Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 This is Dr. Amina Aldi for Madon podcast, and also for the Black American Muslim Internationalism Project, which Madon is, is hosting. I have the honor of speaking with Dr. Abdullah, Muhammad Ali, who is an associate professor of Islamic law and prophetic tradition as a tuna college in Berkeley, California. I'm envious of how warm it must be, and he's been there since 2007. Short time. His horses include prophetic, tradition, commercial law, family law, inheritance law, jurisprudential, princip principles, and Islamic virtue ethics. I have no doubt that that list will increase as, as tenure goes on. Um, where do I wanna start? I would like to start with growing up Muslim <laugh>. I happen to know that your parents were Muslim, but talk about growing up Muslim in Philadelphia for our audience
Speaker 2 00:01:30 <unk>. Well, I think a good place to begin to talk about growing, growing up Muslims is, I guess you would say my birth. I actually was born in Philadelphia, and then shortly after that, our family moved to Chicago. So I spent the first 10, almost 11 years of my life in Chicago. And then after that, we returned to Philadelphia, uh, in 1984. And, um, my mother and father originally were Christian naturally, you know, and they converted to, to Islam through the, uh, nation of Islam, their followers of Elijah Muhammad, and to, you know, whi we know these, the first resurrection. And then upon his death, and once the, uh, demento the, the leadership had been transferred to his son, Iham priest with him, um, they followed him. Right. Uh, now growing up, um, now I was born just a few years before the death of Elijah Muhammad.
Speaker 2 00:02:33 So, um, growing up as a Muslim was, I guess you would say a bit, um, not necessarily strange, but it's not, it wasn't typical of what you would imagine a Muslim household to be, in the sense that the only person in my household who actually made Salat was my father. Um, and no one else, my mother, uh, none of my other siblings. Uh, but also we weren't asked to pray. We, we weren't, you know, we just sort of observed at certain times of the day that my father said, everybody should be quiet. He's gonna go in the room. And he prayed. And now of course, I attribute this, I attribute this to just simply the fact that he is making this transition into Sunni Islam. Um, and perhaps they felt, um, a bit, uh, uneasy about sort of imposing a new belief system on the children.
Speaker 2 00:03:27 I don't know. I never actually asked my parents, uh, like why that was the case. But, um, growing up, the only thing that I knew as a Muslim was that, of course, we were not supposed to eat pork. We knew Fridays. Sometimes we would go to the temple and sort of mix with the, with the people there. But outside of that, I, I'd never seen a Quran. I had never seen an actual Quran until, uh, we moved back to Philadelphia in the eighties, early eighties. And I met a Sunni Muslim family in Philadelphia. Uh, and it so happened the way that I met them was I was part of a break dance group. All of my friends, they were, and they're non-Muslims. And so we would go around the neighborhood and we would battle, we would challenge people to battles, right? So, on this particular day, I had to, you know, I was with my group, with my crew, and so we, we came across these Muslim guys and we say, Hey, we won a battle, uh, somehow worded we their mother's ear that I was Muslim.
Speaker 2 00:04:28 I, I can't remember how that happened, but they found that I was Muslim. And while we were there, she invited me in the house. So when I came inside, I saw them performing Salala. Now, around this time, my, my parents had already broken up, and, you know, they were on a separate race. They were, they were divorcing. And so when I saw them performing Salala, I said, automatically, I said, oh, that's what my father used to do, right? So it really attracted me to that house, you know, and they, and they lived very close to us. They're about just right around the corner, right? So I started to go around there, and then eventually started to study the basics of Islam, along with a few of my siblings at the time, right? So, um, so in other words, um, while my parents were Muslims or were Muslim, I can't say that I really grew up in a Muslim household, at least not, you know, um, religiously right?
Speaker 2 00:05:22 In the sense that you one might expect one to two, one to do so. And, and, and in a lot of ways, we really just grew up in the same way that most American children grew up. You know, we would travel to Philadelphia from Chicago pretty much every Christmas to my aunt's house, my aunt, she was well, to do well off. She would buy everybody in the family gifts. And so we would drive there, spend time. This is my father's, uh, sister, you know, so we would, you know, travel there. Every year we'd get our gifts and, you know, so we all watched all the normal things that kids our ages watching TV and Charlie Brown Christmas, and we were all wearing red nose, reindeers, frothy, the frothy the snowman. We knew the Christmas carols, all those things like that, right? But we just were Muslim, right? We just happened to be Muslim. So, um, the transition into Muslim life, you know, it was in different phases. It took some time before I actually, I guess you would say that I embraced my muslimness, or I, I, I actually decided that I wanted, wanted this to be part of my life, right? So
Speaker 1 00:06:27 I'm still trying to imagine you break dancing <laugh>. Yeah. You
Speaker 2 00:06:33 Think that's something they breaked as something. Imagine me rapping.
Speaker 1 00:06:37 Oh my God, God, I love it. I love it. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:06:41 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:06:43 What inspired, what encouraged what pushed you toward the scholarly life? Because you are indeed one of our community treasures. And I don't know. I mean, uh, it was cause I was determined to listen to you that I found out what WhatsApp was, the app, you know, I got on there, of course, contacted you, like you would remember me mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But what inspired you? What encouraged what were high school and, uh, young adulthood, like for you?
Speaker 2 00:07:25 Well, I'll say what two things inspired my desire for scholarship. Uh, the first thing I would say was getting a lot of different answers, right? That were, they're, they're at longhead of one another. Like for, for one, for, for instance, I remember we used to go to Jerma, and then people used to tell us that like, Hey, that there's this scholars at these moms who say that if you go to Jerma, that you have to pray <unk> as well, right? You have to pray for Rho, right? And then, so we would do that. We'd go to Jerma Friday, and we'd come home, we pray as well, right? Then like maybe four or five months later, then someone, someone else would pop up and say, Hey, no, actually, if you go to Jerma, you don't have to pray. Right? So then we transitioned to that, right? And then a few months later, we were back to the other opinion, right?
Speaker 2 00:08:12 Just the one was one example. And there are other examples of this, you know, but that's probably the most prominent example I could think of. And I, I, I, I felt at the time that, you know, this is not really a good feeling, right? This idea of being like a leaf in the wind that people, you're at the other people's mercy, right? And, and, and so I felt that I needed to learn on my own. The second thing I would say inspired me was the very first time I saw an awe Arabic qu, huh? I was just really mesmerized by the idea that those little symbols actually meant something. Cause I, and I was like, just amazed. I was like, that's that Did the accord on right there? You know, actually, I didn't know actually, and I wanted to learn it. I wanted to know what it said at the time.
Speaker 2 00:08:59 Somehow I come into possession of a book called Easy to Read. And at the beginning of that book, uh, they had a section with the Arabic alphabet, right? So I actually started to try to teach myself the Arabic alphabet, you know, I would write out each alphabet 15 times and try to memorize it, you know, get, get acquainted with the, the actual letters. And, and the thing that was so amazing was that about two weeks later, after I started that process, uh, someone had come to me and told me that there was a local teacher who was about to start an Arabic class at the CLA Muhammad school, right? He was a, a man from RI where they known as iam. He wasn't in Iam, but that was his first name. Iam, Aja Mercy on him. And he was from, he, he, he studied in Egypt. He learned Arabic, you know, and so a lot of the people in Philadelphia had, had, they knew him, you know, when he was alive. And he, he would travel all across the city. If you, if you're interested in learning Arabic, he would've tried $5 an hour, and he would come from any part of the city to where you were near home. That was my
Speaker 1 00:10:04 Kid's first teacher too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:10:08 Yeah. So, so yeah. So he started, he, he was teaching at Clare Muhammad two nights, two, two nights a week. And I started to, to study with him, right? That way, right? So this is what, obviously my entry into scholarship was from that point. So those two events, I would say, uh, two issues or what sort of led me into the desire to go deeper into, um, my knowledge and understanding of Islam.
Speaker 1 00:10:33 So keep with the story. This is you
Speaker 2 00:10:36 <laugh>, right? So, so, so I studied with him. We spent about, I guess you'd say a year together studying. And I learned quite a bit from him. You know, his English wasn't that good, but, uh, yeah, I did still learned a lot of Arabic from him, you know, so he wasn't focusing on speaking, right? So I was able to understand a lot of the grammatic, the grammar, uh, but because of the language barrier, he really wasn't able to take me any further, right? Uh, often I found my times, I would ask him questions, and he really couldn't explain to me certain things because of his, his English was, wasn't as, as good as it could have been. And around that same time, <unk> had been taken over, he started, he took over for his father. His father went into semi-retirement, and he turned over the operations of what was formally known as the International Muslim Brotherhood into the KBA Institute of Islamic Arabic Islamic Studies.
Speaker 2 00:11:32 Right? So he had started, uh, they decided that this is no longer a master, this is a school. And they introduced a new Arabic program, right? And a new sort of style of, of learning that, which they were broadcasting as a new way of learning Arabic. And so I joined that program, and I abandoned my first Arabic teacher, and I started to study with them. Uh, but it was, I was already familiar with them. I had already been familiar with the mesh. I had been attending the mesh for some time. As a matter of fact, when I was about 15 years old, I was studying some of the very basics of Islam with their father Sheik nafa. So it was an easy transition. Well, I already liked them. I'm already familiar with them. And now they have this Arabic program, and I want to go further with my Arabic.
Speaker 2 00:12:17 So I started to study with them. Now, I didn't limit myself. That's another thing as well. I didn't limit, limit myself to any curriculum that I came about came across. I was very passionate about learning Arabic. So any book that I can find, you know, I would, I would pick it up and try to study it. Kaki you probably studied, you probably heard of that, the old ka watsky book. Very one volume Arabic book that a lot of people from your generation, I know that they studied it. Uh, uh, and that was one of the first books I came across. Uh, I went through, uh, other curriculum, and one of them was the elementary, modern, standard Arabic curriculum, which was taught in most, uh, us uh, universities. You know, I came across that, and I had a private teacher, as a matter of fact, a brother Ab Hakeem Mohamed, who actually was attending University of Pennsylvania around the same time that Dr.
Speaker 2 00:13:07 Jackson was. You know, but he, I can never, never finished, you know, but I studied, I was studying it with him. I studied with, I was actually reviewing some things from the same book, from a couple of other people that I had come across as well. I, I would sit at home, I would wake up in the morning around, uh, you know, nine o'clock in the morning, especially, I mean, of course, when I'm not at school once, you know, and, and I would just stay in my room, lock myself in my room until, like, from nine to one or two o'clock. I'm looking through these books and trying to learn as much as I can, right? So it, so it's major focus on Arabic and also a focus on the Quran. I'm listening to a lot of Koran Reciters. Um, I'm trying to read and follow them in the Koran as they're reciting, right?
Speaker 2 00:13:52 You know, and this is also before I found my Quran teacher, like Sheik, ak, and, and brother Anna Moham. Both of them, you know, were my Quran teachers. But I learned more from, uh, Seth Annas, uh, from, with respect to the Quran, uh, and, and Che Amar with respect to Arabic and other things as well, right? So, so yes, I was really, really passionate about really wanting to know, uh, what a law says and what the messenger said, and what, you know, the scholars, uh, the commentators, you know, the Exing genes, you know, what were they saying about these things? I was just, I was just willing, wanted to know. And I just didn't like the idea that I always had to rely upon someone else to tell me what the Quran or the sun says,
Speaker 1 00:14:37 I being the leaf that you talked about down the street, whichever way, right? Blowing. So when did you meet Cod Blankenship?
Speaker 2 00:14:49 Oh, yeah. So that's an interesting, too. So <laugh>, um, I, so I, so I continue my studies. By 1993, I get the opportunity to perform Hudge, right? So I'm the youngest person in the group. We go over to cca. A lot of people have been pushing me to go overseas the study, right? But I've never really had that interest. Yeah. I really, when I started studying, I didn't say like, I wanna become a scholar, right? That I just wanted to know, right. What, what the book says. But a lot of people were pushing me in that direction, right? Go overseas, go to Medina, go to Egypt, go here, go there. You know? And I would say, okay, I say, I'm not interested at first. And then after a while, I'll say, okay, I'll, I'll, okay, I'll do that. You know, so where should I go?
Speaker 2 00:15:30 And then some people go here, and then after a week or two weeks, they say, oh, you shouldn't go there. You should go here. You know? So I, I'm just like, listen, I'm gonna go wherever you want me to go. I'm gonna like a leaf in the wind, once again, right? <laugh>, so, and so, eventually what happened was that things didn't really pan out. So this is of course, post 1993, post my Hodge visit, which really opened up a lot of things for me. First time outside of the country, first time on the airplane, right? And, and so on, a very spiritual journey for me. Right? So around 1995, once I had decided that, uh, I was no longer going to pursue the path of, of scholarship in Islam, I decided to go to Temple University, and I signed up, I, and, and majored in computer science, right?
Speaker 2 00:16:16 That was my major, right? Because I was sort of turned off by all of the advice I was receiving, which I, at that point, I decided was bad advice. And I was like, well, it was all their idea anyway. It wasn't my idea. Right? You know? So, so I just decided at that point that if anything I do in the future is going to be, because I want to do it, not because someone else told me that this is a, a good thing to do. Right? So that way I couldn't blame them if things didn't go right. Right? I, I could just ba blame myself, right? So, so, and actually prior to going to Temple, well, before the decision to go to Temple, there are some brothers who got together who raised money for a one way ticket to Usha University, right? So I always, I said, I'm gonna go to Usha University, and my plan was to get off the airplane, get on the taxi, have them deliver me to the university.
Speaker 2 00:17:06 I was gonna knock on the door and say, I'm here. I wanna study <laugh>. Right? That was it. Right? I had a one-way ticket, right? Um, and, um, but of course, ham la it, it didn't work out. And, you know, the brothers were trying to discourage me from going, and then I got a bit, uh, bitter about that. But after that, my bitterness led me to say, I'm going to just go to college, get me a good job, and get married and make some money. That was about it. So I ended up at Temple 1995, uh, focused on my computer science studies. I'm doing pretty well first year. And then eventually I discover the Arabic SEC section of the, of the library, right? So once I see the books that are there, they become a, a major distraction for me. So instead of me going to the library to study computer science, I found myself looking into the Arabics books, uh, more often.
Speaker 2 00:17:56 And so what happened is I started to, I started to, um, sort of fall behind. I started to fall behind now at Temple, in addition to me majoring in computer science. I always, that was taking a minor, like Arabic and things like that too. So I, I was taking the Arabic course. It was more independent study, more than anything else, you know, um, translation projects that the, that the instructor was given to me. Uh, and then eventually I had, uh, come across Dr. Kaship, who I'd met before, prior to me going to Temple University. And, uh, I decided to take a couple of his lectures in his graduate lectures, right? One was, uh, Islamic Stu Introduction to Islam. Another was Introduction to Islamic Jurisprudence. And then I started to spend some time with him in his office, and we would read books together. Right? You know, and, and I mentioned in my bio on my website that, you know, that one, uh, one of the books that we're studying was the Sierra of I iHawk, and then the other was a Maki, uh, law manual, right?
Speaker 2 00:18:54 Written by a scholar known as Narai. And, and so that's fundamentally how I became involved with dr. And then eventually, after about two years, after two years of studying there at Temple, uh, I decided that, um, that I had a knack for what I was doing. I had a knack for Arabic. Uh, it was something that's coming relatively easy for me, as well as Islamic studies. I still want to know more about my religion. Then I decided that perhaps it was time to go overseas. Now, now it's my decision. It's not his decision or anyone else's decision, my decision to go overseas. But I don't really know where I should go. So I actually go and ask at the cloudy, well, he talked about this, and to an extent, he somewhat tried to discourage me at first, I guess he just wanted to see how serious I was about the idea.
Speaker 2 00:19:42 Cuz he was familiar with the earlier attempt to go overseas. But he, he was his idea to go to Morocco and to study El <inaudible>. He said that we don't know anyone who studied there. You know, it's the oldest university and the Muslim world that we are familiar with. And he had some connections as well, that he had been invited to Morocco on a few occasions before that, by the king of Morocco, you know, he king has was the prior king, the, the, the, the father of the current king. So he, the King Hassan would have and Ramadan these lessons, special lessons, uh, called Nia, which fundamentally were lectures delivered by scholars from a, around the Muslim world, right. You know, in the presence of the king, you know, delivered to the king. And of course, in his presence would televised every single night in Ramadan, there would be a different scholar speaking.
Speaker 2 00:20:32 So that Laha had been invited to that multiple times. And so he developed some relationships. So he wrote me a letter. He told me to visit Morocco, just to be certain. So I visited, I did a, went, took a visit in the summer of 1995 for about two weeks. Uh, so I traveled around a few different cities. I visited the, the schools, which potentially I would go to. Of course, I, my heart was, I was, I was wanted to go to the Clain, even though some of the Moroccans wanted to be go to other places, <laugh>. But, um, you know, but eventually I decided that's where I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to aka uh, I visited the General Secretary of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs with a letter from Dr. Claude mentorship, basically asking them to allow me to come study there. And they accepted the request and then told me to return in the fall, and then I would be a student.
Speaker 2 00:21:23 Right? So, pretty much, uh, happened that way. Although they didn't officially register me as a student until in January of 1996, uh, which I think, I'm sorry. This I actually get my years wrong. So 1997 is when I started. So it's on the summer of 1997 is when I went right. Went to in the 7 97. They registered me as student at the January of 1998. And that was after Deha had visited one more Ramadan. And when I told him, they still haven't made me an official, official student, you know, he spoke to the minister. And so he, and then they said, well, you know, that I should be officially registered as a student in the university. And I think the reasons that they hesitated was that they probably thought that probably would drop out or maybe couldn't keep up with the work, you know? <unk> You know, it worked out.
Speaker 1 00:22:15 So you're the, well, I, Islamic Sherman and Amina were a scholarly generation ahead of me. I was still in medicine, but coming behind, and then you're after me. Yay. Um, yeah, I know that, that feeling of, um, I'm, I'm <laugh> Temple University. I mean, they sent me the other way, uh, towards the Sudan, but for me, the program was <laugh> very difficult. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, oh my God, I, I I was quitting every other week. Mm-hmm. Oh, really? Um, deciding, you know, somebody could tell me about it at a later time. But like you, I think that that is the kind of, almost the story of many of us, somebody tells you this one day, somebody tells you something else the next day. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and if your female add a day in between, you know, they let you go another day. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But I have been really both excited and free, sometimes. Curious about your trip to Zaytuna. I mean, I know Hamza, I know Zay, and I said, oh, how did he get there? So tell us about Zayna.
Speaker 2 00:23:51 Right, right. That's an interesting story too. After coming home in 2002, I became a chaplain in the, um, state correctional facility, uh, in Chester, Pennsylvania. Became a full-time Islamic chaplain there. So during my fifth year in, in working there, I started to develop a certain sense of boredom, I guess you would say. I felt that I, that I've done as much as I could with a community behind bars right. At that point. So I started to look elsewhere. I was doing research, and I, I discovered while I was doing research overseas, because I was thinking about going back overseas for something, I, I discovered the Cutler Foundation. And when I looked at their website, I saw that Dr. Dr. Sherman Jackson was on the, uh, the board, uh, of, um, I can't remember directors or trustees, I can't remember, but he was the board member of the Qatar Foundation.
Speaker 2 00:24:49 So I called Dr. Jackson, I was like, Hey, well, are you looking for more people to employ? You know, I, I was wondering perhaps I could, uh, go work for the Qatar Foundation. He didn't, he didn't respond right away and took maybe two, three days, or perhaps more than that later. Right. But maybe two days after I attempted to call him, I received an email from Imer invited me to move to California for a couple years, <laugh>, because around this time, z Tuna was searching for a, uh, a campus. Right. You know, and there were multiple, uh, communities around the country appealing, uh, or presenting proposals on having z tuna com move to their particular state. So at the time, Maza thought perhaps eventually we would end up on the East Coast. That didn't pan out, you know? So, at any rate, so that, that already, I didn't want to leave the East Coast to come to California, you know, but like, and he said, two years, I, okay, no problem.
Speaker 2 00:25:49 You know, I'll think about it. You know, so we talked about some other details eventually. So I didn't decide right away, but then Dr. Jackson perhaps the next day called me back and he said to me, Hey, hey, what, what, what you looking at? And so I told him, you know, that I was thinking about the Cutler Foundation, you know, so, and he pretty much told me that, you know, they were still in the process of trying to get their act together, you know, so he didn't think there was a good idea for me to try to go join, you know, the Qatar Foundation around that time. So, so it really made it easy for me to decide, okay, well, I'll go to Zaytuna. Right? So I ended up moved here with my family, I think it's October of 2007, right. And been here ever since.
Speaker 2 00:26:27 So I first came here, uh, my title was, uh, resident Scholar. Then eventually I went back to school and I earned my ma in, in, um, ethics and civil theory, and then my PhD in cultural, historical studies and religion, you know? Then once Dave Tuna, uh, had begun, had become officially a college, you know, now <laugh>, I'm a professor, right? So it wasn't my original intention, you know? So I always like to tell people, uh, that I'm, uh, more of a, uh, an accidental academic, right. You know, it's not so much, uh, well, in some, in a lot of ways, I don't see myself as a, as an academic, you know, because I don't really have a connection with the academy in the same way that a lot of other people do. I still don't understand a lot of things about the academy, but I have the, the accolades, I guess you would say, right? <laugh>. So I got the letters and, uh, you know, but I write, I guess you would say, with a different audience in mind, most of the time than most academics.
Speaker 1 00:27:27 Okay. Well, let's turn to that. Let's talk about these writings. You have quite a few. I mean, you have a bunches of articles mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But let's, well, let's talk about this one book in particular,
Speaker 2 00:27:44 Ok?
Speaker 1 00:27:44 Mm-hmm. There is no male preference in Islamic Clause. Now, I'm not gonna take you, I'm gonna let you explain what you think you're saying,
Speaker 2 00:27:55 Right? Right. Well, the, the author, the original author was Sheikh Mohammed Tawi of Morocco, uh, who died in 2015. <inaudible> pleases him. He was actually one of my teachers. And he was a, um, a very important scholar in Morocco at the time. He was, for all intents and purposes, he was one of the grand of the country. He had written this book in the Arabic language that there's no maleness, or some, some, sometimes people, I've seen one translation as there's no misogyny or there's no patriarchy in Islamic law, but I felt that the, the true intent of the author was to express the idea that there is no male preference in Islam law. Meaning that a loss of Adam, when he makes a distinction between a man and a woman, and the law is not simply because this one is a man, and this is a woman, or put it a, a be a better way, I guess you would say.
Speaker 2 00:28:59 It's not because he considers the man to be superior to the woman, and therefore he gives a man certain rights or privileges that he doesn't give to woman in certain cases. But the reality is that there's privilege and rights on both sides. When Muslim scholars, uh, going back to the shabba, right? The male and female scholars, right? Among the shabba, when they interpreted the text, it wasn't based upon trying to win one for all men or win one for all women, right? It was fundamentally the, uh, attempt to comply with the commandments of God according to the understanding that they, they had of the scripture, and to promote those ideas, right? Not so much about, okay, we're, uh, alar a category, a sort of a homogenous category of, of people, uh, and we have to do it all that we can to get, uh, the upper hand, uh, over the other group of people.
Speaker 2 00:29:59 Just rather, we are all a community of people with different roles and different capacities, uh, different, uh, gifts even, right? And working together, we able to be a virtuous community and promote what God, the creator right, wants us all to, to live by right? <laugh>. So that's fundamentally what the message of that book is. Now, naturally, they're going to be some things in the book, right? Uh, which they're gonna rub the contemporary reader the wrong way, because the author is not very apologetic about his support of traditional teachings, right. Uh, which originate from the hadid literature and those hadids, which some Muslim, Muslim men and woman, right. Which classify as being misogynistic mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Where his, his belief is that, you know, if the prophet said it, then it is what it is. And if he gives an explanation, then we accept that explanation. But if he does not give an explanation, we still embrace it, and we just comply. We hear and we obey. Right? So, but that in
Speaker 1 00:31:13 And of itself is a lesson.
Speaker 2 00:31:16 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:31:16 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, to be able to see the scholar in a context mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and to say what is, you know, pushing him to, to, um, translate or to give an opinion, opinion on this, that, or the other. That is a lesson in itself that I don't think many in our community realize.
Speaker 2 00:31:40 Mm, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, yeah. It's, it's very difficult, um, because we are all bombarded by these, these new sort of, you know, liberal philosophies, progressive philosophies, and others, right? Some of it is conservative philosophies as well, some extreme aspects of those as well, right? But more so the progressive philosophy is really overwhelm people across the planet. Right? Of course. Naturally more than more, more, more in certain places than in others. Right. You know, we see a lot of resistance happening right now internationally. You see it resistance to progressive ideology in Russia and China and India, and, you know, the Muslim world, like Francis QA right now is what's happening with the, uh, the World Cup, right? You know, all the displays of, of pride in our Islamic tradition. Right. You know, and it's like, listen, no, no, we reject progressive ideology, which I think is something that we should really take note of and, and, and celebrate that <foreign>, that there are still people who have courage, Nathan, and believe that this is gonna lead us down the wrong track.
Speaker 1 00:32:44 But I dunno that it's really progressive. I wouldn't apply the term progressive to it is their philosophy, you know? Oh, no, it is nothing progressive, no need
Speaker 2 00:32:56 Need's. Orwellian is an o Orwellian term. Like progressive is an Orwellian term term, right. You know, so it's, it sounds, it's a good sounding term, but it means the opposite. It is regressive. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:33:07 Regressive,
Speaker 2 00:33:07 Right? You know, you know, so it's, it's basically, I, I guess you say the, the, the main threat that exists against most people, if not all people today, is the threats of us losing faith, uh, in our creator Lu's, faith in our religion, right? Losing faith in basic human, dec decency, human nature. Right? There's an attack on all of those things right now today to try to reintroduce a paradigm that once was dominant, right? Uh, throughout the world, right? It's a very difficult thing, you know, when we've accepted secularism among other things, this idea that religion has to be kept in your private space, that, you know, ki it's, it's what you think is what you think, you keep it in your head. You never say anything about it publicly. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, or that if you have a viewpoint which contravenes the, uh, uh, public morality, what is it?
Speaker 2 00:34:02 What the public turned to be moral, right? Then you should keep that to yourself, right? And if you were to express it, then you, yourself should be blacklisted. You should be canceled, right? So it's, there's a lot of, there are a lot of problems, right? That, that, that we have right now. And so, I, and I think that there's a tendency, uh, when we find Muslim scholars who support things that sound problematic, right? From the haddi literature, right? Is to assume that, oh, that this individual's motivation is to oppress and suppress woman, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, or this individual's motivation is to keep blacks down or whatever. Could you find, you know, anti-black hadid or things like that as well? And I think that we should get away as much as possible from this, what I like to call one factor or single factor causation, right?
Speaker 2 00:34:54 You know, this idea or a si single, uh, uh, single cause explanation for everything, right? Human beings are much more complicated than just their religious beliefs or their ideologies, or, you know, understand. So it's possible that an individual could be motivated, motivated by faith. You know, you can say, okay, it can be, it can be misguided faith. Sure, it can be misguided faith, but at least it's still a, a plausible explanation for like, why people believe what they believe is that, I believe the prophet said this, I believe you understand. So as opposed to, I hate women, I think women should never have any power, right? Therefore, I'm gonna use all means possible. As a matter of fact, I'm about makeup hadids that's going to <laugh> ensure that women, uh, never have any authority to do anything right?
Speaker 1 00:35:42 Now, before I get, I got two more things to bother you with. I'm looking at this text that says, A new political vision for Muslim Americans. <laugh> hot to me.
Speaker 2 00:35:58 All right? Yeah. That was something I wrote right before the elections in 2020, some months before the election of, um, of Biden. And fundamentally, what I was trying to do in that, in that piece, was to offer some points of reflection from community, which would help us to make better decisions politically, right? Like, because the way I see it is that the current leaders, national leaders, and otherwise, right, of our community who actually are very much wrapped up in politics today, that we we're too, too much affected and motivated from my vantage point by, uh, emotional appeals, right? In other words, they scare you into voting for this person, or they make you not vote for that person. They make you hate, you know, the anger motivates you to not vote for that other person, you know, or they appeal to your desire in some, some fashion.
Speaker 2 00:36:57 Like, you know, they, you know, give you sort of, you know, extended olive branch and a situation with Muslims. What the left did was they developed a much softer tone towards Muslims right after they saw that Trump was going to win, right? That Hillary was going to lose, right? Then all of a sudden, all of these people come out of the woodwork, oh, Muslims are real Americans, and we need to accept Muslims, et cetera, et cetera, right? And because Muslims were so hungry for, I guess you would say a sense of acceptance, a sense of acceptance, that we just simply sacrificed what was most important to us, you know, which is our religious, um, morality, that we sacrificed it and even started to advocate for other people's morality. And so basically, I just tried to say, okay, well, okay, you might, like, for instance, and, and I, and I didn't call people to vote for Trump.
Speaker 2 00:37:53 I just said that, you know, you, it's okay if you, that you think that it's correct to do so, but you should look at the evidence and you should base it upon on the, a track record, or based it upon the experience that you've had and the believability of what people will do, right? Uh, and, uh, you know, so I said, yeah, you, you don't have to vote. You can vote, you know, or not vote, right? If you choose to vote, then there's no problem. If you choose not to vote, that's not a problem. If you choose to vote for Biden, then, you know, at least let it be rooted and some moral, let let your own moral foundation be the basis of you voting for, uh, Biden or anyone else, right? You know? And same thing for Trump, you know, and so you, you can hate Trump, or let's say that, let's say if it's true for instance, that Trump doesn't like black people, or Trump hates Muslim, for me, I feel that leadership should be the first group of people to say, listen, that is not a sufficient reason for me not to vote for that particular individual.
Speaker 2 00:38:58 What matters is that this individual is going to give me what I need, or I believe that this person's gonna give me what I need if I put them in office. You know, it shouldn't, it should be ma, it should matter less that this individual likes me or doesn't like me. But too often, you know, we make those decisions, we find out, oh, so-and-so they say, so-and-so doesn't like me, or So-and-so doesn't like this type of person, that type of person. And you're one of those type of people. How can you possibly vote for them? Say, well, is that the only reason that you can vote for someone? Right? You know, I mean, it is the only reason that I, I can vote for Obama is because he was black, is the only reason that I can disagree with Obama is because, you know, he may be, let's say, if he wasn't black.
Speaker 2 00:39:40 Right? You know? So it is, it's superficiality, right? You know? And so, so, and I, I've said multiple occasions before that one of the worst things that's happened to the Western Muslim community, um, meaning in Europe and in uh, America, is we've got involved into politics, right? That politics, it, it become too important for us, right? Because now is at the point that too many Muslims seem to believe that we are going to get a savior, a messiah in the political realm, right? There's no messiahs, no saviors in the political realm, <laugh>, they're not gonna, you know, right? No, it's not gonna happen. You're not gonna find a perfect candidate, right? There's always gonna be something wrong with individual that you decide to vote for, but you should, you should make sure that the individual that you vote for actually is going to protect your rights and your, your moral sentiments, right? And, and allow for you to advocate for that, you know? And so I don't think that most have had that opportunity, uh, with their alliances, uh, with the democratic parties.
Speaker 1 00:40:45 Okay? I'm glad you explained that to me. Last, but not least, I have a few moments left. And you know, Jonathan Brown just came out with, what is it? Is there anti-blackness in Islam? Blackness in, or is Islam anti-black something, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, um, I said, oh, but I got one for you, the Negro and Arab Muslim consciousness. So I sent the cover of this book out to a whole bunch of people, <laugh>, because, you know, there needed to be a balance. You, you know what I'm saying in the text, what he's saying is that there were all these people trying to convince Arabs they should not be racist. And I'm saying, but there's no distinction, which Arabs are you talking about?
Speaker 2 00:41:40 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:41:40 Right? Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But even further than that, there've been so many people. Abuja is nowhere in there. You know, there's so many people who have written loads on stuff, but they're kinda absent, but that's neither hear nothing. Tell me about the Negro and Arab Muslim consciousness.
Speaker 2 00:42:01 Right? So this book, um, actually is a, uh, a version of my dissertation, my PhD dissertation, which originally I entitled The Negro and Afro Arabian Muslim Consciousness. And I change it to, uh, the Negro and Arab Muslim consciousness, because I talk more about Arab consciousness as opposed to the Afro Arab, right? Um, and unless we say that speaking about scholars from Egypt is an example of an Arab, an Afro Arab, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, um, of course there's, you know, I spoke about, I quoted scholars from Sudan, uh, in the book as well, right? But this particular book ventures into a, a few different areas. One, the question of what is the Negro, right? And what is meant by the Negro? And what did medieval writers mean by Negro, right when they said it? So in the Arabic language, the, the word which is commonly translated is Negro, is the word. <unk>, uh, and the <unk> the people of East Africa, which was most likely, uh, from the area of Tanzania in, um, Zanzibar, right?
Speaker 1 00:43:12 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:43:12 <affirmative>. And when you read some of the medieval Muslim, right? Or Arab writers such as Ma, Rudi, uh, even k as well, right? He was later, K was later to Maudi, right? And they speak about the <unk>. They clearly make a distinction between them and other blacks, right? So the <unk> and they talk about the savage, they talk about the haha, the Ians, right? They make a clear distinction between them. And then English language, even in at the, into the turn of the 20th century, they are still this distinction being made between what we call Negro and, uh, other blacks or other Africans, right? You know, they're made distinction between Nubians, between the Moores, they did the Cushite, the Hamite, right? And then we had the Negroes, right? So the Negroes, there was a term utilized to refer to those who were looked upon as being backwards, right?
Speaker 2 00:44:03 They were the backwards from the sub-Saharan African tribes. And fundamentally, what I attempted to do in the book is to try to highlight how when most Arab scholars spoke about the Negro or the <unk> in particular, that they meant something very specific. But I take, try to take a step further, and I, I, I try to show as well that how the closer you become, the closer you come to the, uh, the European, European Enlightenment period is when you start to see even Arab scholars, Arab Muslim scholars, um, projecting backwards, you know, some of the same negative sentiments that Europeans held about blacks as well. Now, ultimately, the goal was, I would say, as I, I think I said an introduction was to humanize the scholar. And by humanize what I meant is to acknowledge human fraty in people. Scholars are the heirs of the prophets, but they're still not prophets, right?
Speaker 2 00:45:10 You understand? So, so by understanding that it is important to not make the mistake of, of uncritically embracing every single word that comes out of the, the mouth of a given scholar, right? You can have reverence, you can still revered them and respect them and acknowledge and embrace many opinions, but it's like, listen, they were still human beings, and sometimes they're affected by their societies and their cultural proclivities and, and, and the different paradigms that, uh, and stereotypes that they had about other people's, right? You know? But much of the negative, the viewpoints that were held by Arabs against Africans, Africans reciprocated that as well, right? And I think that this is one thing I, perhaps I didn't highlight it enough in the book, you know, we have to understand that that world was different. It was, you know, the Africans didn't see as, you didn't know.
Speaker 2 00:46:02 This, of course, is that the Africans didn't see themselves as a homogenous race, right? It wasn't like, you know, Africans in Sudan, and they saw themselves we're all with, with, with our brothers in Senegal. They're like, yeah, we're all the same people. We're all, no, we're not <laugh>, right? They're not the same tribe, we're not the same people, right? So all out outsiders received the Coke shoulder, right? To a certain extent, right? So you can find negative things said by Arabs against blacks, but you also can find some negative things said by blacks against Arabs, right? So for instance, like one example of this, if you read for instance, Aja, uh, in his, uh, book about, uh, the Sudan, the boast of the blacks of the whites, he mentions a story about a debate between an African and, and an Arab man, you know, where they're exchanging slights, whether the Arabs attacks the African man, and the African man responds, you know, to the Arab, you know?
Speaker 2 00:46:55 Yeah, well, your mother was a goat, right? You know, in other words, suggesting that this individual, uh, his father was, was involved in bestiality because there were certain Arab tribes who were known to be, to, to do bestiality, you know, for bestiality. And so in other words, the slice were exchanged back and forth. And so, in other words, the only reason, uh, or blackness itself, is not a sufficient reason for people to discriminate against others, you know? Uh, and blackness alone is not sufficient reason for others to embrace those others as their brethren, right? At the same time, right? So, so, so the Arabs, if you saw discrimination, you know, in their, in particular, going back to the time of the prophet, so most of that was due to the fact, uh, of two fundamental characteristics. You know, one was that these individuals were non Arab, and two, they were former slaves.
Speaker 2 00:47:55 So it's a combination of two things, right? So it's class and his race, right? Together, but it's not color because they're many, many Arabs, as you mentioned, as you highlight there, they're, if anything, the most, the majority of the Arabs themselves were, were brown, right? They were brown people, right? If not black, right? Many of them were black, you know, but the majority of them are like, like brown, right? People. So, and so the prophet size sell them his color was actually an anomaly, right? Was Anomalist, right? He was a lighter colored Arab, right? But the vast majority of them, clearly when you read the, the words of the lexicographers and their descriptions of the Arabs, it's very clear that they didn't identify they were not a white race, right? But they also weren't a black race, right? You know, which would put them in the category of the African, right? So, uh, even though, um, uh, one of the, uh, the authors of one of the, uh, books on the history of Sudan, technical Sudan, they have two popular ones. I can't remember when one of them, he actually says, places the Arabs mix, the Arabs, they subcategory of African, right? <laugh>. So, which really, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So it's possible.
Speaker 1 00:49:05 I, I kinda hate to go, I think I'm gonna get you on another format, but I want you to tell those who listen to this podcast cause they won't see us, they'll just hear the podcast where they can, what is the URL for the website? I'm sure they will want to get in contact with you. And this has been such a joy, much too short of time, <laugh>, right? And you don't talk to me often enough. But, um, I'm sorry about that. It has really been a lesson.
Speaker 2 00:49:44 I don't know about a fluffy Yeah. But the, the website, uh, you know, is, uh, ben hamdi uh, dot com, B i n h a m i d a l i.com, uh, which is my website, which showcases most of my, or I say the most important work that I I I've done. But then you also can go to lampposts edu.org, L a m p p ost edu.org org, which is, um, my organizational website, lampposts education initiative, where you can find a lot of material there as well. But if you want just something specifically related to my own intellectual contribution as you go to ben.com, you know, but, uh, definitely appreciate, um, can
Speaker 1 00:50:28 You repeat that thing about lamppost?
Speaker 2 00:50:32 Yes. Uh, lamppost. The, uh, the website address is, uh, L A M P P ost edu.org. Um, lamppost Education Initiative, which is the broader organizational website. On that website, we showcase more than just me. Um, there are other people we have, uh, of course our publications, our classes online and on site. And then also we try to serve as a platform for showcasing American voices of voices of people we feel should be listened to, uh, such as Dr. Amina McCloud, right? <laugh> other people, you know. So if you want to just get a broader overview of the efforts that I've been involved in, uh, you can go to lamppost, uh, education, uh, initiative website. But if you want something specific, a uh, depository of information which originates only from me, you can go to ben.com and you can do that as well.
Speaker 1 00:51:34 Hello. This has been one of those runaway hours.
Speaker 2 00:51:39 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:51:40 And I be back. Please give mys to your family. And we at Madon and George Mason and Salo, and the community, appreciate
Speaker 2 00:51:53 Youk, appreciate you as well.
