It’s easy to think that you can’t make a difference. But you can. Truth is powerful. Here I introduce powerful principles outlined by Jordan Peterson.
Link to original video: https://youtu.be/KMj9wsrPE5U
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97PcB74nqzU
The story of Samiriyy in Surah 20 provides an archetypal example of how usurpers leverage a messenger of God to create a false religion.
And Mūsā returned to his people wrathful, grieved.
He said: O my people: did not your lord promise you a fair promise?
Did the pledge seem long in coming to you
Or did you wish that wrath from your lord should descend upon you
So failed to keep your promise to me?
They said: We failed not to keep our promise to thee of our own accord
But we were made to carry burdens of the adornment of the people
So we hurled them.
(And thus the Sāmiriyy cast:
He brought forth for them a calf as a body that lowed.
And they said: This is your god
And the god of Mūsā
But he forgot.
(20:83-86)
He said: And what is thy case, O Sāmiriyy?
Said he: I could see what they could not see
And I seized a handful from the wake of the messenger
And did throw it.
And thus my soul enticed me. (20:95-96)
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOM6am2kFNw
I address the subject of greeting the messenger, which is something the Traditionalist does as part of his devotions, considering the context of the verse claimed in support of this practice.
O you who heed warning:
Enter not the households of the prophet for a meal without waiting for its time save that leave be given to you.
But when you are called, enter.
And when you have eaten, disperse.
And seek not familiarity through storytelling.
That hinders the prophet
And he is shy of you.
But God is not shy of the truth.
And when you ask of his wives any item:
Ask it of them from behind a partition.
That is purer for your hearts and their hearts.
And it is not for you to hinder the messenger of God or to marry his wives after him ever.
That were tremendous in the sight of God.
If you reveal a thing or keep it secret:
God is knowing of all things.
They do no wrong concerning their fathers
Or their sons
Or their brothers
Or the sons of their brothers
Or the sons of their sisters
Or their women
Or what their right hands possess
When they are in prudent fear of God.
God is witness over all things.
God and his angels perform the duty befitting the prophet.
O you who heed warning: perform the duty befitting him
And greet with a salutation.
Those who hinder God and his messenger
God has cursed them in this world and the hereafter
And has prepared for them a humiliating punishment.
And those who hinder the believing men and the believing women with what they have not earned:
They bear a calumny and obvious falsehood. (33:53-58)
And if you find not therein anyone:
Enter not until leave be given you.
And if it be said to you: Go back
Then go back.
It is purer for you.
And God knows what you do.
You do no wrong to enter uninhabited dwellings in which there is provision for you.
And God knows what you proclaim and what you conceal. (24:28-19)
No blame is there upon the blind
Nor any blame upon the lame
Nor any blame upon the sick
Nor upon yourselves
That you eat among your dwellings
Or the dwellings of your fathers
Or the dwellings of your mothers
Or the dwellings of your brothers
Or the dwellings of your sisters
Or the dwellings of your paternal uncles
Or the dwellings of your paternal aunts
Or the dwellings of your maternal uncles
Or the dwellings of your maternal aunts
Or that whereof you hold the keys
Or of your friend.
You do no wrong to eat together or separately.
And when you enter dwellings:
Salute one another with a greeting from God, blessed and good.
Thus God makes plain to you the proofs
That you might use reason. (24:61)
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0ez2ltJIPY
Part of a verse at 16:44 is used by the Traditionalist to claim that it was Muhammad’s job to make the Qur’an clear by means of something other than the Qur’an (here he means the “sunnah” – i.e. extracts of the hadith literature).
In this talk I look at this claim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ukn8hfTj4E
Verses quoted:
6:114-115, 6:38, 16:89, 6:19, 18:109-110, 72:21, 39:27-28.
And those who ascribed a partnership said:
Had God willed we would not have served anything besides him, we and our fathers
Nor would we have forbidden anything contrary to him.
Thus did those before them.
And is there upon the messengers save the clear communication?
And we have raised up in every community a messenger:
Serve God and shun idols.
And among them was he whom God guided
And among them was he upon whom misguidance became binding.
So travel in the land
And see how was the final outcome for the repudiators.
Though thou desire their guidance:
God will not guide him whom he leaves to stray.
And they have no helpers.
And they swear by God their strongest oaths: God will not raise up him who dies.
Verily, it is a promise binding upon him
(But most men know not)
That he might make plain to them that wherein they differ
And that those who are indifferent to warning might know that they were liars.
Our word to anything when we intend it is that we but say to it: Be thou!
And it is.
And those who emigrate for the cause of God after they are wronged
We will settle them handsomely in this world
(And the reward of the hereafter is greater if they but knew)
Those who are patient and in their lord place their trust.
And we sent before thee only men whom we instructed
(And ask the people of the remembrance if you know not)
With clear evidence and the written records.
And we sent down to thee the remembrance that thou make plain to mankind what has been sent down to them
And that they might reflect.
Do they who plot evil feel secure that God will not cause the earth to swallow them
Or the punishment come to them without them perceiving
Or take them in their going to and fro and there be for them no escape
Or take them through slow decay?
And your lord is kind, merciful. (16:35-47)
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9wYPQ7eVHE
An exposition of 6:136-153 which provides a dramatic example of the tension within the Qur’an between its teachings and those of “religion”.
And they make for God
Of what he sows of tilth and cattle a portion:
They say: This is for God
(According to their claim
And this is for our partners
And what is for their partners:
It does not reach God.
And what is for God:
It reaches their partners.
Evil is what they judge.
And thus do their partners make fair to many among the idolaters the killing of their children
That they might bring them to ruin
And obfuscate their doctrine for them.
And had God willed they would not do it.
So leave thou them and what they fabricate.
And they say: These cattle and tilth are taboo, none is to eat them save whom we will
(According to their claim)
And cattle whose backs are made unlawful
And cattle over which they remember not the name of God
As an invention against him.
He will requite them for what they invented.
And they say: That which is in the bellies of such cattle is exclusively for our males and forbidden our wives
And if it be dead:
They are all partners therein.
He will requite them for their description.
He is wise, knowing.
They have lost, those who foolishly kill their children without knowledge
And make unlawful what God provided them, as an invention about God.
They have gone astray and are not rightly guided.
And he it was who brought into being gardens
Trellised and untrellised
And the date-palms
And crops diverse in its food
And the olive
And the pomegranate
Alike and not alike.
Eat of the fruit thereof when it bears fruit
And render its due on the day of its harvest.
And commit not excess.
God loves not the committers of excess.
And of the cattle for burden and for skin
Eat of what God has provided you and follow not the footsteps of the shayṭān.
He is an open enemy to you.
Eight pairs: of sheep two and of goats two––
Say thou: Has he forbidden the two males or the two females?
If what the wombs of the two females contain:
Inform me with knowledge if you be truthful.
And of camels two and of oxen two––
Say thou: Has he forbidden the two males or the two females?
If what the wombs of the two females contain:
Or if you were witnesses when God enjoined this upon you:
Then who is more unjust than he who invents a lie about God that he might lead people astray without knowledge?
God guides not the wrongdoing people.
Say thou: I find not in what I am instructed anything made unlawful to one who would eat it save it be carrion
Or blood poured forth
Or the flesh of swine:
(And it is abomination)
Or a wanton perfidy dedicated to other than God.
But whoso is forced, neither desiring nor transgressing:
Thy lord is forgiving, merciful.
And unto those who hold to Judaism we made unlawful every animal with a claw
And of ox and sheep we made unlawful to them the fat thereof
Save what their backs carry
Or the entrails
Or what is mixed with bone.
That we rewarded them for their sectarian zealotry.
And we are truthful.
And if they reject thee:
Say thou: Your lord is a lord of vast mercy
But not repelled is his wrath from the evildoing people.
Those who ascribe a partnership will say:
Had God so willed we would not have ascribed a partnership
Nor would our fathers
Nor would we have made anything unlawful.
(Thus did those who were before them reject until they tasted our might.)
Say thou: Have you any knowledge?
Then bring it forth for us.
You follow only assumption.
And you tell only lies.
Say thou: Then to God belongs the conclusive argument:
Had he willed he would have guided you all together.
Say thou: Bring your witnesses who bear witness that God made this unlawful.
Then if they bear witness
Then bear thou not witness with them.
And follow thou not the vain desires of those who repudiate our proofs
And those who believe not in the hereafter and ascribe equals to their lord.
Say thou: Come, I will recite to you what your lord has made unlawful for you:
That you ascribe a partnership with him to anything
(While towards parents good conduct)
And kill not your children out of poverty
(We will provide for you and for them)
And approach not sexual immoralities
(Whether open or concealed)
And kill not the soul which God has made unlawful
Save aright.
That he enjoined upon you
That you might use reason.
And approach not the property of the fatherless
(Save with what is better)
Until he reach his maturity. […]
6:136-153
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im4v2L2perk
Confession of the “Shahada” is the first so-called pillar of the cultural brand known as Islam. Naturally, we would expect to find the call to make this statement clearly expressed in the Qur’an.
But we do not.
Rather, we find that it contradicts the Qur’an in multiple ways.
And the messenger will say:
O my lord: my people took this Qur’an as a thing abandoned. (25:30)
When his lord said to him: Submit thou
He said: I submit to the Lord of All Mankind.
The same did Ibrāhim enjoin upon his sons
As did Yaʿqūb:
O my sons: God has chosen the doctrine for you
So die not save you be submitted. (2:131-132)
Say thou: We believe in God and what is sent down upon us
And what was sent down upon Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl and Isḥāq, and Yaʿqūb and the grandsons
And what was given to Mūsā and ʿĪsā and the prophets from their lord.
We make no division between any of them.
And to him we are submitted.
And whoso seeks a doctrine other than submission:
It will not be accepted from him
And he in the hereafter will be among the losers. (3:84-85)
How will God guide a people who denied after their faith and had borne witness that the messenger is true
And clear evidence had come to them?
And God guides not the wrongdoing people. (3:86)
When the waverers come to thee they say: We bear witness that thou art the messenger of God.
But God knows that thou art his messenger
And God bears witness that the waverers are liars.
They took their oaths as a cover
Then forsook the path of God.
Evil is what they did
Because they believed then denied.
And their hearts were sealed
So they understand not. (63:1-3)
If they take intercessors besides God:
Say thou: Even though they have not power over anything
Nor do they reason?
Say thou: Unto God belongs intercession altogether.
His is the dominion of the heavens and the earth.
Then to him will you be returned.
And when God alone is remembered the hearts of those who believe not in the hereafter recoil.
And when those besides him are remembered then they rejoice. (39:43-45)
If any other group or religion combined the name of God with the name of any other being, what would you call that? What would your religious leaders accuse them of?
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfkN_1bm7lA
The Traditionalist has a complex narrative about how the Qur’an was supposedly compiled and preserved. But does it agree with the Qur’an’s own statements?
O you who heed warning: ask not about things if revealed to you would grieve you.
But if you ask about them while the Qur’an is being sent down they will be revealed to you.God pardoned those.
And God is forgiving, forbearing. (5:101)
qāf
By the glorious Qur’an! (50:1)
We sent down the remembrance
And we are its custodians. (15:9)
Those who deny the remembrance when it comes to them[…]
And it is a mighty decree
(Vanity cannot reach it from before it or from after it)
A successive revelation from one wise, praiseworthy. (41:41-42)
Say thou: What thing is greatest in witness?
Say thou: God is witness between me and you.
And this Qur’an is given me as instruction that I might warn you therewith and whom it reaches. (6:19)
No, indeed!
It is a reminder
So whoso wills might remember it
In honoured writings
Exalted, purified
By the hands of scribes
Noble, virtuous. (80:11-16)
Those who hear the word and follow the best thereof.
These are they whom God guides
And these are those possessed of insight. (39:18)
And when thou recitest the Qur’an:
Seek thou refuge in God from the accursed shayṭān
(He has no warrant against those who heed warning and in their lord place their trust.
His warrant is but against those who take him for ally
And those who ascribe a partnership to him.)
And when we change by a proof the place of a proof.
And God knows best what he sends down in stages.
They say: Thou art but inventing.
The truth is: most of them know not.
Say thou: The Spirit of Holiness brought it down from thy lord aright
That it might strengthen those who heed warning
And as guidance
And glad tidings for the submitted. (16:98-102)
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prLPtE_VY8U
Here I outline my thoughts on whether Muhammad was an infallible human being in light of the Qur’an.
Link to article on Mother Teresa: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-miracles-that-made-mother-teresa
Also: http://www.miraclesofthesaints.com/
Say thou: I say not to you: I possess the treasuries of God
Nor: I know the unseen.
Nor do I say not to you: I am an angel.
I follow only what I am instructed.
Say thou: Are the blind and the seeing equal?
Will you then not take thought! (6:50)
Say thou: I have no power to do myself benefit or harm save that God should will.
And had I knowledge of the unseen I would have abundance of wealth
And evil would not have touched me.
I am only a warner and bearer of glad tidings for people who believe. (7:188)
And among them is he who looks towards thee.
(Canst thou guide the blind when they do not see?) (10:43)
And I say not to you: I have the treasuries of God.
Nor: I have knowledge of the unseen.
Nor do I say: I am an angel.
Nor say I to those whom your eyes disdain: God will not give them good.
(God knows best what is in their souls.)
Then should I be of the wrongdoers. (11:31)
And they say: We will not believe thee until thou cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us
Or there be for thee a garden of date-palms and grapes and thou cause rivers to gush forth therein abundantly
Or thou cause the sky to fall – as thou hast claimed – upon us in pieces
Or thou bring God and the angels as surety
Or thou have a house of decoration
Or thou ascend into the sky.
And we will not believe thy ascension until thou bring down upon us a decree we can read.
Say thou: Glory be unto my lord!
Am I anything save a mortal messenger? (17:90-93)
Say thou: I am no new thing among the messengers
And I know not what will be done with me or with you.
I follow only what I am instructed
And I am only a clear warner. (46:9)
O prophet: why makest thou unlawful that which God has made lawful for thee
Seeking to please thy wives?
And God is forgiving, merciful. (66:1)
Did he not find thee fatherless and give shelter
And find thee astray and guide
And find thee in need and make sufficient?
Then as for the fatherless:
Oppress thou not.
And as for the one who asks:
Repel thou not.
And as for the grace of thy lord:
Recount thou! (93:6-11)
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3psjKfhKRr4
Muslims hear this all the time: “What the messenger gives you, take it. And from what he forbids you, refrain.” But what does it mean in the context?
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. (Psalms 14:1)
What God bestowed upon his messenger from the people of the cities:
Belongs to God and his messenger
And to relatives
And the fatherless
And the needy
And the wayfarer[…]
That it become not a distribution between the rich among you.
And what the messenger gives you:
Take it
And from what he forbids you:
Refrain
(And be in prudent fear of God
God is severe in retribution.)
For the poor émigrés who have been turned out from their homes and their belongings
Seeking favour and approval from God
And help God and his messenger.
These are the truthful. (59:7-8)
Two questions:
• is the messenger alive or dead? He is dead.
• can this really mean “accept a huge literature never seen by or approved by the messenger which was compsed after his death”? Which is what you are meant to think
I know where I stand. I’m not telling you what to believe. I am saying that if we believe in God and the last day it behoves us to think about things for ourselves as men and not simply accept what others tell us like children.
He it is who sent down upon thee the law.
Among it are explicit proofs
They are the foundation of the law
While others are likenesses.
Then as for those in whose hearts is crookedness:
They pursue what is a likeness thereof
Seeking the means of denial
And seeking its interpretation.
And only God knows its interpretation
And those established in knowledge.
They say: We believe in it – it is all from our lord.
But only those possessed of insight take heed.
Our lord: make thou not our hearts deviate when thou hast guided us
And bestow thou upon us mercy from thyself.
Thou art the Bestower.
Our lord: thou art gathering mankind to a day about which there is no doubt.
God will not break the appointment. (3:7-9)
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFFfoVTi_kw
This is my understanding of how to petition God when you are serious about achieving substantial change.
And when my servants question thee concerning me:
I am near.
I answer the call of the caller when he calls to me.
So let them respond to me and let them believe in me
That they might be guided. (2:186)
CONTROL EYES
We all know that not eating is not the same thing as fasting. Consider how a man who is not married (or have a girlfriend) is not having sexual intercourse – but he may be THINKING about it all the time. Such a man has not acquired any of the benefits or wisdom which accrue from sexual continence. His abstinence has been just a matter of circumstances.
A corallary to that is: IF he does learn to control his eyes, then his mind will follow. After a while the passions will settle down. It will become habitual. The fires will settle and he will begin to open the well of wisdom which is available to men who practice genuine chastity.
I believe it is one of the reasons the satanic system bombards us with sexual imagery and pornography: to keep men from discovering this.
It’s the same with fasting from food. If one can learn to master the eyes first, then the eyes of the mind, the passions will follow. And when they do, a veil will be lifted from the soul. Once separated from the baser, coarser passions, the mind begins to appreciate the finer, subtler things of God.
But it takes some time. If you have been living on junk food spiritually speaking, you can’t expect to turn things around in five minutes. It takes time.
My experience is that if you want to gain the best from fasting, then you should give up all caffeine and sugar first. I don’t just mean added sugar, I mean SUGAR.
Most of us think we are hungry, but actually we are mainly suffering withdrawls. We need to recognise that the food in this system is weaponised and that we are ADDICTED.
It is not the same as fasting a hundred years ago. However, the benefits – as with the weaponised sexual content – are potentially greater. Why? Because the hill is steeper to climb.
My experience of coffee and sugar is that it takes about a month to get rid of it. It’s a fast on its own just ridding the body of those. Your muscles ache. Your blood aches. It’s a cold turkey.
WHAT YOU WANT MAY CHANGE
I think it’s like alchemy of the soul when done right. The more one willingly gives up the grosser things, the finer, subtler things of God become important. You become less willing to give them up. If they are hard one, they are prized.
And it MAY be that God will grant you the thing that you are fasting “for”. But it also may be that you will understand through the process of refinement why it is that you don’t really want the thing you want.
And when my servants question thee concerning me:
I am near.
I answer the call of the caller when he calls to me.
So let them respond to me and let them believe in me
That they might be guided. (2:186)
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmC6JYKJIw