Foundations of Islam Series- Signs of the Last Day

Foundations of Islam Series: Signs of the Last Day

The Historical Element in the Qur'an

The next stage that we're going to cover is the time element and this is where history comes into place. Now if you look at the actual Qur'anic narrative, the Qur'an is not a history book. There are definitely historical elements in there.

The Qur'an is using historical examples but they are used in an ahistorical placing. In other words, the story of Pharaoh and Musa, it's irrelevant when it occurred, it's even irrelevant if it occurred. What is being taught is something very powerful, right? I mean the Qur'anic narrative is that it did occur but that is not what is relevant from the story.

The story is used as a teaching example to learn something of what happened in the past in order to prevent its repetition in the future. So there is definitely a historical element. Now my friend, Professor Khalid Blankenship who is at Temple, a very fine historian, told me that one of the frustrating aspects of the Qur'an as a book is that it does not allow the historian room to examine.

In other words, he said that there are many examples in the Bible that we have that are historical in the sense that we can actually look at them as historians. Whereas within the Qur'anic narrative, the historian does not have evidence there to either negate or verify much of the Qur'anic narrative or according to his opinion, any of it really. And he said it's almost a thwarting for him as a historian.

He found it significant that it's almost like thwarting him to let him know that that is not the point. To give you a good example, in the Qur'anic narrative, we don't know if it's Ishmael or Isaac who is taken up on the mountain. Some of the Muslim scholars said it was Isaac and some said it was Ishmael.

Unimportant as a detail in the story, which is why the Qur'an does not mention either one by name, although the narrative would indicate that it was Ishmael, which differs from the Jewish tradition, which is Isaac. But the point is that that is not the point of the story. The point of the story is a man's being tested and fulfilling the test in the way that was most pleasing to his lord.

Understanding the Hour (Al-Sa'ah)

Now, the next section here, after Iman and Ihsan, is to tell me about the hour. And the word in Arabic for hour is Sa'ah, which is related, it's related to the moment, Sa'ah, like I can say Qama min Sa'atihi, he got up immediately from his Sa'ah. Or I can say Kam Sa'ah? What time is it? Like the Arabs, if they want to ask what time it is, they say Kam Sa'ah, so I can ask what time is it? Or I can say it's the time of Dhuhr.

Now, this Sa'ah does not relate to historical time, which in Arabic would be called probably either Zaman. And then there's another Arabic word, Dahar. And there's another one in the Qur'an used called Asar.

Zaman relates to time as a historical phenomena. Asar is more like an age or a period. And I can also use Zaman for that as well.

Sa'ah does not have any of this. Dahar, if you look it up, it's an interesting word. In the Arabic language, there's a Hadith that says, do not curse Dahar, because Dahar is God. (Sahih Muslim 2246)

And the Hadith, if you look in the earliest Arabic dictionaries, Dahar, according to the Arabs, was time stretched out. In other words, it's time space. And the idea here of Sa'ah is the actual moment in which the universe comes to an end.

And it's called the hour, traditionally, in the English literature, the hour. Which, I don't know, I don't, I think the, I mean, we have the idea in the Christian tradition of the last hour, right? Now there is also an idea of the last days, Akhiru Zaman, see, the last Zaman, the last period of Zaman. So there's an idea that the human being begins in time, and is moving inexorably to an end of time.

The Prophetic Tradition and Human History

So Adam is the first man, and this is the beginning, Adam and Hawa. And the human condition is, you know, from a prophetic point of view, it is prophets that show up throughout time. And what is important in the continuity and movement of time is the prophetic tradition itself, right? This is the way the Qur'an is looking at it, is that there is a conflict going on.

And this is why the historical stories in the Qur'an relate to prophets coming up against oppressors, coming up against tyrants. Pharaoh and Musa is the most repeated story in the Qur'an, very important story. Lewis Mumford wrote a two-volume work called The Myth of the Mega Machine.

And in that book, his thesis is that basically what he calls in the axial prophets, these prophets that come around, I think, about a thousand BC until Muhammad, which he considers the last of these axial prophets. And he said what these prophets do is that they're really shutting down the mega machine. Right.

In other words, the idea of this massive social project that relates to the world. The pharaoh has his pyramids and he's going to build them. And there's a lot of people that are going to die in the process, but they're going to carry those rocks and they're going to carry it and do it all, all for the glory of the pharaoh or the society or whatever.

The Prophets Against the Mega Machine

So Mumford said that he thought the Jewish tradition, the idea of the Sabbath was a way of just shutting down the machine. Can't do it, sorry, not allowed to move anything. Right.

It literally shuts it down. The idea of five prayers a day. I mean, a lot of Western people get very frustrated in some of these Muslim countries where everything stops.

Well, they're frustrated about a lot of things. Right. But definitely the prayer is something that's very frustrating for many Western people that go there.

They got business to do. And the guy says that we have to stop for prayer. Right.

So it's a problem. And Mumford saw it really as a way of shutting this thing down because he saw it as a very negative thing. Now, one of the things that Mumford says is that there is a movement, this historical movement towards the mega machine that in prior times, it's nuts and bolts were human beings.

Right. The whole social project. And he thinks that Pharaoh and Musa is the best archetype of this phenomenon, that the Musa, Moses comes in and is directly a challenge to the pharaonic project.

The Challenge to Hierarchy

That the prophets literally challenge this idea that we are here for the glorification of a hierarchy and at the top is this elite. And so the Quran uses this idea. They're called the Malak, the people up, the high people, the elite, the elect of the world.

There's a film, can't remember the name, where there was conversation going on at a table and one of the women's a sinologist and there's a banker there. And the banker asks, how many people are there in China, according to your statistics? And she said, oh, about a billion. And he said, no, they're not.

There's only 12 people in China and I know all of them. Right. And the idea there was here's a banker who the way that he views the world is that the only significant people in China are his friends who also are bankers.

So the idea being is that you get to a certain level in societies where people really do view. One of the wonderful things I read was, I think it was Linda Crawford, who's a model who was up flying and the actual helicopter crashed, Cindy Crawford, helicopter crashed. And they were like an aspen or somewhere going up to ski the powder and they were looking down and somebody said to her, oh, look at all the little people.

And right then the helicopter just went into this spin. Right. So she got a very interesting.

I mean, I thought that was a very interesting thing that she kind of picked it up or made the connection, you know, that be careful about thinking how special you are, because we're all right in the in the hands or in the protecting care of God. Right. So there are people that really do like Helmsley, was that her name, who didn't only little people pay taxes.

Right. Only little people pay taxes. There are people that really do think like that.

The Qur'anic Challenge to Power Structures

Right. And the Koran is really constantly bringing this up and even goes into their inner discourse, which is fascinating. Literally, you can hear what they talk about when they're, you know, because one of the things is

he's telling his mother, he said, listen, we've got to get rid of this guy, Moses, because he's going to corrupt our people.

Right. So he sees, you know, this is a corrupting element because he's going to teach him not to worship us. Right.

Not to say the Pharaoh's God, not to give me the authority that I'm entitled to. That is a disrupting element to the power elite when you have a teaching that is literally challenging the very foundations of that of that structure. And this is something very powerful in the Koran.

And there are many examples of it. So if you look here, then the idea that time is coming to an end. Now, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, according to his tradition, is that he is the first sign of the end.

That he actually his coming was the first sign of the end of time. That's how the Muslims view that. Now, all according to the Muslims, all religious traditions have told about the end of time.

Prophetic Warnings About the End of Time

There is a Hadith in which the Prophet said no prophet has come except that he told his people that time would come to an end and there would be certain signs. So we have in the Christian tradition about the end of time. One of them you will hear there will be famines and earthquakes in many places and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

It's very interesting also, especially with modern CNN and all this stuff, right, which is a type of just talking about wars and also potential things. And then you have the book of Revelations, which deals also with the phenomenon of the end of time. And many, many Christians, if you go into Christian bookstores, just so many books on the end of time, really a lot of books.

And as we approach the millennium, I think we're going to have more and more of this because you're starting actually to see, I mean, you know, when the publishers get greedy, when they start publishing these kind of because some of these books are way out there. Right. I mean, you read and this poor guy who wrote.

He's the most famous, Hal Lindsey. He's the most famous. This guy, he has to revive his books every 10 years because he identifies like one year Kissinger's the Antichrist.

But, you know, Kissinger's not around anymore. So he has to revive it every so often because they literally trying to take the Bible and apply it to immediate events. And there's actually a television program in some states where there's a guy, he's like a newscaster with his wife.

And unbelievable, like every event. Oh, well, there's Daniel 314. You see, Daniel says that this will happen this time.

And there you have it. Look, isn't that wonderful? You know, Iraqis are being bombed, just like the Bible said. It's so wonderful.

Jesus is it's all. And it's really interesting to watch these characters. But they're out there and people tune in and get very interested.

The Muslim Perspective on Millenarianism

And then National Enquirer's also got their little, you know, you get these the globe, right? The end of the time coming. So you have a lot of it's almost become comical. You know, the guy with the thing, the end is nigh, that there really is a lot of craziness.

And traditionally, the Muslims have really kind of seen every single book I've ever seen, whether it's the from the third, fourth, fifth, sixth century. They say, well, all the signs are there. The end is nigh.

The idea being. In reality, the end of time is the end of our lives. I mean, that is the ultimate end of time that we will die.

And so that is an end of time. But there is also an end of human time. And so within the tradition, I think the most definitive hadith about it, which I think is also the most wonderful, is that the Prophet Muhammad said, if the end of time comes upon you and you're planting a tree, then finish planting it. (Musnad Ahmad 12902)

In other words, don't become millenarians, don't become people that run off and just the end is no, do what you're doing. Keep working, keep doing it. If it happens, it happens.

And you happen to be there when it happens. But don't let that stop you from action. So there is an idea of, yes, there is an end of time.

The Signs of the Hour: A Prophetic Teaching

There are signs now in the tradition here. The first thing he asked him about the end of time, he says, tell me about the hour. And he says, the one being questioned doesn't know any more than the one questioning.

In other words, I don't know. And he says, well, then tell me about its signs. And then the Prophet says, peace be upon him, the slave girl will give birth to her mistress.

Now, that's an interesting statement. The slave girl will give birth to her mistress. And the scholars traditionally dealt with that in a lot of different ways.

One of them is, they said at the end of time, slaves who in the Islamic, like, for instance, the Mamalik became rulers. And many of the scholars said this is it. The Mamalik were slaves in Egypt.

And they actually became rulers. They said, here they are. They've become the masters.

Interpretations of Social Disequilibrium

Another interpretation was that children would treat their parents. Like this, a traditional interpretation, that children would treat their parents like servants, they would order them around, they would tell them what to do, that there would be a loss of respect in that relationship. But I think probably the deepest interpretation is that there would be a radical disequilibrium in social structures.

When you look at the relationship between a servant and a mistress, the relationship is like a mother and a daughter. The mother is to be obeyed, nurturing the daughter. The daughter obeys the mother.

When that is turned upside down, then you have a radical disruption in the social order. If you look in the Qur'anic narrative, the first and foremost expression of a Tawheedic worldview, of a belief in one God, is Ihsan to the parents, beauty to the parents, showing beauty to the parents. The Qur'an says, and God has told the human being to honor his parents.

The mother first, it says:

Hamalathu ummuhu wahnan 'ala wahnin - The mother gave, nurtured and gave birth to the child, sapped and weakened.

Right so the nine months of nurturing a child in the womb, giving birth, suckling the child, raising the child, changing the child, doing all of these things, that there is a great debt owed, the child to the parent, particularly the mother. And this is why the Prophet said that the paradise is at the feet of the mothers. (Musnad Ahmad 7500)

The Status of Mothers in Islam

It's literally at the feet of the mothers. And the Prophet was once asked, who is the most worthy of my companionship? And the Prophet answered, your mother. And then he said, and then who? He said, your mother.

And he said, and then who? He said, your mother. And he said, and then who? He said, your father. (Sahih Bukhari 5971, Sahih Muslim 2548) And then in another tradition, a man came to him and he said, Ya Rasulullah, O Messenger of God, I am cleaning my mother in her decrepit age the way she used to clean me, is that filial piety? And he said, no, that's payback.

He literally said, that's recompense, right? You're just, you know, recompensing what she did for you. So the disruption of the parental child relationship is a deep disruption within a social order. And we can we can see that really, I think, not simply in our own societies, but it's it's becoming quite a global phenomenon.

The Phenomenon of Rebellion

The idea of rebellion. There is an idea in our culture, certainly, that there is it's a given that children will rebel. Right.

This does not happen. I, you know, Suniman Yang, who's from the Wolof culture. Right.

I mean, in the Wolof, is there any idea of that, of a adolescent rebellion against the parents? I'm just curious. There might be. Do you have any idea in your culture of like adolescent rebellion against the parents? Well, I mean, the way they are socialized, they have the gay QSL.

So it's beginning to happen because of westernization, but it was not there. That would be consistent with my experience in Mauritania, that they really had no concept of children rebelling against the parents, whereas it is becoming a norm. And with westernization, it's increasing because of the idea of rebel without a cause, that there is, you know, there is this idea that children have to rebel, that they have to establish their identities.

There's an awful lot of identity foreclosure in the Ericksonian type of model. I think in the Muslim world, there is an idea that you really have to do what your parents say. And I think there's a lot of abuse that happens from the parents to the children, because they do have an upper hand there.

So you do see that a child will become an engineer because that's what the parents say that they should be. Which in our culture, I think that's in a sense one of the positive aspects of our culture, is that there is a type of freedom that is allowed for a young person in many, many families. And it's certainly not true across the board, but there are many families that do allow a child to experiment, and try to find out.

And I think that's actually a very positive aspect of our society and civilization. But the idea of the breakdown of the social structure is something that is definitely part of the end of time, that we move into a disequilibrium.

The Reign of Quantity

If you look, there's a wonderful book on this topic written by a French scholar and intellectual called René Guenon, which is called The Reign of Quantity. And in that book, he talks about the idea of moving away from a quality-based culture into a quantity-based culture. And he considers that what the Hindus called the Kali Yuga period, the last period of man on earth, that it would be a period of great disruption and turmoil, that there would be a massive upheaval of traditional models and a radical new type of way of looking at the world, which is related more to quantity than quality.

And it's interesting, there's an, you know, the idea, one of the things that we as a Western people have done, which is quite unique and a radical departure from traditional cultures, is the quantification of everything. You know, we've really set out to measure everything, you know, measure space, measure gas, measure air, measure the speed of light, all of these things wanting to measure, to quantify. And I thought it was very interesting when I had statistics in college and when the professor who taught the course said at the beginning of the course, one

of the things about statistics that you'll learn is it doesn't work very well with qualitative data. It works very well with quantitative data.

But when you get into this qualitative data, we have problems, right? And I thought that was kind of interesting, because so much of our society is based on statistics. We really do base a good percentage of our policies, even in school and education, you know, so much is based on, well, what are the stats here? Before we give you money, show us some stats. And immediately when you move into that model, you're moving into a quantitative and not a qualitative model, generally.

Three Categories of Signs

So, the... Now, to go into some of the signs, there are basically, the scholars have identified three types of signs. Signs that have already occurred, signs that have occurred and continue to intensify, and then signs that haven't occurred. So, some of the signs, some of the signs that have already occurred according to the Muslims are signs like the birth of the Prophet.

That was a sign, according to the Prophet. The Prophet also said that the death of Omar was a sign and the death of Uthman. He said that the fall of Constantinople, which occurred 800 years after the Hadith was recorded, he said the fall of Constantinople was a sign.

He said the fall of Rome also to the Muslims, that the city of Rome would become Muslim, which hasn't happened yet. The Pope. And also, so that would be a later sign that haven't occurred.

But in terms of already occurred, there would be signs that have happened. There was a fire that the Prophet predicted in Medina, which was a result of a volcano that erupted. And he said that Medina would be confronted with a massive fire. (Sahih Bukhari 7118)

And that occurred. And several other events that are mentioned in the tradition, the signs that have occurred and continue to intensify.

Signs That Continue to Intensify

One of them that the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said that one of the signs would be that intoxicants would be widely used. So you can see this happening in the Muslim world and just intensifying from quite some time ago.

Another sign would be nakedness, that people would begin to remove their clothes. And he said until it would get to the point where people would actually walk around in the marketplaces in shorts with their thighs fully exposed. Right. It's in a Hadith. And meshu fit us walk with a father bad.

Yet on walking in marketplaces with the thighs fully exposed. He said also that people would have sexual intercourse in front of other people. Was a sign of the end of time.

He said that it would get so bad that you would see people fornicating on in public places. And the best people would be people who would say, can't you do that somewhere else? (Sahih Muslim 2906) Another one would be speed in travel. He said great distances would be traversed in very short times.

And he said also that people would hop between the clouds and the earth. And a couple of been at Arby was seminar. And he said that there would be musical instruments would be everywhere.

And he said that also that people would dance with instruments on their head, which some have interpreted as headphones, that they would dance with instruments on their head and they would spend the whole night dancing like that. And he also said that you would see singing women prevalent in public spaces because traditionally that was something that people did in private things. But he said it would become out open into the public.

And he said that there would be many people with he said textural house at which would be whisperings like there would be many confused people that would have a lot of psychological type of problems. So, I mean, I could go on and on. It gets quite depressing.

So those are signs. Now, then there's the big ones in which the prophet, the biggest of all, is called the Antichrist, which people understand. Hadith literature.

The Qur'anic Sign of Smoke

The vast majority of the signs of any time are related to Hadith literature, although some are in the Quran. One of them is that a clear smoke would appear over cities towards the end of time, in Surat al-Dukhan. (Quran 44:10) Some people have interpreted as that.

Yeah, Dukhan is smoke, gas. It's the same word used for gas in Arabic. Dukhan is used for gas as well because the Arabs didn't.

Ghaz is a modern word for the Arabs. Dukhan was used for gas as well. No, clear mean it would be very everybody would see it.

Right. And it says from the evil that people were doing. Another major sign is the Dajjal.

Understanding the Dajjal (The Antichrist)

Now, I just want to read because I think it's very interesting. This was written in the last century, but it's taken out of classical Arabic books. Yeah, this is about the Antichrist.

The word in Arabic is from Dajjalah. It means to smear a camel with tar. In other words, covering the whole body with tar.

Smearing the part that is mangy or scaby. So it has the idea of hiding illness or sickness. Covering it over.

Right. Covering it over with a black pitch. To lie.

To conceal truth with falsehood. Concealing the truth. He enchanted or fascinated.

So the idea that the Antichrist is an enchanter or a fascinator. People are fascinated by him. He compressed.

He traversed the regions or tracks of the earth or land. Now, the Prophet said that the Dajjal would enter every city on the planet. When they asked him, what would his speed be like? He said, like a wind that leaves a cloud in its trail.

Like a wind that leaves a cloud in its trail. Literally means like a wind that leaves a cloud in its trail. And in another tradition, he said he would ride a white donkey made of iron whose span between his two ears was 40 cubits.

Baghlatun min hadid is the hadith says. And then he says to confuse, to mix things. Having one eye.

The Prophet Mohammed. Did you have a question? What's the Dajjal? Dajjal is the word in Arabic for Antichrist, which is better translated by the Arabs in the Arabic language as the imposter Christ. Oh, Christ.

Yeah. Masih Dajjal, the false messiah. Very much so.

Uh-huh. In Islam, the concept of the messiah is a one time thing represented by Jesus of Nazareth. Yeah, Jesus is seen as the messiah, the messiah.

So this is an anti. This is going to be anti-Jesus. Yes.

The Concept of Anti-Christ in Islam

And it's interesting because if you study the Islamic Jesus, I think it gives you a very good picture of the idea of an anti-Jesus. Because anti- in Arabic, in Greek, anti- also means in place of, instead of. It doesn't really mean against.

The original meaning of anti- in Greek as a prefix means instead of. And that's closer to the Arabic interpretation, which is imposter or in place of, pretending to be. The Islamic Jesus and I actually translate, I'm hoping to get it out this year, but I translate all of the Arabic sayings of Jesus because there's a very large, there's actually more sayings in the Islamic tradition of Jesus than there are in the New Testament.

And most of them deal with the dangers of the world, of materialism. So I find it really interesting that, you know, this idea of an imposter, that Jesus is- the whole thrust of the Islamic Jesus is salvation through giving up material wants. And the idea of an anti-Christ is salvation through desire of material goods, that it is material goods that will make you happy, that is material goods that will save you.

So I think there's a very materialistic element in here. And also the idea of being one eyed is that part of the biocular vision is depth perception, which you lose with one eye. And so the idea that there's no- that the Dajjal

or the anti-Christ does not have a depth perception.

He's a two dimensional being. He sees things in two dimensions. And some of the Muslim scholars do not consider it an individual, but most do.

Linguistic Analysis of Dajjal

And some- and you'll see it as we go on here. Having one eye is one of them. Also to gild a thing.

So in other words, you take lead, you put gold over it. That's you Dajjal. So to make something that's cheap or insignificant look very worthwhile or significant.

Cover the land with water. He put his land into a right or proper state, prepared it, improved it with dung. So to spread dung on the earth, to spread feces on the earth.

Dajjal, dung for manuring land. And then Dajjal is refuse lowest, basest or meanest sort of people. The lowest, basest or meanest sort of people.

Dajjal, a gilder, a liar, conceals truth with falsehood, who deceives, deludes, beguiles, circumvents, outwits much or often. Very deceitful. The great deceiver.

And then a great company of men. Dajjalah in Arabic means a great company of men journeying together, covering the ground by their multitude or a company of men journeying together, carrying goods for sale.

Right, so trafficking goods all over the place. Masih al-Kaddab, the false Christ or Antichrist is to be a certain man. Right, comes forth in the last days. So having one eye or eyebrow.

So you get the idea there. This is a classical coming out of classical dictionaries. The idea of the Antichrist is that towards the end, there will be a type of false salvation through love of the world and material things and these things.

The Muslim Prayer Against the Dajjal

And I think the Muslims definitely have a very strong sense of the Dajjal because at the end of the prayer, you actually make a prayer that says, and I seek refuge from the tribulation of the Dajjal in the last period. And the Prophet Muhammad said, every prophet has warned his people about the Dajjal, but I will tell you something that no other prophet told his people. He only has one eye. (Sahih Bukhari 7407, Sahih Muslim 2933)

So that was the tradition that he said about the Dajjal, that he would have one eye. And there's a very interesting, some of the Muslims said, you know, the television is like a Dajjal. It's a one eyed type beast.

And there's an interesting section in Lewis Mumford's, the second volume of his work on the mega machine, which is the eye of the one eye of Ray, the all seeing eye of Ray. And he talks about that the mega machine, one of the things about the mega machine, he said traditionally, was that they couldn't, they didn't have an all seeing

power, these previous kings and rulers. And so he said, what's happening, though, is that, and he wrote this in 1961.

The Panoptic Society

He said, in the near future, we have theoretically at our hands a machine that will able to monitor all of our life, which is the computer. And he said that, and this is what Foucault called the panoptic society, the all seeing society. And it was designed after the idea of a prison system that Jeremy Bentham designed, which was where you had a center piece, utilitarianism.

You had this center, you only needed one guard. And around the guard were all the prison cells. So in the middle was a tower, which this one guard could watch everything at one time.

And so the idea of the all seeing, you know, the state apparatus in which we're all monitored. A really interesting book about this subject is called the, I can see the cover, because it's got that pyramid with the eye on it. The Naked Consumer.

Very interesting book about how we are watched that, you know, a lot of people don't know this, but when you buy things with your credit cards, they go under bio-datas. And so they can work out, like I started getting all this stuff about like different types of books. I'd get these like things from spiritual book companies and things, because they worked out, you know, you buy them, then they sell, they do bio-data on you, find out what type books you like to read.

And then they sell that list to people. When we had a baby, the first child, like a week later, we got all these things about, and my wife was like, wow, what? You know, this is a classic problem with religion, right? It's a sign, right? No, there's somebody that monitors for the corporations all the births in the county, and they sell your address to people, right? It wasn't a sign, right? Or it was a sign that we're in big trouble, right?

Everything's being watched by these. So the idea just of, you know, this kind of panoptic culture where, and the interesting thing now is this idea of computers with the actual camera on it.

Very interesting phenomenon, because who else can watch, right? Who else can watch while you're having your conversations and things like that?

The Second Coming of Jesus in Islamic Tradition

So there is an idea of this, you know, the Antichrist and the end. And most Muslims do believe in a second coming of Jesus. The vast majority of Muslims.

There are many hadiths that confirm it. It's not actually mentioned directly in the Quran, but most Muslims do believe in a second coming of Christ towards the end of time. Mm-hmm.

Wouldn't that sort of like mean that Muhammad wasn't the seal of the prophets and Jesus didn't? Good point. And that was something that the scholars did deal with. He will not come back as a prophet bringing a sharia.

According to the Muslims, he actually comes back and he confirms the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad. That's how the Muslims view it. That he comes back.

Now, the question was, wouldn't that mean that the Prophet Muhammad wasn't the seal? But it would in the sense that the Prophet is after Jesus. The Prophet Muhammad said, there's no prophet between me and Jesus. (Sahih Bukhari 3442, Sahih Muslim 2365)

And he said that all of the prophets are brothers. We have the same father, which is the religion of the Dean of Islam, with different mothers, meaning the different sharias or the different sacred laws.

The Sign of Building Lofty Buildings

And then the next after the birth of mistress is that you will see the barefooted, naked, destitute herdsmen competing in constructing lofty buildings. Now, at one level, this is seen by many people in the modern time.

The idea of, you know, the Bedouin people now in the Arabian Peninsula building all these, you know, they were literally destitute people 40, 50 years ago. And when I was in the United Arab Emirates, I was once in the majlis of Sheikh Sultan al-Qasimi, who's the ruler of Sharjah. And, you know, they're very kind of pomp type, pompous majlis.

You know, there's a lot of protocol and things. But there was this guy that came in literally in almost rags. And he came in dirty and barefoot, comes walking in quite arrogantly, goes up to the ruler, shakes his hand, then sits down.

And I asked the person next to me, who's that? And he said it's his cousin, you know, but he's still like a Bedouin out in the, he lives out in the, and it was just, you know, he's a Bedouin guy, lives in a tent. But, you know, his cousin had become the ruler of the country. So I thought that was really interesting, this idea of these, you know, poor people.

And then building, a very interesting phenomenon in Arabia is building buildings and then another Sheikh getting upset because so-and-so built a taller building than him. He'll actually tear down his building and build up one taller than the second one, right? And this is also in our own culture, the New York, you know, the Empire State Building was the tallest and then the Chicago building one up them and then the World Trade Center and then you have now in Malaysia, interestingly enough, very proud. The Malaysians are very proud that they now have the tallest building in the world.

And, you know, somebody had it on the cover of a Muslim magazine and they asked me what I thought. And I said, I think it's really interesting that the Muslims are proud of being part of fulfilling the signs of the end of time, right? Because it's seen as a very negative thing, not a positive thing. And then also, there's another way to

look at this of building tall buildings like these kind of wretched people and that is the idea of of building lofty ideas and building ideological structures because the Quran talks about the building of taqwa, bunyanu taqwa, right? The building of God consciousness and awareness.

So the idea also of wretched people creating lofty ideologies that many people will follow and think that they're the truth and things like that. So this is just a very quick overview about it.

The Imminence of the End and Personal Death

And then also, finally, I think the point of all of that is that time does come to an end, that the human condition does come to an end and that's how Islam contextualizes history is that there is an end that is imminent.

Again, I think for the individual person, the imminence of the end of time is always related to their own personal death. But there is an idea also and then there's another important, I think a very important idea within the Islamic tradition and that is that each generation will be less they will be fulfilling the idea of this dimensional Islam of Iman, Islam, Ihsan. They will not do it as well as the previous generation.

That there is an idea that each generation is a watered down version of the same. There are periods of renewal historically in the Prophet. Muhammad did say that there would be renewers every hundred years or so.

There would be people that come and renew. But the idea that it's not the same. I mean, I think the Muslims do have an idea, traditional Muslims anyway, that it's not so much progress, but quite the opposite.

The Question of Progress

One of the things René Guénon pointed out about the rapid speed of progress. He said one of the things that we forget is that increasing acceleration means going down, not up. Right? That the idea of the modern world.

And I think there's a lot of questioning now of the wisdom of the idea Bacon introduced the idea of progress because prior to that the Christians did not have that idea within their world view of that we are progressing. They had quite a different idea. And I think ultimately from the Muslim world view and also from other traditional world views the same ethical issues that Plato is positing through Socrates.

What is justice? How do we lead a good life? What is a good life? These things we have not come any closer to really progressing in terms of our ethical nature, in terms of our spiritual nature. That although we have massive outward technology able to do extraordinary things, bring the living back, bring the dead back to life, you know, move mountains quite literally. Despite that we are still dealing with basic human tendencies such as greed, lust, envy, slothfulness.

It's hard to get away from those. And in some ways we're less aware of our own negative tendencies than perhaps peoples before us were. And more filled with our own sense of hubris and our own sense of power.

The Disillusionment of the Twentieth Century

Although certainly the 20th century is a century that has created a lot of disillusionment. You know, we've killed 180 million people this century alone in wars between human beings. And it's interesting that they weren't religious wars.

They were ideological wars. You know, because one of the oftentimes critics of religion will point out, well, look how many people died in the name of religion. Well, look how many people died in the name of communism.

Right? I mean, we forget that we're dealing with a human species. That religion is not the problem. Man is the problem.

Right? And if there's a humanizing factor in the human condition, as far as I'm concerned, it has been religion. That religion is what has introduced into the human being concepts like making beauty. Concepts like becoming conscientious.

Charity. Caritas. You know, these things.

The Kairos. All of these things are coming out of religious traditions. And the Muslims always say in the end, God knows best.

Opening for Questions and Reflections

I'm going to open it up for some questions. If people want to go, believe me, you're most welcome to go. This is my last talk that, you know, that I have with you.

And I just would like to say my presentations, you know, I adhere to the teaching of Islam. And I do believe in Islam. And I tend to take a more devotional approach than, say, some other academic approaches.

You know, that is my, I really try not to preach to people because I never have ever liked being preached to in my life. So I really try to do that. But if it has come off as that, you know, I would apologize to anybody.

If I said anything in any way that offended people or their tradition or their own beliefs, that I also apologize for that. That was not my intention. If that was the result, then I would just ask that I would be excused for that graciously.

And then I would also just like to say that this has really been a very good and enriching experience for me. It always is. And I've been appreciative of the fact that Darul Islam has invited me back.

But I would like to say this has been, for me, a very good group. And I'm not just, you know, I didn't say that to the last group. So I really have enjoyed this group.

Personally, you know, I think you've all been just really, just a good group. And you're all teachers. So, you know, a teacher likes nothing better than having good students.

And so I'm honored and grateful that that's been the case. So having said all that, I'll just say, if anybody has any questions that I could answer or anything.

Question and Answer Session

Question About Prayer Times

I have a question. It just came up in my mind. I think it's about time. But it's not directly related to your lecture.

I noticed that at the mosque there was a list of when the five prayer times were. And they change every day, I guess, according to the likeness of the day and all that. Is there a place where, how would you find out what the prayer times are where you're geographically living? Like, where I'm geographically living in the canyon, like, or the second? I think in the beginning of the Islam lecture I talked about how to find the prayer times.

And they are based on the sun and the movement of the sun. They're easy to determine unless you live in an area in which the sun is clouded over. So you don't see it.

And in that case, generally the scholars have permitted the use of astronomical means of determining. When you have it done ahead of time. Right.

But we actually, personally, I don't follow that. That's put there for like cloudy days and things like that. I will look outside at the natural phenomena to determine my prayer times.

That's what I do. There are many Muslims that depend on the prayer schedule. Traditionally, it's alien because there's an importance in being aware of cosmic phenomena.

I mean, the Muslim tradition really does try to connect you to the movement of the planets, the stars, the sun. Are you going to be here tomorrow? I'm going to be here tomorrow. You said at the beginning that you'd show us how to do that.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Why don't, if we have a sunny day, because we really need a sunny day. I mean, I can do it without it.

But if we have a sunny day, then if you meet me outside at about 1.30, I can do it. If you don't have anything going on then.

Question About Media Terminology

I'd like your response. Today's paper. Molly Everins has a editorial from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She opens up by saying the Shiite Republican plot against House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to naught.

How do you react to the use of the term Shiite Republican? Well, this is, that's a good example of the introduction of terms into our culture through the media that have negative stereotypes attached to them. For

most people Shiite has a very negative, and so he's talking within a cultural discourse that's understood by his readers. Negative.

Shiite is negative. And that's how it's being introduced. For an Iranian who happens to be an American Iranian, you know, he's going to be offended by that.

It's part of the problem with language is that we, you know, there's an idea, I mean, political correctness has a lot of problems associated with it because we take it to such absurd lengths, you know, but there is an idea of just being sensitive to people's cultures. And one of the things that the Quran says is:

"Ya ayyuha an-nasu inna khalaqnakum min dhakarin wa untha wa ja'alnakum shu'uban wa qaba'ila lita'arafu inna akramakum 'inda Allahi atqakum - We create you in peoples and tribes that you might come to know one another and the most noblest of you are the most God wary."

Breaking Down Cultural Barriers

Thomas Cleary, one of the things that he said about that verse is he said that, you know, we talk about the problem of racism, the problem of all of these attitudes, but we've never really examined how do we break these down.

And he thought that that Quranic injunction there that to come to know one another, you know, and this part of what this is all about, you know, this is literally trying to come to know a tradition. How do they view the world? How do you look at things as a way of understanding a people? And I think the Muslims are as guilty as any other people of being narrow and not trying to understand other, there are some Muslims that come here bringing their own culture. You have to learn what is appropriate within this culture.

You have to learn that you're a guest in a host country. And the same, I think, would be for Americans going to a Muslim country. You are a guest in a host country.

In this culture, we have a saying, when in Rome do as the Romans do. And there's a wisdom there in that you, you have to recognize that there are sensitivities. Now, part of the problem, and this is a good example that you've brought up, is the globalization of our world.

The Opportunity and Crisis of Globalization

We are no longer isolated communities. The Turk is no longer the barbarian at the gates of Vienna scaring us, right? The Turk is your doctor, right? I mean, we're living in a world where these barriers have been broken down. There is a great opportunity here.

There is a great opportunity. There is also, just as the Chinese know, because their ideogram for opportunity is their ideogram for crisis. We are in a crisis state as well, right? We do have white supremacists in this country.

We have a very strong anti-Semitic element in this country. We have white niggers, right? We have people that do look at the world in these terms. We're trying to break this down.

We're trying to create some civilization here, some humanity. It's a daunting task, but hopefully we can rise to the occasion. I mean, we can stereotypically say, well, what do you expect from Dallas? Right? I mean, I can do that.

I say, well, that's just a southern redneck. He might be a, sounds like he's a liberal. You know, he might be a, what, excuse me? She, I'm sorry.

So there, stereotype. Something like that must come from a man. So, you know, the idea is that we can, it's very easy to stereotype pigeonhole people, do these things, but unfortunately it creates a lot of animosity, a lot of turbulence and trouble.

The Example of Jihad and Crusade

Another example of that is the word jihad, which is a very, very high word in Islam. It's not a low, I mean, it's seen as a really, in the same way we use a crusade in our culture, a crusade is a good thing. He led a crusade against drugs.

In the Muslim culture, crusade has a very negative connotation. Right? It does. For English-speaking Muslims who know the word crusade, it really conjures up people coming in and slaughtering and attacking and pillaging the Muslim heartland.

So, you know, language is very, very problematic and I personally, you know, I just, this is something we live with. You know, I think being, for me, being an American who became a Muslim was very interesting for me because I grew up part of the dominant culture. I am, you know, I'm a white American.

I went to very elite schools in this country. You know, I had very, a lot of opportunities a lot of other people didn't have. But then becoming a Muslim and seeing how, you know, a lot of Americans relate to me as a Muslim, you know, it suddenly changes.

Personal Reflections on Identity

And I did change my name, which you don't have to. I was quite young when I became Muslim and a name was given to me and I took it. And I don't know if it's really that wise of a thing to do because I think it creates this idea that, well, you have to be an Arab to become Muslim or you have to, you know, there are many American Muslims that do not change their name, right? But the fact that I do have my legal name is my Muslim name has really caused some very interesting things to happen to me.

And my wife, she's, you know, Native American, Mexican, Indian. She, you know, because she wears the hijab, she, during the Gulf crisis, you know, she was spat at, told to go home, go back where you came from. Right, it

was kind of ironic because, you know, I told her, you know, you need to tell them that you don't need to get on a plane or a boat to go back where you came from.

I mean, she's from here. Her roots are from the Sonora Desert. So, very interesting.

You know, and she was in a supermarket once with the hijab and there was a young Mexican girl and, you know, the baby was in the basket and the woman wanted to put the groceries into the basket and they were both Mexican and one of them said to the other, you know, in Spanish, just knock him out of the way. And, you know, my wife was so upset about that and she's a very gentle soul. She didn't say anything.

I told her, you should have told them that I speak Spanish and I got upset. I went back to the store, you know, and I just saw the manager and I told him what happened. I also reminded him that a good, because it's a store right next to a very large Muslim population.

They have a lot of Muslims that buy there which is always bottom line if you can bring that in and get some action, right? So, I just told him what happened. He was really horrified and, you know, said he would talk to the people, but, you know, we forget that, that these things do happen. It's very interesting occurrences to feel the brunt of that, you know, black like me, that type of thing where you suddenly realize there is another world of experience for other people and for the Muslim it's just by the fact that they're Muslim.

It's not, you know, yeah, it's very interesting. So, it goes back to some real basic prejudices and some basic things and hopefully, you know, I tend to be an optimist. I'm skeptical of a lot of things, but I tend to be an optimist.

Maintaining Hope and Optimism

And the Qur'an does say, don't despair. It's not a good thing to do. It's the only unforgivable sin for the Catholics.

So, uh-huh. Don't despair. Again, it's part of, you know, if you go in the way I look at it, humanity had a beginning just like I had a beginning as a child.

I've grown into my adulthood. I will grow old if I have a full life. I may even become decrepit at the end of my life, right? This is part of the natural process.

You know, humanity had its maturity. It will have its decay and it will have its old age and it will have its decrepit period and then it comes to an end for something new to happen from my perspective. So, you know, the way the Muslims view everything is majesty, beauty.

And God, according to the Qur'an, is the possessor of majesty and beauty. They're both from God. So we are in a very majestic time.

The Challenges of Our Time

We're in a time where there's a lot of tribulation. This country alone, we don't, I don't think we realize the extent of our troubles in this country. If we just look at the natural disasters in this country, you know, in the 1980s, insurance companies were paying out $5 billion a year in terms of natural disasters.

We're now paying $5 billion a week. You know, we've had a lot of devastation in this country just in the last 10 years just in terms of natural disasters. Our topsoil is disappearing, right? We're grossly overusing our resources.

Our children are really getting lost in a lot of very confusing messes. Our media is extraordinarily, you know, pervasive and the violence that it's putting out there and a lot of very negative messages. In the midst of that, there are some very positive things happening.

You know, and I would tend to rather be identified and be part of what's positive than just, you know, what one man said or Heidegger said as well. We're way beyond pessimism and optimism. Depression's a luxury.

The world's coming to an end. I'm depressed, you know. No, this is the age.

You know, this is the age. It's like the way I look at it. You know, there's a scene in Gone With The Wind where she's running through Atlanta and everybody's just stretched out, you know, wounded.

Choosing to Remain Positive

You can either run through it or you can just sit and offer somebody water and pat them on the back and just say, you know, we're human. This is it. This is the human condition.

It's awesome. It's incredible. It's glorious.

It's majestic. It's beautiful. It's intense.

It's tragic. It's comic. It's all these elements and that's part of the power and the wonder of the whole thing.

So I'm going to choose to remain positive about it and I hope all of you do too. You're teachers. You can't get depressed.

You know, I saw a wonderful program once on PBS which was about the black schools and they were a very, very powerful experience. But there was a white man who had been teaching in inner cities for a very long time since the early 1960s and he was just saying how bad it was getting and that he was losing hope and that just the faces, you know, the lack of light in these young black children's faces in these inner cities, it was just driving him. And he was literally saying, I'm just losing hope.

I'm giving up. And the black man jumped up and he said, you know, we've suffered. We went through slavery. We went through coming over the Great Crossing. He said, you're not going to tell us there's no hope. We sang songs to get us through it, you know.

The Joy of the Human Being

And that's the joy of the human being. We're people of hope like the rats and if the rats, you know, can do it.

You know, we can do it.

Really. That's our greatness that we do have hope and despite all the odds, right? So let's hopefully we're not like the people on the Titanic that think the ship's unsinkable and get too arrogant, right? The band plays on and we all go down.