Foundations of Islam Series- Articles of Faith - Part 2

Foundations of Islam Series: Articles of Faith - Part 2

Clarification on Intentions

One clarification that Jeff brought up, because we had talked about this yesterday, and that was about intentions. When I said that actions, that you're judged by your intentions, that means an intention related to an action. In other words, what merely occurs to the heart, if it's evil, you're not taking into account for it, but if it's good, you're given a reward for it.

So if a person has a good intention, but they don't act it out, there is a reward related to that. Whereas with evil, it's not. Like somebody cuts you off on the road, and you know, I'd like to kill that person or something like that.

As long as you don't go and do it, you're not taking into account for that. And unfortunately, people have recently started doing stuff like that. Now, just to relate to the qadr.

Understanding Qadr (Divine Decree)

People, this is probably one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Islamic tradition. I think a lot of Muslims even misunderstand it. But let me relate it to two very important concepts in the Qur'an.

Generally, khayr is understood to be good. And sharr is understood to be evil. But from the Islamic cosmological view, this is related to abundance, and this is related to want.

And the actual moral component in these concepts is played down in a way that it wouldn't be in Christianity. So let me give you an example. I think for a lot of people, they have a hard time with the idea of a God who could create evil.

The Problem of Evil

And this is a classic philosophical problem in the West. If God is all good, and he's all powerful, then there shouldn't be evil. Because if he was all good, he wouldn't want evil.

And if he was all powerful, he could do something about it. And this is a common philosophical problem. They call it the problem of evil.

And there have been attempts to resolve it. But from a Muslim point of view, we believe that good and evil are both from God. But before we say, you know, what, you mean God is evil? Let's look a little deeper at what this means in terms of its philosophical implications.

Understanding Sharr and Khayr

The word sharr is related to, for instance, poverty. Poverty in the Arab tradition is sharr. Why? Because it's a want.

There's no moral judgment there in a poor person. You're not saying a poor person is evil. You're just saying poverty is sharr.

It's a want. There's a lack of something. When we talk about good and evil, from a Muslim perspective, good means that there is a divine presence.

Sharr means there's an absence of the divine. When you look at this in terms of a moral action, if a person saves somebody drowning, that would be called khair. But if a person kills somebody, that would be called sharr.

Why? Because if you save the drowning person, there is a divine quality that is embodied there, which is rahma. But if you kill a person unjustly, there is the absence of the divine quality, which is justice. You have been unjust.

And the Qur'an says that God is not unjust. So in the absence of good, we have evil. And this is how the Muslims view it.

They literally view evil as an absence of good. So to the degree that the divine qualities are not present in the world, we have evil. And to the degree that the divine qualities are present in the world, the imminence is present there, we have good.

The Hadith on Good and Evil

And this is why there is a hadith that says the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said

(Sahih Muslim 771)

So while we believe that God has created a world of opposites, abundance, want, good, evil, we do not believe that evil goes back to God. Because evil is the absence of the divine.

In other words, the divine is absent from the act. Now the other problem, when we look in terms of khair and sharr is the Qur'an says

- "Maybe you detest a thing, and it is khair for you, it's good for you."

- "And maybe you love a thing, but it's evil for you." [Quran 2:216]

- "And God knows and you do not know." [Quran 2:216]

The Relativity of Good and Evil

So there is an idea here, in this concept of good and evil, that we are in a relative situation. We do not have all of the information here.

That one person's evil is another person's good. One person's evil is another person's good. And this happens all over, you can see this.

Somebody loses a job, another person gets the job. So for one person it was sharr for another person it was good. And this is the nature of the world.

Now if you look in terms of the giver of life and the taker of life, if there was no taking of life, then there couldn't be a continuation of life. This is the nature. We generally relate the taking of life to sharr

It's a want, it's a lack of. But, in relation to the next world, there is a khair,right? Because death in this world means life in the next world.

So this is related to, we are not putting moral components here, we are not judging things for ourselves.

Islamic Justice and Forgiveness

Now the Qur'an has given for the Muslims a criterion. It is evil to kill another person, unjustly. And a person is taken to account for that and killed.

In relation to the big picture, we do not know and we can't make an eternal judgment. We can only make a temporal judgment. We do not know.

In other words, if somebody murders another person, and by all outward appearances it was an unjustly murder, that person is taken to account, and his life is forfeited, or in certain circumstances, what are called the أَوْلِيَاءُ الدَّمِ (awliya' al-dam), can forgive him. Islam has an interesting attitude towards the death penalty. The Muslims allow for a family to forgive the person.

So the Christian ideal of forgiving, and the Qur'an actually says to forgive is higher. So if a person killed another person, the family has the right to say they forgive them. They can do that.

But, in terms of highway robbery, brigandry, there's no... Anybody that threatens the security of a society, in other words, indiscriminate. So if there was a fight between two people, and one person killed the other person, then the family could say, we don't want to take him to account for it. We're going to forgive him.

They can do that. But, if it's somebody who goes in and robs a store, and kills somebody, then they forfeited their life by Islamic law.

Discussion on Fatwa and Heresy

Uh-huh? A fatwa? Like Salman Rushdie? Okay. Yeah, a fatwa is not a death penalty. It's a legal opinion. It's not binding either.

In other words, technically by Islamic law, a person can give a legal opinion. Like I can give an opinion. You can come to me if I'm a faqih, a jurist prudent.

You say, what's the punishment for somebody that curses the Prophet Muhammad? And you say, death. Right? So then I say, well, Salman Rushdie cursed him. Well, although that book is, what are they called in literature?

Romana Clef? Is that what it is? Who's a... Romana Clef? Is that what they call it? Yeah.

Is that what they call it? Do they even know the literary term? There's a term for something where you hide a historical or a factual thing within a literary... I think it's Romana Clef. I'm not sure though. Anyway, you know, somebody can say, well, he slandered the Prophet Muhammad.

Salman Rushdie can say, look, this is a piece of fiction. By Islamic law, that was completely unacceptable. In other words, you have to take people to trial.

You can't just kill somebody. You know, Muslims, we're not vigilantes. There's actually a procedure.

The Concept of Heresy in Islam and the West

And apostasy has... It has... What's that? I said... I said that you have a difference. Salman Rushdie was clearly an example of the difference between the sacred and the profane. That's one way of looking at it, yeah.

I mean, I think you know, the modern West, I think Norman Mailer actually during that time said, you know, heresy has made us free. Long live heresy. In other words, there are a lot of people in the West that see heresy as a good thing.

And it's interesting, this gets to this whole idea, because heresy in Greek, eretikos, means to choose for yourself. It's a... It's what they call the middle voice in Greek, the verb, heren, which is to choose for oneself. So I choose my own way.

I'm not going to choose, you know, the way religion tells me or the way God tells me or the way... I choose my own way. And that is the original meaning of a heretic. Somebody who chose their own way, who did not submit to... And in the West, we certainly have a tradition now, a post-enlightenment tradition, which is really, we don't have to be subservient and submissive to a church or to some doctrinal authority, some dogma.

The individuals have a right to choose what they believe, to choose how they want to worship or how they don't want to worship. Right? So that's very strong, I think, in modern Western tradition. And a lot of it is a reaction to the abuses of the church during the Middle Ages and, you know, the burning of heretics and things like that.

There was a lot of that that went on. Now, in the Islamic tradition, traditionally, heresy... There are laws of apostasy. I think they're a lot more difficult to prove, but there is a procedure.

You cannot simply condemn somebody as a heretic in Islamic law. They have to be brought to trial. The intention has to be looked at. Do you see? So... But that's a case where, you know, politics is being used within a religious context. You know, I really... Oh, very much so. Yeah, because the Egyptians had a whole different reaction to it.

Like the Azhar, they had a different reaction. So, you know, here was a case where... Because I'll tell you something about Muslims. Muslims take the Prophet Muhammad very seriously.

They really do. And it's interesting that the Iranians also condemned the Greek author who wrote the last... Yeah, Last Temptation of Christ. They also condemned him as disparaging a prophet.

But that didn't make news. Do you see what I mean? So they were just across the board. You make fun of prophets, you're asking for trouble from us.

That was their idea. Now, that was true. There are still laws on the books in England, apostasy laws.

There are laws in England, but they did not relate to the Islamic religion. Right? They relate to the Christian religion. So, technically, there are still in certain countries, there are laws against, like in Greece and other places, there are laws against making fun of prophets, disparaging prophets, things like that.

Understanding Fatwa in Islamic Law

So, a fatwa is just a legal opinion and it's non-binding. It is non-binding. If Rushdie was in a Muslim country and he did disparage the prophet, that by Islamic law, if he is tried and found to be guilty, that the punishment is death.

That is a punishment for any prophet. Abraham, Moses, any of the prophets. Not just the prophet Muhammad.

No, I don't think so. Because I think, yeah, I think the Iranians, they offered a reward and things like that. So, I think, yeah, he does fear for his life.

Personally, I'm not going to go out and hunt down Rushdie and things like that. That's not my business. My understanding of Islamic law is that it's not a vigilante law.

I can't take the law in my own hands. Because that leads to anarchy. I mean, think about this societally.

If I'm with some guy in private and for some reason I steal all his money, blow him away. And then I tell the judge, well, he cursed the prophet Muhammad. Good alibi, right? You know, I mean, if you start thinking about it, it's crazy.

The Case of Adultery in Islamic Law

You can't just, even, I'll give you an example. In Islamic law, if a man finds his wife in bed with another man, he cannot kill her? Absolutely not. He has to have four witnesses.

That see penetration. Pretty impossible, right? And I think you have to be pretty perverse to, you know, go into a room and try to, you know, see that. If people are under covers.

You can't do it. Not just on top of one another. Seriously.

And if the only thing he has recourse to is if he does find that, immediately he has to do what's called li'an, which is where he goes to a qadi. He says, I found my wife in bed. And then the wife is brought.

The Five Things Preserved by Sharia

That's the only reason. It's related to lineage. In other words, Islam is a patrilineal teaching.

So, it's one of the five things. And I didn't go into this, but it's very interesting. The five things that the sharia is believed to preserve.

The first is religion. The second is life. The third is lineage.

The fourth is wealth. And the fifth is name, honor. The sharia is law.

Law. So, Muslims believe that these are the five things. Every rule in Islam can be related to one of these five things.

So, the reason prayer is prescribed, preservation of religion. The reason the prohibition for fornication, preservation of lineage. It is a right of a child to know who their father and mother are.

That is a right. So, fornication is prohibited. So, in that type situation, the best thing, you're supposed to veil people.

Lineage and Gender Differences in Adultery Laws

If a woman accuses the husband of adultery, that does not relate to her lineage. She can ask for a divorce.

Perfectly permissible.

She can go to a qadi and say, I have ground for divorce. And she can call herself what's called mutadarrirah.

And she can say, I want out of this marriage.

She is not supposed to say why. You see? The reason a woman is because of the lineage. If she, in other words, from the adultery, if there's a child as a result of the adultery, then it would be attributed to a man who is not the child of that man.

And that is preservation of lineage. So, the sharia says that the man says, no, that is definitely not my child. And he has to do it right away.

He can't wait like six months later and say, oh, I don't, you know, that's not my child. No, he has to do it right from the start or else it doesn't stand up in court. If he was the adulterer, then she has grounds for a divorce, but

she does not accuse him.

Why not? Because it's related to lineage. In other words, accusing somebody of adultery is one of the worst things you can do in Islam. It really is.

But the only reason that there is a situation where the man can do it is related to lineage. Because there is inheritance. A child inherits from the man.

And also the child takes the man's name. If it is not his child, then he does not want that child to have his lineage nor his name if he knows that the child is not from his seed. And that's the only time.

And if she denies that, she is not condemned for adultery. But the child does not go to the lineage. She is not punished for adultery if she denies it.

Do you see? Yes or no? It's Quranic teaching. So the idea is simply lineage. You are not making a moral... Do you see what I mean? The woman is not taken into account for something if she denies it.

Her denial stands up in court. But the marriage is... She is separated from the man and the child does not go to the man.

Adoption and Lineage in Islam

Adoption? There is no adoption in Islam.

There is what's called Kafalah which is where you take care of a child which is highly encouraged. But the child never takes the name. Ever.

It's prohibited. And this is because one of the things the Sharia came to do was preserve lineage. The people should know where they come from.

And this is why women, it is prohibited for them to change their names in Islam. A woman does not take the name of her husband because it changes lineage. Because it relates to, within any culture, you have honor that relates to lineage.

The Status of Children Born Out of Wedlock

A bastard in Islam is not the same as a child born in wedlock. Well, life is why a child is not aborted even if it's a bastard child. Life is over lineage.

He doesn't bear stigma. It's not on the child, it's on the parents. No child bears the wrong actions of the parents and that's why the child is not aborted.

If it was born out of wedlock, definitely. She goes under the category of Zania which is a fornicator. Definitely.

There's definitely stigma within culture. By the Sharia, the child is not supposed to suffer for it. But there's definitely a human failing here.

You do have stigma related to it in Muslim cultures but there's not supposed to be.

The Punishment for Adultery

Is there a punishment for adultery? If the person is, if there are four witnesses witnessing penetration and they have to be just witnesses, they have to be people recognized as upright in the community. It's impossible.

I guarantee you. No, then she's punished. And there's a Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad that a woman during his time came to her and confessed to her.

And he turned away. And then she came here, she turned away. Till she confessed four times.

And then he said, are you with child? And she said, yes. He said, go have your child. She came back after a year.

Gave birth to the child. She came back and she said, Tahhirni (purify me). And then he said, go nurse your child.

She went two years. She came back. And then he said, she said, purify me.

Because there's an idea in Islam if you do a grave wrong action, not a minor wrong action. If you do a grave wrong action and you have the Hadd punishment in this world, you're not punished for it in the next world. So what she was saying is, I don't want to take chances of being, whether Allah forgives me or not.

I want to be certain that I don't have this in the next world. She said, purify me. He, the woman was stoned.

And one of the companions said, may Allah curse her. And the Prophet said, don't say that. Because if her blood was spread over this city, there wouldn't be a wrong action remaining in the city.

In other words, her repentance was so great. He was saying that her repent was so great that this entire city would be forgiven had they gotten a portion of her repentance. Now, there's another thing.

If a person leaves the pit, then there's no stoning. For a person who confessed, if they leave the pit, then you have to cease stoning. Stoning, I guarantee you, it's very rare in Islamic history.

Very few cases. Really. No, if they get out during the process, you have to stop.

In other words, a person can say, no, no, I change my mind. At any time. No, no, no.

That's unacceptable. You know, this is a gross to me, this is a gross breach of Islamic law, what takes place there. Okay, so it does happen.

Yeah, they do implement that, but it's a gross breach of... I mean, you can't... Sharia, you can't just apply piecemeal Sharia. It's a total system. And within a healthy Islamic culture, those things are very rare.

Protection of Honor in Islam

For instance, in Islamic law, you don't go alone with a foreign woman. You don't. It's one of the things that that is a condition within the society.

It's part of the social contract. You do not... Like, I would not be alone with a woman who is not either a direct relative or my wife. I would not go alone with her.

It's prohibited for me in Islamic law. And vice versa, it's prohibited for a woman. It means I cannot be in a room alone... Uh-huh.

That's not alone. You're in a company. No.

You're not supposed to be alone with a woman. Absolutely not. And a woman is not supposed to be alone with a man.

And this relates to... This relates to protection of honor so that you are not accused. Because what happens often is your intentions might be perfectly good, but somebody sees you coming out of a room with somebody, and they... Ah. Big problem.

And I'll tell you something. In our culture, this is a major problem. Sexual harassment, these type of things.

If there are witnesses, you don't have the problem. When there are people that... When it's two people alone together, it's his word against hers. Right? The I believe... What was her name? Anita.

I believe Anita. You get the society split. Democrats believe Anita, and Republicans believe... What was the other guy? And then the thing about it is the man's honor is tainted.

Now, I'm not saying... I tend to probably incline to believing Anita, but the point is maybe she wasn't telling the truth. Maybe she was paid by the Democrats to... I mean, I'm just saying these are possible possibilities. Right? In that case, here's a man whose honor is destroyed.

Or here's a man who for the rest of his life people are gonna scratch their head. Did he or didn't he? Do you see? So the idea of preserving people's honor is very strong in Islam. That a person has a right.

It is a fundamental human right. It's a divinely given right that you have your honor intact. And you do everything you can to preserve that honor.

One, you don't lie. You don't steal. You don't cheat.

These are all things that disparage your honor. And you become known for it. Which is one of the reasons why in Islamic law, if you see somebody do something wrong, you are told to veil their faults.

Because if you expose people in a society, then the impetus for guarding their honor or for making tawbah or repentance is diminished. In other words, if I become known for lying, then people, even if I start telling the truth, people are gonna still remember, oh, you know, that's the liar. So it lessens the power of... the ability of a person to do that and diminishes the impetus.

So... And then wealth, preservation of wealth, why there's no stealing, things like that. So these are the five things. Now, let me get... That was just a digression because somebody asked a question, but...

Questions on Adoption and Inheritance

Can we ask one more question? If a child is not adopted, but just taken care of, then they have no inheritance. Is that how the law works? They don't inherit. Good point. Yeah.

An adopted child does not inherit. What do you mean? How do they make their way? Well, you're supposed to raise them and give them a job, you know, teach them how to provide for... I mean, did you get an inheritance? A lot of people don't get inheritance. You know what I mean? The lawyers ate up ours.

Because my family kind of got into a fight and ended up, you know... Which happens. That's why it's nice in Islamic law. It's all portioned out.

You can't fight over it. It's fixed. No, his wife did all the inheritance? The wife inherits it.

She's one of the inheritors. I mean, inheritance laws are related to the Qur'an directly. The Qur'an determines what portions people get. And the wife does get inherit from the husband, yes. Not all of it, no. The children have portions as well.

The man can give one third of his wealth to whoever he wants. The other two third are determined by the Qur'an. And it's interesting that a man cannot divorce his wife on his deathbed.

If a man has an illness that is called marad makhuf, like cancer, where the terminology is probable, it is prohibited for him to divorce his wife as a way of kind of getting her out of the inheritance or something. Spiting her. It's prohibited.

Islamic Inheritance Laws and Women's Rights

No, Islam is very strict about inheritance. And one of the things, if you look traditionally, Hodgson points this out in The Venture of Islam, that Islam actually breaks down monopoly. The inheritance laws are designed so that wealth is not accumulated into one small individual.

Like in the 19th century, I want to think about, you know, if you read Jane Austen's novels, I mean, that is a real theme in her novels, the injustice of women being completely disinherited in 19th century England. I mean, remember, this is the age of the Enlightenment. And here's women in 19th century England being thrown out of their houses because there was not a male heir to take care of them.

They lost all their money or it went to somebody, the male, right? This happened very recent in Western civilization. In Islam, the woman has a right to, she has a right to her husband and her father's wealth. She gets a portion of her father's wealth as well.

And this is one of the ways that women became wealthy in Islam. There are many historically, many women who had, Umm Hani is a wonderful example. She's in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Islam.

There's a little section on Umm Hani who, she married a husband and she actually owned a factory. And then the husband claimed that it was his like community property or something. And it did not hold up in court according to Ibn Hajar.

The judge said, no, it's her property. So, and that was, you know, 13th century. So, I mean, that's a whole other thing.

We're actually on email because that's really related to Sharia. And what I'll do inshallah is when we do the section on the last Hadith, I'll open it up to talking about some things about Sharia because I think Sharia is definitely one of the areas where there's a lot of misunderstandings, misconceptions in this culture. People see it as very primitive law.

And so, you know, I can talk about that and open it up to things. And another thing about the Islamic law is that there are many different opinions in the law. The actual things that are clearly, there's no debate about, are not that many.

Many of the situations, there is an allowance for the intellect to understand and interpret the tradition.

Returning to Khayr and Sharr

But if we go back to this idea, khayr and sharr, human beings are taken to account for the good they do and the evil they do. The Quran says (لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ - Laha ma kasabat) - "For the soul is the good that it earned" (وَعَلَيْهَا مَا اكْتَسَبَتْ - Wa 'alayha ma iktasabat) - "And against the soul is the evil that it has acquired."

So, we are taken to account for good and evil that we do in the world. The Muslims, the Quran is emphasizing the doing of good actions. Now, one of the words that it uses for this is (حسنات - hasanat) and the opposite is (سیئات - sayyi'at).

حسنات the real word is beauty. In other words, there's an idea that a good action is a congruous action, it is a harmonic action, that a bad action is, it is aesthetically unpleasing, it is cacophonic, it is ugly, that the human being by nature recognizes beauty and recognizes good. And this is the idea in the Quran, it says (وَهَدَيْنَاهُ النَّجْدَيْنِ - Wa hadaynahu al-najdayn) - "We guided the human being to the two roads of good and evil."

That there is something inherent within the human being.

The Moral Component in Human Nature

Now, if you look at this in terms of the animal kingdom, if, when animals do something, we do not put moral judgment on it. If a snake bites and kills a child, we do not say it's an evil snake. I mean, people might do that metaphorically, you know, but they don't, there's not a moral component there.

It's simply being itself. And there's this room, it tells a story about the turtle and the scorpion and the frog, right? They're at the side of the river, and the scorpion asks the frog, give me a ride across the river, so I don't have to walk around, or across the lake. The frog says, I'm not stupid, if I give you a ride, you'll sting me.

And the scorpion says, you know, that's ridiculous, think about this, if I sting you, we'll both sink and drown. So the frog says, that makes sense, takes him across, halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog says, why'd you do that? He says, my nature, right? So the idea then is that there is within the animal world natures that they cannot change.

If a lion is hungry and it sees you, it sees lunch. It does not see you as, I'm going to do something really evil today. I'm going to go eat this poor person.

It's just doing, fulfilling its nature. When a human being eats another human being, right? Like that guy Dauer, or whatever his name was. Yeah, Dahmer.

There's something, we say that is sick. Why? What is the difference between the lion eating the human being, and this guy eating the human being? The moral component. We say he should know better.

The Concept of Hudud (Boundaries)

That's a breach of the social contract. The person has gone out of its boundaries. And this is very important, because in the Quran, there is an idea of hudud, of boundaries, and that the human being is morally bound to stay within the boundaries, and not transgress them.

And the word in Arabic for an evildoer, is fasiq, which comes from a root word, when the seed splits, and it comes out of the shell. So the fasiq, the evildoer, is the one that splits the protective boundaries of the hudud.

Now these are seen, the hudud of Allah, which are the sharia, the sacred law.

These are seen as not simply arbitrary laws. Don't do this. Don't do that.

They are protective laws, from the Muslim perspective. These are laws designed to maintain integrity within the society. When the Quran says (وَلَا تَقْرَبُوا الرِّنَا - Wala taqrabu al-zina) - "Do not go near fornication."

Why? It says, because it's a fahisha, it's a perversion. (وَسَاءَ سَبِيلًا - Wa saa sabilan) - "And it leads down a terrible road."

So the idea is that, look, this is not simply an arbitrary law. There are consequences that are related to this transgression that will have wretched effects in your culture and in your civilization.

Discussion on Homosexuality in Islam

I know that Islam and other faiths reject homosexuality as a perversion. But how do you counter that? You talk about the very nature. We all know people that are born as children. You see them acting feminine in their boys. Yeah.

Femininity. They make no choice. It is from the location itself.

Femininity is not, there's nothing, it's not encouraged for a male. But Mukhannath is mentioned in the books of Fiqh. A feminine person.

Somebody who acts effeminate is mentioned that it's undesirable that he leads the prayer. But there's no moral stigma there. You're not saying that this person is bad or evil.

When that person makes a choice to transgress boundary, now, see the thing is here, the idea of impulse. You know, I don't know because I haven't been, you know, that's not my experience of the world. Right? I've been attracted to the opposite sex.

That does not mean that I don't recognize a handsome man if I see them. I think it's natural for us to recognize beauty. Right? There's an attraction to beautiful people whether it's a male or a female.

I think that's quite normal. From the Islamic perspective, if there is an impulse, then what is demanded of the individual is that they suppress that. So, from the Muslim point of view, if a person does have homosexual impulses or desires, which obviously there are people that have that, the Muslims would say that that is the same as having somebody having an impulse to steal.

That they like something, they want it, and they desire to steal. They have to say, no, I will not transgress the boundaries. That there are implications.

And the implications, there's an idea within Western culture that, modern Western culture, that as long as I don't harm anybody else, it's okay. From the Muslim point of view, there is a harm when this becomes, when it emerges into the public space. In other words, as far as the Muslims are concerned, what people do behind their closed doors is their own business.

That is not my area of judgment. If I see an effeminate man, I should not assume that he's a homosexual by Islamic law. That's not my place.

If somebody is openly doing these things, that is what becomes condemned. When there's an open breach. The same with alcohol.

Somebody that makes wine in their house and drinks wine, that's between them and God. The minute they step out into the public space, then that is where the Sharia says no. Right? So, in terms of Islamic law, what applies to them in this world is only what moves into the public space, not what's in the private space.

But in terms of the next world, we believe that God takes people to account for the public and the private space. So that's really the way I think the Muslims would look at it. And the Prophet said that from my community there will be different types of homosexuality.

He said there will be homosexuality of the glance, and homosexuality of touch, and then homosexuality of the action. It's in the Hadith, yeah. And it's also considered one of the signs of the end of time that, and I'm going to talk about it when we get to the end of time, that homosexuality and lesbianism become very prevalent according to the Prophet Muhammad.

It is one of the signs of the end of time. And he actually said that men would marry men, and women would marry women. That is in one of the Hadiths.

Human Actions and Divine Grace

Now, in terms of do we, you know, are we predetermined to hell? Or are we predetermined? Which is obviously a question that your students are going to ask you. From the Muslim point of view, no one gets to paradise with their actions, but no one gets there without their actions. In other words, there is an idea that we cannot be grateful enough for the gift of life, for the gift of sight, speech, hearing, power, volition, all of these things.

And therefore, anything that we do is still a shortcoming in relation to what we owe God. There is that idea. So there is definitely an idea like in the Christian religion of grace, that you are saved by grace.

The Christians would see it as through the blood of Christ. The Muslims would see it as through the grace of God, right? By the rahma, the mercy of God. But the Quran very clearly says (وَأَن لَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَانِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَى - Waan laysa lil-insani illa ma sa'a) - "Man, the human being, only has what they strive for."

So you will see your actions, and your actions, you are taking into account for your actions. And this relates now to the next, the last and final thing, which is the day of judgment. This is the sixth article of faith.

The Day of Judgment

Human beings are fully accountable for their actions. According to the Islamic tradition, there is a day in which all of the souls are resurrected. Now also just to relate this in terms of where the accountability comes in.

According to the Quranic view, human beings were brought into the presence of God, and God said, (أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ - Alastu bi-rabbikum) - "Am I not your Lord?" And all of the souls answered in affirmation.

And this is the proof. And so what happens in this world is the soul is to be reminded of this. It's the parent's challenge to remind the child until it becomes firmly rooted in them that God is their Lord, and they should submit to God. If not, then prophets come, and they tell people, and they should submit to them.

The day of judgment is a day when the debts fall due. That is how it's called in the Quran (يَوْمُ الدِّينِ - Yawm al- din) - "The day the debts fall due."

The day the debts... يَوْمُ الدِّينِ Yeah, it's very similar in the Hebrew. Have that as well. يَوْمُ الدِّينِ The day the debts fall due.

Taking Yourself to Account

So there is an idea that we are going to be taken to account. Now the Prophet Muhammad said, (حَاسِبُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ قَبْلَ أَنْ تُحَاسَبُوا - Hasibu anfusakum qabla an tuhasabu) - "Take yourself to account before you are taken to account."

[Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2459]

So there is an idea that the human being can take themselves to account in this world. And it's encouraged as a spiritual practice before you go to sleep to go through your day, and to ask forgiveness for the wrongs you did, and ask for acceptance for the rights you did. That is a highly encouraged spiritual practice within the Islamic tradition. And if one does that with perseverance and sincerity, then that is in a sense a lesser reckoning.

It is a way of facilitating the day of judgment. Now there is an idea, I'll just go through the afterlife experience in the Islamic tradition, what happens here. The very first thing, there is a pre-worldly existence.

The Stages of Life in Islam

The next stage is the worldly existence, and this is called dunya. Now it's interesting, in the Arabic language, dunya in Arabic means the lowest.

In other words, this is the lowest, we're at the lowest level. What is above us is hierarchy. The highest level is the presence of God.

Dunya is the lowest level. This is the life of this world, in the Qur'an it's called hayat al-dunya. The root word of dunya is one of the meanings is grapes, like the famous fox in Aesop's fables.

The grapes are just out of reach. And that is the nature of this world. There is an element in this world that the soul will never be content, as long as it is in this world.

But it will attempt to satiate its desires through the world. This is, like in Hinduism, they have the idea of the sensual, or even Kierkegaard's system. The idea of the aesthete, the person who spends their life in sensual experiences.

These are attempts at assuaging this turbulence within the human soul. From the Muslim point of view, this is futile. The soul will never be at peace, as long as it is attempting to fill the vacuum or the emptiness through worldly experience.

Modern Culture and Stimulation

One of the things that I think is happening in this culture now, is human beings have become very jaded in their

experiences. There is a need for continual and more extreme stimulation. I think a lot of it relates to the stimulation that people have with television, murders, violence, sexual stimulation.

All of this stimulation is taking place within the brain. MTV is a very powerful example of this, of just massive stimulation. What's happening, even I think Sesame Street, which in a lot of ways seems a very positive thing, I think for teachers it's a disaster.

Because you're competing with entertainment. A child begins to think that you have to be entertained to learn. There has to be these cartoons coming in, and this and that, and it all has to be fast.

There's a cartoon of a little boy sitting in front of a forest and asking his father, what's the plot? So there's this idea of really, just this culture has become massive stimulation. Toffler's The Fast World. There's a beautiful film called Powaqqatsi? Powaqqatsi.

Is the second one Powaqqatsi? Wonderful film by a local filmmaker. And one of the things that he does in there is he's got the third world in slow motion. Right? So you see people like farming in Brazil and things.

Traditional farming, it's all in slow motion. But then when he switches to America, it's all fast motion. And it's interesting what he's trying, what he's juxtaposing.

He showed people eating in fast food restaurants really fast, and it's very, very strong to watch it. But the point being is that we are in a hyper-stimulatory state. What happens when you reach thresholds, you want more stimulation.

Now, there are people now that go out and do things to taste the moment that become very extreme and violent. Gangbangers. You see, adrenaline junkies.

When I worked in, I was in an intensive care unit, and I used to go down to the ERs sometime, and in the ER room, it's really interesting that a lot, what a lot of the nurses that work in ERs and doctors do on the weekends, jump out of airplanes. Hang gliding. Bungee jumping.

Because if you work in intensive care, crack a chest open, cardiac massage, very intense. They really get into the rush of adrenaline and things. And then on the weekend, it's like, you know, what's there to do? That's an interesting phenomenon.

Really, it really is. Adrenaline is a very powerful drug. And we forget that there really is an adrenaline, you know, it's a very high drug.

Right? And one of the things that happens when people, when they see things that they shouldn't see, you'll get, the heart begins to beat faster. Right? For instance, people that, I mean, they've done studies with people that watch pornography and things like that.

Stimulation. Rapid heartbeat. Adrenaline rushes. Things like that.

Initially. But then, more stimulation. They need more stimulation.

Right? And the end result is a snuff film or something like that. Really, there's people that that's what they need to be stimulated. These are very serious, from an Islamic worldview, very serious ways of attempting to assuage this emptiness.

The Islamic Goal of Tranquility

To feel alive. Now, for the Muslim, the goal in life is to reach a type of tranquility. Not the stimulation.

It is to reach a point where the stimulation is not needed for one to feel alive. That what one feels alive through a peace, an inner peace, which is achieved through worship. Through, you know, prayer and these things.

So the dunya is the worldly existence and the dunya also has seven stages. The first stage is the infantile stage. Now, it's interesting the word in Arabic for the child is ghulam.

The first stage of dunya is ghulam. Which means lusty. That's what it means.

Ghulma, to lust. And this is the infantile state. There's a lust, there's a desire.

And then it moves into the young adulthood. Ghulam goes to about 15 years of age. From birth to 15 years.

And then young adulthood. Which is where, hopefully, the child has been humanized in that first 15 years of life to where they become, they're safe to the society and they're safety to themselves. Then it moves to what's called the kahm or the middle-aged person.

What's the second stage called? First is lusty, second is... The second is, it would be like moving into what's called shabab. And it relates to fire. The second is shabab.

And it comes from a root word which means fire. So this is where you have the fire of life. The first would be spring, the second would be like summer.

There's a fire, it's heat, it's intensity, there's a lot of energy to do things. The third stage is reaching the kahal, which is related to maturity. It's related to productivity.

Where the person, now the fire has been used usefully. So there's something cooked there. There's been something cooked and it's something worthwhile now.

There's benefit to be had. And then you go into the fourth, which is the adulthood, which is al-rajul or imra'ah, which is full. And this begins at 40.

This begins at about 35. Small window here. So youth is from about 15 to 35.

This is 1 to 15. 40 is a very important year in the Islamic view because it's when the human being is at their full maturity. The intellect is fully mature.

The body has reached its full maturity. And now from this point you go into the next. The fifth one is where you reach at about 60 and you go into what's called the shaykh period, where the person is now like an elder.

Somebody who, they have wisdom. They have a type of presence within the society that is beneficial. Shaykh.

S-H-A-Y-K-H. And then, I mean there's actually, there's a stage here that's broken up, which would lead to seven, which is the sabi, which is the infant first five years or first seven years. But the last and final stage is called ajuz.

And it's interesting that the male and the female are the same. There's no differentiation. It's a male, the word for ajuz applies to the male and the female.

And this is beyond, this is where they've entered like 75, 80 years of age. There's a transcendence of the gender at this point. There's a type of, you know, in fact, in the Islamic culture traditionally at about 60, the woman will begin to, she's, there's open mixing in many, many cultures traditionally as the woman enters into that period of life.

She's considered like there's a wisdom that she should be present, that she should be, she should be in that environment. And then ajuz is that last phase.

Death and the Afterlife

Now death is the third stage. Now the Quran says some people die early and others Allah gives them, extends their life. If a person dies before puberty, they're not taken to account at all. And they're considered for paradise generally.

That is the majority view. If they die after puberty, they're taken to account for their actions. So death is the next.

Now just to give you a scenario of what the Muslims believe happens at death. At the initial point of death, it is believed that the spirit leaves the body and hovers above the body. Now if you look at the word for spirit, in Arabic it is ruh, which comes from a word riyah.

Now spiritus in Latin also comes from a word that means wind. The idea is that the wind is not something you see, but you feel its effects. You see its effects.

You see the leaves moving. So the ruh is not something we can see, but we feel the effects of the soul. The soul is powerful.

When the soul departs from the body, if you... And one of the things highly encouraged in Islam is to wash dead bodies. Right? Because you prepared for the prayer. It's very powerful, especially if you know the person.

Because you're in the presence, you see the absence of the soul. You see the absence of the soul. The body is there, but it is not... The soul is missing.

That is not the same person that you knew in your life. Because animals have soul as well, according to Islam. Yes, definitely.

All things in the world are animated by spirit. Everything, including rocks. The Muslims believe that all the way down that there is a penetration of this divine substance that Allah has animated the world with.

That's why everything is a sign of God. If not, you know, if there wasn't this spiritual element within creation, then it would not be a sign of God. It would be absence.

It would be death and other. So, that's a good point. And Muslims believe that animals are raised up as well on the Day of Judgment.

And Muslims believe that animals bear witness against people that abuse them. Humane societies kind of have the hadith there, right? There's actually a hadith that the whole earth is raised up. And there's a hadith that people that oppress the earth will have seven earths around their neck on the Day of Judgment.

The Prophet said whoever pollutes a river, it's like they're cursed to do something like that, to spoil something. He cursed anyone that took hunting as a sport. In other words, they didn't eat the food, they just went out and hunted animals.

And he said that there's a reward in showing kindness to anything that has spirit.

The Process of Death and Burial

So, at the point of death, the soul hovers over and according to the Muslims, the soul says hasten this process because this disengagement is very difficult for the soul to be separate from the body. And then when the person is placed, they're washed, they're wrapped in a funeral shroud of white cloth.

Males wash males, women wash women unless it's husband and wife. But generally, males wash males, women wash women. And then the body is put into the grave.

The grave is dirt. Muslims are not buried in coffins. You're buried in dirt.

And it's going back to the earth. Now, there is a hadith, there is a story that Khazin tells in his tafsir, Allah-u-A'lam, concerning its validity. But it's told and it's an interesting story that God sent the Israfil, which is Seraphiel in the Bible, to go down and get earth in which Adam would be made from.

And the earth refused, which is kind of the nature of the earth, wanting to maintain the integrity, refused. And then so another angel went down, earth refused. And then the third angel, which is Azrail, the angel of death, went down and said, if you give this to me, I promise I'll return it to you.

And so the earth was given. And the prophet said that Adam, that the first soul, which contained all of creation, the first soul was created from all the earths of the world, from the white, the black, the red, the difficult, the

easy, the fertile, the infertile, all of the earths, the topsoil. And Adam, in Arabic, I mean, in Hebrew, one of the meanings is from blood.

But one of the words in Arabic is tawny and from the topsoil of the earth. So the idea is that the human being is from this topsoil. And so Azrail returns the, separates the soul from the body and returns the earth back.

And you can look in terms of clay, man being created from clay, scientifically, secondarily, because everything that makes up our body, our body is about 70% water, and the rest of it is coming from the earth through the animals and the vegetables that we eat, right? So we are literally made of earth and we go back to earth.

Cremation in Islam

Is cremation unacceptable? It's unacceptable in Islam, yes. Although there is an interesting hadith which is a very sound hadith of which a man, according to the Prophet Muhammad, a man cremated himself and God still brought all of his parts together.

And then he asked the man why he did it. And the man said that he was so afraid of the Day of Judgment. He was hoping that he wouldn't be resurrected.

And so according to Prophet Muhammad, God forgave him for that? No. Goes right back into the earth and preferably the first day.

The Life of the Grave (Barzakh)

At the point it enters into the grave, the next stage is the grave. It enters into what's called a barzakh, which is an inner space and now it's no longer in a time-space continuum that we are in. And the soul is reunited with the body. I mean, it's not coming back to life.

If you dig up the grave, you know there's going to be a dead person there. But the soul is reunited with the body and consciousness is there. And then the grave is either a place in which a window is open to the garden or a window is open to the fire, depending on the individual.

And then there is a questioning in the grave. There are two angels, Munkar and Nakir, that come to the grave and question the people. The first question is, who is your Lord? And the second question is, who is your prophet? And the third question is, what is your religion?

The Resurrection and Day of Standing

The fifth is what's called the nafkha, which is that Israfil is the angel that is assigned to resurrection. The first nafkha, which is like it means literally a blowing. The first blowing is all of the souls die. All of them.

So there is an idea that life will stop. And the Quran says that just as the universe was expanded, it will be contracted at the end. In scientific terms, kind of like the big crunch, right? That it all comes back.

And there is an idea of heat meltdown as well because it says the oceans boil over, the mountains melt, everything is, there is a heat death. That's the Quran, definitely gives an idea of a heat death at the end of time. And then the second nafkha is the resurrection.

That there is a resurrection of the souls. And everybody is brought to a plane, which is similar to Arafah. And then the Qiyamah takes place, which is the day of standing.

Now the Prophet Muhammad said that this is a day in which people literally will be, some people will be up to here in their own sweat. It's a very intense day of accountability. And everybody says nafsi nafsi.

Everybody says me me. And there is a hadith that a child will go to the parent and say help me and the parent says me me. That this is a day in which everybody is concerned with their own souls.

The Reckoning

And then the next stage is what is called the reckoning. According to the Islamic tradition, your entire life will be placed before you. You will see all of your actions and you will be called to account and asked to defend yourself.

And according to the Islamic tradition, it says you'll know when your excuses are lame. It says On that day, the human being knows very clearly all of his... In other words, if you want to look at it in psychological terms, all of your defense mechanisms are suddenly removed.

Your projection, your denial, all of these psychological mechanisms that we've used very well in this world to justify our actions are taken away from us. And it says in Surah Al-Qaf that on that day, the veil is removed from your eyes and your eyesight is piercing. So you will see things very clear. And there is an idea that we all know in truth if we will reflect what we're up to.

So, each person is taken to account. And the Prophet Muhammad said that every people will be behind their Prophet. So the people of Moses will be behind Moses, the people of Jesus behind Jesus, the people of Muhammad behind Muhammad, the people of Karl Marx behind Karl Marx.

Everybody is going to be behind their Imam, the one they took as their example in this world. And it's interesting because the Quran says that the oppressed will say to the oppressors, you got us here. And the oppressors will say, we didn't do anything, you followed us.

And so there's this kind of conflict between them. And each one will say, I don't want anything to do with you in the next world. So there's an idea of really everybody awakens to the truth of their own souls, to the truth of their own selves.

The Weighing of Deeds and the Sirat

And then, it's said that after the reckoning, there's the weighing in the balance. Once everything has been

shown, then actions are put into scales. And the scholars say Allah knows best what they, you know, their reality.

And if the right actions outweigh the bad, then you are given a book in your right hand and is the book of your actions. And if the wrong actions outweigh, then you're given a book in your left hand. At that point, then you go to what is called a Sirat, which is the plane.

It is a bridge over which the valley of Jahannam is. And the bridge in the tradition says that it's more sharp than a sword. And everybody will have to go across this bridge, everyone.

And there are angels on the bridge that shout to people. And the Prophet Muhammad said that the people who, there are people that will go like light. They'll go the speed of light across the bridge.

He said, Kabarq, like a lightning, they go right across it. There's other people, he said, that will go like a wind. There's other people, he said, that will go running.

There's other people that will go walking. There's other people that will go crawling. And then there's other people that will not make it across into the pit.

The Basin (Hawd) and Entry to Paradise

And then, at the other side of the Sirat, there is what's called the Hawd. And the Hawd is a huge basin, and according to the tradition, anyone who drinks from it will never have thirst after that. And there is also a tradition that on that day, the death is brought before everybody in the form of a lamb and is slaughtered.

And so there's no death after that. The ones that don't make it across the wall are thirsting. Thirsting.

See, the idea is that only God can quench the thirst. And if one was attempting to quench the thirst in this world by other than God, then they failed in what their task was, which was to be quenched through closeness and not distance. So it goes back to this idea of Rahma, mercy and wrath, that you bring wrath upon yourself.

That's really the idea, that God is not punishing people to punish them. That people literally take themselves to their final destinies. That's very strong in the tradition.

Stories of Mercy and Justice

Now, some people will only, they will not abide in, there are people that leave it. There's an interesting tradition, I mean, this is just a story. But there's an interesting tradition because the Prophet Muhammad said, how people die, that's how they're raised up and how they're raised up is how they're judged.

And there's a story of a woman, they tell that she never did one kind deed, except once she was going into her house and a carrot dropped and a cat came and took the carrot. And this is based on a hadith that the Prophet said there will be people punished because they did not feed animals that were in their responsibility, that

they're actually punished for that, it's like a responsibility. And so this person was going to go get the carrot and they just decided, no, I'll let the cat have it.

And so they're in this, the pit of fire and a carrot comes down. And so they get, they hold on to the carrot and the carrot, they start getting pulled up out of the fire on this carrot. But then she looks down and there's other people coming out, holding on to her.

So before you know it, there's a whole string of people getting pulled out of the fire because of this one carrot. And then she starts saying, no, this is my carrot. And she slips and falls back in.

So it's just giving you an idea of the people, how they are in this world. It's going to be confirmed in the next world that they're miserable. Now, there is a hadith that a prostitute, and it's a sahih hadith, that a prostitute went to a well and got water up from the well.

And she saw a hungry, thirsty dog. And she said, this dog is thirsty like I am. So she put her shoe down and brought water up and quenched the thirst of the dog.

And the Prophet said for that she was forgiven and given paradise. [Sahih al-Bukhari 3467, Sahih Muslim 2245]

There is another tradition that says that a man, he used to loan money and he would tell his agents, go out and ask to be repaid. And if they don't have the money, tell them not to worry about it.

And so the Prophet said that when that man is brought before God, God says, I'm more generous than this man in forgiving his debtors. And he forgives him.

The Balance Between Mercy and Wrath

So if you look in the Islamic tradition, there's very, very strong emphasis on forgiveness and rahmah. But there's also an emphasis on wrath. There's a balance here, even though the Muslims say God's rahmah is over his wrath. And there's a tradition that says that God's mercy is 99 parts.

And only one part did he send down to the earth. And by that part of mercy, a mother shows mercy to her child. A foal raises its leg, the mare raises its leg from stepping on the foal.

So the idea is that all of the mercy in this world that we see is only one small portion of the mercy of God. So there is a strong emphasis on God's mercy. But there's also a strong emphasis on the wrath.

Social Responsibility and Accountability

I think there's definitely accountability on all levels. Muslims believe in accountability. That complacency is, the Prophet said, being silent about something is showing contentment with it.

So if you're silent about a thing, it means that you're complicit in the action. So unless to speak out against it would endanger your life. So there is an idea that people who feel that I can't, you know, if I speak out they're

going to kill me or something like that, they're forgiven.

Although the Prophet said the greatest jihad is to speak the truth in front of an unjust ruler. That that is the greatest jihad. So there is definitely an idea of responsibility in one's actions and in what does.

And politics is a problem. You know, Henry Thoreau, he got arrested for not paying his taxes because he felt, you know, government supports slavery and he didn't want to support a government. And they say that Emerson went there, visited him in the jail and he said, Henry, what are you doing in there? And Henry said, the question is, what are you doing out there? That we do have a social responsibility.

Suicide in Islam

Yes. And I'll tell you something really interesting about that. There's a book called Life After Life by Raymond Moody.

And there's a section in there about suicide in which he mentions a woman who committed suicide. She was actually declared dead. But then she was brought back to life after blood transfusions.

And he asked her, he interviewed her and asked her what happened. She said she found herself doing it over and over again. And the hadith according to the Prophet Muhammad said, if anyone who commits suicide will continue to do that with the same intensity until the Day of Judgment.

Although it is not considered, it is not considered a kufr. In other words, the person is not... If a Muslim commits suicide, they're still Muslim, they're buried as a Muslim. But it's one of the worst things that you can do.

No, absolutely. If somebody is... Anybody who is out of their mind is not held to account by Sharia. Half the 20th century.

No, no, no, no. In other words, if somebody was clinically depressed to the point where they were non- functional, you know, it's hard for the accountability to be... You know, I mean those things, it's just difficult. They're grey areas.

But the idea is that if somebody, if they really are not functioning, you know, that accountability is... Accountability is based on sound intellect. That is part of accountability. And this again, like in Islam, you have somebody who's all their life they've been punished.

You know, since their time they were born, beaten as a child and all these things. They become sociopathic or... From an Islam point of view, when they reach adulthood, they're accountable. From in real terms, we would say, Allah knows what's gonna happen on the Day of Judgment.

Because the Prophet said many people, many parents will be taken to account for what they did to their children. You see. Because it is the parents' response.

It's a trust. That's why parenthood is so strong in Islam. You know, because it's a divine trust.

Children are a trust in the hands of the parents. And if they betray the trust, then they can destroy the children.

Final Questions and Answers

I'm gonna open up to question, discussion. If a child dies before puberty, do they go right to heaven? According to the tradition. According to the tradition, Abraham takes care of the children who die. The children whose parents are for paradise.

Abraham takes care of those children. In his Garden. It's called Jannah.

When the woman came to the Prophet and asked forgiveness from Muhammad, it wasn't Muhammad who forgave her. He can't forgive. Yeah, it's not like, you know.

I mean, in the Christian tradition, there's some verses that would indicate, like, Jesus said, go and sin no more, you know, for you're forgiven. And that was seen as kind of a blasphemy to the Jews. From the Muslim point of view, they would say, if that is a true account of Jesus, they would say that that is not Jesus forgiving, but rather God revealing to him that the woman's actions were forgiven.

Because the Prophet did tell people they were forgiven. But he does not forgive. The Prophet does not absolve people's sins.

It is God alone who forgives. The Prophet is seen as a human being. He's a man.

He does not have divine... He is a human being like the rest of us in his human nature, but not like the rest of us in that he's a Prophet. So some of them said, you know, a ruby is a rock, but it's not like other rocks. It's a mineral, but it's not like other minerals.

Discussion on Blasphemy and Prophets

I'm having a tough time trying to reconcile the issue of slandering a Prophet with an equal death sentence in Islam's law with some of the things you just said, i.e. that the Prophets are merely men. And also something else that I think I've heard that people find God in their own time. You know, it might be at 16 for this person, maybe at 40 years of age.

So how is that true? Well, there would be no... Because, I mean, if you slander another human being, you're whipped in Islam. In other words, if I accuse somebody in here of adultery, the Islamic punishment is that I'm whipped because that is prohibited to do that. And there's very severe consequences for it because of its impact on society.

If you do something to a Prophet, it's very serious, with the idea that the Prophets are impeccable in their character, that they are people that have only brought good for human beings. And if you do want to say

something about them, then you say it not in the public space, in the private space. In other words, that's again between you and God.

But if you bring that out into the public space, then it creates a type of tension in the society that is very serious, according to the Muslims. And I'd like to add to that, that many of the people who were persecuted... He forgave them. Absolutely physically persecuted... Yeah, he forgave them.

...became Muslims themselves. And he forgave them. Absolutely, yeah.

Now, if it was a non-Muslim who did it, see, it's very different. If it's a non-Muslim who did it, it goes under a different category than if a Muslim did it. You see what I mean? In other words, this law relates to Muslims who say bad things about the Prophet (ملسو هيلع هللا بلص - sallallahu alayhi wasallam). Mm-hmm.

I think also, in terms of your recognizing and understanding, what you said before about the shari'a being replaced in an Islamic setting is a pretty important piece in terms of understanding how that could possibly be a reality for the Prophet. It's not like some one of us here would blaspheme the Prophet and then be a lot of punishment for him just because he did it. I mean, maybe we just emphasize that.

Yeah, that's a good point. So that does not hold for non-Islamic people? No, it's prohibited in Islamic law for a person to do that, to blaspheme any Prophet. Right? But for a Muslim, it's a death penalty.

For a non-Muslim, they are tried and if they become Muslim, right, if it was towards the Prophet Muhammad, then it's not. If they don't and they say, you know, that they adhere to that. Because it's prohibited for the Muslims even to curse false gods in the Quran.

"And do not insult those they invoke other than Allah, lest they insult Allah in enmity without knowledge."

And that came later. Initially, the Muslims were cursing the idols and gods. So even for a Muslim, they're not supposed to make fun of Hindu objects of worship. Right? Like laugh about Krishna or Vishnu or Shiva.

See, we're not supposed to do that. If it's in the private space, that's another matter. But publicly, I should not do that. I should not disparage what other people hold sacred.

Just to bring it back to where you started your talk. You see, these things happen in some Muslim societies. But that is not Islam.

It may be Muslims who are completely getting wrong what Islam is supposed to be. Right. Uh-huh?

Case Discussion: Blasphemy in Modern Context

I'm a little mixed up. If a Muslim... I grew up in the West Bank last week and there were pictures of Muhammad as a pig drawn around. I didn't know about that, but I think somebody mentioned it. She's Jewish.

She's running from Russia. She's been under... She's in jail now in Israel for fomenting religious discord. Right.

I mean, is there a fatwa put out against her? I think I've heard that. Oh, I don't know what's going on there. I mean, the problem is, for me personally, there is no now.

In the Muslim world, there is not any government that is implementing Islamic law. Not one. None.

Zero. Sudan? I don't know. I mean, I'm not there.

And I don't know. But I'd be amazed if they were. You know? Because she's not Muslim? I don't understand.

Muslim? She would be... In a Muslim country, if that happened, she would be taken to... There would be a trial. You know? That is... It goes against the... You know? It's like a blasphemy. It goes under those laws.

Right? Some of them do. Some of them don't. Most of them will say that it is the law of the Constitution or the state.

But none of them do. I think probably the only ones that would claim to is Arabia. Like what they call Saudi Arabia now.

Sudan. And maybe Afghanistan would probably claim that they do also. And Iran.

Iran. But I'm going to get into... When I talk about the end of time and how the Muslims view... I'm going to get into that. Really discussing really how the Muslims view this period of time traditionally.

So... Is it now? Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you.