The suffering of the world is spoken of in term of wars, starvation, hatred, competition, and the struggle of the survival of the fittest. Yet all the suffering of the world originates in the human heart. Every crime committed, every act of oppression, every callous cruelty, and every injustice to the self or others emanates from the hearts of men.

The soundest of hearts was the heart of the
Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) who, through his purity and singularity of intention, transformed the world. His teaching remains and the challenge is for each of us to take it and to transform our hearts with it, thereby, transforming the very world in which we live. This CD can be purchased from www.alhambraproductions.com

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson was born in Walla Walla, Washington, and grew up in Northern California.

Shaykh Hamza embraced Islam in 1977 in Santa Barbara, California, when he was still a teenager and set off almost immediately to study Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence, philosophy, and spiritual psychology with masters in the Muslim world. He first studied for four years in the United Arab Emirates and then moved to Madina, followed by Algeria, Morocco, and then finally to a unique madrassa in the Saharan desert of West Africa to study with the remarkable scholar Shaykh Murabit Al-Hajj.

After ten-years of studies abroad, he returned to the United States and completed degrees in nursing at Imperial Valley College and religious studies at San Jose State University.

In the early 1990's he began to teach classes in the San Francisco Bay Area and in 1996 he established Zaytuna Institute. Two years later the institute acquired a property in Hayward, California, where it is now based. Zaytuna Institute is committed to inspiring a traditional understanding and study of the core Islamic sciences. In addition to weekly classes, week-long and month-long educational programs, and annual conferences that addresses contemporary issues affecting the American people, Zaytuna Institute has published four small books and several major audio-tape sets of Shaykh Hamza's classes.

As the executive director of the Zaytuna Institute, Shaykh Hamza travels frequently to major North American and European cities to teach and lecture to both Muslims and non-Muslim audiences.