow, we go into a state of despair. And human beings cannot function in a state of despair.

A study that they did with rats, where they would put a rat... I mean, this is horrible things that scientists do, but sometimes they come up with interesting results. They put some rats in water and then they would let the rats swim until they would drown, right? Well, what they started to do, they'd time it and they'd say the rats would survive a few minutes. Right before the time that they would normally drown, they would pull them out and save them. And they would do this over and over again. Then they would leave those same rats who had been pulled out and saved and they would go sometimes twice or more than they would normally do had they not been pulled out of the cavern. So the idea is that even the rat has a concept of hope. That even the rat, as insignificant as its brain is, has a concept of hope. That I might be saved, so I'm gonna hang on a little longer.

Now, there's a story. One man asked a man once if he believed in God. He said, no. And he said, well, let me ask you something. He said, if you fall off a ship in the middle of the ocean, do you just give up? And he said, no, I continue to swim. And he said, why? And he said, out of the hopes of being saved. And he said, that's God. You see, that there is within us this odd mechanism in our own psyches that says, I'm not gonna give up. And this is rooted in this idea of wanting to make oneself secure, of wanting to be in a state of security.

The Mu'min: One Who Makes Themselves Safe

So the believer, according to the Islamic tradition, is called a mu'min (مؤمن). Somebody who is making themselves safe. How? How do you make yourself safe? In a world of absolute change, we see change everywhere. We have no sense of security in this world. A person who's in a secure state is in a delusional state. Really, if you think about this. If you feel secure at all times, then you're in a delusional state. Especially in California. Because I live in California and we hear those shakes every once in a while. Just to remind you, it's not that secure.

The Reality of Human Vulnerability

We are literally, as human beings, constantly exposing ourselves to death in every instant. Each breath is an exposure to death. And because of that, there's a deep instability. Now, there's a type of veiling that takes place as a mercy. Because if we were constantly aware of this state, we would be literally wrecks. Psychological wrecks. And there are people that go into these states.

One of the things Lewis Thomas mentions in one of his essays is the whole fact that nature, which is often a scientific word for God, that nature does this wonderful thing of veiling death from us. Even though there's death all around us, you don't see dead animals everywhere. That they're hidden. That you can literally go down this road and go for a long walk and you won't see a dead creature. And yet there's death all over the place. There's death happening. Decay. It's happening all over the place. But there's a type of veiling. And this enables a human being psychologically to maintain hope. To maintain hope for the future.

The First Object of Belief: Allah

So, iman or belief is related to making oneself secure. The first object of belief that will secure an individual, according to the Islamic tradition, is iman billah (إيمان بالله) which means belief in Allah. Now, we know that, all of us know now that the first statement of the Muslims is لا إله إلا الله (la ilaha illallah).

Understanding "La Ilaha Illallah"

And this is usually translated as there is no God, but Allah. Which I think, in many ways, is problematic. Because it leads a person who is not an Arab or not a Muslim to think that Allah is some kind of there's no God, but Allah. In other words, there's no God for the Christians, there's no God for the Jews, there's no God, but this God that the Arabs are calling Allah. Which is problematic. Because Jewish Arabs call God Allah and Christian Arabs call God Allah. You see. A Christian Arab calls God Allah. And they call Jesus ibnullah (ابن الله) the son of Allah. That's what a Christian Arab calls. A Palestinian Christian says, the son of Allah. So this is a linguistic determinant from the Arab people for what we know in English as God.

Which is originally probably an Indo-European word, Gut, which you get, it goes into Persian as Khuda. Right? The Persian word, don't tell any white supremacists, but the Persian word Khuda is related to the English word for God. Because then it goes into German as Gut, or Gott. And the original word here is related to the one who is called on when there's no one else to call on. That that is God. God is the one we call on when there's no one else to call on.

The Linguistic Nature of Allah

Now the word Allah (الله) in the Arabic language does not designate a meaning. We do not know what it means. Some of the Muslims think that it is originally from Ilah (إله). Right? The word Ilah. And obviously you can see the linguistic similarity there. The orientalist would definitely say, yes, it's gotta be. It's just a lam, it becomes

Negation and Affirmation

And so Allah, when we say (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ - lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāh). There are two things happening here. The first is called Nafi (نفي), which is a negation. And the second is called Ithbat (إثبات), which is an affirmation. The idea for the Muslims is, you must negate before you can affirm. What are you negating? You are negating everything other than Allah. And this is the idea where reality is related to this word (ٱلْحَقُّ - al-Ḥaqq), the real.

The Absence of "To Be" in Arabic

In other words, the Muslims say, and the nice thing about Arabic, and one of the many nice things is, it does not have the verb to be. So in this, although we read it in English, there is no God, but God. In Arabic, that is, which we call an auxiliary verb, I think. The is is not there. It's not there. Now this has important philosophical implications, because when you relate to the idea of being, again, we can move out of being when we talk about God.

See, the Muslims don't view God as a being, in the sense of a supreme being in a hierarchy, like the St. Thomas Aquinas idea of a hierarchy of being, God being at the top of the hierarchy. That's really alien to the Islamic tradition. The idea of God here is that God is absolute, that God is ultimate reality, that when God's reality is articulated, every other reality vanishes into falsehood or non-existence.

The Radical Otherness of God

This is utter transcendence, in the sense that when we talk about God at one level in the Islamic tradition, we are talking about the radical other. We are talking about that which has no association with anything created, that when we even compare the created to this reality, creation, in a sense, disappears. Creation has a type of unreality.

For the Muslims, what this means is we can supplant any of these words here with the divine names or the attributes. We can say, there is no Haqq, except the Haqq. In other words, there is nothing real, except the real. We can say, there is no generous, except the generous. Al-Karim (الكريم) is the name of God. We can say, there is no merciful, except the merciful. So we can literally take any of the 99 names and put them in this formula, and it works. Why? Because when we speak about God, we are negating everything other than God. And this relates to God's absolute greatness, the magnificence of God.

The Process of Negation

Philosophically, it seems like you're saying God is other, but what about God's eminence? I'm gonna get to that. I mean, I will. I'll get to that. Because this is a very important point. So when we negate, what we are saying is, (لَا إِلَٰهَ - lā ʾilāha), lā ʾilāha, lā ʾilāha, lā ʾilāha, lā ʾilāha. The sun, lā ʾilāha. The moon, lā ʾilāha. The stars, lā ʾilāha. All of this, lā ʾilāha. There is nothing that I can see, that I can conceive, that I can point to, except that I have to say lā ʾilāha.

I think that they can be very similar. I think many Christians will believe this. In fact, the Muslims believe that this is almost really it's a universal understanding. Right? The Muslims would believe that lā ʾilāha is a universal understanding. But it's quite radical in its implications, and I'm gonna get to that, related to tawhid (توحید), and how this translates into the world, how we behave and act in the world.

When we say (إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ - ʾillā-llāh), this is the affirmation. So, negation precedes affirmation, in the Islamic tradition. Negation precedes affirmation. We have to negate other before we can affirm what is real or what is true. Alright?

Clarifying the Concept of God

Now, if we think, you know, many Muslims will say, if somebody says to them, I don't believe in God, then a Muslim would want some clarification. What do you mean by God? Because we might not believe in the same thing. Right? In other words, there are many people in this time, certainly, that have rejected more traditional concepts of God. And if you move into, in a sense, the Durkheimian view of God, which is really that human beings project, that we project, or the Freudian view, that, again, human beings felt insecure, they wanted to create a big daddy up in the sky that's going to take care of all of us, makes us feel secure. This is the idea within a modern Western view that, in a sense, God is a psychological mechanism that enables a human being to create some psychic stability. And there are people that reject that. There are people that reject that idea.

The Fitrah Nature

From the Muslim point of view, the Muslims would say that belief in God is part of the fitrah (فطرة) nature. It is inherent to the individual. The Qur'an uses a word which is called fitrah, which means the original nature. The aboriginal nature of the human being is called fitrah. And that is that human beings are, by their nature,

believers. They are believers. The problem is, the belief is not full, it is not a correct belief because of a misunderstanding about Ilah.

So you have animists. Animists believe in something outside of themselves. Right? Or you have somebody that associates with God, that believes that there is duality. For instance, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, or multiplicity of gods in Hinduism. And even if you get into the Brahmins, I mean the Brahmins kind of, the Brahmins, what they don't tell the other people is that they really don't believe in the idols. Right? At the highest level of Hinduism. These are kind of simple ways of allowing people that have not evolved enough. They haven't moved into the Brahmin class, which takes several lifetimes. But the Brahmins can understand God as the Atma, or that which does not have form. So they do have a concept of a formless God. Right? Nirguna. They do have that concept.

The Need for Revelation

But the Muslims would say all of these ways of viewing or understanding God, if they are not preceded by negation, will fall into an incorrect understanding. And the idea is that the intellect cannot know God except through God. There is a fitra nature, which is to recognize that God exists. To recognize that there is something outside of myself. But the intellect is not sufficient enough to understand God as God wants to be understood. And this is where we get revelation.

The Second Object of Faith: The Books

So the next object of faith, right? There is books. There are dispensations. So the books are dispensations from God in which God explains to His creation what He wants them to understand about Him. So from the Muslim perspective, every group has had this reminder. And it's interesting that it's called a reminder. These books are called reminders. The Torah was a reminder. The Gospel was a reminder. If the Vedic scriptures were revealed books originally, they were reminders. If Buddha was a prophet, he was a reminder. Bringing people reminders, taking them back to their true nature, which is to understand God.

The Purpose of Human Creation

That the human being was created to understand God. And God is the highest abstraction for the human being. We have nothing higher in terms of abstraction. The human being does have a concept of God. Even the atheist has a concept of God. So the intellect has the ability to conceptualize really that which cannot be conceptualized. It's paradoxical, but this is the power of the intellect.

Somebody was telling me about the most sophisticated computer in the world that has the brain about the same intelligence as a flatworm. And I just said, that's amazing. He said, that's not amazing. This is amazing. The human intellect is what's amazing. The human intellect is phenomenal in its capacity to imagine, to conceive, to conceptualize, to idealize. I mean, this is something very extraordinary. And the Muslims see it as a gift. The

intellect is a gift. It's the crown of creation. And a gift should be used for that which it was intended according to the Islamic tradition.

Intellect and Emotion

What about emotion? Emotion? Could intellect be something that is clear, that is precise, that is unfeeling, insensitive? Right. Okay, again we get into definitions and semantics. From a Muslim point of view, the intellect is not really what is conceived in the West to be intellect. In the West, the intellect is really seen as this rational, analyzing, critical. I mean, the kind of height of intellectual prowess is seen in the scientist, in a sense.

Whereas from the Muslim point of view, the intellect relates really to perception. And compassion might be the necessary thing to be perceived. In other words, that the intellect... What's that? I think so. I think it's a broader understanding of intellect. In other words, the intellect really is that which sees things as they truly are.

And when I asked one of my teachers what intellect was, he said it's a light that God puts in the heart in which people are able to see things as they truly are. Right. So the intellect is an organ of perception. And if it perceives things as they truly are, then the emotive faculty within the individual might be stimulated by the perception of something as it truly is. So if I see somebody suffering and my intellect understands truly what that means, then empathy emerges. So that is part of the function of the intellect.

So the intellect would be necessary to... I mean, if you look at it in a tri-brain type thing, I'm going to go into that just about the nafs. So some of these questions I will get to. And if you want, just hold them just so I can keep... Yeah, trying to move along.

The Revealed Books

The books. So the books are dispensations. Now, the Muslims do not know how many books there were. But we are told to believe by the Qur'an with absolute certainty in four books.

The Torah

The first one is called the Torah. And the Torah, generally, most of the Muslims believe it relates to the first five books of the Bible. Right. So you'd have Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers. Right. Those would be generally considered the first five books. Now, it's important that the Muslims do not... The book that... You know, the Bible is collected over 900 years. From the Qur'anic worldview, there were alterations. And we talked about that already. So when the Muslims say they believe in the Torah, it does not necessarily mean everything that exists in the Torah today. So, for instance, stories that would denigrate the prophets. The idea that Lot, for instance, slept with his daughters. Things like that are anathema to the Muslims. They really would not accept that as being from the Revelation. And these are differences between the religious teachings. But that is the Muslim worldview.

The Gospel

The Gospel would be the Gospel of Jesus. Gospel in singular. Not the four accounts, but a Gospel. One Gospel called the Injil (الإنجيل.

The Psalms

And then the Zabur (الزبور), which is generally believed to be the Psalms of David.

The Qur'an

And then finally the Furqan (الفرقان), or the Criterion. And it's called the Furqan in relation to the other three books because it's seen as the discriminating book. In other words, it lets us know what is still valid from those other books and what is no longer valid. This is how the Muslims view the Qur'an. That it is a book, it is a criterion for judging other traditions. And the Qur'an says that it's muhaimin alay (مهيمن عليه). That it is literally an overseer of the other traditions.

The Third Object of Faith: The Messengers

Now, the books themselves are brought by messengers. Which is the next. We have to believe in messengers. And the idea of a messenger, a rasul (رسول) is somebody that is sent from God to human beings to give them a message from God. To explain God's intentions or will towards the human being. Both the books and the messengers are understood to be sent by God.

Responding to the Messenger: Iman or Kufr

Now, there is a response to the messenger. And it is either iman (إيمان) or kufr (كفر). Now, kufr, you'll most often see it translated in books as disbelief. Kafir (کافر) is a non-believer or disbeliever. That is not a good translation for kufr. The Islamic world view sees kufr if you look at the root meaning of it. It is from a root word ka-fa-ra (كفر) which means the active participle in Arabic means a farmer. Because what a farmer does is they cover a seed with dirt. They put a seed into darkness.

Now, the idea there is that kufr is covering over something. That is the root of it. So, in a sense, kufr is seen as truth concealing. The truth is concealed. The idea there is it's really known that a person in truth cannot be a disbeliever from the Islamic perspective. No one can be a disbeliever in truth. And the greatest truth concealer is Iblis (إبليس) in the Islamic world view. And Iblis was one of the closest to God. So, the idea is that really this is not about disbelief. This is about concealment. This is about hiding or covering up. And that's how the Qur'anic world view sees truth in relation to how people respond to it.

They will either accept it and that's why they're called acceptors rather than believers. They will accept it or they will conceal it. Now, there are many ways to conceal the truth and certainly many, many Muslims are truth concealers in reality. You see, so I can be a Muslim and here I am doing all my right things and everything, but in reality, I am concealing the truth.

Ingratitude as Truth Concealment

The essence of truth concealing is ingratitude. The human being, a kafir, is also called an ingrate. The idea is that if God in His bounty, because the actual idea of sending messengers is good intention. In other words, that God has a good intention towards His creation. That if God simply created the human being, threw away the manual and just said, work it all out for yourselves and everybody spends their life in turmoil and darkness and moving out, right?

You like the, you know, Mullah Nasruddin is a character in the Middle East. They tell stories about him and one of the stories, Mullah, he was in the tavern all night and he goes out in the early morning, wee hours of the morning and he's wandering around the city aimlessly. Policeman comes up and he says, Mullah, what are you doing out at this time? And he said, if I knew the answer to that question, I'd be in home in bed. The idea is that this is the state of many, many people. They're literally wandering around in a drunken stupor and they don't know what they're doing.

Diversions and Truth Concealment

They don't know what they're doing and there are many, many diversions. There are many ways to conceal the truth, right? Rumi talks about the many wines that God has put on this earth to put people out of their misery. He said, Jesus was drunk in the love of God and his donkey was high on barley. There's many ways that we can that we can deal with the human condition, right? Like John Lennon said, whatever gets you through the night, right? There are many people that have that attitude. I'm just gonna get through this, whatever it takes.

That, from a Muslim perspective, is a type of ingratitude because the messengers have come. They have given people news. They have given people guidance. That the guidance is there and that is why the truth concealer is the one who is ingrate. He's an ingrate because he or she is not accepting that truth. And this is the Muslim view of looking at these two phenomenon, of how we respond to revelation.

The Story of the Keys

Now, another Mullah story that kind of is another way of looking at this is that Mullah was looking around one day for something and somebody came by and he said, Mullah, what are you looking for? He said, some keys I lost. And he said, he starts helping him and after about an hour or two, he's saying, listen, where exactly do you think you lost them? He said, oh, way over there. He said, well, what are you looking here for? He said, it's better, the light's better over here. Right?

So, there's an idea also that people will go where it's easy instead of going where it's hard. And this is also a type of truth concealment, to go where it's easy instead of going where it's hard.

The Nature of Prophets

So, the messengers are human beings, first and foremost. And they have a type of capacity that other individuals

do not have, although we have a glimpse of it. And this is why the Prophet Muhammad said, a true dream is one-forty-sixth of prophecy. (Sahih al-Bukhari 6989) One-forty-sixth of prophecy. And anyone has access to a true dream, including from the Muslim worldview, somebody who is not a Muslim, can have a true dream. And this is an access, it is one-forty-sixth of prophecy. In other words, it is an indication for the human being of the idea that we can know something that has not happened yet. And this happens to people.

Prescient Dreams and Déjà Vu

They will have a dream, a prescient dream, and then the actual it happens. What is that? See, for many people, they don't understand. It happens to people, but they don't understand what it is. Or, what we call déjà vu. In French, the idea of, I've been here before. What's going on? This is a type of remembrance.

According to the Islamic tradition, we are remembering something. You know, and this is, I think it's related to the Platonic tradition of memory as well. You know, Plato felt that what we were here doing was simply remembering. Right? That we are in a state of forgetfulness. And this is related in the Qur'an to the idea of (غفلة - ghafla). Ghafla is heedlessness or forgetfulness. That the human being, by nature, is forgetful.

The Metaphor of the Vanity Fair

If you look at it in terms of vanity fare, and many of the scholars have used this analogy in commentaries. The servant is sent by the king to go to the marketplace and get something. But on the way to the marketplace, there's a fare. I've got plenty of time. Sun's high. I'm going to go look at the fare. He goes into the fare, and then suddenly, entertainment, suspension of disbelief, preoccupied, gets lost in the fun. And before he knows it, the sun's gone down. Oh my God! The king sent me to the marketplace, the marketplace is closed, and I wasted my time in the vanity fare.

This type of metaphor is related to this human condition, which is ghafla. That we become immersed in a type of heedlessness. That the world, by its nature, is powerful. In that, human beings become preoccupied. So how do we remind ourselves? How do we pull ourselves out of the vanity fare and remind ourselves, daily, that this is the world, the world is temporal, and there is a journey coming. From the Muslim perspective, it is the reminder itself. Adhikr (الذكر)

Is God not imminent in the world? I'm going to get to that. No, no, I'm going to get to that. I know you guys want to get the... Let's get to the juice here. Imminent or transcendent. And the answer is yes, no. But I'll get to explaining that.

The Four Obligations of Prophets

People are overpowered. The prophets come. Now interesting, one of the... There are four obligations according to the Islamic tradition for the prophets. The first one is truthfulness. They have to be truthful, they don't lie. The next is trustworthiness. They're trustworthy. If he says he's going to be here tomorrow, he's there. The third is conveyance, that they convey the message. And the fourth is wakefulness, fatanah (فطانة)

The messengers are wakeful beings. They are individuals who have woken up to the truth. And we in a sense are like the cave dwellers of Plato's analogy. We are the people looking at the shadow world and believing this is reality. The prophets are those who have gotten out of the cave. They've seen the real world. They come back and they say, it's not those shadows. Don't be fooled. It's not. You're just seeing shadows. That is not the real world. These are images projected by a light. There's something out there that's real. Right? And this is the idea that the messengers come to wake people up, remind them, get them into a state of remembrance, not forgetfulness. Get them into a state of remembrance.

Heedlessness and Remembrance

So ghafla is the opposite of dhikr or remembrance. So in the Qur'an there are juxtaposed heedlessness and remembrance. Heedlessness and remembrance.

Now, when the prophets come, they tell people (لا إله إلا الله - la ilaha illallah). The belief in the Qur'an is that no messenger has come except that he has said (لا إله إلا الله - la ilaha illallah). That is the universal message of all prophets. What will change is the second part of the shahada. For the Muslim, it is now (محمد رسول الله - Muhammad rasulullah). At one time it was (عيسى رسول الله - Isa rasulullah). At another time it was (موسى رسول الله - Musa rasulullah). Jesus is the messenger of God. Moses is the messenger of God. Noah is the messenger of God. Possibly Buddha is the messenger of God. The native American people here had prophets, had people that came to them to tell them about the nature of reality and the truth.

So the idea from the Muslim perspective is that all peoples have been given these people that remind them, that tell them. Now, because of the power of the world and the unknowability of God, we move into the realm of paradox. And this is where we'll get to how we understand God in terms of God's creation.

Transcendence and Imminence

In the western philosophical scheme there are two concepts, transcendence and imminence. Transcendence is the otherness of God. Imminence is the knowability of God, the presence of God. For the Christian, the imminence of God would be through Jesus Christ. Would be through Jesus Christ. That is how God became known to man. Right? God so loved man that he became man. That idea. That this is how the human being can know God. For the Hindu, the imminence is through the worship of forms, of idols.

The Islamic Understanding of Divine Imminence

How then is God imminent for the Muslims? Because if we have the otherness of God or unknowability of God, how then, as an individual, do we feel any closeness to God? If God is so exalted and so above the creation, how do we feel any intimacy with God? If God is so exalted and so above the creation, how do we feel any intimacy with God?

For the Muslim, the imminence of God and the transcendence of God are related to two fundamental concepts about God. One is Rahman (الرحمن). And the other is Allah. Oops. I want to get it there, right? That's where you

want it. Ah, justice. And you get the point. I mean, I could go on and on. There are many, many examples. This is the imminence of God. And this is the transcendence of God.

Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim

It's interesting that the Qur'an begins, Bismillah (بسم الله). Allah is a transcendent name of God. It's not an imminent name of God. It's a transcendent name. There is absolutely nothing we can associate with the name Allah according to the Muslim. But then the next two names are Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim (الرحمن الرحيم). The merciful, the compassionate. That is out of the three names that we are given at the beginning of the Qur'an, there are two relating to mercy and one relating to this transcendence or otherness.

This is consistent with the Islamic world view because the Qur'an says, my mercy is over my wrath. That the dominant quality that Allah is showing His creation is mercy, not wrath. But wrath is there. This also relates to two and very important concepts which are termed fear and hope.

The Metaphor of Father and Mother

Now, if you want to look, because Muslims, like the traditional Christians, as above, so below. Right? What Durkheim and everybody, they turned it upside down. As below, so above. In other words, we're just projecting our world here on the other world. Fear is related to the father. The father for the child in traditional world views, not so much in the American type of ideal now, but in traditional world views, the father is transcendent, the father is distant, the mother is imminent.

The first thing that happens to a child, on to the breast. It's not to the father, it's to the mother. The nearness that the child experiences in the world is the mother and the father is distant. The father is watching the act from a distance. The word, the mother, the word for rahma (رحمة) in Arabic, so if we say mother here, the word in Arabic for mother, for womb is rahim (رحم), which in Hebrew, rahim, they have the same idea. Jews have the same idea. Rahim means, is the same root word for rahma, that it is through the womb that rahma comes into the world. Without the womb, there is no sense of rahma.

The Womb as Metaphor for Mercy

And the womb is seen as one of the greatest rahmas, because one, it is a rahma in that this helpless creature is protected in the womb by a caring, loving individual that does not want harm to come to that which is growing in her and being nurtured because of her mercy. The idea of the mother, the compassion, right? It's the idea of compassion, that the mother is forgiving, the father, it's more difficult. And how many scenarios do we know in the human condition? How many scenarios do we know where the father throws the child out and the mother lets the child in the back door? I mean, this is very common in human conditions, right? The father, I'm not going to have anything to do with it, that's it. But the mother can't.

And I know a friend of mine who was Jewish, he became Muslim and they had a forum after he became his family. And he was still alive, but they considered that he died. But his mother used to send him cookies on his

birthday, right? So the idea that the mother, even though this person has done something so severe in our tradition as that we cut him off, the mother doesn't cut them off. It's very difficult by nature. And this relates to the womb. The womb is empty. There's room in the womb for forgiveness. Right? There's room there for forgiveness.

Look at the womb by its nature. The womb is a very small room in the midst of woman and yet it can expand to take in so much. It has this flexibility and it bleeds. Right? It bleeds. The womb bleeds. It renews itself. And these are very powerful metaphors and images for this idea of imminence.

Nearness and Distance from God

If we look in terms of nearness and distance, how this relates to human beings. Nearness is related to gratitude. Distance is related to ingratitude. Nearness is related to iman. Distance is related to kufr. So, if a person accepts God and wants and strives to come to know God, that is a drawing near process.

The Difference Between Humans and Angels

This is where we differ from the angels. The Qur'an says, there is no angel except that he has a fixed place. The angels are fixed. It is not an upwardly mobile job. They are fixed. The cherubim, muqarrabun (مقربون),are the nearest. And also the great angels, Jibreel, Israfil, Sarafiel, Mikael. These are the close angels in the angelic realm. But they are fixed. They don't disobey God. They only obey God out of jabr (جبر) compulsion.

The human being has this interesting aspect to him or her. And that is, the human being can choose one of two things. This is where we begin our journey. The Qur'an talks about two phenomena. One is called darajat (درجات) which are upwardly. Darajat means stairs moving up. Jacob's ladder. Darakat (دركات) are stairs moving down. Darakat are easy. Darajat are hard.

And the difference between them is the jim (ج) letter and the kaf (ك) letter. The jim letter in the Arabic science of the letters is a shidda letter. It's a hard letter. The kaf doesn't have the same shidda. It doesn't have the same hardness.

The Fitra Nature of the Child

An individual at this point, as a child, it is born according to the Muslims in what's called the fitra (فطرة) nature, which is submission. The very first state of the child before the nafs begins to develop, and I'm gonna explain the nafs. The very first state of the human being is submission. There's a famous teacher from Morocco, one of his students asked him, how do we come to God? How do we arrive to God? He went upstairs and he came down with a newborn. And he said, until you're like this, you don't arrive to God. Until you're like this, you don't arrive to God. The idea is until you are helpless before God.

Human Godlikeness and Human Helplessness

Until you recognize what your human attributes are in relation to the divine attributes. Because we are God-like.

You see, the human being is God-like

You see, the human being is God-like. You know, Shakespeare's idea of the paragon of animals. How like a God this human being, this form, the symmetry, the will, the volition, the power, the sense of independence, the ability to transform, the creative capacity within the human being. The human being is God-like.

But this is delusional because he is only God-like in relation to creation. When the human being relates himself to the creator, he becomes the most pathetic of creatures. He becomes the most helpless of creatures, the most incapacitated. We can't survive for a few minutes without air. There was once a Buddhist monk who, he was a master, had his student came to him and he said, I want to achieve enlightenment. He said, the first thing you have to do is learn how to breathe. He said, well, I know how to do that. I've been breathing all my life. He said, no, no, you have to learn how to be conscious of your breath. He said, why should I learn how to be conscious of my breath?

So he had some of his students take him to a river next to the monastery and hold him under. And then brought him up. And he said, now do you know why? In other words, we forget how quickly we can lose our breath. How quickly we can become helpless. Because we feel this sense of independence. And until we start becoming aware of our weaknesses, our inherited weaknesses, the most subtle is breath itself. Because we are one breath away from death. Literally one breath away from death.

The Concept of Nafs

So the fitra nature is that a child is in submission to God. As the nafs begins to develop, the first nafs that shows up. And nafs (نفس) here is a very important word in the Islamic tradition. And I'll just go through a little bit in the semantic field of nafs.

The Root Meaning of Nafs

The root word is again, nafasa (ن ف س). You have it in Hebrew also, nefesh. Nefesh is breath or spirit. And also interestingly enough, psyche in Greek, same meaning. Spirit, nefesh, to breathe. It's related to breath. Right? Nefesh has two, at its base root, it has two meanings. Nefesa and nefusa. All you do is change a voweling. One of them means to be precious. And the other means to be niggardly.

So right there, in the Arabic language, there is a concept embedded in the idea of self. That we have two aspects to our nature. One is the bestial, and the other is the angelic. One is the selfless, and the other is the niggardly. One is the one that wants to give, and the other is the one that wants to hold on. And this is the human dichotomy.

At the next level, if you go to the next root, which is naffasa, where you put a shedda over it, so it would look like this. Same root though. Naffasa means to help somebody, to relieve them of their constriction. In other words, to give them breath. To help them. To expand somebody who is constricted. But you go to the next root. Tanafasa. And it means to undermine somebody else, to compete against them. So it's right there in the language. The human being has these two opposing qualities.

The Dual Nature of the Child

For the child, at the first level, you can see this already. One is that the child will smile, and the mother melts the heart, right? I mean, you watch people's faces when they're looking at the baby, and when the baby smiles, they all get, like they start kind of melting. Right? Why? Because it's like a gift from that baby. But then, it starts screaming, I want. So right there in the baby, we begin to see the emergence of the dual nature, and we see it through childhood.

I mean, I have a five and a three-year-old, and you can see them moving between these two states. This amazing state of wanting to give, wanting to share, and then this other state of wanting to hold on, I'm not going to share. Right? Negation, affirmation. The world is negation, the next world is affirmation. Negating the world, affirming God. This is the human being. We are negators and affirmers, but if we get it wrong, what we should have been negating and affirming, we go into trouble.

The Three Levels of Nafs

So the first nafs is called nafs al-ammara (النفس الأمارة). And there's an interesting book by Robert Bly, for people that like him. Some people can't stand him, but I like him. There's a book he wrote called The Sibling Society, which is about modern America. Because he's got this idea that Americans are turning into big babies. That they've lost this kind of sense of moving into maturity. And he uses the Islamic model of saying that many of us have become this nafs al-ammara. Ammara means the commanding self.

The Commanding Self

It is the self that is commanding us to do things that we shouldn't do. And if we submit to that self, we become a slave of our passions. And this in the Arabic language is called abd (عبد). The Prophet said, wretched is the slave of the dinar and the dirham, of gold and silver. Wretched is the slave of his clothes. Wretched is the slave of his riding beast. People that become slaves of stuff, of the world. So nafs al-ammara is the commanding self.

The Reproachful Self

Now the next move up is called nafs al-lawwama (النفس اللوامة). This is the blaming self, the reproachful self. The self is moving out of its abject nature. And it's beginning to recognize a type of moral imperative. The nafs is still doing wrong, but it's saying, I shouldn't be doing this. And this is consciousness. This is moving out of a completely bestial state and into a state now where there is a tension between the bestial and the angelic nature of the human being.

And this is best related to the idea of Adam alayhi salam being created from earth and water. Water is a purifying element by its nature. Water in many traditions is related to consciousness. If you go into the Chinese tradition, water is related to consciousness. The element of water itself. Earth is density. Now, water allows light through. Light can penetrate water, but light does not penetrate earth. So the human being is mixed with these two admixtures of earth and water. That we have one aspect of ourself does not want to let the light through and

another does. And this is where you go into the nafs al-lawwama. The reproachful self. You shouldn't have done that.

Some modern people have put this into the idea of the id and the ego and then the super ego. The id is more like the nafs al-ammara, the compulsive self.

The Self at Peace

And then the final self is called nafs al-mutma'inna (النفس المطمئنة) which is the self at peace. This is the self that submitted. This is the self that has submitted completely its being to God. And this self is no longer in this conflict. This is no longer in the religious state of I should do that or I ought to do that. But now it is moved into Kierkegaard's kind of ethical self. It now realizes that this is the right thing and it wants to do it. It wants to do the right thing. And it does the right thing now by nature. Not by compulsion. Not by feeling I have to do this thing.

The Two Paths: Upward and Downward

So the human being has two choices. To submit to the low self and take himself into alienation which is wrath. Which is transcendence. To literally place himself in a relationship to God in which God is absolutely other. Disconnected from God completely. And this is epitomized by the idea of jahannam (جهنم). The idea of hell. That this is the ultimate alienation.

The Nature of Fire

Now, fire is a very interesting element. Because it can't rise above its nature. It has an upward motion. It can't rise above because it's bound to the earth. You see, the fire only exists because of earth. And yet it has this upward motion. It wants to... It's moving up but it's held down by... And this is the idea of being pulled down. Being pulled down by fire. And fire is very similar to light. It's not light but it's very similar to the concept of light. I mean, there is light in fire. But it's not the light that we relate to the spiritual light. Luminosity. The other is an upward movement.

The Paradox of Desire

Now, there is a tradition that the Prophet Muhammad said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the fire is surrounded by desirable things. And paradise is surrounded by undesirable things. (Sahih Muslim 2822) The idea here is if we look at the pure outwardness of something and not at its inwardness and we submit to the outwardness that an outward thing can look very desirable but what are its inward realities?

So, for instance, for a man who submits to his lusts, which is very common, one of the seven deadly sins and very common human experience, there is something desirable obviously for a male and a female to have a sexual relation. At the physical level, it can be very physically stimulating experience. But if we look at it outside of its social context, that desirability might be there. If we begin to place it within a societal context,

what are the implications of this act? What are the implications of my sleeping with another person without any social responsibility? Because one pregnancy often can result, so there is an other, there is a third. There is a third that is the result of the act.

Also, what is it saying about intimacy in a culture in which the most intimate physical act becomes profane to the degree that it has no emotional content. In other words, there are deep implications to the act itself. If we look at it from its desirability, it's a downward motion. If we look at the aspects that might be less desirable, such as commitment. Commitment is a difficult thing, to make a commitment.

Outward Desirability and Inward Reality

There are things that are going to be difficult that relate to it. But what is the inward reality? So outwardly, there are many people in this culture who do not want to commit to marriage because it's undesirable for them. They want to be free. I'm upwardly mobile. I don't want to be tied down. I mean, they see it tied down. That's undesirable. Foot loose and fancy free. That's how I want to be. What are the long-term effects of that? You see, what are the long-term effects?

So outwardly, there are many desirable things. But then inwardly, there are many undesirable things. Just as outwardly, there are many undesirable things, but inwardly, there are many desirable things. So, what the Qur'an, in a sense, really is trying to do is to get people to think deeply about things. And this is why it constantly talks about thinking about the aqiba (العاقبة). What is the long-term? What is the subsequent results of the action?

Human Potentiality and Degradation

So this, in a sense, is a model of human potentiality in terms of its upward movement and also degradation in terms of its downward movement. Most people are in conflict. Many people are not in conflict. They have submitted completely to this downward motion and other people are struggling to move up. And some people are moving up.

Now, in the modern world, we've become, I think, quite cynical in a lot of ways, but I think the ancients probably had... There was a sense of this. Even within our Western culture, there was a strong sense of the idea of this upward movement, that it was humanly possible. You know, the dark night of the soul, St. John of the Cross, this type of idea that one could really achieve a type of power over the self and have completion and fulfillment in God.

The World as Theater of Divine Revelation

I think the difference, maybe, between that classical model in the Western world and the Islamic model would really probably relate to the idea that the Muslim model is not saying, God, that the world is bad. And the reason is is because there's something... The world is seen as literally a theater of divine revelation. And the fact that

God has made it a revelation means that it can't be bad. But to the degree that God is absent from the world, the world...

So, in other words, there's two Hadiths of the Prophet. One said, the world is green and beautiful. And another one, he said, it's like a dead carcass. It's green and beautiful for the one who understands one's place in the world and honors that place and rises up to stewardship and attempts to subdue the self and to be a caretaker. It is a carcass for the one who destroys his soul in the world and thus destroys the world as well.

The Fourth Object of Faith: The Angels

So, the next... Just the next thing to move is the idea of what's called the belief in Allah, the belief in the books, in the angels, the books and in the messengers. And then... I mean, I really didn't cover too much the angels, but the angels are basically beings made of pure light, created light, not uncreated divine light, but created light. And there's a belief in the angels that there are angels with us wherever we are.

The Recording Angels

The Muslims believe that there are two angels with us right now, each one of us. Whether you're Muslim or not, you have two angels assigned to you. One is called Raqib (رقیب) and the other is called Atid (عتید). And one of the things that the Muslim in the prayer, you say, As-salamu alaykum (السلام عليكم) you're greeting the angels. So, this is a type of becoming conscious of the angelic presence. Part of the gift of that is to feel shy before the angels because the angels, the dominant function of these two angels is recording actions. Is recording actions.

According to the Muslim tradition, the angel of the right records good actions. The angel of the left records bad actions. Now, according to the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, if a person does a bad action, the angel of the right does not write it down. It waits. And if the person asks forgiveness before the end of the day for that wrong action, it does not write it down. But if they do not, it writes it down. The angel of the right immediately writes down a good action. And there are even actions that are based on intention. So, the angel of the right... And this is the idea that God's mercy is over God's wrath. That it takes precedence over the wrath of God.

The Function of Angels

There are also angels that have the functions of maintaining order. Now, I think in the West, we have an idea of angels because of pictures. And so, when we think of angels, we start thinking of females or males with wings and things like this. And although the angels are described as having wings, from the Muslim point of view, there's not an anthropomorphic type of... We do not project onto the angel. They have neither sex. They're not male or female, according to the Islamic tradition. So... And they do what they're told. They can't disobey God. And they're made of pure light.

Summary of the Objects of Faith

Now, the next thing that the Muslims are told to believe in... So, the first is Allah. Second is the angels. Now,

Prophets and Messengers

And then, the next is the messengers themselves. And there are two qualities here. One is the prophets. And the other is the messengers. Prophets are... There were... One tradition says 124,000. Another tradition says 224,000. Muslims tend to say, (الله أعلم - Allahu Anam). We know that there was a lot of them. The Qur'an says, some of them we told you about, others we didn't tell you about. So the idea is that, (الله أعلم - Allahu Anam). But the Qur'an does say, every peoples were given a prophet. And they were sent with the tongue of the people.

It is the Muslim belief that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the only universal prophet. That all of the other prophets, including Jesus, were tribal or to peoples. They were not sent as a global prophet. The Muslims believe that the prophet Muhammad was the only global messenger. And that is very strong in the Muslim belief.

The Distinction Between Prophets and Messengers

Prophets are given news from God. It can apply simply to themselves or they can convey it to others. If they convey it with new addendums to a previous dispensation, then they are called messengers. In other words, if they are given some new things, if they alter the law, like Jesus would be seen as a messenger. Whereas Isaac would be seen as a prophet. Abraham is a messenger. Muhammad is a messenger. The basic rule is, every messenger is a prophet, but not every prophet is a messenger. So there is a distinction between the two.

The Fifth Object of Faith: Al-Qadr

And then the fifth article of faith, is what is called the Qadr (القدر). And this is where we get into, this is where we get into debates and people go on and on. This is an unsolvable problem, but I'll just give you an idea of how the Muslims traditionally have dealt with this. Qadr is, in most books, called predestination. The actual root word means a measuring out. A measuring out.

Divine Measurement

Many verses in the Qur'an indicate that God has measured out everything. Everything has what it needs. Everything will fulfill its quality and characteristic. From the Muslim point of view, it is the Qadr of Allah, the design of the human being. We have been measured, our symmetry, how the human being emerges. It is the Qadr of Allah, how the lion appears. All these things are measured out.

What is also measured out is one's provision in the world. Every human being has an appointed amount of provision. Now it's interesting that the Muslims generally say, provision is not what you possess, but what you will use. So for instance, Bill Gates, who is a multi-billionaire, his provision is only that which he will use. So if he has a house with a hundred rooms and he only uses three of them, that's what has been allotted to him. The other rooms are not part of his provision. Provision is related to what you will use. And that has been predetermined.

Free Will and Predestination

Now, the obvious question that comes to people is, if things are predetermined, then where does will come into this? Where does the human being have will? From the Muslim perspective, the first thing that is understood here is that had there not been an element of will here, then there would be no meaning to punishment and reward. It would be unfair, and this is why a child is not punished. Because the child does not have free will in the sense that it does not have a full understanding of its own capacities, its volition, its ability to do harm. A child does not understand that, whereas an adult does.

The qadr then in relation to free will is that every human being will choose what they do in the action is the intention. So my intention in any action is what I earn. We are not judged according to the action alone. We are judged according to the intention within the heart related to the action. This is what the human being is judged upon. And the Prophet Muhammad in the first hadith in there said, Actions are by intentions. (Sahih al-Bukhari 1)

Determined and Acquired Elements

Now the other thing is that the Muslims say is that no one has a sense that they are determined. There are obviously elements within our nature and our being that have a determination. I did not decide what color my skin was. I did not decide who my parents were. I did not decide where I would be raised and what language I would be given. There are definitely elements that we have no choice and these are called wahbi (وهبي). But then there are elements that we have choice which is called kasbi (كسبي) which is related to acquisition. And this is what we are taken to account for.

Good and Evil in Qadr

Now in terms of good and evil, there is a belief here in the qadr and in the hadith in good and evil. Now the two words are khair (خير) and sharr (شر) which are very important. What time is it right now? Okay. Why don't we take a ten minute break? Is that okay? Yeah. Because this is a big topic here.