IERA: conveying the call by Fahad Tasleem F.Tasleem@iERA.

org
Based on “The Divine Reality” book by Hamza Andreas
Fitrah and First Principles
❖ You cannot achieve absolute certainty with Science
⮚ Because current and future observations are different: Paradim shift
▪ It’s mutable
❖ Science is based on inductive thinking
⮚ Based on observation, not complete 100% certainty
❖ Can you prove mutual exclusivity?
⮚ No, you cannot, you can only assume
❖ 2 things
⮚ Rational
⮚ Irrational
⮚ 3rd category: Supra – Rational (Fitrah)
▪ Something that cannot be proven but must be assumed true
▪ Ex: logical principles, why can’t you prove them?? 🡪 Cannot ask why infinitely
▪ Cannot rationally prove aesthetic taste
● Sunset is pretty/no it isn’t
▪ Someone says they can prove supra rational
● This is a problem
● You cannot doubt everything
♦ Because then you doubt your doubt 🡪 intellectual paralysis
❖ Ayah – means sign in Arabic
⮚ Root alif ya ya is the root
⮚ Ayul almal afda – which of these deeds
⮚ One of the qualities of ayah is that the effect is immediate
▪ You already know the sign -🡪 its in your fitrah
▪ You aren’t learning anything new
THE POINT FROM THE PAST FEW SECTIONS IS JUST TO SAY THERE ARE THINGS
YOU CANNOT PROVE
❖ What are First Principles?
⮚ Is a basic assumption that cannot be deduced any further
▪ Like axioms, what is an axiom?
▪ You cannot prove you exist
● This is a first principle
▪ Nature is uniform 🡪 another first principle
● Gravity is uniform 🡪 it will happen every time (a ball will drop every time)
♦ Cannot go to the future and say the ball with drop every time
● If I drop it 100 times, it will fall 100 times
❖ Everything has a first principle
⮚ Metaphysics tries to understand stuff using the first principles
⮚ Metaphysics precedes method what?
❖ What is the Islamic First Principle?
⮚ The Fitrah
▪ Knowledge of Allah is in the fitrah
⮚ Christians believe they are born in original sin
▪ They are born bad because of sin of Adam (as)
▪ Islam is counter to this argument
● We are born good in the fitrah that Allah provided
● You cannot change the fitrah (why do you feel good once you give to charity?)
❖ The point is not to out argue a person
⮚ The motive is to awaken the fitrah inside them
⮚ Rational arguments for the existence of God are a means, not an end
❖ The clouded fitrah 🡪 aka polluted heart
⮚ Things that can uncloud a polluted fitrah
▪ Revelation 🡪 pondering over the quran
▪ Experiences
● First time you saw the Kabah feeling
♦ Noone can say that is irrational
● Feeling when humans pass away or new humans are born
▪ Rational Arguments
▪ Reflection and introspections
● Stand for Allah.
● Don’t gang dawah anyone
● The ego is what prevents conversion
Atheism
❖ There is no consensus on the practical belief on what god is
❖ Positive Atheism
⮚ There is no god
⮚ This is rare, claim is a positive assertion,
▪ “I know for a fact there is no god”
● K dude
❖ Veiled Agnosticism
⮚ Doubt the existence of a creator
⮚ Religion has not given me enough evidence that there is a god
⮚ Most atheist are veiled agnostics
▪ If a good argument presented itself, they would accept it
❖ Does not believe in any gods
⮚ “I would be an atheist even if they proved god existed”
▪ It’s cool to be an atheist
 ▪ Secularism has seeped so far into society
❖ Misotheism: hatred of god
⮚ Suffering in the world = how could a god exist
⮚ The book of Mormon is a play that played in London and there is a scene in the play where they go
to an African village and start dancing. Mormons and natives dancing and the natives started cursing
god. Natives say that they live terrible lives so what kind of god would do that to his creation.
⮚ Misotheists struggle with evil in a world controlled by a loving, compassionate god
⮚ I own myself
▪ If you own yourself therefore the government shouldn’t tax you
● Taxes are a type of slavery
❖ Philosophical Naturalism
⮚ 4 things that they form their world view on
▪ All phenomena can be explained via physical processes
▪ Reject supernatural claims
▪ There is nothing outside of the universe 🡪 god/higher realm/world of unseen
▪ If there is anything outside the universe it does interfere with it 🡪our universe isn’t associated
⮚ All philosophical naturalist are atheists but not vice versa
⮚ Hard problem of consciousness 🡪 What is this
❖ Richard Dawkins says atheists are philosophical naturalists
⮚ They don’t dismiss non-physical phenomena
❖ Islamic Definition
⮚ Means deviation (forgot Arabic term)
⮚ Is noted as irrational
❖ Denying Allah = shirk?
⮚ You cannot deny an absolute
⮚ Rationality is an amazing tool
▪ Imagine comparing rationality to a solvent
▪ Solvent can dissolve anything 🡪 rationality can prove everything
● Then what bottle do you put the solvent in, if it dissolves everything?
♦ So, you need a bottle to keep rationality 🡪 supra rational
⮚Allah is samad 🡪 allah is absolute
▪ Cannot say everything is relative
▪ There has to be an absolute
▪ We cannot function without an absolute
❖ Growth of atheism
⮚ Last 20 or so years, huge surge in atheism due to social and intellectual movements
⮚ New Atheism – popularized by best modern writers such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris,
Christopher Hitchens, and Dan Dennet
Implications of Atheism
❖ Let us assume that you believe in philosophical naturalism
⮚ What implication of that belief on you?
 ▪ How did you get here?
▪ Where are you from?
▪ Where did you come from?
⮚ What does philosophical naturalism imply? (classroom responses)
▪ You are not responsible for everything
▪ Life is unfair
▪ Morality is subjective
▪ Focus on worldly desires
▪ No cop no stop
▪ Existence is based on chance

The FOLLOWING ARE NOT RATIONAL ARGUMENTS: HOPE, JUSTICE, VALUE,

PURPOSE, HAPPINESS
❖ An Existential Disaster
⮚ Physical processes are blind, cold, and non-intentional, and non-rational (random)
▪ If there is no god, then there is no hope, no purpose, no value, and no meaningful happiness
● Surah 20 verse 124
● No Ultimate Hope
♦ You can hope without god
⮚ But what about ultimate hope? 🡪 like in terms of life and death
⮚ When an atheist goes to a funeral, how does he offer condolences?
▪ All it is one person going from one state of matter to another. From a body to a
body in the ground
▪ There is no hope for the joy of life to continue once you are on your death bed
⮚ At the moment of death, you encourage the one in passing about hope. You are
about to meet Allah, the most merciful.
♦ When you give dawah, you have to speak to people on the human level
⮚ When you need hope, the hope is there
● No Ultimate Justice
♦ Under philosophical naturalism, justice is unachievable
♦ The one that can find meaning in suffering can go through any suffering
♦ Where is the justice for the Jewish woman who was thrown into the fire?
⮚ Human Justice dictates that Hilter die 6,000,000 for each death he caused
⮚ Where is the Justice for those set afire?
♦ Is there justice in Islam?
⮚ Yes, Allah is the most Just
● No Ultimate Value
♦ Imagine there is a chocolate Easter bunny. Let’s say you bump into someone angry with
a hammer. Should he hit the bunny or the person he ran into? Most people would say hit
the bunny not the person because person is more valuable. But under philosophical
naturalism, why is the person more valuable than the bunny?
 ⮚ The person has no more value than a chocolate bunny. What gives the atoms that
make a person more value than the atoms that make up the chocolate bunny?
⮚ Atheist Guy
● No Ultimate Purpose
♦ And then what?
⮚ Then you die
⮚ It all leads to death.
♦ Ultimate Purpose
⮚ Why are you here on Earth?
● No Meaningful Happiness
♦ Let’s say you blacked out and woke up on a comfortable plane. You are in comfort but
wouldn’t you question how you got there?
⮚ You can never achieve meaningful happiness in philosophical naturalism
Why Atheism is Unnatural
❖ Imagine you had an old school friend and he was kinda wacky. Let’s say he calls you later in life, do you
really want to answer his call? You don’t feel like it but you pick up. He’s in town and wants to chill. You
think you should meet up. You go out and he tells you that the past is not real. Like 5 mins ago never
happened. You can tell him that’s crazy tell me why you think that or you can say let me prove to my why
you’re wrong.
⮚ A lot of time people would come to you and say “prove to me god exists”
⮚ When it come to an idea of a creator, the burden of proof is on the person who claims there doesn’t
exit a creator.
❖ Self-evident truth
⮚ This is a first principle idea
⮚ There is no proof for it
▪ No proof for uniformity for nature
▪ No proof for reality of past
▪ No proof of validity of our reasoning
▪ No proof for existence of other minds
● Prove to me u exist
▪ No proof of an external world
⮚ You don’t go around proving self-evident truth, it’s a starting point
⮚ Common characteristics of self-evident truths
▪ Universal
● Not a product of culture. The belief that the past was real is not the product of one
particular culture
● Its not the whole world agrees on it. It’s that its cross cultural
▪ Untaught
● Not based on information transfer. Not acquired via information external to your
introspection and senses
● You aren’t taught this, its just common sense
 ▪ Intuitive
● The easiest and simplest interpretation of the world. The past being real makes sense of
intuitions
● Allah is al – Khaliq – the creator
▪ Natural
● Formed due to the natural functioning of the human psyche
❖ Allah is a self-evident truth
⮚ Kelemen D (2004) Are Children “Intuitive theists” Reasoning about purposes and design in nature.
Psychological Science 15(5)
⮚ Prior creative process is something we as Muslims have
BURDEN OF PROOF IS NOT ON YOU. ITS ON THE PERSON WHO CLAIMS THERE IS NO
GOD. HOW DID THE WORLD COME TOGETHER WITHOUT PRIOR CREATIVE
PROCESSES?
IF YOU ARE ON THE TRUTH, YOU DON’T HAVE TO PROVE IF GOD EXISTS. THE
PERSON WHO CLAIMS THAT THERE IS NO GOD HAS TO PROVE IT.

Quranic Arguments
❖ Atheists are just dogs without teeth.
❖ Let’s imagine you enter a cave. There’s no way in no way out. When you wake up you see a computer on a
desk that says “this desk and computer came from nothing”.
⮚ You might ask yourself how that is possible.
⮚ Atheists say you can get something from nothing.
⮚ What is nothing?
▪ Nothing is nothing.
Surah 52 Ayah 35-36
“Or were they created from nothing? Or were they the creators themselves? Or did they create heavens and
earth? Rather, they are not certain”
They aren’t certain
In atheism they aren’t certain of anything
❖ Or were they created by nothing
⮚ Refers to human beings but could apply to anything that begins to exist
⮚ Things that began to exist:
▪ Created from nothing
● “or were they created by nothing”
▪ Self-created
● “or were they the creators of themselves”
▪ Created from something that was created
● “or did they create the heavens and the Earth”
▪ Created from something uncreated
● “Rather they are not certain”
⮚ There is no 5th argument.
❖ Did the universe begin or was it always there?
⮚ Atheists might say the universe is eternal
⮚ Is infinity actualized
▪ It is a mathematical concept, you cant actually have infinity in the real world
▪ Infinity means its always been. There is no beginning or end.
▪ So is there universe infinite/no beginning or end?
● No because infinity isn’t a real thing in the real world
● ACTUAL INFINITY DOES NOT EXIST
⮚ This is not our argument, this is just a precursor to our argument
❖ Were we created out of nothing?
⮚ What do we mean by nothing?
▪ It’s an absence of something
▪ No prior causal conditions
⮚ Option 1 gone
❖ Universe cannot create itself
⮚ Option 2 out
❖ How did god create from nothing?
⮚ Allah is a unique agent with the potential to create and brings things into existence.
⮚ But isn’t Allah infinite??
▪ You cannot have infinity of discrete part
● Allah is one part, not discrete individual
● What is discrete parts?
❖ Option 1 and 2 are gone, so we know there is a creator
⮚ You cannot go back to nothing, so the creator could not have been created. Because it would go back forever.
⮚ The only thing you can say is that we were created by something uncreated.
▪ Allah is eternal and every lasting
▪ Allah has no beginning or end
Confused about the smaller text above-🡪 need clarification
An Argument from Dependency
❖ You walk out of your house and hear a sound of clicking. You look down and it’s a row of dominos
falling, and the last one falls by your foot.
⮚ You walk to see where the dominos came from and found the first domino. What is the assumption
about the first domino?
▪ Something other than the domino caused it to fall. That is the argument of dependency (simply)
▪ That first domino was dependent on something that wasn’t the domino to have fallen
❖ This was the most effective argument
⮚ The Basic Argument:
▪ The universe and al that we perceive is either independent, dependent on something else
dependent, or dependent on something independent and eternal
▪ The universe and al that we perceive cannot be independent or dependent on something else
dependent
▪ Therefore, the universe and all that we perceive depends on something independent and eternal
⮚ The above is creedle neutral and is not dependent on science. It’s a first principle argument.
⮚ It is very hard to debate
❖ “It is the mark of a rational mind to question that which did not have to be”
⮚ Someone may come and say I don’t care what existed or what does exist
 ▪ This is counter to the quote, it would irrational to not question existence
⮚ Fahad Tasleem’s son loves hot Cheetos. So lets imagine that they got hot Cheetos for house guests
and don’t his son not to grab any. An hour later Fahad walks buy and sees an open bag, but the
guests aren’t there yet! What should fahad do? HE needs to question why the bag is open
❖ What is dependent
⮚ It is not Necessary
⮚ Means that it was impossible for it not to have existed
⮚ Things that are not necessary did not have to exist
⮚ There has to be an external explanation to why the first domino fell
⮚ A marker on a table is dependent because it didn’t have to exist, it is not necessary. It could be
anywhere
▪ There has to be a proof of why the marker was on the table at that specific spot
⮚ The arrangement of something is dependent on something arranging it
⮚ The specifics of a remote could have been arranged in a different way. It was dependent on
something to place it in that way: the engineer
⮚ Its defining features are that it has limited physical qualities
▪ The shape color and charge of a remote were given to it some external force
Start from here if you are confused:
❖ Three basic qualities of dependent
⮚ Didn’t have have to exist
⮚ Could have been arranged in a different 🡪 has to have external thing arranging it
⮚ It has limited physical quality 🡪 something else placed its limitation on it
❖ The universe and all that we perceive are eternal, necessary, and independent
⮚ Why is this not possible?
▪ For the three reasons we mentioned above
❖ The universe and all that we perceive depends for its existence on something else, which is also
dependent
⮚ Why is this not possible?
▪ Something dependent on something else goes back to infinity 🡪 infinite regression
▪ You would not have a universe if something was dependent on something dependent over and
over
❖ The only way to explain things that are dependent is by referring to something that is not dependent and
therefore necessary. An infinite number of dependencies is impossible.
❖ Therefore, the universe and all that we perceive depends on something independent and eternal
⮚ We can conclude that the universe and everything that we perceive dependents upon something that
is eternal and independent. This is best explained by the existence of god.
❖ The Islamic Tradition
⮚ “Allah is independent of al that exists” (3:97)
⮚ “O mankind: It is you who stand in need of Allah, whereas he alone is self – sufficient, the one
whom all praises are due” (35:15)
⮚ Allah does things to you to remind you of your state (you belong to allah)
Argument for Morality
❖ Let’s say you are watching the news and you see “man beheads 2 year old”. Human response is to feel
bad. But what is immoral/wrong?
⮚ Yes, but what is objectively immoral?
▪ What does objective mean: Considering facts without being influenced by personal feelings
⮚ If there are objective morals, then god exists
⮚ Allah is the anchor for those morals
❖ God is independent and has the right to total moral standard
❖ The Islamic Position:
⮚ God is a maximum perfection: He is maximal knowledgeable, powerful and good. Perfect goodness
is Gods essential nature. When God makes a moral command, it is a derivative of His will, and His
will does not contradict his nature. There what god commands is good because he is good, and he
defines what good is.
❖ Euthyphros Dilemma
⮚ Is something morally good because God commanded it or does God command it because it is
morally good?
▪ If morality defined by gods commands
● Arbitrary horn
▪ If morality is external to gods commands
● Allah chooses what is good and then commands it
▪ There is a third possibility
● “you are peace and you are the source of peace”
● Argument is god is good
♦ Atheist response: you must know what good is to define god as good and therefore you
haven’t solved the problem
⮚ Our response: god defines what good is. He is the only Being worthy of worship
because He is the most perfect and moral Being
❖ Metre des Archives
⮚ The French decided what a meter is. When we say a meter, it’s what the French decided it was
❖ Ive kinda clocked out 7:02 PM
❖ Buzz words
⮚ Objective morals, subjective morals