http://www.ihyaproductions.com/articles/hyCBCtranscript.htm
Transcript of Interview with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson by Michael
Enright on the September 11 Tragedy
Aired on September 23,
2001
Transcribed by Raneem Azzam
Michael:
Can we start first of all with your visit with President Bush?
What were you talking to him about?
Shaykh Hamza:
The President basically invited a lot of the religious leaders or
people here that represent different religious communities, and
there were quite a few of them. And from that group, six of us
were chosen to have a private meeting with the President and I was
among that group. Basically, he initially told us some of his
ideas and what he was thinking about the situation and the
seriousness of it and the gravity, and the need for the religious
community to help the American people get through this because he
felt that religion would play a very important role in that. So he
expressed those concerns and then he opened up the floor for us to
voice whatever we had to say. And I was very pleased that he gave
me time to… I had certain points that I wanted to put forward and
he allowed me to do that.
Michael:
Did he touch on, as he did on Thursday night, the question of -
there have been attacks on Muslim citizens in both the US and
Canada.
Shaykh Hamza:
Yes, he did that in the private and in the larger gathering. And
he emphasized that he had told Mr. Ashcroft, who is the Attorney
General, that these crimes would be… that anybody perpetrating
them would be taken to account to the full extent of the law and
he was very adamant about that. And he did express a very serious
concern about that.
Michael:
Did you determine anything from his body language, or the way he
talked or the things he said, something about his state of mind at
the moment?
Shaykh Hamza:
I did, definitely. I think that he is definitely on an adrenaline
rush right now.
Michael:
Really?
Shaykh Hamza:
Yes, and he said that. I think he mentioned that going to New York
was a very profound experience for him, being there. And he said
that he was making serious efforts to keep himself contained. So
he, I think, did express that in very real human terms of what he
was experiencing emotionally. I mean I think none of us can really
fully comprehend what happened. I think we’re all still in a bit
of a shock, and I think that the fact that the American people…
the World Trade Center towers there are really a symbol of
American economic prowess and really of the capitalist world, so
for them to literally be destroyed in a Shiva-like manifestation
there, of just utter destruction, not just before the eyes of
onlookers in New York but really of the entire world because of
the film footage. And people watch this thing over and over again
and I think it expresses just the profound impact that just those
images have had on all of us.
Michael:
Thank you for that, for talking about your meeting at the White
House. I want to turn now to the essential...
Shaykh Hamza:
I did mention - because it was mentioned on the earlier part of
the program - about the "Infinite Justice". I actually did express
my concerns about the name to him.
Michael:
Your concerns being?
Shaykh Hamza:
That in the Arabic language "Infinite Justice" is an attribute of
God and I said that I felt that the Muslims would consider that
almost a proclamation that America was God.
Michael:
And ditto his use of the word crusade.
Shaykh Hamza:
He actually expressed his own regret at using that word but he did
say that the Pentagon doesn’t have theologians and they’re the
ones that name these things. And he said that they wanted to get
it changed for that reason. I felt that there was a definite
sincere response there.
Michael:
All right. You raised the question of words and language and we
seem to know so little about Islam. I want to just get from you a
sense of what we’re talking about here in trying to share
communication. The phrase we’ve heard "fundamentalist Islam" or
"Islamic militant" what do those words mean?
Shaykh Hamza:
Yeah, I think that an adjective that goes with Islam is dangerous.
Islam is unique among our world historical traditions in that the
name that it is called by is the name that it was given in its
book of revelation. The Christians actually were called Christians
derogatorily by people that opposed them and Judaism is from the
name Judah - it comes from a name of one of the tribes or a
geographical location, Buddhism etc. Islam means submission. To
say fundamentalist Islam I think it’s an unnecessary adjective. I
think these are attempts in the modern world to distinguish
perspectives but I think they’re all dangerous. "Militant Islam" I
think is very dangerous. I would say it’s oxymoronic because while
Islam does have a martial tradition as well as Christianity,
Judaism - even within Buddhism there’s a martial tradition
according to Buddhist scholars. So the idea that Islam is a
militant religion is a dangerous concept to put forward.
Michael:
OK, I take your point, but then we hear the word, and the media
use the word, jihad. What does the word mean and how are we
misusing it.
Shaykh Hamza:
Yes, jihad. I think that part of the problem, I think, Michael, is
that we are so ignorant of Islam in the West. Generally, we’re an
ahistorical community, particularly in America, I’m not so sure
about Canada, but in America we tend to be more provincial. We’re
a community concerned about our own events and happenings, a lot
of people don’t know about the rest of the world. And
unfortunately Islam, because of the historical antagonism that
existed between Europe and between the Muslims, because Islam is a
religion that’s over 1400 years old and for almost 800 years the
Ottoman Empire was just an extraordinary empire of power, of
military might, great civilization, had its flaws, but
nonetheless, it represented to Europe a monolithic antagonist for
centuries. And in a sense Europe and the West were in a sometimes
cold, a sometimes hot war, so that environment, we have a lot of
that in our background. And crusade is a word that to the
Christians, it has a good meaning. And I think that it does have a
good meaning in its sense if you look it up in the vocabulary.
Michael:
Well we know now it was more plunder than religion.
Shaykh Hamza:
Well, that’s true. And unfortunately a lot of religious wars tend
to be for other than religion. But the word jihad is probably one
of the highest concepts that the Arabs and the Muslims have. It
represents really the best of humankind. In the Qur’an it is never
once used to express a military meaning. Not once.
Michael:
It means… does it not mean to go to war with yourself?
Shaykh Hamza:
Well, that’s one of the meanings. It literally means – if you look
at the word, the root word is "jahada" which means to struggle,
and juhd in the Arabic language means a struggle literally. So
jihad is the act of struggling. And the Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him, said that the greatest jihad is to struggle with your
own soul’s insidious suggestions. And I think that really
clarifies to the Muslims. Building a hospital in the Arab world –
and I’ve lived in the Arab world, I speak Arabic very well –
building a hospital, the Arabs will literally say what a great
jihad that was when it was completed. The idea of spending money
for anything good… those firefighters who were pulling people out
of the World Trade Towers, they would be considered, that’s an act
of jihad. They would be considered mujahideen if they were
described in Arabic. And I’m not exaggerating at all. That really
is at the essence of this word.
Michael:
When you read the coverage in some of the more fulminating
columnists and commentators, it comes up time and time again, this
business about the Qur’an promising the martyrs or the suicide
bombers that if they die in the course of their mission they will
go immediately to heaven where they will be greeted by ten or
fifteen or sixty-eight or something or other, virgins. You must
have seen that. What is that?
Shaykh Hamza:
You know, again this is the problem with religious language for
the modern mind. The Qur’an, just to give you an example, says
that there is nothing like God and immediately after that – it’s
in a chapter called Shura (The Council) – and immediately after
that it says and He is the All-Seeing, the All-Hearing. So here’s
a verse that says there’s nothing like Him and then it’s
immediately followed by saying He hears everything and He sees
everything. Well, how do we know what seeing and hearing is if we
don’t have a likeness in this world of it. So on the one hand
there’s pure transcendence and on the other hand there’s the
imminent aspect of God’s manifestations, his attributes in the
world. If you look in the Qur’an about the pleasures of paradise,
the definitive verse in the Qur’an is that the pleasures of
paradise are those which no eye has seen, no ear has heard of, and
has never occurred to the heart of a human being. So that is the
definitive verse about the pleasures of paradise. Now, there are
some hadiths, it’s not in the Qur’an, there is mention of
beautiful youths as well as beautiful women, and that’s more
metonymy in rhetoric.
Michael:
It’s an allegory.
Shaykh Hamza:
Exactly, it’s an allegory, exactly. And the thing about it is that
our scholars say that the highest sensual experience in the world
is orgasm and it’s quite literal. I mean this is a traditional
opinion; Imam al-Ghazali, one of the early theologians said that
the orgasm that a human being experiences in sexual intercourse is
the closest sensual experience that one can taste of what the
delights of paradise are like. The Muslims traditionally saw it as
almost – and the Hindus have this concept as well – that there’s
almost a mystical experience. Now, the vast majority of human
beings do not have profound mystical experiences. The mystic has
experiences that transcend sexuality and in fact, it’s well known
that a lot of mystics lose their appetite for those types of
things because of their own internal experiences.
Michael:
They’re celibate.
Shaykh Hamza:
Exactly. So the idea being is that it’s really an approximation,
it’s a way of describing. The number used is 70 and the idea of 70
in the Arabic language is that it just means an untold amount of
pleasure and that’s really what it’s about. And unfortunately
literalism is a danger in every religion and I think there are
definitely people who look at these things in very literal terms
and this goes with religion and with human understanding.
Michael:
It’s like trying to explain in my faith the concept of the
guardian angel or something like that, I think.
Shaykh Hamza:
Well, exactly, what is an angel? An angel is an old debate in
theology.
Michael:
Let me ask you this: people have been saying in the last few days
that if the mullahs, or the imams, or the leaders, leadership of
Islam, however you define that, came out and condemned in a loud
voice or in a united voice, the terrorism, if there was some
mechanism for excommunicating Osama bin Laden somehow. Is there…
Shaykh Hamza:
Did somebody talk to you about that? It’s an excellent point
because I’m working on that right now. Terrorism, interestingly
enough, this is not a new thing, what is new is weapons of mass
destruction. Terrorism is as old as the world. If we take the
Biblical, as well as the Qur’anic idea of Cain and Abel, you know
Cain is really terrorizing his brother. So terror I think is an
ancient phenomenon. The Muslims were tried with a group called the
Assassins, the Hashashin, which was a very bizarre sect from the
Isma’ilis. It was, even within Isma’ilism, it was a radical sect,
and what they would do was they would put sleepers, plant sleepers
among Muslim rulers, and one day they would be told to kill them,
and then they would kill them and then kill themselves. And these
were a real, just a plague, on the Islamic world for a period of
time. So there’s always been a condemnation of this.
Michael:
But I guess we don’t hear it or think we don’t hear it.
Shaykh Hamza:
Well, because again, we don’t really understand what’s happened in
the modern Muslim world. In some ways the Muslim world is
undergoing a protestant reformation right now and unfortunately
because people don’t know about colonialism, about the shutting
down of traditional Muslim universities all over the Muslim world
with rare exception, and the fact that Islam has very few scholars
at very high levels. Most of the brilliant students in the Middle
East now go into medicine and engineering, they go into other
things, they don’t go into philosophy. One of the interesting
things you should think about, almost every one of these
terrorists that are identified - and I will guarantee you that you
will not find amongst them anyone who did his degree in
philosophy, in literature, in the humanities, in theology - you’ll
find that almost all are technically trained. And one of the
tragedies in the Muslim world is that technical schools now, from
an early age they identify students that are very brilliant in
mathematics and they direct them towards only studying the
physical sciences to the neglect of what makes us human, which is
humanity, is poetry, it’s literature, as well as philosophy and
theology, so these things are absent now.
Michael:
Just a couple of seconds left. Do you think there’s a possibility
that out of all of this, North Americans - people like me who know
nothing about Islam or the Qur’an - can come to some
understanding. Is that too dreamy-eyed?
Shaykh Hamza:
I don’t think it is too dreamy-eyed and I think it’s an absolute
necessity, Michael, I don’t think we have a choice anymore. We
have to break down these barriers. We have to understand each
other. I think we need to do a lot of introspection, I think the
Muslim world needs to do a lot of introspection and I think we
need to look at what it is, we can’t keep blaming. I think if I
look from a secular perspective -I heard the earlier commentator -
from a secular point of view I agree with him, I think there’s a
lot of injustice in the Muslim world, etc. etc. but on the other
hand I think the Muslim world really has to stop blaming the West
for its problems. I just think it’s the easy way out, it’s not a
Qur’anic world-view. The Qur’anic world-view is always to ask
ourselves why is this happening to us? And I think that’s for us
as Americans to ask, we need to ask those questions as well. But
in the Muslim world, we all need to really look in the mirror. I
think the American people need to look in the mirror. We need to
look in the mirror and ask ourselves have we done anything that
warrants this type of hate? I don’t think anything can justify
what happened at all. Neither in a religious or a secular ideology
because it’s just a blatant disregard for human life and property
but I really think that the Muslims need to become introspective
and I think the West needs to understand. I would recommend for
you and for listeners, The Essential Qur’an – I’m not paid to do
this or anything – but Thomas Cleary translated and wrote. It’s
published by Harpers. It’s a brilliant introduction to Islam and I
think people really do need to find out about what the core
teachings are. I think most Western people are going to be really
surprised at how close the core values of Islam are to the core
values of the West. And I came out of – my father was a humanities
professor – I came out of the enlightenment tradition and I still
believe in the best of the enlightenment tradition and I think
that Islam confirms and enhances that tradition and really doesn’t
detract from it.