Islamic Worldview vs Modern Worldview Dr Carl Sharif El Tobgui

As-salamu alaykum. Welcome to the 44th episode of Let's Discuss podcast. Today, am delighted to be joined by Dr. Khaled Sharif Alturk Dr. Khaled Sharif Alturk holds PhD in Islamic Studies from McGill University and BS in Arabic Language from Georgetown University. He's Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director of the Arabic Language Program at Brandeis University and formerly taught Arabic at Harvard University. His research centers on the relationship between reason and revelation in classical Islamic theology and jurisprudence. His monograph Ibn Taymiyyah on reason and revelation is the first comprehensive English study of Ibn Taymiyyah's 10-volume masterwork, landmark in modern Islamic studies. He regularly delivers public lectures on the Islamic worldview in relation to modernity and the Western intellectual tradition. Today, he has kindly joined us to discuss Islam vs. modernity. Dr. Khaled Sharif, you're most welcome, sir. Thank you so much for having me. It's pleasure to be with you and an honor also be able to address you and your audience. so, thank you so much for that generous introduction. And without further ado, we can jump into our topic, inshallah. Exactly. So, so So, Dr. You You've got You've prepared slides for us. So, you can share those slides on your screen and the floor is all yours. Okay, perfect. All right. okay, let me start Okay. So, we're talking about Islam and the modern worldview. And so, first want to discuss what worldview is and why it's important for us to think in terms of worldviews, particularly as Muslims in the contemporary world. but before getting into the topic, just want to say that, you know, we have about an hour or so before us. So, this is going to be very abridged and compressed version of this talk. If you are interested in finding out more, you can go to course that did with Sapiens Institute based in the UK. It is platform that is completely free of charge. You can just open free account there. And the name of the course is Islam and LGBT, Gender, Sex, and Morality in the Modern Age. Came out 27th of September 2023. This is 33-hour course on this topic, Islam and LGBT. But, if you look at the table of contents, there are seven units altogether. Unit two, you can see here on the screen, Worldviews, Islam and Western Modernity. So, this is like unit two out of the seven units of the course. And this unit alone covers basically what we're going to be talking about today in very abridged form in much more detail. So, this unit two itself is eight hours. All these like lectures 6 through 14 are eight hours. So, it's much more comprehensive presentation of the topic. Also, if you sign on to this platform and go to the course, there is PDF slides PDF that contains slide deck that you can download. And the slide deck contains over 600 slides for the entire course. And this particular portion has about 150 slides that accompany it. So, you know, you would have all of that material as well for your own use. Of course, if you're interested in the rest of the course, you can listen to it as well. But, if you're not, you can also just you know, sign up for the course and just listen to the that second unit. So, we won't go through the rest of the table of contents cuz they're not directly relevant. So, the question is, what is worldview? you know, often say like whenever we open our eyes and kind of look out on the world, we're not just seeing the world necessarily as it is, quote and quote, in and of itself. We're always processing it through particular prism. So, you know, based on our circumstances, the culture in which we grow up, we bring certain assumptions to the world. Assumptions about what kinds of things are real, what's not real, what does it mean to know, like when you stand up and say, we know that or is the case." What does it mean to know? Like, what are the sources of knowledge? What justifies such statement? Who are we as human beings? You know, what is the nature of the of the human being? Why are we here? Are we here for any purpose or we're just here kind of for no purpose at all? What is right and wrong and how can we know? What are the and what are the sources of that kind of knowledge, right? So, every, you know, every every culture at every time and place will have some general way of kind of answering these questions and if you put all of those answers together of all of these like fundamental questions, you get pretty good idea of what person's worldview is. Now, the worldview, like to compare it to language. So, if you grow up in, you know, whatever place you grow up, like if you grow up in the United States, you will just naturally acquire American English from the environment. If you grow up in Pakistan, you'll acquire Urdu or like Sindhi wherever you're living, Punjabi. You know, you will you will acquire the language of those around you and it happens so intuitively that you are not aware of the process. By the time you're even self-aware, you're already speaking the language. And you pick it up from the environment and very often if foreigner comes and asks you, is this correct?" you know, and you say, "No, no, we don't say it like that in English." And then they ask, "Why?" and you say, don't know, it just sounds wrong." Like, it's often very difficult for you to kind of rationalize the structure of your own language because it's so deeply embedded, so intuitive. And it's not really till you go to school and you learn formal grammar that you can start to say, wait, that's past participle and that's an adjective." And now can understand why the sentence is wrong. But before you studied it, you just kind of knew that it didn't feel right. And in sense, our worldview is very much like that in two respects. The first respect is that we acquire it from the environment around us, okay? So, from our society, we don't go to school to learn what our worldview is, not primarily at least. We just kind of soak it in with the environment, we breathe it in with the air around us. And and that's the first, you know, element which is like language. The second element which is like language is that just like our native language, it's so deeply embedded and so innate that it's very difficult for us to see what our worldview is and to kind of therefore critically evaluate it, if can put it that way. It's like It's like the eyes through which you see the world. You can't see your eyes unless you look in mirror. mean, you see through your eyes. So, the worldview is kind of like that. mean, it's the prism through which you are seeing and interpreting and processing the world. And because it's like the lenses in your eyes or eyeglasses or something, it's hard to really see them until you've been kind of trained to do that. So, what we want to do today is just get into this idea of what are the different components of worldview and and how can we come to recognize what our worldview is. so, you might say, "Well, why should we care? Like, why is this even an issue for us?" And usually answer this question by saying that we as Muslims, you know, by default you assume, "Okay, well, as Muslims we have an Islamic worldview." Like, at least ideally that should be the case. What we assume to be true about the world, about who we are as human beings, about right and wrong, about purpose, all of these things, of course, these questions are answered by Islam. And as Muslims, the, you know, the expectation is that our worldview would be informed by this. And inshallah, to larger or you know, greater or lesser degree, it is. However, nobody's worldview is like perfectly pristine. In other words, no one has like perfectly Quranic or perfectly Islamic worldview. And even if you grow up in predominantly Muslim culture, not every aspect of your local culture is necessarily in conformity with Islam. mean, Islam came to cultures that pre-existed it, right? And those cultures are heavily impacted by Islam, heavily influenced by it, but every Muslim culture retains elements of, you know, of of past cultures that were there before, other cultures that, you know, it mixed with after the coming of Islam, right? So, that's one one aspect. And then from another angle, we as Muslims in the modern world, particularly, are constantly contending with at least two different worldviews, very distinct worldviews. One is the Islamic worldview, and we'll talk more about what that is and what it entails. And the other one is the what we can kind of broadly term the the modern worldview, right? Which is the kind of worldview that grew up and developed and was crystallized in Europe and the extension of European kind of, you know, three like the United States, for example, Canada, like places where Europeans migrated to and and colonized. and that worldview, because of the the kind of dominance of Europe in the last couple of centuries through colonialism and now through just the presence of technology and things like that, that worldview has now spread all over the world and is is worldview that you are constantly coming into contact with every single day, particularly if you grow up in the West or are in the West like am, but even if you are in the Muslim world, if you have modern education, if you speak, for example, English or modern language, if you're on the internet, right? unless you're literally like from village in in your home country with no technology, which probably doesn't exist anymore, you are also being confronted massively with this kind of modern, secular sort of Western worldview. And so, you're constantly like negotiating two world worldviews at the same time. Now, especially for Muslims who grow up in the West, this can be very disconcerting thing because, you know, when you're at home or in the masjid, you kind of like speak Islamic. mean, both in terms of like what you say, "Salam alaykum, brother. Wa alaykum How are you? Alhamdulillah, I'm good. have an exam tomorrow. Bit tawfiq. May Allah give you success." and all of that, right? So, we're speaking like there's lot of Arabic terms and things from the Quran and all of that, right? But at the same time, also conceptually, we are in you know, we are expressing particular worldview. Like when your brother or sister says, have an exam tomorrow." and you say, inshallah, you'll do well, you know, God willing. May God give you tawfiq." like success. You know, you're actually expressing the fact that the future is contingent on Allah's will. This is an Islamic, you know, like like affirmation, right? We don't just say, have an exam tomorrow. Great." It's always inshallah, right? if you're But but then when you leave the masjid and you go to the university and you meet your kind of like non-Muslim friend here in the West, have How are you doing?" "Great. I'm doing fine. How are you?" "Not bad, you know, things are good." There's no alhamdulillah, praise be to God, you know, may God have mercy on your parents or whatever, right? and your friend tells you, have an exam tomorrow." "Good luck, you know." Like we don't believe in luck, you know, what do you mean? Everything is like under the control of Allah. So, luck is not even part of our vocabulary, but what are you going to say? Like you're not going to say to your non-Muslim friend, may God give you like success." or something. It's going to sound very odd. So, you know, we speak different language, like we make sure we're not using Arabic terms or like foreign vocabulary. Like if you're in say the West, like the US or the UK, but at the same time, you're also conceptually like you're you're adjusting the way you even express yourself to different worldview, different worldview in which it's acceptable to speak about the future and not express that it's contingent on divine will because in the modern worldview, that's really not consideration. Or to simply wish someone luck, you know, on an exam rather than invoke God's success, right? That's That's like very different way of looking at the world and it's not innocent in the sense that it's not just You're not just changing words like now I'm speaking Urdu now I'm speaking Arabic. Like you're actually changing your conceptual framework and you're negotiating in terms of of different conceptual framework. Now, if you live in the West, for example, you really have no choice but to do that. It's like if you speak at home like Urdu with your parents or Arabic or Turkish or whatever, you can't speak that when you go out on the street because understand you. You have to speak English or French whatever the dominant language is. That's understood, so you're bilingual, right? But we're not just bilingual, we're we're like bi mean, in sense bicultural but also like bi-worldviewal if can put it that way. And the problem is like when it comes to the worldview, you know, we need to be very clear on what our worldview is because, you know, when it comes to, for example, mixing languages like many immigrant families after some time, they mix. You know, they speak the home language but they use lot of words from the local language, you know, in some Muslim countries where you have foreign language very present like in Pakistan, you know, English or in North Africa like French is very present. Even in your own country, you're constantly mixing. Like okay, you can have whatever views you want on sort of language purity, but on the day of judgment, Allah is not going to judge you for did you speak like pure like, you know, like Urdu or did you mix it with English or something like that? Like that's not question of ultimate destiny and faith and and and right and wrong and truth and falsehood, right? But when it comes to the worldview, we are talking about like what is actually true about the world. Who is Allah subhana wa ta'ala? Does he exist or not? You know, who are we as human beings? How are we to act in the world, right? And so worldview is much more consequential thing than you know, just the language. And don't want to say just the language because language is actually very important because language actually expresses and encodes the worldview. Do you know what I'm saying? So, if you grow up, say, speaking Arabic, it is very difficult to speak Arabic and not constantly be saying inshallah, mashallah. Like, it it would be very odd to say something like, "I'm going to do this tomorrow." and you don't say inshallah, okay? And so, by the by the virtue of speaking language which is constantly saying that, maybe not every or even other Muslim languages, it's the same. Maybe not every single time you say something like that, you're thinking very consciously about it, but nevertheless, if you were to stop the vast majority of people in Muslim country and say, you just said bittawfiq inshallah. Like, do you really mean that? Do you really believe there's God who's in control of everything and who is going to give success to this person or not?" The vast majority of people say, "Well, yeah, of course believe that. actually do believe that and it's being expressed in my worldview." So, the language we use is actually it transmits the worldview. mean, it expresses it, but also transmits it. So, part of how we acquire our worldview, mentioned that we just like the language, we acquire it from our circumstances, from our society, from the people around us, what kind of reactions they have. They have certain reactions to to to certain things and you know, okay, that's something bad because people in the society have bad reaction to it, right? So, there are all these social cues that transmit the worldview. But at the same time, the language itself is also important vehicle of the transmission of the worldview, okay? But on purely linguistic level, right? When when say mixing two languages or whatever, that's not as that's not like morally consequential in the in the way that, you know, mixing worldviews is. Now, especially for people who are either in the West or or like very exposed to kind of modern culture and very influenced by it, because they're different worldviews, you should expect that there are going to be areas in which they don't necessarily agree with each other. Like, they don't make the same assertions about the world. They don't make the same truth claims. They don't make They don't, you know, make the same affirmations. They don't necessarily agree in details on what is right and wrong and even on some fundamental issues. And this is to be expected because if they did agree on everything, they would be the same worldview. So, by virtue of the fact that they're different worldviews, they're not the same. Like two different languages, they have different words, different grammar, different phonetics. Obviously, that that mean, if they didn't, they would be just the same language and not two different languages. So, the problem that comes up and the reason think this is important is that lot of times, you know, especially like in the West, you know, people have to deal with this lot. Like you're constantly asked about Islam. Well, why do you Muslims say this? Why do you do this? Why do you wear hijab? Why do you, you know? And so, lot of times Muslims don't really have very good way of answering these questions and they answer them in terms that they think will kind of win them kind of credibility with the other side, but often you are really misrepresenting or like selling out your own worldview by packaging it in terms of someone else's worldview. Like, you know, why does woman wear hijab? it's all about freedom and autonomy. Like, really? mean, don't would be hard You'd be hard-pressed to find that like in any Islamic source that hijab or, you know, other things, right, is about like primarily like like autonomy, right? That's very kind of contemporary secular liberal kind of notion that the most important value is like that each person be able to, you know, identify and and and develop his own personal autonomy. Like that's not really an Islamic value. It doesn't mean we don't value that at all, but that's not the reason why we kind of, you know, wear certain clothing or not or, you know, perform certain rituals or not. But, but, you know, in until you realize that wait minute, that's just worldview assumption that the other side has that needs to be questioned and we have different assumptions, you end up like answering questions often in very superficial manner. Sometimes you can get by doing that, but very often you're going to come up to look an issue where there's like an actual clash where you won't be able to just worm your way out of it by kind of like throwing out phrases that appeal to the other person. Like it's very superficial way of answering the question. and and and also like for Muslims who are exposed heavily to kind of like this very different worldview, not only is it question of answering questions that other people might ask you, but also we ask ourselves questions. Like because you grow up with certain assumptions about again say freedom and autonomy in the West and then okay, well Islam restricts certain freedoms here or you know, and then if if you didn't look critically, haven't looked critically at at your sort of pre-commitment to this kind of you know, very inflated notion of freedom and autonomy and you just take that as normal and take it for granted and you don't question it, all of and now you're going to start judging Islam by those standards and there's going to be conflict. So either Islam is wrong or it's been misinterpreted, so we're just going to like reform it or something like that. Or you know, you say, "Okay, well can this really be the the right religion?" Because it you know, by these other standards it looks restrictive or it looks unequal or it looks whatever, you know, whatever standards those are. And so people can sometimes have doubts within themselves and questions and they don't know really really how to answer those. And think the best way we can do that or one of the best ways to do that is just to clear the mental cobwebs by looking like taking step back and looking at like what is worldview, what are the different parts of anyone's worldview. Whether you live today in whatever culture you live in, whether you live in like the Amazon rainforest 200 years ago or you live in like Samarkand in the 8th century or whatever, like you know, you're going to just like you have some language or another that you speak, at least one, you're going to have worldview, right? And so, it's important for us as Muslims, say 3 400 years ago when Islam was still dominant and you know, kind of before the rise of the West, Muslims we had dealt with other worldviews like by translating Greek philosophy and also just by spreading into so many different territories and and dealing with the cultures that it again preexisted the Muslim presence, nevertheless, we were doing it from position of you know, like strength, you know, civilizational strength and more confidence than many of us have today. And so, we were able to sift through lot of those things on our own terms and accept and reject and debate and all of that with in the with the comfort that okay, in the end of the day like we could sort of make our own decisions about what we wanted to accept or reject and we had time to digest it. But over the last couple hundred years with the rise of Europe and kind of the entire Muslim world almost coming under colonial rule and then us now existing in this reality where still like Western culture is so dominant in the world and in many institutions and just basic assumptions of how things work are are based on particular paradigm. you know, we often feel like less confident than we did before and more intimidated, so to speak, by this other worldview. And so, it really think helps just to take step back and really look at it more critically. So, that's very long bit of long introduction, but guess I'll just read these few slides like what is worldview? kind of already said, but just to recap before we get into the details, person's worldview represents his most fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the universe he inhabits. It reflects how he would understand all the big questions of human existence, fundamental questions about who and what we are, where we came from, why we're here, where if anywhere we're headed, the meaning and purpose of life, the nature of the afterlife and what counts as good life here and now. Few people think through these issues in any depth, right? And fewer still have firm answers to such questions. But person's worldview will at least incline him towards certain kinds of answers and away from others. And again, just like your language, even if you don't think about these, like you will have certain assumptions about them, even if you haven't thought through them very like carefully. worldviews shape and inform our experiences of the world around us like spectacles with colored glass lenses. They affect what we see and how we see it, right? So you put on rose-colored glasses, you're going to see things like rose-hued, you put on green, so forth. Depending on the color of the lens, as it were to speak, some things may be seen more easily or conversely they may be de-emphasized or distorted because of the lens through which you're looking, right? Indeed, some things may not be seen at all. They may be hidden from your view because of the assumptions you bring to the table prevent you from seeing certain things. Worldviews also largely determine people's opinions on matters of ethics and politics because these are part of the worldview like your ethical system, right? is part of your worldview and it's also related to what you think human being is and what the human being's purpose is. So these different components of the worldview are also interconnected. They're not separate. So what person thinks about like some of these kind of moral issues, especially that have been hot-button issues in the West about abortion, euthanasia, same-sex relationships, environmental ethics, economic policy, public education, and so on will depend on his underlying worldview more than anything else. Okay? As such, therefore, worldviews play central and defining role in our lives. They shape what we believe and what we're willing to believe, how we interpret our experiences, how we behave in response to those experiences, and how we relate to others. Our thoughts and our actions are conditioned by our worldviews. And what are we judged on on the day of judgment? Our like beliefs and our actions, right? In those who believe and who do righteous deeds. So believe what? Like believe what is actually true about Allah's, you know, basically all of our Aqidah. And how do know what are the standards of of of correct action? That's also, you know, to large extent, you know, we know that through revelation. And some would say it's for like to the complete extent, like exclusively. That's different debate that we've had within our tradition, but the point is like, you know, how if our worldview shapes our thoughts and our beliefs, our beliefs and our actions, then we want to make sure that we're getting our worldview right because it is precisely on our beliefs and our actions that we are ultimately held accountable before Allah subhana wa ta'ala on the day of judgment. So this is very high-stakes, you know, discussion. It's not again just about like do you kind of mix languages or something like rather than speaking like more purely like one language or another, right? This is like this has actual moral and weight that's consequential in the in the akhira, right? So what are the main components of worldview? And we're going to go through this again. see like the time we're already like through good portion of it. So we're going to go through very quickly. Again, for more detail, like please refer to the course that mentioned at the beginning and you can get much more like extended presentation of this. But main components of worldview, this is list of things that, you know, came up with. think we could probably add couple of them to it. It's not necessarily completely exclusive, but think it covers most of the main important components of how we see the world. And so excuse the terminology. It's bit technical, but not too bad. The first question for me, mean again, it could be in different orders. This is just kind of my like HTI head, is is the question of ontology. Now ontology basically means the study of being. So by ontology mean like what are your assumptions about what kinds of things exist in the world? Like everyone agrees probably like, okay, this my telephone exists if hold it and see it. So like physical things what we would call physical things exist. What about non-physical? Like are there non-physical realities? Right? Is there an unseen realm? Okay? Like that's big That's question of ontology. Like beyond what can see with my senses or that science can very like discover with microscopes and telescopes, is there realm like as Muslims would say there is like the angels and the jinn like they exist in the rahib, right? We'll talk little bit more about this, but that's like whole realm of existence which is in principle not accessible to us empirically, yet it's like very real. From the modern perspective, that would not really that you know, that would be denied or there'd just be huge question mark over it because notion that we we can only make knowledge claims based on kind of empirical and scientific evidence. And because such realm is by definition beyond the reach of science, science can't affirm its existence, which means that we can't affirm its existence because science is seen as the only real source of knowledge, right? So, that's question of epistemology. Anyway, we see how all these things link together, but ontology basically sorry. Ontology, what exists? What kinds of things exist? Okay? Now, among the things which may or may not exist hypothetically is theology. Like does God exist? Right? And who is God? If worldview affirms that God does exist, then you know, kind of put that now on the top because God, you know, if you affirm that God exists is sort of the ultimate reality and so everything then is derivative of God. Anything else that mean God is the wajib al-wujud we would say, the necessarily existent, right? And anything that exists other than Allah, so any anything else that the ontology contains other than Allah subhana wa ta'ala is because of Allah having created it, right? So, Allah prime existent so to so to speak. And so, you know, put that like physically, you know, on the top, okay? And so, you would have theology if you if you affirm the existence of God. So, who who is God? What does he want from us if anything? Like, what can we know about God and how? Okay? So, theology and then ontology, what exists? Now, the second question and also kind of already pointed at this very briefly is question of epistemology, which is basically question of knowledge. Like, so what is knowledge and how do we acquire it? What are the different sources of knowledge? Okay? And then anthropology, and by this mean who or what is man? don't mean anthropology like the discipline in the university of modern university, but anthropos being insan in Greek and ology like knowledge of. So, who or what are we as human beings? Where do we come from? What is our nature? Okay? And then there's the question of teleology, which is question of purpose. Is there purpose of the universe? Of man? Right? Or or do things just kind of exist as brute facts? And if there's any purpose, is it purpose that we kind of, you know, generate from within and impose on the world? Like, that's big question. And then question of morality and ethics, what is right and wrong? And how can we know that? And then question of law and politics, what is just law? What is an ideal political political arrangement? Right? Different societies, cultures, you know, will have like different notions of of this. And then here the question also of aesthetics, what is beauty and what is beautiful? This might seem little bit out of step with all of these other very arid kind of philosophical categories, but really, you know, all human beings have some notion of beauty. The prophet peace be upon him said, "Inna Allah jamila yuhibbul jamal." That Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. And Plato also has very beautiful quote where he says, "Beauty is the splendor of the truth." Right? So, it's not just, you know, like like like like if you look at what culture produces as art, what it considers to be art-worthy or what it considers to be beautiful, you can tell lot about the worldview of that culture by looking at its art, by looking at the spirit that animates it. So, aesthetics is actually also an important part of the worldview, but we're not going to deal with it like here, but like to put that up. Now, as said, we could probably add few more components like the one that's not here, you could say economy. Like, what is wealth? Like, conceptual, what is money? what are the ethics that kind of you know, that that kind of govern the acquisition and the dispen- dispensation of wealth. that's big thing and of course you've had different theories of that from communism to capital. Communism and capitalism, yeah. Right. And in Islam, you know, the Islam has lot to say about, you know, gaining wealth, spending wealth, you know, how you can and cannot do that and all of that. So, that's very important. didn't add that here, but it's something one could add and certainly we could think of other categories. Nevertheless, think these give like very good idea of, you know, the majority of kind of the worldview. Now, the modern worldview, so we can't go into it, but there's progression of it from, you know, the 16th century, you have the Protestant Reformation or so the sorry, the 15th century, so the 1400s, you have the Renaissance. Then you have in the 16th century, you have the Protestant Reformation starts in 1517. And then you have in the 17th century, there's the scientific revolution. In the 18th century, it's the age of enlightenment. 19th century, you have the secularization of the European mind over the course of the 19th century. in the West also goes global through colonialism. And then early to mid 20th century is kind of high modernity represented by these like, you know, very straight kind of mathematical, cold like skyscrapers. And then from like mid-late 20th century on, especially in the academy, you know, we enter the the stage of like postmodernity where there are lot of critiques made of modernity, which are some of them very valuable, but also the larger kind of framework can be very problematic as well. And so, Muslims are dealing with, you know, modernity and postmodernity, which both derive like, you know, they're both modern postmodernity kind of is derivative of modernity, but it is distinct from it. And so like, we're actually dealing with all you know, all three of these at the same time. So, okay, so just to go back like here's basically here are the major components of worldview as we've discussed. And what we you can do once you have identified these different components, you can basically compare and contrast any two worldviews that you want. The Islamic worldview, the modern worldview, the Christian worldview, the Confucian worldview, like, you know, you can put three or four of them up at once. And if you just start like filling in these boxes, right? What does worldview affirm about ontology, about epistemology, about anthropology? And you line them up next to each other, then you can see where do they overlap and where do they diverge, right? And in actually there's one question that would like you to address. When it comes to worldview, was having this debate with an atheist and basically it was discussion and my core claim my thesis was that atheism is not worth it because before the rise of, you know, secular modern worldview, atheism when when Nietzsche says God God is dead, he basically saying that the essentialism when when before that religion covered everything. But but now as he said that religion is no longer driving the way we live life. So you have transvaluation of all values. You have to drive your own values and and your morality worldview stuff like that. And said it's not worth it because with that came the rise of nihilism and existentialism and absurdism, all these philosophies. And majority of the comments under that post from from angry atheists, they said atheism is not worldview and secularism is not worldview. don't understand what do they mean by that? Can person claim that he is an atheist and he's living in this godless universe and still claim that he does not have worldview? No, of course not. mean, as we said, everybody has worldview. So, it's like you can't not have worldview. think what maybe you're saying like some people will say atheism is not positive position, like it's not an affirmation of something, it's simply the negation of deity. But, but even if you accept that, which don't and I'll tell you why in minute, even if you accept that that atheism itself is not any particular position, it's just the absence of taking position, the person still has worldview because he'll still have assumptions about all of the things that we just mentioned. What are human beings? Where do we come from? What does it mean to know? What kind of things exist or not exist, right? And the fact that they do not affirm the existence of god, that's part of their ontology. Their ontology does not include god and therefore they don't have theology. And, you know, and and and we will see like that will trickle down and will affect every other level of the worldview. Okay? Because So, that's number one. Number two is, you know, and and this is also related to what said don't think that, you know, do not accept the claim of the atheist that atheism is is is not an affirmative position, that it's just like you know, not taking position. that's not true because God is whether you believe in God or not, okay? Just conceptually, God is not like any other being. The way what we mean when we say God, what the atheist means when he says God and the theist, okay? God is not just like you know, another planet in the solar system. Like, what is it? Pluto? They decided couple years ago is no longer planet. Okay, so we have eight planets instead of nine or whatever. No big deal. Like, it's just one other thing. Throw like another planet in, it's not going to, you know, this is like contingent fact, okay? God is not just one item of existent existence among others, okay? So, so God is the grounding of all existence. God is the only necessary God is the creator of everything else. If he exists, then he is in control of everything like, you know, there are certain features which are kind of directly derivative of, you know, of what it even means to be God. And so, the universe with God and the universe without God are not the same universe at all. And what mean by that is that the atheist and the theist can both look out and say and the atheist will often say this, especially in the modern period where they have like confidence culturally to kind of speak openly, which was not the case in the past. The theist and the atheist will look out the window. Okay, you see that tree? You see those rivers? You see those mountains? You agree they exist? agree they exist. We both agree that this, you know, empirical world around us exists. But you, the theist, you say in addition to all of this which we can both plainly see, you're also saying there's another being which we cannot see, cannot detect like, you know, empirically, which is God. And okay, can't see. So, the burden of proof is now on you because you're the one who is like affirming the existence of something additional and that, you know, is not apparent to both of us. And so, you have to now prove it. Now, again, it's not like me saying, "Okay, do you see the room? Yes, you can see the bookshelves and you can see the lamp. by the way, there's pink elephant also behind me." And you say, "Well, where's the pink elephant? can't see it. Prove it." Like, you're making claim, prove it. Okay? Again, pink elephant, whether it's here or not, this is contingent fact on on which nothing else is dependent. But God is not is not like that. So, if the atheist denies the existence of God, you can't just say, "Well, deny there's there's God. Now, you bring me proof." Because the atheist now has to contend with, "Okay, let's go on the assumption that there is no God." You know, you you can feed that to the atheist for the sake of argument, okay? Now, you explain to me adequately, you give me an adequate account of the universe that does not appeal to God or something like God to have created it. Okay? You explain to me how how what exists exists. How how we exist, the features of the world has, how it exists, and all that. Then they have to actually give you an explanation, and it's going to be very difficult for them to do that. And and that's where you have to say, "Wait minute, your explanation is actually is not adequate. You cannot give an adequate account of these things absent, you know, some type of transcendent like creator. Do you know what I'm saying? Like they have to account for the world that exists in in terms that don't appeal to God. They can't just say we're not appealing to God and you have to prove it. Because again, by denying the existence of God, they are making even if only by implication, they are making positive affirmation about the world, which is that such world as we know to exist and and that exists as we know it to exist can exist without, you know, some type of transcendent all-powerful all-omniscient divine like source. And that's big claim. That's not neutral claim. It is positive claim. Dr. Sharif, had Dr. Graham O'Brien or invited him to my podcast and he you know he he's one of the leading atheist scholars. And he said it is incredibly disingenuous on the part of an atheist to claim that he he's not making any positive claim and he's just lactivist. He said, "Just like theism, atheism requires justification too. And when you make this claim that God does not exist, as you said, you have to account for all of that that transpires after that because it is not shallow claim. It is not hollow claim. When you say God does not exist, first you have to bring your evidence as well. Just like theists, they bring their evidence, contingency argument or or arguments. So, what where is your evidence?" He said, "You cannot say that am an atheist, but my position does not require burden of proof. He said, "Your position requires burden of proof as well. You have to build solid case where you have to account for teleology and why things exist the way they exist. And as you said, ontology, epistemology, everything. All these implications, you you you have to take responsibility of that. You cannot basically say that I'm just an atheist and it is not my worldview." And this is coming from one of the leading atheist scholars, Dr. Graham Oppy. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's you know, would agree with him on that. You know, mean, that's the proper procedural way to go about it. And also want to say, you know, to the benefit of your audience that there is philosopher, mean, he's died now, maybe 20 years ago, Anthony Flew, Anthony Flew, who was British philosopher. Yeah, so he was like the basically the standard bearer of philosophical atheism for about 50 years. So he grew up in England like as Christian, but lost his Christian faith, you know, probably as teenager like when he was quite young. And in his professional life as philosopher, and he did philosophy of religion and like the existence of God, this was his specialty. He wasn't like philosopher in some area and just happened to have opinions on this. This was his professional, you know, specialization. And he is the one who actually articulated this idea that the burden of proof is on the theist, okay? mean, he articulated and defended that position for half century. And he was one of the leading like horsemen, you know, of the of the kind of atheist movement. And around the year 2000, 1999 or 2000, he was 80 years old, and he actually reversed his position. And he said that he now affirmed the existence of some type of transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent like creator. And of course, the atheists were furious at this because it's like he was one of their main leaders and now he kind of like flipped. And they started making ad hominem arguments like, he's an old man now and he's starting to fear death and all of that." And he was very clear, he said, "This position, this change of position of mine is purely philosophical like change of position in position. It was not born of, nor has it led to like religious conversion in the kind of Imani sense, okay? Like the existential sense." But he said, and it's important for us to know this, like he said that the, you know, my affirmation now of of of the necessity of of some type of like creator, basically, is based on purely on like the empirical evidence that science has revealed to us. And, you know, like rational conclusions that, you know, have to be drawn from that. Like there is no plausible way to account for the existence and the order of the universe, especially with things like DNA, which like encode information and all of that. Like there is no plausible way of accounting for this in framework which assumes that things came about like randomly and were not somehow designed by entity that like knew what it was doing, basically, like some type of God. And and and so he was asked in an interview, sir, you know, like you have said for 50 years now that the burden of proof falls on the theist. You know, do you now say that the burden of proof falls on the atheist?" And he said, "Yes. In fact, it's the atheist that's asking us to believe something that's absurd and ridiculous. You know, you're asking me to believe that all of this exists with no sufficient explanation. It's not enough to say, 'Well, it just popped into existence' or 'There's big bang.' Like these are non-answers. Well, what banged? mean, that you're just pushing the back of further for something to bang, there has to be something there in the beginning. And then, you know, that's all that we can go into another all the constants that, you know, that that came about at the time of the Big Bang are like so so so so precise that they were off even like tiny bit, like, you know, everything would have been different and all of that. So, like he just, you know, and all you have also have Thomas Nagel, an American philosopher who's also an atheist, who wrote Minds and Cosmos think in 2011. Very, very think you know, penetrating and insightful work. It's not long, but it is quite dense. And he is an atheist and remains an atheist, but he also says like this entire evolutionary paradigm, he's like this is just it's complete like it's just so implausible that he says the only reason people believe it is that we've just been browbeaten by the secular culture like this is it's basically an aqidah point like it's it's the aqidah of the modern secular world like you have to have some creation story and this is like this replaces the biblical story, but like if you challenge any scientific theory, you know, casually or professionally like who cares? Like okay, you want to challenge you know, relativity go ahead. Like mean obviously you need to know what you're doing, but no one's going to care. But if you dare say or dare to suggest that the theory of evolution is either fundamentally wrong in its basic assumptions or is like inadequate it you know, explain some of the story, but certainly not all of the story and whatever. Any suggestion that there's anything like you know, wrong with it would immediately like you know, You'll be cancelled. Yeah, you'll be cancelled. Yeah. Exactly. You'll be cancelled immediately. Professionally cancelled like socially, people get really angry. So this is really point of aqidah. And there was British philosopher woman Mary Midgley or Midgely, I'm not sure how it's pronounced She also was you know, raised like same generation as as flu. mean she she died maybe 10 years ago at the very advanced age late 90s. and she wrote book called Evolution as Religion. And she again had been raised Christian obviously, but think you know, basically was sort of agnostic the rest of her life. So she was also not writing from like Christian position. But she was just saying it's like objectively true if you look at how evolution is is talked about and the function it plays in modern Western society, it is it is it plays religious role and it's it's role of she doesn't use the word akidah, but it's credal issue. Do you know what I'm saying? And that's how it's treated. It's not treated like any other, you know, kind of theory or or or something like that. So, anyway, without going into all of that, it's important for think Muslims to realize that, you know, we don't accept this modern notion that that belief in God is just like purely private personal like thing that, you know, you either have or you don't and it's completely non-adjudicable. Like there's no argument that can be had and the atheist just hasn't seen like good enough argument and you can't really judge, you know, and it's all No, like you know, fa'lam annahu la ilaha illallah. Allah says know that there is no god but God. Like we say that no, like your mind can only bring you to the conclusion that there is god. And Allah in the Quran many in many places asks us to use our mind and to reflect, you know, he's not just telling us exist and I'm one. He's He's telling use your mind, consider this this this that. Could it be otherwise? Like he's bringing you to see the truth of that with your own mind, right? So, so that's number one. We don't give up the intellectual like high ground, so to speak, and just agree to view, you know, the something like the existence of God as question of like private faith. That's not the case. mean there there there there there is right or wrong about this and it is something that hatu burhanakum in kuntum sadiqeen. Bring your proof if indeed you are telling the truth. And we don't shy away from this discussion. Number two, and this is also important for Muslims to know, that intellectual discussion and also the intellectual affirmation of this of the existence of God is very important and it's important for us to know as Muslims that solid intellectual case can be made and that that real intellect does not allow for another conclusion as Anthony Flew correctly realized, you know, later on in his life. However, that is not sufficient morally and religiously speaking. Because why? Once you realize and understand that there is God and you know who God is, again, God's existence or nonexistence is not like the existence or nonexistence of any other thing, right? If God exists, then everything changes. Exactly. Because now you are dealing with, okay, if there's God who transcends the universe and is actually omniscient and omnipotent and could create it and has will and purpose. Like this is now an actual This is not like philosophical principle. This is living being, okay? Who has intention and purpose and will. And the question immediately arises, well, why did this being create? And why did he create me? And what does he want from me? Right? What is my So, response supposed to be? So, so we are meant to have an existential response to that, which is la ilaha illallah. This is statement of faith, but what What does it follow? What follows it? Submission. Right? Aslamtu lillah. have submitted myself to Allah subhana wa ta'ala. It's not enough to just believe in Allah and then refuse to submit. The Quraysh believed in Allah. mean, Allah says in the Qur'an, "Ask them who created the heavens and the earth." La yaqulun Allah. They will certainly say Allah. They were not atheists, okay? And they believed in When you push them on it, they believed that Allah was like the supreme being, although they had the other deities, right? They did not say Allat and Uzza and Manat ath-thalithata al-ukhra created them. No. If you ask them who created everything, they will say Allah. So, they knew Allah. They knew he was like the actual creator God, right? Their problem was shirk and also not just shirk. mean, that's obviously the main problem, but but not submitting to not worshipping that God, right? Not responding to him existentially as creation creator creation re- responds to its crea- creator. So, Anthony Flew it's it's And he said explicitly, "My this was neither born of nor led me to religious conversion." And it's important to to make the intellectual point that from purely philosophical point of view, an empirical point of view, you know, that's already enough to establish that there is God. Okay? And the atheist is the one who's being ultimately what's the word I'm looking for? Absurd. mean, the position is ultimately absurd and and can't really be properly defended. He might try, that's fine, but like we will say it it it it's not like an equivalence of proofs, okay? Exactly. It's important. But but again, that is not sufficient. Like, okay, understand God exists and I'm going to go on and continue to live my life as did before and I'm just going to check off the box that now believe in creator God, so have sufficient explanation for the universe. That's not what religion is all about. That's not why when Allah says in the journey of the Khalifa, I'm creating Khalifa in the earth, he didn't just mean beings that would like recognize his existence in an intellectual way, right? But beings who would actually believe in him and submit to him. So, meant to be love. He meant is not just the, you know, intellectual affirmation that they're like if that would you do lot, like you know, the affirmation of the existence of the Lord. It's more than that. So, anyway, that kind of takes us little bit on the side. Anyway, it was an important question and those are like fundamental points. so, let me just share again and and go now Yeah, sure. Sure. put you through The rest of the slides, yeah. Wait minute. Sorry, I'm not Yeah, sure. I'm not seeing them. Sorry. I'm not seeing the tab anymore to share. okay. There will be something like present and if you click on it, you will find the option share screen. Yeah, I've did that. Hold on. Share screen. Yeah. Yeah, just share share screen, yeah. Right, but then when it gives me the list of things to share, it's just giving me websites. All right. If you share your screen, then anything that you put on your screen should be able to come up. Yeah, yeah, here we go. Here we go. At this stage, yeah. Yeah. You can just zoom into that and it will Yeah, perfect. Perfect, yeah. Okay, so getting back into the main main components of worldview, we already looked at those. And so, you know, as said before, theoretically, you just line up any two or three worldviews and just fill these out. So, what we want to do now in the remaining time, very quickly, is just basically look at each of these categories, especially the first like three, and and look how the Islamic worldview and the modern worldview line up. And then we'll have much clearer view of, you know, of how different they actually are. And, you know, and it will help us think through lot of the kind of conflicts that come up between them. And also be more confident as Muslims that, okay, of course of course there's conflict here because can see that that other worldview is starting from completely different premises. So, I'm no longer surprised if they say one thing and say something very different, and that doesn't cause tension anymore because understand the basis of their worldview. understand it all the way down to the roots, and understand my worldview down to the roots, too. And also have some understanding of why my worldview is actually correct and more defensible, right? And the and understand why don't adopt the other worldviews premises. And if don't adopt the premises, I'm not beholden to the conclusions. And if those conclusions conflict with mine, so be it. Like, why should they necessarily agree? But, you don't feel this kind of like tension anymore, like, how am going to reconcile this with that or whatever? You just understand that these are different world views and they've come to different conclusions. And And again, you you gain confidence in your own world view, and you correct, you know, for instances where maybe you've taken on assumptions from the other world view that you were unaware of. and and you learn how to articulate your own world view better and call people to it because we're, you know, called to make dawah and invite people to it, but you feel more confident doing that and don't feel like you have to constantly like, you know, paper over the differences or or change Islam to like fit another paradigm. So, anyway, when it comes to ontology, like again, very quickly like the empirical natural world, so we'll start with the modern world view. Does the modern world view, you know, affirm the existence of like the world around us? Like, yes, it does, okay? everyone basically does. And it will refer to it as the empirical world or like the natural world. Okay? It's not really our terminology, but this is what's used like at least in English. And do we as Muslims also affirm this? Yes, we do. We we would refer to it using our own terminology as the seen realm, the select Quranic term alam ash-shahadah. Allah refers to himself in the Quran as alim al-ghaybi wa ash-shahadah, the knower of the, you know, like unseen and seen. So, we have actually Quranic term that everything we see around us, everything that we have like basically empirical access to, to put it in modern terminology, is the alam ash-shahadah. It's the realm of the seen. Shahida is to witness or to see, obviously. So, it's the the realm of that which is seen or like, you know, we could say empirical, okay? So, we do also affirm the existence of that. We have our own terminology for it, which again, terminology is important because when you say the seen realm, right? What does that imply? It implies counterpart with unseen realm. And so, definitely we also believe in an unseen realm, which is the Alam Al-Ghaib. And Ghaib simply means absent, meaning it's not present to our senses. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So, again, Alam Al-Ghaib and Shahada, whenever the two are mentioned in the Quran, the the Ghaib is actually mentioned before the Shahada. As if to say that the Ghaib in sense is not only real, but it's more real and more principial. Like it's it has principial priority over the seen realm. In sense. All right? So, so, what exists in the unseen realm? Things like angels, jinn, like arwah, you know, spirits, the barzakh, which is when you die, it's the interstice between this world and the next world, okay? Alif lam mim lam mim dhalikal kitabu la rayba fihi hudan lil muttaqin alladhina amanu bil ghayb. Bil ghayb. This is in the very beginning Surah Al-Baqarah. This is book in which is guidance sure, in which there is no doubt, guidance for those who have taqwa, those who believe in the unseen. So, if you don't believe in the unseen, stop right there, right? Fix that. Because all of Islam is based on that. Like that's the very first thing, alladhina amanu bil ghayb. Right? And who establish the prayer and who spend of what we have given them. So, then you have ritual ritual obligation, and then you have social obligation you get, right? So, it's all stacked, but it starts with belief in in the Ghaib. So, we as Muslims definitely believe in the Ghaib. What about the modern worldview? mean, essentially, when say the modern worldview, I'm talking about the kind of official worldview of the modern world, which is based is basically the scientific worldview, which does not really recognize anything beyond the natural. So, people in the modern world like to talk about ghosts and goblins and like this and that, but the understanding is like kind of wink wink, tongue in cheek. Modern sophisticated people don't actually believe in these things, although it's kind of fun to spook ourselves out, right? That was just our ignorant forebears. Like they believed in things like spirits and ghosts and all of that and like, you know, devils and things like that. But, you know, modern people like the essentially the supernatural world is denied. Okay? Doesn't mean that people in the modern world don't believe in it, but the official worldview doesn't include that. You're not going to go to school and have class about it. Like everything you would learn in school, for example, would mitigate against the reality of anything that it goes beyond the senses, essentially, or escapes the kind of purview or the remit of of modern science. interestingly enough, like in the modern world, you have the supernatural coming back in through the back door. So, people still like they'll go to psychics and they'll go to people who like the munajjimeen, people who read the stars or whatever, astrologists, okay? they'll get their tea leaves read and all of that. Which, you know, that's like superstition. It's it's actually haram to to to believe in or do these things in Islam. But, these supposedly like very secular or scientific-minded people, nevertheless, like they you know, we would say as Muslims, yeah, the the intuition of the unseen is like built in with into us because we have fitra. And if you if if you don't identify the truth behind the unseen, which is primarily Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, okay? Then, you know, you're going to be looking for it in different ways. So, you get into magic or you get into the occult or you get into some of these weird things, which again kind of thrive even in secular environment because it seems like you cannot fully suppress, you know, mean, human beings are not built to be pure materialists. And so, that this worldview is like very thin and they will find some outlet for their kind of, you know, you could say spiritualistic or or or ghaibi-oriented like tendencies. They'll find some sometimes bad outlets for it. And then finally, like, okay, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is in the unseen, you know, with respect to us in this world, we don't see him. that's for the akhirah. and and does Allah exist? We mentioned before this could be seen as question of ontology. For us, we would absolutely mean, that that's the to be Muslim is la ilaha illallah, like that's the very first part of the shahada, Muhammadun Rasulullah. So, obviously we would affirm the existence of God. Not only that, that but that God is the only, you know, true is the only necessary existent, is the Haq itself, everything else is derivative. What about the modern world view? Big question mark. you know, lot of early modern thinkers were definitely theists. but but the idea is that the world view itself is very agnostic about the question at best or even post-Kantian. mean, Kant claims to have refuted all of the traditional kind of rational arguments for the existence of God, and then he gave kind of moral argument. But after Kant was like, "Okay, believe if you can believe." But think this idea of belief being kind of non-cognitive and just sort of you you believe or you don't, but there aren't any sufficient like reasons like in purely logical rational sense, you know, is is kind of very much post-Kantian phenomenon. And so, the whole modern world, at least for the last 200 years, has put big question mark over this. in the last 30 to 40 years you have seen rebirth of philosophical theism, meaning people who and I'm not talking about Anthony Flew because this was very late thing for him, but there are people like Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and couple others in, you know, like philosophy and the philosophy of religion who as philosophers, like qua philosophers, of course they are believers in their private lives, but as philosophers, they are rearticulating and kind of re reestablishing like philosophical theism as position within like philosophy, right? That people aren't seriously arguing for once again, almost for the first time in, you know, maybe almost 200 years in the West, right? So, it's changing bit. the next part of ontology, identifiable eschaton. Now, an eschaton refers to the end things, like how are things going to end? When you're only looking from purely kind of material perspective, the scientific worldview if anything they'll tell you something about the end of like the universe, like it's all going to collapse and like explode or something like that. But there's no kind of eschaton or identifiable end identifiable end story so to speak for individual human lives or the human race in general. For us, what is our like eschaton? It's all about resurrection and judgment, right? We live in this world it's only one of several stages. There is death, there is that interest is the barzakh and then there's future life which is going to be eternal. We will be resurrected, there's judgment, okay, there's moral accounting, heaven and hell. And this is all very very kind of clear and very front and center. Read any two pages of the Quran and you cannot fail to come across the mention of the resurrection and the day of judgment, okay? What about objective meaning or teleology? Like objective that things in and of themselves have purpose or meaning. Human lives, human the human race, you know, stars, whatever. This is basically denied because again things like meaning and teleology, if you reduce reality to just the physical which the modern world kind of mean that that's the basic thrust of it, right? It's reductionist in that sense, then it's very difficult to to derive any objective meaning from that and so you end up with period or sorry situation in the modern world where existence is seen as kind of this blank slate and and and any meaning that my life has is just meaning that kind of generate on my own and sort of project onto the world, right? There's no notion that okay, as human being qua human being, have there is proper way for me to live my life, there's proper end for me to direct my life towards, right? Namely like the worship of God and and and doing, you know, acting morally and all of that. That's that's gone. It's it's seen as very subjective thing. What about for us as Muslims? The cosmos, the whole cosmos is like infused with meaning and purpose, and we can't really go too much into this right now cuz we don't have time. and then of course there's verse in the Quoran, "When my heart and Jinn and inside in the hour of rule." Created Jinn and mankind to worship me. So, we are created to worship Allah. Now, what does worship mean? It's very broad. So, there's worship proper like our prayer and our dua, but then living life pleasing to Allah, having the right intention, doing good, being Khalifa for Allah like Allah's vicegerent on Earth, right? This is the purpose for which we are created. There are many different ways that individual humans can, you know, realize their kind of Khalifate purpose, if you want to put it that way. But, the idea that we do have an objective purpose, right? That we've been created in order to fulfill, right? This is also something very front and center. So, if you look at just this ontology, you see that from the Islamic worldview, right? It's actually very multi-tiered and like thick account, if you want to say, like rich account. You have creator God who makes, you know, whose existence grounds everything else and and kind of justifies, you know, the existence of everything else, okay? And also gives it meaning, also endows it with purpose, you know, creates us with purpose and also gives us purpose. There's moral account, you know, moral dimension that's drawn into this, right? So, the whole question of morality and ethics is also brought into this larger story. It's accounted for. Why do we have sense of right and wrong? Because those are real categories, right? And they actually have ultimate consequences. you know, no injustice will be done at the end of the day when all of the scores are settled, right? also, and again don't have time to go into it, but this seen realm in the empirical natural world, would also submit that although on some superficial level, the atheist and the Muslim looking out, you know, of the window see essentially the same trees and mountains and rivers or whatever, nevertheless, if if if if you are Muslim who is in in imbued with the Quranic worldview, you actually are not looking at the same world because Allah says, you know, like there is nothing that exists except that it's praising Allah. It is singing the praises It's making tasbih to Allah. Well, cannot you know, you human beings, you don't understand their praise. But the tree is not just like doing photosynthesis or whatever. mean, it's praising Allah in way that is, you know, proper to it. Not only do we as Muslims see its existence as sign. It's an It's an ayah of its creator, right? It's proof of God's One tree would prove the existence of God. Where did the tree come from? How did it, you know, have this like incredibly complex structure? single atom would prove the existence of God, okay? So, it is serving function in pointing to its creator. At the same time, it's actually engaged in worship. It's making tasbih. And the entire universe is making tasbih. And it's all subjected to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in sujud. Right? So, the whole world is actually worshiping its creator in its own way. Each species and each realm of existence in the way that's proper to it. And so, what about you mankind? And many among mankind, but not all were Get with the program. When you submit to Allah and also worship in the way that's prescribed for us, our species, you're basically just, you know, in sense, you're you're now coming into conformity and into harmony with the rest of the universe, which is already doing that. So, even the the the kind of quote-unquote physical universe, which is again, it's not really our terminology to to call it that. That is not the same, you know, superficially it's the same world that the that the atheist is looking at, but the atheist only really sees like matter in motion, right? Just matter and molecules that come together in different shapes and forms. They He doesn't see it as itself like theomorphic being. It doesn't mean it's divine, but that it's infused itself with divine purpose and that it's actually engaged in worship and tasbih. Like that's very different way of of looking at and experiencing the world around you. When you hear birds chirping and you know that okay, yeah, they're communicating with each other, but they're also like praising their Lord, you know? And then you're coming to them and merciful because, you know, you see cat. Like that cat is creature of Allah. Like, you know, you have to treat it like everything has its hook, you know? mean, animals in the Sharia have their rights. You can't just kill an animal for for sport, right? You can kill it for food under certain conditions. Allah has allowed that to us, but you can't just you know, treat life or even like forests and all of that. Like, you can't just cut down trees for no reason. The prophet peace be upon him forbade people from cutting down trees or burning things down in war. Like, you can't do that. So, you know, this all there's lot of ethical implications that flow from that as well, which in the modern world view when if you just view it as like stuff and matter and dead material, sure, you know, like destroy forests, cut things down, burn things down. Who cares? It's just matter. These are not like things that are making tasbih to the Lord. They don't have hook, right? Whereas in Islam they have hook because it's coming from very different, you know, the ontology even of this allegedly like the one realm where we seem to share, you know, we don't because we actually view it like very differently. We both agree with the existence of it or believe in the existence of it, but we're actually we're not interpreting it in the same way at all. Like, we have much again richer, much more meaningful, you know, way of of of interpreting even kind of like the quote-unquote physical world around us. But if you look at all the other realms that, you know, as Muslims we would affirm, right? That gives thick kind of coherent and compelling you know, understanding of the world around us, okay? if you look at the modern picture, it's basically picture of deletion. Question of God is question mark. mean, God the the ultimate reality the hook is question mark. And then supernatural world denied. Identifiable as identifiable as good denied. Objective meaning basically denied. So, delete delete delete delete. You're left with very thin, you know, layer. Although our knowledge in that thin layer has expanded astronomically, no pun intended, over the past say 2-300 years, nevertheless, the the picture has been squashed down to just one very, very thin slice of reality, which is the kind of physical empirical world, at the expense of everything else, you know, which is huge price to to pay and it is very distorted. It distorts, you know, the the one's sense of the whole and one's sense of of the meaning of the whole when you do that. So, going on now to epistemology and you'll see that how these two are very closely related. Epistemology, the question of knowledge, how do we know? So, we'll start with the modern world view again here. Perhaps the primary way to know in the modern world view, you have sense experience. Of course, you have the, you know, debates between like empiricists and rationalists and so forth, but, you know, like by and large, say look, we'll just for the sake of argument like start with sense experience. How do we know? How do know that things exist? Primarily because can see them and like experience them somehow or someone else has seen them and reported, you know, so sense experience. Do we as Muslims believe sense experience like provides knowledge? Yes, we do. The word we would use is hiss. Hiss is to sense or experience something. what about reason? Yes, does modern world view believe that reason can lead us to knowledge? It does and in fact the entire enlightenment project of the 18th century was basically to, you know, bypass religion, revelation, that kind of gets put to the side and it's the the the project is to found all of human knowledge on the twin sources of reason and sense experience. Basically, reason as applied to the modern scientific project and reason also more broadly than that, but these are like the two sources of knowledge, reason and science or sorry, reason and sense experience, upon which all human knowledge is to be founded, including moral knowledge, moral knowledge, moral knowledge of right and wrong. This was the project and it became very difficult to do this and you know, that the project kind of broke down in the middle of the 20th century, which is part of why you get the post-modern, like the rise of post-modernism. There are other reasons for that, too, but this was at least the the goal. Like when talk about classical modernity, I'm basically talking about the Enlightenment project. do we as Muslims believe in reason? We do. We have word for it as aql. actually in the Quran, Allah, you know, says, "Do they not use their mind, you know, ta'aqqul?" Other words are used, fu'ad, lubb, qalb, right? Sometimes like the inner pith, the heart, the mind, like there's actually would say reason. Our notion of aql actually is again, it's thicker and and more expansive than reason is usually conceived of being in the modern world. Reason tends to be seen in very kind of like ratiocination, doing logic and drawing conclusions from premises. Of course, we believe in that, too. mean, that's that's valid way of reasoning, but reason we there's also reflective component, there's an intuitive component to it, there's fitra component to it. We we do have would say more involved and thicker, again, thicker notion of reason, but you know, just for the sake of argument, like again, yes, we we do agree also that reason is source of knowledge, right? We can reflect upon things and come to knowledge about them and we can also certainly learn about things through sense experience. Okay. there's third source of knowledge that now I'm starting with the Islamic worldview side. If you look at any say classical book of Islamic theology like kalam, it'll start by saying like usul al-ilm thalatha, like the roots or sources of knowledge are three. They'll say like al-hiss wal-aql wal-khabar al-sadiq. Reason or like sense experience, reason, and valid report or true report, okay? And then they'll go on and talk about each one. So, in the Islamic worldview, like in our understanding, this notion of report is just like front and center as you can see here. In the modern worldview, like report exists, but it's not conceptually central. And the reason is, like what do we mean by report? Report is not just like someone writes you note and like that's clearly report. It's anything that you have mean, if you look at the first two sources of knowledge, sense experience and reason, if you take that literally, then you as an individual can only know what your own mind can like, you know, come to the conclusion of, which is actually not very much in terms of like affirming the existence of things, okay? You need sense experience of them. So, without reports in very broad sense, you would only know what you've personally experienced, okay? Like, I've never been to the city of Timbuktu, and can't derive from reason that such city must exist. So, okay, just can't know anything about it. can't even know it exists. Well, do know it exists, and I'm would affirm that like with confidence because of like reports in broad sense, like Yeah. I've heard about it. I've heard about it. Testimonial evidence, I've heard about it. know other people have gone to it. Like, I've you know, so many different sources of like knowledge affirming the existence of the city that it's like conventionally impossible for them to all be like collectively, you know, wrong about it. So, can affirm that know about Timbuktu through report. Anything that happened in the past that you did not experience, you know through report. Like, who believes in World War Like, we all believe World War happened. Like, how do we know? No one Well, maybe some people that are still alive to mean, none of us probably listening to this podcast or like this American Civil War or something like that, or you know, we know all of this through report. So, in fact, great amount of our knowledge, you know, really comes to us through report, either of historical events or of like current places and events that we have not personally witnessed. Like great, great deal of what we know, we know through report. Now, for us we, like, it's front and center in our epistemology, and we've There's lot of discussion about it simply because among the various kinds of reports are Whoops. Sorry, let's go to the top now. Revelation. Right? Revelation we would call wahy or tanzil. We're talking about the Quran, also the Sunnah. And this, of course, the Quran as the word of God, we don't think of it as report, but it is because, you know, first of all, it was reported by Jibril alayhis salam to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. The Prophet received it as quote-unquote report. It was transmitted to him. And then he transmitted it to his companions, so they received it as report. And then they transmitted it collectively to us. So, it is report. We don't Again, we don't normally call the Quran khabar. Khabar is more like hadith or something like that. But, you know, in technical sense, it is. Like, you know, the Quran is we experience it by hearing it. Like, hiss. But, you know, as the content as something that's been transmitted to us. And the entire Sunnah also, you know, reaches us through transmission of some sort or another. Okay? So, the idea is that because these are the sources of revelation, which is like all important, obviously, we have been very, very concerned since day one about the more generic category of reports. How can we know that this report is reliable? How do know that the Quran is actually authentic? How do know that every single verse is authentic? Like, we didn't just take it on faith, so to speak. Right? We had ways of verifying these things. And the different qira'at of the Quran, right? There are some that are mutawatir, others that are less well attested, right? All of this is like kind of science, so to speak. And then, of course, all of the hadith sciences is like one huge, like, unique in human history, like, obsession, like, not in pejorative sense, with textual authenticity. Like, how can know they said the Prophet peace be upon him said this? Who said that? Who was he? Did he meet this other person? Was it plausible? What do we know about him in his old age? Did his memory, you know, go down? Right? Like, no one like human history has not seen something comparable to kind of like the Hadith sciences, right? So So we've been like very very very concerned about the about reports and how to classify reports and grade them according to authenticity because, you know, we are community who has received revelation and, you know, are are tasked with preserving and transmitting and living according to that revelation. So it's it's it's central for us. For the West, you know, report again, they don't deny report because if they did, they wouldn't know anything either other than, you know, just what we can sense through our experience. So obviously they have historians and, you know, de facto everybody relies on reports, but it's not conceptually central just because revelation in the West has played different role. The Bible has not played the same role like as as the Quran has. And also, until very recently, the Bible was basically just accepted on the authority of the church. Like through ecclesiastical authority. It was It was not the outcome of critical scholarly process, if you want to put it that way, the way our texts were are. And it's only in the 18th and 19th century when they start developing kind of the higher biblical criticism that people start to see that the biblical text is actually quite problematic. it's first of all much much older than the Quran, but it's also much more difficult to kind of like establish the the authenticity, the way we would understand it, of like very much of it, right? It's like who wrote this? From where? There's all these different theories. And And this think also played major role in the undermining of the authority of religion in the West because the text itself was undermined through critical study and critical scrutiny, whereas in our case it's the opposite. You know, mean, even Western scholars of Islam who are not Muslims and have no skin in the game or no reason to want to like theological reasons for wanting to buttress, you know, the authenticity of the Quran. And in fact, many of them have desired the opposite. you know, they do not deny, except for some stray voices, which most of them don't even take that seriously, they do not deny the authenticity of the Quran. Right? Now, they might not believe it's the word of God, presumably if they don't, otherwise they would be Muslim, but the idea that the mushaf that hold today that those verses and the words are the verses and words that the prophet, peace be upon him, transmitted from his lips to his companions in 7th century Arabia, like they will say, yes. Like this is verifiable. This is historically, this is this claim has historical integrity. This is not just faith claim. Like Muslims just like kind of just us affirm on the basis of like pure faith. there's verse in the Quran that Allah says, you know, in the zone of the Quran in the half of the zone, like we've revealed this and we will preserve it. Well, that would be circular argument. Like, okay, well, you have to believe in the Quran first to to be able to like accept that. We we know that verse. We believe in the verse, and of course the verse is true, but we also can see it like historically, that that has been the case. We can verify Allah's preservation of it is transparent to us, right? And we can show it to other people as well. We don't take it purely on on faith. That's what I'm saying. Like we actually have, we you know, like demonstrable evidence of that. so again, if you look at the the epistemology, senses, experience, reason, report, it basically those are are common, okay? Intuition, fitra, like intuition kind of there's some theorization about that in the modern West. We've done more about it in terms of cash and heads and fitra and intuition. We won't get into that right now. but do want to go to this, you know, top category of revelation. In the modern world, again, this gets deleted. And again, the whole point of the enlightenment project was specifically to get, you know, set religious truth claims aside and to found all human knowledge on the twin sources of sense experience and reason alone with of course report, but they don't normally like stated explicitly. Now, the important thing here is that where where is the one major difference? It's on the top level, right? Revelation and no revelation. And this is fundamental distinction because if you go back to the earlier slide about ontology and we said that we as Muslims have very rich multi-tiered like ontology account of the world around us. most of those of those buckets that we filled in, right? Where do we know? So, the existence of God, we were told that you we can come to know that through reason, okay? But the details of like Allah's sifat and everything, we're we're dependent on revelation for this and his will, okay? But But the fact that there must be God like this is something that we can come to through our reason. So, theoretically, you could do that under the modern world view, too. And as we said, people like Anthony Flew have and there's now people who are there now people in, you know, academic philosophy are all actually now arguing again from rationalistic point of view of the necessity of the existence of God. But everything else like the existence of things like angels and jinn and the barzakh and the afterlife and heaven and hell and all of this stuff, like these are all very very central, very important for us as human beings to know and they are you know, form that very rich multi-layered ontology that mentioned we have as Muslims. Where does our knowledge of that come from? On what basis do we affirm these things? On what basis? Not on the basis of sense experience because the by definition is beyond our empirical reach. Not on the basis of reason. We cannot derive through like pure reason that there must be angels. Like there don't have to be angels. Allah chose to create them. He could have chosen not to create them. Like there there's no rational necessity. You can't prove through reason that something like angels exist or that there's day of judgement. You might have that intuition, but you can't really like prove it through reason. Certainly not through sense experience because it hasn't happened yet either. Right? But all of these things are very very critical in grounding our lives as human beings and in filling out that ontology and the system of meaning, right? With which which imbues the the the universe with purpose. Where does all of that come from? Like epistemologically speaking, we're making those claims on what great grounds? Revelation. So you see if you take revelation away, which is what happens in the modern world. Once you take revelation away, all of those other things basically get knocked out as well. Because if you're left just with sense experience and reason, then you may or may not be agnostic about the existence of God, but any unseen realm, afterlife, all of it is just question of pure speculation. Because there's no means to know it. How can you know? If you've if you've limited your epistemology to just sense experience and reason. So revelation is like it really really critical here and you can see now how the presence or absence of revelation makes huge difference in the entire worldview. Like it shouldn't surprise you, but think when you see it like in chart like this, right? And you can compare with the previous chart, you can see that. Going very quickly now to anthropology, this thought corrected that. This should not be showing up. This language not essential, we'll come to it. let's just go quickly. So both the Islamic worldview and the modern worldview agree that like human beings are at least partially defined by our bodies, right? mean we have human body. Like that's kind of fundamental aspect of who we are. Like we don't have cat bodies. We don't have bird bodies. We have human bodies. If you see some, you know, blob like off in the distance and you want to know well what is that? Is that like you know, bear or you know, heap of garbage or human you know, once that you get closer and you define that as human being, the you know, you're going to know that first and foremost by by the body, right? So, the body is clearly like, you know, fundamental irreducible aspect of who we are. What about the mind? So, in the modern worldview, yes, you know, in general, there's there's basically debate about mind, and of course this whole mind-body problem goes back to Descartes and how do you if the mind and body are two some like completely separate substances and the mind like inhabits the body, how are they coordinated? You know, there's been lot of discussion about this over the last 400 years, but and also today you have debates about whether the mind, what we conceive of as the mind, which is sort of this non-material thing, like mind-only sort of entity, that is coordinated with the physical body but not reducible to it. That's most people's like understanding of what mind is. There is like debate in kind of modern scientific and philosophical circles against not like religious debate about whether there is such thing as the mind as an independent kind of thing or whether everything that we attribute to the mind can be reduced basically to brain function, i.e. reduced to like physical substrate. And and if you're thoroughgoing materialist, then obviously you will try to argue that every feature that we, you know, kind of intuitively and colloquially attribute to the mind is really just you know, is product of synapses firing off in the brain and is no more than that. Not that they're based in that or coordinated with, but that they are no more than those physical reactions. it's difficult position to argue and many, many, many like people don't accept that, right? Even without necessarily giving religious argument, but just on purely scientific grounds. so, we could say that the modern worldview is in that sense not not purely materialistic, although it definitely has strong thrust towards reductive materialism, but insofar as it allows for the existence of mind that is not fully reducible to body, it does kind of leave open like little window for some aspect of reality that's not completely reducible to to the physical. Do we as Muslims believe in the mind? We do. Mind {slash} heart. And we said there are numerous terms for it both in the Quran and in our tradition more widely. Anaqal, qalb, fuad, lubb. We won't go into these, but so again, and as said before, our notion of the mind and of reason at least is think again thicker and more variegated than the the kind of modern notion of reason which is more stripped down, but you know, there's at least some like overlap here. What about like the soul or ruh? Yeah. We would definitely like yes, you know, there every person has has ruh. And Christians also believe this. mean Christians speak about soul and traditionally the West people believed that they had souls and they talk about it all the time. But in the modern worldview as we go into it again, the soul is again in the official kind of scientific worldview at best there's question mark. You know, once you start talking about the mind, okay, well we can deal with that. Once you start about the soul, this becomes like suspiciously religious quote unquote, right? Like they say okay, go to your church to talk about that, but we don't talk about the soul in polite company so to speak, right? This is considered too kind of ethereal, mystical, metaphysical. Like it's you know, it doesn't sit very well within the the kind of like official sort of hard-nosed scientism of the modern worldview. What about other features that make us human? put here like language. would say that this from our perspective this is this is fundamental to what makes us human beings. Any creature that looks like us, that has the kind of body we do, Homo erectus standing upright, maybe has an opposable thumb, but does not have language and cannot articulate, you know, we would we would be justified in saying, "Okay, that's not human being. That's looks like human being, close to human being, but you know, to say it's human being who can't speak, like whose definition?" Right? So, this idea of anthropology is important like you know, people talk about like human origins and evolution and all of that, and they assume that it's they assume that there's an agreed understanding of what human being even is. And in fact, there isn't because are we just our bodies? Is it body and mind? Are is is soul something that's like endemic to what human being is? Language, like yes or no? Because your answer to these questions are really going to determine whether you even agree that certain creature is human being or not. so, we need to know and and the the idea of what human being is, right, this anthropology in the larger sense, is not and cannot be scientific question primarily because you know, treating it as such already predetermines your answers to the questions because science is designed to look at physical causes and effects only. So, if you say that the the notion of human origins or even what human being is is scientific question, full stop, you've already conceded that human beings are nothing but material entities. But who said? Like that's philosophical position. That's not scientific is philosophical position. So, the question of what human being is is first and foremost philosophical and theological question before it's scientific question. It can be scientific question only to the degree to which our bodies are part of who we are, and we we agree that they are. Okay? So, science might have something to say about that. But but if we kind of insist that human beings are irreducibly composed of other parts, right, like mind, like and things like that, language, meaning systems, and we'll also see the last one, morality, right? would say this is also central to who we are. It's It's It's It's essential to who we are as human beings. The fact that we are mukallaf, that we have moral sense. So, if you look at the modern worldview from taking it from purely kind of materialistic perspective, the moral responsibility is something that's kind of seen as incidental. you know, human beings somehow develop at some point in their, you know, evolution moral sense. They try to give some type of evolutionary reason for this that it somehow privileges survival and all of this. But, these are not like very plausible, and you still have to show how like non-material things like mind, soul, or the ability to process and understand things like meaning, okay, of which language is tool, but meaning itself is something that rises above just the physical, or something like moral sense, you know, how this just kind of like arises out of the physical. It's not enough to just say, "Well, it evolved somehow." Like, that's not really an explanation. It's just like using words to like fit something into predetermined paradigm. Like, okay, everything has to be explained through evolution, so we'll just say like evolved because it appeared at some point of time. But, that doesn't really fully It doesn't really explain anything. So, anyway, again, if you look here at the at sort of the anthropology, you know, would say that the Islamic anthropology is is thicker account that deals meaningfully with the different aspects of us as human beings. And of course, we're able to justify or explain the existence of these things because we affirm the existence of God, and God of course it can create things like minds and souls and put them into bodies and create things like moral categories and responsibility. We're not left with trying to just imagine how these types of, you know, non-material aspects of reality could somehow have like evolved from matter or something. Like it's kind of losing prospect, think, to to you know, and we're not caught, you know, in in in doing that. so, guess we could stop there. there's question of morality and ethics, but think our time is out now. So, only had one slide on it anyway. you have three kinds of of of overall approaches in the West that have had some popular at one time or another. And and and Islam actually, again, in sense, combines various aspects of all three of these in way which think makes lot of, again, sense on very multi-tiered level of the different aspects of human morality and ethics and things like virtue, but we don't really have time to go into that right now. And would therefore again, direct people to the larger course on the Sapience Institute website, where again, everything we talked about today, worldviews, and the details of all the different, you know, worldview categories are dealt with at much in much greater length, over eight hours, with about 150 accompanying slides that you can download. So, will stop there. Inshallah. Inshallah. And again, thank you so much for your attention. Thank you very much for the invitation. and Actually, it was an absolute it was matter of great honor and prestige to host you.