Shaykh Rizwan Arastu - Man as Vicegerant of God (Khalīfat Allah)

22 Bekeken· 24/07/31

Muslim Group of USA and Canada
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Presented during the 2014 Muslim Group Conference

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[0:43]nod to the topic briefly um and then kind of uh go

[0:49]around and re-frame it in a certain way that i think will

[0:52]be more useful and more interesting for our current discussion so it's

[0:56]true that there are two verses that we have in the quran

[0:58]that discuss um or mention the term khalifa one is the verse

[1:02]that was just recited with follow-up referring to adam and eve referring

[1:10]to adam and islam uh where allah is expressing to the angels

[1:17]his intention to to create this this khalifa it's by spirit of

[1:20]his on earth another verse that mentions khalifa as well in a

[1:24]similar context is with regard to daw with with these two verses

[1:32]there's a lot of discussion about so many things what exactly does

[1:35]it mean is he simply a successor to past people the nesnas

[1:42]the prehistoric pre-human creatures that allah created before him is he to

[1:48]allah himself if he is is it simply adam as adam that's

[1:53]being made or is he a representative for all divine gods all

[1:58]of the prophets and so all of all of the divine guides

[2:01]are also allah or is adam being appointed as a believer as

[2:07]a righteous person so all righteous people can aspire to be or

[2:12]is it all human beings adam as a human being is made

[2:15]but it seems like the title of the lecture i don't know

[2:18]if you know that was the attention behind the ones who created

[2:21]the topic but that's one of the opinions that that's given by

[2:26]the commentators that adam as a human being is appointed meaning that

[2:30]all people all human beings have that potential certainly those who reject

[2:34]god who ignore god who go against god they are not actually

[2:38]really in real time to love they have the potential insofar as

[2:42]they are human they have the future within them if they act

[2:45]on that they can become representatives of allah so there's lots of

[2:48]discussion around all of that with regard to adam with regard to

[2:52]um that would similarly is this the is this a new calabadas

[2:54]being appointed uh or or given to to dawood or it's the

[2:59]same one that was given to his great-grandfather adam um or is

[3:03]he simply made a judge and a ruler over the people of

[3:06]of of his time and the other that's mentioned there is it's

[3:09]all earth or is it just the holy man where he was

[3:15]where he was and he's being appointed some sort of position as

[3:17]ruler over that area so there are lots of discussions um with

[3:20]regard to those two verses and what it means for those individuals

[3:24]to be the bystanders of god whether that applies to us and

[3:28]i and are you also actually or potentially successfully called the vice

[3:34]chairs to allah so having acknowledged that and those ideas i want

[3:44]to speak about put the the word khalifa to allah and by

[3:47]one of the relationships that we understand from from that idea without

[3:54]using that particular phrase and without using um you know those particular

[3:58]verses is that we do in fact whether or not we are

[4:02]by steroids appointed by god we do in fact have responsibility as

[4:06]god's creation to be custodians of the world in which we live

[4:12]and i felt also like from the topics that maybe this was

[4:16]what the organizers had in mind when they when they mentioned this

[4:18]let's let's speak about um in one talk like like it was

[4:23]mentioned the first two journeys of how we get to allah and

[4:28]then how we understand allah himself and then this talk come back

[4:30]down to the third journey and i think as as creatures of

[4:32]god now living in this world how do we live a godly

[4:35]life and how can we take care and be custodians of the

[4:38]creation of god as in part representatives of allah in a sense

[4:45]so that's what i want to speak about in a little bit

[4:47]more detail there's a verse in the quran in surat where allah

[4:52]says so the verse says that corruption has shown its face on

[5:06]the land and in the sea because of what we have brought

[5:12]what people have brought and the reason why allah gives us a

[5:14]taste of this corruption right now and doesn't wait for the day

[5:19]of judgment to let us taste it he gives it to us

[5:22]now and gives us a taste of what we've done so that

[5:23]inshaallah we will uh come back it will reform we'll undo what

[5:29]we've done and reform ourselves and cease causing that corruption of the

[5:32]cause so the facade here the corruption has been mentioned it's it's

[5:37]all of all kinds we see this in the world around us

[5:38]moral corruption the moral decay there's um environmental corruption that i want

[5:45]to focus on primarily in the rest of my talk but the

[5:47]different kinds of corruption that we have brought of our own hands

[5:49]through sin through disobedience to god through selfishness through arrogance and we're

[5:55]now facing where we're tasting the results of those samples of those

[6:00]results allah is giving us those to us now so that we

[6:03]can realize the error of our ways and then each other reform

[6:06]ourselves there are spiritual choices that we make that cause this facade

[6:13]that causes corruption that's clear enough i make moral choices right we

[6:18]have sexual indecency and homosexuality oppression of minorities oppression of people who

[6:22]can't defend themselves and so many other kinds of corruption religious corruption

[6:27]and deviance away from monotheism and all of these practiced by people

[6:32]throughout the world are slowly eroding away at the at the the

[6:37]quality of life in this in estonia right that's that's part of

[6:43]what we see there's also a relationship between our moral and our

[6:46]ethical choices and the physical realm all right this is shown in

[6:50]a couple of verses i want to share one of these verses

[6:52]with you allah says in insurance chapter chapter 7 verse 96 foreign

[7:10]if people would only believe and fear god if those two qualities

[7:17]were in them then we would let open the floodgates of our

[7:23]blessings upon them right through faith and through taqwa that can be

[7:27]the keys to open the floodgates of god's blessings well i can

[7:30]count them however people have rejected god rejected his guidance would be

[7:38]meant candidates as a result of what they themselves have brought we

[7:40]have taken them to task right we ceased giving them those blessings

[7:46]so the physical blessings that we get are tied in some way

[7:52]to our choices our moral ethical religious choices and then of course

[7:57]the worldly choices that we make as well besides the spiritual and

[7:59]the moral choices we make choices in terms of our lifestyle how

[8:03]we use the resources and how we use the world that we've

[8:06]been given by allah and because of that also we see corruption

[8:09]not only on the moral and ethical level but also corruption of

[8:14]the environment so what this verse is reminding us of is that

[8:19]we are we are custodians right allah has given us this trust

[8:25]of the world around us we have failed in many ways to

[8:29]take care of that correctly we're now tasting some of the the

[8:32]effects of those failures and those bad choices that we've made but

[8:37]there's still hope hope hoping allah is giving us this taste now

[8:42]while there's still hope there's still time for us to reform ourselves

[8:45]and insha'allah backtrack a little bit and improve the situation and perhaps

[8:49]return to something much better this leads me into the idea that

[8:55]as custody speak about one small part so we kind of left

[8:58]off the bysterity topic altogether i'm speaking now about custodianship and care

[9:03]of the creation allah has given us as creatures of god as

[9:07]servants of god we are responsible for taking care of the blessing

[9:11]that he's given us thank him for thanking him for them first

[9:15]using them correctly and then protecting them and guarding them in a

[9:19]way that's pleasing to him it's an understatement to say this i

[9:25]think you'll agree that muslims lag behind are far behind the curve

[9:32]when it comes to environmental consciousness this is one area especially the

[9:36]immigrant community in in the west um for i'm sure various different

[9:40]reasons there might be um uh reasons based on colonialism and the

[9:45]culture that was left in the legacy that was left behind colonialism

[9:49]the poverty and the kind of resource stripping and all these different

[9:53]things that happened that's had an effect on the immigrant population certainly

[9:56]political um strife that has been pretty much the mainstay in many

[10:02]parts of the muslim world also i'm sure has an effect but

[10:05]there are also certain theological reasons misconceptions that are there amongst us

[10:13]and i think that those also play a large part in our

[10:16]lackadaisical attitude towards environmental concerns so i want to address the theological

[10:23]part the other there are some other topics i've seen on the

[10:26]on the menu for the next couple of days where we'll be

[10:29]speaking about colonialism and some of these other ideas hopefully some of

[10:32]these things will be addressed in some part over there but what

[10:37]i can speak to is the theological side of it so there's

[10:39]a basis um there's a basis for what we do and how

[10:42]we do it i want to share with you a passage from

[10:47]an article that was written back in 1967 by a professor lynn

[10:51]white he was a professor of history and he wrote about history

[10:56]of technology and science primarily he's a professor at princeton and uh

[10:59]stanford ucla so you wrote this article back in 1967 there's a

[11:05]seminal article that really paved the way for people to start to

[11:07]understand some of the religious reasons the religious causes for our failure

[11:13]to use resources correctly for the environmental problem let's say like that

[11:17]that there are religious reasons why we have an environmental problem so

[11:21]he speaks he criticizes christianity in particular and he says that christianity

[11:28]came to replace a paganism that was prevalent in europe that had

[11:30]a strong respect for nature right he's speaking as a assume i'm

[11:35]assuming he's an atheist and he's speaking that perspective but his point

[11:39]is valid but the atheists the pagans so that the pagans um

[11:43]before christianity in europe they had a respect for the spirit within

[11:46]this tree the spirit was this mountain and they would you know

[11:50]before they did anything they would you know sacrifice they would you

[11:53]know thank they would pay tribute to a god and sorts of

[11:55]things and they had a sort of connection and respect for nature

[11:58]christianity came and the misconception that was inherent in the the catholicism

[12:04]that took over europe was to to make us think make people

[12:09]think that we have been given earth have been given the world

[12:16]all of these resources and and they're completely in our disposal they're

[12:20]ours to use and to misuse and do whatever we want as

[12:22]we as we see fit it's god who's the source of it

[12:26]all he has infinite power he if we destroy it he can

[12:28]make it again he's given it to us it's all for us

[12:31]we are the kings of this world and we can do it

[12:34]as we wish and that sentiment uh replaced that paganism which he's

[12:38]praising and and has given rise to now this is this um

[12:42]kind of cavalier attitude towards the environment let me just read one

[12:45]paragraph from his essay the essay's name is the historical roots of

[12:50]our ecological crisis he said i personally doubt that disastrous ecological backlash

[12:55]can be avoided simply by applying to our problems more science and

[13:01]more technology our science and technology have grown out of christian attitudes

[13:06]toward man's relation to nature which are almost universally held not only

[13:11]by themselves as post-christian not only by christians and neo-christians but also

[13:16]by those who fondly regard themselves as a host christian despite copernicus

[13:21]all the cosmos rotates around our little globe despite darwin we are

[13:27]not in our hearts part of the natural process we are superior

[13:30]to nature contemptuous of it willing to use it for our slightest

[13:34]women so this is a scathing criticism of this attitude that was

[13:42]prevalent and arguably is prevalent amongst religious christians what i want to

[13:49]do is to translate that over to our own situation and think

[13:52]is there something inherent in islam or is there something within the

[13:58]muslim understanding of what it means to be muslim and what our

[14:01]relationship is to the world around us that is giving rise to

[14:04]our attitude and kind of lack of interest and lack of motivation

[14:08]to be good custodians of the natural world so certainly i'll argue

[14:14]that there's nothing inherent in islam we'll speak to that a little

[14:16]bit towards the end but there are certain misconceptions there's certain ideas

[14:20]that are prevalent amongst us in our culture and in our religious

[14:22]understanding that have given us this sort of attitude one is we

[14:31]have verses in the quran that speak about this action of tastier

[14:35]or allah has done of the natural world for us our testing

[14:41]is to subjugate to subjugate something and put it at the disposal

[14:45]of someone else allah says for instance in um uh aspects of

[15:10]the world around us allah has subjugated the water and the rain

[15:16]the seas and the night the day the sun with all these

[15:18]different things they're at our disposal it's a simple sentiment that was

[15:22]misconstrued by the catholic church as saying that we are the purpose

[15:27]of creation and god has given us all to us and we

[15:28]can use it at will if it's misconstrued that way that's not

[15:32]at all what the verses are telling us they're not telling us

[15:35]that we can use and misuse and abuse the resources that have

[15:37]been given to us the verses are trying to ingratiate us to

[15:43]allah to show us what a great blessing he's given us and

[15:46]to make us feel so indebted to him for all these great

[15:50]things he's put at our disposal for our benefit but that these

[15:54]are not it's not things to be used and misused but rather

[15:58]used to utilize exploited for the best purposes for his purposes and

[16:02]they're there for our yes for our benefit but as a trust

[16:05]and not as something to be used and discarded a second misunderstanding

[16:11]that we have that gives rise to this cavalier attitude towards environmentalism

[16:16]is a misunderstanding about what it means for god to provide for

[16:22]us for he as our provider we have a lot of um

[16:24]verses we have a lot of hadith that give our give us

[16:28]the sense that god has guaranteed provision for us right now that's

[16:34]if we take that attitude that we don't delve deeper into to

[16:38]understand what exactly that means again we can end up with the

[16:40]same misconception that christians have had to say that well god has

[16:45]guaranteed me sustenance and he's guaranteed that as long as something is

[16:47]supposed to live in the environment is supposed to survive he has

[16:51]guaranteed sustenance and there's no reason there's nothing enrolled for me whether

[16:55]i protect the environment or not if it's not that's not my

[17:00]concern god is the provider he's guaranteed that everybody's going to provide

[17:03]for everything so even if i use up whatever i have to

[17:05]use up he'll provide more he's infinitely powerful and he'll provide more

[17:08]but again that's not the correct understanding of these of these kinds

[17:16]of sentiments the quran says for instance every creature on earth allah

[17:22]is responsibly taking responsibility for its provision for sustenance in a hadith

[17:28]imam al-qaeda says your wealth is divided amongst you guaranteed for you

[17:41]your wealth is guaranteed and one who is just god himself has

[17:45]divided and divided up amongst you right which gives us a sense

[17:51]that everything's guaranteed i have no role to play whether i work

[17:53]or don't work everything's guaranteed for me that's a misunderstanding that we

[17:57]often come away with from these traditions if you look at them

[18:00]with telescope with a kind of a blinders on without having a

[18:05]broader view so it's true that god has guaranteed sustenance he is

[18:11]our provider here's our rub and as a rub as our lord

[18:15]he has not only created us he's guaranteed that he will provide

[18:17]for us as long as he ordains that we should continue living

[18:22]however the sustenance that he provides for us is contingent it's dependent

[18:27]on certain prerequisites that we ourselves have to fulfill and if we

[18:30]fail to fulfill those prerequisites then the guaranteed substance the guarantee that

[18:34]doesn't come through it doesn't actualize so for instance you know if

[18:40]i yes god has guaranteed me provision but if i'm lazy and

[18:43]decide i'm gonna you know just sit down and pray and say

[18:47]oh look give me give me substance and i don't lift a

[18:48]finger to work then nothing's gonna come to me not because his

[18:53]guarantee has failed but rather i have to fulfill the necessary condition

[18:55]for his guarantee to kick in right and so there's certain prerequisites

[19:00]that we have to fulfill in order to make that guarantee come

[19:03]through and we can actually have a role to play to bar

[19:09]that sustenance to come either to ourselves or even to other people

[19:12]not that we have the power to to contest god not at

[19:15]all he himself has given us a role to play where we

[19:18]can and end up barring people from receiving the substances guaranteed to

[19:22]them so you might do everything you're supposed to do you do

[19:26]it by the book you work you um are a believer and

[19:29]god has guaranteed sustenance for you it is coming down to you

[19:32]but i could i could come in between i could steal from

[19:35]you i could borrow that sustenance from coming coming to you and

[19:38]then i would have the effect of uh reducing your sustenance maybe

[19:42]even making you poor right that's part of the the system that

[19:46]allah has has provided for us he doesn't he's not heavy-handed in

[19:50]the way he deals with the the world he allows for us

[19:52]to make certain choices good and bad and then we are judged

[19:57]accordingly and each of our choices creates a test for other people

[19:59]and there's this interaction and interplay between all of us but the

[20:03]point is that just because allah has guaranteed sustenance just because he

[20:08]is the caretaker and the creator of the universe does not necessarily

[20:11]mean that we can do as we wish and expect that his

[20:16]creation is management his provision is going to continue the way it

[20:21]always has we can do things that will prevent that that will

[20:23]create extreme hardship that will create famine and hunger and poverty that

[20:27]will kill people we can do things like that he's given us

[20:29]that power and if we do then we will have failed in

[20:32]the trust failed as custodians and and we'll see some of the

[20:39]results that we're seeing now resilience a couple other things so those

[20:52]are two misconceptions that i think are are it's significant in giving

[20:56]us this attitude of being cavalier with regard to the environment and

[21:00]not being good custodians a third thing that we have in our

[21:03]culture that has developed at least to be eradicated the sooner the

[21:07]better is a culture of wastefulness particularly to the muslim community it's

[21:15]it's a general problem throughout the world but um because we're extremely

[21:19]sensitive to ourselves and we hold ourselves to a very high standard

[21:21]because of the the models that have been put down as the

[21:25]bar that we have to live up to um we should hold

[21:28]ourselves to that standard and critique ourselves internally first so we have

[21:33]a culture of what wastefulness despite the fact that the quran speaks

[21:37]so so solidly against israel right not only in using things that

[21:42]are not um that are in excess of what we need but

[21:47]also misusing those consuming more the verse says eat and drink but

[21:53]don't be excessive or it's not saying don't throw away food that's

[21:55]also a given you're not supposed to throw away the suspicious ticket

[21:58]that's given to us but means don't consume more than you're required

[22:03]to eat as much as you need to sustain yourself if you

[22:07]eat over that then you're also doing a softest kind of waste

[22:16]so what let me cut a little bit short again i'm getting

[22:19]uh gestures from the back as well to to end the lecture

[22:23]my point is that if we similar to how christianity has um

[22:30]been misinterpreted in a way that's given rise to a certain sentiment

[22:33]that's there not only in the christian world but that's leaked and

[22:36]seeped out into our common culture insofar as it's influenced by christian

[22:40]culture that is going to rise to a certain attitude towards the

[22:43]environment it's possible also and it is actually the fact that in

[22:46]the islamic world we also have similar misconceptions and wrong ideas that

[22:50]have to be corrected if we're going to be affected in changing

[22:54]our attitudes as a people and becoming not only on par with

[22:59]the society around us in terms of environmental action but where we

[23:03]should be as leaders of that sort of movement but we should

[23:06]have a consciousness that we are in fact custodians of god and

[23:08]that we should act as such guard the the creation that god

[23:13]has given us preserve it in the best way use it in

[23:15]the best way be thankful for him use it as a tool

[23:18]to get back to him but not just use it and exploit

[23:21]it to our own self

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