The Science of Truth: Why Islam Has It and the West Doesn't | Shahid Bolsen

Well, I mean, your approach to the truth in the West is very strange. You have to understand how bizarre it looks, how absolutely bizarre it looks to Muslims, how unserious it looks to Muslims. I mean, this is what I mean about how the West never really understood, never really internalized, never really integrated any of the values that they talk about. You know? They heard about values.

They heard about all of the values that they talk about. They heard about it from civilized people, from genuine civilizations like the Muslims. And then they claimed those values for themselves. The idea is I suppose a civilization is supposed to have values, you know. You're supposed to if you wanna be a civilization then you have to articulate what your values are, what that civilization stands for.

Right? So they did that, but they they didn't articulate it themselves. They it's, you know, it's like having a book that you put on your shelf. It's like a book that you put on your shelf that you never read because having the book on the shelf makes it look like you did read it, but you never did read it. So you have no idea actually what that book is about.

So this is what they did with all of their borrowed values that they espouse. You know how to talk about them, but you don't know how to live by them, how to integrate them. They really don't even understand them. And obviously, they they you know, if you don't understand it, you don't even actually believe it. So like I said, truth, honesty, accuracy, authentic history, and so forth.

Okay? I've seen AI videos and heard AI audios going around on social media where you have Malcolm x's voice, you know, or a fake video of Malcolm x talking about Palestine. Okay? Malcolm x did not talk about Palestine. He didn't give one speech in his life about Palestine.

He was assassinated. You understand? He was assassinated in 1965. Okay? Two years before the nineteen sixty seven war.

Gaza was under Egyptian authority. The West Bank was under Jordan. Malcolm X, he visited Gaza in Khan Yunus. He visited there during his travels in the Middle East and Africa and so forth. And he did write something in 1964 about the illegality and the immorality of the Zionist expulsion of the Palestinians, and he framed it all within the the broader context of anti colonialist struggles.

So it's not like he was unaware of Palestine. There's there's no question which side he was on on that issue. And had he lived, for sure, he would have spoken more about it. But the that's the the fact of the matter is that he never gave a speech about Palestine. Okay?

He was a new Muslim at that point, Malcolm. And the the the unique importance of Palestine in Islam, he wouldn't have known about that yet. So in other words, you are using AI to put words into his mouth that he did not say because you think that it although that's that's fine to do because the words are good, the words are right, the the position is right and so forth. So you think that it's fine. You think it's perfectly fine to just lie and attribute things to Malcolm x that he did not say.

I mean, you could just say it yourself. That'd be great. You you go ahead and say it yourself. Go ahead. But no, you instead, you put your words in his mouth.

Most likely not even your words, but words that were written by AI. You put those into the words those words into the mouth of a great man. A man who was great one of the reasons or the main reasons he was great was because no one could use the words use words the way that he did. No one could speak the way that he did. Nobody had the ability to articulate things the way that he did.

Nobody had the mind that he had. You understand? But here you are supposedly because you admire him. Here you are producing, like I say, either your own words or more likely having AI generate some generic pro Palestinian rhetoric and then you're trying to make people, believe that Malcolm x said it in real life. And you have no idea how monstrously disrespectful that is of the man.

Not to mention you're trying to, you know, literally rewrite history, which is just something that you do all the time. And, again, you think it's perfectly fine. You think it's perfectly fine to just make stuff up and attribute it to real people who existed because you think the message is good, so it's fine. The message is good and the position is solid. You know?

I saw someone share something like that on social media. It was a fake AI. This one was actually both an AI of Malcolm X and of Martin Luther King where they have Martin Luther King being pro Zionist and pro Israel. And then they have this fake video of Malcolm X talking about the, you know, the centrality of Palestine and the injustice and so forth. So now you're actually even inventing an historical conflict between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X on the issue of Palestine, rewriting history and putting words into the mouths of real men who existed, great men, brilliant men, with complete disregard for factuality or accuracy or authenticity or anything like that.

All because you think that your point is sound. You think that the message is good. And as long as you think that your point is sound and the message is good, then it's fine to lie, it's fine to fabricate, it's fine to deceive and and and tell people that someone said something they didn't say. Well, that's atrocious. Mean, I okay.

Sure. Martin Luther King in real life, his his position was more or less aligned with US policy with regards to Israel. He never expressed any pro Palestinian sentiments that I'm aware of. But the fact of the matter is that Israel was not a central issue for him just as Palestine was not a central issue for Malcolm X in 1965. You don't get to reach back into history and make people say things that they didn't say and put, you know, views from today and perspectives from today into their mouths to try to give your views more credit, credibility.

Malcolm x was our Muqtar. You understand me? He is the Muqtar of the Western and American converts to Islam. The the the what you can call the tribe of American converts. Malcolm x is our chief.

Do you understand? He's not your ventriloquist dummy to put your words into his mouth. The level of disrespect is just it's absolutely staggering. The disrespect for the men whose whose images you're using and whose voices you're using, but also the the disrespect for the truth and accuracy and for honesty is just incredibly disturbing. Truly.

I mean, do you understand how rigorous we are, Muslims, about authenticity and accuracy? If you don't know, let me explain. When it comes to the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. What he said or what he did, Muslim scholars, in order to ascertain this, they developed an entire science. Actually, multiple interconnected sciences dedicated solely to verification and authentication.

This wasn't just, you know, an academic exercise. This was treated as a matter of absolute existential importance for us, for Muslims. Why? Well, because if you attribute something to the prophet, peace be upon him, then he did not say, will you take your seat in the hellfire? So this religious belief gave birth to the most rigorous process of authentication in human history.

Again, this is practical morality in Islam. Practical morality where you take a belief, you take a value, you take a moral, and you create a whole system for actualizing it in the real world. This is what civilized people do. This is what civilized people do. And, yes, obviously, in the in the case of any statements by the prophet if you get it wrong, if you allow fabrications to enter into the record, well, you corrupt the whole religion.

You corrupt the entire religion. You corrupt the law. You corrupt the theology. You corrupt the the religious morality, everything. So we created an academic intellectual rigor exactly because of our religion, to protect our religion.

Understand, every single report, every single hadith had to come with a complete unbroken chain of transmission going all the way back to the prophet himself You understand? You had to name every single person in that chain. You know, I heard it from my teacher, who heard it from his teacher, who heard it from so and so, who heard it from, you know, who heard it from this companion of the prophet who said that the prophet had said such and such. You have no idea what seriousness actually looks like, what civilization actually looks like in the West, honestly. Scholars would investigate all of this, you know, they would investigate.

Did these people in the in the chain of transmission, did they actually meet? Did were they in the same city at the same time? You know? Did this student actually study under this teacher? They they would compile all of the birth dates, all of the death dates, all of the travel records, you know, biographical encyclopedias, thousands upon thousands, literally thousands upon thousands of biographical entries of these transmitters specifically to just verify those connections.

Imagine, if there was even a suspicion of a break in the chain, if there's even a suspicion, well, the entire report would be rejected. Didn't matter how good the content was, how good the message was. It didn't matter if the message was beautiful, if the content of that as, so called hadith was beautiful, or if it was morally sound, if the chain was broken, that was done. It's it it cast out. It's rejected.

It's too risky. We won't do it. You understand? Then came the evaluation of the narrators themselves. Just the just the narrators themselves.

Like I said, scholars created a whole field called the the science of men. Meaning, basically biographical encyclopedias of every single person who ever transmitted a hadith. It's astonishing. You have no idea. They evaluated each and every narrator according to two criteria, their moral reputation and their precision.

In other words, was this person trustworthy? Are they ever known to have lied in their life? Were they ever known to fabricate any reports? Did they have any, political motivations or any, sectarian biases? You know?

Because even if they were, honest, then you have to check if they're accurate. Did they have a strong memory? They have to check that. Did they have a strong memory? Did they ever confuse any details?

Did anyone ever know that they confuse details? And then scholars would grade these narrators, the narrators of the hadiths, according to, you know, scales, like who's trustworthy and reliable, who's truthful but occasionally makes mistakes and so forth, you know, who's weak, who cannot be relied upon at all, who's a known liar. Right? If a narrator was reliable when he's transmitting from one teacher but made mistakes when he's transmitting from another teacher, then scholars would document that. You understand?

If someone's memory declined in old age, they would document that too. Everything was tracked. I'm telling you. You're completely unacquainted in the West. You're actually completely unacquainted with what real seriousness looks like.

And even after verifying the chain, the chain of narrators, then the content of itself would be looked at. It would that would be scrutinized. The content of the hadith itself. Did that report contradict the Quran? Did it contradict other widely transmitted authentic reports?

They would do a linguistic analysis. Is the Arabic of this hadith consistent with the Arabic spoken at the time of the prophet Does it contain any terminology that didn't exist in the lifetime of the prophet Does the content of that hadith reflect later sectarian debates that are being now projected backwards? Because people tried this. People did try this. They would fabricate hadith to try to support their political factions or their theological schools and what have you.

But scholars caught them. Scholars weren't gonna let you get away with that. Our scholars weren't playing about those things. You understand me? These were serious people.

The scholars travel for thousands of miles, thousands upon thousands of miles to verify chains, just to verify chains and to compare manuscripts. You know that Imam Al Bukhari, he examined over 600,000 hadith reports, 600,000, and he only accepted about 7,500. You understand? He rejected over 99 of what he looked at. 99% of what he examined.

Not because the content was bad or the message was bad, but because those hadiths or those reports didn't meet the verification standards. You have no idea what seriousness looks like. If you claimed to have heard from someone a hadith that you had never actually studied under and you got caught in that lie, your reputation was destroyed forever. And then you had different schools, had different regions, you had different theological camps that would scrutinize each other's claims about the authenticity of a hadith. You had political opponents who were trying to expose any fabrications.

So this adversarial dynamic actually strengthened the whole verification and authentication process. Now, was the system perfect? No. It wasn't perfect. But we're talking about a rigor that is astronomically higher than anything that the world has ever seen before or since.

Thousands of hadiths were rejected. Thousands were rejected precisely because they failed these tests. Even when the content was politically, useful, even when it was theologically convenient, even when it was morally sound, The methodology prioritized accuracy over confirming existing beliefs or expediency. Do you understand me? See, when you understand this, the difference between your approach and our approach, and you understand the lengths to which Muslim scholars win to just verify even one statement from the prophet 14 centuries ago.

And then you see Western activists or social media people in 2026 generating videos in which you have Malcolm x discussing Gaza, and then they'll defend it saying, well, this is what he would have said. This is what Malcolm would have said. As if you know what Malcolm x would have said. Do you see how utterly grotesque that is to us? Do you see how utterly grotesque and unserious you are?

See, you're manufacturing false testimony from a man whose actual words are recorded. Malcolm x's words are right there. It's transcribed and it's preserved. His speeches exist on tape. You understand me?

We know what he said, and yet you still feel entitled to overwrite that record with your imagination and with AI generated text. And you think it's all fine. In fact, think it's good. You think it's a good thing that you're doing. Look, in the Muslim approach, we say we cannot claim that someone said something without verification even if we think that it's true and even if attributing it to that person would serve our cause.

Meanwhile, your approach is we can claim that so and so said anything even though he didn't say it because we think it is true, that the statement is true, and it serves our cause to say that he said it. These are inverted epistemologies. This is completely opposite approaches to truth. You know? And not to mention, you've you you'll you'll tweet about centering marginalized voices and listening to leaders like Malcolm x, valuing leaders like Malcolm x or Martin Luther King, what have you.

Meanwhile, you're fabricating what they said. The the respect is completely performative. You wanna have Malcolm X's authority without being constrained by what he actually said and what he actually believed. You're exploiting his legacy to promote your own positions, as if as if your positions carry his endorsement that you're creating by AI. That's intellectual fraud.

It's intellectual fraud and it's contempt for the truth, it's contempt for, Malcolm X. If Malcolm x had extensive positions on Palestine, then quote his actual words. And if he did not speak about, Palestine extensively, and he did not, because again he was assassinated in 1965 before the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as we know them today, then acknowledge that honestly. There's nothing wrong with that. But you won't acknowledge it honestly because that would require humility and honesty.

That would require your own position, to stand on its own merit rather than hiding behind the the the actual earned authority of a great man. And this connects to everything else. You this is the this is the same culture. Look. This is the same culture that knows perfectly well that Jesus was not born on December.

You still say he was. You say that the gospels were all written by disciples and not a single one of them was written by a disciple. You know, you've been fast and loose with the truth for thousands of years, literally. You're the ones who generated that, you know, false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, And then, you know, it's fine. Even if it's not true, it's fine because Sabaam was bad.

See, your culture manufactured consent for wars that have killed millions upon millions of people. And then when the lies behind those wars get exposed, you just shrug and make a joke about it. How bad? You know? Your entire civilizational epistemology has no systematic defense against fabrication.

You don't care. So putting words in a dead man's mouth carries no social cost for you. You know? When the when when good intentions excuse factual fraud, you create a whole culture where truth is disposable. It's completely disposable and unimportant.

I mean, the technology has changed. We used to have, you know, those falsely attributed quotes on Facebook, then, you know, fake memes. Now you got the AI generated videos and audio. But it's all contempt for the truth. That remains constant.

When the reality doesn't support your position, then you'll manufacture a narrative that says that reality does support your position. When historical figures didn't say what you need them to have said, then you'll just generate a video where they do say it. Understand? Muslim scholars preserved chains of transmission for fourteen hundred years precisely to prevent exactly this kind of corruption. Meanwhile, you can't even preserve the actual recorded words of Malcolm x for as little as sixty years without someone deciding to overwrite that that overwrite that record because the fabrication serves a cause that you think is righteous.

And then you have the same the same recklessness, the same disregard for the truth, the same subordination of truth to narrative. This also manifests when you've decided that someone is bad. You don't just do it about the people that you like. If you've categorized someone as evil, then you're perfectly comfortable attributing, attributing anything to that person. You'll make up the most dastardly diabolical things regarding that person, even without evidence.

You don't need proof anymore. The accusation is enough. The characterization of them as evil is enough. The narrative is already set. So now the facts are just optional.

And if anyone objects to that and says, well, wait a minute. Let's let's look for the evidence. What's the evidence behind this claim? Then they're gonna portray you as someone who's defending an evil person. You're not defending even a person at all.

You're defending a a standard of fairness. You're defending honesty and fairness and accuracy itself as a principle. But they can't distinguish between any of that. To them, if you demand evidence if you demand evidence before accepting an accusation, it's the same thing as endorsing the accused, and endorsing what the person is accused of. This is a child's epistemology.

It's a fanatic's epistemology. But this is how you operate, you know. If we think he's evil, then we can say he did anything at all. It doesn't matter. Without proving, we don't have to prove it.

And if we think he's good, then we can say he did or he said wonderful things without him ever having done those things. You understand? The the the the determination of good or bad or or or hero or villain comes first, then the facts will all get adjusted to fit that. It's narrative construction the whole way, not truth seeking at all. And they know they're this way.

They absolutely know they're this way. That's why whenever they recommend someone, like recommend an article or a book or a a video or what have you, they always feel compelled to add a disclaimer. Always. Every time. I don't agree with every single thing that this person says.

Every single time. There's always this disclaimer. Why? Because they know that they are a people who cannot be fair or accurate or balanced ever. They know perfectly well.

They know that in their culture, if you recommend something, this is deemed as a totalistic endorsement of everything that that person ever said or has has ever done, which is ludicrous. You know? No mature person needs you to clarify that to them. When you recommend an article, you're saying this article has value, or I think that this particular article has value. You're not saying, I have personally investigated this author's entire corpus and personal history, and I vouch for all of it, and I endorse all of it.

But they have to say that. They have to say that to protect themselves because they know perfectly well how their people are. They know how their own people operate. You know, they know how it can spiral out with the with the with the guilt by association and what have you. The constant monitoring for thought crime.

This is what happens when truth becomes completely subordinate to feeling, completely subordinate to opinion, to whim, to narrative. You end up having a culture that simply cannot be trusted about anything. They'll make up a Malcolm x quote, they'll make up something that Malcolm x said because they think that the message is good and it's fine to attribute it to him. And they'll accuse people of crimes without any evidence because they've already decided that those people are bad. Now the facts don't matter anymore.

They demand disclaimers when recommending an article because guilt by association is their default framework. Everything is narrative, subhanAllah. Everything is narrative, everything is performance, and everything is adjusted on the basis of whether you're with the in group or the out group. You understand? Whether you're on the right side or the wrong side of this particular demographic or this particular audience.

There's no fixed standard. There's no commitment whatsoever to accuracy. At least any accuracy that transcends political convenience or or or ideology or what have you. There's no concept that the principle of fairness and accuracy and honesty applies even to people that you dislike. You understand?

It's just tribalism, dressed up in the language of justice and morality and and and, you know, righteousness or what have you, speaking truth to power and so on. Again, they don't understand. They don't understand how this looks to people outside, to people from actual civilizations, genuine civilizations. They don't know how it looks to people who come from cultures that actually literally spent centuries developing methodologies precisely to distinguish truth from fabrication, to preserve accuracy, to maintain standards that would apply regardless of whose interests were being served or being heard. You know?

So when we see you operate this way, just making things up whenever it suits you and however it suits you, demanding impossible standards of proof when it doesn't suit you, treating the same action as either noble and virtuous or criminal and immoral depending on who does it, what do you think that how how do you think that we interpret that moral rhetoric? We see right through it, obviously. We see the hollowness. We see the inconsistency. We see the fact that you have no real principles at all.

You just have narratives that shift based on experience. You borrowed the language of justice, the language of truth, the language of fairness and so forth from civilizations that actually meant it when they talked about those things. But you never internalized those things at all. You never built institutions or practices. You never built habits of the mind that would actually make those values real in your lives.

You just put them, like I said, like books on a shelf that you never read. Because having the book there makes you look like you read the book, makes you look like you're educated, makes you look like you're principal, makes you look like you're moral. But we can tell that you never read the book. We wrote the book. We can tell by how you act.

We can tell by how casually you fabricate things, how selectively you apply your standards, you know, by how completely your your supposed commitment to truth utterly collapses the moment it becomes inconvenient or uncomfortable at all. That's where you are. That's what you are. Adult children, fanatics. In truth, you are completely untethered to any of the principles that you proclaim, and you genuinely don't understand why this is obscene and why it means no one can ever take you seriously.