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Hello friends, my name is Gabriel and this is exploring the Quran in the Bible in this episode

I speak with Dr. Yasir Kadi and extremely well-known intellectual and leader of the Muslim American community

We speak a bit about his work both in the academy and his work in the community and then we turn to a fascinating verse of the Quran

The verse of the covenant which by some elements of the tradition is understood to represent a primordial covenant in which all of humanity collectively acknowledges the worship of God

But there are other interpretations possible. One of those is presented by Dr. Kadi in regards to the thought of Ibn Taymiyah

So we'll discover more about Dr. Kadi's own thoughts about Ibn Taymiyah and about the verse of the covenant. Thank you so much for joining friends

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Hello Dr. Yasir Kadi, thank you so much for joining me on exploring the Quran in the Bible

Hey Gabriel, it's my pleasure and nice to see you

Yes, pleasure is mine. I have a brief introduction then we'll have some questions and we'll have a presentation on the topic of a really important verse in the Quran that has a long tradition of study and speculation and debate around it namely the covenant verse

But before we get to the introduction and the questions, I want to give you the opportunity just to present yourself and speak about this occasion appearing on this channel

Yes, I mean, Gabriel, I mean a lot of people know we go back quite a while. We were, you know, we studied at Yale together, we have the same teachers

And of course, I really appreciate the academy and a lot of this doing. I have to confess I haven't seen all of your videos that you have on your channel

But obviously I follow along and I am aware of the publications you've had and I believe it's very important that we engage in very frank dialogue

I know some people are a little bit hesitant to engage in dialogue. I'm not that type of person, whether we like it or not, there are views out there in the academy about the faith that obviously Muslims are going to find problematic, that is the reality

We can't just ignore those views. We have to engage with them in a manner that demonstrates we have a robust tradition we're able to defend. I mean, I know for a fact some of the people you have on your channel

They have views that I strongly disagree with, you know, so obviously me coming on your channel does not endorse their views as their views. I'm going to present my views and we're going to engage in dialogue and I want to just make clear for the record that perhaps 100 or 200 years ago it would make sense for faith communities to be isolated from one another

But the world we live in now isolation is not healthy and it's not going to protect a lot of people kick into a defensive mechanism of not wanting to engage with the other

I just don't think that's the way forward even if we disagree and I'm sure the two of us disagree on some things as well so it is what it is but we have to engage in a manner that demonstrates what exactly we believe why we believe it

We empathize with the other view in so far as it's coming from a constructed argument that is logical and if it's not it's our job to, you know, deconstruct it. That's exactly what these dialogues are about. So I am very happy to be interviewed by you to present my presentation

And hopefully this is going to further the conversation not just about the verse of me that but also about even Tamia, which is really the focus of today's talk.

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