Islam in The Golden Age #1
Dear friends, I decided to give myself a week off from singing, concerts and meetings with fans.
Whenever I have free time, I usually spend it questioning myself and contemplating on my existence. As most of you would know, I share my thoughts on these matters through twitter and some TV programs that I attend. But what matters is whether these provide sufficient answers to our questions. So I packed all my questions and came here.
Right now we are in the United States, next to the person whose books I’ve been reading for
years, whose thoughts have a great effect on me, and who best answers my question, “How can I understand what I read in the 21st century, how can I understand Islam?”
01:59 We all use the social media, the pop culture of our time.. I come across so many questions, sometimes as you say, the boundaries are broken, and the questions overflow... usually when I share examples I try to share without deterring from the primary source, the biggest problem of our time, as far as I’m aware, is that we have not properly understood the religion of Islam.
03:19 The first thing I want to ask is, “What does Islam mean? What must one do in order to live the reality of Islam today?”
03:50 When Allah says, “I chose Islam as the religion” this is not a reference to a religion in the traditional sense. This is about the ‘system and order’ of Allah. Allah who creates as He wills, has created everything orderly and systematically.
04:34 So the Quran, and its informer, Rasulullah (saw), focuses on two primary topics. The first is, “What is referred to with the name Allah?” Once we understand this then we are faced with the second question, “What is the relation between ‘Allah’ and the existence to which I refer as my ‘self’?”
06:07 We always think Sufism is the deeper aspect of Islam. But how can it be deeper, when Islam is already the deepest and most comprehensive explanation.
07:41 Now... Islam essentially encompasses science. Science strives to explain existence. The purpose of science is to figure out the system, how it works, and what its mechanism is...
08:21 Science is not outside of Islam. One who wants to live Islam has to realize that the path to knowing Allah goes through science.
10:02 In other words, if you claim you have a separate existence to Allah and fall into the duality of “Allah and I” you are putting yourself in the place of a god.
11:25 I don’t exist, only Allah exists, and the entire existence is the manifestation of the different compositions of the qualities/names of Allah, which is also observed by Him”.