Can All Religions Actually Be True?

Welcome back to our class, and we are still continuing the topic of soteriology. What is soteriology? Quickly, guys, girls, what is soteriology?

The study of salvation through religion. Which religion grants salvation? Which religion? Doesn't it? Do people of other religions grant salvation or not?

And today, we're going to continue as usual. This is a, uh, a multiclass series. And one of my concerns or problems, I do understand you all have obviously careers and lives and classes and life stuff. One of my problems is that you come in and out, um, and you don't fully grasp the whole concept because every class is just a bit of it. So, this is a big part of the jigsaw puzzle. So, if you're not attending for one particular day, please listen to it online so that you get the full picture.

So, today we're going to do one part of the puzzle, and this is going to be quite a number of classes. And I, I was preparing my talk and, you know, doing all of my, my, my, uh, more advanced, quote unquote, stuff, and then I was distracted by a battle going on right now online amongst some of our most esteemed politicians. I say esteemed in a sarcastic manner, and the Muslim American Muslim community. Even the president and the vice president have gotten involved. A number of senators, a number of congressmen were there, quite literally accusing one of our senior imams and clerics of, of basically being a terrorist, you know? And, uh, there is a raging debate going on online right now.

When I say online, of course, it's happening in the real world as well. And the claim is that Muslims should not and cannot be citizens of America. Muslims don't belong here. And this claim is now gaining currency amongst not just the far right, but amongst the right as well. And sadly, amongst the extreme left as well. We're actually seeing a, a, a, a consolidation of hatred from the far right and the middle right, and now even from voices on the left. And the claim is being given that Muslims don't fit in our world and that a person who believes in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala cannot be a citizen in a democracy. Why? Because they follow Sharia, because they have religious views that clash with our ideals, with our civil society, etc., etc.

Now, obviously, the reason why this entire debate is taking place, you should all be aware, this is a distraction from the genocide of. This is obvious. All of you should be aware of this, that this is really being used as a distraction in order to avert attention from, and then justify as well. So, there's a dual-pronged thing taking place. It's like the boy who cried wolf, right? It's like you cry wolf, everybody's attention goes there instead of talking about the far bigger issues happening within the country, happening with Gaza. You just create a controversy out of nothing. The person running for mayor in New York, the person running for governor in Michigan, the person, the adhan taking place in a Muslim suburb. These are now becoming national headlines. Utterly trivial. Just like our epic city, you saw firsthand. Utterly trivial. Absolutely normal. We're just any community does this, but the entire debacle of getting involved from the president to the vice president to senators to congressmen to the far-right pundits with multi-million people following them all drumming up this completely concocted campaign. Why? Because they want to divert attention from the clear genocide, the demolition, the destruction, the rampage that has taken place that has completely debilitated life as it exists in Gaza. Not a single building is left standing. They can't allow television footage to be shown there. So, what do they do? Concoct a controversy about the hidden jihadist threat, right?

And again, the irony of irony is within our own community, our more conservative or fundamentalist people are discounting their own politicians because, in their eyes, they're too liberal, right? And this is the dichotomy you have to constantly fight. Whereas, in reality, everybody else outside of those small group of, you know, generally young, mashallah, overzealous brothers, we talked about them before, again, may Allah bless and guide all of them. We know they're sincere, but idealism needs to be tempered with, with pragmatism and reality. But the irony, they're balancing this anyway. The point is that we know this is a distraction. Yet, believe it or not, this entire topic deals directly with our class. That's why I begin with it. This entire controversy, even it's happening in front of our eyes, and we'd like to comment on it more politically, but I have to start our class. It is directly relevant to our class. How so?

I quote you Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment and someone whom the founding fathers of this country of America were greatly influenced by. So, 300 years ago, one of the primary architects of our understanding of modern civil society, one of the greatest thinkers of modern political thought, he is universally admired. And he was born a Catholic and then he rejected Catholicism and he became a Calvinist. He writes his book, The Social Contract, which was seminal in defining American democracy. The founding fathers read this book. They were inspired by ideals of it. Some even say phrases of our declaration but kind of come from his philosophy. He writes in The Social Contract, and I quote this paragraph. Please listen to this carefully.

"Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are to my mind mistaken. Civil intolerance and theological intolerance. In my mind," he says, "they're mistaken. The two forms are inseparable. It is impossible to live at peace with those whom we regard to be damned." This is the founder of modern, one strand of modern democracy. I mean, him along with Montesquieu, along with, you know, Locke, and others like the three, four main figures of modern American pragmatic democracy or idealism, whatnot. This is one of those guys. Now, obviously, this particular understanding was not taken by the founding fathers, but he held this view. He held this view. What was that view? It is impossible to live at peace with those whom we regard to be damned. To love them would be to hate God. To love somebody whom we think is going to hell means we're hating God. That's his view. Again, we're coming and come back to this point. That's the whole why we're discussing this class here, right?

"Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect. I repeat, pay attention to this. Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect. And as soon as it has such an effect, the sovereign, the king, is no longer sovereign. Once religion divides a group, the secular that united them no longer unites them." Right? And he goes on that, uh, there can be the that he says that in his, so he's, he's a Swiss person living in France. So he's writing in the European context when they've broken away from the church, right? So this is the beginnings of what we call secularism.

Pause here. Footnote. At some point in our class, we will discuss secularism in detail. We will go over the reality of secularism, the hypocrisy of secularism as we're seeing it right now in front of our very eyes, the origins of secularism, and what do we Muslims do with regards to secularism. But we find some of these problems right here in Rousseau.

So, Rousseau says that now, now that there is and can no longer be an exclusive national religion, i.e., now that Switzerland doesn't have a national religion that is forced on people, tolerance may be given to all religions that tolerate others. But whoever dares to say, "Outside the church is no salvation," ought to be driven out from the state unless the state is the church and the prince is the pope." End quote.

Who says outside the church there's no salvation? >> Catholic. Catholics. Catholics said this, right? So, Rousseau is basically saying, "We're going to tolerate all the Christians who are agreeing to tolerate each other, but forget Muslims. We're not going to tolerate Christians who call themselves Catholics." And by the way, this exact notion of dual loyalty, it remains to this day still in the minds of many Protestants. And I told you this in two classes ago when JFK, John F. Kennedy was running for office. This became a national debate. "You're a Catholic. How can you be elected to president? Because you have to answer to the Pope and not to the Constitution, right?" There's nothing new. And JFK was elected one generation ago. It's not like, you know, hundreds of years ago. One generation ago. Literally, your fathers were were alive at that time. This is one generation ago. And the country hesitated. How can we elect a Catholic to be president? So, it's nothing new when we find these types of sentiments.

Now, obviously, Rousseau's claims are interesting, and I'm jumping the gun. I partially agree and I partially disagree. I don't fully agree with Rousseau, but I also fully don't disagree with him. And we're going to come back to this point because we already mentioned this a few months ago, the concept of ummah versus the concept of nation-state, right? And the concept of ummah is more logical. It is more rational. It makes a lot more sense than any other concept. And Rousseau explains to you why. Well, we're going to come back to this point here as well. But I wanted to point out that the whole notion of soteriology, of who's right and who's wrong, of who's damned and who's blessed, of who's going to hell and who's going to heaven, it actually does have an impact on civil society. And we have to be brave enough, bold enough to admit that and then talk about the consequences. Rousseau points it out. We're seeing its reality to this day where all of these notions are being brought up that you guys are not like us because you have a different law, you have a different God that you worship, etc., etc. Those notions are never going to completely go away. Doesn't matter how, quote unquote, civilized the world becomes. Doesn't matter when push comes to shove, that which is hidden will become manifest, as we are seeing right now.

Which is why the division of Islam, the ummah versus dhimmi versus others, actually makes so much more sense. It is logical and rational, and it is in congruence with human understanding. Whereas the notion that we are facing now, as we said, and we're going to come back to it, is a constructed and imaginary notion, very fragile. It is imaginary. You have to pretend it exists, and it really doesn't exist. And every once in a while, it demonstrates how it doesn't exist, as we're seeing right now.

And again, on a personal anecdote. So, as you know, I did my, my doctorate at Yale. And the year that I was there, Tony Blair had just basically finished, and he had, um, come into private life. And so, for some bizarre reason, Yale decided to hire him as a professor. He doesn't even have a PhD, but they decided to hire him as a professor. Uh, and there was a class that was taught there, Religion and Politics in the Modern World. Okay? So, uh, I actually, it was a class that, unbelievably, the Yale students had to apply to get into. You had to apply as a student. It was a quota of 25 people, and they had, uh, quotas like five people from anthropology, three people from humanities, you know, three people from MBA, two people from law, and two in the PhDs, right? In the doing a PhD. So, over, I don't know how many hundreds applied. So, alhamdulillah, I was one of those that was chosen. I have a whole article, you can read it. "To Blair or Not to Blair, That Is the Question." I have an article, you can go read it. Google it online, you'll find it. "To Blair or Not to Blair, That Is the Question." And I, I talked about the conundrum that I had as a, a person who believes Tony Blair, um, was a war, he is a war criminal, he's a genocide enabler. He's the one who invaded Iraq and, you know, uh, supported Bush's, um, uh, illegal invasion. I had a personal conundrum, but I decided to go ahead and do it with the caveat that, um, I would try my best to be a polite nuisance in his class. Polite because I believe in wisdom. There's no point in being rude and crude and being kicked out. What's the point? But to use the, the ambiance of that class to get my point across. And so, I made it my goal every single class, my hand would be the first to come up, right? And he got really irritated at me at the end, or even in the middle, I don't know. But anyway, so the first class that he taught, the first class, and I hadn't read Rousseau back then, this is what, 2007 or something, so I hadn't read this, this quote, but he talks about the importance of civil unity, the importance of being, you know, one, your nation, your state, and whatnot, and, and, you know, civil harmony, etc. Soon as the class is over, I'm the first person to raise my hand and I say, um, "So, sounds very good. I had to be very polite. Obviously, these are great ideals and at some level, we all agree to them. But how do you reconcile this notion of a constructed political identity with the very real religious identities that people who believe in God actually love and claim to be more important than their, than their nation-state identity? And those religious identities are actually demarcating them, dividing them, right? How, and, and I didn't know Rousseau, but I basically almost quoted him, is like, how can two groups of people, in particular the Muslims and the Christians, both who, which claim salvific, you know, exclusivity, what is your template for overcoming that difference when you're arguing for this nation-state identity?" And, uh, that was the first question out of many. And, uh, he actually just, um, smiled and laughed and he goes, "I wish I had an answer for that question. I'm still trying to figure it out myself." Right? So, he wasn't able to answer that question.

Of course, we will answer it, inshallah, later on in this class because Islam has a pragmatic and realistic answer where you retain your ummah and you recognize the civil rights of those outside your ummah. That's the beauty of Islam. Your ummah is your ummah. That is your identity. But people who are outside of your ummah are still human. They're not animals. Or not. And you treat them as human beings, but they are not a part of your ummah. So, the dhimmi status, it, this is basically the equivalent of the nation-state and his visas. Look at how, look at how people on visas are being treated now. And I have to bring up one of our own brothers was arrested today who used to attend our class. One of our own brethren was, was it today or yesterday? He was arrested for what? For videotaping a public protest, which is totally legal. But because he's on a visa or on a green card, I don't know which one. He's not a citizen yet. The ICE literally raided him. You know, seven vehicles surrounded his house. They dragged him out. One of our brothers used to attend our class, right? Because he's not a citizen. He's not being given the rights. And just like you see right now, Trump and all of these people are saying, "Deport anybody who says this, makes fun of me, this and that." All of these civil rights, and the right is agreeing with all of this, right? Go ahead. It's a, it's a privilege to be amongst us. See, this is the fragility of the state identity, the fragility. And just like he himself said, that next we're going to go after naturalized citizens, and then after that, it's going to be most of us here are born, including myself. Don't be surprised if a time comes when if your ethnicity, if your religion is different, the Constitution will not be applied to you. That already has happened in multiple countries. We hope it doesn't get there in this country. But again, the fragility of this identity state, this, this notion of all of us being exactly the same. It is imaginary, and we have to be blunt and bold about this, that to say it is imaginary. That doesn't mean that we're going to again have to always be concerned about the far right and the Zionist lobbies. Take my clips. Obviously, I speak as here as a political, uh, you know, uh, engaging in political philosophy. It is an imaginary construct, but we still live as equal citizens and we demand the same rights as everybody else. We're simply pointing out your hypocrisies, and we're pointing out the vision and version of Islam is actually more pragmatic. That's all that we're saying over here.

My point is that all of this discussion of soteriology actually is not something abstract. It is a lived problem that we are seeing right here and now. And it links into how do people of different faiths that damn each other, right, to hell, 'cause that's what most religions did to each other's religions for most of humanity. How do they live together in society?

So, with this, let us give the broad template of how we're going to be discussing this. There are many issues to discuss. And first and foremost, and I did go over this last class, but let me just do a quick refresher. This question of soteriology, as I explained in what, two classes ago, it was actually not something that most people in the past concerned themselves with. Forget salvation outside of your religion. For most groups, salvation was not even outside your group. Catholics damned every Protestant group. Protestants damned every other Protestant and Catholic groups. And within our own tradition, the, you find amongst all of them those that said the other group is going to jahanam. You still find sectarian views to this day. You still find that, right? So, forget the salvation outside the religion. For most of human history, amongst the Abrahamic religions, obviously, salvation was pretty much your group. That's it. Forget other groups.

Why then? Why has this topic generated a new discussion? Why are we discussing it in modern? Why is it something that is discussed amongst your generation, amongst the society and times that we live in? Lots of reasons. First and foremost, for most of human history, people of a similar ethnicity and religion lived together. It was rare to find multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious societies, especially in Europe. Not so much more in the Muslim world. Realize the Muslim world was always multicultural, unlike Europe. It was always multi-ethnic, unlike most of Europe. And it was always multi-religious, unlike most of Europe. Why? Because the system of Islam is actually a viable, realistic system. It's a healthy, organic way that you can live together, and it works. Europe couldn't figure out how to live together with other people until they invented secularism. We're going to come back to this point here, right?

So, our experiment of America, of the modern Western world, is a relatively modern experiment in the grand scale of human history where people of many different persuasions come together and they form this bond called the nation-state. We are all Americans. And as I explained, what does that mean exactly? People to this day, the far right to the far left, look at how, look at how, you know, uh, uh, at odds they are on every single issue. What exactly unites them? What exactly unites them? Not their values, not their ideology, not their understanding of living together. What unites them? Literally, they're almost going to go to civil war in our own lifetime. That's the reality of the nation-state.

So, the fact that we are now, for pretty much the first time in human history, meaning first time, meaning it's been a few centuries, but it's still relatively new. I mean, human history goes back, recorded history goes back 10, 15,000 years, and probably Homo sapiens go back as probably 150,000 years. For the first time, relatively speaking, there's so much intermixing going on, and people of mixed faith communities are coming together. Families are forming, friendships develop, marriages take place, and there is a far more familiarity with the other. With that familiarity comes all of these questions as well.

Another point is that we are also now seeing the rise of secularism. And this is a key factor because what secularism does, and we're going to discuss this concept in a future segment or section of our series here. What secularism does is that it relegates religion to the background. Whereas 500 years ago, 300 years ago, your primary identity across the globe, Europeans were not primarily European. This is an American construct. They were Protestant. Not even just Protestant. They were specifically, are they Calvinists? Are they Huguenots? You know, what specific version? You all know when America was founded, the 13 colonies, each one of those colonies, its primary identity was a specific sect of Christianity. That's why there were 13 colonies. Its primary identity was a particular sect of Christianity. Now, with the rise of secularism, religion takes a back role. Now the religion takes a back role, these questions become more pertinent to us.

Also, with the rise of secularism, we also have the rise of the nation-state identity, the eclipsing of the nation-state identity. As I explained, the concept of nationality, of belonging to a land, again, this was alien. You've all seen, you've all seen movies where the native Indians, the, the native Indians or the native Americans, I should say, they don't understand the concept of selling land. Like, what do you mean? The land doesn't belong to anybody. It belongs to, to, to the divine. You can't own that. That was their understanding, right? Like, what do you mean, this, this line, this imaginary line? They couldn't even grasp the concept. The whole notion of having an imaginary line, you know, between Canada and America, between America and Mexico. This goes back to the Treaty of Westphalia, which is literally what, 1683 or something, right? That's when for the first time an imaginary line is drawn, and you say, "Okay, everybody on this side is this, everybody on that side is that." This is again, relatively yesterday in human history.

So, with the rise of the nation-state, you have a new identity competing with your other identities. And we are Muslim Americans, or are American Muslims. And add in the ethnicity as well. Pakistani American Muslim, or Egyptian American Muslim, or your mother and father are too different, Egyptian Sudanese American Muslim, whatever it might be. All of these competing identities, once again, brings to the forefront, what exactly does that mean?

Another change in our cultural zeitgeist is the fact that we are now emphasizing ethics over beliefs. Theology is not as important as what we consider human dignity, or justice, or equality. And so, when we find people that we think are ethical, but they don't have our theology, this raises a conundrum in our eyes. In fact, we can even bring in notions of divine justice, notions of piety, assessments of piety. Right now, as we speak, there are so many non-Muslims who are literally sacrificing their careers, their livelihoods to help our brothers and sisters in Gaza. There are famous people from like Greta to even the Hollywood stars. I forgot their names. All that they went on boats. I mean, that is a sacrifice. They literally walked into a war zone. And these are multi-millionaires. These are people of fame and repute. They don't do this. It's obvious. They're not doing it for fame. They have fame. They're not doing it for money. There's no money. They're physically potentially going to be assaulted. And as you know, they were assaulted, right? So, there are people that you see them standing up for the oppressed, helping those that need help, literally sacrificing what they can. And then, of course, the issue comes, well, then what is their fate? In contrast this with Muslim regimes and governments that are actually purchasing land in Israel as we speak to build embassies. Today, there's a news that came out, multi-billion. You know, you know what I'm talking about. They're literally wanting to normalize, right? There are governments that are saying the Khima, calling people in Gaza the terrorists. Can you believe this? Right? And normalizing Zionism and the apartheid regime. And then we are taught that, well, the first category are all jahanam, and the second category, all people of jannah. I mean, really? And again, this whole series is definitely going to raise a lot of issues online and whatnot, but it is what it is. We have to be fair and blunt and say this is a problem that is human. You should not feel guilty in trying to sort through these difficult areas of life. And I say this because all too often, the, some of the people that are that are on the more, you know, simplistic religious mind, that they just study a little bit and that's it. Some of them, they actually want to diminish the, the pain that we feel when we try to talk about these topics. They want to make you feel guilty. It's a, it's a clear black and white issue. There's no two opinions about it, right? And as you will see, and again, I'm saying this for the record, I'd like to believe my position is fairly mainstream, but I will be saying things that are not exactly what you'll hear from other people. And I know it's going to cause a backlash, but I'll present my evidences, and so be it.

By the way, that leads me to another point, and that is the, the, the whole problem that happens about considering an opinion to be like such a big issue. It is what it is. You have, you have your opinion, I have mine, and I have my evidence, you have yours, and let us debate in a civil manner. But again, the problem comes, the, the attempt to shut down civil dialogue and to demonize anybody who disagrees with an opinion that they believe is the orthodox one. Who gave them that right? Did Allah appoint you to be arbiters of orthodoxy? Did Allah give you the keys to jannah? Did Allah tell us to follow you and your scholars? I'm sorry, but I don't believe this. Every single group has the right to present its evidences. And in the end of the day, you have the right to ask and then make your decision. And you have to answer to Allah, not to me, and not to any other scholar. You have to answer to Allah. So, just because a group said something, I don't think that makes them right. It is only the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that if he were in front of me and he told me explicitly something, there are no two opinions, and that is it. Everything other than this, I mean, and I say this with respect. I don't make blind following to anybody. Now, I'm not saying you need to do that. If you choose to blindly follow, that is absolutely fine. And realize you're making because you're not qualified to do independent research. That's fine. But I'm saying for myself, I don't blindly follow. And just because a group says something, nobody appointed that group to be the arbiters. And this issue is a very, very difficult issue. And I'm sorry, but to make these simplistic claims that this is a, they'll say the Arabic term issue means is definitive. It's clear. It's black and white. And I'll push back and say, in some areas, it is definitive. I agree. But not in all. And that's where the nuance is we're going to go to. Okay. So, I'm saying this for the record. Some of my views are going to be a bit new to maybe to some of your ears, but I still fall within the mainstream orthodoxy. At least I would like to think so, but obviously my, my critics, uh, think I'm far left or far right depending on where they themselves situate themselves.

Anyway, so I was saying notions of piety, of justice, of ethical virtue are problematic because if you are told that, and here, let me quote you a great scholar, and I, I quote this scholar not to diminish his rank at all, but to demonstrate that these views do exist. And that scholar is a person I actually admire. That's Ibn Hazm. Have you heard of Ibn Hazm? Ibn Hazm was a great scholar from Al-Andalus, and he is somebody who was an independent thinker. So, he's not following any particular school. He was, you can't classify him as anybody. He's his own independent thinker. And he writes, talking about the fact that, so the, the passage deals with, in this issue, actually, he was very sympathetic to the Ash'ari viewpoint, even though he's not Ash'ari at all, but in this area, he followed the Ash'arism. And what is that area? That is the claim that the intellect doesn't have a role to play in deciding what is good and what is evil. Remember, we talked about this, right? We talked about this a few weeks ago. Your mind does not have any role to play. So, Ibn Hazm followed this view. And so, in this view, he agreed with the, the other group here. Now, he talks about this in a big book, eight-volume book of, and he proves this point that the intellect doesn't play a role. Then he gives an example. That example is very interesting. What is that example?

He says, "We ask the one who claims that the intellect alone can derive and determine what is good from what is evil about this scenario." And he gives the scenario. Listen to this. "Tell me, what would you say about a monk, a hermit, a priest, secluded in his hermitage, wholly devoted to God, with all of his heart, constantly worshiping God, doing no evil, neglecting no good deed, and he lives in the furthest," he says, "islands of Shashian." Islands of Shashian is an imaginary term that the Arabs had, uh, like we would say, at the far ends of China, whatever. There's no such island, right? But he just says in an Arabic phrase, he's living in the islands of the Shashi, at the farthest edge of the world, having never once heard any truthful mention of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. In fact, he was told that he is accused of lying. He was described in the most despicable terms, meaning the Prophet. When that man dies in that state, would we not all say that he will end up in Jahannam to abide therein forever? And if anybody doubts this," he says, "Ibn Hazm says, if you doubt he's going to end up in Jahannam, well, then you yourself have committed kufr." This is Ibn Hazm saying this, okay?

Contrast this. What do you say about a Jewish or Christian average person, not a hermit, not a priest, who spent his life killing people, he killed every Muslim he could come across, and he committed every abomination from zina and adultery and sodomy and every vile deed, yet right before he died, he became certain of Islam and uttered the Shahada, declaring it with his heart and tongue, and not doing any good deed, and he dies. He says, "Wouldn't this person be amongst the people of Jannah? And if you doubt this, you're a kafir."

Now, do you guys understand what he's trying to say? Can anybody take a step back? What he's trying, what is he trying to say? Anybody? >> Go ahead. >> And why does he say this in this context? Like, what I'm trying to say, the context is the mind cannot play a role in judging right. And he gives an example that even in his time frame, he doesn't understand. Like, he's saying, doesn't it, it not make any sense that a Christian priest, a hermit, a monk, who does his whole life of, will go to jannah, whereas an evil person who has no good deed except will go to jannah? And he says this is a given. And then he's basically saying, does this make sense? No. Which is why we don't bring in, when it comes to verdicts, do you understand what he's saying here, guys? Hello? If not, then go listen to it again, because he's using this example. What I'm trying to say. Let me rephrase this. In fact, you can say even Ibn Hazm is saying this sounds problematic. But then he is saying, because it sounds problematic, but we know that it is not problematic. Hence, the problem is not with the example. The problem is with the intellect assuming it knows better. Does that make sense? Right? Okay. So, that's an example of it. We're going to come back and we're going to politely disagree with some aspects of Ibn Hazm. We're going to come back and we're going to figure that out. For those that are listening online, before you release the reputation videos, listen to the full lectures because I will defend orthodoxy. Don't worry. But we're going to have some caveats. Again, that we have to be careful here. Yes, of course, we do believe the general rule that Islam is the only way, but there are exceptions. We're going to come to those exceptions. Okay. So, we're going to come back to Ibn Hazm's views, but the point is that even Ibn Hazm is saying this analogy, if you just had the mind, it would not make sense if we said the, the hermit, the priest is going to jannah and the evil person is going to jannah. So, he's saying we have to then realize the mind is incorrect, and the mind has no role to play in judging. That was his point that I wanted to say.

Now, let us begin the groundwork. And as I said, this is a multi-series class. Today, I want to actually lay the single definitive foundation. Okay? Today, I'm going to do the foundation of theology, and we're going to continue this. We're then going to talk about applying the theory to the reality because theory and reality always have a little bit of a, a little bit of a difference here. Theory and reality usually fit, but sometimes the reality is outside of the theory. And that's what we're going to come to here. That once we talk about theoretically what is correct, realistically, when you apply it to people, we will see some segments of humanity are outside of the theoretical rule. I will explain why that is the case. Once we've done that, we will then move on to the topic of living with those whom we think are outside of salvation. I.e., Rousseau said you cannot live in peace with those whom you think are damned. We strongly disagree. Rousseau was wrong. You can live at peace in this world. That's why we have, and that's the whole benefit of believing in this world and the next, because the rulings of this world are not the same as the rulings of the next. And in our, we have a very clear differentiation between the two. So, we will have a discussion about the rulings of this world and then the rulings of the next. And then we will finish this class, which will probably last a few weeks, uh, if Allah gives us life and him and and and sabr to finish all of this. We will finish this class before we move on to our next series of classes with the very difficult question of, is it fair to punish a disbeliever for eternity, or will eternal punishment not be eternal? I.e., what is the purpose of punishing forever and ever and ever? And is that what we believe, or are there other views when it comes to punishment? That's also a question that deals with soteriology. Okay, so that's the game plan. That's the broad game plan.

And so, we now begin our long series with the very simple rule. After all that I've said and done, the simple rule is, in the eyes of Allah, there is only one path that leads to Him. All other paths do not lead to Him. That is the simple rule. There is only one acceptable religion in the eyes of Allah. Theoretically, there is no disagreement about this. And we're going to come back to this point over and over again, but today I'm going to prove it very quickly. And I will prove it by going over a number of genres of evidences.

The first of them are very quickly some verses of the Quran. And in fact, I have a paper written, and you have, I think you have been forwarded the paper. It's a summary of a longer talk I gave. The sheer quantity of verses that indicate this are literally in the hundreds. The sheer quantity of verses that indicate that truth is one and falsehoods are many. That the religion that is acceptable to Allah is one, and all other religions are not. The sheer quantity of verses are so many that we cannot go over them in five, 10, 15. And to just go over some broad genres of verses. Whenever Allah mentions anything about guidance, it is in the singular. And whenever it is misguidance, it is in the plural. Even simple verses, plural darknesses, singular, right? Follow my, don't follow the other the paths, plural. Every time guidance is mentioned, singular, and misguidance, plural. There is one guidance.

And another genre of verses is the explicit, unambiguous, definitive verses that mention the only religion Allah will accept is the religion of Islam. And the two primary verses I want you to write down: Surah Al-Imran, verse 19, and Surah Al-Imran, verse 85. These are verses that were revealed in the first year of Medina. And it's very important to know there's a second year of Medina. Very important to know this. Why? Because in Medina, for the first time, Muslims encountered whom? Who? The, the. In Mecca, there's no question. The verses. Muslims now that the Muslims are interacting with, and there was this notion amongst some of the Jewish people, and by the way, this notion still exists among some Jewish people, that we have our way, and as long as you have your, you know, seven laws of Noah, you are also okay, but you're not going to occupy our space. And we went over this, right? So, Jewish salvation has a different understanding. So, Allah revealed to respond to this. This is as definitive as you can get. Islam. "Know that the deen in the eyes of Allah is the deen of Islam." And in the other verse, which is even more explicit, "Whoever chooses other than Islam as his religion, it will not be accepted of him." Quite literally, whoever chooses other than Islam as a deen, Allah will not accept it from him. The religion will not be accepted other than Islam. Again, theoretically, a person might possibly be forgiven. Remember, we're talking about theory. Now, we're talking about religion. The person is separate. We're going to talk about that next week. For now, religions, the only religion acceptable to Allah is Islam.

Another genre of verses are around 40 or 50 verses, if not more, that explicitly link iman to believing in the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and kufr as rejecting the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. You cannot have iman without belief in the Prophet, and to reject the Prophet is to reject Allah. And again, there are literally dozens of verses of them. You can write down a verse 158, and, uh, Surah, uh, uh, Chapter 21:10, Surah Al-Ma'idah, verse 33, and Surah An-Nisa, verse 115, and Surah An-Nisa, verse 65, and many other verses as well. Also, I'll just quote you some of these verses in Arabic and English. So, of them, Allah says, "I swear by your Lord." Allah gives the oath by you, your Lord. Oh, Muhammad. He literally makes him your Lord. Allah gives the oath by mentioning the Prophet and his Lord to demonstrate who the Prophet is. This is one of the only times in the Quran where the oath is made by the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's name and his Lord. "I swear by your Lord that they shall never have iman." Who is "they"? The context of the verse is the Jews and Christians. Forget them. This is the Jews and Christians. "They shall never have iman until they take you as their final arbiter in their affairs. They take you as the one they listen to and obey, the one that they take as the Prophet. They will never be Mumin." In another verse, Allah says, "They don't reject you. Rather, they reject Me by rejecting you." When they reject you, they're rejecting Me. A rejection of the Prophet is a rejection of Allah. This is very clear in the Quran. You can't have iman in Allah. In fact, our scholars say even the Shahada, theoretically, theoretically, you must believe in the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam before you say the Shahada, which affirms Allah as the Lord. Do you understand this point? Who taught you the Shahada? How do you know the Shahada? How do you know anything about the Shahada? Because you believed in the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam as being the Prophet. So, theoretically, belief in the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam actually has to precede, in a millisecond, if you like, you get my point here, saying that you believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the correct Shahada, because the Shahada is taught to you by the human Prophet. So, there is no Islam without submission to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.

Another genre of verses, and again, these are hundreds now, hundreds of verses. Every verse that criticizes other religions and how many verses criticize paganism? How many verses criticize idolatry? How many verses criticize the Trinity? How many verses criticize the for rejecting the Prophet? Hundreds of verses, right? What's the point of criticizing? Allah literally calls them. "Those who say God is a Trinity have committed kufr." "Whoever says Jesus is son of Mary has committed kufr." Every verse that criticizes the theology of other faith traditions, it is an indication that truth is one.

You can add to this numerous hadith of the Prophet, which we're not going to go into. Bukhari, Muslim, every single book of hadith. The Prophet said, "I swear by Him in whose hands is my soul, none shall enter Jannah except the Mumin." Soul. None shall enter Jannah. In another hadith, he said, "Whoever obeys me shall enter Jannah. Whoever follows me shall enter Jannah. Whoever rejects me has has rejected Jannah." In another hadith, he said that, uh, the, is the key to Jannah, and the, of course, is the. We can go on and on and on about the reality of Islam being exclusive when it comes to hadith.

So, we have Quran, we have Sunnah, we have logical consistency. It is mutually exclusive, impossible for multiple competing claims of truth to all be simultaneously correct. In fact, we don't even acknowledge this as a reality in the political realm. How can we possibly acknowledge it in the theological realm? I.e., look at the hatred right now between socialism and communism and and democracy and and capitalism. You can't have all mixed at the same time in a society. And inevitably, one group is going to demonize the other. If you were to have been born and raised in, you know, uh, in Russia right now, you would be making fun of capitalists. You'll be making fun of the top 5% of, of, of the capitalist world, quite literally own more wealth than the entire world combined. You know this, right? The, the first trillionaire is going to come and whatnot. You'll be saying all of these statistics. You don't memorize them. You make fun of the capitalist system because we're on the other side of the world. You know, we automatically look at other systems of philosophy, of government, and look down upon them. We're not even willing to acknowledge that multiple competing political systems or economic systems are equally valid. Then how can anybody claim religious systems and gods are equally valid? It is mutually exclusively impossible, contradictory. So, does it, either you say Jesus is the son of God or not? Either you say the way to the Father is through the Son, or you say to say that is blasphemy. Both can't simultaneously be right. So, even from a logical perspective, it makes no sense.

Then we have the rational perspective. What is the rational perspective? To claim that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent a final Prophet with a grandiose announcement that He was the seal of the Prophets, and He sent the greatest of all books to that Prophet, and the message, allegedly by those who say all religions are the same, the message of the Messenger is that you don't need to believe in my message. What type of message is that? If you believe that the message of the Prophet is superfluous, you don't need to believe in it, then why send a message in the first place? Why send a new book? You're adding more confusion to the world. It would have been better if you're going to already go to Jannah without him, without the Quran, why send a new messenger? So, even from a simple rational point of view, it makes no sense.

And then the final point, there is absolute unanimity amongst all the groups of Islam without exception that salvation, theoretically, again, remember today's class, that's my concern, brothers and sisters, if you only attend one class, you don't others, this is a very multifaceted topic. Today we're talking conceptually, is another religion acceptable to Allah or not? Next week, we're going to begin discussing individuals. That's a separate discussion. Today, we're talking, how many paths lead to Jannah? One path. We're going to come back and say, some people might be on another path, and the path is leading away from Jannah, but Allah might make an exception for the person, not the path. You guys following? The path is not leading to Jannah. No path leads to Jannah other than Islam. And not everybody who claims to be on the path to Islam is actually on the path of Islam. But everybody who follows the path of Islam truly, that path leads to Jannah. Other paths do not lead to Jannah. But individuals on those paths, that's what we're going to come to later.

On might be excused not because of the path, because of what they did, because of their state, because of their whatever it might be, state of mind, ignorance, or whatever it might be. They might be excused. It doesn't justify the path being correct. We're going to come back to this point here. Right?

So there is unanimous consensus amongst who? Amongst every single theological school of Islam without exception. The Mu'tazila, the Ash'ari, the Sunnis with all of their manifestations and diversity, the Shia, everybody says this. Everybody says this that the only path that is acceptable to Allah is Islam. And the reason why they say this, like I said, the sheer quantity of verses, the explicitness of the prophetic traditions, the illogical mutual exclusive claim, the rationality of believing that the reason why Allah sent a prophet is for the guidance and the unanimous consensus of the entirety of the Ummah. So this is the fundamental premise that we're going to begin our discussion with and there should be no two opinions about this.

Now there is a caveat. We're going to come back to this later on. So we're going to conclude here. Has anybody disagreed? No group has disagreed. No developed theological strand has disagreed with this point. But you have in pre-modernity some thinkers or some mystics whose writings have been interpreted to imply salvation outside of Islam, but there's no nothing explicit, nothing explicit in pre-modernity. You have the Sufi mystics, some of them, a small group of what are called the philosophical, you know, Sufis, a small group of them. Mainstream Sufis definitely is very clear and whatnot. No, without a doubt. But some of the, you know, more like Ibn Arabi type, you know, or um the poet, you know, um who's a very popular poet, whatnot. And we're going to come back to this. We will discuss it in this class. It is it is a misunderstanding of mystical poetry. These aren't theologians writing theology. These are mystics writing poetry. And to read in theology in poetry is a big mistake. Right? And Rumi was actually a very orthodox Sunni uh and there's no way that he believed, you know, the types of things that are being derived from that. But there is a claim in our times that they believe this. There is no explicit statement and I challenge anybody. I challenge anybody to find an explicit statement. I have done my research. I presented papers and if I'm wrong, please correct me. I haven't found a single quotation of anybody pre-modernity that explicitly claims that a person who follows another path besides Islam, knowing the truth of Islam, knowing Islam is going to be saved. That's very clear.

So who disagreed? For the last 50 years or so, there are a number of thinkers who are arguing for soteriological inclusivity. Okay, these are fringe figures that are some of them call themselves progressive uh or, you know, they're freethinkers or whatever and they identify as Muslims and they say that uh multiple paths lead to Allah subhana wa ta'ala. And amongst them was the famous intellectual Fazlur Rahman, who was one of the most famous intellectuals uh of the um 50, 60 years ago. Uh he was a uh a very famous Pakistani intellectual who was uh stigmatized and then banned and threatened in Pakistan. So he fled for his life and he came to America. This is back in the 50s and he became a professor at the University of Chicago and he was one of the first Muslims to be a professor here in America and he had a seminal impact on all of Islamic studies being at that time frame and whatnot, all of Islamic studies in the Western world. The books that he wrote, the articles that he wrote, and his students became professors. Uh many, some of my own teachers studied with him. So he caused a chain reaction, if you like, and a number of people of his students. And you have another school as uh and that is the school that is called the Perennialist school. So there are two groups that disagreed with this. They're both modern. Number one, I call them individual thinkers like Fazlur Rahman and others. We're going to mention them. And number two, there is a movement that is modern. It is a, let's be polite here, um a fringe Sufi movement that attracted a lot of attention because his followers were very high-profile uh European Western converts to Islam, including Martin Lings, who wrote "The S" and uh others as well. In our time, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who's not a convert, but he's uh one of the premier intellectual philosophers of the Muslim world, they're his students, that that strand. And uh we're going to come back to them. They call themselves uh the Traditionalists, but they're not Traditionalists in that sense. They're a different type of tradition. Uh and so they also argue that salvation is found in all faith traditions. All faith traditions without exception.

So these are the only two movements, both of them, well, individuals and movements, both of them are modern. The last 40, 50 years. Pre-modernity, nobody. And I challenge anybody to find me a quotation. You would not find it. If you do, I'll be very pleasantly surprised. And even if you do, I'm pretty certain it's going to be some fringe figure that has no major impact. And with that, we pause and we're going to continue next week. So, if you are not able to attend, please listen to these lectures online because they are important to put them in perspective.

Fire. Fore!

[singing]

Foreign! Foreign!

>> [singing]

>> Down the river of me.