Middle Nation Book Discussion | The Impossible State, by Wael Hallaq: Chapter 4

Alright. Assalamu alaikum, everybody. Welcome to the discussion on the impossible state, Islam politics and modernity's moral predicament by Weil Halak. We're going on to chapter four this evening or morning, whatever the time zone that you're in. Chapter four discusses the legal, the political, and the moral, and it's divided into three segments.

He talks about the the first segment being the morality and the rise of the legal, and then the second segment is titled sacrifice and the rise of the political. And then he does his conclusions and comparison in the third segment of the chapter with the moral dimension with a you know, he has a concluding concluding remark on that chapter. So he identifies at the beginning of the chapter the problems, the first the the two problems. The first being the the the dichotomy between what is and what's what ought to be in the application of the law of and then the second problem has to do with the rise of the political. And then he goes on to elaborate.

I mean, basically, the first segment of the book talks about the the, like I said, the dichotomy that exists as a consequence of modernity. That there was he he he mentions the the Aristotelian view of the world as having an objective from a creationist point of view, and then that transforming and changing after the discovery of, you know, the the after the eminence of the Newtonian concept of mechanical science. So everything has to be calculated. Everything is what it seems. And and that and that man was created to, you know, basically possess and rule over nature.

So these are the the the the concepts and ideas that he's trying to convey in that segment of the book. Okay. Once again, people are just joining in. Welcome, everybody.

Can you hear me well? Okay. Yeah. No problem. Okay.

I was trying to think what was written in the chapter because I kinda forgot it. But, yeah, I now remember it was, like, about essentially the state having no moral grounds. Right? Like, that there is no recourse essentially to like, where are you coming from? Why are you saying this is wrong?

This is bad. Right? They have nothing like that of sorts. Right? That even when they try to justify some position, they're essentially like, you cannot justify anything because you don't have anything to stand on.

Right? I think that was what he was saying in this part of it. And this then gives rise to the state as he describes it. Right? This mentality, the, you know, the only rule is the law.

Right? And you can, you know, justify it by something moral, but this changes every one hundred fifty years. Right? Like, you know, your morality is just a consequence, not the cause of, you know, view of. So

true. Once again, I give him credit for essentially saying to Muslims that it is impossible for us to entertain using Western standards of what is a state, what is law, and what is morality as our template going forward, and I agree with him wholeheartedly. He then enumerates quite precisely, I believe, the reasons why Muslims must abandon their infatuation with the modern western state as a template upon which we can superimpose Islamic values upon, he makes it clear that this cannot be done because the fundamentals of what the West considers moral, considers law, and considers a a state goes against the fundamentals of Islam and the Sharia. And so I I'm really, really pleased with what he has written in chapter four and how he has written it. He has enumerated once again their principles, which he did earlier in the book, and I saw and realized that the very language that they use, the words that they use make it virtually impossible for anyone outside of their post enlightenment philosophy to even have a discussion about their standards for a state or or the sovereign rule of a people in a geographic area that the language itself and the meanings of the words help to you know, in a circular way, presuppose the correctness of their positions and arguments.

You you cannot get away from it. And so I I found it very interesting, very insightful, and quite thorough. This is a critique of the western modern state and its philosophical and legal underpinnings that amounts to a takedown of it.

Jessica Lahir, sister Wahida. Okay. I have a question for everyone who has read the chapter. What has he pointed out as morality? Like, he has tried to define morality the way the West has understood it, and he has tried to explain the way Muslims view morality according to him, you know, based on his understanding of Muslims and Islam.

So he's mentioned that in the book. So if there's anyone who can pick up on that, if you've read the chapter.

Yes. Well, one of the things he points out is that Latin had been the underpinning of highly educated writing and philosophical thought and that pre enlightenment Latin, in fact, didn't have a word for moral. And that what they did is they took the English word moral, which came into great usage post enlightenment, and then retranslated it into Latin as morales. This previous to that, this word did not exist in Latin. You know, he's just making up the point that they have made up words and terminology and definitions of those words and the terminology and that it's it's post enlightenment and that all for all of existence prior to this, no such words and no such terms were in existence.

And he pointed out that what century did he say? I believe he wrote the the nineteenth or eighteenth century. Prior to that, the term moral as defined in the West did not exist in Arabic because there simply was no dichotomy between the moral and what is just and what is legal. These are not separate concepts in Islam. They have been made separate concepts in Western philosophical thought.

And and prior to the enlightenment, there they actually weren't really separate concepts in Europe that that this is latter day thinking and scholarship, and it has caused so many problems because their concept of matter as simply brute, inert existence, you know, that's fundamental to their concept of, we have every right to dominion over matter in all of its forms. And this is not an Islamic concept. And it it there are so many others enumerated in this chapter, and it makes it clear that it's very difficult for anyone outside, as I said, of the Western philosophical thought matrix to even have a discussion about these issues because the West has completely co opted language.

Yes. He he points out that this question of morality, like, why be moral? It's just a modern phenomenon of the of the western centric state, paradigmatic state. He says that in in for the Muslims, this is there's again, like you pointed out, there's no dichotomy. There's never a question on morality because everything we do is to be a good human being.

You know? He he points out the word that is Yes. That we use, you know, for us.

He Take the word right out of my head. Yeah.

He references akhlaq as our term for morality. He just says that that when talking about morality, the Muslims talk about akhlaq, and that we never had that dichotomy because, you know, to be good is a given. You know? Yes. Yeah.

That that's the that's the point that he was trying to raise. And that's

that's beautifully said. To be good is a given, and they just have no no basis for that belief when that belief is fundamental to us.

Yes. I mean, just to cite some lines from his book I mean, from that section on morality and the rise of the legal. Okay. So he says that the law can achieve validity only by virtue of a government that has a power to command and to and to declare the law to be valid. Okay?

The morality and ethics must rest on the objective laws discovered by human reason and not on tradition or spiritual authority. So this is the the basis. You know? And

Yeah. And that is their basis is exactly why I, as an African American and my parents suffered greatly under their laws.

And just going back to, you know, some of the things that Shay talks about in his in his last video about, you know, about just dominion and and control over resources. I mean, Wile also talks about the the the fact that they use the phrase knowledge is power. You know, the fact that you acquire information, you acquire knowledge only to acquire resources and to, you know, exploit and to, you know, basically assert your dominion over the world. You know? You you you you've basically become man has become the godhead, You know?

Instead so that's essentially what he's saying in in in the first segment of the chapter.

I have a problem with some of the basic presets here in that as as I have said many, many times, I don't see that they've changed in any way whatsoever from preenlightenment to enlightenment to postenlightenment to modern age, pre modern age, whatever. I don't see any change, and I don't think that it's accurate. I think, like, when he when they when he said I I can't remember what the quote was now that you just gave where laws have to be derived from rational conclusions or whatever and not from spiritual or from traditional sources and so on. That that's them talking about what they pretending that that's what they do. Because they're still following the same things that they've always followed.

The the the roots of all of their so called laws and and and and so called morality, all of it comes from the pre enlightenment age. All of it comes from whatever they got from the Bible and from the church and so forth and from before that. I mean, their their Christianity, anyway, as Wael has pointed out in interviews, their Christianity was radically different from the Christianity that was practiced in the The Middle East and other parts of the world. The European Christianity was pagan, and mixed with paganism and mixed with all of their strange, beliefs that they had, prior to the coming of Christianity. They incorporated all of that, but there's not really a change.

And and and the the sources of their, as I say, the sources of their so called morality are all sourced from pre enlightenment. They just come up with a rat an intellectual rationale for it and pretend that it's from some rational process, but you're just following the same things that you always follow. So, I mean, I I have a problem with even agreeing to go along with the European definition of a pre enlightenment, post enlightenment, and that there was even something called the enlightenment in terms of it being something that drastically radically changed you as a civilization, so called, because that's not a thing that happened. The only thing that happened with the so called enlightenment, as I've said many times, is just changing who the authorities were. But it didn't change anything about your actual morals or your morality or your approach to the world, and it was always in terms in terms of, like, what he said about what the validity of the law requires a state or whatever, that's just a club.

It it just means a club that can that can beat you over the head and make you do this or that, and that was always the way you were. There was never morality, any internalized goodness, any internalized ethics or principles or values. It was always might makes right, and it's just whether that might is the the head of the clan who has the biggest spear or the the might is the state, as you as you call it the state. It's the same thing. There hasn't been any change in these people.

He's saying that modernity, the modern state is a consequence of like, if you look at the timeline of history. Okay? And so it's an evolution of human beings existing as a society, and we have come we have arrived at modernity, and it's a enlightened state. So to look back is a regression. Right?

You're you're going backwards.

But you see but but but my point is that that's just believing and and and going along with their myth about themselves, that their Thank you. That that their so called modernity is any different than their primitiveness. There's no difference. This is what I'm saying. Just because you've changed doesn't mean you've evolved.

Just because you have whims and desires today and different whims and desires tomorrow doesn't mean that you have matured. It just means that you just do different things, you have different urges and and desires. That's all it means. That's all that's how they have lived, and that's how their society has been. Their so called civilization has been pre enlightenment, enlightenment, modern era, and in the into the future.

Unless and until they accept Islam, they don't have any system. They just follow their whims and desires, always have. And they just call it, you know, because because our our whims and desires are different now. They say, well, we've evolved and we're advanced. No.

You just change your appetites. That's all.

I'd like to let allow Samira to speak. You can unmute yourself. This is Samira. And Yes.

Okay. I hope you can hear me. So I came late. Sorry for that. Maybe you have discussed this one, but, it was in the beginning of the chapter that I had, well, some observation about how he is implying that we are trying the Muslims are trying to emulate the Western states.

I don't know where that came from because I guess it's because we are, in a you know, what he terms it as modern state, and that he's basically saying that, in our journey to be a modern state, we are making mistakes. This is his assumption. This is what he's alluding to because in the beginning of the chapter. And I was wondering where that come from. Is it because he is of the opinion that we are at this moment, the Muslim countries at the moment are considered modern state, which he did mention in the beginning of the book that none of the countries at this moment have Islamic or Islamic kind of governance, and therefore, we are considering ourselves modern state.

So that was a problem for me, why we he thinks that we are trying to emulate the Western state because that's how he's writing it. And then the second part was about the fact that there is no such thing like the modern state being incompatible with any type of Islamic mode of governance. This is, again, what exactly is the Islamic mode? Oh, yes. It's the fact that we, give more, assertion to morality as opposed to legality.

This is what he's trying to say. But who is to judge what is Islamic mode of governance? Is it the historical Islamic mode of governance that he's comparing us to? But then there is modernity. There is something that changed with with time.

One of the thing is the the fact that there is now modern state. Whether we like it or not, we cannot escape. But how do we modernize it in such a way that it conf confirms to our Islamic teachings is is one thing that that I really had a problem with. He's assuming basically that we are trying to emulate the Western modern state. And then there was another thing that I thought he defined maturity.

Well, not defined, but philosophy. Like, modern philosophy on civilization and maturity is that there is a huge emphasis on the self and how that to be free is basically an act of civilization, of much maturity of a civilization. So free even even to religion is the thing that he emphasized. That was very in very interesting. I found that one very interesting that the fear freedom is not only freedom from serfdom, from all the oppressions, political oppressions, authority, and all that, but actually to be free from religion or from the confinement of religion is also considered as civilizational or individual maturity into from the Western perspective.

That that was really one thing that I found interesting. But overall, when he was talking about the the detachment between the legal and what is and what ought to be and how that affected even science, how the the objectivity of science, That part, that is the only thing that I was giving him credit for that I was listening to Wa'el from the terms from perspective that he's academic. So he I I would assume that he would be looking at things objectively. But then here, again, he's saying that that detachment from the reality is he's criticizing science for that, which is exactly what he is he is himself because he's he's Christian. He's denying God, yet he is academically trying to prove that.

That was really something when I read that. Well, that's what you're doing. I keep saying to myself, well, that's what you are doing. Why? Like, exactly.

You are looking at it from scientific academic point of view, religion, Islam, yet it's not applying to yourself, to himself. So, yeah, that was the things that I observed.

Okay. I want to add on about Sharia. Okay. He he he points to premodern what he points out to premodern Islam. Right?

He he he claims in this chapter that it's no longer a thing that exists today. So by that, he implies that we are there's no such thing as a Muslim government. Okay? That's what that's what I'm understanding. Okay?

Basically saying that Sharia is institutionally defunct. Okay? And the only, how do I say it, redeeming thing that I can say that he suggests that that the the postmodern Muslim state is is not a a something that that's doing off our own hands. We it's a form of coercion. We've been coerced to accept certain modes of government that we have incorporated in our countries, like in Malaysia or in Indonesia or any of the Gulf countries.

Okay? Like, the flaws that you that he may point pinpoint, it's just something not of our own making. It's some just something as a as as part of a coercion of existing in a in a in the world that's dominated by the West. Okay? That's the only redeeming thing that I can derive from his writing, but essentially what he's saying is that Sharia is institutionally defunct.

And that, you know, what you can what what that implies is that there's no actually I mean, basically, he's making tafir on on Muslims in Muslim countries. You know? That's how it sounds to me. It's pretty severe. You know?

It's a it's it's quite a stretch that he's doing here.

Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

Which then brings me back to a section in the book, in the chapter, where he talks about what makes a believer and what makes a kathar. And I wanna know if anyone has read that section and would like to talk about it.

My name is Fahim. I'm sorry. I was also a bit late, but I have been here listening to your discussions for last few, like, fifteen minutes or so.

Welcome, brother. Thank

you so much. I'm learning so much from everybody's inputs, to be honest. Just I wondered whether I might, talk about a little on the point that you just made that he's basically making takfir about on on the Muslims or the Muslim governments on different parts of the world. In general, what I feel like like when I'm trying to read this book, the one challenge that I'm having is basically having different Western terminology and Islamic terminologies and how we sort of trying to use both of them, sometimes interchangeably. But it is very, very difficult to to strike a good balance between these two, I think.

And that leads us to this whole problem. For example, what what Stadt, Shahid was saying that, he doesn't see any sort of difference between what the premodern world was and how the modern modernity or the postmodernity is. And I think he is absolutely correct if we think about it from an Islamic perspective. But if we try and try to use their words and their terminology and their points of making discernment, then you one can understand why and what's the difference between modernity and premodernity and postmodernity and all that. And it's the kind of the same I think I think if we can approach this book in a way that Palak is definitely someone who is absolutely entrained within the Western philosophy and within the Western thought process.

So if we think about it that way, then whenever he's talking about Islam, he's definitely talking about it from what he can understand using his terminologies like paradigm. What is paradigm in Islam? We have no concept of paradigm in Islam. It's something that that they have developed, a a tool for thinking, basically. And he's applying that on Islam and trying to understand Islam from that point of view.

And and then when he takes that and he applies that to moralities and the legalities in Islam, and what he sees is definitely if you if if anybody tries to see it from that point of view with rigor, with academic rigor, which I give him credit for, then they would have to come to this conclusion that that the way in precolonial world, what it what it was like, if you if you look at the lens of the of that paradigm, then the way Islam operated as a government is as a is as a as a legal entity. And and if you compare that with the way Islam is operating as a legal entity and institution in modern states, in modern Muslim states, If you call the previous one Islamic, then you probably will not be able to call the current one Islamic. I don't know if I'm making sense here or not. However, the problem is if we we cannot call this TAC field because if we approach the same say, sort of like this. There are similarities between premodern systems and modern systems, and there are points of differences.

That much is pretty much obvious. Now because the Westerners are trying to differentiate between modern and premodern, they are putting emphasis on the points of differences, which is why if you apply the same thing to Islam and how the Islamic societies and the countries were before colonialism and now, if you apply the same kind of points of differentiation, then, obviously, these two will be different. And if you call one Islamic, you will think the other one is un Islamic. But for us, those points of differences are not what makes something Islamic or un Islamic. That's what I gathered, to be honest.

However, I would still say that there is some value in learning what points of differences that the Western people put emphasis on and what the things that they base their moralities on. The re the reason being simply because of that fact that they are the ones in power, and we're having to play their games. So it's worth knowing how to how their game runs and how to beat that. I mean, nobody is discussing whether, today's Islamic today's Islam and the Islam of two hundred years ago, how it is different or the same from the point of view of Hinduism or from from the view of Buddhism. Nobody's discussing about that because they are not the ones who's making the decision.

They are not the ones who's making the world run at the moment. So I think that's the only value there is in Khalak and and trying to learn from him. Like and and and it's a good thing that even even but even approaching it from the approach that we know as Muslim as wrong. Even if you approach it that way, he he basically comes to the conclusion that that even even by their standards, they're not really doing they're not really achieving the things that Islam could achieve by to to to to its own means. So that's that's the thing, really.

Thank you.

Brother Fahim, for your valuable contribution. That was very insightful. I think it's a very one point that that brother Faheem mentioned, like like, it's it's it's well it's useful to see how power talks about us, you know, from from an outsider's point of view.

It it's also it's also important. And and, you're you have the right name, brother Fahim. That's a very good understanding. It's important for us to understand, as you said and as sister said now, what power thinks of us, it's also enlightening that, as you said, brother Fahim, for some reason, we take it seriously when they talk. If if Hindus and they do.

It's not that they don't. Hindus were saying what they think about Islam 200 ago and now, and they make up all kind of stories about the Mughals and so on, and we dismiss it out of hand. We immediately recognize it as propaganda, anti Muslim propaganda, whatever, and that these people aren't qualified to talk about what they're talking about. But when Westerners, for some reason, and I include as a Westerner even though he's a Palestinian Arab, in his mindset, in his mentality, as you said, brother, he is deeply entrenched in Western philosophy, Western thinking. When they talk about us, we listen for some reason, and we take it seriously.

Rather than looking at it, as you said, we we can learn from it the way they think rather than lit listening to them so that we can learn about ourselves. And that's what the danger is, That if we're going to listen to a or anyone else from their side who sort of pretends to be an expert on our deen and on our and on our law, that we're going to learn from them about ourselves and about our deen and about our and about our law. No. We can't do that. If we listen to them just so that we can know what they think, then it's fine.

Then it's valuable. If we're gonna listen to them as if they are our teachers about ourselves and about Islam, then obviously, we're gonna go astray. And my my suspicion always is that that's the only reason they're talking is actually to change our minds about ourselves and about our deen. They're not doing it because they want us to understand how they think, because they think that whatever they think is right, and they want to change our minds. So I I just I approached someone like Awail Halak and and any of these other types.

I I I approached them with a great deal of suspicion with regards to their motives.

Alright. So I would like to move on to a critical section in the book where he defines well, he writes what what what it means to be a kafir and what it means to be a believer. And it's quite troublesome, to be frank. I mean okay. So I will just read out the text in which he talks about the kafir.

Okay? To be a kafir, a nonbeliever, is to deny God's good work good works in nature, to deny the blessings that humans live by and experience in every moment of their existence and to behave badly towards other people and things, which is to say that one is behaving badly towards god's work and creation. Human beings thus owe God the duty of genuine appreciation, the indictment and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's it.

You know? So if you if you don't show that you're grateful to Allah, that means you are a kafir. That's a very ideological, flowery I don't know. How do I it's it's just that's not

What was the point of him saying this?

Yeah. Is it to to point to pinpoint that he's not a kafir, or I I don't understand.

I mean I mean, in the context of the book, in the context of the thesis, what's the point of him saying this? Because if you're if you're if you're you should say what a Kafir is in Islam Yeah. Not just what you think or what the Christians think or what the modernity I mean, the the the the sort of the three things that you're talking about is the Islamic point of view, the view of modernity, and the view of premodernity. Yeah. These are, the three things that you're that you're talking about.

They're the the views of these three realms. Okay. So in what realm? In what who thinks what you just said is a Kafir? Who who and and and is a believer.

Who thinks that? That's not the Islamic view whatsoever as we know.

Yeah. He he brings about this this point about what a kafir is and what a believer is in bringing about the bygone Muslim governance, days of what he thinks is a bygone era of Muslim governance. Yeah. So and then he goes on to

use the definition according to that era. He should use the definition of a believer according to that era and the definition of a kafir according to that era, which is their era and this era and for all time. It doesn't change. The definition of a Muslim, we know what it is.

Yes. Absolutely.

The of Islam, being a Muslim, the six pillars of iman, this is what makes you a Muslim, and this is what makes you, and have iman. Is this and only this? It's nothing it's nothing else. However, he being nice.

I know. But he's got he's claiming that he who does not deny God's blessing and his sole sovereignty is a believer.

Okay. And and the and the biggest blessing that you are denying is Islam itself. It's denying the Quran, denying Rasulullah. That's the biggest blessing that you are denying. That's what makes you a kafir.

I mean, the the the the this is this is well, I'm just wondering. This is a very strange thing for him to put in the book, it seems to me, without it being a quote from some source that has to do with the way it was viewed in the times of the Khilafa, for example. If you're talking about the so called premodern, Islamic governance era, then you should use the definition that they used. Because because there you have you have Muslim, you have Muslim citizens, you have. Mhmm.

You know? And and there you can talk about the that they qualify for being and so on. You have the the the people who are from the outside, the Kufar from the outside who are not citizens of the state. You know, if you wanna talk about it in the context of what seems to me to be the thesis of the book, this seems very out of place to just come up with your own personal definition of what a believer is.

Personal philosophical definition of what a believer is.

It has no currency in Islam.

Yeah. But I think he was trying to

does say.

Juxtapose it to, like, citizenship. Right? That, like, what is a unit of you know, what is the smallest units, like, making the society in a manner, it's the believer. Right? In a state modern state notion, it's the citizen.

So I think he was trying to, you know, compare these two perspective. That that was the context in which he was speaking about it, in my opinion, if I remember correctly.

Then he should have used the Shar'i definition.

I'm I'm going to read to you exactly what he wrote. It's in it's in front of me, brothers and sisters. Thus, to be a true believer, a genuine Muslim, is to appreciate the facts of having been born of having been given family solidarity, family love, and compassion, and having received the gifts of food and pleasant beverages, especially the simplest boon of life giving water, in sum of enjoying all the blessings of the world that surround humankind by virtue of God's infinite generosity. To behave badly toward any of these God given gifts is not only to be thankless or to deny God's sign, but also to transgress, and the Quran makes it all too obvious that a transgressor's final lodging is in less than a pleasant abode, That's what he wrote.

Right. Which which these are these everything that you mentioned there, these are all aspects and and elements and attributes of iman, but this is not the definition of a Muslim, not in the Sharia.

Okay. I will read to you what he further wrote. We have thus far remarked on the Quranic conceptual conceptual dichotomy and antonomic distinction between believing iman and disbelieving. He who does not deny God's blessings and his soul sovereignty is the believer, But what is it that constitutes the Quranic believer, the beyond his or her full acknowledgment of and gratitude for God's blessings? Any perceptive reader of the Quran will immediately note the heavy emphasis placed throughout the text on the act of performing good, in its different variants, it occurs at least 120 times without counting other conceptual cognates such as karat and asana hathena, e.

G, Tatawa, all of which mean to do good. It is one of the most common and oft repeated expressions in the Quranic repertoire.

Okay. So he's he's saying that

he's not again talking about it through the Quran itself, and and so I don't think he needs to write the sentence. The people believe in the Quran when he's telling you what is expected of them, you know, by what is is some of what is written in the Quran. So, anyway, he he isn't a Muslim. At least he he publicly has never admitted to being one, but what I have gotten from what I have thus far read from the beginning onward is not that he is offering his personal view of the West. He is critiquing its historical philosophical and legal text and revealing it to those who may not have knowledge of it, and he is also warning Muslims.

And much of the Muslim intelligentsia does this, and it has bothered me for decades. They use the West as the model of what a modern society should be, and they bemoan the lack of constitutions or constitutional written law authority, secular authority in predominantly Muslim countries, they do to do this. I'm not talking about the the regular believer in the society, but I am talking about the intelligence that has been produced by Western education. And so he is critiquing that those Western standards, and he is warning Muslims. I mean, he wrote this not to use them as our template going forward.

And so when I read his writing, having already read from him what he is doing and the warning that he wrote to Muslims in the beginning not to use the West as their template going forward that what they have, and he wrote this, is far superior to anything the West has to offer. He wrote it. I you know, I don't know how some of you may have skipped over that. And then he proceeded to critique these people, and I I take the whole thing as the warning of what's wrong with them. He's living in this.

So he's experiencing it as what is wrong with this and a warning to us not to follow sin.

He he is he's talking about he's warning us about the the the media the, you know, the negative impact of the Western model and also trying to educate the ignorant on what Islam is, which is a problem because he's he's equating iman with whatever it is that the flowery language that he's used on what iman is. And he's also saying that what what Kufr implies is also based on what he thinks from his paradigm. And he's talking to essentially an ignorant audience because he's not convincing any one of us who has had basic schooling on the basic fundamentals of the religion. You know? He even okay.

You you you mentioned the the the the essentially, it's Amosaleh. He's saying that, you know, the the the Quran urges you to do deeds, good deeds. Right? And then he goes on to explain something that about the deeds. Right?

That Allah is self sufficient and that he's all powerful, and Allah doesn't need humankind to do these deeds. Although he he is now pointing out in a statement that Allah is explicitly grateful for our deeds. Okay? And he's citing ayat of the Quran on page 86 that says nothing of the sort, that Allah is he literally says that Allah is grateful that we are doing I mean, this is like this is just something completely out of line, You know? And and Allah is not in need of our good deeds.

And Allah appreciates Allah's

thought that his use of the word grateful was ill advised, but he's using the big English language, and sometimes it's difficult to translate concepts from the holy Quran, the Arabic concepts into into English.

Yes. He pretends to have insights that No.

I mean I mean I mean, to to translate to to translate a concept that's in the Quran translate a concept that's in the Quran, you should you you should be familiar with the translations of the Quran by that are done by professional translators, and you should be familiar with the tafsir. So you should understand it. And, anyway, writes in English. He doesn't write in Arabic, and then it's translated into English. He writes in English.

That's he's better in English than he is in Arabic. When you listen to him, speaking in the interviews, his Arabic is at a simple enough level that I can understand. So it's he's not he's his Arabic isn't that great in normal speaking. Of course, he's not gonna speak high language when he's speaking, but the point is he writes in English. These aren't translations of his works from Arabic into English.

He writes originally in English. And by the way that the texts are written, I would be, highly, inclined to believe that he has, if not a ghostwriter, an editor to help him with the writing because he doesn't write at all the way he talks in English. When I've seen him in interviews in English, he speaks much more straightforwardly and much more, clearly and understandably, than in the very complicated overly complicated prose that he uses in the in his writing. And then when he when he's giving a speech, he's just reading from a paper, and then it's it mimics the language of the book that this it's this very, very highly academic style of language that that overcomplicates it. So I think that, you know, it it it's entirely possible that it was just a poor choice of words that's based on that he may have an editor or a ghostwriter who is like him, not a Muslim, and maybe doesn't and maybe the the the editor doesn't speak Arabic, and also that Wa'il himself is maybe not actually that familiar with tafsir of Quran and the meanings of these, and that doesn't understand maybe the distinction between gratitude and appreciation, that these are two very different concepts, And that, you know, that the fact that Allah rewards us for our good deeds is from his generosity, not from his gratitude.

So it's, you know, it's a very different thing. But it's just a poor choice of words, but it it it sort of exposes the you know, how drastic the difference is between someone writing about Islam or talking about Islam who is a Muslim versus someone writing about Islam who is not a Muslim. There's just there's a huge difference.

Okay. I I agree that there's a huge difference between Muslim writers and non Muslim writers when discussing anything, especially Islam. And the difference between generous and grateful, you you know, is an ocean wide chasm. You'll get no argument with me from that, but I believe that the book was written for academics. I don't believe it was written for the general educated populace at all.

Yeah. I think you're right. So It's it's definitely written for academic.

Because they in America, when you get something published, they ask the question, who is the audience? And then whoever is assigned to be your editor helps keep you on track to writing something that's for that very specific audience. And I believe among the academics in that audience are Muslim academics in the West who unfortunately idolized the West because of its materialism and relative twentieth century peace after the conclusion of World War two, and he is warning them not to do so and that the West has nothing superior to what the Muslims have and that the West can offer the Muslims nothing with regard to politics, civilization, and belief. I mean, this is what he wrote in the beginning.

So

Yeah. That's fine. That's fine. But like like I like I said from the very beginning of this of talking about this book, he attributes the problems of the West to their model, not to their kufa. And this is essentially where he's completely missing the boat.

Because for Muslims, it doesn't matter what model it is. We can approach it Islamically. You can put us into any situation, and we will approach that situation Islamically. And that's how fit works. That's how ijtihad works, and that's how that's one of the most brilliant and beautiful things about the sharia is the flexibility and adaptability to all circumstances and conditions and situations.

So give us whatever model you give us, and we can make it Islamic by our approach to it. That's what he doesn't seem to understand, that the that the the West is the way it is because they are the way they are. Their system is the way it is because they are the way they are. And whatever model they come up with, whether it was, as I said, pre enlightenment, enlightenment, or or modern or postmodern, that model is going to always reflect the contents of their own hearts and minds, which is which is where you get your problems. And the same will be true for the Muslim world and is true in the Muslim world today.

Whatever even if we have what you call a modern state model, a nation state model, or what have you in throughout the Muslim world because it was maybe imposed upon us by colonization. But we approach our situations. We approach our societies. We approach our legislation. We approach our governments.

We approach the management of society as Muslims. We approach it as Islamically as we can. There there there are there are aspects of the sharia that are present. There are laws from the sharia that are present, and there are laws from the sharia that are absent. But that has been the case for fifteen hundred years almost.