Reviving Beauty, Criticality, Creativity in Muslims Imagination

Reimagining the Role of Islam for the Future

A Public Lecture by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Organized by Mooiz Academy, Singapore

Opening Remarks and Introduction

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Thank you for attending this evening public lecture organized by Mooiz Academy. May I request everyone to be seated as we will begin our program very soon. May I also request that we put all mobile devices to silent mode to facilitate the smooth running of the program. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, announcing the arrival of President of Mooiz, Haji Muhammad Alami Musa, Chief Executive of Mooiz, Haji Abdul Razzaq Marika, Sahibul Samaha Mufti of Singapore, Dr. Muhammad Fatris Bakaram, Deputy Chief Executive of Mooiz, Dr. Al-Bakri Ahmed, and of course our guest speaker, Sheikh Hamza Yousuf, President of Zaytuna College.

President of Mooiz, Haji Muhammad Alami Musa, Chief Executive of Mooiz, Haji Abdul Razzaq Marika, Sahibul Samaha Mufti, Dr. Muhammad Fatris Bakaram, Deputy Chief Executive of Mooiz, Dr. Al-Bakri Ahmed, our eminent speaker, Sheikh Hamza Yousuf, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I begin with greetings of peace and a very good evening to all. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

My name is Shamim Sultana and I warmly welcome you to Mooiz Academy's public lecture entitled Reimagining the Role of Islam for the Future. Mooiz Academy is the research and education arm of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore. The academy aims to develop forward-looking Muslim-taught leadership so as to shape a thriving religious life for the Singapore Muslim community.

The Academy's Vision and Goals

Over the past few years, Mooiz Academy has embarked on a journey in developing public discourse series to nurture critical conversations on the role of Islam and Muslims and their positive contributions to the modern world. The themes that we will focus on this year are Islam in the Age of Deglobalization, as well as developments in Islamic thoughts, rethinking traditions and reform. The lecture is testament to our efforts in moving towards the goal of being a community of excellence.

Tonight, we are very honoured to have with us Sheikh Hamza Yousuf, an internationally renowned scholar of Islam, and he will explain the role and place of Islam in all societies and the future and the way forward for Muslims living in such challenging times. The chairperson tonight is Deputy Director of Capacity Building and Interfaith Engagement and Vice Dean of Mooiz Academy, Dr. Muhammad Hannan Hassan. Without further ado, please join me in inviting our chairperson, Dr. Hannan Hassan, for his opening remarks.

Dr. Hannan Hassan's Opening Remarks

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. His Eminence Sheikh Hamza Yousuf, Hafizahullah and Ummu Yahya, wife of Hamza Yousuf, I think I need to acknowledge that because I think, I strongly believe that we will not be where we are now, especially at least for me, without my wife. So his wife is also an important part of Sheikh Hamza Yousuf's life. Ms. Heo Chi Hen, Permanent Secretary of MCCY, President of Islam Religious Council of Singapore, Haji Alim Musa, Chief Executive of Islam Religious Council of Singapore, Haji Abdul Razak Malikar, Sahibul Samah Mufti, friends, ladies and gentlemen, Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh and a very good evening to all.

The Complexity of Arabic Language and Understanding

At this point, I remember a conversation I had close to three decades ago with one of my professors, because I asked him, why did you do a PhD dissertation of 500 pages on Al-Waw Fi Al-Quran Al-Karim? The letter Waw. And he said this to me, he said, Hanan, do you know that this letter has caused a lot of confusion and problems in understanding Al-Quran Al-Karim? Because out of the 6,000 plus verses in Al-Quran Al-Karim, Waw is used more than 9,000 times. And they have different meanings, and I can tell you it has different meanings, from one Waw to another Waw. And I shall not give you a lesson on semantics or now here, but if only you look at the Arabic word of Waw, it carries a lot of meaning, it's a conjunction, it's a preposition, it can be many other things.

And it has caused a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding of Al-Quran Al-Karim as well as our tradition. If you look at our typical old Arabic manuscript like this, this is a manuscript of Fatul Wahab, of Zakariya Ansari. You cannot make a distinction between the original writing of the Sheikh and the insertion, addition, and you don't have commas, periods, paragraphs, it's very difficult to read, let alone the writing and all.

The Challenge of Classical Manuscripts

This is an example of another manuscript, which has caused a great deal of confusion. This is what we call the Fatwa Mardin of Ibn Taymiyyah, the manuscript. And how one single word has caused a great deal of confusion between An-Yu'amal and An-Yuqata. It takes an expert, a specialist, to be able to read these things. Now I'm only talking about the form, not yet understanding the content. Even in terms of the form, and this is another, and I have plenty of them, but before it reaches to the form that we are so used to, the published computer, new fonts, beautiful fonts, from one stage to another.

And between that earlier stage to the published as we know now, there's a serious gap that we need to reconsider the way we deal with our text. Here I'm talking only about the forms, not yet the content and the meaning of the content. So then, what awaits us in the future? Our tradition from the past, to what it is now, and to the future.

Introducing Sheikh Hamza Yusuf

And for that we are fortunate to have among us this very evening, our Eminence Sheikha Hamzah Yusuf, who is well grounded in our classical, traditional texts, as well as the modern sciences. And to help us understand better our classical texts, our traditions, and to help bring us to the future, to reimagining the role of Islam, to exercise our critical reading of our texts, to be creative, innovative, and transformative in discussing about some of these difficult concepts and ideas. But you are here not to listen to me, so I shall not take much of your time.

I'm looking forward to listening to Sheikha Hamzah Yusuf, and it gives me great honor tonight to invite Sheikha Hamzah Yusuf on the stage to speak to you on the topic that's mentioned. Sheikha Hamzah, please.

Sheikh Hamza Yusuf's Lecture

Opening Gratitude and Reflections on Language

Alhamdulillah. First of all, terima kasih for the introduction, and that's almost the extent of my Malay. But I want to say about the wow that people in my country, when you're really stunned about something, you say, wow. And so, I think the wow in the Quran is a real wow, because, like you said, it's a very difficult letter.

In fact, the last stage of great scholarship in the Arabic language is called Mughni al-Labib. This was the book that traditionally scholars studied as kind of the culmination of their study and mastery of Arabic, and it's a book simply written on the prepositions and the particles in the Quran, because they're extraordinarily complicated, and we tend to forget how complicated language is, and how difficult it is to communicate. One of the great miracles of life is communication itself, the ability to actually speak with one another, and to exchange meanings, because meanings are so extraordinary. Symbols, and the fact that we are symbol makers.

I was going to do a PowerPoint, but I'm just going to forego it, because I thought about reimagining my lecture, because we're reimagining the future of Islam. It's a long PowerPoint, and I think I would rather speak directly to you, and then open it up for questions, and maybe some short comments, but I want to thank the Ministry for their presence, the Ministry of Culture and Communications there, and also to the Mufti of Singapore, Sheikh Bakaram, and also to the President of MUIS, for the invitation, and for the incredible hospitality, and also for the extraordinary organization that I witness here.

The Beauty of Excellence (Ihsan) in Action

It's really impressive to see what we call itqan in our action, which is related to ihsan also. The Prophet loved ihsan, which is making things beautiful. Nobody had to put an extraordinary array of flowers in front of this stage, but somebody just thought, wouldn't that be nice? It would make it more beautiful, and that's something that humans do for some reason. We're almost compelled to make things beautiful, and what is that?

When I was in West Africa, I was struck by the fact that the Bic pen became very widespread in Saharan Mauritania, where I studied, but they would always embellish it with colored leather strips as a cover, and I asked why, and they thought it was ugly, the Bic pen, so they wanted to embellish it. It's very interesting, because one of the things about Western culture now, even though traditionally we had a real love of beauty, much of Western culture has become very ugly, and very functional.

The Loss of Beauty in Modern Culture

In fact, clothes now, wealthy people spend an extraordinary amount of money for rags, clothes that have holes in them, that many people now, instead of adorning themselves as most traditional cultures, including the Malayu culture, adorn their clothes with beautiful embroidery or color, now they actually relish a type of ugliness in their clothes, and for the first time in human history, people wear underwear as just clothes to wear outside, like t-shirts, t-shirts were traditionally underwear, so it's one of the fascinating things about modern people, is that we're losing beauty, we're losing a sense of beauty, and for me, that's a very dangerous indication of where we're going as a species, and as a civilization.

The Centrality of Poetry in Civilization

The most beautiful thing that human beings have is language, and the most beautiful language that we have historically was poetry, and every culture is built upon poetry. There is no human civilization that does not have poetry at the foundation of its civilization. There is no Plato or Aristotle without Homer. Plato and Aristotle do not exist without the great poetry of Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is no King James Bible without the great Elizabethan poets. It was the great poetry of Elizabethan English that enabled the King James Bible to come into existence, and even though we believe the Quran is the eternal word of God, as Muslims, those of us who are Muslim here believe that, nonetheless, the Arabic poetry reached its pinnacle at the moment the Quran was revealed, because the Quran cannot be understood without incredible linguistic skills, and so there is a reason why nobody in the history of Islam has ever been able to reproduce the poetry of the Jahili Arabs.

It's considered the pinnacle of Arabian language at the moment that the Quran came down. One of the hallmarks of modern society is the loss of poetry, and this is another very deep sign that something's wrong with us as a species. In my country, there's something called rap, which undeniably has a poetic element to it, but one of the things about poetry, traditional poetry, is it was always a rigorous discipline, and some people had it naturally, as in oral cultures, but generally it was something that had to be studied, what they called prosody, or the science of metrics, and this is true in all cultures have a metrical poetry that is either related to accent or time, and these are the two interesting things about language.

Understanding Poetic Form and Meaning

The English language is largely spoken in iambic accent, a light heavy, so you have Shakespeare who largely wrote in iambic pentameter, but the natural, a lot of people who read Shakespeare don't realize that it's poetry, because it's so natural, to be or not to be, that is the question. People don't realize that that's actually beautifully

metered in an iambic pentameter, because it's the natural way that we speak, and so there's something about the beauty of language that poetry is an aspiration of every civilization, and poets were incredibly honored in cultures. The great poets of Arabia, the tribes would celebrate the birth of a poet, because they were elevated by the poets, and so it was something that was very, very important.

Arguably one of the last great poets in American civilization was Robert Frost, who was honored by Kennedy at the inauguration as being a poet to inaugurate his presidency, because Kennedy had a great love of poetry, and educated people traditionally were forced to study poetry, so that's one of the important things that I'm seeing in the world, is this loss of the rigor of poetry, and the meanings that are infused in poetry, and when language is honored, poetry is honored, and when language is denigrated, poetry loses its import in a society. People lose interest in poetry, but poets have much to tell us.

Poetry and Prophetic Inspiration

Poetry, the reason, according to Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi, the reason that the poets, the prophet was called a sha'ir, Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi, a great Algerian sheikh said, is because no one other than a poet has a type of inspiration that is very close to revelation, that there's a relationship between the inspiration of a true poet, not somebody who writes verse, but a true poet, an inspired poet, and somebody who has inspiration from God, and this is why the language of revelation is always an exalted language, and although we don't call the Quran poetry, you know, that we didn't teach him poetry, that in Surah Yasin, Allah says وَمَا عَلَّمْنَاهُ الشَّعْرَ وَمَا يَنبَغِي لَهُ (Quran 36:69) we did not teach him poetry, and it wasn't appropriate for him because of the relationship, according to Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi, because they can be confused, and so that's something that our modern education is very often lost on people, the importance of embedding meaning in language, that poetry is difficult to understand because it teaches people how to meditate on meaning.

Robert Frost's Poetry: Fire and Ice

And I will give you one example, my father once told me that it took him almost 50 years to understand one poem of Robert Frost, he had memorized it and meditated on it for that long, and during the last days of his life, he was discussing that poem, I'll give you one example, some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice, from what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire, but if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction, ice is also great and would suffice.

What Frost is talking about there is the essential human problem, what are called the hot sins and the cold sins. The hot sins are sins like human appetite, the desire to consume أَنْهَاكُمُ التَّكَاثُرُ )Quran 102:1) this desire to consume, the desire to explore sexual appetite without limits, the desire to eat without boundaries, much of the world right now that's called developed or advanced is deeply embedded in appetites, they're literally destroying themselves with the sins of fire.

The Cold Sins: Hatred and Envy

And if you look at the inequality on this planet, in the other places, it's the cold sins that are eating them up, the sins of hatred, the sins of resentment, the sins of envy, these are cold sins, and what he's saying is, I think it's fire that's going to destroy us, it's our human appetites because they override our reason, it's called the concupiscent soul in traditional ethics, but it might be the irascible soul, it might be the emotional soul of anger, but both of them suffice, both of them will do it, do the job, and the only thing that can override fire and ice in the human being is reason, is the actual intellect, and this is why every culture traditionally honored intellect.

Indigenous Wisdom and Intelligence

We now know aboriginal peoples always had wise people that they recognized and deferred to, so even at the aboriginal level, orang asli, these people understood the importance of wisdom, and their intelligence is not less than the intelligence of advanced people, we know that the idea of homo sapiens, sapiential beings, beings of intelligence, that aboriginal peoples in some ways, they can adopt and learn our advanced civilizations very quickly, and they've proven that in many places, but it's very difficult for an advanced civilized person to adapt to an aboriginal condition, they will perish in those conditions, and so that's another aspect of our species, is that these people are very important, these people were natural conservationists, they conserved their water resources.

Lessons in Environmental Conservation

I'll give you one example, I was in Muritania, one of the students, our student housing was burlap sacks, burlap sacks, that were sewn together by the women, and then we took branches of trees and built what they called a hosh, and this is how the students lived where I studied in the Sahara, very poor people, but one of the Americans came to study there after me, and he went, and he was trying to cut down a tree, and one of the illiterate people, when he saw him doing that, he ran to catch up with him, and when he caught him, he said, what are you doing? He said, I'm cutting the tree down, he said, what for? And he said, to build a hosh, he said, no, no, no, take a branch from this tree, and then go take a branch from that tree, and take a branch from that tree, don't take the whole tree, that man should be in the United Nations teaching them about environmentalism, and how to preserve our natural resources, because this consumption and overconsumption, we have a crisis all over.

The Prophetic Guidance on Conservation

In America, nobody thinks about tap water, they just let it run while they brush their teeth, our prophet said, conserve energy, conserve water even if you're on a river, a flowing river, be conservative in your use of water, why would he say that? They're living in the desert, and they would think oh, it's because it's not abundant, but even when it's abundant, you shouldn't be wasteful, the Quran says:

eat and drink, but don't be wasteful, because God doesn't love wasteful ones, the extravagant ones.

The Seven Deadly Sins and Luxury

In the seven deadly sins, the great sins of St. Gregory, the Pope of the Catholics, in his seven deadly sins, luxuria, in Latin is one of them, the sin of luxury, which is translated into lust, but this love of luxury, this desire that we get more and more and more, when is enough enough? Because it's never enough if that's your pursuit, you'll never be satisfied, the human soul will never be satisfied, it'll never be enough.

The Modern Sin of Distractibility (Acedia)

But the great sin of our time, in my estimation, especially amongst the young people, many of them right now are on their cell phones, I can see, the great sin of our time is distractibility, this is called acedia in the seven deadly sins, the sin of acedia was the sin of distractibility, the great desert monks called it the noon day devil, and they said that its quality was always to be the monk, instead of meditating, he'd go look to the window to see if anybody was passing by, he'd listen to see if anybody was in the corridors, like people now check their cell phone to see if they got an email or a text or a WhatsApp, that people now are losing the ability just to sit and be patient and think deeply about things.

The Importance of Boredom and Creativity

Boredom is very important, the quality of actually being bored is very important, malal, it's very important because this is what gives us creativity, it's the ability to just think about things, but now everybody has these machines so they're never bored anymore, they never are left to their own devices to think of something, one of the most intriguing ayahs in the Quran for me is that God said he didn't create this as entertainment, and he said if he was going to entertain himself he would do it from within himself, in other words he wouldn't create us like a television show to watch, if he was going to entertain himself he would do it from himself, and this is what creative people do, they don't need to seek an outside of themselves, they're creative in their own right, and this is more than any other time in human history we need creativity, because we are confronted with problems that have never confronted the human species.

The Nuclear Age and Changing Our Thinking

We have the problem for the first time in our human history, we have the ability to destroy ourselves, when the nuclear bomb was unleashed and the Japanese people who are in a sense your neighbors in Asia, the Japanese people felt the brunt of two nuclear bombs, and they still have people alive that have the effects of those bombs they are the most vociferous people against the proliferation of nuclear bombs, because they know the meaning of it they know what it means, when the bomb was unleashed on this world, and the Americans did it, when the bomb was unleashed Einstein said the world has changed, but we have not changed we must think anew.

Contextualizing Islam: 7th Century vs. Today

And this is one of the arguments of Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya about Islam that we cannot contextualize Islam in the 7th century, our prophet lived in the 7th century, but we live in the 15th century according to our hijra date,

and in the 21st century according to the common era or in the year Anno Domino, according to the Christians this is a different time, it's a different place the principles we believe are valid, because the prophet gave universal principles, but the particulars are not always valid because many of the particulars were that time and that place.

Rethinking Jihad in the Modern Context

So the idea now of jihad, many Muslims still believe in this idea of pre-emptive jihad, that you have an offensive jihad, Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya said that in the early period of Islam this was a khilaf, it was an issue of difference of opinion some of the ulema said no, like Ibn Taymiyyah said all jihad is defensive there is no offensive jihad, that was the opinion of Ibn Taymiyyah some of the ulema said no, like the malikis, the school I studied the madhab I studied said that jihad is wajib twice a year that you have to fight jihad twice a year and this is in our books of fiqh, Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya says that anybody that's calling to that now that will consider them clinically insane and he's not joking, because the world has changed.

The Reality of Religious Freedom Today

For the first time in human history mosques are built all over the world, including Singapore which is a secular society that honors its Muslims mosques are built here, the Muslims are honored in this country even though the people that are ruling the country by and large are not Muslim, there are some Muslims within the government but the majority of the government is not Muslim, but they're saying we honor you, we honor your religion, we honor the Buddhists we honor the Hindus, we honor the Christians, there are 10 official religions in Singapore this is the world that we need to promote.

Pre-Modern Mentality vs. Modern International Order

Today we're not in the world where the Arabs said Rome, if you don't fight it, it fights you Europe, if you don't fight it, it fights you this was the pre-modern mentality, and colonialism might have proved that opinion, but today we now have international agreements, Singapore the British left, this is an independent state Malaysia is an independent state, undeniably, there's still influences by the great powers, the G7 have powers that other countries don't have they influence the United Nations, that's true, and also the GDP of America is the largest in the world, so that's going to have an impact on the world, it also has the most powerful military, for good and for bad some of the things that it does, like monitoring the sea lanes of communication preventing piracy, many of these things are beneficial to our societies, and then there are other things about foreign policy that can be very unfortunate.

The Importance of Global Order

But overall we have a global order if we did not have this order, if this order collapsed then we see the anarchy of the Middle East, where one country eats up another country or one group becomes a criminal group that begins to terrorize other groups, the Yazidis have been protected in the Muslim civilization for centuries and

suddenly they're being taken as slaves sexual slaves in some cases, this is completely antithetical to basic human decency let alone a world religion that convinced billions of people over human history, of its truths including the South Asians, who at the essence of your culture is adab is this idea of comportment and decorum and courtesy, this is your civilization.

Islam's Peaceful Spread in Southeast Asia

Islam came here as a peaceful religion, they didn't conquer you with their swords, they conquered the people that became Muslim in this region with their hearts and this is one of the beauties of South Asian Islam, is that it's an Islam that wasn't spread by the sword it was spread by peace, now in our tradition we don't believe Islam spread by the sword, because we have no indication that the Muslims forced people to become Muslim, and in the few instances when they did, actually the caliph when he found out allowed the people to revert back to their religions, because they considered it coercion, and the Quran has a principle

there's no coercion in the religion.

Stop Being Nostalgic About the Past

Now in terms of, and I'll conclude with this, in terms of reimagining the future, the first thing we have to do is stop being nostalgic about the past, one of the interesting things about Muslim societies is there's never been a successful science fiction television program, Star Trek doesn't work in Arabia, because Muslims can't imagine the future, they're so nostalgic for the past, and this is one of the tragedies of the modern Muslim community, they're always talking about the past how great we were, this is what one of the poets he said I've become somebody that said, I used to, and I did in the past and he said, and that's the worst type of person that talks about the past.

Youth Need Hope and Aspirations

Aristotle said that young men talk about the future because they have no past and he said old men talk about the past because they have no future and the Muslim civilization is like an old man but we're not, we're filled with young people that need hope, that need aspirations, that need to actually think that the future can be better, and one of the most extraordinary hadiths in our tradition is the prophet said you don't know if the first of it is the best or the last, so we should always be optimistic and hopeful about the future, we should never despair, don't despair of God's grace.

Gratitude for Security and Good Governance

We are confronted with immense problems your community is one of the few communities, I'm talking to the Muslims now your community is one of the few communities that is living in real security, and you have to thank God for that and then you thank the government whoever is not grateful to people has not thanked God and this government wants to maintain security in their country, I'm not going to criticize the government, but I guarantee you if I studied the situation here enough I could do some criticism, because there is no government

that's perfect there never has been and there never will be, but if you're grateful for what you have God will increase it your Lord has declared

if you're grateful I will increase reasons for being grateful, there's something called so if you're ungrateful I'll give you more reasons to be ungrateful acknowledging that there are much room for improvement in any state, you have one of the most flourishing states in the world.

Hold On to Your Culture

And I'm telling you as an American who's watching my own civilization really really struggle right now morally, financially, racially in many many ways, we're having great struggles, so hold on to your culture don't recreate yourself in somebody else's image the Muslims here should not become Arabs the Arabs are Arabs because they're Arabs every culture is distinct and unique our prophet honored cultures he spoke to every tribe in their dialect, why did he do that? because he was honoring their culture, when the Yemenis came he said they were fasting and traveling, he said he spoke in a dialect, why would he do that? because he wanted to make them feel I'm one of you, I'm not different from you.

Honoring Cultural Identity

And now we have Muslims from indigenous cultures that adopt the clothes of another people and in the great book of the Shafi scholar, he said that to go against the culture of a people in the way they dress is from stupidity and foolishness because you alienate yourself, now obviously if you're a visitor to a country and you're wearing your traditional clothes, that's another thing, but when you live amongst a people you should dress like the people, and this is why the Muslims have always dressed like the cultures that they lived in obviously there are modest issues there are issues of modesty because we adhere to modesty but honor your own culture, these are your people and you should be proud of your culture and your people don't lose sight of who you are and try to be somebody who you're not.

The Prophet's Example of Cultural Inclusivity

Our prophet wore clothes from Yemen, from Ethiopia from the Byzantine, he had a Byzantine robe that was it's almost like Europeans always have had tight clothes but he had one that had the why did he wear clothes from other cultures, that wasn't the habit of the Arabs I believe he did it because nobody could say this is the sunnah of the prophet in clothes. Jazakumullah khairan wa salam alaykum.

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Dr. Hannan's Connecting Remarks

I will not attempt to summarize the presentation, but probably to make a connection to the topic of our discussion this evening reimagining Islam in the future how is this related to the theme, to the topic and my attempt to make that connection in this way one, the importance of the appreciation of language because that is

the biggest miracle that Allah, that God has granted us and not to underplay and underestimate the importance of language, after all, Quran is a language.

Secondly as Sheikh Hamzah talks about appreciation of beauty and nature, now that is very religious, when we think of religiosity we do not think only about rituals, forms and hukum of ahkam, after all we have less than 50% of verses in Quran pertaining to ahkam, the rest on ethics on appreciation of beauty and so on and so forth so as Muslims we need to think beyond simply requesting for our rights to exercise to practice the ahkam, but also to contribute to humanity, to contribute to green movement, and to minimize waste.

I can tell you how much we waste when we have our walima, when we get married and that is very core, that is very religious that is a theme, an objective that we need to contribute to humanity and to common good, and that is very religious and that is the future of Islam, we hope inshallah so without further ado we have a good one hour or so for this conversation, I am giving you that time to again reflect some of the ideas that Sheikh Hamzah has put forth a short while ago, and also probably we have some critical views of some of the ideas that Sheikh Hamzah has shared.

Announcing Live Broadcast

So what we are going to do is to collect three questions in one go, just so that we can give as many as possible the opportunity, and inshallah, just for information Sheikh Hamzah, actually these are not just the people who are listening and watching you there is a live feed at the other end, because this auditorium cannot accommodate the number of interested it is wired, so at the other end of the oh yeah, yeah, hi I wish they would have told me it is good to know that you are talking to a global possibly global audience, although we should always assume that now because everybody has cell phones and they film things but the Arabs used to say, every audience has its appropriate words, but that is not true anymore because now, it is just getting in trouble all the time for talking I am really thinking about just stopping talking at all because it is so difficult to speak now, because everybody is offended by something.

On Grievance Culture and Self-Blame

We are losing the ability just to listen, and maybe withhold judgment, and seek to understand there is so much now, that if you say something, somebody is going to be offended, some group is going to be offended this mavolumia, the Arabs call it, grievance theology, we are all grieving about something I am wronged, and there is a lot of wrongs in the world I am not going to deny that, but what I noted in reading the Quran was that the only character that is filled with blaming others is called Iblis the prophets always look to themselves and the Quran tells people to look to themselves, to change ourselves (إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّى يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ - 'inna Allaha la yughayyiru ma biqawmin hatta yughayyiru ma bi'anfusihim) (Quran 13:11) God doesn't change the conditions of a people until they change what is in their own souls.

And what struck me about that verse, thinking a lot on it, I read a book by Nakib Arsalan, that was called which was written over a hundred years ago and it is still very valid today, but that was his argument that God does not change the conditions of a people until they change themselves, in other words, it is on God to change our

conditions, it is on us to change ourselves, now what we are all preoccupied with doing is changing our conditions, and we leave ourselves alone, and so the conditions just get worse.

So, what I am trying to say ladies and gentlemen who are at the other end of the room, if you wish to ask questions, you can cross over or probably pass a note to anyone of our staff, they will assist, in the meantime, in this room any first taker, and if you wish, you can also queue so that we can first I see two handshakes, Zahid and Faisal, and also Salman helped me, okay, the first group let me just get Faisal first.

Question and Answer Session

Question 1: Preserving Malay-Muslim Identity and the Loss of Jawi

Assalamualaikum, thank you Dr. Hannan and Mr. Hamza my name is Muhammad Faisal, I would like you to take us further into what you mentioned at the end of your speech the uniqueness about the Malay Muslims here is that first Islam came about in the 14th century, so we've been with Islam since 500-600 years, so through that we have built some sort of consciousness of who we are, but the uniqueness of our time now especially to Singaporean Muslims, is that we are in the juncture of meeting points of different civilizations so we have the Arabs, we have the English, we have everyone and we are connected to the world in that sense so what we had, and as an example of that cultivation happened, assimilation happened, and all that, something was lost in our midst, for example, one of the biggest things that disappeared from us is Jawi itself which is the language of the Malays, and we have like 10,000 manuscripts that are not read, and it is within the Islamic fold of Muslim writers that have written for all these centuries, so how do we do it as Singaporeans today? How do we take it to that next level?

That's my first question, my second is that and we have a lot of us here who are young so they are the beacon of our children in the future in that sense of bringing this faith, so what is your advice to? To the youth who are the duans, who are the ones who are going to preach Islam?

Sheikh Hamza's Response on Social Media and Cultural Identity

Get off Facebook. Well they leave the Facebook and they go to Twitter and Instagram. You can tweet that out.

Well, first of all, you're right undeniably, we can't be nostalgic about a past that's gone, I agree with that, nostalgia you know the Arabs call it like the Arabs have a poetry where they look at like just stop, let's cry over the remnants of what was here before, it's a very Arab motif in a lot of their poetry and so we can't do that, globalization is a reality but the homogenization that much of globalization comes with is not a foregone conclusion and that's why I think it's very dangerous for cultures to allow this type of homogenization where you lose the distinctive qualities that make you who you are.

The Danger of Cultural Homogenization

And this is, identity politics is very big right now for the very reason that so many identities are being obliterated in the face of this globalizing force that's reimagining the world in its own image much of it's still western and I'm a western person my own ancestors came from Ireland and migrated to America on one side, on my mother's Irish side in the 1760's and my father's side in the 1830's, the Irish were under English occupation for over 700 years and their tongues were cut out for speaking Gaelic and so the Irish no longer speak their language either, the Welsh are relearning Welsh because their language was taken from them also, so this is one of the sins of the past, I don't blame modern English for this and the English have an incredible contribution to human civilization, they have a lot of sins like any great civilization but they also have a lot of incredible contributions.

The Positive Contributions of British Civilization

They outlawed the transatlantic slavery, they were the ones that did that, they policed the Atlantic to stop the transatlantic slavery it was people like Hannah Moore, incredible woman that everybody should know about or William Wilberforce with the Clapham 12, these were great people and they were people of real sincerity, very often Christian, motivated by their Christian belief, so I the past is gone and we're in the present but at the same time you do have a culture, you have traditions, you have ways of being that are your own and they enhance you, they don't diminish you and so it's very important to honor those things.

Singapore as a Model of Diversity

I think Singapore has far more to teach me than I have to teach Singapore and that's the truth, I think this is an extraordinary example of human possibility the fact that you have so much diversity in your ethnicities and yet there's so much mutual respect, I mean this is something stunning and you should be incredibly proud of it, not in a way that makes you arrogant or feeling superior to other cultures but in a way that I think places a burden on you to spread this in other places that are suffering so greatly.

Arab Culture in Crisis

I think you have far more to teach Arab culture right now than the Arabs have to teach you, I really believe this and I love the Arabs I spent much of my life studying Arab language, Arab culture, not just the Islamic aspect of it but the pre-Islamic and their literature that wasn't really Islamic and I love the Arabs, and I believe that, I'm not a Shioobi by any stretch but I think the Arab culture is in deep crisis right now and I think that some of the things that you have done here are things that need to be exported to places like Syria.

Religious Pluralism in Islamic History

Where one of the great testimonies of Islam is that the great churches that were oppressed by the Byzantine church, which was my grandfather on my mother's side was Orthodox, I was actually raised in the Orthodox tradition, the great church of the East was the Orthodox church but it was very repressive, it oppressed the

Chaldean church, the Nestorian church, the Ebionitic church, all these Semitic traditions that ended up in India for some reason, so I think it's really important to acknowledge that things have changed but at the same time there are things that are constant in you.

Identity: What Remains the Same

The word identity is from a Greek word which means the same, that's why we call it identical because it's what remains the same that gives you your identity, if you lose that quality you lose your identity so you don't want, I mean one of the things the world is suffering from today is what I call spiritual Alzheimer's disease, they've forgotten that they have a soul, that we're not just matter, that we're also immaterial and this is something very important.

Advice to Youth: Walking and Family Time

In terms of the youth, the youth have challenges today that are unprecedented, in some ways, you know my mother was at a grocery store, she died last year, she was 96 when she died, and when she was born there was an Ottoman Caliph so it shows you, it's amazing history, it's not that far gone, but she was in a grocery store and for some reason in America at the checkout they put all these national inquirer and these weird like aliens in the White House they have headlines that are very weird and then they so this very old lady looked at my mother who was very elderly at that point and she said, aren't you glad we're on our way out?

We don't want our youth to start thinking that and one of the signs of the latter days is that young people are depressed when they get pregnant, that pregnancy should be a great joy, it shouldn't be a means of sorrow people walk by graves and say I wish I was in his place and the Prophet said they have no debt, you know because debt used to really burden people, so he was saying that it's just from hum, just from stress, so the modern world is very stressful and I think we're losing sight of important things like just sitting and having family dinners together and having tea you know tea, these human things that make us human are very important.

The Healing Power of Walking

And you know they say that nobody on their death bed says I wish I spent more time at the office you know we forget about family and just being human and this is something that many traditional cultures really understood, just the importance of down time of just going out and walking walking is the biggest antidepressant we know literally, walking in nature is more effective than any antidepressant drug that we have and you can read a Harvard study that was done showing this Kierkegaard said and he was very melancholic he said I was never depressed except I took a long walk and by the end of it I felt joyful, just walking, I mean we've lost, we're humans, these legs weren't built for sitting around. Thank you very much.

Question 2: Creative Minority and Cognitive Dissonance

As you can see Sheikh Hamza has a lot to share, so what I'm going to do if you allow me Sheikh Hamza to collect three questions, one goal and then probably can respond collectively, probably they are related so I invite, can I get the ladies first, we've got a lady here wanting to ask a question, I'll invite you and then after that and followed by Tan please.

Assalamualaikum Sheikh, thank you for being here I just wanted to, I looked at the word imagine and when I think about the word imagine I think you have to be creative in order to be able to reimagine the role of Islam and I started to think about the role of a creative minority in a community, the world created by the role of the creative minority like Toynbee's concept, and I really like the idea of the creative minority because you've got to be, when you have to reimagine a role of the future, you have to be creative and you have to be dynamic and I feel that the voice of the creative minorities is what's needed in a majority that's diverse like Singapore, however when I was reading something it says that when you have to be creative it demands a finessing of identities which is exactly what we spoke about, how important it is to have a strong root with our identity, but it also says something along the lines of being willing to be in a state of cognitive dissonance. Of cognitive dissonance? Yeah, so I'm just wondering if you could elaborate on what cognitive dissonance means when you are in a creative minority, I mean you have to be a creative minority in a diverse community like Singapore. Thank you.

Question 3: Contextualizing Islamic Teachings

Zahid if you can be succinct and set the point. Assalamualaikum, Muhammad Zahid from Muslim Youth Forum Singapore We've been reading your content of character for 4 weeks with youths in Singapore, Alhamdulillah, 40 of them, and at week 3 one of them came up to me after my class and said that don't you think that this is Sheikh Al-Amin Mazruh's Kenyan experience, which he said that maybe don't you think that this is Sheikh Al- Amin Mazruh's Kenyan experience Kenyan experience, yeah. He said that don't you think that we need the content of character for Singapore itself, and then he was saying that don't you think that some part of the hadith is out of context, maybe so that was the question. The second question is that after this could you sign my book?

Assalamualaikum. Yeah, that was a trick question. Okay, if I understand this, yes.

Question 4: Advice for Muslim Student Associations

Assalamualaikum, my name is Muhammad Arif, and to provide you some context, I'm currently serving as the vice president of a local university's Muslim association, so given, I think I have reasons to be thankful for the existence of Muslim associations in local universities, while there are probably other reasons to be depressed as well and given the currently conflict-filled and unfortunately conflict-oriented fabric that we have right now In Singapore, or just globally? Globally and probably it trickles down to Singapore in some ways although there's generally peace. What would be your key advice, or what would be one or two advice that you would give to those who serve the Muslim associations in local universities? What would be the guiding foundation for these leaders in Muslim associations? Thank you.

Sheikh Hamza's Response on Creative Minorities

Okay, first question about the creative minority and cognitive dissonance. Creative minority is an idea that came, as far as I know, I have one of the real experts here, Dr. Omar Abdullah Farouk, because he knows Toynbee much better than I do, but I read the abridged version, he read the long version, but Toynbee argues that societies rise and fall based on how they address the challenges that face them, and he argues that when they have a creative minority that is able to present to them solutions to the challenges that face them, they're able to address those challenges and overcome those challenges, and then they'll be faced by a new set of challenges, this is the nature of the world, and so he makes this argument that it's very important for a society to have this creative minority.

The Problem of Anti-Intellectualism

Now, one of the tragedies of a lot of modern society is the idea of elitism, that somehow intellectual elitism is seen as a negative thing, that we're all equal, but just like we have world-class athletes and we honor them for their elite athletic abilities, we also have world-class musicians and we honor them for their elite abilities. Now, some of it is purely hard work and discipline, but it's often enhanced by natural ability. Very often we fail to honor intellect in a society. In fact, because of envy, which is a major problem in the Islamic tradition, and envy was one of the concluding remarks of the Quran, people of intellect are often envied for the gifts that God has given them, and so other people will try to keep them down or they'll attack them, and Kierkegaard said that people will admit a felonious crime before they will admit to envy.

The Importance of Intellectual Humility

Envy is a real problem in societies. Cream should rise naturally, but homogenization basically shakes it up so that the cream is not allowed to rise, and so it's very important to allow people to flourish intellectually and to honor that intellect, and if a society does that, and also it's very important for those who have been gifted with highly creative minds that they maintain a humility from the Greek which means the soil of the earth, because every person no matter how brilliant they are, is human, and they will be flawed. I learned from process working how important it is to put ideas before you articulate them to present them to other people that you trust and honor, because very often they'll point out things that you didn't think of, and they'll show you the flaws in your own reasoning, and this is why collective fatwa is so important today for really major issues because one person, that burden cannot be put on the shoulder of one person.

The Quranic Principle of Shura (Consultation)

their affair is of mutual consultation, so وَشَاوِرْهُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ (Quran 3:159) consult them in affairs, and then once you decide to do it, do it, but consult people. The prophet said he will never be destroyed or failed, the one who takes the counsel of others, and is a beautiful word in Arabic, it means to take honey from each of the combs in a honeycomb. That's what shura is, it's taking the benefit of each

person, and listening to them, and amazing, this famous business consultant in the United States who failed to convince American corporations how important his views were, he ended up going to Japan and the Japanese adopted his model, and one of his points was to allow even the lowest employees to advise, and Toyota and others actually did this and implemented this, and very often the humblest person can actually have a creative solution to problems.

Creativity from Humble Sources

Many mothers in America have become wealthy because they had some problem with baby carriage, and they just thought, I wish that carriage had this, and instead of doing what most mothers do, just saying I wish this carriage had this, they actually ended up designing it, and then it becomes the standard. Thoreau said if you build a better mousetrap, then the whole world will find a path to your door, to get it, so creativity is very important.

Muslims Need to Imagine, Not Reimagine

Now in terms of, but, reimagining, or even imagining a future, you don't need to reimagine it, imagine it, because the Muslims haven't imagined a future yet, so let alone reimagine. We're imagining a past that never existed. It's a fantasy. There's never been an Islamic state ever in Muslim history. There has never been an Islamic state. Medina was not a state by any stretch in terms of a modern understanding of what a state is. Medina was a Medina Fadila, like closer to a kind of Greek city state than it is to a Daula.

The Reality of Islamic Empires

When Muslim became an empire, things changed, and they adopted a Persian model in many things, and so this fantasy that a lot of Muslims have, Islam served empire, and many of the fatwas of the past were fatwas in service of empire, and they're problematic, and Muslims did terrible things in many places. My friend Imam Zaid and colleague says when you read Muslim history, you have to take a lot of Iman vitamins. Muslims did terrible things in India, not always, but sometimes. Muslims, that we have our atrocities like every civilization, but we have this fantasy of the past that the Muslims were perfect, and wherever they went, they just brought goodness, and that's not always the case. Very often it was, but it's not always the case, and so we have to take the bitter pill of reality, and not fantasize the past.

The Stunting of Imagination

But imagination is a very difficult thing when you're in an image-based society, because traditionally children were raised on words, on oral stories, on reading, and now they're raised on images, and so it stunts the creativity. We know that children that watch a lot of television have smaller corpus callosum than children that don't. We know that the brain actually is smaller, so the development one of the things about television, there's only three basic colors on television. The world, the number of colors out in the real world is massive, and so all

of this stimulates all of the neural networking in the brain. Reading is very important. Listening is very important. Memorizing is very important. We've lost many of these things, so creativity is stunted.

The Importance of Mastering Language

Now the other thing that we've lost in terms of creativity is a recognition of how important it is to master a language. Robert Frost said, all of life is discipline, and the first discipline is the acquisition of words. We don't know what words mean anymore. We had a woman, and I don't agree with what she may have meant by it, but we had a woman in America who talked about alternate facts. Well, if you use the fourth definition of facts in any good dictionary, fact means allegation. That's one of the meanings of fact. You can have alternate facts if you meant by the word allegations, and this is why juries in American law judge facts. The prosecution presents facts, and the defense presents facts. They say on Friday at 11 p.m., my client was with his wife so he could not have committed the crime. The prosecution says that's not true, so he's stating it as a fact, and the other is stating it as a fact, and so they're alternate facts. So which is true? The jury judges the facts. The judge judges the law, but if you don't know language, these nuances get lost.

Fiqh al-Lugha: The Science of Language

It's called fiqh-al-logha in the Arabic language. The Arabs would not call this a zujaja. They would call it a qas, because it has water in it, but if there's no water in it like this, it becomes a zujaja. Those are distinctions that are completely lost on modern Arabs, let alone the English language. We've lost so much because we don't study words anymore. People used to study if you open up any dictionary, there are multiple meanings of words in context, and the context changes the meanings of the words, so language is difficult. It takes hard work. They used to have grammar school where you had to memorize by rote lots of things. If we want creativity, we have to give our young people the tools of creativity.

Understanding Cognitive Dissonance

And finally about cognitive dissonance, in a place like Singapore where you have multiple religions, you have different dress codes. The Muslim women who are practicing very often dress in a very modest dress.

Traditionally, all Asian cultures dress very modestly. In fact, the CEO of Victoria's Secret, I don't know if you're familiar with that, but in America it's a lingerie company that uses almost pornographic images to sell their lingerie, but the CEO wanted to open a shop in China, and the interviewer for, I think it was Time magazine, said to him, isn't the Chinese modesty, wouldn't that be a problem for selling Victoria's Secret in China? And he said, oh, that's nothing good ad campaigns can't deal with.

The Military Nature of Advertising

In other words, there's a reason why they use a military term, ad campaign. Campaign is a military term. Advertisement, from the Latin, to turn your attention toward. Advertis, to turn your attention toward something. So, I just quoted a poem. I'll quote it again. Alexander Pope said, vice is a monster of frightful mean face. As to

be hated needs but to be seen. But seen too oft, familiar with her face. We first endure, then pity, then embrace. So, there's a very slow process that erodes the morality of a people. But you should guard your morality, because, like the poet said, civilizations are nothing other than the character that embodies them. And when their character goes, they soon follow. And a fool and his culture are soon parted.

Explaining Cognitive Dissonance

So, cognitive dissonance, I'm long-winded, I apologize. Cognitive dissonance is the idea that you have a belief and you have an action. And your action contradicts your belief. This creates a type of dissonance in the psyche, in the soul. And so, there's one of two solutions to get rid of the dissonance. One of them is that you change your belief. And this is very often what people do. So, you begin to justify their actions. The other is to change your actions. And so, in a culture where you're dressing modestly, and you're in a culture where other women don't dress like you do, for some people that can create a problem in the self, because their religion is telling them to do something, and yet, outside, people are doing another thing.

The Quranic Injunction to Lower the Gaze

And so, the men have a hard time. Well, first and foremost, there's no time in Muslim history that you did not have half-dressed women walking around. And if you don't believe me, just look at the images of the orientalists in Egypt, even a hundred years ago. Because a lot of what were called ima, their nakedness was not their tops. It was only from the surah to the rukba. And so, there were women, Nubian women, walking around. So, this idea, this obsessive idea that we have to cover up our women completely and force upon them some kind of codes and things like that. God says in the Quran قُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَغُضُّوا مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِمْ (Quran 24:30) tell the believers to lower their eyes. Why would that injunction be in there if there wasn't things to look at? If everybody's walking around in one of those beekeepers bags, then why would you even have a verse that tells you not to do that?

Honoring Women with Dignity

And I personally, and I'm not culturally sensitive on this issue, I personally think that putting a woman in something like that, to me personally, I have a really hard time as a Muslim. I have a hard time with that. And I know I was taught to be culturally sensitive in all these things. But I think women need to be honored. They need to be not denigrated. I would prefer to see women honor themselves also. There are certain ways of dressing that can be very provocative. And they don't help the men. And there are certain bestial men out there that will do things that are very troubling to women. We have rapists. I mean, America, we have a problem of rape. So these are problems. But I would argue that you have to find ways of being true to your own principles and your own self without also demanding that other people be true to those same principles. Because we're all on this planet together, and we have to learn to live with one another.

The Universality of Prophetic Teachings

In terms of the content of character, I would argue that those are universal hadiths. And so I don't think they reflect just the Kenyan experience. I really liked the collection, and that's why I chose to translate it. But I do believe most of them are universal. Most of what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said is universal. There are very few things that are specific to his culture.

The Hadith on Imitating Others

For instance, a hadith, whoever imitates a people is among them. All of the hadiths, and this solved a problem for me. There are many hadiths about not being like the non-Arabs. One of the greatest Andalusian jurists said, every hadith that tells Arabs not to imitate others is only for the Arabs. It's not for other people. And so any hadith that says don't be like the Ajam, it's that don't change your distinctiveness to imitate another people. And so it actually confirms the very thing that I'm saying, is that you should allow cultures to be distinctive and not try to impose other cultures on their behavior.

Advice to University Muslim Associations

Your advice to the young Muslims? The last question about the Look, I would say there are certain things that we would like to see. I know for instance that you have a khutbah that is written in the masjids. There are a lot of people that want the freedom to say whatever they want. Unfortunately, in this time right now, in many places, this has caused a lot of the problems. Spreading ideas that are very dangerous on the minbar. And I've seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. And so my experience with the people that are involved in this is that they're very highly intelligent people and they're very well-intentioned people and I think they will probably provide very good khutbahs that are beneficial.

The Prophet's Khutbahs Were Not Political

I went through a book of the khutbah of the Prophet that have been recorded. It's all in one book. I could not find one khutbah that mentioned anything political. Not one. I could find not one khutbah where the Prophet mentioned the grievances that they had towards the Quraysh or towards the other Arabs. All I found was exhortations about piety, about being better people, about doing this. If this is the khutbah of the Prophet, then why aren't you following the sunnah of the Prophet? If you want to talk about politics on the minbar, you're going against the sunnah of the Prophet because he did not talk about politics on the minbar.

Islam's Image Problem

And so I think it's really important to recognize that we're in a very sensitive time and Islam right now is considered synonymous in the minds of millions of people. They estimate in the United States, 35 million people, that's 10% of our population, believe that Islam itself is a religion of terrorism. That is unacceptable. So there are many people that believe that Islam is a religion that incites violence, incites hatred. If you have

imams with an utter lack of understanding of this religion's core principles, preaching or inciting hatred or denigration of other religions, that person has to be stopped because this situation has gotten out of hand.

The Quranic Prohibition on Cursing Other Gods

Do not curse the idols of the polytheists. So the Prophet's people were commanded not to curse. Read the tafsir, that's what it says. Because they will curse God. In other words, you caused your God to be cursed by cursing their gods. And if you don't believe that's the case, then the hadith, which is a sound hadith, the Prophet said, Do not curse your parents. And the sahabah said, How could we curse our parents, Ya Rasulullah? He said, By cursing another man's parents and he curses your parents. So you caused him to curse your parents by offending his parents.

Respecting Other Religions

So if you offend the religions of other people, you are breaking the sunnah of our Prophet and denigrating this religion. Our Prophet did not denigrate Hinduism or Buddhism or Jainism or Sikhism or any other religion. Now if you say, Well, he destroyed the idols in Mecca. That's true. The Arabian Peninsula, the hadith, according to Malik, that hadith was specific to the Arabian Peninsula. He was restoring the Abrahamic tradition in Mecca because it was one man, Huyay, who brought the idols from Syria to Mecca. He was actually restoring the integrity of the house to the original intention that Abraham built that house with. So he was purifying the house.

The Right to Worship for All Faiths

But we have no right to go into any country in the world, and if we're a majority and rule that country, we have no right to destroy the temples of those people. The Quran says in Surah Al-Hajj أُذِنَ لِلَّذِينَ يُقَاتَلُونَ بِأَنَّهُمْ ظُلِمُوا (Quran 22:39) that permission was granted to fight because they're being oppressed. Those who are being fought can defend themselves. And then Allah says وَلَوْلَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُم بِبَعْضٍ لَّهُدِّمَتْ صَوَامِعُ وَبِيَعٌ وَصَلَوَاتٌ وَمَسَاجِدُ يُذْكَرُ فِيهَا اسْمُ اللَّهِ كَثِيرًا (Quran 22:40) if that was not the case, you would see temples and synagogues and churches and mosques where God is mentioned much being destroyed.

So the very permission to defend ourselves was to defend multi-faith. And Islam is a religion that has always, when it has been understood correctly, has always protected other faith's right to worship. And freedom of religion is one of the most important things that we have to spread on this planet. As long as that religion is not calling to the destruction of other people. At that point, we have to say, this is unacceptable. And that's why things like ISIS have to be stopped. Because they're oppressing.

Question 5: Tasawwuf and Counter-Terrorism

I would like to see more people on this side. If any time I see a woman, a lady, wanting to give priority to them, I make it clear. So please, please ask questions because you live longer, you see the future longer than this side.

But, while waiting for you