Middle Nation Book Discussion | The Impossible State: Final 2 Chapters

Alright. Welcome everyone to the final discussion on the book, The Impossible State by Wa'al Halak. So today, we will be discussing chapter six and chapter seven, the belligerent globalization and moral economy, and chapter seven, the central domain of the moral. It's a fairly both are fairly short chapters.

And

have to say, to be frank, it was quite disappointing. I was I had expectations, but disappointing. I mean, I shouldn't be disappointed that it was disappointing going from chapter one to chapter five. There was a trajectory it was taking, but I had aspirations. You know?

I just hoped that he might actually have gone into the direction of, you know, criticizing he does I mean, he does cover it a fair bit in criticizing corporations and globalization, but just on the surface, just barely goes deeply into it. You know? And then he concludes the chapter. As I've summarized in the in the notes that I've provided, I know that we're not all in agreement on the on the book. Has anyone had a change of mind about the the book discussion at this point, or do you feel that he Halak is misunderstood?

My my initial problems with well, have not been countered by any of the subsequent chapters in any of his you know, anything else that that he's had to say in the book. If I in my opinion, this is a he he shouldn't he shouldn't have written this book. He should have written a book that was a critique of Western theories, you know, governance theories or what have you, and just made it that because the book is all about theory and not about real life. It doesn't provide any practical examples neither from the current period nor in historical period, whether he's talking about the West or an Islamic civilization. So it's a it's a it's a theory book.

It's a it's a book that's relevant within the covers of the book itself, and he's just it's all it's all theoretical and which is fine. It's fine to have a a a book critiquing Western theories and Western philosophies and and so forth. But putting it in the way that he put it, it seems to me that he he seems to be trying to pretend that the book is relevant in some way in the real world, and I don't see that it is and I don't see that it is accurate in most of what it says with regards to the Muslim world and theories of Islamic governance and and Sharia. And as I said from the very beginning, I think that he's he's he's completely misassigning what is the source of the problem in the West, that it's not the system that was created by the Kufr, but it's the Kufr itself. And the Kufr hasn't been imposed upon the society by the system, but the system was created by the Kufr of the society, and that's the nature of the actual problem.

And so I I don't actually have much new to add from what I've said in the past. And and we've had discussions, as you all know, in the in the discussion group, particularly with brother Fahim who went has gone to a lot of trouble to try to salvage what else thesis, in my opinion, unsuccessfully. Because primarily, brother I appreciate the effort, but primarily, you you have defended by basically using Wael's own words, his own just regurgitating his own thoughts, which doesn't solve the problem of the thoughts themselves. But so don't don't really wait for me to talk. I probably won't participate very much.

I I've said pretty much what I can say about this this book. And I and I'll I'll just add one thing, although I have commented on it before. When someone is very unnecessarily using overly complicated language, It usually is because they actually have very simple and simplistic ideas and simplistic theories. And I find that his theories are very simplistic, and he's trying to make them appear very complex and very deep and very meaningful by basically just running it through a thesaurus program to make it sound much more intellectual than it really is. I I find that that the actual intellectual level of this book, in my opinion, the actual intellectual level is quite low.

The academic level is quite low. The vocabulary is very high, but unnecessarily so, which just to me is an indication that, as I said, that you're trying to make much more complex, something that's very simple. So I I in my opinion, it's it's a book that needed to be addressed, we're we're we're dealing with it and addressing it. And, you know, it's been beneficial for that purpose, but in my opinion, it's it's not contributing anything meaningful. I think that you can say that like I said in the beginning of what I was talking about, I think that he has some value value in his critique of the West, in his critique of Western theories.

And it should have just been a book about that. It should have just been a book on critiquing western theories, whatever, postmodernism, and so on. That would be fine. Just make it that. Don't try and make it a compare comparison and and contrast with Islamic governance and and Sharia and so forth because it completely fails at that.

And don't try to pretend that it's actually relevant in the real world because what you're talking about is all theory. And there's a place for that to debate and to seek theories. If if that's what you're doing, then that you should be clear that that's what you're doing, and don't make it seem as if this is in any way whatsoever connected to even even the real world in the West and and certainly in the real world in the Muslim lens. So that's all I have I have to say,

Alright. Anybody else?

I read every word of the book, including the introduction, and I greatly greatly appreciated it and enjoyed it. It really cleared up for me the historical reasoning behind some of the things that I suffer living here in the West as I have for all of my sixty six years. And I used to wonder from whence came the mentality so prevalent amongst the officers of the state and the historical significance of where this mentality came from is is made very clear in this book. I did not find the language off putting because books of this nature that deal with historical philosophies of the construction of a particular paradigm tend to be linguistically dense affairs, which is why I tend to avoid them. So I feel very blessed that through, this book club, I am essentially, if I want to remain a member, forced to engage with things which I might otherwise not have engaged with, but there was a great clarity for me in the lifting of the philosophical constructs of the nation state, what is meant by the nation state, its foundation.

And one of the things that recurrently occurred to me as I was reading this historical and philosophical background was the position of who says essentially things have have natures and and how they are made, the the fundamentals of that tends not to change much over time. And so in keeping that in mind, I began to understand why I, as a and a black female suffered so greatly and encountered so much hostility from from agents of the state. I am not an aggressive, verbally, or physically abusive person, and the level of violent hostility, not just intellectual or emotional, but actual physical violence that has been visited upon my person was just inexplicable to me. I couldn't understand why men would choose to behave in this manner against a person who represents absolutely no physical threat to them, made no such claim of any physical threat to them, and ended up having to be hospitalized for twelve days because they broke one of my bones in their attack on me. It it it it was just a mystery to me, but this book showed the background, the foundational formulations behind the Euro American nation state project.

And it was like clearing a veil for me so that I could clearly see why adult literate people would behave in this manner toward a a good, moral person who was simply trying to correct some wrongs being done. So it's been very beneficial to me, and I have no objection whatsoever to professor Hala cursory discussions of the Islamic side of things. The book is a warning to us about the foundation of the Western nation state and the fact that no such geopolitical entity had ever existed in humanity prior to the founding of this. And so it was very, very good for me and where and how I live. And I don't think that people who do not live in the West would get as much benefit from it unless they read it as an attempt to explain excuse me, as an attempt to explain the vagaries of western law and political thought that, as we all know, just see saw back and forth because they are not grounded in anything that is divine and therefore unchanging.

So it it was greatly beneficial to me.

Thanks, sister Wahida. Maybe if I can draw your viewers I mean, participants the participants' attention to chapter six of the book where I detected a contradiction in where he he identifies I quote, okay, the heave and thrust of globalization. Okay? In the heave and thrust of globalization, he's saying that the the state is losing its sovereignty. I thought he was onto something here.

Okay? That the nation states are losing their sovereignty. Meaning, are you going to go into, you know, the private monopoly of wealth by globe you know, global global corporate powers? You know? Again, like I said, I'm disappointed he doesn't go in that direction.

So while saying that, the trajectory that globalization has taken on the world has minimized the sovereignty and the power of nation states, and then he goes on to talk about how the world economy is undoubtedly more intensively pursued and minimally regulated, having little resemblance to a system. So I don't know what he's trying to get at. He's also saying that global and then he goes on to say that globalization has not significantly diminished the features of the nation state as discussed in the previous chapters. So first, you acknowledge so I'm I'm genuinely wondering if he's actually lucid when he's writing. You know?

Like, first of all, he okay. When talking about Muslim governance, he's insisting that we take this dichotomy of timeline. Okay? And he identifies he's he's cut off the timeline from about two hundred years ago, 1826 onwards. If you watched some of the interviews that I talked about, I've seen two interviews of him.

In one of the interviews, he talks that's the timeline he talks about. He doesn't refer to the timeline in the book, but he mentions twelve hundred years of Muslim governance. And then from after twelve hundred years, it's just it just vanished. Okay? It's nonexistent according to Halak's world.

Alright? I refuse to acknowledge that world that he's insisting upon his readers, but I just wanted to point out the contradiction in the in chapter six. You know? First, he seems to recognize the diminishing powers of nation states because of the overwhelming, you know, presence of globalization of private market, you know, of corporations. And then he goes on to say that, no.

Not really. You know, nation states, they still have the powers that I mentioned previously despite the wielding power, even thrust of globalization as he talks about. Anyway, this is something that that really irked me because, again, I had I had some hope in a direction a that he was gonna take, but he didn't. And then chapter seven was even more annoying, the section on the pillars.

I did not find a contradiction One would normally not expect a 200 year old entrenched geopolitical system to simply fold at the appearance of globalization. I I believe that this point was that there was some weakening of the western nation states due to the nation globalization, but one would not expect them to simply collapse because globalization is not yet fully realized. It's it's entrenched, but not yet fully realized. It's a relatively new phenomenon. And so I I didn't find anything dichotomous in, you know, in what he wrote.

So it it did not upset me at all. I do agree with his premise about globalization and I've always been opposed to it because I I see it as a system that will eventually very negatively impact Muslims if we are sucked into it wholly and and forced to adopt it. And as far as his statement about the twelve hundred years of Islamic rule, I I believe he was using that time frame because he's looking at the foundation and propagation of the enlightenment that took over the West in the last two hundred years, which was also when they expanded globally and began so much colonization. So it's not that the Sharia disappeared. It's that we became colonized, and that had a negative effect on our abilities to continue unimpeded in our observance of our fundamental 10 tenet.

So I I really didn't see that as something objectionable. I think when you are colonized, no matter how benign, the particular colonization is, you are certainly going to lose some of your ability to continue to live unimpeded in your own religion and culture. There will certainly be some constraints.

I'm sorry. I hate to interrupt, but when when you talk about colonizing, colonization is not a recent I mean, it's okay two hundred years ago. Yes. But we were also colonized, attacked by the Mongols, by the Crusaders. I mean, is not a new phenomenon by a foreign entity trying to take over Muslim lands, trying to take over Muslim control over territories.

It's not a recent thing. You know? I mean,

this is No.

It's is what I mean. If you're unfamiliar if if it it takes it takes us it takes someone for who is completely, totally removed from any sort of familiarity with history, with Muslim history, in order for you to go along with Halak's I sister. Because if you look at Nwawiya, okay, he established a bureaucracy. He established military control. He established financial control.

He established religious authority. You know? He established cultural and linguistic policies. I mean, there's there's things that he's established. I mean, this is Mawiya.

We're talking about Mawiya. We're we're talking about way back, like a thousand years ago. You know? And and you you you need to be because because according to Rael's world, this never existed in Muslim governance, and he has not provided any evidence of that.

I I just don't see how you can arrive at that conclusion. What Halak is discussing is what took place after the enlightenment with our contact with colonizers who came under the structure, the geopolitical structure of the enlightenment. He's not talking about pre enlightenment times. The enlightenment caused a certain kind of nation state formation. So he's just cursorily dealing with a little of our contact with that.

This is a very brief book. It is not meant to to be the be all and end all of a look at all of the attempts to colonize Muslims or all of the wars fought against us or that we fought against others. He's looking at a very constrained point in history that has to do with Western peoples Mhmm. Abandonment of any kind of divine order and setting up a system in which the god besides god is the nation state and its effects on the people in the West. Mhmm.

And some of its effects on those of us who were colonized under this system, but it's primarily a book about the setting up of the Western nation state and how it was essentially just an over an overhang of the previous theological setup stands any information or belief in God, thus making the nation state solely a god besides God because the highest level of law in the nation state is itself. There is no divine law. I remembered what Husted said about they do not change. Right. You know, they don't change.

And I just said, well, yeah. This this is showing me historically that they have not changed. So I just I just didn't

really are you? I'm a

I'm a Westerner, and I read it from a different perspective than you read it from, Salma, because I live in this mess, and I've always lived in this mess. And I've always, from the time I was a child, suffered greatly in this mess. So this was helpful to me in naming, you know, the people whose philosophies helped to set this up, and and it helped me understand why people like me suffer so greatly under this system. And I already knew that the Islamic system was superior, and I understood why having suffered the vagaries of law changes during my sixty six years. I you know, it's just been a sea change, a back and forth of laws without explanation that made any sense to me.

And so I found this as a who is a woolly haired black woman living in America for sixty six years very beneficial.

As I said, it's it's it's it has a value in terms of being a critic of Western philosophies and Western theories and Western ideas of governance. But, really, he's he's he's out of his element when he's talking about Islam and Islamic history and and Islamic government. And, again, I my problem with it is he's attributing to the system what isn't the system's problem, what isn't the system's flaw. The problem that everything that you're talking about, sister Wahida, that you've suffered isn't because of the system. It's because of Kufar.

It's because of Kufar. And they created a system that's that that's almost identical. I mean, as much as they wanna pretend that it's different, it's not different. It's the same. You like I said, and I've been saying, and as you have noted, they haven't changed.

So I don't I don't see why it's necessary except as a means of deflection from the real source of the problem. Why it's necessary to attribute all of these the the the ills of the West, the immorality of the West, you're gonna blame the system. It's not the system. Because there's so many elements there are so many elements in what he what he calls the nation state. So many, yeah, yeah, so many elements and so many factors that he attributes to the nation state that are available in the Muslim world and always have been.

They were available in Hilafa, available in Islamic government, but he pretends that they're not and that these are unique things to to the West. But they're not. And because because wait a minute. Wait a minute. Because those things are not the problem.

And he's attributing it to those things, to those elements, like, for example, you know, the the control over legislation and so forth. This isn't a problem if you're if if you are a believer, but this is a problem when you're not a believer, and you create a system like you created.

Made that very clear to me that the reason for the mess we have arrived at, and I believe he published this book in 2011. The reason for the mess we have arrived at, because he lives over here in the mess, is because there is no observance of divine law. There is no unchanging higher moral authority from God. We made this clear on several occasions.

What we're saying is that never has been. There never has been in the West pre or post enlightenment. There never has been divine authority. That's what we're saying.

So the way I'm kind of reading reading into it is we know so we we do know that Kufin is at the foundation of it all. Right? Because they don't have, you know, they've never been it's like I said, they've never been guided by divine law to begin with. Right? I think looking or read first of all, I think I would have to reread the book two and three times, to be honest, just to kind of, you know, really get a better grasp on what he's saying.

Sorry. Sorry. I just imagined the torture. Sorry. I

I personally you know what? I expanded my vocabulary is all I'm gonna say is all I'm gonna say. But he's but I think so the way I'm I'm just kind of putting myself in his shoes as someone who's kind of writing this book more than anything else. He might I don't know halak. And, I mean, like, there's always there's always a lot of contemplation about whether this this person is or is not going to become a Muslim one day.

There's there's always been theoretical contemplations based

on I don't understand why that's such a big deal.

The way it's just the way knowledge works because knowledge is passed on from one empire to the other, whether it was whether it was started by the Chinese and the pharaohs and then the Greeks and the Romans, the Muslims, and however way you take knowledge and however way, you know, it always adds on from one to the other. And, you know, it's it there are things that are invented by one group of people that's passed on to another group of people and and, you know, you take, you know, you take knowledge wherever it comes from. I think I think it is a lot of theory. It's a lot of theoretical entertainment in a way, the way I see it. And and he's I mean, I'm I'm just gonna, for example, speak about, know, the bits in chapter six.

I think when he spoke about globalization and and and and consumerism, I think, yeah, I think he was quite fair in his assessment, to be honest. I didn't really see any well, you know, I didn't see I didn't see anything that would go completely against what we already know about globalization and and and consumerism and how corporation, you know, there's this, you know, there's this little segment that says about how corporation is created for one purpose, which is to increase wealth and prioritize and prioritize this purpose above all others, to prioritize wealth and making money essentially over social responsibility. And and, essentially, the goal of corporations to increase profit. You know, there are like, I can't I can't just kinda negate everything he says because he's not a Muslim. Right?

And he has shed a lot of light about you know, over over over over how over how, you know, over how the nation state, I suppose, in a western sense runs. Maybe he didn't run a very fair comparison to the modern the modern, I wanna say, Islamic state. But the modern Islamic state, I mean, you know, I can't say that it's completely flawless either. Right? So, you know, it's it's it's always there's always gonna be more room to grow and more room to improve.

But, again, this book is also in 2011, so maybe we're not giving you know, I don't feel like I feel like a lot has changed since 2011. I feel like a lot has changed since 2011, on a lot of levels, right, whether it's whether it's economically or politically speaking. But, yeah, I think I see so, again again, I, you know, I completely see where Wahidah's coming from when you live, you know, when you live in Europe or in America or or in a Muslim based country, how these how shedding light on how, you know, Islam ran as a state. Well, not not not a state, but, you know, as a you know, I'm gonna say a state just for just for the sake of it, in comparing comparing the the the divine laws that were inspired by Islam to to to to the man made laws of of the modern European or American or, you know, Kufr state, let's say. I think I do find it appealing.

I think if I were to come from a background, I find it appealing as someone who grew up in a society, to be honest, that was very much, was very much kind of mind blown and and amazed by the West. Like, one of like, as someone who grew up in well, it was it was, you know, in The Gulf, but in very international schools, let's say, or, like, predominantly, international, groups as well, whether it were Arabs or not Arabs, a lot of them a lot of them were very much, what's the word? Awe inspired by Western values more than you'd think. Right? Especially when we're talking about those who come from very liberal backgrounds.

Very awe inspired by Western values, always trying to bring it's it's almost like they know better than we do, and this is why they've progressed more than we have.

Okay? Sorry. Just to just just to clarify, they're in awe of Western values or Western value?

So what what I need clarification of the difference in in in terms of

Values meaning their beliefs and morals and principles. Value meaning their power and supremacy in the world.

Yes. So what I so what I've seen in these international communities, but I say they're more liberal international communities, is that they thought it's because these people have freedom so called or so called freedom of expression. It's because, it's because their women are free to do whatever they want. They, for some reason, genuinely believe that women there are better off than the women that we had in The Middle East. And, of course, I always took a more conservative approach to these then.

So so things that have to do with, just development, you know, in terms of technology and in terms of medicine and in terms of research, because, you know, all the research and all the medicine and all the technology comes from the West or, you know, or let's say even, like, Japan or or China. So they must be doing something right, and there's something wrong with our backward ways. There are there are genuine there's genuinely large groups of of Muslims who or westernized Muslims, I wanna say, who still think and feel that way. And I think this is something that we also need to really work on tackling from the inside. So so when you see someone who's a non Muslim so I'm coming back to, you know, I'd say 16 year old, my my 16 year old self, seeing someone as a non Muslim approaching Islam in this light is very appealing in terms of breaking down, and breaking down some some some just false preconceptions that we have about them.

So I think that that that makes me see Wahida's point in the way she analyzed the book.

See, this is what this is what what what you and I were talking about, my my wife and I were talking about the other day. The the this false thing that they put forward that modernity and liberalism are synonymous. They're interchangeable. So that so that if you, for example, if you like using technology, then that means you have to subscribe to liberal liberalism because they make these two things synonymous. Because what's modernity?

What do you mean by modernity? What does that even mean? What's the definition of modernity? Obviously, you don't actually mean technology. You mean the so called enlightenment values.

You mean the the western liberalism and so forth. So so then where does the where where is the conflict then between the the the the Muslim world and modernity, except if you mean with liberalism? But liberalism and modernity are not the same thing. Modernity is in any era. One hundred years ago, it was it was modernity.

In any particular period, it just means now, today, present. What does that have to do with liberalism? You're you're you're you're making it, like, by by by implication, liberalism is today, and everything else is yesterday. Every other way of being, every other way of thinking, every other philosophy, every other belief system is yesterday, is old, is antiquated. But what who said that you get to call modernity and whatever whatever is modern your belief system?

Why? It doesn't make sense. But but we accept it. We believe it so that we think now, well, Islam then, therefore, and and Muslim values and so forth can't be compatible with modernity because today, modernity is is is interchangeable with liberalism, with Western liberalism. That's a trick.

That's a linguistic trick.

K. Just back to Tala, I just wanna point out that the contradiction I found was him pointing out that this the the trajectory of I I mean, all all of the all the outcomes of globalization, like, you know, McDonald's and fast food and the the whole cultural influence aside, he tried to point out that globalization was now taking over nation states such that the sovereignty that it had is lost. He mentions that. So I was I thought he was onto something. He was gonna talk about private corporate wealth that is anational, that does not care about America, UK.

I mean, there's actual third worldization of America that has taken place. You know, it's not a recent phenomenon.

Yeah. I remember reading that paragraph. Yeah.

Mhmm. Yeah. So and then he goes on to say that, but still, you know, he doesn't he he contradicts himself in in in a in a in another section, claiming that, well, you know, the the nation states still have the the power. Like, I feel that he's confused in trying to put bring his point, and then it's just abruptly it ends there. It's was just unsatisfactory for me because, again, based off of that Arabic interview Arabic language interview that I mentioned I had seen, I had hoped that he would have covered a lot more in-depth about globalization, you know, besides the the things the cultural impact that it has had on us.

And then about the the the, you know, the besoughtment of the West by a segment of people, I think I don't think that answers that that's an answer or that's a response to the book. I mean, in the book, he's blatantly claiming that because of the nature of the modern state, therefore, Muslims have abandoned sharia without actually validating or backing his claims, except that according to him, based off of that 02/1826, for whatever reasons, he marks that point. And I know okay. I know why he says that, but specifically 1826, why? You you need to dig further into that interview.

But it has no basis on Western enlightenment values. It is there's a reason why he's going into that direction, and it's baseless because Muslim history before that operated the same way. We had we we had inter we we've always interacted with modernity, and we've always practiced istihad. We have always tried to negotiate with what's taking place on the ground with our religious texts. You know?

We have fiqh. Fiqh is not religiously mandate it's it's not cast in stone. You know? It's not what's that word I'm looking for? It's it's not binding.

Islam is always modern.

Yes. Islam is a modern religion. I I I want to emphasize I can't emphasize this enough. You know? It is a modern religion.

It's always been, and we are we we don't change with

Yeah. And faith changes with the times. It changes with circumstances and the and the situation. It's it's always responsive. And sharia doesn't change.

It's what and it's that changes.

Yeah. And it is part of the framework of Sharia. You you cannot just because you must you must be so isolated and away from Muslim history and Muslim application of the law in order for you to claim that, that it's absent, or you're just insisting on it for some reason. I don't know what his goal is in insisting on it because it just seems pretentious because history is out there. It's just blatant.

You know? I don't understand why he's, first of all, insisting on a timeline, and it's not a real timeline. We've never had the dark ages. We never had this conflict with, again, interacting with changing modernity. I mean, changing society I mean, with change, we never had this conflict.

We always had a way to negotiate with our lawmaking, you know, with with with Sharia at at its epicenter. It's always been even today to claim that, for example, that Malaysia is now therefore not an Islamic state because it's not the way, I don't know, you imagine it should be because of what I mean, pre enlightenment Europe. That's just it's it's absurd. You know? It just doesn't make any sense to me that you would insist on that when in reality, it's completely you know, people in Malaysia are not looking up to the West and thinking that West are that the Western you know, the West is great or or that's the way to aspire to.

And even then, I mean, once misguided aspirations to a calm or or a society or community, it it doesn't explain the the formation of the nation nation state as you know, to to contribute to this, you know, because we've also had back in the day, we've looked up to other different communities. You know? I mean, we've always looked up to different communities for its values. We've looked up to the Persians for for a lot of the a lot of the things that they have contributed to civilization.

I see what you mean. I do feel like I do feel like generally in far Forest Asia and Malaysia, I've been there a few times, there's always do you pee like, people there have a much higher sense of pride in in in in everything that they've done so far, you know, as a country, you know, as a country, as a nation, and they have every right to. I think, I think in The Middle East, people have been a lot more affected by colonialism. It's just kind of there's generational trauma, I wanna say, that's kind of passed on in which people are very, very you know, it's like whether it's whether it comes to learning English as a second language, whether it comes to, pursuing your degree in a European country or, you know, or in America, whether it comes to, you know, oh, like, you know, little little, you know, just things about, for example, hijab or how you dress or how you prevent yourself. There's always up until this day, we do have remnants of, of of of being, I wanna say, intellectually occupied in a way.

I think it has it has become better over the past decade. I I think especially with the way, you know, The Gulf is economically prospering at a very fast rate. But but there are still remnants of that in countries. Well, I wouldn't say The Gulf, but outside beyond The Gulf. So I think yeah.

Alright. It might

I mean, I think I think it's interesting I think it's interesting that you that that's why I asked about if they attribute the the power and supremacy of the West to their values and principles and so on. Because when you when you connect liberalism with modernity and modernity actually just means, like I said, whatever is modern, whatever is present in the world today, meaning mostly like the technology and so forth. When you connect that with liberalism, then actually what they're doing is, again, making a materialistic argument in favor of their values and their and their supremacy. They're they're saying liberalism is better because we have iPhones. That's it comes down to something like this.

They're saying liberalism is supreme because we have all of these nice things. It's still the same thing of a of a materialistic argument. And and they've fooled us into believing that rather than just saying, well, okay. You made nice things, but that doesn't mean that your that your philosophies make any sense at all. Because what the the purpose that philosophy and and belief systems and so on and values, the purpose that that the purpose that that is supposed to serve is to make you a civilized society.

It's supposed to make you decent people, moral people, and so forth, and it has it has completely failed to do that. Your your your belief system has completely failed to do that. However, yes, you've been very productive materially.

They believe they the thing is the issue is they believe that they're a moral society. They actually think that they are. Well, I think everything again, for the past you know, since October, people people they've developed insight, and there's this wave of awareness. But before before that, they genuinely believe that they're a moral society. They they you know, things such as abortion laws or things such as certain, you know, the fact that they've got a a central, a central security or, like, police system, for example, like, you know, that that that brings order to people.

They think that again, a lot of it has to do with, you know, just feminism, I suppose, and women and whatnot. That's where a lot of it comes from and, you know, completely ignoring a lot.

But don't

you think

that but but don't you think that these that these attitudes are primarily held by a certain class of people?

I'd say high middle class and above.

Right.

Higher middle class and above. Definitely.

More than more than more

than Just like just like sister Wahida was talking about, the African immigrants who are who are allowed into The US, as she said, are from already from the elite of their own societies.

Yeah.

So, I mean, this this this figures. You're indoctrinated. You're propagandized. You're you're you were the class that was the collaborator class with the colonizers. So, of course, this is the side that you fall on.

But I don't I don't think that the general public in the Muslim world or the global South generally feels that way.

About sorry. I think it like, okay. Maybe some to to illustrate something where Tala was talking about okay. I know she's this is not what she brought up, but, like, say slavery, the way we talk about slavery. Okay.

Like, okay. So the West would say, okay. We used to do that. It was in the past. We don't do that anymore.

You know? So we okay. I see a problem because they they have taken on this framework. Right? So what what do we do?

If we don't know any better, we would we would go, oh, okay. Yeah. That's that's that was bad. We shouldn't have done it. You know?

We've guilt trips us into accepting their paradigm. But if you know any better, you would know, heck no, the way we did slavery was completely alien and different, not at all identical to the way you practiced it. This is something that needs to be understood. WIL's book is trying to impose a kind of a disconnect with that, you know, like I have to accept, I have to believe that I have to accept that because of the nation state, therefore my conception of my own history is now corrupted. It's not.

Why is it not corrupted? Because I know my history. It becomes corrupted if you don't know your history. That's what I'm trying to drive at here about about I mean, if I were to talk to Weil, this is what I would say to him. You can't you can't tell me that this is this is who I am because this is not who I am.

You insist that this is who I am because of certain conceptions about me, and you don't know me, and this is where I have a contention. You're not Muslim. Like I I like I illustrated on the point about slavery. You know, it's a very good example because you can say now, like, someone who's actually ignorant about Muslim history would actually go along with halak and say, yeah. You know, it's wrong.

You know? We we we shouldn't feel that way because we feel this way because modern state. That's not it. It's because you don't know your religion. You don't know your history.

That's why. You know? There are people who have not been affected by these by the by the by the malaise of the modern state. You know? Say I acknowledge, okay, so the modern state is an extension of colonialism.

Okay? They just found a way to remotely colonize the rest of the world, and they have devised this economic model, economic system to control the rest of the world. Fine. That's okay. That's that's that's a thing.

And Muslims have understood that, and they have used the sharia as its epicenter to negotiate with the realities on the ground to live as Muslims. We've always done that. We've always done that.

I think I agree with you, sister Solomon. I think I agree with sister Shakid.

That's what

I I think on that point that

Sharia was still alive and the people, that the people had never given up the Sharia. That's that's literally what he wrote. And I I just don't I just don't see how your personal experience as a person from your background in the country you live in, in the country you were born in, how that negates my experience in the country I live in, in the country I was born in. Halak is a humanities professor. He's not an economics professor, so he wrote a book about what he has seen amongst the elites of the Muslims who come over, get their degrees, remain, and teach here, and what he has seen amongst the bulk of the Muslims who immigrate here, and he looked at the condition of those people.

He looked at the background of the system we live under, critiqued it correctly that it was due to the lack of an unchanging divine law that this system doesn't even acknowledge such a thing and that as such it was doomed to failure at the outset. Correct. And that is not correctable, and it's a warning to Muslims to not go in the streets of their own nations screaming for democracy. That's what I got out of it.

Sorry. If I if I may interject sorry. Sorry about this. Feel like that all of us are basically converging on the same point just a bit of in a different way and just using different laws. That's how I feel, to be honest.

And I I think what you're saying and what is saying is not really not not really against each other at all, I think. What I think is that perhaps is pointing out the fact that, obviously, there is a huge difference of Sharia is still in the Muslim society, and nobody can deny that. Even Alak, I think, this book has said that the of Islam has remained mostly untouched and unchanged. I think he himself has in this book. And I think where where I believe all of us probably will disagree with a lot is is is his assessment of how much capacity we have to change that state system at the moment.