Abdal Hakim Murad – Ukraine, Islam & the Current Conflict
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah somebody's been asking about the relationship of Islam to
Ukraine and those amazing Eastern European
peoples, I had the privilege of going there visiting some of the
old mother houses and mosques with my family about maybe eight or so
years ago. Now, and it's obviously for those of us who are European
Muslims, which is basically, by definition, all Muslims who are
domiciled in Western Europe and who are fascinated by the
incredible story, really one of the great heroic stories of the
OMA of Islam in Europe, the heroism of Islam in Spain of the
Inquisition, the heroism of the Muslim countries of Sicily, of
Islamic Malta, the great story of Islam in the Balkans, most
recently in the Bosnian conflict. But further east, of course, we
think about this the ocassion genocide, the biggest genocide in
Europe in the 19th century, when, but 80% of the Muslims in
Circassia were, were killed. And then we think about Ukraine,
Crimea. So, you know, as as a European community, we are
absolutely focused on what's happening in terms of the Islam as
the third Abrahamic dispensation, the one that comes to solve the
problems and that historically has functioned as such a healing
principle in those places. So we think about Islam in South Eastern
Europe and the Ukrainian basin up as far as the Don River and
beyond.
And although there are signs of early Muslim
presence there from the kind of early Ambassade period, traders in
particular, on the sea of as off in kapha, in Carson, some of those
ancient trading communities really,
Islam as a substantive and even majority presence in South
Ukraine, goes back to the successes of Ganges Han the first
Mongols. 1227 countries Han dies, and he's conquered that entire
region, all of what is now Ukraine 90% of what's now Russia, he goes
as far as Hungary.
Episode is ruling still from from Karakoram in Mongolia, one of
history's monumental episodes of Imperial conquest, so dies in 2027
and the Mongols who are in those regions, many of them settled down
he divided them parent of four amongst his four sons, and the
westernmost part, which includes all of what's now Ukraine goes to
his son, whose grandson is better que han Baraka Han, one of the
most significant figures really in Northern European Islamic history,
because Belka Han in 1258 is the first to convert to Islam. And it
becomes really a very significant Muslim and facilitates the
conversion process progress right across southern Ukraine, even to
the north of Kyiv. There's very substantial Islamization going on
largely through Naqshbandi and Cobra we and other Ghaderi Tahrir
close, who are establishing tickets, and you can see ruins of
those buildings even to this day, and it becomes really an important
part of part of the ummah.
People ask, Well, why is it if Russia and Ukraine was so solidly
Islamist and became really integrated into the rest of the
Ummah, under this great empire that the Russians called the
Golden Horde, that they themselves just called on us the great, the
great nation, one of the great episodes of Islamic history really
in that region. And of course, even frontline goes up there. And
some of you will have seen Antonio Banderas, and Omar Sharif in the
famous movie, The 13th warrior, which is wonderful if you want to
see Vikings and Muslims and Ukrainians and monsters all in one
movie. It didn't do very well in America because, well, it has a
Muslim heroes. So
it didn't play well in the multiplexes. But it's an
interesting kind of window into that world.
So Belka Khan has converted to Islam and it seems he's very
devout. And from that time onwards, the interest of the loss
is no longer at what is going on to the north. At that time, Russia
is not united, there are different barons and boilers competing with
each other but to the south.
And hence the Muslim Ukraine starts to look to the south rather
than to the north. Why is this? Because Belkin Han has good
relations with the last Ambassade Kailash and Baghdad, burka Han and
Akbar Khan. He has good relations with the last Khelifa in Baghdad.
Al Motta awesome, almost Alison, and then of course full ago, who
is still a Buddhist
shamanist Mongol, treacherously attacks the remains of that a
basket case and kills the last Khalifa
and is pressing west. So backcare Han stops looking to the north and
starts looking to the south and he forges an alliance with the
Mamluks in Egypt and it's because of their military support with
these these very significant Ukrainian Muslim armies that the
Mongols are finally stopped at Angel lot and elsewhere. So it's
believed to be the case that it was Belka Han, who protected
Jerusalem and Makkah and Medina from being completely destroyed by
the Mongols. That's one of the contributions of Ukrainian Islam
to really the central history of the Ummah, these aren't marginal
people any longer.
Now, the interesting thing that happens at this time is following
Darko fans, demise. You have
other M years in that region. One of them is mum, ie the great Amir,
whose formal name was Mohammed, who again was a great warrior
against the sort of barbarian peoples to the north and to the
east, one of the people who is expanding the mother ourselves in
the mosques into western Siberia across the Euros and there are
still Muslim communities in the Urals to this day from that time,
and one of the stories that the Russian Muslims will tell you is
that mummy, of course, said to have been buried in the great
Muslim cemetery the mummy of collagen is named after him in the
city of
well, Volgograd now, then called Stalingrad. According to the
Russian Muslims, at any rate, it was the prayers of the Olia of the
Al Bayt buried in the Mumbai of Colgan that turned the tide at
Stalingrad, because that was the essence of the battle between
Eastern West and that's where the biggest Soviet War Memorial is
located right in the middle of that Tata Muslim burial ground
there's an eternal flame and so forth. That's the story Russian
Muslims will tell you it's that are dead Alia actually were the
ones who defeated Hitler anyway.
And then we find through the period of decline following the
Battle of Kulikov, or field, which was 1380, which is when Russia
starts to become united. And it becomes more or less clear that
even though Ukraine as it now is a still under Muslim rule, and Islam
is really thriving there, but also very big Jewish communities carry
out Jews and others, Greek communities, it's a typical
cosmopolitan Muslim place, to the north of that is going to be
Muscovy, leading on to the 16th century and Ivan the Terrible's
destruction of Muslims on the river Volga and the Russian push
to the east.
So, southern Ukraine,
obviously the Crimea is a Muslim country until the end of the 18th
century when Catherine the Great captures it. The Treaty of yesI
which is one of the great defeats really for the Ottoman Empire,
when the Black Sea is no longer just a Muslim lake. And the city
of * Bay, which was the capital of the Z province of the Ottoman
Empire was captured and Christianized by Catherine the
Great and 20 years later, * Bay becomes the city of Odetta. To
this day, Hyderabad has the official name of ADESA, but it was
originally an ottoman city and, and settlement and still a very
kind of interesting place
after 1792, in the Treaty of Yasi, Russia NYSED. But there's Yeah,
there is a mosque there.
And some very heroic stories from Muslims who were executed by the
communist
subversion sufferer of was the great alum of ADESA, who, after
the Russian Revolution was was shot by the communists. Also in
that era, you find the
Jewish communities,
which have always been big in the Muslim world, they start to flee
from the old Ottoman territories back into the Ottoman Empire
because of the pogroms particularly the 1882 big pogrom
of the Jews in in Ukraine and in Russia, very many of them flee to
the Ottoman Empire, and I've even met American Jews converts to
Islam who remember how their grandparents in Odessa would
always make sure they had not even passport, just in case things got
difficult. The church started to ferment a pogrom again, they could
move over the border into the Ottoman empire where they were
where they were safe. So under the communists, things become really
difficult. Muslims by this time in Ukraine are actually a minority.
And you have various heroic stories in Crimea in particular
whether you know
Catherine the Great demolish the mosques in Crimea and brought in
Russian settlers. And it's been a very difficult experience. In
1944, Stalin deported all the Muslims of Crimea, and more than
half of them. Maybe 150,000 died just during the deportations. It
was a great catastrophe for them. And they're still trying to come
back most of the Jimmy Lev, of course, is the chair of the
Crimean Tatar Mejlis is said to have carried out the longest ever
protest hunger strike recorded anywhere when he was arrested by
the Soviets, because of his campaigning for Muslim Rights in
Crimea. He's been nominated for a Nobel Prize as a medal from the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees and so forth. Various
assassination attempts on him but he was a kind of hero really for
the Muslims of the area. So today's situation is that there is
a Mufti in Kyiv
at the main mosque in Kyiv, they have about 400 500 Muslim
congregations around Ukraine with about 200 mosques, which are
formally designated as mosques and about 100 More under construction,
a great Islamic revival going on there. The policy of the Mufti is
is to send the Imams to study in Jordan and Lebanon. There used to
be Ukraine Islamic University at the at Jamia Mosque, which is in
Donetsk that's in one of the breakaway Russian separatist
republics in the east. Part of the problem today are in post
independence, Ukraine has been that the big concentrations of
indigenous Ukrainian Muslims have been in the areas that have been
annexed by the Russian Federation. Crimea, when Muslims were about
15% of the population, of course, once it was 90% 15%.
And also in Donetsk, and where the university is and also in Luhansk,
whether it's a big Tata or Muslim community Tartaros have a lot of
Greek blood, a lot of German blood, a lot of Slavic blood,
they're very kind of ethnically interesting community. They don't
look like Mongols any longer, for the most part, but there's a big
Cathedral Mosque in Luhansk. And there's also a famous mosque in
healthcare, one of the biggest and most popular in in Ukraine, which
has been according to report slightly damaged in the recent
bombardment. He was demolished by the communists in the 1930s
because they said it was getting in the way of the river in Kharkov
which was a complete absurdity, but it was rebuilt by the Muslim
community there in the 1990s. In Kyiv, you have the main mosque,
which is where the Mufti resides, you have the Rama mosque and and a
number of other purpose built mosques, which are quite quite
beautiful some of them and in Mariupol, which is now under
siege, of course you have famous Imam Ismail, who is there right
now Ismail hygienic law at the Soleimani mosque. Maria Paul
anciently in a Muslim area, but this is a relatively new mosque
constructed with money from a Turkish businessman who works in
Ukraine a lot. There was a report just four days ago that the mosque
had been shelled and damaged. But the Imam has got a message out
saying that it doesn't seem to be the case. And it's interesting
Muslims, they will tell you that, of course it's called the
Sulaymaniyah mosque, because sometimes Salima and the
magnificence of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled southern Ukraine
was married to his favorite wife Katsuki Horam assault on who's
buried next to him if you're good at Soleimani, and mosque in
Istanbul. And she was actually a Ukrainian, famous, very beautiful
and really influential built a number of famous mosques in
Istanbul. So that's another connection. So where this will
end, we don't know. But the Muslim community has been
very active in the current disputes. Even though always it's
caught between two fires just as during the Second World War caught
between the Nazi nightmare and the communist nightmare, just like
Jewish communities in many ways, but without any kind of real
external support or interest. And we just have to hope and pray for
a just resolution ready for all ethnicities in this conflict. And
that everybody receives assurances of security of stability that the
mosques can be rebuilt that the community can continue to go on
making a major contribution as it has done in the past. Muslims no
longer are your grain the way they used to be, even though there was
tolerated churches in the ancient monasteries there. But it's still
a significant population with very deep Local Roots. And for those
who are interested in the amazing history of Islam in Europe, one of
the great heroes stories I will
Say, unlike Spain where everything was wiped out in the Ukraine,
Muslim communities continue to exist under very difficult
circumstances to the present day so we make dua to Allah subhanaw
taala to ease the sufferings of the people of Ukraine and of the
people of the wider region and insha Allah to bring about justice
and freedom and equality and insha Allah good outcome for everybody
in the region inshallah.