Tawheed - Part one of four series

O Allah, teach us what will benefit us and benefit us with what you've taught us and increase us in knowledge, O Lord of the worlds.

Introduction to Tawheed and Ethical Worldview

So today, we are going to be talking about the topic of Tawheed, the oneness of Allah. And the tagline for this lecture was the ethical worldview of the Qur'an. And the idea here is not for us to go through copious amounts of verses of the Qur'an or a hadith of the Prophet on the topic, but instead to explore the approach, the argument that the Qur'an makes for God's oneness and to better understand that.

Now, this is a the topic of Tawheed or Allah's oneness is a vast topic. And so what we want to do today is set a foundation about what it is, why is it important, and then most importantly, what are the implications for believing in the oneness of God and how should that play out in our daily lives? How should it show up in the things that we do? It's not just talking about theology and theoretical things, but most importantly, how do we put that into practice? As it was the position of the Salaf that any knowledge that didn't lead to action was not true knowledge. So we want knowledge that leads us to action today inshallah ta'ala.

Four Parts of Our Discussion

So what will we cover today? Well, essentially, we're going to go over four parts. The first part, we want to talk about the universal quest for a moral compass. When we talk about an ethical worldview, what does that mean? How do we know what the right thing to do is? How do we identify it? Second, what is the Islamic answer to that question? Third, declaring and understanding tawhid, what is the covenant that Allah takes from us? And then fourthly, how do we create a lived reality based upon that information? So starting with this idea of a universal moral compass.

The Universal Quest for a Moral Compass

Every person, in fact, every society tries to determine or looks at certain things as being right or wrong. They have a certain worldview of what is acceptable or unacceptable to them. There are standards for morality that they place for themselves and for others.

So a moral or an ethical worldview is more than just an academic discussion. But it is an entire system of beliefs and values and assumptions about what is right and wrong, what is just and unjust, what are obligations, what things must we do, what things must we not do. So whether we've consciously defined it or not, whether we've made a decision for what our worldview is or not, we actually already live by one.

The Power of Attorney Example

Now, this is a very important point. Let me give you an example not from the area of ethics and theology. I had someone once write to me and say, why should I get an Islamic will and decide that my inheritance will be decided, will be divided up according to the rules that are in the Quran? Can't I just take out a piece of paper, write down that I give all of my money to so-and-so, I'll give all my money to Tanzim, and he's going to take it, he's going to divide it up according to the same rules.

And then I have a notary public stamp it and we're done. Why isn't that good enough? Why isn't it good enough? What do you guys think? Would it work? Even legally, would it work? No, it wouldn't. Do you know why? Because the power of attorney ends when you die.

So that paper becomes null and void the moment that you die. The reason why I'm using this example is to say this, many times we have assumptions about what the law can do. We have the assumptions about what we'll be able to do after we die.

We have assumptions about what's enough to do. That's part of our worldview. It's enough for us to just go ahead and do this.

Well, if you don't make a decision, a conscious decision, and take the right steps to make sure that your wealth reaches your family, then guess who's going to step in and impose their worldview on you? The state of Texas. The state of Texas will say, you didn't leave any documentation that was legally sound. You didn't make any decisions before you died.

We're going to make those decisions now. We're going to tell your family what they have to do instead of you deciding what happened to your inheritance. So whether we like it or not, we follow a worldview.

The question for us as Muslims is, are we going to do the best to take our ethics, our morals and what our worldview is and turn it into reality? Or are we just going to go along with the rest of society? So that's one example, and it's a bit of a far off example for most of us. We don't like to think, we think, you know, I'm not going to die until I'm 200 years old. So that's not a problem.

But in reality, it's very close for most of us. So when we talk about a worldview, we're talking about moral authority, the content of our morality, the what then provides a justification for why we do these things. So there's a critical question that we have to ask, who or what makes what I think should be done binding or an obligation? Do I think I have to do this because society tells me? Do I think I have to do this because of family tradition? Do I think I have to do this because of faith? Do I think I have to do this because of the legal system? So without a source of authority, any worldview just becomes a collection of opinions.

And without a worldview, an authority has nothing to command. So there's always going to be a link between what your worldview is and who you see having ultimate sovereignty and authority over you. So what's our goal in this session? Our goal in this session is to explore that link between the ideas of who or what is an authority to say something is moral or expected of us and how that affects how we see the world or what our worldview is.

What is an Ethical Worldview?

Ethical worldview is a comprehensive and internally coherent system of beliefs, values, principles, and assumptions that an individual or group uses to understand and navigate moral questions. Questions about what is right and wrong. So it's a foundational lens.

It's just not a single opinion. It's about right and wrong, good and bad, about how one ought to live. Not how can I live, but how should I live? And there are two levels to this.

Number one is having a personal moral code. What you consider to be good and bad, right and wrong. And then there's a collective or a shared view. So this could be based on culture, religion, profession.

You'll hear many times in the news or in academic talks, the Judeo-Christian worldview or medical ethics in the view of medical ethics or similar. So this foundational lens that we view the world through, like one of us would wear glasses or use binoculars or have any other kind of implement that helps our sight. It allows us to see clearly the moral landscape in front of us, meaning all of the things that we experience in life and what effect they would have on us, whether good or bad.

And whether we react to them in a way which is good or bad. So how we view the world interprets the situations that we come across. How we view others colors the way that we see the actions that they do.

The Golden Child Example

So if we see, for example, everyone knows, you know, in every family, there always seems to be one child who can do nothing wrong. At least we feel that way. And we think, you know, if you look at a child, one of your children is having the inability to do nothing wrong.

You will always interpret the things that they do in the best light possible, even if they are shayateen. This child is shayatan, but you see him as the golden child. Whereas other people say, no, he's the worst child.

You say, no, this is the best child. Why? Because the way that you look at that child, the way that you interpret their actions, it's going to be colored by the lens that you use. So when we talk about our worldview, it is inherently referring to ethics.

It just doesn't describe the world that we live in, but how we should act within it. It's fundamentally concerned with questions about what is good or bad, or how should I live? How should I react to the world around me? So if I'm a person who is partial to one person, I will see that child as unable to do wrong. If I'm impartial, then I will see that child as being able to do right and being able to do wrong.

And when I react to that child, I will react to that child based upon whether I believe what they did is right, or if I believe what they did was wrong. Again, how we look at things determines to some extent how we react to them and what we see inherently as being right or wrong as individuals. On the collective level, we said there are things like Judeo-Christian worldview or medical ethics, or ways of looking at the world in the composite.

So what we want to argue for today, and we want to talk about today, is how does the Qur'an look at mankind and look at the world in the composite as a whole? What is the worldview that when we talk about Islam as a way of life, as a system for life, how is that actually supported by the texts of Islam?

Components of Any Worldview

So any worldview that's out there is going to have a couple of different assumptions. They're going to be epistemological assumptions, metaphysical assumptions, core values, morals and principles. For example, metaphysical assumptions.

The source of my morality, why do I see what is good and bad? Do I base this on my culture? Do I base this on nature? Do I base this on society? Do I base it on God? Do I base it on reason? How do I see the nature of human beings as a default? Are they good? Are they evil? Are they a blank slate? Is every human endowed with certain abilities and certain rights and responsibilities? Or are they not? That's all going to color the way that I see the world. And then what's their purpose? Does life have an ultimate goal? What is the goal of life? If I only see the state as the source of morality and I don't see any necessary next life to come, you know, there's nothing to come after this life. Everything in life is dictated by the way that I live it.

Well, then I might say my purpose is just to simply obey the law. But we've all seen throughout history that there have been many things that have been legal that have been unethical and immoral. And they've been mandated upon people and forced upon people when in fact they were very harmful.

So what is the purpose of life? Where does any given worldview view how you should be living? Epistemological assumptions are the things about how we know what is right and what is wrong. Do we know this because of revelation, because of logic, observation, tradition, or just our intuition? The good that the worldview protects are the core values, those things that must be there in order for those core values or that entity to exist.

American Core Values Example

So where this is 4th of July weekend, what are the three things that everybody brings up when we talk about America? What kind of freedom? What are the three things? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

These are the core values of America. This is what to give you an idea. So if you didn't have the ability to live freely, if you didn't have the liberty to do what you want, if you didn't have the ability to pursue what you desire, this would not be America anymore.

So all of the things that you see in the news that are back and forth between people and political parties and groups and approaches to these topics are all tensions around what the true core values or what even those core values mean. The moral principles are those action guiding directives. So for example, do no harm or do not steal.

These are general principles that we live by. Norms, there are certain social expectations that we have when we are dealing with morals and principles or rules and norms. So if you'll notice, all of these things lead us to the idea of action.

We can talk about our metaphysical assumptions. Oh, I believe that God has endowed me with freedom and I believe that it is inherently right to be able to say whatever you think. And I believe the freedom of speech is a core value and I believe that not impeding the freedom of speech is a rule and norm that must be found in society.

What sort of action does that bring about? The abstract has to be made into something which is concrete. Which is why moral relativism is very dangerous where we say all morality is the same and all of it means the same thing. Because on the ground, when it is applied, then it becomes a problem if people have competing moralities.

Someone says, I think you should die. And someone says, no, I think everyone should be able to live. It's a competing moral claim.

So that becomes a problem if you're going to put that into action. So we have these four components. We have knowledge, values, actions, and foundational beliefs.

It's the basis of any ethical system. So I want you to keep these four things in mind. What's the foundation of our morality? How do we know what our morality is? What are the things that we value? What are the actions that we take on it? Because those four things are going to make up most of what we're going to look at today.

The Connection Between Worldview and Authority

Now, if you'll notice something about the slides, every slide has a number on it. And when I did this for as many times when we're having classes, somebody goes, can you go back to that slide? Which slide? The one with the picture on it. The colorful picture. So that doesn't work.

So better for everyone to just, if you have a question about a slide while you're taking your notes or while we're on that slide, write number four. Take your notes. Then when you have a question, you'll know, oh, my question is about slide four. We can go back to slide four and then you can ask that question.

Okay. So there's a symbiotic connection between ethical worldview, how we view things as being right or wrong, and where we take moral authority from. Essentially, they're the same sides, or they're two sides of the same coin. So let's create an analogy.

The Legal System Analogy

Let's look at a nation's legal system. Okay. So the legal system, the ethical worldview of that legal system is going to be found in that nation's constitution.

It's foundational. It outlines what are the core principles? What are the values of that nation, like liberty or justice? What are the specific rules that are going to govern that society? And it provides a general framework. Does it answer all legal questions? No, it doesn't answer all legal questions.

But does it give a basis to answer those questions? Yes, it does. How does it do so? Because that framework provides the core principles and the moral authority through the sovereign power of the country to answer those questions. Essentially, the reason people will obey a constitution is because they believe in the things that it says.

And they believe that for their own betterment, and to stop harming or so that there's no harm on themselves, they have to have some kind of sovereign power or grant sovereign power to someone. There has to be some moral authority that they give it to. So here in the United States, do we give that to a king? No, there's no kings here. Do we grant all moral and authority and decision-making power to the president? Perhaps a certain president would love that, but that's not the way it works.

Do we grant it to Congress? No, we don't grant it to Congress. Where does the moral authority come from? The moral authority comes from God, as vested in the people and the people making a collective decision through the executive branch and the administrative branch and the legislative branch and the judicial branch. So essentially, they're being a balance of power.

Why am I mentioning this? Because when somebody says or makes a claim of something being moral or just or something that we have to do, the question that we have to ask ourselves is, well, who says so? Where are we getting this from? So in an age where we deal with a lot of spurious claims on social media and the ability of people to use AI to essentially create things out of air that sound true but aren't, we have to be able to say to ourselves, I know what is right and wrong, and I know why it's right and wrong, and I know who said that it was right and wrong.

So a worldview without authority is just a collection of personal opinions, and an authority without a worldview has nothing to command people. These things are inseparable.

So you have to remember this dynamic, that how we view the world is colored by how we see right and wrong. And how we see right and wrong will color the way that we see the world. So all of this has to do with not only our morality, but also our human experience.

And I promise you, for those of you who have come to my lectures before, you know that I like to build up to things. So everybody's like, this guy's like, didn't he come here to be bored by a college lecture? What is this? But remember, all of this is going to build up to the ideas that we're going to talk about later. So remember this dynamic, your worldview determines what you will accept as a legitimate source of authority.

The Dream Example

So if somebody walked up to you today, and they said, Abdul Fattah, I saw a dream last night. That an angel came to me and said, Abdul Fattah, we'll meet you at the Islamic Dawa Center. And when you see him, tell him, he must give you $500. I'm so pious and holy, give me $500.

Would you accept that as authoritative? No, you wouldn't accept it as authoritative. Why? Because it's outside of your purview. You don't believe in the moral authority of random dreams. Whereas if somebody did accept that seeing a dream was authoritative, and that you must do what the dream says, would they accept that as authoritative? Would they say, now they're going to feel obliged to give $500? Yeah, but notice how that becomes an area where manipulation comes in.

So by us not knowing what the source of what we believe in, we become more susceptible to manipulation. We become more susceptible to misunderstanding what is expected of us, whether it's in a religious context or social context or any of the other contexts. So your worldview determines what you will accept as a legitimate source of authority.

And in turn, the authority that you accept will shape and reinforce your worldview. So whether you accept that random dream that I had, I didn't have that dream, by the way. I wish I dreamed of Fattah, but not that fortunate.

He's a great guy. But if he believed that dreams were authoritative, then he would have been out $500. But because he's a rational adult, he does not accept that.

And he said, no, you know, maybe that's just an indication that I wanted to do good for you. That I was going to meet you and enrich your life. It's not literal. So remember this dynamic between the two.

Sources of Moral Authority

Okay, so there are a few questions that we have to ask ourselves when we talk about these issues. Number one, what is the ultimate source that makes your values binding? Okay, is it a divine being? Now remember, we're just talking in general now. We haven't gotten even into the Islamic content yet.

So if you have a theistic worldview, then you believe that authority equals God. It believes sacred texts means the teachings of a prophet. Is it a rationalist worldview where you believe that there is universal reason, or you might take authority from logic itself? Or are you consequentialist? Do you look at things, say, okay, we just want to see what the best outcome is.

Does it matter where it comes from? Does it matter who says it? Whatever brings about the best outcome, then as long as we have empirical evidence, this makes us happy or causes suffering, then we either do it or we avoid it. Is it your community? So this is tradition and social consensus. I know what's right because of the tradition that I follow or the people that I live amongst when they agree on something.

I know that they're agreeing to something which is good. The issue here is that there's generally a fundamental conflict between at least some of these. Now, they can be complementary, but what if they disagree? So what if reason conflicts with what is the social norms of the society that I live in? What do we do in that situation? So if my justification is, well, this is right because we as a people have agreed that it is right, now each and every one of us has our own power and our own logic, but that creates for us a point of crisis.

So which authority wins and why? So the whole idea that we're trying to present here is if we're talking about what the Qur'anic worldview is, then we need to understand how the Qur'an deals with each of these things. How does the Qur'an deal with consensus and social tradition? How does the Qur'an deal with rational approaches to right and wrong, good and bad, harmful and beneficial? How does the Qur'an deal with commands of what is good and what is bad? So what's your default?

Identifying Your Ultimate Authority

So I want you to take a moment, if you're faced with a tough moral dilemma where your sources conflict, where's your ultimate go-to authority? So I wish I had a kahoot that I could give you guys and we could do this anonymously, but I'm not that technologically savvy. So would it be your own, would you say, oh, my own reason and logic? Would you say the tradition and values of my family or community dictate how I would act? Would you say, I'd look at the best possible outcome for the most people? Or would you say that there's a transcendent source? Or do you just go with your own gut feeling and intuition?

What do you say? Who says, who says A, their own reason and logic? When everything that we talked about conflicts. Or do you guys not want to answer out loud? Because it's going to be, it's going to be, okay. There you go. Thank you for alerting that, alerting me to that.

Does he mean what you're saying? Yeah. Transcendent source. Remember, we're, we're, we're, we haven't entered into the Islamic portion as yet. We're just introducing the idea. Option D.

The Quarantine Example

So, so, so let me, let me maybe give a, an example of, of one of these conflicts. So if I say that, my, my moral authority is God has ordered me to be good to my neighbor. Okay. And my worldview is that I check in on my neighbors when I don't see them for days.

But the state says you're not allowed to leave your house because there's a quarantine. Now there's a fundamental conflict. I'm trying to balance what I believe is right. What the state says I should not do.

And then the harm or benefit that will come to my neighbor based upon whether I obey the state or obey my moral authority. So which comes first, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of man? If anybody, if you're ever stuck with these questions, because, Muslims were real, were real, were a real hot topic during the elections because, you know, they were banking on our votes, but it seems that the, the tide is turning in popular media now and Muslims aren't so cool anymore. So now somebody will come and say to you, oh, well, do you believe in the Sharia or do you believe in American law?

So what my short answer to them, because most people that come from a Judeo-Christian background will understand this is the kingdom of God comes before the kingdom of man. That is very church based couch, you know, language couched in vacation Bible school. But the idea is that my morality supersedes what the law might say is correct.

And we know, we know that we've had, things here in the United States where things were made law and they were completely immoral, completely rejectable, shameful, history of slavery, shameful history of encampments of internments of American citizens because of their race. So not everything that is legal is necessarily moral or good. So the question is, what do I generally, what will I generally turn to when they have a tough dilemma? You don't necessarily have to answer here, but the idea here is that we want to, I want you to understand that there will always be a fundamental conflict when you're differing with, or when you look at things differently.

And that's one of the reasons why discussions like this come up in society. So this brings us to a couple of, you know, major, debates.

Major Debates in Moral Philosophy

So we want to go from this general framework and kind of general discussion about this topic and move more into the Quranic worldview. And for those of you who, well, we'll talk about the sources of that in a moment, but there are a couple of major debates that come up here when we talk about morality and why we should do what we're, what we should do as an individual or as a collective.

Universalism Versus Relativism

Number one is universalism versus relativism. So is there one true moral framework for everyone? How many of you here would agree that killing is objectively wrong? Would you agree? Killing is objectively wrong. Is there, is there any time where killing is justified? There is. Without even examples.

So when we say objectively, we mean as a, as a precept, as a, as a, as a norm, we should not be killing. Now, if you live in Houston, Texas, you believe that killing is wrong. What do you think that people who live in the island of Tuvalu, you know, Papua New Guinea, what do they believe about killing? They believe killing is wrong as well.

So that's the idea of a universal morality. There are certain morals that everyone agrees is wrong. Now, will they differ about when they may be violated or gone against in certain circumstances? Whether or not a person who murders should be killed. That's a question that comes up. That's a, that's a moral tension. But is there a single universal valid ethical worldview that applies to all people in all places at all times or is morality simply relative? Meaning that our morals depend upon our history and our culture rather than those things that we universally agree are right or wrong.

So in a globalized world, this is a very significant question. Because it brings up the question of whether or not we can all agree and live in peace with each other. And unfortunately, what we've seen in the last two years with the conflict in Gaza has shown us that most people that were promoting universal morality and universal human rights were very ready to throw that in the trash bin when it didn't agree with their own personal moral or worldview. So that's a live example of that tension. No, killing is bad. Everything that we know about what's going on is bad.

Unless it's happening to these people, then it's good. So I just want to give you that as an example of those tensions that come up.

Reason Versus Emotion

The second is reason versus emotion. Do we decide with our heads or do we side with our hearts or do we decide with a little bit of both? So when I make a moral judgment, am I going through rational deliberation or is it intuition in the way that I feel? Some philosophers and psychologists, Haidt and others, they will suggest that the rejection of suffering and harm is inherent to human psychology.

So whenever we're deciding what is moral, we should be looking at that base rejection of what is harmful. And our emotions and our intuitions and our gut feelings, then they provide the basis for that and then rationale or reason comes and it bolsters that. Whereas others like Hume and other philosophers, they would say, no, we rationally know that these things are harmful. Our emotions are simply a reaction to the situation.

So essentially, you have to ask ourselves, is our head or our heart in the driver's seat with whatever decision that we make?

Coherence Versus Pluralism

Thirdly, another big debate is coherence versus pluralism. Is the ideal worldview a perfect system or a messy moral toolbox? Meaning that does every principle that we believe in have to flow logically from a single foundation? Or is morality inherently messy and complex and it makes us think about things in contradictory terms as the situation demands? Or is it somewhere in between? Is there a foundation, a moral foundation? And then there are things that may or may not be applied given the circumstance.

So, you know, these are not easy questions to answer. But what we want to do in the next section is we want to explore a worldview that claims to be universal, rational, and coherent. And so we want to talk about what the Islamic answer or the foundation of Tawhid is with and the answers that Islamic theology gives to some of these questions.