Islam’s Universal Values

Islam's Universal Values

Opening Salutations and Acknowledgments

Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, wa salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam wa ala ikhwanihi man al-anbiya wal-mursaleen. First of all, I want to thank you for this honor, but also thank so many distinguished people who are taking time out of, I know, very busy lives. Ministers, I was mentioning to the minister, Lee, earlier that in Arabic, the word for minister is wazir, which means the one who carries burdens.

It's not like minister in English is you're ministering things, but wazir is a real, the burden of states and the difficulties that it takes to run. And the safir is the one who reveals the intentions of his country. Safir in Arabic means the one who yusfiru ahwara dawlatihi.

So these are ancient traditions, ministers and ambassadors. We're the inheritors, as a species, we're the inheritors of ancient traditions, and we're attempting to get better at them. So really, I'm honored that you would come out to listen to me.

Understanding Different Perspectives

Part of this exercise, when we come and think about another religion, because I want to speak from the perspective of Islam, which is not in any way to detract or to insult or diminish the worth of these other great traditions that give so much solace to people, whether it's Buddhism or Hinduism or Christianity or Judaism or Zoroastrianism or any of these traditions that have attempted to help humans navigate the complexities of life on earth and the difficulties. We have a character in our tradition called Joha, and he was once on the side of a river and a man on the other side called out, how do I get to the other side? And Joha said, you're already on the other side. And that's part of the problem, is that we tend to look solely from our perspective and fail to see the perspectives of other people.

Islam's Global Presence

And so what I'd like to do is look just at the tradition, our tradition. Islam claims almost 2 billion people now. It's considered the fastest growing religion, not so much from proselytizing, because Muslims tend to have a lot of children, and we tend to teach our children our religions.

So we've got probably 1.7, 1.8 billion Muslims. It's almost, it's one-fifth of humanity. These are a lot of people who have some relationship with Islam.

Christianity is the other religion that exceeds Muslims in numbers, and then Buddhism and Hinduism have very large numbers. Judaism is a much smaller religion, but very influential, especially on the Abrahamic faiths. The three great proselytizing religions in human history are Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.

The Concept of Da'wah: Invitation, Not Coercion

And part of the reason for that is they wanted to share their religion with other people. They believed that this was true, and they wanted to go out and take it. And also because in the case of Christianity and Islam, they were told to go.

But the word in Arabic for telling people about your religion is traditionally called da'wah, which literally means an invitation. An invitation is only real if it's open to rejection. And this is why the Quran clearly states:

"Let whoever wants believe in this and whoever wants disbelieve in it."

I mean, the Quran says there's consequences, but whether you believe in that or not is up to you. And so:

"There is no compulsion in religion."

This is one of the great universal values of the Islamic tradition, that there's no coercion or compulsion in the religion.

Interfaith Understanding as a Security Necessity

We have the former president of Hartford Seminary here tonight, and they have a center there, Duncan MacDonald, who was a great Islamic scholar. Duncan MacDonald said that the world will not be at peace until the three great militant and proselytizing religions come to some knowledge of one another, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. And there's great truth to that. Interfaith now is a security issue for states.

It's become a security issue. The states that represent our peoples around the world have to be more interested in religion because even though Time Magazine declared God is dead about 55 years ago, God tends to ignore those declarations and come back again and again. These religions will not go away.

Religion Endures Through Technology

If you saw the film Gravity, one of the interesting things about that film is that as this person went to the, first went to the Chinese satellite, the Chinese space station, and there was a Buddha in there. So despite all that massive technology, the Buddha is still around. And then when he went to the Russian satellite, when she went to the Russian satellite station, there was an Orthodox icon from Christianity reminding us that Christianity is still around no matter how far we get into outer space.

And finally, part of the purpose of that was to show that we will only survive if we work together helping one another. The Quran says to cooperate in righteousness and in piety, in dutiful piety, to cooperate. This verse was

revealed about Muslims working with other people. It wasn't revealed about Muslims working with themselves. It was revealed to the prophet about working with other peoples. So it's very strong.

Rejecting the Narrative of Islam as Evil

Now one of the problems currently is that we have this crisis of Islam as this evil religion. And there are many people, unfortunately, in my country, in the West, in Europe, and increasingly in other parts of the world, like Burma, that are seeing Muslims as incompatible with their societies. Fortunately, the wisdom of this state here, Singapore, has rejected that narrative and has shown, I think, great wisdom that we can learn from as a people.

But one of the things that I hear constantly is, why don't Muslims condemn these acts? And I can really assure you that since 9-11, that's about all I've been doing. And yet, people don't seem to be hearing the message, which led a professor, Dr. Todd Green, an associate professor at Iowa's Luther College, to write a book called Presumed Guilty, why we shouldn't ask Muslims to condemn terrorism. In other words, Germans should not have to answer for Hitler.

Individual Acts Do Not Define Religions

There are different people than that time. The Christians should not have to answer for the Crusades. Catholics even should not have to answer for some of the crimes of some of their priests.

And I feel like telling my Catholic friends, Catholicism is now being tainted with a heinous crime against children. That's not Catholicism. That's the acts of some people that have nothing to do with Catholicism, because they've broken every rule of Catholicism.

And the same is true for us as Muslims. We reject entirely this idea that Islam has anything to do with terror. So I want to speak in broad strokes from a normative perspective.

Speaking from Normative Islamic Tradition

And what I mean is, I'm not going to talk about descriptive Islam. I want to talk about Islam from a normative tradition that I'm a student of. My Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya is a master of. He spent his life, probably starting at about the age of six or seven, and now in his 80s, really completely committed to that tradition.

The Central Teaching: Devotion and Service

So I want to look first at, what is the central teaching of the Quran? And if we reduce it to a central teaching, one of the great scholars of Islam, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, said all of Islam could be reduced to two words, devotion to the Creator and service to His creation. This is very similar to Rabbi Hillel, one of the great Jewish rabbis from 2,000 years ago, who said that all of the Torah is love God, serve God, and serve the neighbor, take care of the neighbor.

And everything else is commentary, that this is at the essence of our teachings. But often, because of the nature of our teachings, there are problems. So I want to look at just what that means, the oneness of God, and then look at what is the essential message that human beings should take from that.

And then something about tribulation and the nature of tribulation, and then something about Sharia, and then some of these values. And I hope I don't want to scare you away. This looks like a book, but it's just big print. So I hope I don't bore you.

Radical Monotheism: The Oneness of God

If you investigate the Quran, what you'll find is the central teaching of the Quran is what some scholars outside of Islam have called radical monotheism, the idea that God is radically one. Obviously, Muslims differ with Christianity in that Christians believe in one God, but they have a triune conception of that God.

And Judaism obviously believes in one God. So these three Abrahamic faiths share the idea of one God with some different conceptions of how that manifests. But the Arabic word for that is tawhid, which linguistically means to make one.

So the person who does this is called muwahid, the one who makes one. In other words, making God one.

The Mind's Natural Function: Making Unity from Diversity

And in logic, logic studies three aspects of our intellects. The first aspect is what they call simple apprehension, and then the second is about judgment, and the third is about reasoning. How you get from something you don't know from things you know. And this is what traditional logic studied.

But that first act of the mind, which is called conception, is based on the idea that our minds are constantly making one. The only reason that we can actually communicate is because of the ability to universalize the particular. When I speak about a glass of water, for instance, the only reason that you know what I'm saying is because you've abstracted the idea of glass.

So the particular glass is understood in a universal way. You've made the many one in your mind. And the same is true for water, because water is all over with different tastes and flavors and colors.

But you make it one. So I can say, could you get me a glass of water? And I'm not talking about Evian water, or I'm not talking about Perrier water, or some adjective that describes that water. You understand the one out of the many.

This is what the mind does. It makes one. And so to understand Tawhid is to understand that your mind, according to our belief, has been designed to see unity in diversity.

Diversity as a Divine Sign

And this is why the Quran says, we have made you nations and tribes, in other words, diverse, to know one another, to see the oneness in each other. The Quran says in Surat Ar-Rum, the Quran says, we have created surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth. And the diversity of your tongues and your complexions is a sign of God.

It's a sign of God. Even the fact that we differ, these are all signs of God. And so this human ability to make one not only enables language, but also reveals the very purpose of our existence, the devotional making of one in our understanding, the very one who unveils oneness in this diverse world of multiplicity through the manifestation of divine acts and attributes, the signs of which disclose the sole source behind them for those who reflect.

God's Attributes: Manifest and Hidden

The Quran says, God is the first without beginning, the last without end, outwardly manifest and inwardly hidden. Outwardly manifest in the diversity of the attributes that manifest in the world, but inwardly hidden in the essence of his oneness. And I use his here, Arabic tends to use the masculine to contain the feminine.

One of the interesting things about Arabic, when there's no ambiguity, it just uses, like a pregnant woman is Hamil, not Hamila. It just uses to get out of the ambiguity. So the masculine, just like men contain X and Y, like we've got X and Y. Like I always say, you know, to, because I had four sisters and they'd say, oh, you don't understand that you're not a woman.

I said, I've got a Y, X chromosome in there. So I've got more woman than you have man in you because you've got two.

The Fitrah: Natural Belief in a Creator

So the Quran also makes an argument that this is a fitrah belief, the idea that there's a creator behind this. And this is called the law of causation. One of the things Fakhr al-Din al-Razi says that if you take a child, and I actually did this with my kids, experimented on this. He said, if you take a child and you hide a child, even like at two years of age, and you throw a pebble from a hidden place, the child will crawl to see the source of it or turn his head to look where it came from.

The child does not just assume that it popped into existence, because the law of causation is fundamentally embedded in the human being. And so when Pharaoh in the Quran says, What is the Lord of the worlds? Moses says, you know very well that only the Lord of the world, the heavens and the earth could have given me these miracles. So in essence, it was saying these are clear proofs of who it is.

And so this is the idea. Muslims really believe that it is a fitrah belief. It's part of the principal nature of the human to believe in God.

The Shahada and Ultimate Reality

And so at the essence of the Islamic teaching is the idea, Know that there's nothing worthy of worship except ultimate reality, which is worthy of worship. Now, Hinduism believes, and there's a lot of Muslims think Hinduism is a polytheistic faith. Hinduism is a complex faith, but they have an understanding of ultimate reality, which is the nirguna reality of God without any attribute.

And certainly Judaism and Christianity and Islam. Buddhism has a belief in an ultimate reality and also has an object of devotion. So they do have devotional, even though the Buddha did not articulate it in the Abrahamic articulation.

Understanding God Through Negation

So I'm going to go for the want of time. I had quite a bit on this subject, but I will just say one thing that to understand God, the most important verse in the Quran is 42:11:

"There is nothing like Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing."

And so the Muslims, like the Catholics, believe in what's called the via negativa, understanding God through what God is not. And so our theologians say anything that occurs to your mind is not God.

And so we don't accept any conception of God, not a male, a female, not androgynous, no conception of God. God is beyond our comprehension. And the Quran literally says that you can never comprehend God, but God comprehends you. And so that's very important.

Divine Surveillance and Self-Accountability

The second aspect, and I took this from Muhammad al-Amin al-Shinqiti, who said that one of the most important messages in the Quran is the idea that God is watching us. And one of the interesting things about modern society is now that we have this surveillance state.

It's very interesting because we're not surveilling ourselves. If human beings actually surveilled themselves, we would have no need for states to be watching what we're doing, right? They wouldn't have that fear if we were actually living in accordance with virtuous life. And so the state then uses this as an excuse to extend power.

But the important thing is, and in our tradition, is that we should be watching ourselves. And this comes from the idea that God has the ultimate surveillance state. So we actually believe that everything that we're doing is being recorded, not by the NSA in the United States, by the angels.

And that this, that we actually have a tradition, it's called al-ard, where you will see the film of your life on the day of judgment. And so you have to watch. But just to give you some help on this, you can buy an app called

Sony Pro Cut.

So when you make a film, you can actually edit out parts. That's called repentance. So you can actually have your own director's edition of your film by just asking forgiveness and having that edited out.

The Hypocrisy Test: Divine Awareness

So, but unfortunately, some people are going to have real horror films on the day of judgment, and God help us, you know. So, but anyway, he argues that, you know, if one of the things, one of the hypocrisies of our species, and I am completely guilty of this, and I admit this, is that when we're driving and breaking the law, and I know they don't do that in Singapore, but in America we do. When we're driving and there's nobody around, we, I'll go faster than I should, because the sign says 65 and I'm at like maybe 80, all right, sometimes 90 if I'm late.

And, but the minute you see a police officer, you just slow down. Now in religious terms, that's called hypocrisy, right? And I actually have a friend who once saw all these cars slowing down, and he just kept right on, he flew way past the cop. The cop pulled him over and said, why did you do that? He said, I just didn't want to be a hypocrite.

So, God is watching us. This is our belief, and this should regulate your behavior, hopefully. Unfortunately, it doesn't do it for a lot of people. We're a weak species, and that's why repentance is so important, this idea of, and one of the things that's fascinating about humans is we have a need for repentance.

The Human Need for Repentance

We have a need, if we're healthy. I mean, there's sociopathic people that don't seem to have any need for this, but if we're healthy, we have a need and a desire to make amends.

If we hurt somebody's feelings, you know, I said something the other night that I went back and I thought, I shouldn't have said that. He might have taken that wrong, and I sent a text and I just said, you know, could you excuse me? I didn't mean that. I hope you didn't take that wrong.

It was because I didn't want to hurt that person or make him think that I was belittling him in any way. And so, this is something that human beings have and should be cultivated in our children as young people. I mean, once my son, my oldest son once came to me.

He was probably about 10 years old, and he said, he was crying, and I said, what is it? And he said, I did something really bad. I said, what? He said, I went on the computer without your permission, because we had a rule in the house. And I didn't scold him.

What I said was, that feeling that you have, never let go of that. Never lose that feeling, because that's your conscious speaking to you. When you do something right, your conscience will tell you that that's wrong or right.

And so, follow that. Because our prophet said that sinfulness is what troubles the heart. It troubles the heart. And so, that's a very important aspect of life on earth.

Ihsan: Worshiping as Though You See God

So, this idea of understanding that God is there is called ihsan. The prophet said, it's to worship God as if you see God. And if you don't, you know at least that God sees you. And that's at the essence of our tradition of really understanding.

Life as Tribulation: A Universal Truth

Now, the second, again, I'm really going through this quite quickly. I'm just ignoring a lot of things. But I want to talk about another aspect of Islam. One of the universal truths that Islam teaches is a truth that Buddhists also have.

The idea that the world is tribulation. This is a difficult place. It's amazing that we're as sane as we are, given the real hardships of life on earth. Could you imagine being in a place right now like Syria or Libya or these places? These are great tribulations that fall on people. And may your country be protected from any of these tribulations, from civil strife and all these things. But they do happen.

We also have personal problems, illnesses. One of the things that the Quran says is that God created the heavens and the earth. He created you to try you. The tribulation is part of the purpose of life on earth. That suffering is part of life on earth. Mental anguish, all of these things.

Growth Through Resistance

Why? According to our tradition, because this is where we grow from. This is how we grow from. We grow through struggle. We grow through resistance. If you want to build muscles, you have to have resistance. If you want to build your soul, you have to have resistance.

The body needs resistance. In fact, if you're in gravity where you're weightless, you will lose all your tone eventually because there's no resistance. If you're weightless spiritually, if there's no resistance, your soul will atrophy.

And so this is really an important aspect. The Quran, again:

"He who created death and life to test you as to which of you is best in deed."

One of the most important verses in the Quran, I think, is the Quran says:

"We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient."

Stoicism in the Face of Tribulation

And this is a stoic view of life. But one of the things that's happening in my country is everybody has become so hypersensitive. And this life is difficult. It's very hard. If you look at some of the greatest people in our contemporary history, people like Muhammad Ali or Nelson Mandela, these are people that went through great tribulations in their lives.

And what makes them great is that stoicism in the face of that tribulation. That Nelson Mandela could come out of prison after being unjustly imprisoned for all of those years and have no feelings of vengeance against the people that did that to them without not even coming from a religious perspective, coming from some deep humanistic understanding of life on earth. That is something that we marvel at, but it's something we should admire also and attempt to emulate.

Balance: Neither Excessive Grief Nor Pride

And so this is very important. Now the reason that the Quran talks about bala and fitna, and these are words that are mentioned over 80 times in the Quran, tribulation and trial. They're mentioned over 80 times.

"In order that you not despair over what has eluded you and not exult in what He has given you."

So that you do not grieve over what you don't get and you don't become overjoyed with pride about your prosperity. One of the interesting things, I have a Chinese doctor who actually taught me qigong. And so my Chinese doctor told me that in Chinese medicine, grief and extreme grief and extreme joy are extremely dangerous for the heart.

That people can actually die from overjoy, like too much joy. And this is what the Quran is saying. Don't get too overjoyed about what you have and don't grieve. Just find that middle space and recognize that the grief can be removed in an instant and that joy can be lost in a moment. I mean, this is one of the aspects of life.

Prosperity Is Not Divine Favoritism

Another thing that the Quran reminds us of is not to see prosperity as God's blessing to you over other people. This is one of the things, I mean, we had a politician in my country who called certain countries, he just used a really scatological bad term. I won't repeat it because our prophet said, don't use obscenities. But one of the things that's really tragic about that, there's a great film from the 1960s where there's a leprechaun and there's a man, there's a racist man and they bury his pot of gold so there's three wishes to it.

And the racist is talking about black people and the person's over the pot of gold and says, you know, I wish you were black. And the guy turns black and suddenly he has to live as a black man. And it would be really, people don't understand that it's just arbitrary where you're born.

If you're born in Eritrea, it's very difficult to travel. What crime did you commit in being born in a country? And if you're born into great privilege, that is a responsibility. This idea somehow that we're superior because we have prosperity or a more powerful country is a demonic idea.

And this is why the Quran says:

"As for man, when his Lord tries him by honoring him and favoring him, he says, 'My Lord has honored me.'"

(Quran 89:15)

And yet, if he tries him through constriction and probation, he says, my Lord has humiliated me. This is a false understanding.

Both Wealth and Poverty Are Tests

Poverty is a tribulation, but wealth is a tribulation. The Quran says both are tribulations. That God tries you with goodness and with difficulty. He tries you with great wealth. He tries you with great poverty. And this is a very important lesson to learn because it creates empathy and compassion.

The Cultivation of Mercy

One of my heroes is a Catholic saint called Edith Stein, who wrote a book called The Problem of Empathy.

What is empathy phenomenologically? Why do some people experience the pain of other people and other people can just look at it with contempt? This is a real human problem. And this is why the cultivation of mercy is at the essence of the values of Islamic tradition.

Our prophet, and this is the first hadith that we're taught as Muslims when we study in the hadith chain tradition. This is the first hadith that I heard from my teacher with a chain all the way back to the Prophet. And it is:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi 1924)

"Those who show mercy will be shown mercy by the Most Merciful. Have mercy on those on earth, and the One in heaven will have mercy on you."

Man is called صيغة العموم in Arabic, it means generally. Have mercy to everyone and God will have mercy to you. Sometimes mercy is taking the sword out of the hand of a madman.

So it's not always just accepting what people are doing but mercy is what should motivate us. Compassion for other people and this is why this is a core value. Our Prophet:

"We only sent you as a mercy to the worlds."

The Shariah Is Fundamentally Merciful

So this is at the essence and this is why it was mentioned earlier by our noble scholar and your Mufti and you should be very, I think it was, it actually might have been the scholar from the Emirates but no, I think it was you mentioned of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. Yes, your Mufti mentioned today, this is a core understanding of our tradition. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah said the entire sacred law is merciful.

So if it goes from mercy to cruelty, it's not from the sacred law. The entire thing is wisdom. If it goes from wisdom to folly, it's not the sacred law. The entire thing is common benefit, common weal, maslaha. So if it goes from benefit to harm, it's not from the sacred law. And finally, it's all wisdom.

So if, and justice. And so if it goes from justice to tyranny or oppression, it's not from Islam. So that's a really important aspect.

The Danger of Moral Relativism

Again, I'm going, people can read this when I, if they want to. Another really important thing is the difference between vice and virtue. One of the problems in my country now is moral relativism.

One of the most important things about human beings, and when I taught ethics, I began with the Analects of Confucius, which is virtue ethics. The idea of the good human being. All of our religions share profound concepts of virtue.

Honesty is a virtue in every country. Integrity is a virtue in every country. Courage is a virtue. Truth is a virtue. The idea of temperance is a virtue. Justice is a virtue.

These are not relative concepts. We might have some different conceptions. So there is room. We can have different conceptions of justice. But the essence of justice is the same. This is very important to not allow relativism to destroy our cultures and the Prophet ﷺ said, I was only sent to perfect the virtuous character.

Pre-Islamic Virtues and Islamic Reform

In other words, virtue was embodied in pre-Islamic Arab tradition. They had many beautiful qualities and the Prophet ﷺ acknowledged those qualities. But then they had things that needed to be removed.

Their view that women somehow, a female child was a blemish for the man. One of the beautiful aspects of Islam is that the Prophet ﷺ said there's greater reward in raising a daughter. And Imam al-Ghazali said, a true

believer will prefer daughters over sons.

This completely changes that paradigm of seeing the daughter as some kind of trouble or blemish. No, women are a great gift. The womb in Arabic, the name for, for, I mean we forget woman, you know, womb, man.

You know, it's the woman, this is the secret of kinship bonds comes from the womb. And this is why in Arabic, kinship bonds are called Silat al-Rahm, the bonds of the womb that tie us together. And this is one of the secrets.

The Prophet's Love for Women

And the Prophet ﷺ said, from this world, I was made to love women. And that is not in any way a sexual or lustful statement. He loved the brittleness of women.

He loved the fact that they cried easier than men. This is not something to be ashamed of or to be a blemish. This is something that he saw as a virtue, that there was more brittleness in that nature.

And one of our great Andalusian scholars said that of all the manifestations of God in the earth, the greatest is in the woman because of mercy. Because this is at the essence of God's nature. And this is why the Hadith Qudsi says that I have derived the womb, Rahm, from my name, Ar-Rahman, the Merciful.

So the very name for what a woman has at the center of her being is the name, it's derived from the name of God, the Merciful. This is something I think very extraordinary about our tradition. And the fact that we don't qualify it.

Understanding the Shariah

And then, so I'm going to just do a few concluding points about just the Shariah. The Shariah is grossly misunderstood. The vast majority of Shariah, I have a book, several volumes of the Shariah.

The section that deals with governance is the smallest section in the entire book. And yet this is the section that everybody sees as the Shariah. The biggest sections in Islamic Shariah, sacred law, is prayer and purification.

And then the next biggest section is the laws of marriage because of all the problems that happen there. But if you follow those rules, your marriages will tend to be sound. And believe it or not, the vast majority of the rules actually privilege the woman over the man.

Women's Rights in Islamic Law

And I'll just give you one example. Only recently, economists have thought about the GDP in relation to non- remunerated services in houses. Like all these women that traditionally have been in houses doing all this work.

From the very beginning of Islam, that was understood as work. And this is why in my school, the Maliki school, a woman can charge her husband for laundry or cooking or any of these things. I'm not making this up.

If she does it, it's de gratis, you know. So you're lucky if you have a lady that's willing to do that. So now in America, we tend to try to share these. Although in the United States, one of the major reasons for divorce is disputes over domestic chores, right? Because we have women working and also the husband often expects them to do the traditional things that women have done.

The Penal Code and State Authority

So in terms of, you know, there's two things that I want to say. One, the penal code of Islam, this is sole prerogative of a state. And they can apply them or not apply them based on their judgment, whether the context is applicable or not. So that's very, very important.

Jihad: National Defense, Not Individual Vigilantism

And so one of the most important things then is the idea of jihad. Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya says that in the early period of Islam, there was a debate about whether there was a preemptive type of jihad, an offensive jihad. He said, in the modern context, anybody that does not see the resolution of this debate and the prohibition of any type of offensive jihad is insane.

And he also argues that jihad, in essence, in modern parlance, would simply be termed national defense, just in terms of the military understanding of jihad, because there are also non-military understandings. But that is the sole prerogative of a state. Individual actors cannot do that.

It's absolutely prohibited. And so these terrorist organizations that make these claims are making false claims.

Blasphemy Laws in Modern Context

So a really important aspect, and this is something, is blasphemy laws. The Quran is very clear:

"There is no compulsion in religion." (Quran 2:256)

We're living in a time, in pre-modern world, most of our religions had blasphemy laws. Christianity certainly did. That last person executed in England was in the late 18th century. The modern world, the purpose of blasphemy laws was to protect religion.

In our current environment, implementing blasphemy laws has the opposite effect. It alienates people from religion. So you lose the spirit of the law itself if you don't understand the context of what you're living.

So that's very important. And the Quran, Tahir ibn Ashur says that we should see that verse as, there's no coercion in the religion, as abrogating any other verses that would indicate otherwise, because it was a very late verse.

Respecting Other People's Beliefs

Another thing that Quran prohibits, and this is very important for the Muslims here. The Quran prohibits making fun, mocking, or attacking, or cursing, or denigrating the beliefs of other people, even people that worship idols. The Quran is very clear in 6:108. Do not curse the idols that they're calling on beside God.

So this is really important that the Prophet ﷺ did not attack other people's faith. And his religion is a religion that acknowledges the right of other people to follow what they believe.

Kindness and Gentleness in Interactions

In terms of social engagement, the Quran makes it very clear by an act of mercy from God, you were gentle in your dealings with other people. And had you been harsh and hard-hearted, they would have fled from you. And so kindness is one of the most important values of our religion. It's just the act of kindness of treating other people with kindness.

And the loss of that is something terrible in a society when people begin to act puffed up.

Obeying the Laws of the State

The Quran also commands us to obey the states we live in, irrespective of whether they're Muslim states, or states that are secular, or follow other traditions. The Quran says:

"O you who believe, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you." (Quran 4:59)

It doesn't designate them as Muslim or non-Muslim. And the traditional understanding might have been that that means the Muslim ruler. But by consensus of our scholars, if you go into a state and you have to obey the laws, and this is something the Mufti, all of us, this is what we learn.

So you cannot go into a state and break the laws of the state. It's extremely important.

Family Obligations

Taking care of family, this is another one of the universals of Islam, taking care of families.

Responding to Aggression with Good

Also, one of the most important things in Islam is how do we engage with other people in terms of who actually aggress upon us. If you're a government, you can behave in a certain way. Because coercive power is the sole prerogative of a government.

So they can use, what do you do as an individual? According to the Quran, you can defend yourself if somebody's trying to kill you. But the Quran actually tells you constantly to turn the other cheek. This is a teaching that the Christians know very well.

If the Quran says, if somebody wrongs you, repay him with a good deed, with a right, and you will find that he'll become like a close friend. Not everybody, but most people will respond that way. And so this is very important.

Avoiding Suspicion and Thinking Well of Others

The Quran also says, avoid suspicion. Think the best of people. I was with somebody last night and saw a situation that looked very dodgy to me. And I said, and he said, have a good opinion. And he was right. So it's good to have a good opinion of people.

I'll give you one example. I know an imam who once had an emergency and they went into a bar to make a phone call because it's the only open place. And he came out of the bar and there was a Muslim there that saw him.

And he's like looking at the bar and looking at the imam. And he said, Astaghfirullah. He said, no, no, no. I had to make a phone call. So that's an example of having a good opinion of people.

Treating Non-Combatants with Dignity

So again, the Quran also says that God does not prohibit you from showing righteousness and kindness to those who don't fight you or remove you from your homes. That this is, if people aren't opposing you or fighting you, treat them with dignity. Treat them with respect.

The Quran says:

"Take what is given freely, enjoin what is good, and turn away from the ignorant." (Quran 7:199)

The Quran says, if ignorant people say something to you, respond saying peace. Just say peace. There's ignorant people out there.

Maintaining Inner Peace

One of the things that I was once listening to a preacher in the United States and he said he was driving down the road and somebody cut him off and he started getting really angry. And his wife said to him, don't let that man steal your mental state from you. Just find that equilibrium.

This is called being in the hub, right? This is called being in the hub. You know, you have the wheel of fortune. You have, like the eye of the hurricane is a good place to be in a hurricane, right? And the world is a hurricane, but there is an eye in the hurricane of the world and that's your spiritual centering.

Citizenship and Religious Allegiance

My book's not over yet, but out of deference to time, because I know Singaporeans respect time and that's a good quality because our prophet had great respect for time. But I'll just, the last point that I'm going to make. This is an idea that has been introduced recently in the last 100 years or so.

This idea that you can't, you have to have absolute loyalty to Islam politically and you have to disavow any loyalty to non-Muslim political entities. According to Ahmad ibn Hanbal, this is an innovation. And he said, beware of people that call to that.

The allegiance in Islam is a spiritual religious allegiance. And Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya has written extensively on this in more than one book. That this idea that you cannot be a faithful citizen in Singapore to the Singaporean state as a Muslim is completely false.

That Islam actually not only encourages you, but it obliges you to respect the laws and obey the laws in the state. And this is not modernism. This is the traditional understanding of our religion.

The Six Universal Values of Islamic Law

And so, in conclusion, human interests by which we achieve order in this world, according to our Usuli scholars of jurisprudence and Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya is one of the greatest living ones, the first is warding off harm. And this is why in an Aristotelian understanding, we were given what's called the irascible soul. This idea of indignation and getting angry, it's to protect from harm.

And it's a good thing if it's regulated by reason. So warding off detriments, which is known by legal theorists as necessities. The upshot of this is warding off harm from these six universals, the preservation of religion, of life, of intellect, of family, of property, and of honor, of human dignity.

These are the great values of our religious tradition. And securing benefit, which is known to legal theorists as needs. Some of its subsidiaries are things like trade, leases, general benefits exchanged between individuals.

Cultivating Virtue and Noble Character

And finally, adorning oneself with noble character traits. This is very important, accruing virtue. And this is something the Asian traditions are very profound traditions in doing this.

Things like filial piety, things like honesty in business transactions. Confucius, if you go to the cemetery of the family of Confucius, there are tens of thousands of people in this amazing centuries of one righteous man who

lived a righteous life. And his words live on.

And just to honor him, I'll repeat one analect. Confucius or Kung Fu Zi said, when everybody says this is good, investigate. When everybody says this is bad, investigate. And there's a great wisdom in that.

You always want dissenting voices because they often see things that you're missing.

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty

God created us as triune beings with reason, will, and appetite. We are knowers, doers, and makers. Our knowledge occurs within the immaterial reality of the intellect, our ability to abstract. And the highest abstraction involves deriving the reality of an infinite all-knowing source for this creation who is one in essence, acts, and attributes. Hence, the purpose of reason is to know the truth.

And then we're given our will to do the good, to ward off harm, to accrue benefits. And finally, we have beauty, that we have appetites that when they're healthy, they desire beautiful things. Our attraction to beauty is part of a healthy nature.

And attraction to ugliness is part of a diseased nature. And so our appetites compel us to adorn our lives with complements and family and healthy living and productive activities, such as making beneficial and enjoyable goods. Look at our word in economics, goods and services.

These are beautiful concepts. Real goods, not apparent goods, real goods. Make things that are productive, that contribute to the common weal. Serve people in ways that are beneficial to your own soul and to their souls.

And so this is realized through the useful and the fine arts, the hallmark of which expresses the beauty of a soul in union with the truth and committed to virtue. Truth, goodness, and beauty.

The Three Pillars: Iman, Islam, and Ihsan

These are the virtues and transcendentals that reflect our faith, deeds, and goods. In their restoration, we restore the three fundamental components of our religion. Iman, faith, which is rooted in truth. Islam, service of God and of others, which is rooted in goodness. And Ihsan, which is beauty and realizing what God intended for his creation.

Closing Gratitude

I thank you very much. And I hope I didn't go on too long, but I appreciate your patience. And God bless you. I feel very honored to have given this 50th anniversary talk.

I really love this country. I've been here now. And just to know that this is a country that it has its problems like all countries, but it's a country that reflects so much beauty and so much goodness.

And one of the most beautiful things about your country, it's a green country. And if you take the highest point on the rainbow, which is violet, and the lowest point, which is red, and you take the resonance of those two in terms of the infrared spectrum or the ultraviolet, and then you add them together and divide by two, you get green. Green is the most balanced of all colors.

And so you're a balanced society. May God preserve it. Thank you.