The Purpose of Life - Jeffrey Lang

Salamu alaykum. Uh, my, uh, I've come from the University of Kansas. We're playing in the Final Four this very instant, so I want to let you know that you've asked a lot of me today. No, I'm just joking. All right, I want very briefly, I, I just want to talk a little bit about, uh, what the Quran has to say about the purpose of life. Uh, I think this is an extremely important subject, especially for Muslims living in America because we're, uh, sort of a minority new religion here, and many people are interested in what we believe. And I think the primary question that people want answered when they first consider another religion is how that religion views, it's how that religion views the purpose of life, the purpose of human, of our existence here. And so, um, I'm going to begin, though, uh, talking about the, a, an atheist point of view because I want to talk about what sort of answers the Quran might have for an atheist. So to begin this, I need to talk for about 5 or 10 minutes about, you know, what made me, what I believe contributed to my becoming an atheist because I grew up in a Christian family. And then I'll talk for about 45 minutes or so about, uh, what I experienced in the Quran and how that sort of changed my perception. So it's very simple, but my wife always says I should summarize what I'm going to do before I talk because it's easy to get lost in my speeches. And you, you know, my wife doesn't have a lot of confidence in my speaking ability. Okay, so, uh, let me start out by, uh, mentioning that my mother certainly played no role in my becoming an atheist. My mother was a wonderful woman, uh, a beautiful lady. She had tremendous dignity and class. She, uh, uh, the neighbors loved her. She was a registered nurse, and she put in many extra hours at the hospital. She worked in the ward that dealt with dying patients. And when I would come and pick her up late from work at night, all the patients would, not all the patients, but many of the patients would drag me over and talk to me and tell me what a wonderful woman my mother was. When she died, her funeral was packed, and person after person that came up to me had a story to tell about my mother and her goodness. Time and time again, people described her as, "Jeff, you know, your mother is a true saint." She was a deeply religious woman, a great mother, a great teacher, a gentle person. She never cursed. I never heard her curse, you know, swear ever in her whole life. Never heard her speak to anybody rudely or speak about anyone rudely. She was a tremendous example of a truly religious person, and she didn't wear it on her sleeve. It was just slowly but surely you could see it just in her day-to-day interactions with people. Uh, my father, on the other hand, was a difficult man. Um, my father, for some strange reason, had this tremendous rage inside him. I don't know where he got it. Uh, he had this terrible violence inside him, and every night he would try to quell that violence with hard, hard drinking. And his drinking, though, only made him all the more volatile because my father could be laughing and joking one minute, and he could fly into an angry rampage the next for some unexpected reason. You never know what would trigger it. And once he flew into that angry rampage, it would take, you know, he would just go wild in the house. The house would be in havoc, and he would rage on and on and on. And it would take an awful lot of liquor and several hours before he would finally go to sleep. And this would happen night after night after night. And so my four brothers and I, I was the fourth in line, my four brothers and I lived a frightening and precarious childhood. But I'd have to say the worst of it was watching my father regularly taunt and threaten and abuse my mother. And it would happen day in, day in, day in, day out, night, night in, night out, and it was an ever never-ending nightmare. You see, it's really not so bad when you're the target of your father's violence. You might think it's bad when a child is the target of their father's violence, but it's really not all that bad. Uh, at the moment of attack, you're really not thinking about anything except your own survival. When he's firing punches at you or kicking you on the ground or chasing you throughout the house or when he's threatening you, "I'm going to hurt you, bad boy," you're not thinking about anything at that moment except escape. While all that's going on, you're not thinking about the aftermath or consequences, the psychological repercussions or anything like that. And when it's all over, you might even excuse the onslaught because you figure maybe you somehow deserved it. If not for what you did this time, maybe for something you did in the past. You could always put the blame on yourself. But a far worse fear is the terror that overcomes you when you watch your father go after your mother because she's the only source of warmth and kindness, of love and protection that you know. And if he were to take that away from a little boy's standpoint, then you've lost everything. But far worse than the fear is the guilt, and it comes over you from several directions. First of all, there's the guilt that comes at you upon you from the growing antipathy you have towards your father because we're taught to love and respect our parents, and we are born with this natural bonding attachment to them. But when you watch something like this happen night after night after night, and you, this rage is growing inside you, you're being pulled in opposite directions. Then there's also, of course, the guilt that comes when you think that you might be the cause of this night's violence. Maybe something you said or did that you didn't even realize triggered it. Maybe just your father's dislike of you triggered an argument between your mom and him that is now raging on downstairs. But the worst guilt of all, and it is by far the very worst, is knowing that you did nothing to stop your father from hurting your mother because while he raged on against your mother downstairs, you hid in your bed and you trembled underneath the covers. Maybe you whimpered and you cried, and you put the pillow on your head. And thus you traded personal respect for personal safety. And with each such incident, you come to realize with ever greater and greater clarity, you come to realize your own weakness, your own impotence, your own incompetence, your own worthlessness, your own cowardice. And the hate grows and festers inside you not only for the man that you call father but for yourself as well. It is a terrible, terrible thing to make a young boy choose between his mother and himself. It is extremely unfair. I noticed that tomorrow there's going to be a lecture about, tomorrow morning, a lecture about spousal abuse, uh, given by Dr. Shaheen, um, Rzan. I hope you all attend it. I think it's a very important subject. When I was little, I used to daydream about life without my father. I just wanted the violence to go away. I wanted not to be afraid anymore. I felt like I was trapped in a bad dream, and there was no way out. And so I prayed to God again and again and again to take, to remove my father from our lives, but he was always there. And very soon I began to wonder if God really was. I could not fathom why God would subject my mom to such lifelong punishment. Could not imagine what great sin she must have committed or that we, her children, must have committed to deserve my father. I didn't have the maturity to sort out such questions, but I had enough fear and anger to provoke them. I was too young to see the wisdom in allowing my father to, I mean, my mom to suffer the violence and abuse of my father. I was too young to understand why God would let innocent children tremble night after night after night in their beds fearing that they might not see their mother the next morning. I was too young to see how the mercy of God could even extend to my father with all his terrible failings. All I could see in my world was chaos and violence and fear. And so it became easy for me to question the existence of God, and I began to do that at a

just want to talk a little bit about uh what the Quran has to say about the purpose of life uh I think this is an extremely important subject especially for Muslims Living in America because we're uh sort of a minority new religion here and many

people are interested in what we believe and I think the primary question that people want answered when they first consider another religion is how that religion views it's how that religion views the purpose of life the purpose of

human of our existence here and so um I'm going to begin though uh talking about the a an atheist point of view because I want to talk about what sort of qu answers the Quran might have for an atheist so to begin this I need to

talk for about 5 or 10 minutes about you know what made me what I believe contributed to my becoming an atheist because I grew up in a Christian family and then I'll talk for about 45 minutes or so about uh what I experienced in the

Quran and how that sort of changed my perception so it's very simple but my wife always says I should summarize what I'm going to do before I talk because it's easy to get lost in my speeches and you

know my wife doesn't have a lot of confidence in my speaking ability okay so uh let me start out by uh mentioning that my mother certainly played no role in my becoming an atheus my mother was a wonderful woman uh a

beautiful lady she had tremendous dignity in class she uh uh the neighbors loved her she was a a registered nurse and she put in many extra hours at the hospital her she worked in the W that dealt with dying

patients and when I would come and pick her up late from work at night all the patients would not all the patients but many of the patients would drag me over and talk to me and tell me what a

wonderful woman my mother was when she died her funeral is packed and person after person that came up to me had a story to tell about my mother and her goodness time and time again people described her as Jeff you know

your mother is a true Saint she was a deeply religious woman a great mother a great teacher a gentle person she never cursed I never heard her curs you know swore ever in her whole life never heard her speak to anybody rudely or speak

about anyone rudely she was a tremendous example of a of a truly religious person and she didn't wear it on her sleeve it was just slowly but surely you could see it just in her day-to-day interactions with people uh my father on the other hand

was a difficult man um my father for some strange reason had this tremendous rage inside him I don't know where he got it uh he had this terrible violence inside him and every night he would try to quell that violence with

hard hard drinking and his drinking though only made him all the more volatile because my father could be laughing and joking one minute and he could fly into an angry Rampage the next for some unexpected reason you never

know what would trigger it and once he flew into that angry Rampage it would take you know he would just go wild in the house the house would be in havoc and he would rage on and on and on

and it would take an awful lot of liquor and several hours before he would finally go to sleep and this would happen night after night after night and so my four brothers and I I was the fourth in line

my four brothers and I lived a frightening and precarious childhood but I'd have to say the worst of it was watching my father regularly taunt and threaten and abuse my mother and it would happen day in day in day in day

out night night in night out and it was an ever never ending nightmare you see it's really not so bad when you're the target of your father's violence you might think it's bad when a child is the target of their father's

violence but it's really not all that bad uh at the moment of attack you're really not thinking about anything except your own Survival when he's firing punches at you or kicking you on the ground or chasing you throughout the house or when he's

threatening you I'm going to hurt you bad boy you're not thinking about anything at that moment except Escape while all that's going on you're not thinking about the aftermath or Consequences the psychological repercussions or anything like that and

when it's all over you might even excuse the onslaught because you figure maybe you somehow deserved it if not for what you did this time maybe for something you did in the past you could always put the blame on yourself

but a far worse fear is the terror that overcomes you when you watch your father go after your mother because she's the only source of warmth and kindness of love and protection that you know and if he were

to take that away from a little boy's standpoint then youve lost everything but far worse than the fear is the guilt and it comes over you from several directions first of all there's the guilt that comes at you upon you from the growing

antipathy you have towards your father because we're taught to love and respect our parents and we are born with this natural bonding attachment to them but when you watch something like this happen night after night after night and you this rage is growing

inside you you're being pulled in opposite directions then there's also of course the guilt that comes when you think that you might be the cause of this night night's violence maybe something you said or did that you didn't even realize triggered

it maybe just your father's dislike of you triggered an argument between your mom and him that is now raging on downstairs but the worst guilt of all and it is by far the very worst is knowing that you did nothing to

stop your father from hurting your mother because while he raged on against your mother downstairs you hid in your bed and you trembled underneath the covers maybe you whimpered and you cried and you put the pillow on your

head and thus you traded personal respect for personal safety and with each such inent incident you come to realize with ever greater and greater Clarity you come to realize your own weakness your own impotence your own incompetence your own

worthlessness your own cowardice and the hate grows and festers inside you not only for the man that you call father but for yourself as well it is a terrible terrible thing to make a young boy choose between his

mother and himself it is extremely unfair I noticed that tomorrow there's going to be a a lecture about tomorrow morning a lecture about spousal abuse uh given by Dr Shaheen um rzan I hope you all attend it I think it's a

very important subject when I was little I used to daydream about life without my father I just wanted the violence to go away I wanted not to be afraid anymore I felt like I was trapped in a bad dream and there was no way

out and so I prayed to God again and again and again to take to remove my father from our lives but he was always there and very soon I began to wonder if God really was I could not fathom why God would

subject my mom to such lifelong punishment could not imagine what great sin she must have committed or that we her children must have committed to deserve my father I didn't have the maturity to sort out such questions but I had enough

fear and anger to provoke them I was too young to see the wisdom in allowing my father to I mean my mom to suffer the violence and abuse of my father I was too young to understand why God would let innocent children tremble

night after night after night in their beds fearing that they might not see their mother the next morning I was too young to see how the mercy and of God could even extend to my father with all his terrible failings all I could see in

my world was chaos and violence and fear and so it became easy for me to question the existence of God and I began to do that at a very early age I think I'll even say that the turmoil of

the 60s and 70s that's the age when I was a teenager and you know late 60s early 70s only uh reinforced my skepticism when John and Robert F Kennedy were assassinated or Martin Luther King was gunned down when vice

president agu was kicked out of office and Richard Nixon soon after him when the race riots erupted in city streets like mine and gang fights erupted in our cities many of those which I was involved in when I saw the bizarre and

senseless Carnage of Vietnam they all confirmed the lesson that was already ingrained in me and that my father had taught me so well that the world is dominated by random consuming undiscriminating violence and very soon I began to ask why why would God make it

that way why wouldn't he just pop us into heaven from the first and spirit all this suffering why does he let little children in Vietnam get napalmed and run down a street naked on fire when they had done nothing to deserve it you know

why does he let the race riots go on why does he let the leaders be assassinated why does he just let the violence go on and on and on for people who had nothing to do with it it wasn't of their own

making why didn't he just make us angels and pop us into heaven if he could make us Angels which I was always thought he could why did he make us so susceptible to sin why didn't he make us impervious to

it like he made the Angels is this the best world he could create I thought is this the most perfect world he could create for our existence for our beginning I just couldn't figure it and all the explanations I received from

priests and doctors and lawy you know from whoever you know spoke to me or taught me they just didn't make sense to me in any case so I became an atheist when I was 16 even though I was going to

Catholic school at the time declared myself an atheist in one class it was confrontation between me and a priest we were talking about God and the purpose of life and I expressed My Views and he said well then you don't believe in God

I said well I guess I don't and then through my junior a Junior and Senior year of high school I got an F in religion even though I continued to do very well in the test in any case when I was 28 to make a

long story short some friends of mine gave me a copy of the Quran and one night I was sitting in Diamond Heights my apartment in Diamond Heights in San Francisco I was working that time at the University of San Francisco I was 27 28

at that time I can't remember and I ran out of stuff to read and I took this gift that my friends gave me and I began to read it and I came to the first verse well I opened the Quran read the first page

then the second and then very quickly in the second Surah about 37 verses into the Quran I Came Upon the story of mankind and uh I have to admit I read through it very quickly it was about 9

10 verses long story of the first man and woman and I recognized some of the details it was similar to what I had learned when I was a child but I noticed that there was something wrong it was

apparent to me that whoever authored this Quran of course I wasn't a Muslim at the time so I didn't have any idea who that was whoever authored this Quran clearly did not understand the real meaning of the story CU they had

obviously gotten the details confused they even didn't even understand the whole purpose of the story and so uh I just read through it once and then I read through it again just to try to see what kind of point

the author was making and then I read through it a third time and a fourth and then I realized this is something strange going on here I'm going to read this much more carefully I'm going to need to go through this story line by

line verse by verse because it's vious that the author is trying to bring out another point and I wasn't quite sure what it was but definitely he packs a lot of meaning into almost every word and I thought the writer at least

seems to have a great measure of Brilliance and so I'll try sort of take you through what my experience was as quickly as I can so I came to the second the 30th verse of the second Surah Surah

Al bakar and it began like this it said behold your lord said to the angels I am going to place a vicant on Earth the Arabic word is Khalifa it means a representative or an emissary of mine I am going to place a vcin on Earth

and they said the angel said will you place therein one who will spread corruption and shed blood while we celebrate your praises and glorify your Holiness when God said he said truly I know what you do not know

see that's the verse that hooked me that's the verse that caught my attention that's the one that kept on making me read the story again and again and again because listen to the way it begins behold your lord said to the

angels I'm going to place a representative of mine on earth a vicant of mine an emissary one who acts on my behalf I thought that's not the way it goes you're not supposed to be placing man on the earth and some positive role

some elective office you place man as a on Earth as a punish for his sin clearly I knew the author didn't quite get the point but still it was an amazing line but then I come to the next

line and it says and the angels say will you place her in one who will spread corruption and shed blood while we celebrate your praises and glorify you I looked at it again I couldn't believe the question they said will you placed

her in one who will spread corruption and shed blood while we the Angels celebrate your praises and Glory ify you I looked at that and I said exactly that would be my question why would you create this being supposedly for some positive role

when he's capable of doing tremendous wrongdoing when he could spread corruption and shed much blood why would you create this violent and pernicious creature when you could create angels as the angels Clearly say well we while we the Angels celebrate

your praises and glorify you they were asking one of the most fundamental questions in the entire history of religion why create you man this utterly fallible creature this creature who could rebel against God will who could do such tremendous

wrongdoing who could wreak havoc like no other creature on earth when you can make them angels and look where the question is being asked it's being asked in heaven it's almost like saying look why don't you just make him angels and be up

here in heaven with us you know why don't just make him Angels pop him into heaven he's fine why would you put him on Earth where he could feel distant from you where we could work out his worse criminal Tendencies act them out

feeling somehow independent and apart from you and free to do whatever he wants when you could just make them angels and put them into heaven and make them perfectly submissive to your will I looked at that question and said

that's my question I'm not I'm one not even a single verse into the story of mankind and there before me I see my question that whole question everything that I ever thought everything that I ever experienced everything that I ever knew

was in that question was if the author took my life and wanted to pick out exactly the right question to humiliate me to provoke me to anger me why create man this most destructive and violent creature when you can make him

angels and then look at the answer and he said God said truly I know what you do not know you know in modern Parliament we would say I know exactly what I'm doing I read that and said what you know

what you do not know you know exactly what you're doing well please inform me tell me what you're doing cuz you know I'm I'm 28 years old and I haven't figured out yet and I have a lot of

issues that I'm still dealing with that's connected to this question you can't just get off that easy you can't just tell me you know exactly what you're doing not after what I've been through not after you made me this

way and then I realized of course I was arguing with a god I didn't even believe in and that would happen several times as I read through the Quran and sometimes I would just get into such so agitated by what I read I start

arguing with this voice that's that's that I'm reading before me that's calling to me so we turn to the next verse it turns out that the Quran just doesn't dismiss the question and starts to answer it a little bit and in the

next verse it says and he taught Adam God taught Adam the names of all things and then he placed them before the angels and said tell me there names if you are right so this verse is clearly referring to the

previous one but notice what it says now I I from my own background I remember Adam naming things but it wasn't connected to any answer to any philosophical question but here notice what it says and he taught Adam the

names of all things and I realized already just from the first verse you got to read these verses very carefully because packed with a lot of symbolism and meaning and he taught Adam the names of all things so here we see Adam is not

only just a creature who knows how to name things who's acquiring the gift of language but he's also a learning creature God is teaching him and right here right in this verse and it'll come even clearer in the subsequent verses

that the very first thing that that the Quran is going to emphasize here is man's intellect he is a learning creature he is taught and what is he taught what is the what is one of the great intellectual gifts he's given in

response to the Angel's question the gift of language because through language mankind could not only learn but he could learn things not only through his own experience but he could learn things that other people have experienced of times and places

that are hundreds thousands of years and Miles separated from him and so that all our knowledge becomes cumulative every generation learning from the generation before it I'm learning today from authors I read from other sides of the world that may have existed 2,000 years

ago and so we all contribute to our collective learning and knowledge and so I'll see later in the Quran when the Quran will emphasize this again and again and again like in one verse it says read in the name of your lord who

created created a man out of a tiny creature that clings read it commands the reader for your lord is most Bountiful why is he most Bountiful what great gift did he give you for he taught man the use of the pen and through it

taught him what he otherwise could not know and time and time and time again the Quran will call upon man to use his intellectual faculties and swear by his intellectual faculties and to and to use them correctly as a because they play a

fundamental role in guiding him to truth I never came upon a scripture that puts so much emphasis on the correct use of our intellectual faculties on the harnessing of Reason in helping us attain to Faith and he taught Adam the names of all things

and then he placed them before the angels and said tell me their names if you are right okay you have this objection to you have this natural question about this creation of mankind here this mankind is a this

human being this human creature is a learning creature he has many intellectual gifts here I'm going to place these things before you tell me their names if you are right about man and what did the Angels say in the next

verse they say Glory GL to you we have no knowledge except what you have taught us in truth it is you are knowing the wise they say this is this task this intellectual test that's put before them is beyond their

grasp notice what they emphasize we have no knowledge this would take knowledge this would take an intellect that they don't possess in truth it is you who are knowing the wise you got it it's easy for you you have you're the knowing the

wise you have knowledge you have wisdom but this would take knowledge and wisdom that is beyond us and so in the next verse we read and he said oh Adam tell them tell them their names and when he had told them their

names notice how it just like it's nothing for him for mankind he has this phenomenal ability and when he had told them their names as if it's just a triviality for man he names them oh Adam tell them their names and

when he had told them their names God said did I not tell you that I know what is unseen in the heavens and the Earth and I know what you reveal and conceal clearly going back to the Angel's question yes you have these

natural concerns about the creation of mankind yes he could do these evil things but look at this tremendous intellect he has this is something you have overlooked that you haven't considered and that's clearly the point of these verses even though I under I felt that

the author didn't quite you know it was as if I I realized that he didn't just didn't misunderstand the story he was taking one of the great stories in the history of humankind one of the fundamental greatest stories in the

history of mankind and molding it and using it as a vehicle for an entirely original message and God said did I not tell you that I know what is unseen in the heavens and the Earth and I know what you reveal and

what you conceal in other words didn't I tell you I know exactly what I'm doing and then in the next and didn't I not tell you what I that I know what you reveal and conceal I looked at that what question

did there I mean what did they reveal and what did they conceal what did their question reveal and conceal I thought about it for a minute oh it's obvious what did their question reveal just go back and look at the

question it revealed the sinful and sin Sinister propensities of man I mean it's obvious right why are you all looking at me like that you're starting to scare me you're all looking very serious am I losing you wow okay so they revealed the

Sinister and evil propensities of man but what did did their question conceive deal and all you have to do is think about it for a minute human beings yes they could do evil yes they could do wrong yes they could create misery but

they could also do exactly the opposite they could choose to do evil they could choose to do tremendous good they could choose to do tremendous violence they could choose to show tremendous compassion they could choose to be you

know to live by falsehood they could choose to live by the the greatest truths they could be terribly ugly they could be terribly beautiful and I up until that point in my life I like the angels that only saw one half

one side of the coin for the first time when I read that verse believe it or not it was an eye opener for me I had always been obsessed with the evil potentials of human beings when I read that verse I realized that

and I had a great example right in front of me with my own mom I realized that I had been blinded by only one side of human nature so we go on to the next verse and behold we said to the angels

bow down to Adam and they bowed down but not so el el is like the father of Satan Satan satanic beings forces creatures existences he refused and was arrogant he was of those who reject Faith an interesting statement and behold we said to the

angels bow down to Adam and they bowed down bowing down could symbolize two things bowing down could symbolize the superiority of superiority or potential superiority of one being over another and so they bow down to them bowing down

could also mean that they serve that creature in some respect of course the Quran says that all beings serve God all created beings serve God but this verse seems to be indicating and the rest of the Quran will make it clear that these

Angelic beings these Angelic uh uh entities will serve the development of mankind we'll even see later that the satanic beings serve the development of mankind both forces Angelic and satanic will serve the development of mankind because one will present man

with a choice to do the most altruistic things the other will simultaneously try to influence man in the opposite direction and so human human beings will be moral creatures and I'll have to make moral decisions and it's in those moral decisions that they

will grow spiritually and morally as human beings and they'll take that into the next life and the Angelic and satanic forces will be catalysts for those moral choices that they make they will heighten the human being's awareness of the rightfulness and the

wrongfulness of the choice he's about to make and the self the soul the nefs as they say in Arabic will have to make the ultimate choice between good and evil and that choice that test will come again and again and again as human

beings either grow or decline and those tests will come again and again and again to try to help him towards his spiritual Evolution to bring him back but that choice is ultimately ours but I'm getting ahead of myself and so we've said to the angels

bow down to Adam and they bowed down but not so El is Satan this rebellious Force this evil prompter the one who Whispers into the human heart he comes into being and with the introduction of Satan we have the introduction of evil that

evil influences on human beings and notice why El does not bow down he refuses because he was arrogant you know we often hear the what's the root of all evil in the west it's always money greed Etc here the

Quran says that seems to be saying that the root of all evil is not always material wants it's not always money it's not always greed at the heart of evil is arrogance putting yourself above all others of assigning

to yourself special priority and neglecting the rights of others of of of pride and arrogance and envy the source of evil he was of those who reject faith I looked at that verse and I said okay I mean I get why you would create

Angels sort of influence man in a positive direction but why in the story now are you introducing Satan what sort of role was Satan play and then of course you just think about it for a minute and you say yes

the story is telling us that on one hand we have these magnanimous urgings come from One Direction on the other hand we have these satanic urgings coming from another ction in other words the Quran is telling us that man is not only a

learning creature but he's a moral creature he has understanding of right and wrong and God infuses those allows those influences to come to him man is not only an intelligent being but a moral being and so you know the Quran is not

all that difficult to understand you just sort of read it I found and you just sort of follow your nose through it and see what it's saying I'm sure as most of you in the this audience know okay so we see that man is not only

a learning creature but he is a a moral being as well there's another verse in the Quran it says by the soul in that which Whispers into it or which breathes into it it's morality it's immorality and it's God

Consciousness both of these we we are under the influence of and God allows us to be under the influence of us he creates us to to be exposed to both influences and then the verse says truly he is successful who causes it to

grow causes his soul his self his real self to grow and truly he is lost who stunts it who disallows who who destroys his personal growth so mankind is not only an intellectual being but a moral being and

we said in the next verse Oh Adam dwell you and your spouse in the garden and eat freely thereof what you wish and eat freely thereof what you wish but come not near uh this tree for then you will be among the

wrongdoers I looked at this verse and I was you know starting to wonder if the author was drifting back to the old story again I was confused and we said oh Adam dwell you in your spouse in a

garden and eat freely thereof what you wish but come not near this tree for you will be among the wrong doers thought it was drifting back to the old story man sins man's punished for his sins with Earthly life maybe the author is

drifting he had a good idea now he's drifting back to the sort of traditional story maybe he couldn't man make his mind up what story he wanted except for a couple things about this verse and this happened with almost every verse as

I read through it is that uh the whole tenor of the passage is sort of out not the what you would expect I noticed that the Quran in this story has a tremendous pension for understating things things because it says

uh and said to Adam dwell you and your spouse in a garden and E freely thereof what you wish to Adam and his spouse but come not near this tree for you will be among the wrongdoers I mean there's no

sense of God being threatened by the possibility of man eating from the tree in this story we don't see that you know in this verse we don't see that God is nervous at the prospect that he's threatened by the prospect that he's

anxious about it the tree that he picks he picks it seems like he's just picking out any tree nothing special about the tree go not near uh this tree for you will be among the wrongdoers Satan will later come to him

and tell him it's a tree of eternal life of a kingdom that never decays turns out to be a complete faucet in his part nothing special about the tree it's just a tree God's not nervous at the prospect

at all you know in the tradition that I came from God is threatened by the prospect he has to put a angel with a fiery sword sword by to protect the tree so that mankind never goes next to it

again I'm not putting it down I'm just pointing out the difference of the story they're both beautifully told but they said you know has to guard the tree why because if they eat from it they'll become Gods like

us this man he's already has a rebellious nature can you imagine if he eats from the this tree know can't let him get near that tree but here just you know says you know but if you do you will be among the

wrongdoers God is not worried about himself it's just warning man making it clear that if you do this you've committed a wrongful deed again the the whole tenor of the P all these verses that read through it is

God knows exactly what he's doing okay next verse but Satan caused them to slip and expelled them from the state in which they were and we said go you all down some of you being the enemies of others and on Earth will be your

dwelling place and provision for a time what I said I mean you know I was expecting now the rage the anger the violence the jealousy that's what I was expecting okay they eat from the tree where's the rage the

violence I'm going to punish you now you're going to sweat on Earth and you're going to suffer and you're going to stub your toe and you're going to work and you're going to labor and you're going to die there for

what you did and where is the woman right and the woman all right she's the one who's going to suffer the most right she'll have to suffer labor pains and monthly Cycles right and bleeding and crying out when her children come into the world

she'll scream out and worst of all the greatest humiliation the man will rule over her when he's obviously her intellectual inferior because she and the angel seduced she and she she and Satan seduced him he just bumbled along and

did commit a real you know wrong deed well I don't mean to make light of it but the story is obviously different though you know no no threat here as a matter of fact look at the way it says

oh Adam dwell you and your spouse in the garden and eat freely thereof what you wish but come not this near this tree for you will be the among wrongdoers then they make the mistake but Satan caused them to slip and expelled them

from the state in which they were and we said go all you down some of you being enemies of others will be adversaries of others some of you will be adversaries of each other and on Earth will be your

dwelling place and provision for a time this is not a deity losing it if you look at it I mean on Earth will be your dwell in place and provision for a Time those not the words of a of a God that

has got lost you know that is really extremely upset on Earth will be your dwelling place and provision for a time when I walked into the hotel today and they said uh and it's this nice one up here I

don't know the name I can't remember the name of it but as a continental breakfast and they said your room will be room 111 and uh there's a conf continental breakfast in the morning I didn't say you know I didn't think they were

mad at me you know because they said you know you're going to sleep here and this is going to be your provision in the morning you oh thank you you but notice something else about this verse I mean when you read these verses

for the first time I don't know maybe I'm nuts and many people think I am but when you read these verses for the first time I mean this is just so much that catches your attention but Satan caused

them to slip I remember I I couldn't get that verse out of that those words out of my head Satan caused them to slip to slip the greatest sin in the history of the human race and it's called a

slip you know in my culture slip means you know you just momentarily for a fraction of a second you lose your focus it's not a big deal my Uncle Bob used to always say to me uh Jeff I'm sorry I'm

five minutes late I slipped up you know it's the understanding is it's no big deal it's just a slip you that's what we say make a minor mistake I slipped up don't worry about it never happened again a slip I said

momentary loss of focus the greatest sin in the history of humanity why we're all here why we're all suffering why we experience death a slip I didn't believe it I went to my Arabian friends at that time I didn't know any Arabic that came

to this verse we went through it line by line I said now don't change any words just read them one at a time but Satan made them and I said okay this one this one right here what does it mean

tell me what that means they looked at it says uh slip slip and expelled them from the state in which they were a slip I thought but then maybe I was trying to force the traditional understanding the traditional

interpretation maybe it was just a slip I mean after all they didn't commit murder they didn't commit robbery rape pillaging assault they they they a couple of pieces of fruit it's not the greatest sin in the history of humanity by any

means and then the next verse says and then they were expelled from the state in which they were What state were they let's see now we let's go back from where we started first mankind is being taught we see

he's an intellectual being then we show he's a moral being moral being means he's a being that's going to have to make choices and then God gives him this Choice it's not a huge deal it's not the grave of sin in

the history of humanity by any means is minor by any standards they make it though we see that God originally intended to put man on Earth as his vicin we see a period of preparation where he's being prepared intellectually

where he's growing intellectually where he's growing as a moral creature when does God finally put him on Earth what signals that he's ready to begin he makes his first inde dependent Choice it's not the worst deed in the history

of humanity it's minor on anybody's scale but it shows that man kind is ready to act on his own to be his own to make his own choices that God has empowered him to make choices and he's ready to make them

and carry them out and see them most often to their expected ends if God wills and that seems to be the only real significance of it but I thought maybe I'm getting this wrong maybe God just blows off into an

angry Rampage the next verse so I look at the next one and it says and then Adam received words from his Lord and He Turned and God turned to him mercifully for he's off for turning ever merciful well if I had any doubts up

till now that God is Not enraged by what this has happened that God hasn't prepared mankind for this choice for what was eventually going to happen that all this was preparation for for mankind to begin his Earthly sojourn in this

famous allegory if I had any doubts before now I had them certainly didn't have them after reading this verse this a verse is entirely consoling reaching and merciful reaching out to Mankind in Mercy mankind goes to Earth he's

obviously afraid he obviously feels remorse he's in an unfamiliar environment and what does God do he turns to him he turns to him in Arabic the word is like has the meaning of like a father turning toward towards an

infant or a child or somebody or a parent a mother turning towards her child and he turns to him mercifully and he for God is off returning ever merciful and Adam receives words from his Lord what kind of words probably

words of consolation words of Hope words tell him not not to be scared and in the next verse we see those are exactly the type of words that Adam receives he says go down Adam and his spouse go down from

the state all of you together repeating that again just so that we know that this is not a punishment here go down from the state all of you together and truly there will come to you guidance from me and whoever follows my guidance

has nothing to fear nor shall they grieve it is a it is an emotional picture this couple young couple is here you know in in fear and in shame feeling remorse and God reaches out to them and turns

towards them and tells them you have nothing to fear nor shall you grieve I know this is tough for you but you've been prepared for it up up till now through your entire existence it had to happen this is a necessary stage in your

development in your growth but just hang in there follow my guidance be true to me and I'll be true to you I'll guide you I'll help you I'll do whatever you need just follow my guidance and you have nothing to fear nor shall you

grieve okay so I was impressed you know I thought this author whom I didn't know I thought was extremely brilliant because the story is entirely coherent but it's bringing out entirely new meaning and it's stressing some things in the human equation that I

would never have normally thought of actually I thought these sort of things argued against the existence of God here the author was using them to say look at these these a fundamental role in the purpose of life what intellect human

beings have intellect right in response to the Angel's question they are moral creatures and they are subjected to evil and Angelic promptings and they have to choose between them again and again and again throughout their existence and their growth which the Quran talks about

frequently is going to depend on that we're here to grow as we will see but it emphasiz Choice human beings are creatures of choice it also emphasizes suffering suffering that's pretty nice writing it also emphasizes suffering human beings are going to suffer here on

Earth that's the first thing that the story mentions spread corruption and shed blood Havoc suffering pain yes these three things play essential role somehow the story is saying in our development on Earth in our very purpose of our

devel development these are the three things we've always had the most trouble grappling with all theologies have why give us intellect if it leads us often to challenge in our minds the existence of God if we can't reconcile the

existence of God with our minds with our reason why give us choice if we could choose to do wrong just make us Angels why let us suffer so on Earth just pop us into heaven and here the Quran is

telling that these play essential roles and our and our attaining of faith not only these of course it also mentions guidance God's forgiveness Revelation Etc Angelic forces satanic Temptation and mentions all these other things as well but these three essentially really

caught my attention I never expected that these three things would be emphasized and so as I read through the Quran I looked anytime I saw anything that seem to relate to this I would write down notes and underline it you

know and I would walk up and down and Sam Francisco with my pen as I'm walking because I like to walk about seven miles every day and I'd be underlining my friends would always say Jeff what book are you reading and I would lie to them

I tell them oh it's a great novel or something you know I didn't want them to know that I was reading the Quran I think they thought I was going nuts but in any case so very quickly I

was wondering does the Quran really emphasize reason does it really emphasize Choice does it really emphasize suffering how much more time do I have uh madam speaker 35 2 25 okay I'll do the best I can so let me just try to indicate to

you as I read through the Quran and I'll try to get through this quickly because you guys look tired and I know you're interested in finding out how that basketball game is turning out uh let's see does the Quran really

emphasize reason as essential to human growth that this experience we're having on Earth to our very purpose and the answer is definitely yes so much so that even Western orientalists people who wrote against the Quran and said that

this is a major feature of the Quran a feature that you cannot miss hre lens writing in the early part of this Century the f one of the famous orientalists you know who wrote very much against Muslims hoping to unseat

them from their religious belief he wrote the Quran and this is his quote is not far from considering unbelief as an infirmity of the human mind unbelief is he thought and he was saying it mockingly it's like you know you can't

think straight you're not using your mind right as my father used to say um Maxim rodinson wrote at length about the the rationalistic approach of the Quran to Faith and this rational tone of the Quran is one of its most Salient

features Beyond doubt I'll just give you a few quotations is the one of its fundamental themes is that people ignore or reject God's signs and corrupt religion precisely because they do not use their reason the Quran will say that

again and again and again the Quran says about the disbelievers they refuse to reason and there are people who do not reason I have seven such quotes in the Quran the uh the Quran will say will you not reason it mentions that 14 times to

the reader God reveals signs and lessons and admonition so that and this a quote from the Quran Perhaps Perhaps you will finally use your reason there are eight such statements in the Quran from the quran's Viewpoint reason and Faith are allies just as illogic and

false belief are allies and it clearly sets the conflict along these lines it says the right way has henceforth become clear from error those who benefit most from the Quran are persons of insight 16 such statements in the Quran firmly rooted in

knowledge eight such statements used to reason 10 such statements stand on clear evidence and proof seven such statements those who oppose this Revelation are diluted nine such statements in manifest error 28 statements ignorant 15 foolish three have no understanding nine only

follow surise in conjecture nine and blindly adhere to tradition multiple multiple times states that in an almost Socratic style the Quran repeatedly quizzes the reader and calls into question his or her assumptions again and again it asks us what do you think

18 such statements have you considered this or that 13 did you suppose seven sounds like a math teacher do they not Ponder two such statements do you think do you even think 18 such statements the message is clear to grain truer faith we need to

free ourselves from inherited Notions and examine our beliefs rationally learning plays a key role in human development read the Quran exhorts the reader for God taught us to use of the pen and taught humankind what it otherwise could not know in life nature

and history in the Quran there are signs and lessons for those who are wise there are 21 such statements the Quran States over 100 times that has been revealed to make things clear I thought the author of this Quran

must have had strong mathematical Insight you know a natural mathematician all throughout when I was reading I was trying to imagine what he must have been like God teaches Humanity both directly and indirectly and some sometimes so subtly that we are unaware of his

instruction thus he tests Us in multif multifarious ways of course I just want to make it clear Muslims believe the God himself is the the author of the Quran you know sometimes I give this speech and people come away and ask me Jeff who

is the author of the Quran anyway um but you know I was I didn't know so I was just trying to make figure it out repetition is indicative of the importance given to certain ideas it should be observed that the Arabic word

for knowledge in the Quran El appears 854 times in the text in its various forms it's one of the most frequently occurring words so the Quran really does put great emphasis on reason in our spiritual Quest does it put great emphasis on

Choice well here's what it has to say let there be no compulsion in religion the right way is henceforth clear from error it's a choice and it must be freely made and it's a choice between correctness and error between

right and error between reason and falsity had God will he could have indeed guided you all it says in the Quran I why not I thought why not just guide us all why let some of us choose to go this

way and that way the Quran was constantly provoking me as I read it do not the unbelievers know that had God willed he could have guided all mankind oh do not the Believers know that had God will he could have guided all

mankind okay I'm an unbeliever I thought tell me why didn't you guide all mankind if you want us to be in you know Conformity of your will just make us that way and if we had so willed we

could have given Every Soul its guidance why did you let us be creatures of choice just program us to do the right thing never make a wrong choice had God will he could have made us all one Community he could have made us

clones of one another but he didn't wasn't part of his plan Enlightenment has come from your lord he who sees does so to his own good he who is blind is so to his own hurt it's your choice says it

again and again in the Quran remember when I was reading this I was a disbeliever you know and I this scripture is constantly reminding me it's your choice Jeff it's no compulsion in this it's your choice it's up to you you know you don't

you know you're not my you're probably not reasoning correctly here think a little harder come on try a few more steps and whoever is guided is only to his own gain and whoever is stray I am only a Warner it's your choice we reveal

to you the book with the truth for mankind who who lets himself be guided does so is for his own good he who goes astray it's his own to his own hurt it's his choice there are many many such

references I'll stop there but you get the point Quan clearly emphasizes that choice plays a key role in our development but what about suffering I mean you know suffering is the biggie right me that's the real major question what does the Quran have

to say about suffering you know because every religion deals with suffering in a different way you know it's either something you have to be saved from from and so some religions stress salvation or it's something that you have to sort of transcend through Med

meditation and training so you can sort of not feel it so much get above it and Beyond it some religions see it as primarily punishment some see it as some of the more ancient religions see it as the

result of the precarious and Whimsical you know control of many gods working against each other playing with human beings different religions have dealt with it in different ways but almost all of them I would indeed say all of them

have sort of seen it as something not so good but let's see what the Quran has to say about it something to be avoided to transcended to be saved from the Quran says just the opposite you are going to

experience it you will suffer in this life and it plays a fundamental role in your development and your growth and in what you are to become this scripture didn't just say you're going to experience it it said you should embrace it you should

struggle through it your good life should be a struggle it says it should be a Jihad yeah right but that's that's what it says Jihad means struggle when the Quran most says Jihad it's very seldom it's most often not in the context of fighting

Catal is the Arabic word for fighting but you know it says even in the mecca verses long before Muslims had to defend themselves against oppressors mentions that you have to struggle in the path of God with the Quran it even

says struggle in the path of God with this Quran life is a struggle it says in one verse most assuredly we will try you with something of danger and hunger and the loss of worldly Goods with the loss

of your lives and the fruits of your labor most assuredly we will try you it's not just talking about evil people good people but give the good news the Glad Tidings be happy for those who are patient in adversity and

suffering good news I thought doesn't the author understand the terrible effects of suffering give the good news to those who are patient through adversity who when Calamity befalls them say truly unto God we belong and truly unto him we

shall return in other words that this could benefit them what a remarkable statement here's another one do you think that you could enter Paradise without having the like of those who passed away before you and the next verses start to explain these

people were good people who suffered terribly do you think that you could enter Paradise without having going through this without going through the same why I thought why do you have why do we have to suffer in life

misfortunate and hardship befell them and so shaken were they that the Apostle and the Believers with them would exclaim when will God's help come these are good people when will God's help come oh truly God's help is always

near you will certainly be tried in your possessions and yourselves the Quran tells the reader you're going to have face hardship it's guaranteed Every Soul must Taste of death and we try you with Calamity and prosperity both as a means

of trial and to us you are returned you are going to have hardship here there is going to be no no Heaven on Earth this is environment is made to be an environment of adversity it is made to be an environment where you have to

work where you have to struggle where you have to strive and it plays a key role oh man truly you've been toiling to your lord and painful toil but you shall meet him you're toiling yes but you shall

meet him we certainly created man to face distress what I thought we certainly have created man to face distress you made us to face distress does he think that no one has power over him sometimes people get you

know so so down they just think oh this no one's this can't be a God I'm look how I'm suffering he will say I have wasted much wealth some people just become totally devoted to worldly aims does he think

that no one sees him have we not given him two eyes to see with a tongue and two lips to communicate with to learn from by communicating can he see around him can he tell from communication with other people haven't we pointed out to

him the two conspicuous ways what are the two conspicuous ways but he attempts not the uphill climb one of them is the uphill climb and it says this is the way you should be pursuing and what will make you

comprehend the uphill climb it is to free a slave or to feed in a day of hunger an orphan nearly related or the poor one lying in the dust then he or she is of those who believe and

exhorts one another to patience and exhorts one another to Mercy you have not attain the faith until you struggle the uphill climb it's telling us you should pursue the uphill climb what is the uphill climb reaching out to your fellow man

who's in who suffers to feed poor one but help the poor soul that's lying in the dust and all over the world there are people in that state and we watch the news as if it's just entertainment and the Quran tells us

this is something you should involve yourself is that is the road that you should travel it describes a successful life as an uphill climb well I can see I'm running out of time so I'm going to have to tie this up

in about 15 minutes I guess but definitely the Quran emphasizes these three elements in human drama but as I read through it I couldn't see how it all fit together I mean why didn't God just why why why do we have to experience these

what purpose do they play just pop us in a h Beam us up I thought one thing like I mentioned before the Conan will repeatedly uh emphasize that we're here to grow and to learn and some just I'll give you four

or five quick verses because I know you're tired it says uh our Lord and raise up in their midst a messenger from among them who shall recite unto them your signs and shall teach them the book and the

wisdom and who shall cause them to grow we should we have to learn to learn wisdom in the book and Revelation in particular and who shall cause us to grow and we have sent among you of your elves a messenger to recite our signs to

you and to cause you to grow truly God was gracious to the Believers this is in the third Surah when he raised up from among them a messenger from themselves to recite his signs to them and to cause

them to grow it is he who has sent among you the the who has sent among the unlettered people a messenger from among them to recite his signs and to cause them to grow these are all distinct references

just two more there are many more and the soul and that which breathed into it its immorality and its godc conscious ious he is indeed successful who causes it to grow and he is indeed a failure who stunts it and in verse in 92nd Surah

Surah Al it says far removed from it will be the righteous who give his wealth that he may grow so the purpose somehow is to grow we're in a growing learning developing experience we weren't just created when we came into the world this is actually

a stage of our creation just as our development in the womb was a stage in our creation our essential stage in our physical creation this is an essential stage in our personality Creation in the creation of our real being that which we

take into the next life our essential selves we've gone from the physical Creation in the womb primarily physical now to the human creation the personality Creation in this stage I thought maybe I'm you know projecting my own Neurosis into the

scripture maybe it doesn't really emphasize that life has a purpose but time and time again I would find it does for example just quickly it says those who remember God standing and sitting and lying down and reflect upon the

creations of the Heaven and Earth and say our Lord you did not create all this in vain you did not create all this in purpose just when I was starting to think maybe the Quran really doesn't State a purpose or life it really

doesn't mean there's a real purpose of life life maybe I'm reading into it something that is there I would come upon verses like that that would force me to just read a little further make me think oh maybe it's just around the

corner we have not created the Heaven and the Earth and whatever is between them in play if we wish to take a sport we could have done it by ourselves if we were to do that at all God doesn't

create the satisfies whims or fancies or entertain himself do you think that we created you purposely and that you will not be returned to us it says in the 23rd Surah the true Sovereign is too exalted above that in the 44th Surah we did not create

the heavens and earth and all that is between them in play that serves a purpose now what sort of purpose can possibly serve so I tried to you know apparently the Quran speaks about Believers and those who are the

rejectors you have the Believers on the one hand the rejectors on the other now apparently God has created us to be Believers so I tried to study what the has to say about the Believers and it's a natural thing to do to see how what he

it wants us to become if it has anything to do with these essential elements that it's stated I mean it's a natural way to approach it I think you agree do you agree somebody nod your head that's what I say to my math

students you know just one head nod is enough for a mathematician get one head going okay I did my job okay so how does the Quran describe the Believers what are they supposed to attain to what is their

ultimate thing that they're supposed to get what are they ultimately supposed to achieve and it's very clear when you read the the Quran that what they will achieve in this life and will experience to so much greater degree in the next is

they will experience a relationship of Love With God they will turn to God in love and God will turn to them in love in the Quran God's mercy Mery compassion forgiveness kindness beneficience warmth generosity all the things we normally think associated with

God are freely given to all mankind but when God Quran speaks of God love we would normally think of that as God's love but when the Quran speaks about God's love it's talking about something very special love is always

presented as a relationship a relationship between two without if we do not turn to God in love then we just receive his Mercy forgiveness kindness beneficience warmth generosity all those wonderful nurturing things his nurturing and we reject it and so we never really experience

that love because we never really turn to it and open ourselves up to it it is always there for us but unless we enter into that relationship that love that give and take that relationship of love is never develops we reject it and that's

what the word cfer means it means to to reject to turn your back to ignore to throw something a gift that someone gives you behind your back and so the Quran tells us that the Believers will experience this Sublime

relationship of love it says yet there are men who take others besides God as equal loving them as they should love God but those who believe love God more ardently say if you love God follow me and God

will love you and forgive you your faults for God is the forgiving the merciful oh you believe if any from among you should turn back from his faith then God will assuredly bring a people he loves and who loves him and

throughout the Chon I'll mention time and time again that God loves this the believer God loves this type of person God loves that type of person and so forth and so on so it's quite and I'm trying to pick

to speed up here so you'll have to excuse me for that but it is Apparent from the Quran that one of the purposes of creation maybe the essential purpose of the creation is to produce from this subset of

humanity this subset of humanity that will freely enter a relationship of Love With God they will not only experience the beauty of other relationships in their lives but this love that they will experience with God is the sublime

experience that they will enjoy not only in this life but infinitely greater in the next when all the distractions all the masks are Stripped Away okay I thought you created us to love you for us to turn to you in love

and to experience your love to receive and experience your love but why do you need these just pop us into heaven love us you know and make us love you program us to love you you know you make my dog

love me you know do the same sort of thing I kept on coming back to the same issue just do it you know okay still couldn't see it and I was almost through the Quran and I thought either I'm dumb or this scripture just

never really got to it okay so I didn't give up I thought okay what's the next natural thing to do okay so the P so we're here to develop this relationship of Love With God the Quran tells us that

you know if we are believers and we do good we'll experience great joy and peace in this life not only through our relationship with God but through complimentary relationships with all the people around us in this world will be a

one for us of peace and serenity even though we have to struggle and survive and suffer but I couldn't see you know how this all tied in with this suffering business and why it couldn't just put us into heaven so what's the next natural

thing to say Okay so we're created to have this relationship of love to with God to enter this relationship to experience and receive all that he has to offer us so the natural thing to do is to study

the two partners in that relationship what does the Quran have to say about us the believer what does it ask of him and her what does it require of them and then what does the Quran tell us about

God and then is there some essential Nexus some essential connection between them and doesn't have anything to do with these cuz if the Quran doesn't show that then the the essential link that links all this together that pieces it

all together is missing and as I thought to myself whoever this author is and by now I knew he had fantastic genius even though he came from the Primitive confines of the most backward most uncivilized sector of humanity of

of people that had no literary history really to speak of no great works of literature no scriptures that preceded him even though he came from the desert of culture even though this came out of that environment and the mind behind it

had to be tremendously and gen phenomenally genius to come out of that surrounding and produce something like this if that essential link was missing I knew that you know he was great but you know and extremely great but you

know he's you know what do you expect how could anybody answer those questions nobody in the history of humanity has been able to ask answer them okay so I thought first I'll see what the Quran has to say about the

Believers what does it require of them then what has to say about God and see if there's some essential link are you following me you're giving me the note get off the stage okay I'll do my best it's a deep

subject we're almost done bear with me a few more minutes I'm sorry really [Music] and know s rajash when he gives these sort of speeches he always says okay I'm finishing up now and then 10 minutes leader says you thought I was telling

you to I won't say that but just give me a few more minutes bear with me okay quickly what does the Quran ask of the Believers from the quran's many exhortations and his descriptions of Acts and types of individuals loved by

God is not difficult to compose a partial of things that the Quran wants us to do which it calls Good Deeds time and time again to believe in God to have faith in God to have a relationship with God and to do

good so what does it describe as these Good Deeds well as I read through the Quran it says that can I take this away remember intellect Choice suffering it says we should show compassion show compassion we should be

merciful I have the references here but just excuse me I'm not going to list them all running out of time we should be forgiving forgive others we should be just we should protect the weak and defend the oppressed defend the oppressed we should

be seek knowledge and wisdom knowledge wisdom bear with me ladies and gentlemen we should be generous truthful and we should love oh be peaceful and we should love our fellow man love others I'll just give you one verse because I know we're running out

of TR time Madam speaker truly those who believe and do good will the most merciful endow with love and to this end we have made this scripture easy to understand in your own tongue so that you might convey a glad Tiding to the

god conscious and warn those given to contention to this end we have made this easy to understand so that we'll learn to love others okay that's all I'll say about that I would like to say a lot more but

I don't have time now what does the Quran tell us about God you have to realize I'm just about through with the Quran here in my first time reading it and now I was really caught I searched my head what does the Quran tell us

about God tells us nothing could be compared to him that is out anything he's outside anything that we may compare to that our definitions do not Encompass him that our reason cannot comprehend it that he is transcendent and we are

finite that he is a Mor he he is uh he transcends time and space and we are bound by it that he is Immortal we are mortal he is UNC corporeal we are corporeal that we have no way of

comparing ourselves to him nothing could be compared to him I thought oh my God I'm so close and yet so far because I'll never understand the essential link between us and God and why these three things fit into place

because the Quran tells us that we will could never really quite understand God or at least that's the way I thought and so I put down the Quran when I had finished it and much to my dismay I was

honestly disappointed because I thought I'm just the author made a brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant try but he never quite made it and so I was sitting in front of about 3 4 weeks later I was sitting in Diamond

Heights in my apartment watching a football game I think it was and you know sometimes just things just slip into your minds when you least expect them and I'm sitting there watching it and all of a sudden into my mind came a

thought and I said wait a minute the Quran does tell us so much about God tells us again and again and again but somehow I just missed it just skimmed over it every single time because if you turn to almost any

page if you turn to the beginning of any Surah you could see time and time again essential information about God that I just thought was sort of a literary device something to make it just sound more beautiful because if you turn to

beginning of any Surah you'll see the words in the name of God the most merciful the most compassionate if you read almost any passage long passage when you come to end end of it's punctuated by dual attributive statements like God is the merciful the

compassionate God is the forgiving the gentle God is the kind The Protector God is the generous the truthful God is and so forth and so on there are tens of thousands of such references in the statements in the

Quran what the Quran defines as God's most beautiful names his attributes of perfection repeated again and again and again on almost every page and as I sat there sitting by the television I started to jot them down in my you know

on my little piece of notebook there same notebook I used to jot these down before and I began to list from my own mind the attributes of perfection as I remembered them and they were we should be God is the

compassionate God is the merciful god is the forgiving God is the just the protector the defender of the oppressed and the weak the knowing the wise the generous the kind the truthful the loving the peaceful the source of all peace the

truth and so forth and so on every item I had listed in my list for the qualities that we human beings are supposed to develop the Quran was telling me had its Infinite Source and perfection in Allah in

God and then all of a sudden all the pieces fell together then I suddenly saw it as I see most of you probably see as well that now I mean suddenly it all began to make sense to me in what way do I say that

well it was now obvious why we had to develop these qualities was no it was now obvious how these things on the floor here fell into place and I'll just say clearly we're here to develop a relationship with God

to become closer to God but how can you become closer to God when he's Transcendent and you're finite when he's Immortal and you're Immortal um when you're in vice versa when he's Immortal and you're mortal when he's Unbound

fettered by time in space and you are and so forth and so on how can you become close to that one if I want to become close to you I need to have something to share with you something that we have in

common so for example if I want to come close to this young man here physically I'll approach him because we both have bodies and I can position my body closer to him physical presence bodily presence is something we both share if I want to

become closer to that gentleman back there if I want to become closer to him intellectually I'll reason with him so we will have a convergence of Minds because we both possess reason if I want to become closer to one of the

my sisters on this side emotionally I'll try to appeal to their sentiments because we both share feelings and similar types of experiences that generate those feelings but how does one become closer to God what do we share with him we share with him what exactly

what he gave us because the Quran tells us that when we were came into this life he breathes into our spirit something of his spirit and that we come into this world with the seed of these very qualities within

us and we could either kill them stunt them as the Quran says or cause them to grow and when we grow in these we grow in our ability not just to experience tremend tremendous Beauty in life through all this but we grow in our

ability to receive and experience the infinite Beauty the infinite peace the infinite truth the infinite compassion the infinite Mercy the infinite Etc all all the way down list down the list that only comes from the infinite P perfect

source of all these the more we grow in Mercy the more we grow in our ability to receive and experience in this life and in the next to an infinitely greater degree the mercy of God the more we grow

in compassion the more we grow in our ability to receive and experience God's compassion in this life through prayer and through ritual through contemplation and through other experience of others and and of course in more in the next

life The Compassion of God the more we grow in our truthfulness the more we grow in our ability to experience God the truth because all truth comes from God the more we grow in these things the more we grow in our ability to receive

and experience God's attributes of perfection the more we grow in our ability to receive and experience his being and that sort of nearness we are growing to him is tied to our essential nature and to his it's more more than just physical

nness it's more than just a convergence of ideas it's more than just a convergence of feelings it's a convergence of essential beings it's the closest type of nearness two can feel two can experience I'll just give you a quick

analogy because this helped my children let's pretend I have a cat uh a goldfish a dog and three children three daughters let's say and I do have three daughters no matter how much of my love compassion forgiveness caring I pour

upon that goldfish It could only experience it to a tiny degree it might not even really be aware of it CU it's a very primitive creature but my dog on the other hand when I show it all my kindness all my love all my

compassion all of what is essentially me it could experience it to a much higher degree than my goal fish and through its interaction with me through its own trying to give its own self to me we could experience a quite wonderful

relationship but my children as especially as they grow older and go through their own experience and their own development could receive and experience all the love and the compassion and the forgiveness and the caring and the generosity and the protection everything

I have to offer they could experience my being to a much higher degree than my dog ever can and we could have a relationship of beauty that I could never have with my dog as much as I love animals having had

three daughters I know that the relationship with that you have with three beautiful daughters can never even come close the no other relationship could approximate that of course my relationship with my wife is also extremely beautiful and she might hear

this and she's a wonderful woman really I mean she's the source of so much Beauty but okay Madam chairman I am ready so that seems to bring it all together so now I thought wait a minute that doesn't explain

this why the intellect why the choice why the suffering I said you almost had me this Quran you almost duped me you almost tricked me seduced me into accepting this philosophy but wait a minute what about intellect Choice suffering why do we

have to experience these why couldn't you just programmed us to be merciful compassionate forgiving Etc why do we have to go through all this and then of course the answer came to me as quickly as I thought of it so

we are creatures and we grow and we become and yes and you could make us anything you want but you can't contain any of those attributes I listed without these three things in mathematics we try you know three premises that go into you

know proving a theorem we try to see if we could take one of them away and if it's essential and all three of these are definitely essens for example you could program a computer never to make an incorrect statement but

it doesn't become a truthful computer never heard anybody say to me Jeff this Macintosh is the true most truthful computer Compu I ever saw you if it's programmed it's not truth you could program a CAT scan to help the sick but it doesn't become

compassionate never heard a doctor say Jeff if you want to see a compassionate cascan you come right over here because all those things compassion forgiveness truth caring love all are born out of choice suffering and reason in order to do a compassionate deed when

we consider reaching out to someone in compassion that person first of all that's inconceivable without the presence of suffering an environment where there's suffering and when we decide to help them or not we we reason in our minds

what is this going to require of me it's going to require some suffering on my part some my giving of myself and without that mental process it doesn't become a compassionate deed and if it isn't by choice it's not a

compassionate deed it's that choice that makes it compassionate same thing with truth truth is a choice between telling the truth or not telling the truth often times we tell that when we're at risk to our own personal loss

the more suffering that might come out of that choice the greater is the truth behind it the greater an act of truthfulness and all the time we have to weigh the consequences of that if I tell the truth here my teacher's going to

give me an F if I don't tell the truth I might get an A you know we weigh it in our mind last example the famous wedding Bob do you take this woman to be your wife in sickness and in

health for richer or for poor until death do you part what are they asking us do you knowingly make this Choice understanding full well what's at stake here that it might involve richness but poverty health or sickness that sufferings going to be involved

until death once a young lady told me you know you never really loved me cuz when the growing got tough when things got hard when we hit rock bottom when my life fell apart you just got up and

left and she was right and she understood full well that that's what love is all about about it is through giving and suffering together and hanging in there with each other and not bailing out and persevering through suffering making that choice and knowing

what you're doing all those three things are essential so it's very easy to see why the Quran stresses these for because for in order for us to grow in these I've dropped it we have to have these and that's why it's very easy to

see ladies and gentlemen why the Quran 30 seconds Madam Sherman why the Quran talks about Sin as self-destruction the Quran says when we sin we commit the Arabic word is or Z however dialect you have against ourselves we oppress we destroy

ourselves because when we don't grow in these when we grow in the very opposite of these we are literally destroying ourselves when we grow into things that are antithetical to these we are destroying our natures and we'll not allow

ourselves to receive and experience the beauty that could be in store for us this life and the next it's like coming into this world and developing in the womb none of the physical things you need to experience comfort and joy and peace and happiness

on a physical level in this life it's as if you're coming into this life and you've destroyed yourself physically somehow in the womb and he came into it and he had nothing to protect you from the cold from the heat from the

harshness of the elements from germs from disease nothing to protect you nothing to satisfy give you the ability to satisfy your thirst or your hunger nothing to for you to Fe experience any physical Comfort this is all that matters when we

go into the next life if we don't develop these through our relationship with God our very purpose of our being then we will experience terrible suffering in this life worse than if we came into this life in a

physical state that didn't Avail us of any of the comfort of this life and so it'll be worse than fire it'll be worse than endless fire it'll be worse than the hell the worst hell we could possibly imagine so the Quran tells us

you know that yes you know when it talks about heaven and hell it's used very powerful symbolic language but what essentially is telling us is imagine the greatest joy and wonder and peace and serenity you could ever experience and

that's what's open to you on the one end but on the other end imagine the most terrible suffering that you could possibly bring on yourself and you could also do that to yourself as well it it'll be worse than anything you could

have ever imagine so and it's the Quran tells us that God says on the day of judgment I did not harm you in the least you destroyed yourselves and it could say that in total objective truth and that's why the Quran well I

think I'll leave it at that because Madam speaker is about to shoot me I still have other things to talk about but I want to find out how that basketball game is going so uh thank you so so much for listening to me for so

long and May the peace and mercy of Allah be upon you all I didn't mean to try to scare anybody at the end that wasn't my goal I was just trying to make a point May the peace and mercy of God

be upon you all thank you so much salamu alaykum [Applause] all right we'd like to thank Dr Lang for that very heartfelt very long presentation I have a few things to say before you all leave so just be

patient with me for a second