اديب شمس

This is an extremely important lecture by Dr Wael Hallaq. It’s over 4 hours in length and packed with information. Dr. Hallaq does an excellent job refuting the Orientalist view of “Islamic history”. He touches upon many subjects including —The development of the Sharia and the role of the Qur’an — Islamic jurisprudence and its unique features — Unique features of Islamic governance under the 4 caliphs and various later rulers. — The fallacies and lies of the Orientalists — The importance of an Islamic worldview. Islam is not merely rituals. All knowledge must be filtered through an Islamic lens, and Islamic metaphysics which ground all the other sciences. —The Islamic scholars synthesized all branches of knowledge from the different civilizations, whether Greek, Roman/Byzantine, Hindu, Persian, Chinese, or even Western Europe. As long as it fits with Islam and they reject whatever does not fit with Islam. Dr. Hallaq laments that today Muslims are blindly copying everything from the West and have been mentally/intellectually colonized — Islamic futuhat and the differences between them and Western colonialism. This an extremely important point to note. It is a good rebuttal to the conservative argument in favor of Western colonialism. (As mentioned earlier, even the otherwise excellent Dr. Thomas Sowell falls into this grave error. He simply assumed Islamic expansion was the same as Western colonialism and therefore attacked the weak liberal arguments against colonization.) — He shows how Islamic societies were pluralistic and genuinely allowed for minorities to thrive, sometimes even at the expense of Muslims — He says multiculturalism in the West today is a sham. — He calls out liberalism, neoliberalism, and democracy as fraudulent. He exposes the Western idea of freedom as materialistic. —He shows how the conversion to Islam of Syria and Egypt was organic and took many centuries. Islam was not imposed on anyone. — He discusses the importance of authentic spirituality and the need for Tassawuf. He cites Sufism as a key part of Islam. He laments that today people are suffering from a lack of spirituality and are bombarded by fake spirituality in the West, such as the rise of yoga and fake Sufis. — He calls feminism a scam that harms women and discusses the collapse of the nuclear family and extended family — He calls out the phony Rockefeller philanthropy — He says that both political parties in the USA are exactly the same. Voting is useless as the military and the big corporations and Israel control American politics (😅 Sounds familiar) — He even calls out Big Pharma and discusses how Chinese medicine and the holistic approach to health is far superior to what we get in the West today! youtu.be/bwi8SZLFe2U?si=1kjW… The only points on which Dr. Hallaq is mistaken is him saying red meat can cause cancer and that climate change is real. He does however say that corporations are the cause of environmental harm and the green agenda/green tech movement is also a scam. This interview is a must listen for all students. There are English subtitles available for those who don’t know Arabic.