YouSaid · the spoken record

Reza Aslan

lines on the record: 64
first: 2022-10-19
most recent: 2022-10-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So, India, of course, is the most religiously diverse nation on earth. Every religion that you can possibly imagine exists in India, including all the forms of Islam. And so you're going to see the traditional, say, like Naqshbandi version of Sufism, which means, you know, people sit around in circles and they take part in breathing exercises and maybe yogic movements or they recite certain verses from the Quran over and over again as a way of kind of achieving oneness with God. But then you go into the villages and you see Sufis who are walking on hot coals, for instance, as a way of denying the body. It really runs the gamut. It really does.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so we see sort of Christian mysticism all around the world that in some places looks like paganism and in some places looks like sort of traditional nature worship, but it uses some of the symbols and metaphors of Christianity, and so it kind of becomes an indigenous version of Christianity. And that's exactly the same thing with Sufism and Islam. It depends on where you go.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then say the Nakshbundis? Yeah, absolutely. So what's great about Sufism, and again, this is sort of a standard description of all mystical movements, is that they absorb themselves into local cultures and local practices. And so when you have these kinds of deeply spiritual mystical movements, they most often arise from the culture. They're not so often brought in from the outside, right? Religion in its most orthodoxic sense is usually introduced to a culture or to a people, right? Somebody shows up and says, this is Islam, this is Christianity, this is Buddhism. Sufism, like much of mystical movements, is something that sort of comes out of the ground itself and then starts to marry itself to that kind of dominant religion.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a hardcore brilliant theological question because it's one that's been debated for generations. And what I will say is this, that Sufism is, like all mystical traditions, incredibly eclectic. It comes in thousands of different forms. There are some Sufis that are very traditionalist, very hard to even sometimes tell the difference between them and your basic Sunni. And there are some Sufis that take part in these spectacular displays, sometimes displays that involve putting swords through their bodies, taking part in painful ways of trying to sort of deny the self and the body in a way, that Muslims would look at and say, that looks nothing like Islam. And so, you know, Sufism is what a Sufi says it is, basically.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But all religion is nothing more than an external shell. Its important it's not like we should, you know, just ignore it. But to truly know God requires breaking through that external shell and getting to the very heart of the matter. So in other words, Sufis have this line that I have always loved that they say religion is the signpost to God. That religion does nothing more than just point the way to God, but to know God, you have to rid yourself of the ego and become one with God.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Other side of the world, the Islamic world. Sufism is, of course, the mystical branch of Islam. All religions have a mystical branch to them, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism. It's sort of the, in scholarly terms, we talk about religions having an exoteric and an esoteric version. And the exoteric is scripture, tradition, rituals, you know, all of that stuff, the external stuff, and the esoteric is the hidden mysterious spiritual meaning at the heart of the religion. And Islam, like all religions, has that esoteric movement, and it's called Sufism. And while it is true that Sufism arose out of Sunni Islam in many ways, it has a lot more in common with Shiism, actually. Sufism kind of balances the divide, if you will. One thing that Sufis are adamant about is that religion, and not just”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Recognize seven, some recognize 12. Iran is what's called 12 or Shiism. So they recognize 12 imams. And you said it right. These are different. They're not like the rest of us. They're infallible. They get divine authority. They have access to knowledge from a divine source that the rest of us don't have access to. Now, of course, there are no more imams left. They're all gone now at this point. But what that does is, I think, twofold. Number one, yes, you're right. It does kind of become a religion about charisma and a religion about personality. And you can very easily see how that can lead to someone like Ayatollah Khomeini taking over an entire country because he taps into that notion of a charismatic personality.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, I think that's an absolutely correct interpretation of Shia Islam. Sunni Islam, which is the majority version of Islam, about 80% of the world's, you know, nearly 2 billion Muslims would call themselves some form of Sunni Islam. And Sunni Islam tends to be focused on text and interpretation. The Quran and the so called sunnah, which is like this vast body. I think Jews will know what I'm talking about, right? Like there's the scripture, and then there are tens of thousands of pages of interpretation on that scripture. And for most Sunnis, that is the sum and total of where authority lies. But not so with Shiism. You're absolutely right. Shiism has had first a series of so-called imams, and depending on what kind of Shia you are, you recognize a different number of imams, some recognize six.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is a suicide mission. There is no way that this will succeed, but I'm going to do it anyway because it is to free people from suffering and injustice.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we have definitely forgotten all about him. Actually, I'd say it's more proper to say that Iranians have forgotten all about him. Americans never knew him to begin with. I mean, his story never really took hold in the United States, although there were, you know, front page stories about his death and his decision to join the revolution. But in Iran, the facts of his martyrdom, which is that he was living in a city that was besieged by the Shah's soldiers, a city that was slowly starving to death, a city that had run out of food. And he and his students at the time made this fateful decision to try to break through that siege and bring help and food to the city. And he died in that process, which going back to what we were just saying is sort of like the quintessential notion of Shia martyrdom, right?”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a very good question. So, of course, in Christianity, martyrdom is modeled on Jesus' martyrdom. And the idea is that Jesus died to cleanse humanity of their sins. And so there's a very clear spiritualization of that act. It doesn't have a lot of sort of material aspects to it. Not so in Shiism. Hussein died not to cleanse anyone of their sins, but to save their mortal lives, to actually release people from oppression and injustice. It was a very sort of conscious effort to help people where they are now by sacrificing himself for it. So that's what I would say is really the fundamental difference between it is that martyrdom in Shia Islam isn't spiritual. in the same way that martyrdom and Christianity tends to be.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“City called Karbala in modern day Iraq, his small band of followers some seventy or so, came into confrontation with the caliph's massive army, and recognizing that there was no way to win this conflict, Hussein nevertheless went into battle in the name of justice against oppression, he and all of his followers were slaughtered, and that moment became sort of the birth of what we now understand as Shia Islam, which is why earlier I said it has at its heart this concept of the righteous individual willing to die in the name of justice against oppression.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so sheism as a religion, just to be clear, so Shiism is one of the major sects of Islam. Islam has many, many sects like most religions do, but the major two sects are the Sunni Islam and Shia Islam. And Shiism arose out of Sunni Islam in the 7th century, primarily as a response to what was fundamentally just a disagreement, a political disagreement over who should lead the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet's family lost that argument. And over the next generation or so, Islam became a kind of aerobocentric empire. But one of the prophets' grandsons, Hussein, decided to launch an ill-fated revolution against what he saw as a corrupt and unjust empire. And in six hundred eighty.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ooh, well, I mean, I guess number one would be being willing to sacrifice yourself for other people. But not just other people. Being willing to sacrifice yourself for your beliefs. This, of course, is at the heart of the concept of Christianity, which is all about sacrifice, but it also is at the heart of Shia Islam, which is the majority religion in Iran. And so Baskerville, this Christian missionary who arrives in this Shia country in a way, you know, maybe they had different religions and different beliefs, but they had a very similar way of expressing those beliefs.”
2022-10-19 · Conversations with Tyler · Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source