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By Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson
“… in the chaotic tenor of our current culture, we lack an understanding the ancients deemed self-evident: the need for what the Japanese called bushido, the Arabs called “futuwwa,” and what we in the West once called paideia — a type of chivalrous education for young men, where they were challenged to “tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world,” as Aeschylus put it. This is what we lack. Youthful vigor should be channeled to engage in study of the normative Islamic tradition with an emphasis on the tools of learning. With knowledge to ground them, they can face the complexities and challenges of our time with wisdom, not rage.”

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf:
“Muslims are constantly being accused of not condemning these types of attacks, even though I don’t have any control over what other people do, and they don’t represent me or my faith. Nobody associates all Seventh-day Adventists with David Koresh, who belonged to a splinter sect, or all of Judaism with Meir Kahane. But when these things happen, the whole religion of Islam is besmirched. We’re trapped in this constant cycle of: events, condemnation; events, condemnation. And then people still say, “Why don’t Muslims condemn these things?”