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Originally Posted by BanCricFan
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf is a brilliant traditional and charismatic muslim scholar. He is one of those rare present-day "encyclopedic" scholars muslim scholarship was so renowned for. I was one of the early students to attend the "Rehla" course at the Zaytuna Institute and benifited immeasurably. Insha Allah, Zaytuna will lead the way for all traditional scholarship with many of its teachers having unbroken chains-of-transmission which goes right back to the beloved prophet of Islam ( Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)!
This is where traditional Islamic teaching methodology is used and improvised by some of the most brilliant minds of our age!
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Couldn’t agree more. During my limited interactions with this approachable and charming man, I was always impressed by his humble bearing, clarity of thought, the vast depth and expanse of his knowledge, and the traditional methods of scholarship he emphasizes with regards to ontology and Islamic research. I was under the distinct impression that this is what it must have been like to face the likes of Ibn-Rushd during the glory years of Islamic scholarship and sciences. I have been thinking about exploring the Institute myself the next time I find myself in the Bay Area. As the sheer number of my posts clearly show here, iI'm bored with the line of work I was trained to do, and am seriously pondering a late, more meaningful career change. Your input certainly adds a lot of fuel to that fire.
I’m always deeply inspired by men and women who incessantly engage in the inner struggle to balance
Imaan with
Aml, to
feel and practice what they preach. The harmony of pen and sword is beautiful indeed, and that beauty can bring out the best in all of us if we allow it, and become conscious of God's grace that flows through us always. I’ve had the good fortune to meet HE the Dalai Lama, Ayatollah Rafsanjani, Hojat-al-Islam Khatemi, and a certain Mrs. Kawabata, my former aikido teacher and a woman entirely devoid of malice. I wish I had the good fortune to meet Sheikh Ibn-al-Arabi, Jalauddin Rumi, Lalon Shai, Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekanda, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Al-Hajj Malik Al Shabaz and Mother Teresa just to feel the warmth their God consciousness, love and desire for justice must have emanated, and continues to touch so many long after their death.
Blabbering on ...
Anyway, I caught a program on Al-Jazeera quite recently that interviewed Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and wondered why
Munafique nutjobs like Laden get all the attention in the popular "western" media. Of course the late Edward Said in his
Orientalism,
Culture and Imperialism and
Covering Islam has provided great insights as to why. Muslims living in the west, especially in the post 9/11 world, can perhaps arm themselves better with the knowledge of such scholarship and take it upon themselves to proactively balance and perhaps even dispel some of the negative images of Islam painted and perpetuated by malicious and the ignorant alike.
Thanks for you input bro.