Our topic today is losing their religion, the cause, and the cure for apostasy, or indepth, and Western academy, or Western universities. My presentation is going to be very direct, very honest. I don't pull any punches, I don't beat around the bush, I'm a pretty straight shooter, whatever else cliché you want to use. I'm going to tell you straight up what I think is happening. These colleges and universities, and what our responses and our defenses should be. Also, I would say that if you're 13 or younger, this lecture may not be appropriate for you. It doesn't work. We have to go through the obligatory microphone problem. The lecture is rated PG-13. Parental discretion is advised. I want to begin by reiterating some of the things I said in Equipa about a month ago here at MCC, to set the table as it were metaphysically. I'm new with technology, so if I do something wrong, if I forget to switch a slide or something, please let me know. I'm kind of a techno peasant. But we need to grasp our own metaphysics. Even Ajiba, who was a great metaphysician in our tradition, he said that every name and title of Allah SWT has three aspects that relate to His creation. Imam Al-Azali says something similar. He has different terminology. With the terminology of Ibn Ajiba, he calls him ta'aluk, ta'aluk, and ta'aluk. You can translate these something like association, appropriation, or assimilation, and actualization. For example, he says in his book on the commentary of the 99 names of Allah SWT, he says one of the names or titles of Allah is Al-Medik, he's the king. How does his name associate with us? Well, it's simply a recognition that Allah SWT is the king and we are subjects, and that's it. It's being cognizant of that fact, to be resigned to that fact. We might say, well, that's axiomatic, that's just self-evident. That's just a clear and distinct idea, as Descartes might say. But you'll be surprised how many people don't are not resigned to that, but we would consider it to be a self-evident truth. So it's ta'aluk, and then ta'aluk, appropriation or assimilation. So how do we assimilate, as it were, this name of Allah SWT at our level? Well, just as Allah SWT is the king of everything, we also must be kings of our subjects. So what are our subjects? Our faculties, our limbs, right? Imam Al-Fazali uses the analogy, the wonders of the heart, uses the analogy of the heart being the castle in the kingdom, and there are certain inroads to the heart that destroy the heart. For example, the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the stomach, the genitals, the hand and the feet, these must be protected, these are our subjects. And then ta'aluk is actually to master the self, right? And to truly actualize being the king of our subjects. So this is the end, or the purpose, or the telos of the human being on this earth, is to mirror the divine names and attributes according to our metaphysicians. Ta'alakubi achalakillah, there's a tradition, there's weakness in it, but true in its meaning, adorn yourselves with the character of Allah SWT as the Prophet SAW did. In the Qur'an, Allah SWT describes the Prophet SAW These are two divine names, but there are no definite articles. The Prophet SAW is, as it were, a mirror of the divine attributes at a human level. Whereas Allah SWT, for example, is our Rahman, he is the infinitely merciful, the indiscriminately compassionate, all loving in an absolute sense. We should be people of Rahma, we cannot be our Rahman, but we are people of Rahma, right? We mirror this divine attribute, because this is an attribute of Allah SWT. So this is true in all Abrahamic religions, whether it's, you know, I'm talking about Fazali in Islam, or Aquinas in Catholicism, or Maimonides in Judaism, this is called a teleological metaphysic, an end or goal-oriented metaphysic. Now our metaphysicians identify four causes of the creation of the human being. There are four causes of the creation of the human being. The efficient cause, which is the direct force of production, and that is Allah SWT, he is Al-Fa'il, as Imam Al-Fazali calls him, he is a totally free agent, his absolute militian, within his nature to do what he wants. In Arabic this is called al-Adha al-Fa'ilina, the efficient cause. Then you have the material cause, which is the stuff or the material for which something is produced. So Aquinas calls this prime matter, material prima. What is the stuff from which creation is produced? Well, it's nothing. According to the Abrahamic theological position, creation is ex nihilo, it is from nothing. So there is no material cause of creation. In the Quran, it's that the angel says, this is easy for Allah SWT, he created you before, when you were nothing, you were not one thing. Okay, so modern science or Newtonian physics stops here. They only recognize efficient and material causes. So everything is just matter and motion. It is a purely mechanistic or materialistic conception of existence. But our scholars, they continue and they recognize a third cause, which is called formal cause.  What is it essentially? It's mahiah in Arabic, it's quiddity, it's wantness. So for example, if we use the analogy of an Aristotle using the analogy of a statue, let's use the analogy of a statue. The efficient cause of a statue is the sculptor, the efficient cause, the force of production. Or you could say sculpting. What is the material cause of the statue? Well, marble, let's say, as opposed to wood. What would be the formal cause of the statue? What is it? What is it essentially? Well, it's the figure of a human being, for example. It's the apotheosis of George Washington, which is a statue in Washington, D.C. So what is the formal cause of the human being according to our metaphysicians? It is the khalifa, the vice of it, the representative of Allah SWT in the earth. Now modern philosophers tend to be nominalistic. You see that term up there? Nominalism. In other words, they deny universal. They deny essential natures. They deny human nature. So there's no fitra to tap into according to them. There's no innate disposition. There is no a priori knowledge. In other words, there's no knowledge without experience. And experience according to them is solely through the senses. This is also called empiricism. That nothing else informs the intellect other than the senses, and you have experience, and you have memory. So there's nothing innate within us. So like John Locke, he called our minds a tabula rasa, a clean slate. Nothing innate. And this is in contrast to someone like Plato, who's a realist, who said that we're actually born with all of the knowledge of the forms or the essences of things within us, and we have to use dialectic to draw those meanings out. Those meanings are true. They're real. We'll talk more about this idea of dialectic in shalom. But the position of the nominalist is that there is no axiomatic, no self-evident, no irresistible truths to recognize. So one of the names of the Qur'an is advikah. It is a reminder. What does that imply? When we are reminded of truths in the Qur'an, we find that irresistible, and we embrace them, because they tap into our fitrah, our human nature. They are irresistible. Alesta fitrah has been damaged. And there's difference of opinion about this, but some of the irlamas say that our human nature can actually be changed in damage through socialization. So a tabula bin ma'oof, they call to that which is ma'oof. Ma'oof literally means that which is no. Right? It's a passive parisable. Arafah yarifu means to recognize, to recognize something you already do. The Qur'an is adhikah. These are axiomatic, self-evident truths. Thomas Jefferson, he says, in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, he says that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, mainly life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So according to Thomas Jefferson, when the human intellect comes into contact with these ideas, equality of humanity, life, liberty, freedom, the pursuit of happiness, they are irresistible. As long as a person's fitrah has not been damaged, they will immediately gravitate and embrace these ideas. Okay. However, nominalists, they reject human nature. Right? And this leads to a denial then of objective morality. So everything then is subjective. Everything becomes a social construct. Right? They say, then what else did we get wrong? Right? So the very foundations, that which is axiomatic, have been shaken. Everything is questioned. So this has further led to a neutering or distrust of human intellect itself. A neutering of human reason. So then reason cannot be trusted. So then finally, the logical conclusion is a philosophy known as volunteerism. A philosophy which gives primacy to the will over the intellect. Or as Nietzsche said, the will to power. Right? The will, from our perspective, should never exceed the jurisdiction of the intellect. The purpose of the intellect, the akhal, is to keep the will, the desire, in check. Even the word akhal in Arabic, the etiological meaning, is to limit or hobble something. Remember the famous hadith of the Bedouin who came into the Masjid? His camel was outside running around the Prophet ﷺ. He said, whose camel is this? And the Bedouin said, that's my camel. I have trusted Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. He said, hobble her first. Tie her down. Iqil. Right? The word akhal is related to this. The akhal is supposed to keep our will in check. But if you don't trust the intellect, then the will runs crazy, like a camel that bolts away from it. So, I mean, stoic philosophers would also say that the purpose of the intellect is to keep the emotions in check as well. People who are highly emotive tend to be less rational. So then, the principle becomes, do what you want, not what is right, because we can't know what is right. We can't trust the intellect. So, the worship of the nafs. This is inevitable. Worship of the hawah, of desires, of appetites, of the will.  There's a type of sentence in the Qur'an called the jumla istifhamiyyah. Right? An interrogative sentence, which is a type of jumla inshabiya, effective sentence according to the nomenclature of English grammar. This is what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will ask us a question because we're supposed to think about the answer. أَفَلَا يَنْ وُرُونَ إِلَا الْإِبِدِ كَيْفَ خُلِقَتْ Do they not look at the camels, how they're created? فَأَيْنَ تَبْهَبُونَ In another ayah, where are you going?  Where do you think you're going? Stop and do a self-audit. أَرَيْتَ مَنِتَخَلَا إِلَّاهَ وُهَوَى Have you seen the one who takes as his God, his will, his desire, his passion, his caprice? This is the most common type of idolatry. Worship of the self. Egalatry. Self-ism. We'll talk more about this, inshallah. The intellect is neutered. The will takes primacy. So this happens when you deny a formal cause. There's no essential nature. We affirm a formal cause. What is it? And then there's the final cause. Why is it? Why is it? It's purpose. It's tala. Right? So we go back to the analogy of the statue. What is the final cause of that statue? It is to adorn a museum. The Smithsonian, in this case, if we're talking again about the apophiasis of George Washington. So the purpose of the creation of the insan, in other words, our final cause, is given in the Qur'an itself. Ad-Dhariyat. Surah 51, ayah 56. Allah SWT says, this is in the first person's singular. Wa Ma Khalaf Tu, which is very rare in the Qur'an for Allah SWT to speak in the first person's singular. Usually he speaks in the plural. And then he gives an affirmation after a negation. If that, very strong statement, rhetorically in Arabic, I did not create the jinn and inns except to worship me. And of course we're familiar with the opinion that Ibn Abbas, this is mentioned by Imam Al-Tawwi in his tafsir. Ibn Abbas, he said that is understood as that in order to worship me is understood as in order to know me, have intimate knowledge of me because he argues that true worship of Allah SWT is predicated or excellent worship of Allah SWT is predicated upon deep intimate knowledge of Allah SWT. And if you have intimate knowledge of Allah SWT then you would necessarily love Allah SWT. Well how do we know Allah SWT as we said, by associating, appropriating and finally actualizing the divine names and attributes to truly be representatives Khulafa of Allah SWT upon the earth to have Irtisam a firm grip of the Kitab of Allah SWT to have Idtiba' which is adherence through imitation adherence through manesis imitating the prophets of Allah SWT. So Allah SWT says in the Quran, Surah number 3 ayat 31 ayat 31 what you can do to hit with Allah SWT to be early say if you really love Allah then follow me you're big come Allah then Allah will love you. So the final cause according to our tradition is we laya to love God and to be loved by God This is the final cause of the creation of the human being the final cause of the creation of the human being as it relates to this existence to this earth. Okay, all that was introduction I'm going to take a breath and drink So this is our metaphysic it recognizes human nature human nature is unique it's dignified and it is goal or end oriented by contrast the dominant epistemology today in western academy specifically American colleges universities is known broadly as postmodernism postmodernism includes various philosophical movements such as critical theory everything is challenged especially religious tradition deconstructionism which is the literary method of postmodernism we'll talk about what that is poststructuralism which seeks to end hierarchical structures we'll talk about that and of course neomarchism or political ideology this is really our challenge postmodernism we need to understand what it is how to deal with it or else this pandemic of ridda of apostasy will continue and continue in contrast to premodernism and modernism postmodernism is a revolt against faith and reason against religion and rationality first of all a quick book recommendation a book that I greatly benefited from is this book here it's called explaining postmodernism you can take a look at it after explaining postmodernism skepticism and socialism from Housseau de Foucault by Steven Picks who's at Rockford University in Illinois there's a brilliant book and it really deals with the philosophy of postmodernism but it's historical development and political underpinnings as well I've been through 10 years of graduate school in the Bay Area I'm a professor in a very academically rich environment in Berkeley so I interact with undergrad and grad students all the time so I have a bit of experience with the academic culture really the monoculture if you will of modern universities and its detrimental effects upon religiously confessional students whether they're Muslim, Christian or Jewish this is an Abrahamic crisis it is an Abrahamic crisis postmodernism is everywhere in the academy really since the 1990s if you've ever attended a public university it doesn't matter if you were an English major or a history major or a chemistry major you have been subtly indoctrinated by professors, espousing postmodernist theories and ideas there is really no way around it it is an all pervasive monoculture these ideas in my opinion are nothing short of satanic albeit implicitly satanic and thus absolutely poisonous to religious traditionalists in the academy this is what the shaitan does so we need to understand the modus operandi the M.O. of the shaitan it calls to infidelity if qare live insan fuk fuk quoted in the Quran that shaitan says to the human being disbelieve so apostasy, ritta butter on toast is usually commensurate with a satanic presence apostasy and satanism go hand in hand and when you hear about satan don't be dismissive don't roll your eyes and disdain and ridicule about a minute ago when I first mentioned satanic I actually noticed in this room people kind of smiling rolling their eyes this is a gravely important matter if we're believers in the Quran Allah SWT he refers to the Prophet Muhammad as Uswa Tunhasana one time in the Quran a beautiful example Allah SWT mentions al-Islam the name of our deen eight times in the Quran Allah SWT refers to the shaitan as Adul Mubeen at least 15 times in the Quran a clear, open, unambiguous enemy just look at a concordance we need to take satan seriously Allah SWT does not mince his words he is direct, he is straight forward there is a reason for this repetition there is an old saying from a popular movie it says the greatest trick that devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist even a lot of Muslims if you say don't go out at night the demonic presence is very active if you say protect yourself with wubu, with awkar with awrad this day one of my favorite sayings is actually from Paul in the New Testament he says our battle is not against flesh and blood but rather with principalities of darkness in the world and against spiritual wickedness in high places I agree ours is a spiritual battle against dark forces we need to be spiritually powerful intellectually formidable now explicit satanism in theory and practice is very much alive in the world today whether in the form of croleon black magic which is literally conjuring of demons also known as salema salema in greek means will w-i-l-l because their credo is do what you will again intimating the primacy of the will over the intellect you also have something called levein satanism also known as selfism or egolatry I referred to that earlier also known as the church of satan which is essentially taking your hawaqsha referred to as being deannesian right in contrast to being apollonian being apollonian after apollo means to give reason reason is your guide but to be deannesian means to let your desires be your guide after the greek god Dionyses the son of Zeus who was born from his father's thigh he's the god of wine entertainment, pleasure, frivolity self-indulgence right so freedom from religious law and absolute self-determinism are the dual principles of satanism freedom from religious law and absolute self-determinism this idea I don't need god and I can do whatever I want or as Elsa sang in the popular disney movie frozen no right, no wrong no rules for me I'm free so satan is our enemy and we wish to battle against him then we need to know our enemy his ways, his mentality, his philosophy his tools, his minions how can you make spiritual warfare against an enemy if you're ignorant of that enemy know your enemy there was a wise man Kung Fu Tsu also known as Confucius the greatest of the axial age sages of the iron age he said, and I love this quote from him tradition civilizes us education perfects us there's incredible profundity in that statement in other words we must look to our past our golden age and determine which principles and virtues led to such human flourishing the capture of the zeitgeist of that age this is not to foolishly romanticize the past that's not the goal here certainly aspects of pre-modernism that we want to avoid no, we're talking about virtues that led to intellectual and moral flourishing not to have a cultural or political aspect we need to identify those virtues and then every single device of education should be utilized to inculcate those virtues within our children and the present age so our pedagogical methods must rely on tried and tested tradition but where pedagogy in Greek comes from Pais which means to lead to lead a child Tarbiyah in Arabic Rabbi means to guide someone in stages Allah SWT is the one that takes care of us in stages your parents are a type of a type of of lords lower case L as we say then Allah SWT have mercy on them as they raised me up in childhood so Tarbiyah is very important this is why Hadith al-Rafma which I have here on the slide in English the Hadith of Compassion for Musa al-Ahma is the first Hadith that Muslim children learn according to traditional Islamic curriculum Rafma is the greatest virtue underlying the word compassion the most compassionate shows compassion to those compassion to those on earth and the one in heaven will show you compassion. Compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion. This was chosen by our Ulama because they want to drill into the mind of the child that compassion is indeed the greatest virtue. So the Ulama, they looked back at the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam, it was a paradigm of virtue. He said, I am the prophet of mercy. I am a gifted mercy. They looked back at the Qur'an, and ma'ar sallallahu ila rahmatil il'alameen. Fadima rahmatin minallahi lintallahu. These are that. However, in contrast to this Confucian deliberate tradition, as it is called, deliberate tradition. Traditional value systems in general are perceived as the enemies of humanity by postmodernists. Traditional value systems are inherently oppressive, they play, because they are hierarchical and patriarchal. So we have to get into these terms. These are the buzzwords, right? You have to understand the nomenclature of the postmodernists. They love these two words, especially the latter one. I imagine postmodernists rewording that profound Confucian aphorism to say, tradition oppresses us, and education should politicize us, because postmodernism and politics are inextricable, cannot be separated. I'll come back to this idea. This postmodern revolt against tradition has now actually affected our popular films. So hypocritical Hollywood, you know, sometimes called, Hollywood, hella weird, with its putrid and shameless culture of transactional sex, prostitution, self-aggrandizement, holds in its hand one of the most powerful tools by which to indoctrinate masses of human beings. When you just think about the popularity of the Star Wars franchise, tens of millions of people over the last 40 years are obsessed with Star Wars. But ever since Disney has taken over in 2012, Star Wars has noticeably changed its tone. For example, in the last Jedi, Kylo Ren says to Rey, both millennials, we would call them, quote, let the past die, kill it if you have to, end quote. That is quintessentially postmodernism. Now, when I say that postmodernism is poisonous to religious traditionalism in colleges and universities, again, I'm referring to Judeo-Christian Islamic tradition, the Abrahamic faith tradition. Okay. Abraham is pronounced Avraham in Hebrew. It literally means father of many nations, right? The word for father in Greek and Latin is, Abraham is the patriarch of our religion. It is the tradition of your patriarch, your father, Abraham. Issa alaihi salam is quoted to have said in the New Testament in Greek, etekna tu abraham etek, ta'erda tu abraham apoyetean. He says to the Pharisees, if you were truly Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. So when you hear postmodernist professors of the social sciences rage against the oppression, tyranny, and eventual overthrow of the atriarch, the rule of the father, now you know who they're talking about. Abraham, Abraham alaihi salam, who was called the friend of God in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and in the Quran. Aleister Crowley, who's the famous Satanist, he said, and he said this in the early 20th century. He said, we are moving away from the age of the patriarch and into the age of Horus, as he called it. The age of the child, Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis. The age of rebellion, irresponsibility, and hedonistic self-indulgence. An age of an tadydan amatura bata'a. When a girl will give birth to her master, the age of extended adolescents, the age of the phenomenon of the 40-year-old man child, or woman child, what's known technically as paraphilic infantilism. Check this out, there's actually an entire subculture of adults who choose to live as children. This is also called age play. The most famous example, a 52-year-old man recently in Canada with seven kids decided to leave his wife and children to live as a six-year-old girl. He has pigtails, he wears dresses. This is what's happening. You also have an entire subculture of adults living as dogs.   I don't allow people to pressure me into using politically correct language unless I want to. Gay has a good meaning. I will not equate it with sexual perversion. The word gay is found in iconic Christmas songs.  When I was a kid, we watched reruns of the Flintstones.  Christmas and children have nothing to do with sodomy. I will not associate the two. So this is an age of shamelessness, of doing without wills, which is of course, again, the credo of Prolean Satanists. It's interesting, there's a hadith in Arabic, the Prophet says, I'm going to tell you something that every prophet told his people. If you have no shame, then do what thou wilt. So it's not okay, I don't have any shame. The point is, you have to have shame. You can't do what thou wilt. Now, with that said, imagine an 18 year old for on and swinging out the beating students entering into these institutions, institutions that have literally declared ideological warfare on Abrahamic morality. What you expect will happen to his fate if he is not prepared for the intellectual battlefield to be ripped apart, chewed up and spit out. Let's talk more specifically about post modernism. Let's unpack the ideology a bit more. Now, chances are, you've come across names like Michelle Foucault, Jacques Derrida, John François Vietard, Stanley Fish, Richard Gorty, Frank Lantrickia, Andrea Gorkin. Their names are not familiar. Their ideas will certainly, they are the major players. Point number one about post modernism. Post modernism rejects ultimate or absolute truth. There is no ultimate or absolute truth, they say. You have to find your own subjective truth, plural, with a lower case T. Live your truth as Oprah says. There is no true self in God's image to be actualized by disciplining your desires. As I mentioned earlier, you must invent your true self. Self invention by engaging your desires. I saw another movie about a month ago called Avengers. It was a commercial before the movie that caught my eye. The 30 second commercial, you have this young woman, millennials who has a t-shirt with a rainbow on it, homosexual advocate. And these are direct quotes. She says, look, here's the thing about Diet Coke. It's delicious. It makes me feel good. Life is short. Just do you. They love that. Just do you. Whatever it is. Diet Coke. Because I can. Quintessential post modernist right before the movie. I couldn't even enjoy the movie. Just do me. Okay, what if I like to torture animals? Just do me. Achievement. Post modernist philosophy here is actually self contradictory. To say that there is no absolute truth is to make a statement that it's absolutely true. In other words, they're saying the only absolute truth is that there's no absolute truth. Because modernists tend to be radically skeptical about everything, except their own skepticism. However, contradictions don't seem to bother them because the intellect has been devalued. Point number two, post modernism denies objective morality. As we said, you have this strain of nominalism where formal and final causes are rejected. Morality is totally fluid, they say in a relative. Now the assas, the foundation of Abrahamic of the Abrahamic tradition is love of God and love of her fellow human being. And that is absolutely fundamental. You read the New Testament, if you read the biblical writings, Dr. Rabbi, the pastor, Imam Ar-Razi, he defined Islam, he said, Islam is the worship of the creator and showing compassion towards the creation. However, as Abrahamic believers, this is a very important point. We don't conflate acceptance with love necessarily. We don't conflate acceptance with love. In other words, we can love people and simultaneously consider some of their behavior as morally reprehensible. Those modernists tend to conflate love with acceptance of this idea that if you really love your transgender cousin, you would accept him totally for who he or she or she is. One of the many pronouns that people in the academy have fabricated that are now, at least in Canada, have proposed laws to compel people to use. Now this leads to another contradiction in post-modernist philosophy. Post-modernists are highly intolerant of intolerance.  So just do you, that's called virtue signaling. That sounds like the right thing to say, but they don't actually practice it. What they mean is just do you as long as you agree with me, and if you don't, then you're a bigot. You can change your beliefs. I was a tutor at the GTU for a while, tutoring a Christian sister in Hebrew, kind of strange, Muslim guy tutoring a Christian student in Hebrew. Anyway, she saw me a few months after our tutoring sessions from a distance, and she said, howdy, howdy. She wanted to give me a hug. And I said, no, I don't, I don't hug. She said, what? I said, I don't hug women. And I had to explain to her, she said, really? She put out her hand and wanted to shake my hand. So she said, I'm so offended. She was serious. I'm so offended.  So I turned the tables on her, right? I played the victim. And I told her I was doing this. I said, what? You're offended? I'm an oppressed minority in America. I have proud to be a Muslim. And my religious beliefs offend you. I'm offended you're offended. But this is why traditional or religiously confessional students what we need are so reluctant, that is to say afraid, to take a theological or moral stance in a university classroom. To say, for example, that pantheism or incarnationalism is incorrect theology.  Those modernists are dogmatically opposed to dog. Point number three, those modernist literature is often convoluted, incoherent, and condescending. It is formed way over substance. It's so profundity is often perceived by young believers in college as just too deep and insightful for me to understand. They think to themselves, you know, I just don't get it. It's kind of like modern art. I don't know if you've ever been to a museum of modern art. My daughter took the class. She did the college class. So we look at the field trip to the MoMA in San Francisco, the Museum of Modern Art. We were there about 15 minutes. We scratched our heads and left. So there's this, well, there is this portrait. It was completely blank. And it's called the mirror. And there's this crowd of people looking at it going, Oh, wow. What is this? It's so profound. I can't look at my dark eye. Are we looking at the same thing? There was this isle of sticks in the corner. Isle of sticks. People are looking at amazing sculpture. Amazing work. It was another one. I felt like my four-year-old could have done a better job. It was crayon scribbles. Wallahi. It was crayon scribbles. People looking at it, wow. People were like having these cathartic experiences. We assume it must be deep and profound because it's in a museum. But it's the emperor's new clothes. There's nothing there. This is how their literature is, postmodernist literature. It sounds deep and profound. It is nonsense. It's nonsense. They actually give an award, an annual reward to who can write the most incoherent text. And this professor, you see Berkeley is back as a professor. She's winning the award. It's just this kind of speed they have amongst each other. They purposely write incoherently to impress each other. It's nonsense. Anyway, these believers, because of this, they feel a strong sense of inadequacy and embarrassment for both their inability to grasp the convoluted literature and for their quote, simple belief in God, morality, right and wrong and after. They're actually scared to say, I believe in this. I think this is right. I think that's wrong. They're ridiculed. Right? For many of these young believers, there are only two viable options. I call it selling out or checking out. In other words, attempt to change the very face of the religion in order to mitigate the hurt feelings of certain individuals who are offended by the morality in religious texts or to leave the religion altogether because they just don't want to deal with it. So the salat says, yes, I'm Muslim, but I don't believe in this or that verse in the Quran or this or that hadith. The check out says, Muslim? No, not anymore. I used to be, but now I'm enlightened. The most infamous of the postmodern philosophers was a Frenchman, one Michelle Foucault died in 1984, but continues to be an absolute rock star. In universities all around the world, he famously said, quote, it is meaningless to speak in the name of or against reason, truth or knowledge. Meaningless to speak of or against reason, truth or knowledge. And he was a product of the trend that's known as a continental philosophy in the history of Western philosophy. If you studied it, this is philosophy from the mainland Europe as prevalent in the 19th and 20th centuries. A philosophy that was becoming less and less confident in truth, reason and objective reality. A philosophy that's represented by Immanuel Kant, right, the critique of pure reason or Kierkegaard, we need to crucify reason. However, Kant and Kierkegaard both believed in God who were Christians. But then you have the atheistic irrationalist Friedrich Nietzsche, who called the human intellect, quote, pitiful and that emotion, drive ambitions, will and desire should be our guides. Foucault is even more radical.   Foucault also had a profound effect on the Muslim majority world as well. He was a professor of psychology at the University of Tunis from 1966 to 1968. Truth, reason and knowledge are meaningless. He said, Noam Chomsky interesting. He actually says, Noam Chomsky, you know, the professor of linguistics at MIT, he says a postmodernism is even more protest in the Muslim world than in the Western world. He says he gives he goes to universities in the Middle East all the time. And he's always called naive because he speaks about truth and objective history. They said that's old fashioned. So reason is meaningless, they said. Now reason is limited. That's true. But is it meaningless? Can we really not know anything? Well, how many times do we find in the Quran phrases like Afala ta'ilun, la'alakum ta'ilun, in kuntum ta'ilun, we must place some confidence in the intellect in reason. The Muslim theologians like Ibn Taymiah, he said that aqal and naqal reason and revelation are not a conflict but the proper use of the formal former will lead to the recognition of the latter because they come from the same source. They're both from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Imam Al-Ghazali says in his Astasa al-Mustaqim that the Quran itself appeals to logic through syllogistic arguments long before Hellenistic influences upon Muslim theological discourse. The prophets in the Quran use logic and reason to appeal to their respective communities because logic and reason have efficacy. For example, in the Quran, Badeer As-Sama'u Al-A'la, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is called Badeer, which is the efficient cause, the origin, originator of the ulasic ability he shaped. There is nothing like him whatsoever. He transcends space, time, and materiality cause and effect do not apply to him or else we're stuck in infinite regress which is repudnant to the intellect. That's just one example. So if you're a Muslim educator, professor, a chaplain, a teacher from graduate school to Sunday school, it is your duty to say to these young people, Sadaq Allah, Allah speaks the truth. Follow, have ibtiba, what is ibtiba? adherence to imitation. Adhere to the tradition of Ibrahim As-Sama'u Al-A'la, the archetypal monotheist, Edward Lane, he actually says that in his famous lexicon, that ibtiba always has an element of imitation, amesis. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la also says in the Quran, don't adhere to the footsteps of Satan for he calls or he orders to perversity and falsehood, perversity and falsehood. So these words are in the Quran. They have meanings. They're normative definitions. They are defined by the Quran and Sunnah. The Quran is theologically and morally judgmental. You cannot avoid it. Everybody is judgmental. Everybody, the Quran is theologically and morally judgmental and we must be prepared with reason to defend those judgments without apology. Even if people have discounted reasons, continue to be reasonable. It is our reason that makes us human. It is our differential as Aristotle said. You have a rational animal. Reason will win in the end. Emotional incontinence could not be sustained. People get tired of emotion, but they will not tire of reason. So we must employ dialectic. Dialectic is the Socratic method. What is dialectic? Dialog and debate based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking in order to tease out the truth, true knowledge, as opposed to rhetoric. Dialectic leads to knowledge, right? Rhetoric leads to opinion. What is rhetoric? Sophisticity, just trying to get your own opinion across. You don't care about truth.  He's not trying to get to the truth. He's trying to get his client acquitted. He only cares about persuasion. So Aristotle said there are three modes of persuasion. Very important. Three modes of persuasion of effective communication. These are the Greek terms. They're pronounced logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos or logos is a reference to logic. You're using facts and figures. Ethos is a reference to the speaker himself or herself that they have a good disposition, that they have a good reputation. And then pathos is its emotional appeal. To the rhetoric-tician, the Sophist primarily appeals to pathos. He wants to emotionally manipulate. Whereas the dialectician primarily appeals to logos and ethos, because he wants to get to the truth. In the Qur'an, Odehru ila s'dibi rabbik, call to the way of your Lord. Bil hikmah wal mauridatil hasanah. With wisdom, and the ulema say here, the meaning of this is, with dala'il, rational, aptly, and scriptural proof texts. With logos. Wa mauridatil hasanah, with a good disposition, with good ethos. Wa jadil humbilatil hasanah. And debate with them in ways that are better than what they're doing. They're gonna, they're Sophists, they're rhetoric-ticians. They're going to play the victim. You've offended me. They're gonna use ad hominem attacks. Keep your cool and use facts and figures. Use logic, use logos. Use appeal to the intellect. So our young people need prophetic advice. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, qulil haq when kana muhran, wa laa taa khaffil laan, lo maa taa laakin. O kamaa ala haa ala salat wa sallam. Speak the truth, even if it's bitter. Qulil haq, there is truth. It's not relativism. He said, speak the truth, even if it's bitter. And don't be afraid of people. Orality is not subjective. Truth is real. Falsehood is real. We need to stand up for it. Stop being afraid. A man came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to give me some advice. He said, qulil haq man tu bil daa thum mastaqin. He said, say, I believe in Allah SWT and be theologically and morally steadfast upon that. And I always say this, if people think you're weird, that's fine. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, glad tidings to the weirdos. We should be weird. In this day and age, if we're not weird, we're doing something wrong. We're doing a lot of things. We should be weird. We should stand up. And if people disagree with you, fine. La kum dino kum alia din. You ever heard of that? You ever thought about that? You have your religion. I have my religion. You have your way of life. I have my way of life. You have your theological beliefs or lack of their knowledge. You have your ideas of morality and nature and nurture and all of that. And so do I. Don't tell me what to say or do. I won't tell you what to say or do. This should really be our attitude, right? Because we're living in a Meccan phase. It was revealed in Mecca. Whoever wants to believe, let him believe. Whoever wants to disbelieve, let him disbelieve. You will hear a lot of annoying discourse that's going to grieve you, right? But if you are patient and you guard against evil, that's going to be the determining factor. That's what's going to come. Be patient and guard against evil. Don't be a salat. Life is supposed to be a bit difficult. The dunya is supposed to be difficult. Dunya means the lowest world. The lowest world. That's what happens here. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that Surah al-Hud and Akhawatu had turned by Shayyabat and he said that these group of Surahs they turned my hair gray because the tanzeel was so strong upon him. And then he singled out one ayah in particular. Ayah 112 with Surah al-Hud. Fastaqil kama'u nivt. Be upright as you have been commanded. He found that difficult. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Physically, it's difficult. But we have to go through it. Life is short. Don't sell out. Don't check out. Okay. Now the literary method of post-modernist is called deconstructionism. According to deconstructionism no one interpretation of a text such as a religious text i.e. the Qur'an should be privileged over other readings. They love this word privileged. Social sciences aside even the hard sciences feel like physics, biology they're feeling the pressure of post-modernist thinkers. There's a French feminist philosopher. When I say feminist I'm talking about third way feminism. I'm not talking about first way we have equal rights. We have no problem there. Second way there's a revolt against gender rules. A little problematic. Third way is about body autonomy and taking down the patriarchy and replacing it with a matriarchy. What does that mean? The right to report babies and taking down men and ruling them. This is the essence of third way feminism. There's a French third way feminist philosopher named Ira Gehry. She said, I can't make this stuff up, folks. The equation E equals mc squared is sexist. He'll let that marinate for a minute. Why? Because it privileges the speed of light over other light. Apparently there are now an infinite number of genders. Akal and Nakal reason in scripture. See there are two genders X, Y, X, X, Becca and Unza. We are told by post-modernists, social scientists. We're told by Zuckerberg. We're told by gender theorists at the university. Gender theory. Interesting. We're told by gender theorists at the university that people who maintain this rigid binary are bigots. We're just not woke. Get woke. Get a book. Not get books. Why gender matters? Dr. Leonard Sacks. Extraordinary text. Before it's banned. And I mean that. The California Assembly bill 2943 already proposed a banning of books that are offensive to the L, E, G, T, E, Q, I, A community. California legislation is trying to ban books that seek to reform homosexuals and declare them a speech. What is the natural progression? This makes Christians very nervous because homosexuality in the Bible is immoral. They say, well, you know, good riddance Christianity? No, wrong attitude.  They're coming for us in the morning. We're next. A great American Muslim scholar once said Shaitan wants to change from mutables to mutable. Shaitan wants to change sawabit. What are sawabit? Sawabit are underlined principles, axiomatic, self-evident truths. He wants to change those into variables. These things can change. He wants to lay to waste our underlined principles. They're classical laws of thought such as the principle of identity, the principle of non-contradiction. So male is male and not male is not male. There are 3,500 biological differences between men and women. Wa laitha bekaru ka'uun fat. The Quran says the man, the male, is not like the female. There are gender roles rooted in biology. Rooted in biology. It can get expelled from a university classroom. There are gender roles rooted in biology. And khalt are khalt. It is not purely a social construct or a feeling. There's an article in the Huffington Post. Some people call it the Huffington Compost. Where there's a picture of a man sitting on a park bench. Looks like a man with a blood stain in his crotch holding a sign that says men get periods too. Turns out that is a biological woman dressed up like a man. So the headline should be woman gets period. Wow.  American slaves living in the antebellum south the pre-civil war south had a suicide rate that high. People who were separated from their families treated like animals and utterly brutalized do not have a suicide rate the rate of some suburban transgender in 2018. Interesting. Clearly gender identity syndrome which is what it used to be called now they call it gender dysphoria gender identity syndrome is a mental illness in adults but now it is politically incorrect to say that it is politically incorrect to say that something that will help people you cannot say. There is a confirmed mental illness according to the APA identity disorder body integrity identity disorder this is when a person then feels the need to amputate his or her healthy body parts but when a 12 year old girl feels like she's a boy and wants to amputate her breasts she is called brave courageous and a hero be yourself just go get it get it amazing there was a Google engineer James DeMore I don't know if you've heard of him who was fired from Google because he wrote a memo suggesting that biological differences between men and women helped explain the differences of their career choices he's absolutely right because it's not PC to say that in other words the STEM field science, technology, engineering and math contain more men than women because women are not nearly as interested in those fields as men are there are also a lot more men in construction sanitation and plumbing because women are not interested in those jobs from a theological standpoint it is Satan who wants to blur the lines of gender this is my boffamet which is the official symbol of the church of satan is depicted as androgynous clearly the body of a man with female breasts because he shatters the gender binary boffamet is woe apparently there's a good hashtag for you hashtag boffamet is woe now I'm going to come back to deconstructionism but I want to talk more about homosexuality this is a big, big issue in the academy this is the social issue homosexual advocates are making this into a civil rights issue now as believers when we engage as believers we should engage in dialectic we should know that if we appeal to the foran it is then a logical fallacy someone who doesn't believe in the foran is asking you why don't you accept homosexuality as a lifestyle and if you say well it's in the foran that's called an argument from unqualified authority because they don't believe in that authority you have to get secular arguments you have to use dialectic okay there's this conservative youtuber I don't agree with everything he said obviously but it's an interesting thing where he goes around interviewing people on the street usually there are millennials in that age range I hate to pick on them but my kids are almost at that age they're all the same right so he goes up to someone and he says how do you feel about a man marrying another man how do you feel about a man marrying another man and this person says why not two consenting adults what's wrong with that to each his own whatever floats your boat he says okay two consenting adults that's why of course okay how do you feel about a man marrying his daughter that are both consenting adults and they say no no I don't agree and he says what are you an incest foe that's all you have to do throw out the ad hominem are you an incest foe oh no I guess it's you know as long as they don't have kids what are you denying my right to have children no no you can see that one by one okay nothing wrong there's nothing wrong with that as long as they're not hurting anyone the cdc what is cdc center of disease control according to them homosexuals are 2% of the population homosexual men yet account for 78% of hiv cases 2% account for 78% of hiv cases 83% of syphilis here's a group of americans who have truth about homosexuality you can do some research on more than 1 out of 10 homosexual men is incontinent if you don't know what that means look it up I've read from 12% of homosexual men are incontinent the kinsy institute published a study by pelton weiber from 1978 saying that finding that promiscuity among homosexual men is through the roof check this out 28% of homosexual men have had sexual encounters with 1000 or more partners multiple studies have shown that casual sex causes depression anxiety and mental illness now 79% of that 28% said that more than half of their partners were complete strangers so if you go like gay bars gay booby theaters gay dance clubs they have these back booms that actually cater to this type of thing this is clearly a mental illness a lot of panawakata intubates that homosexual homosexual promiscuity is a mental illness in the Quran La Amruka Allah says directly to the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and this is the only time which Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam takes an oath by the life of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam so this is a big oath La Amruka By your life they are indeed in their wild intoxication wandering blindly homosexuality is transforming the very fabric of society it is destroying the traditional nuclear family it spreads disease and a culture of irresponsibility several studies have shown that same sex relationships do not last nearly as long as heterosexual relationships so children end up suffering due to these highly dysfunctional relationships use the argument from nature from natural selection put one million homosexual men on an island give them the best technology cutting edge health care in 100 years everyone is dead nature selects now a common argument this is coming from muslim homosexual colleges is that why would Allah create them like that right now first of all there is no scientific evidence whatsoever of a gay gene so this whole idea of born this way lady gaga is a lie one can certainly make the argument that homosexuality is the result of trauma suffered during the development of one's brain and early childhood so something like divorce, rejection by a father or mother, sexual molestation being physically abused Dr. Omar Johnson who counsels African American youth he says if he's a clinical psychologist for something like 20 years it's a 95% of the black youth that come to him that identify as homosexual are victims of trauma in childhood the other thing is how would a gay gene even survive natural selection wouldn't nature weed it out eventually doesn't seem to be happening seems to be growing an evolutionary biologist and an anti-theist paralysis Richard Dawkins over at Oxford University evolutionary biologist he really doesn't have an answer he doesn't know he has some theories that I won't go into but one of them he says is well maybe it's because maybe babies that feed from a bottle turn gay again those who breastfeed are straight this is their main man interesting going back to this question why would Omar create them like that let's just entertain the premise for now this is similar to the transgender thing what about a child born in the Congo into abject poverty to a single mother who is HIV positive because of a vaccine that she took yet that child never could blame it welcome to the dunya life is hard we are in no position to judge Allah SWT there are children born blind with major mental and physical disabilities this is Qadr there are men who are born with proclivities towards children do we ask why did Allah create them like that no we expect them not to act out on their perversion okay switching gears here go back to deconstructionism according to deconstructionism there are no right and wrong readings of any text there are no true and false readings the idea of a meta narrative meta narrative is to say standard interpretation a text that shape religious orthodoxy these are summarily rejected by postmodernist all readings are valid and equally important they say what is demanded according to what is only demanded according to another infamous postmodernist American professor named Stanley Fish is to be quote interesting just be interesting not to be right or correct because right, correct normative, orthodox these do not exist according to that just be interesting as long as it's entertaining as long as it feels great so now we have in religious departments and seminaries a method of interpretation known as radical hermeneutics radical hermeneutics of sacred texts like queer hermeneutics we have Muslims in seminary justifying homosexuality based on the Quran I don't know how on earth one would even do that but they manage to do it somehow they say things like no the Quran is not forbidding homosexual acts it's only saying not to rape each other which is interesting because in the Quranic narrative he says to the men that are coming to seduce the other men and then take my daughters instead they say the meaning of that is marry the women of my umma instead of having relations with the men if the Quran is only denouncing their rape then what is loot at Islam actually saying rape by women, rape by daughters instead of the men so that's not what he's saying but this is as long as it's interesting don't worry about contradictions you can put it out there and get your master's degree get a professorship and you can travel around the country and you can engage in this nonsensical academic speed but nobody understands except a few of your colleagues and you can get back go back to the back room and laugh about it later queer hermeneutics transgender hermeneutics third wave feminist hermeneutics neo-marxist hermeneutics it is a theory so the quest for truth or the intended authorial meanings of a text are abandoned rather sacrificed upon the altar of self-interest and feelings so things like grammar, logic, rhetoric syntax definitions, consistency context who cares scripture now bends to accommodate us not us to accommodate it rather than interrogating our own positions of life of scripture we interrogate scripture in life of our own positions the short scripture can now mean whatever we want it to mean the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he said there was no time upon the people la yadqa la yadqa minan islam ila ismahu that nothing will remain of islam except it's main it's just a nomin a name without a reality no essence, no normative definition totally subjective this hadith indicates that there is indeed an orthodox normative definition of islam it's not defined by our feelings it's defined by Allah and his messenger la yadqa minan al-Quran ila rasmum nothing will remain of the Quran except it's script it's just words on a page the pride of their true meaning la yadqa la yadqa la yadqa la yadqa la yadqa yadqa biyyalalaa Customer Z45 at the end of time they're going to be flagrant, habitual, liars imposters will make statements that neither you nor your ancestor, or forefathers have ever heard in other words from War with the Unima He will say absolutely irreconcilable with our faith tradition justify themselves religiously. This is already rampant in biblical studies. I have an MA in biblical studies, my former academic advisor who is now the director of New Testament studies at the College of the Holy Cross, a Jesuit school on the east coast.  This is postmodern radical hermeneutics at its worst. La yudilunakum, beware of them, wa la yudilunakum, lest they misguide you or involve you in their fitna. What is the role of the Ulama during this troublesome time? This sacred knowledge will be borne by reliable authorities of each successive generation. They will remove from it the alterations of those guilty of exaggeration the plagiarism of the corrupt and the interpretations of the ignorance. We're coming down to the end folks, and we'll open it up for some comments and questions, a little dialectic, insha'Allah. We haven't even worked closely. This is my tenth slide, I only have 11. Another pillar of postmodernism is named Frank Lentrickia. He said that the very purpose of a college education is to exercise power for the purpose of social change, not to pursue virtue or truth. Why? Because truth is meaningless and virtues are relative. Everything is our place. Life is all about our basic. Human beings act. Human beings don't act out of piety or morality. They just want power. In other words, according to postmodernists, the only worthwhile purpose of a college education is to create political activists. So postmodernism clearly has Marxist underpinnings, which are further highlighted by its relentless demand for radical egalitarianism in order to create some sort of communist, godless, raceless, genderless, classless utopia on earth where technology reigns supreme. Now, we have to pursue justice, no doubt about it. But infinite justice, spoiler alert, will never be recognized, will never be achieved, will never be actualized in the dunya. Never. That's the whole point of Yom Al-Qiyam. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta-A'la is the absolute judge. It's only on that day what it will manifest. This doesn't mean that we should have worked towards justice on the earth. Of course we do. Yom Al-Qiyam said the basis of our sharia is adana. It's justice, of course. But this unnatural obsession for earthly justice to the point where I go to an MSA at a university and the students aren't praying, they'd rather go protest than pray. What's going on? Very strange. And when I tell them we should pray, it takes priority, they'll look at me like I'm some sort of mullah. And what is this mullah talking about? He's out of touch. He's an old man. Not as old as I was. So they espouse the misguided proposition that inequality is always due to inequity. In other words, if another social group is doing better than your group, then you must be victims of their oppression. This is this type of explanatory monism. There are no other factors, they say. It's always oppression. Why are these ideas detrimental to believers? Because they completely eliminate gratitude. Shukr. They foster this idea that everyone's out to get me and I'm a perpetual victim. There's no time to be grateful. Shukr and kufr are just juxtaposed in the Quran. They're antennas. They're opposites. Remember or have regard for me so that I might have regard for you. Be grateful to me and don't disbelieve. In other words, to be ungrateful is to disbelieve. In other words, the word kafir in Arabic means invict. They eliminate, this philosophy eliminates shukr. It eliminates humility. This idea of if I'm not progressing in the dunya, maybe I'm doing something wrong. What have I done?  They're out to get you. It eliminates introspection. The self audit. Sit down for five minutes and think about what am I doing? Where am I going? What have I done? It eliminates personal responsibility.  All of you are responsible for your flock. Who are your flock?  Personal responsibility. These ideas coming out of university, they promote self victimization. And to play the victim according to Roger Scruton is an assault on rationality in the public discourse. It is a cop-out. It is lazy. We must take ownership for ourselves. We must stop blaming other people for our problems. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam did not victimize himself. One of my teachers mentioned the Satan versus Adam paradigm, the Satanic versus Adamic paradigm. That Satan, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala expelled him from the garden, he said, Because you caused the need to air, you did this. I will lie and wait for them. Your servants will come at them from all directions, shifts responsibility, victimizes himself. You did this. It is like, why would Allah create people like that? Why didn't Allah do that? Allah, yes, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala can do whatever he wants.  Nothing. You don't need to exist. If you died tomorrow, your neighbor will be eating his Cheerios. And you will think for a second, oh, that guy died? Can you pass the milk? You're not that important. Really? Sorry to be so expressive. But Adam, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is a doer of everything. That's the theological point. He does everything. But look at the attitude. Because you did this to me. That's shaitan. What are Adam, alaihi salam? Rabbana and Eve. Rabbana is a plural. This is a first person, common plural. So Eve, alaihi salam, is also making this du'a. Rabbana, rabbana, dhalamna infusana wa illam kal fil lana wa tarhamna dhalamna min al-falsimin. O our Lord, we wrong ourselves. And if you don't have mercy on us, we'll be lost. See the difference? One self-victimizes. One makes toba, who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the most dangerous thing about this philosophy coming out of these universities, it cuts off toba. Because if there's no objective morality, you can't break any moral laws. There's no need for toba. It's like, well, even though he's a Christian, the president, Trump, who was asked, have you ever asked God for forgiveness? I don't feel the need to. I don't think I've ever been wrong. Okay? These post-modernist ideas cause major conflicts between human beings, pinning them against each other in a never-ending grab for power. Black man against white men, male against female, rich against poor. The Paraphras Professor Jordan Peterson, I tend to agree with him on this point.  That is more properly indoctrination than education.  We need to interrogate ideas irrespective of the identity of the person who is espousing those ideas. In other words, treat people as individuals, not as part of groups that doesn't work anymore. I give you a story. I gave a lecture one time and I said something about Christianity in the lecture. And a brother from the audience after the lecture, he is a convert, he came up to me and he said, you should never talk about Christianity. He doesn't know anything about my background. I said, why not? He said, because you were never Christian. I said, if I have an MA in New Testament and I have a PhD in comparative religion, he said, it doesn't matter. You are not allowed to talk about Christianity because you were never a Christian. I said, well, what did I say? Did I say something wrong? No, what you said was correct. Look, if a straight white Christian man criticizes Islam or Muslims, that does not make him a racist. It is a non-secretary argument.  I actually agree with Sam Harris on this one. Do you remember what happened on Bill Maher's show with Batman? Sam Harris was criticizing Islam and he says, that's racist. It's not racist. Islam is a set of ideas. It's not a race. People can criticize it.  That's a cop out. That doesn't work. That's a weakness. And if you say that a white man is not allowed to speak about Islam, that ironically is racism. Look at his statement. If it's wrong, rip it apart. Don't rip him apart. Don't go after the man. Don't be ad hominem. Look at the argument. Sometimes ad hominem is effective and rhetoric, but it has to be temperate. Now we have postmodernists talking about the elimination of hierarchical structures even within the family unit. This is what they learn in social sciences.  And if Judith Butler at UC Berkeley says it, then it must be true. She's the one that always wins the award for the most incoherent book ever. Check this out. Postmodernist professor Andrea Dworkin compared a married woman to being a man's, quote, chattel. She said, quote, a normal man operates in the mode of predation, end quote. In other words, a normal man, a normal man is a predator. This is what college students are reading. So a further assault upon traditional marriage and a reinforcement of the man versus woman paradigm. You see, our religion does not pit men against women in some radically antagonistic battle of the sexes. They're not in competition. They excel in different areas and complement each other. You ever heard the hadith, half my dean? You're not a complete person unless you're married. Based on their khalq, based on their biology, their hard wiring, where it suits them, postmodernists pretend like biology doesn't exist and everything's a social construct. There is some social instruction, but it is limited. It is certainly not everything. In our tradition, men and women are equal spiritually, but not the same biologically. You ready for that? And I forgot to give you this disclaimer. My views do not necessarily represent those. See, see. I'm going to drop the ball on you. Ready? There are not equal rights in the sharia. There are not equal rights in the sharia, but equitable rights. And for her are rights equitable and for her and for her are rights similar to what is against her, equitable, according to what is known self-evident. For example, a woman must cover her head. Do I have to cover my head? Do I have to? We have unequal rights, by definition unequal. A man can marry four women. A woman can marry four men. A man must support his wife financially. Can he elect a not to have his wife support him financially? A woman is excused from prayer during her menses. You see, we live in reality. We live in reality. These gender theorists and social justice activists, SJW, social justice warriors, they live in La La Land. They live, and don't mean Los Angeles. Some of them do, though. Some of them even say that men and women are exactly the same, even physically. I'd like to see where this goes. Because I want LeBron James to wake up tomorrow morning. I want him to say, you know what, gender is a social construct. I feel like a woman. I'm going to join the WNBA. Good luck. Will Chamberlain's record is going down. It's an MAM and mixed martial arts fighter in Fallon Fox, biologically male, but identified as a woman and is sending women to the hospital, beating women up. This is a man. He has the frame of a man that has bone density that's thicker, huge head, incredible muscles, sending these women to the hospital to get anything. If you say, no, this is a man.   So forth. Remember this guy, John McEnroe? He actually heard him on TV today. It's a U.S. open commentator. He got into some hot water because he was on a radio show, and he said, you know, I think Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player of all time. That's what he said. That comment got him hot water. Isn't that a compliment? Yeah. The host said, what do you mean by that? It's like, what? Why didn't you say she's the greatest period? Serena Williams was asked later, if you played with the men, why weren't you fair? She said, I wouldn't even be in the top 100. That's it. But people want to equalize.  Mayweather? Mayweather is the greatest boxer pound for pound. In all things being equal, he's better than, let's say, Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali. If she meant it like that, no, she didn't mean it like that. Just say she's the best ever, but she's not. Men and women differ physically. They process emotion differently. Usually women process emotion better than men. Their brains work differently. Their brains are different sizes. They have different interests. Men have more interest in things, women with people.  You heard the Scandinavian studies, right? Or if you look at countries in Scandinavia, and Dr. Peterson also brings this up a lot, very interesting study because European studies are interesting because there isn't a lot of religious baggage there. They're not very religious people and ethnically very homogenous. So there's incredible equality in these countries as it work between the sexes. And it shows that when people are left to their own devices, women gravitate towards traditional female occupations, and men gravitate towards traditional male occupations. There are 20 male engineers to every one female engineer in the Scandinavian countries. There are 20 teachers and caretakers and nurses. The fiction comes through. You can see that. It's very interesting. Gender roles are determined by biology. Women are naturally better caregivers than men. Again, that statement there will get me thrown out of a psychology, sociology, anthropology class. How do we know that men have breasts? That's one thing, right? That's just obvious, right? Men are more suited for manual labor. That's why men have 40 percent more upper body strength than women on average. I saw a guy today from the U.S. open. He hit above 140 miles an hour on a surf. Even the fed was like, whoa, he was fed, right? He's a goat. Men deal with stress, men deal with stress better, yet they have shorter lifespans, but they process emotion in a worse way. Multiple studies have shown that the IQs of men are less predictable than that of women. Men are all over the place in the IQ. Women tend to cluster around the meaning. We are different because we complete each other. The reality is men, Charles University, which is in Prague, again, European studies are very, very interesting, study done on married couples, Charles University. They found that marriages in which one spouse was dominant, by dominant, I don't mean oppressive. I mean, they had the final authority to recognize leader in the household. The study found that marriages where one spouse was dominant were the happiest of marriages, and 77 percent of them were male-atominated. So there's a good reason why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said, that men are the supporters of maintainers, then stand over women. There's a reason why Paul says, in the New Testament, I don't read everything Paul says, he says, the head of the woman is the man, the head of man is Christ, the head of Christ is God. These weren't written. These texts were not written by misogynists trying to oppress women. They were written in accordance with reality that leads to greater happiness according to secular studies done in 2016, 17, 18. Higher archaees work, they are part of life. Most of the time they're based on competence, not biological factors, not power dynamics. They work in the market, they work in the workplace, militaries work at school, and in the household. And here's another problem, young men are constantly being told that they are violent rapists. Now it is true that men are a lot more violent than women. If you look at the prison population, 90 to 95 percent of prisoners are men. And again, that's because women tend to deal with their emotions in healthier ways than men. And the answer, however, is not to feminize men. It's very interesting that testosterone levels are down 30 percent from just 30 years ago. 30 percent. Men are becoming more and more feminine. They're eating more and more soy. Don't eat soy. Soy increases estrogen. It's given to post-menopausal women. Don't eat soy. I was taking these men vitamins for a while. And let me just look at the ingredients. First ingredient, organic soy flour. Two pointers to the garbage. Don't eat soy. Soy food sales in 1992 were 300 million in the U.S. Now they're four billion. Four billion is feminizing men. You see, masculinity is like a martial art. So masculinity gravitates towards risk-taking, ambition, assertiveness, competition, and physicality. It's like a martial art. It can be used to murder, rape, oppress, but also to protect and defend. If men are feminized, who will check the oppressor? We need strong, highly masculine men. We need them. The answer is not to feminize them. The answer is to reform the masculinity and be truly masculine. And women actually prefer masculine men, by which you prefer. A woman at random. You want this guy? I'm very, very, very thin with skinny jeans. Got a pink jacket on. Got a little love patch. Sorry if people have frosted tips. Sorry if people have that. Or do you want this guy?  He plays rugby. Be honest. Now social constructionists are taking it to even crazier levels. Now the trend is that children are seen as equal to parents in the household. There are seven, eight, and nine year old children with gender dysphoria demanding hormone therapy from their parents and their parents giving into the pressure. Never mind the fact that hormone therapy sterilizes children. And that out of the small fraction of children that have gender dysphoria, 80% of them grow out of it. It's a phase that they come out of naturally. Say Na'abi said, childhood is a type of Junoon. It's a type of insanity. They're children for a reason. We don't listen to children. A child who wants to touch a stove, right? You don't say, well, okay, no. But I want to be a boy. Like my daughter, four years old, like last year, and she wanted to be Minnie Mouse. What do I do? Start pumping her with mouse hormones. The new generation, they know better than us. 80% of them grow out of it. 80%. And those that don't grow out of it become incredibly suicidal. Can't go back. I mean, maybe you could. I'll end with two pieces of advice for Muslims and colleges in university. I'm going back to activism. When I give you sincere advice, you can take it or leave it. Maybe you don't agree with the thing I said today. That's fine. I don't really care. And if I've offended you, don't care. Beware of activists. This is my first piece of advice. Beware of activists. Now, tempered activism is effective. That activism without sacred elm, without teski etunus, right, purification of the self, it's very, very dangerous. You're in college to gain knowledge, to grow intellectually, not to become these rabbitalized neo-Marxist activists. To paraphrase a wise man, if you're going to march down the street and shout at people and wave signs, you have to really make sure that the people is truly outside of you and not in your own heart. Now, quite often activists who claim to be working for our best interests as Western Muslims are actually harming us, as they ignorantly or deliberately antagonize entire groups of people, the vast majority of whom are totally innocent of any wrongdoing. Their postmodern race-baiting rhetoric of power, identity politics, and obsession for earthly justice actually serves to galvanize groups of people against our Muslim community, people who otherwise would have no problems with us. And not only do they contribute to our society's polarization, they also tend to misrepresent us as they form alliances with organizations and individuals whose positions about God, morality, and human life are disturbing to say the very least. They are the quintessential products of the postmodernist university system. Beware of them. The Prophet ﷺ is in Al-Qarimul Ghulama. They are the inheritors of the prophets, whoever honors the scholars, honors Allah and His Messenger. Follow activist scholars, activist scholars, people who have traditional training, people who are not going to do more damage than you. Second piece of advice, form alliances with brotherhoods and sisterhoods, with Christians and Jews on campus. I think it's time for the people of faith, the children of Abraham to come together. This is how we can change the monoculture of postmodern universities. In my opinion, in the English-speaking world, the Ahmadiyya days are over. Maybe in the Farsi-speaking world, there's some utility for that. We can still debate, obviously, but with sophistication and academic rigor, not with hardcore polemics, and this is obviously a Quranic imperative. But at the end of the day, we must maintain a strong sense of respect for and solidarity with the Ahmadis because they are experiencing what we experience in these universities. They embrace the God of Moses and Jesus. They honor Abrahamic morality, when we attack Jews and Christians and disrespect their beliefs, their scriptures and traditions, we are playing right into the hands of the postmodernists.  They're setting a trap for us and we walk right into it. All this talk about banning the Bible and whatnot. You say, well, that has nothing to do with us. Soon it will. You'll see, you know, people going into homosexual, people going purposely into Christian bakery, and trying to run them out of business. I mean, in Catholicism, marriage is a sacrament. You don't mess around with sacraments. And this is different than like if a black person comes into your bakery, you kick them out. Because then you're totally judging them based on their physical appearance. But here, it's the action that they want the baker to condone. It's an action that's not based on their appearance. In other words, one of the Christian bakers, he said, look, if they came in and said, bake me a birthday cake, I would do it. But if you say, bake me a wedding cake, that's a sacrament. I can't violate that. I'll load a L. I don't care what he said. And this person won. He took it to the Supreme Court and he won. They won for now. So, man, I used to teach at St. Mary's College, which is a Catholic College. And Christian students would come to me all the time for a Bible. And I would just quote the New Testament to them.  That's the nature of the dunya. The dunya always hate the affable law. The geocentric, as it were, always hate the theocentric. So when apostasy increases, depression increases, despair increases. We have to give people hope, give them a sense of purpose and goal. People nowadays are emotionally incontinent. A lot of it is due to social media addiction. It's that dopamine, that light, pit of dopamine. My advice is, and I practice what I preach, get off completely of Facebook. Completely get off. Get off of all social media. That's just my advice. Maybe it's not practical for you.  What am I doing? It got me. Shut it down, had a nice cup of tea, fell into a deep sleep, and never missed it. Never want to go back. So, but, you know, self-control. Dr. Sacks, he said that the greatest indicator of success for a person later in life is self-control as a child. Self-control.  We all have, most of us have children. This is a big problem in all the house. I don't know, except it's a big, big issue. Dr. LaHara, we're up here. We have about 15 minutes or so. We can maybe take some questions and handle our comments. So, Shela, we passed around a couple baskets with pens and cards. If you could write your question down. Okay, can you, first one is, can you be liberal and follow the principles of Islam at the same time? Yeah, as long as, you know, as long as you don't advocate a type of belief that is clearly in violation of essential creed, right? So, for example, you know, I don't know how Muslims can justify homosexuality. I don't know how they can justify the lay term abortion. These are all liberal causes, the cornerstone of the Democratic Party. You know, I think we need to come together with conservatives. Really do. We have so much more in common. Maybe this is not what you want to hear, but we have much more in common with Sarah Allen than we do with Hillary Clinton. There's a lot more in common. We can work with them. We can. And I'm not talking about the people of the extreme alt-right, right? I'm not talking about these extreme leftists, obviously.  I'm talking about people who are right of center, believe in God, they practice traditional morality, right? They believe in scripture. The problem with them, however, is they have a total misapprehension about us. Many of them, they think we're satanic and, you know, they think we're anti-Christ. But a lot of them are now reaching out to us. This is what I've noticed from my teacher. You have very powerful evangelical lobbies reaching out to some of my teachers saying, look, there was this incident, a 16-year-old boy or whatever, somewhere in the United States, who wanted to have poem therapy, his parents said, no, the state removed him from the house. Coming after our children, this is going to happen to you.  So I think ultimately aligning ourselves with leftists is probably a mistake. I think it's done because it's a mutual hatred of Trump. But when Trump is gone, they're going to eat each other. The Muslims have to be homophobic. So phobia needs to be afraid. The quote Dr. Omar Johnson, I'm not afraid of anybody.   My understanding of orthodoxy, and I believe in orthodoxy, I believe in normative definition, is that homosexuality is completely inconsistent with the teachings of the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Now, everyone's a sinner. Everybody. So a man who's attracted to other men is still Muslim. It's not actually haram for a man to be attracted to other men. What is haram is to act out on that desire inclination. Just as, like I said, there are men, grown men, who have proclivities towards children. The important thing is not to act out on that. So if one denies that, so the difference between if one denies, clear indication, clear injunction in the Quran and the hadith, if they deny that, then this is kufr, no longer Muslim. But if one recognizes, even if one engages in the act, but they recognize that it's a sin, and then they toba, they still remain within Islam. Because an act does not take you out of Islam, according, at least according to the hadith, no act takes you out of Islam, only a denial of what made you Muslim in the first place. The only exception to that is if you violate the sacred symbols of God. Like for example, you insult the Prophet Sallallahu alaihi salam, or you desecrate the Kaaba, or desecrate a mushaf, or something like that. But you still remain within Islam. Just make toba. People have inclinations, people make mistakes, everyone makes mistakes. Don't leave toba. As a student taking a philosophy course in college, saying morality is relative, no real truth. What can I do to not fall into this convincing argument? Well, you can use the argument that even atheists, people who don't recognize God, many of them will admit that there is objective morality. The Quran, I believe, calls it al-Mahu. In Jewish traditions, it's called the Noah hadith clause. I think it's axiomatic, wherever you go around the world, irrespective of a person's religious belief or lack thereof, that murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, adultery is wrong, wronging other people, oppressing other people is wrong. There's something there. Theists were called that human nature. I would certainly take a course in the history of Western philosophy and familiarize yourself with different thinkers that would recognize that there's an essential human nature, even if they don't recognize that there's a deity. That's the source of that human nature. It's not a black and white issue. How do you raise the case with a child family member who identifies as LGBT? With compassion, as I said earlier, there seems to be, according to many researchers, there seems to be a link between childhood trauma and sexual perversion. We have to tread very lightly, continue to give advice to the child, continue. It's a difficult thing because children are very sensitive. You don't want to sound very preaching because it might drive them further away. I think the best thing you can do is continue to be compassionate to them and continue to have this diploma upon your religion. Continue to pray, make sure that they know you're praying, make sure that they know that you're following the halal and you're staying away from the haram. If they see that and they see your good character, then inshallah ta'ada will come out of that or they'll learn to embrace and submit to Islam in a fuller way because they want to imitate you. That's a difficult situation. The short answer is continue to be compassionate towards people, give people advice but don't overdo it, but really with your action, be a practicing person with the action. There are people here that I know that can give much better advice on these types of questions. As a student college, it is worth to raise our ideas and beliefs of discussion and contradict them or silence a better option. That's a very good question. I think if you can maintain your sort of base and really feel like engaging in a classroom conversation will not lead to greater good, then I wouldn't say anything. In my PhD seminar classes, we're expected to teach the class of whatnot, give our opinion, but many of the times I just wanted to sit there and say nothing because I think sometimes it actually will benefit myself and others if you just stay quiet. So that's a game time decision that you have to make. Certainly I think if a professor says something that is like something that's ridiculed or put on or the seminar or something like that makes you feel uncomfortable, then I think one should with Adam make some sort of comment to clarify to let the people in the class especially the professor know that you're Muslim and you're a practicing professional Muslim. But that's something that you have to decide at the time. Sometimes silence is better. Can you please comment on supposed birth of the clinic with regards to his major ideas and relate that to any issues you see with modern medicine? Oh, I can't comment on that. I haven't read that. I'm not an expert in Michel Foucault. What do you think is our responsibility as Muslim parents for choosing to live and raise our children in this Western world where everything seems to be against our Muslim beliefs? I don't know if everything seems to be against our Muslim beliefs. There are still, like I said, there are still Christians and Jews out there that follow traditional morality, that believe in God, believe in the prophets. Responsibility is simply to convey the message. You can't force someone to embrace something in their heart, even your own child. You simply have to teach them the best that you can according to the prophetic model. And the prophetic model is one of gentleness, the prophet from the body of the not-strength children who didn't even raise his voice. And one of action of worth of practice. The prophet said that he was a doer. He was impassive. Muslim means active. The STEM fields have been thriving for at least the last 30 to 40 years. What does one record tell the fact that post-modernism doesn't recognize what to do away with reason?  Like I said, I mean, you might say, well, there are axiomatic principles in science and hard science, even in mathematics. All of these things are under scrutiny by post-modernists. They don't accept any of them. They'll say, for example, this theorem in math is just another manifestation of the evil patriarch and a way to keep women down, minority down. Everything is very different. It's just a manifestation of the white, dominant culture and how it wants to keep people of color down. Like a math theorem. So they don't accept mainline or mainstream science. It's now being under attack. The common argument for Muslim support LGBT community is as oppressed groups, we're all in this together. What is the best way to refute this? Are we really oppressed? I don't think so. I mean, if you look at the history of Islam, I mean, what happened in our history? I mean, there were Muslims that were slaughtered, Muslims that had genocide committed against them, Muslims that exiled from different places. I think we need to take, like I said, a self-audit. We're really living in now. We're living in blessing. A lot of the things that Muslims point to are sort of anecdotal. You'll hear, for example, you know, I was in the talk about and somebody said, hey, you camel jockey.   Obviously, it's something that is disturbing. But I'll tell you right now, from my personal experience, and if you want anecdotal evidence, the most severe racism I've ever faced was a Muslim majority country. You can let that one marinate for a minute. I was far from going into certain places because I was born in a certain country. That's never happened to me in America. So, are we really oppressed? Who's oppressing us? I'm not oppressed. I don't agree with that premise. Discretion. How do you advise kids to stay away from social media and so rampant? I don't know. You have the same problem. I have a kid also. It's difficult. There has to be some engagement or else they feel like they're living in North Korea or something. How can an 18-year-old college entering claim to his fate? Well, there has to be some sort of traditional formal studies. My advice is to have some sort of traditional studies before one enters into a public university. But there's a strong foundation. And then your point, your purpose in college is to get your degree and get out. And maybe it's not good advice, but I wouldn't probably not good advice. I would not join any clubs. I would not really hang out. I work better by myself. I don't know. I was part of a gang in high school called AVM all by myself. No, it's not good to isolate yourself either. But you don't need a lot of friends. You can have one good friend. That's all you need. One friend. Then that's fine. So get in and get out. Get your degree. You're going to have to take these elective courses in social sciences. You're going to hear a lot of this type of thing. Like I said, use your judgment. You can choose to engage. If you feel that there's some merit to doing that, or you can sit in the back and sort of get the work done and get out. All religions claim to be Le Bon. How do we explain to our kids that Islam is Le Bon? The only true religion. Well, you have to be learned in several disciplines. We have to know our scripture. We have to know history. We have to know other scriptures. We have to know comparative theology. This is the whole curriculum that you have to become familiar with.  It's just sort of lip service. This is the true religion. Okay. The quote on is the word of God. A lot of times it's sort of the uncle generation. He goes back home. There was no internet. Everyone was Muslim basically. All the questions were about fear. Nowadays, you know, in America, there's internet. They're looking things up online. The questions are about, is there a God? How do I pray to God? Is there a God? Not what does this ayah mean? Is this the word of God? That becomes difficult. So in Tehran, you might have to go back to school if it were to build our foundation, to be able to, and we have to have our stuff together with these kids.  They'll phrase it a little bit differently, sort of get your answers. But we have to be able to give answers. We have to be able to read that and give substantive answers that speaks to the very sort of intention that's in their mind. That's a difficult thing to do. But it takes a lot of learning in that area. There's truth in other religions. I would also stress that, right? I mean, certainly, besides the Islam as a prophet of God, there are stories in the Qur'an that confirm things in the New Testament. But I wouldn't be this sort of excellent, rigid, exclusivist or not perennialist or not this idea that all the religions are basically the same and there's no supersesionism. In other words, the Qur'an has not cancelled the akham of the previous religions. We're not of that position. Islam is the greatest manifestation of the truth. However, there is truth in other religions, even in things like Hinduism and Buddhism that we can't really deny. So, I would sort of abandon this methodology of rigid, exclusive, right? Because, again, it sort of puts in the mind of the child's idea of supremacy. My parents think they're better than everyone else. You know, they tweet, my parents are homophobic, transphobic Muslim supremacists who want to institute Sharia law in America. And look how oppressed and poor I am. Somebody, please liberate me with your Marxism. Where are you, Karl Marx? We ask you all to accept all of our actions that are sincerely done for you and those that are not sincerely done for you. All of us, finally, we ask you to increase our knowledge. We ask you to benefit us from gatherings like this. We ask you to remove from our hearts any type of ranker, any type of enmity that we have for any other person. We ask you to co-feel for us to be able to liberate, debate, get to the truth of things, the objective truth, and to embrace that truth. We ask you for the ability of your feet to be able to see the truth, embrace it, and see falsehood and objective, while also they may have said that because