In this lecture, Sh. Abdul Wahab Saleem discusses numerous aspects of the civilization of Islam and Muslims. He also draws several comparisons between the Muslim civilization and modern civilization.
May 2017
Abdul Wahab Saleem – The Civilization Of Islam And Muslims
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The transcript is not a conversation and appears to be a list of numbers and characters being recited. The " Clueless" language and the " Clueless" culture of the Muslim community are emphasized, along with the " Clueless" culture of the Muslim community. Visitors are encouraged to acknowledge and understand the culture and appreciate its diversity and diversity-related appeal.
AI: Transcript ©
Sudarshan salatu salam ala rasulillah hamdulillah Hamdan washing Yama who Yuka film azita sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi Marine, Allah melanoma and from now in China via alum tena mania Karim beshara surgery with Sidley Emily melissani of Cabo Callie or visit any ailment or visit in your ailment or visit in your alma, Alma less Allah, Allah, Masha Allah who say hello antigen has an either Salah Welcome all to this talk entitled simulates the civilization of Islam and Muslims.
The lecture today, or the topic today that I will be discussing, will be a
discussion on two different concepts. At the same time,
the first thing that I'll be discussing his the splendor, the beauty, the greatness and the magnificence of the Islamic civilization.
But simultaneously, I'll be touching up on a number of different concepts and ideas related to the Western civilization as well of old and today at the same time.
Now, the reason for this comparison is because some today have become excessively fond of the modern civilization as a whole.
And because of this, they have forgotten all of the great civilization of civilizations of the past, and most specifically, the civilization, which we are discussing today. And that is the civilization of Islam and Muslims. Whilst the reality is that the western civilization, and what we have today as a modern civilization and a global civilization as a whole, had fed off of or nursed off of you, so please, the Islamic civilization for over 900 years, for 900 years, there was a constant passage of knowledge from one direction to another, there was no viceversa. Today, we have a lot of the civilization being passed down to us from our Western counterparts, right. And we also contribute to
the advancements of the the of the global civilization till today as well. However, for 900, straight ears, there was nothing that we could see or no signs that we could see of a vice versa transfer, there was only one way, and that was from the Islamic civilization to the Western and European civilization that continued, as I said, for 900, for 900, straight years, or even more than 900 years.
And the reality is that we do admit, and we do believe that the civilizations that we have today, the European civilization, the western civilization as a whole, and a number of the Eastern civilizations as well, which are powerful and great, and that have made a lot of different advancements, we do admit that there are great advancements that have occurred in the realm of material wealth and possessions, and so forth. However, we see that the meanings of life the timeless meanings and virtues, and ideas and concepts and characteristics, by which humanity truly stands. Many of them happen to be missing today. So we see violence, we see murder, we see wars, we
see slaughter, we see pillage we see hate, we see mayhem, and we see massacres today at the highest recorded levels in human history, period. Is this what we should call a civilization? That's the question.
Because if we think about the measures that we use, or the indexes that we use to gauge what is a civilization, should we consider this a civilization or a civilization that brought to humanity peace? Should we consider the fact that mass shootings today that suicide today happens to be at the highest recorded
numbers in history in some of the most advanced countries in the world? Should we consider this a civilization? Or should we go back to the meanings that the Muslims and the Islamic civilization had brought? Me? No.
Anti doc.
The true meaning of civilization is in character. The true meaning of civilization is in being civilized, right? Being civilized human beings. So in reality, a civilization is based on
a two pronged approach, an approach, which leads humanity further in the tire that's always been moving already of material advancements, but a civilization that does not neglect and understands the need, or the advancing character and advancing all of these great meanings, that make a civilization civilized as well.
That is a true civilization. And the larger, of course, is much greater than the former. So the characters that a civilization carries is obviously going to be higher in the skill of us measuring the advancements and us measuring the success of a civilization. And that's why a poet, an Arabic poet, used to say that in the mail
for any woman with a habit of law,
that indeed nations or only character, and nations are only, you know, traits of goodness, and kindness, and behavioral practices, which are appreciated, which are social values and norms across the world. That is, what a true nation is when those social values, and when those o'clock leave, then the entire nation has also gone as well. Right?
So a civilization then is, in fact that.
Now think about it, that
the
humanity has been moving from the hunter gatherers stage till we've gotten to the stage that we've gotten to today, right? We've constantly been moving. So it's obvious that any civilization that comes in has a great hand, in advancements they will advance people from that old Ice Age, the old age of hunting and gathering right to something else. So that is a natural phenomenon within the course of history. Someone that comes after what we know today to be the greatest of civilizations, they will also they will also advance the world in another direction. Okay. So when the Muslim civilization came, we were also advancing something that had already been brought to a certain level
of advancement. And that was the civilization of the Greek, the Persians and parts of parts of, you know, other regions as well as India and other places, right. So there was already a developed civilization as for the Arabs themselves, at that time, they had a very, very nomadic culture, yes, they had a very great literary culture. But in terms of other advancements, they had almost nothing, right. So the Muslims, they took everything else that the world had to offer, and they advanced to it to a certain degree, naturally, anyone that comes after the Muslims, right, they will also advance in that specific domain. This is not something to boast about, this is a natural phenomenon
within society. This is a natural occurrence within history, this is a natural occurrence, that that's just how the course of history takes just today, or the day after, or the month after, or the year after, if we want, if all of the civilizations that we know today, to be the greatest of civilizations were default, there will be another one that will arise. And they will pick up where other people's people left off. That's just natural, right? So then the only thing that we're left with, to really look into and to really analyze is in fact, the clock, okay? And I'm not undermining material advancements, and so on and so forth. That's also very important. And that is one of the
ideas for which Islam had come in. I will explain that in sha Allah, Allah, towards the end of my lecture as well in sha Allah Tada.
Now, before we get into anything, we need to talk a little bit about the beginning or the Advent, right in the beginning of the Islamic civilization, how did it all start? First of all, as you know, we Muslims believe that every single prophet that was sent by Allah subhana wa, tada happened to be a Muslim. And that means that in, in essence, the Islamic civilization has been continuing for as long as the world has known, Matt, right. That's how long the Islamic civilization really goes back to, but allow me to begin the timeline, specifically, at the beginning of the Tao of Mohammed Salah Allahu alayhi wa sallam at the beginning of the prophethood of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
the beginning of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam came with a call to knowledge from the very outset. And that was when Allah subhanho wa Taala had commanded the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the very first verse really revealed to him which said if at all, which said read Miss neuropsychology Hello in the name of
Your Lord who had created you. So the first thing that Allah subhanho wa Taala gave to Mohammed salallahu alayhi wa sallam then was the idea of reading the idea of learning, the idea of advancing a person's self at a constant pace. So that was an encouragement from Allah subhana wa tada for the ohmmeter, Mohammed sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to pick up the books, and start to learn and start to look at all that the world has to offer of knowledge. And simultaneously, the messenger used another prong as well. And that was he taught his oma not to be lazy. He taught his oma not to be not to consider yourself unable or always consider yourself fully capable. And the prophets I send them
taught this in many ways, one of those ways, many ways one of those ways is that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would make it to our regularly and that there are in Bukhari and Muslim the prophets or send them would say, Allahumma, in the original bigger meaning it was Casa or Allah, I seek refuge in You from Elijah's and l castle, from inability and from laziness as well. So the profits on the long end, we'll send them would make this to iron Of course, there's many, many reasons to, to believe that their profits, I'll send them wanting to show the owner to be an active oma, and on my that's moving an owner that's doing things and that's just not sitting around.
Rather, he himself showed it in his own actions in 23 years, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam had the prophethood. within that time, he pretty much reshaped the entire Arabian peninsula, that was the power of the activism of Rasulullah, sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam. Now, if this is where the that was started, where did it lead up to? Okay? It led up to many, many things. The, the story of the great civilization of Islam and where it started and how it began, is a very, very long story. Okay. But generally speaking, there was a number of different places, which started to, which started to sprout or which started to erupt with knowledge and with learning, and that
became hubs of, of great advancements. And on top of the list, there was above that the city of Baghdad, and I gave a lecture called the Golden Age of Islam, and I spoke about this at length in that lecture as well. But this lecture is a little bit different. Now, in Baghdad, we had people of knowledge from all different backgrounds, people of knowledge from all different ethnicities, because people started, people understood that this is the primary place of learning in the world. So we need to travel to here. And this is where we're going to start to advance. Whatever the Greeks and other other societies and other civilizations had left off, much of the knowledge of the Greeks,
we did inherit, in fact, right, by the movement of translation, there was a very great movement of translation in Baghdad, were in a very, very large fund was allocated to translating the knowledge of the previous previous nations, right. And this particular idea helped a lot right. Now, this is one of the things that we also have to start taking into mind as well, that instead of
an Omar conforming to the language of another civilization, we should bring that knowledge into our own language. So we can then go ahead and continue advancing it as well. Right.
And that's why the old man at the advent of Islam when they wanted to advance themselves, they brought all of that knowledge and placed it into Arabic. And many, many historians.
Many, many historians have said that had it not been for the fact that the old metal Mohammed had translated this knowledge into into Arabic than today, the advancements that we had we have seen today would have delayed at least three or four centuries. Because as I said, the knowledge was translated into Arabic. And from there, it was passed, it was first increased, it was benefited from it was developed, there was a lot of advancements, some of which we'll be discussing today, right? And it's really not enough time to discuss everything, but some of which we'll be discussing today, but in the light era, and then, after 900 years of nursing, the Western world or the European world
took a fair share of that knowledge. Okay.
So now we're was the point of transfer, where was the transfer of civilization occurring? The transfer of civilization occurred and I started with this premise first because I want you to realize that there's an entire portion of
of history, which is canceled out in modern history books. And that was one of the this is one of the reasons why I'm doing this lecture today when they invited me. I was at that moment, I was reading a book on history. And I noticed that, as I read through the timelines of different countries, almost purposely the entire timeline of Muslim civilizations within those countries, and these are textbooks that are used in universities, even here, almost entirely because these textbooks are being imported, right. So an entire chunk of the timeline of Muslim civilizations has been taken out, almost purposely because you get Miss 400 years, you can't miss 700 years, you can't
miss 900 years, you can't just miss that. It's not something you just accidentally missed out. So there's a deliberate, you know, way of expressing history in a certain way.
And so it's very important for us to understand that this transfer of civilization actually occurred from over over in the east. And further from the Muslim civilization, what were the three major points of this transfer? Okay, the first major point of this transfer was the Crusades.
That was the first and that was the weakest of the three, I'm going from the weakest to the strongest, okay, so that the first major number one first major trend, point of transfer of Muslim civilization to the Western World War Two, the European world happened to be the Crusades that they had waged against Muslims pillaging and killing pilling. People literally in the 1000, hundreds of 1000s and beyond, okay, but during this time, despite the wars and very, very
apocalyptic wars, right. Despite all of that, somehow, the Europeans had been fond of the Muslims despite the war,
somehow, to a degree, that within these 200 odd years from the year 1095, to 1291, within these 200 odd years, you would find that
the Christian men would command or would encourage, or would force their wives to dress like Muslim women, okay. Now, a lot of Muslim women feel, you know, that they need to dress like the the way the Western culture is, but over there at that time, because that was the powerful civilization. You know, at that time, the Crusaders were coming to fight, they, their men are telling their women to dress like Muslim women wear the hijab and not just that we're the nabob. Okay, now, because there's a whole debate of the niqab, bans all over the world, literally wear the niqab. This is documented in history. Why? Because the Muslim woman happened to do that, ie, that's the fashion for women to
be doing, right. Similarly, the Muslim men themselves started to grow the Crusaders, they started to grow beards as well. Okay, they noticed that Muslim men happened to have all beards as in that must be the cool thing to do. Because again, we're talking about the stronger of the two civilizations at that at that moment. And it even led to other things like culture in the house as well. So Muslim men and women are like, in their households would wear slippers in the house. So this was something new to the European culture, they didn't know to wear slippers in the house. So they started adopting in the time of the crusades, slippers into their houses as well. That's the first major
points of transfer, but again, this is the weakest of the three The second one is Sicily.
Second one is Sicily, okay.
Sicily or cibilia as it was called, started to come under Muslim influence in the year 828 27. Okay.
So, a bit over 1000 years ago, a 27.
And in the year 1092, the Muslim the the the Muslim rule in Sicily discontinued, okay. So the rule lasted around 200 plus years, give or take, but 827 Muslims started to get influenced in there then eventually gained influence to a degree that the entire island area of Sicily became theirs, right. Then for some time, Sicily or which is today, part of Italy, right. It became a place that was a place in which Arabic was spoken. Okay. Arabic was the language which Arabic culture prevailed over there, North African culture prevailed, Muslim culture prevailed. And one of the unique things about Sicily is that the culture that Muslims had left behind, now What year are we in today? 2017 right.
1092 the Muslim rule discontinued after that
Essentially for a couple of 100 years, the Muslim existence now we're talking about the indigenous population, ie people who are from Sicily, who had accepted Islam, right. indigenous population continued to remain Muslim, but through pressures and so on and so forth. Slowly that number decreased, until I don't know what exactly the number is if even there is a number today, but what we know is that that culture became so part and parcel of that society that recently there was a documentary about Sicily, in which they discussed the Islamic influence on Sicily. One of the things that they found was listen to this very carefully, this is almost a this is almost a sign that will
shake your email, okay. This
particular civilization today is not a Muslim civilization as we know, the fisherman in Sicily till today, they go around in certain seasons when they're hoping to catch the fish saying a Yama hula, a yarmulke.
Oh my lord, oh my lord in Arabic, they have a song that they would sing during certain seasons in which they wish to invoke Allah subhanho wa Taala to gain the fish. So the fisherman started to basically make dua to Allah to give them fish. So if you listen to this particular song, that they've been singing since the time of the Muslims 1092 and now we are in 2007, or 1000. This is recorded. If you go on Al Jazeera documentary, you'll see it the fisherman is speaking for himself. So for 1000 years, they continue to say till today, they continue to say a Yama Yama to gain the fish to come. And in 2015, this fisherman said that last year we stopped and the fish didn't come
out
for the first year and over 1000 years.
Okay, so this is the power of Allah subhana wa Tada. And this is the clear sign and remains of the civilization over there. Now, one of the things that was that we find in Sicily is that after Sicily went into,
into Christian hands, right,
there was more coexistence in Sicily, between Muslims and non Muslims. And you will see in most other places, okay, a lot of the other places that comes with a huge massacre, but in this particular case, there was a little bit of, you know, understanding and so on and so forth. Okay.
So one of the things that that helped, or that led to, is that their king Roger, the second, he decided to commission, a writing of a map of the world, okay, a map of the world. When he searched around, he realized that he can't actually find a person in Europe to write a map. in all of Europe, he can't find a single person who can write the map of the world. So he had to resort to a man by the name of a Sharif, Mohammed Al idrisi. Okay, Sharif, Mohammed Al idrisi. And Sherif, Mohammed Al idrisi, was commissioned by this particular individual, that King of Sicily called Roger the second. And he wrote the map. And he called this map moose head to stop, of course, the map was written in
Arabic, because the language of knowledge was Arabic all across the world, right? Even if political influences changed language of knowledge happened to be Arabic, despite the fact that Rogers the second, this is not his tongue, you know, he's. So the point here is, he's Norman. So the point here is, he writes this book called knows how to stop therapy. And that book is available till today, okay, about 1000 years later, it's still available till today, and even manuscripts are available, but it's even in print. It's even translated into several different languages. And the reality is that that map happens to be strikingly accurate to a degree that a 20th century historian by the
name of SP Scott, he writes, and I read, and I quote, in his book, history of the morish, he says, the compilation of idrisi marks an era in history of science, not only is its historical information most interesting and valuable, but it's descriptions of many parts of the earth are still authoritative till today, okay, till last century, but it continues as well forth. He continues, he says, For three centuries, geographers copied his maps, without any alterations. This is what what this particular historian had said. But one of the things that you'll find and this, by the way, is a common theme that much of the things that were
inherited by the Europeans from the Muslim civilization. There was a almost a deliberate attempt to change the names into names which would not be Islamic, or there will be this odd person. And this is plagiarism at the end of it. And I have many, many examples of plagiarism. Okay, many examples. You could write a entire book on European plagiarism for Muslim authors, this is very, very possible, and perhaps one of you is going to do that inshallah. Right.
So one of the things that happened is that this book became known known as tabular, Roger reanna are the book of Roger even though it was written by who it was written by, as we said, that Sharif Mohammed Al idrisi. But nonetheless, this is a fact everybody knows that this is even in western and eastern literature, as you notice, it's known that it's written by an idrisi. But the popular name is the book of Roger, because he commissioned it, even though he didn't write anything in that specific book. Okay. The second the third, and that is the most significant and most important place of transfer of civilization was Al Andalus. or Muslim, Spain, the Iberian Peninsula, okay.
And Muslims ruled Spain from the year 711. or to be more precise, 711 marked the beginning of the Muslim existence in Spain and then rulership came and fell between these years, okay, 14, nine between 711 and 1492. So you can do the math, it's around
700 plus years right.
Now, when thought it would have been Ziad had first been been commissioned to go and scout the scene in Iberia, which is basically Spain, right? When he was first commissioned to do this. At that moment, he only had about 7000 men with him.
I'm doing this particular number thing very, it's very important. jot that down, you're at 7000 people.
And he crossed from the northernmost part of North Africa,
which is known as the abunda Tangier. All right from that street, either water that passes there between that and the Iberian Peninsula. That area is now known as the Strait of Gibraltar. Okay. And the reason why it's known as the Strait of Gibraltar is because it was before that it was, it was known as an Arabic it's known as Jebel pada. Right. Jebel Barak Strait of Gibraltar, Gibraltar double Park, right. So you passed over, and this area then became known as double bottom. And when he passed over with 7000 men,
that there are only 7000 men. This means that there wasn't a mass migration of,
of Muslims from North Africa to Iberia. The reason why I'm telling you these numbers is very important, because some people they will not they will say that they were actually not indigenous Spanish people. That's why it was okay to absolve them out of Spain. This is just 7000 men. And yes, there was people that came to help Barak and others and so on and so forth. Yes, people did settle there as well. But you cannot, you cannot explain away millions of people with just 7000 people that walked in, right, or another few 1000, or another few 1000. We're talking about millions of people that live all across Siberia, they had largely accepted Islam on their own accord. The Christians
themselves had chosen to move to the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, that was a choice on their, on their own, and sons continued to live within the Muslim ruled lands of Spain as well, okay.
Now, in the year, all these different conquers occur between these years, right, 711. And just a few years later, all these conquerors occur, then
in the year 1085, one of the strongholds of the Muslims false, and that is Toledo, or tornado, right? Toledo was one of the most important cities and it fell to the Christians that were living in the north. They came, basically they came back down or whoever had decided to resort to the north, they came down south and they ended up conquering Toledo. Now, Muslims continue to remain in Toledo for 500 years for the first few 100 years with some degree of ease, okay. And then after that, with more and more difficulty, because essentially, they realize that we need these people, they're the ones who have the knowledge. They're the ones who have the culture. They're the ones who know it
all. They're the ones who are the smart people. So we need them so they kept them for that time. And then after that, they were disposable because they ended up translating everything into Latin into a few other languages as well. And then they said Carlos, we don't need these people anymore. Toledo during after 1085 became one of the most important learning
occations of transfer of civilization, because a very strong movement of translation occurred between the 12th and the 13th century into Lido, into from Arabic into what, into Latin or other languages as well.
Now,
but as we said, Remember that these were people who are indigenous indigenous people, 1492 comes now all of the different cities, which were Muslim cities. Okay? They had fallen to the Christians from the north, okay, and they grew in numbers, and they can continue to exhale and push people all the way down to mom Look at her Napa, right the kingdom of Granada, which was right at the bottom, right, right in the south. And they continue to push them down. But still this this, there was this really great, great, grand, beautiful, magnificent civilization living in the south, okay, they weren't very strong artillery, militarily, but they were very, very strong in terms of their
civilization. So they continue to push them down until most of them have sons from the north, they move down. There's a reason why I'm saying all these things. Okay. Now, eventually, 1492 comes and all of Spain falls to the hands of the Christians, and then the type of massacres and the Inquisition, then the things that happen, you know, it's only history books can really tell the true story, okay? And even that, really,
it's many things went unrecorded. Right. We have some records, but we don't have records of everything.
And as you know that, when the colonialists came to many of the many of the Eastern and African countries, they tried to wipe out much of the history that was available to those people so they can't recollect their past anyways. Right. So it was a similar sort of attempt to try to destroy the history of Spain as well, so that you cannot recollect the past as well. But that's why I added the fact that 7000 people thought it couldn't Ziad, how can you explain millions of people who were Muslim? Right? So these were all indigenous people, most of them or all indigenous people from from Spain. But what they did is they started to call them something else, even though they're indigenous
Spanish people, they started to call them Moore's, right? That was one of the things that I just said the history of the morish, they started to call them the Moore's Why? Because the word more in Old French, it means people from Mauritania. Okay. So when they call them Moore's, they were trying to push them all the way to North Africa now, right? As if they came from down there, that is where they're from words. They're actually indigenous Spanish people who had accepted Islam, by their own choice. Remember, Islam didn't, didn't force people into submission. It allows them the opportunity to submit and this is documented, and people who happen to be Western historians as well, who are
people of justice will say this, and some of the quotes perhaps, I will throw to you in this lecture as well. So when they call them Moore's This gave them a reason to push them away. But there was an opposition, should we take them away? Should we not we need their knowledge still, because still America tornato was at the peak of its civilization from all other angles, except military strength, right.
And that also tells you that Muslims are not all about the sword, because they're busy advancing everything else. You know, they're not concerned as much about fighting because they're not people that are savages, right? They're not, they're not worried about that they're ready to coexist. They're ready to live side by side with whoever wants to live side by side. So they didn't bother working on the military angle of things and that didn't work out too well for them. But that is, that is a fact. And that is, in fact, the case. So 500 years and Toledo and others at 1492. Monica tornato false. After that millions of people migrate to Tangier, if you go to Tangier, and you'll
see the people of Tangier most of them look like they're actually, you know, they look like they're Spanish, because there are a lot of them moved over to North Africa from there right.
Now, one of the things that I want to say over here is that one thing that that sets, Islamic civilization apart from all other civilizations is the concept of the heat or dhania recognition of the oneness of Allah subhanho wa Taala. And this oneness of Allah subhanho wa Taala continues to unite the Muslim Ummah, all across the world, I mean, people, they end up getting into wars on a number of different issues. Muslims generally find a common denominator, I miss them, no matter how many differences there are, okay? Now one may say you're seeing all these things, and we see a lot of different things today around the Muslim world. That is true, but remember that for the most
part, the Muslim civilization was a civilization of
dwelling of unity have a lot of other good meanings. But after colonialism, the colonists they did impact with their own bad behavior, a lot of the Muslim behaviors as well, because remember most of that weaker civilizations get affected by the stronger counterparts. So just as the Muslims had a very positive influence in many different ways on Europeans, just as the Europeans, and when the Europeans came, they also brought a lot of their negative influences as well. And I would say they brought a lot of their positives as well. But I say that with a grain of salt, and that is because they also stole a lot from the Muslim lens a lot. I mean, really, we you can even document
everything that was stuffed, drafted and stolen, right? Some people were smarter than others. Some people were still today. You know, Timbuktu was one of the greatest places of learning in, in West Africa. Tim, people of Timbuktu they were smart, they understood that, what what the call the colonialists are doing all across the world. So when people when the when the French, they tried to come to Timbuktu because they'd heard of Timbuktu. So the French government, they said that whoever visits Timbuktu will be given such and such grand prize, okay? such a such amount of money. In the because of this prize, many people attempted to go to Timbuktu, but you have to cross entire deserts
to get to Timbuktu. And that's why it became a, you know, it became a parable in English as well, that's in Timbuktu or something, right, like Timbuktu is, is a mark of distance within Western culture, right? Because so many people tried to go, and 150 travelers plus died along the way. Okay, one man from France got there, and went back. And not so long after the French people, they attacked and tried to capture Timbuktu, the people of Timbuktu were smart, they had over 700,000 manuscripts in their libraries. So they buried them within the sand.
And they only started to take it out within the last 10 to 10 odd years or more. Right? They literally buried them within the grounds within the stands of the desert, knowing that this is the jewels based on our whole civilization, upon which our whole civilization is formed. If we can't use them, we're not giving them to anybody else. Right? So they buried them in the ground. And then recently, they started to take on if you follow world affairs, you'll see that the French government and other governments they continue to look into this particular country because it's one of them. Mali is one of the most valuable countries in the world in terms of knowledge, because that was one
place on Earth, the knowledge of which was in stolen right away.
And
and the reason there's many proofs by the way of this stuff, as well, because what's a walk and endowment, right? So if I make something in doubt any place, whether that be in Princeton University, or I make it an endowment to Sunway University, is it permissible for anyone based on social norms, legal norms, and Islam or any other ideologies to come and steal that and take it somewhere else? That's called theft. We have hundreds of 1000s of manuscripts within Western universities which are in Arabic, which actually have the stamp of endowment and the name of the school, and sometimes a deliberate, deliberate attempt to cover up that adult endowment stamps as
well, because some of them in Arabic, they don't know how to read them as well, the librarian, so they miss the stamps at times. And I've seen them for myself, because I look through manuscripts all the time, right. So the idea is a lot of this knowledge, in fact, as I said, was was stolen. So what dhania keeps the map together,
and humanitarianism, okay, this is a and we'll discuss marks of this knowledge. Both DOD was a center of knowledge, Damascus. encylopedia was the center of knowledge Cairo, PAHO, it still continues to be a center of knowledge. Granada was a center of knowledge. Timbuktu, as I said, as well was a center of knowledge Timbuktu's University, some guru University happens to be one of the oldest ones in the world till today. religious tolerance, religious tolerance, I mean, word off a myth. You know how some people have this idea that Islam was spread by the sword, right? As if it's like jam or something, you spread it by the sword, you know, you take your knife and you spread the
jab. It was spread by the sword. Now, I'm going to give you some statistics, and some of them are actually conservative figures.
And I'm going to allow you to do the comparison.
The recent Iraq invasion had over 1 million people dead, killed. Okay. This was within most of our lifetimes. Some of you
You may know it the elderly over here definitely know it. Okay. The World War One had about 17 million people killed within it.
World War Two had almost 80 million people killed within it. And that's why I said if we want to talk about civilizations, we have two aspects material development, and then we have characteristics as well is this the characteristics of a good civilization? That within the past century we have and these are By the way, not all the words if I put them all together there will be the truly much above that right. But these are some some specific words which are which sort of glare at us, us as a civilization today, okay. Now, the same people who have done this, these massacres, who, all of which were largely for two purposes for money and power, and this is established by almost all
historians without any differences of opinion. I'm not saying anything controversial here. This is a reality of fact established by almost all historians, unless you wish to sugarcoat history, write
a laws messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Who is given the accusation of being the greatest murderer or the one who brought one of the greatest? You know, may hammocks Are you please civilizations to the world, in his entire data in his entire dour in the 13 years, and the 10 years, the Prophet salallahu, alayhi wasallam entire army with all of the battles on both ends, there was only 918 casualties.
And almost none of these were worse. Actually. None of them were words, which were, which were wage for selfish purposes. The profits I'll send them was exalt. The only war that you can think we're a mayhem would come is the war, which was the conquer of the conquest of Mecca. Now, when the profits s&m conquered America, how many people did the profits and send them out are commanded to be killed? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam commanded only six people to be killed six people who were who have had reached the greatest levels of treachery, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam had, you know, that this Muslim civilization had dealt with Okay, out of whom? Two of them the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also granted pardon two,
out of whom one of them came to the prophet SAW Selim, and seek this part pardon in Medina, the prophets of Salaam pardon him as well. Something Allahu alayhi wa sallam, all the rest of them. The Prophet spoke to them, he said, Martha will noon and the pharaoh become what do you think I will do to you? So they knew the prophets are Solomon is holyoake. So they said to the prophets of Salaam, they said hon Karim webinar can carry your generous and honorable brother and you're a child of a generous and honorable person as well. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said, that, I will say to you, the same thing that Yusuf Ali Salam said to his brothers, LaGG three by Allah
Coolio, Allahu Allah calm, that there is no blame on you today, Allah will forgive you. And the prophets I send them said is horrible for internal tilaka leave, as you are all free to go, you're all given permission to leave. Don't Don't worry, there's no harm on T. This is the entirety of Mecca. Not a single person killed except for, except for people who are, who are who, as I said, reached out of those six to God to the Prophet sallallahu. It was sent him him with his own mouth, he could not accept except he could not reject anyone apologizing to him. So when they apologized, they got to him. Before the army had gotten to them, they said to him, would you accept us? Would
you accept us a couple of times their profits are synonyms. Let them go right.
sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And this is why Adam Hart Davis, who edited a book called history, the dividend definitive visual guidance. And as I said, there are books out there which have good within them. But there's also some aspects which are totally missing. This is one of them. A number of different aspects of the Islamic civilization is nowhere to be found within this. It's almost as if, if you look at the section on Palestine, again, it's as if Muslims never existed there and so forth. Right? But he still has some good in it. He writes the new rulers about Muslims, he writes, the new rulers were tolerant toward the religions have they found in their conquered territories and did not
force conversions. Okay. So as we said, that this is something that many many people have attested to that there was no compulsion in coming into this
In fact, there was a, there was a common statement that people who would go and conquer other lens would say, and one of those things is that you don't actually have to come into our religion right?
Now Muslim con Muslim contributions within knowledge and literature.
There are many, but I will just pick some of them. Okay. Now after this lecture, I don't want you to think that this is all there is a lie. If I had time, I would give 1020 lectures, and I would still not finish, I'm giving you just a few things. Okay. So
one of the things that really made a mark on the world as a whole, and on what we know today to be modern medicine, is a book written by a man named Evan Siena, or known in the West as Eva center.
He writes a book called elocon. And I read parts of this book, even though I'm not a medical major, right medicine major, but I've read parts of this book, the canon, okay, it's available till today, and it was translated into many many different languages. And this particular book has been and continues to be a textbook, that is looked back to not that is studied today, right. But from the 12th century, till the 16th 17th century, this was the staple textbook of medicine in the world, European and Eastern world. And similarly kita will, how will you buy a Razzie which again, the 13th century onwards for several centuries continued to be the primary textbook in the world for for
medicine. They were both Muslim authors, okay.
The whole idea of using chemistry in pharmacology also came from Muslims prior to that people yes, would use
other natural substances that could they could find but the idea of using chemicals to try to advance the field of medicine, that was something that was introduced by Muslims. How many of you are majors in arts? Okay, literature, English literature, for instance? Nobody. Okay. So, if you know, the Shakespearean play, which goes by all is, well, that ends well.
that play was largely taken by from a book by the name of Al Fulani, Latin willinger 1001 nights, which was also translated several times, I believe, 300 times it was printed within Europe over a few centuries, and it continues to be in print as well, when 1001 nights, okay, this was a translation from an Arabic classic, and Shakespeare's play was largely influenced by this Dante's Divine Comedy. This particular book was basically a theft.
This is one of the premier or one of the best
literary literary works that the western civilization has produced. Okay. But in reality, this particular work was a largely a theft, okay. And the book that he stole from which was a book by the name of, which is a book written by Adobe, I compared the to the timeline between the events that he describes in Dante's Divine Comedy. And also if not always work is entirely the same. He adds to that the concept of saraland Mirage as well. Okay, so he looked into the Sierra and got the concept of an Asana Lodge, and then used it in Adobe's work and made it into another language, which is, as I said, pretty much plagiarism into another language. Okay.
So that is Dante and as this is considered one of the best literary works that has been written in,
in European literature, contributions to law, contributions to law and order, largely, the European civilization prior to the advent of Islam in under US was a civilization that really didn't know nothing. They wouldn't take showers for days, they wouldn't. They didn't know how to. They didn't know how to do anything. Really. They didn't know what a toothbrushes they didn't know, to have three courses in meals, right? The way we do, even though we shouldn't have that I was there's also bad things we've introduced, like the three course meal, right? So
but nonetheless, it became part of civilization. But one of the things that Muslims also introduced was the idea of law. Law, if you know is often social culture as well. When you're growing up, as every Do you know, everything that is in the law of, or the Constitution of Malaysia, you don't, but you generally know because it becomes social culture, a new law is introduced, and generally people know how to do it, and they do it this way. So you continue doing it that way as well. And you generally think if I go another way, then that would be against the norms, I shouldn't be doing that. Right. So generally, and then if there is no criminal
Activity most countries do not enforce every aspect of the law. That's also a reality as well. There's laws written in books, not everything is enforced if you it was just something that was to bring a social, a social barrier to stop something during that specific phase. And people stopped already. So one person ends up practicing this practice, which is otherwise illegal in law, then often cops will say, you have a warning and they'll leave you. Right?
Okay, because maybe you didn't know the law, right? You thought it was social culture. So the social culture of Andalus, which was the Muslim law, became also the law of the European world, largely, but it didn't stop there, because now they have their own civilization. So they need law books as well. So obviously, the law books of Muslims happened to be Maliki law books. So they ended up using these and translating them. And they ended up implementing Maliki fit largely into a lot of the European world, specifically France, France, it is said that Maliki fick and French law is almost 90%, the same.
Okay, French law. And Maliki is almost 90%. The same. And indeed, this is documented this a reality. There's entire research papers of Napoleon, when he came to Egypt, he had hollein of the Maliki method. He had it translated into French. And then they use McDonnell Haleakala as one of the books that they went back to, to develop the the law, the law of France, the whole idea of nationalities, right? Today, there's a problem in the Muslim world. And I will say, you know, this is a real problem we're having in the Muslim world, because we're still going through development phases, developmental phases, right after a lot of the damage that came to our lands from the colonialists.
The one of the things that were going going through and struggling is allowing the other whoever that other may be, after these borders, which were not really borders historically, were developed by the colonialists
the idea of other ism became popular within Muslim lens, which is a sad reality. And that's why I said we were once united we may not be today, but we will be inshallah in the future. Right.
So this idea of other reason came about, right. There's the other there's me there is the, the in every region, even though Malaysia, Indonesia, all of these countries are called Java. Right? They're all known as Java.
is not so.
Yeah, that's what they're they're all really known us. And, and that's what they were known in history books as as well.
But it became a lot of different countries. And this happened not here. In Java. It happened all across the Muslim lens and happened and there was a deliberate attempt to divide people of the same race, so that there's not there's no strength between them, right. But but some people they hold on to this legacy, and they understand it, the idea of been added to Chrome, right? When I speak of Timbuktu, there was this entire civilization, which none of you have heard of probably called the Chrome. If you're going to Africa, and you ask West Africans, they know it because they stuck to their history. Their parents told them about it, and their parents told them about it. And their
parents told them about it. I asked some of the Nigerians I said, Do you know about the course? How do you know about the growth? Right? How do you know we know about the Quran, it's part of our entire Kevin's our biology, where parents tell us about the Quran. Because that was inclusive of Mali was inclusive of Mauritania, it was inclusive of it was a very great civilization. So the idea of nationality was borrowed as well. Because in, in Islam, historically, from the time of the Mojave scene, if a person remained in a place for four years, he would be considered from that place. So for example, if I remained here for four years, I would be known as I've done will have sent him an
email easy.
Right? That's how I would be known as in the books of Hadith.
Now, Abdullah, Baba, he says, Man, a comma fee Belgian albasini, musi by Elijah, whoever is to remain in a place for four years, he will be, he will be attributed to that place. Okay? So this is pretty much the same law that that we the social law that we lived by, was then implemented in many of the Western world today, where four years later you get the nationality of the country, right? for years. That's the that's the key number. And that's exactly what I'm delighted and robotic, had said as well, right. So as we said, a number of different aspects of Islamic law began began to become very, very prevalent within the Western world. One of the things that I really want to point
out is this idea of jizya Okay. A lot of
authors, they write about the idea of jizya. And they say that this was an idea that was a non Muslim tax write.
In reality, the idea of a jizya was the idea similar to the idea of the visa system today, right? So when you go and live in any country where you're not really from there, you end up paying a yearly fee for a visa, which is, by the way, probably a lot more today in many countries, then, then the idea of dizziness and nausea was dropped for many people as well. I'll give you one story. For example, a man came to me a little bit hop up old, an old man, and he was going around asking for sadhaka. So he said to
him, Who are you? You know, what are you doing? So he said, I'm an old man and I have to pay for my house and I have to pay for the jizya and he was a Jewish man living in Medina.
So promotable, hubbub, he looked at this man, and he said, By Allah, we haven't done justice to you. Okay, by Allah, we haven't done justice to you. We have taken from you, your jizya when your your you were younger, and we have wasted your life away, as you have gotten older, it was upon us to take care of you, if we took money from you, just yesterday. So he took him all the way to his house. And he gave him some of the food that he had. And then he went to the beta man, basically, the Ministry of Finance, he went there. And he told them that give him a monthly salary, and give anyone like him a monthly salary, and give him whatever he needs to take care of his family as well.
And at that moment, or little hotdog, he stopped the system of jizya from anyone that happened to be poor. Okay, so this was not the system that is described that only as a non Muslim tax. No,
there are people that are dwellers of this land, they are not going to be conscripted in war, listen to that very carefully. They're not going to be conscripted in war. So to and they're not, they're not invited to be conscripted in war, right.
So considering that they pay for the salaries of those people who will protect them at the front, right? Because they're not going to be fighting. They're not going to be conspicuous conscripted, they're not going to be they're not going to be expected to do that. And if they get older as Armada been called thought from the very early advent of Islam, he said that we took it from you when you were younger, and we're now wasting your life away. Instead, he started giving money back to him. Right? So this is really the concept of jizya. It's really misunderstood. Let me talk a little bit about the quality of an Islamic civilization.
The quality in Islamic civilization is something that can be spoken of, really at length. But one of the things that I want to say is that Allah subhanaw taala told us in the Quran, that in a kurama command, Allahu Akbar Khan, so in reality, the only measure that we have the only index we have to know who is the greater human being is the person who has more piety. We don't look at the colors, we don't look at all of these things. In fact, the only thing that we really look at is the piety of a person and that's why the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said, and natural min Adam, people are from Adam Elisa,
what Adam even to rob and Adam alayhis salam happens to be from what happens to be from dirt. Now fog layer out, I'll begin. Jimmy, there is no favor, there is no grace, there is no virtue. For a person who happens to be an Arab over a non Arab, there is no virtue for a person who happens to be white over a black person or vice versa, except by the Aqua. Okay. Now black people in the time before Rasulullah, sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam were in fact, people who are not given their rights, at least in Arabia, okay. And that's why some of the companions even when they came, they came from a slightly racist culture. So those tendencies took a while for them to be ejected out of their
system right.
So and the reason why I say this is because the prophets or send them was able to successfully get rid of the system that just a few years after the death of Rasulullah saw actually even within the life of Rasulullah, you had been on the alarm with Allah and he giving the other one right.
And just a few years after the death of Rasulullah saw send them a man by the name of Allah be rubbish emerged, okay, I thought was an Abyssinian slave who was freed, he was blocked.
He was one eyed. He was a person that was not nosed, okay. He was partially paralyzed as well. He was crippled. So he is coming from a very, very difficult background, all of the different social stigma is attached to him right.
And later on his in his life, he even became blind
as well. This man didn't have too much money so he remained in the masjid for 20 years. This man had one of his arms cut off during the time in which an hijab had attacked a blue collar the Allahu anhu in Mecca. This man, however, was a man who was the Mufti of Mecca. The Mufti of Makkah, imagine someone like that. So, in our society is looked at as a vulnerable person, someone who there's a lot of stigma attached to him. Imagine someone like that becoming the Mufti of the harem. Imagine when all of the projects from across the world come. There's a caller that calls out and he says, and he announces at the top of his lungs, no one should give fatwa to the people except for our PA, even in
Abuja. Imagine that. Imagine that ignore a boss, he would say, oh, people of NACA, you are gathering around me. And you have a thought, this is Abdullah Abdullah abass of the Allahu taala. And imagine that this is
a person that was apparently, apparently someone that would come from a low lower class, right, based on the Arab norms. And I will, I will say, also based on a lot of social norms, bad social norms in the in the world today as well, right? Now, let's compare that to 20th century United States of America. Okay, and the reason why I'm drawing this comparison is not specifically to attack a specific country, but because we know the epitome of modern civilization happens to be rising from there, right. So we're comparing the very early advent of Islam to something that is a very late portion of civilization. Black schools were separate from white schools, black textbooks
were different from white textbooks. Why? Because you have to feed a different identity to each person so they understand whatever they want, you know, people don't understand, right? Black people couldn't marry white people, white people couldn't marry black people. This is all in the 1950s 60s. And things have changed, but not fully changed till today. And this is the reason why I said that when the colonialists came, a number of different ills came along with them as well. Racism was one of them, because the messenger sallallahu alayhi, wasallam, had arrived, eradicated racism from the Muslim Ummah, okay, black cabins were separate on trains, and white cabins were separate on trains.
Look at this in 1947, a dog burial service
stopped accepting dogs, which were owned by black people. Why? Because the white dog owners, they said that our dogs will die and rest with dogs of black people. Really.
This is how God this is a reality. This is what they say. And I've met people from that phase. I've met the The Bodyguard of Malcolm X. And the stories that you hear the Malcolm X is the person who, you know, wrote a real rise to the black rights movements, right? And he was Muslim. So the idea is that these ideas, they're not just in books, this was something that people were living through these these were realities, okay. However, the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in his Hadees, from the very advent of Islam, divided three things of Islam into three different groups. He said, Admiral Kofi koresh, and this is an authentic tradition. He said that the kingdom will always be
within koresh. Okay. And he said, although judiciary system is going to be in the unsolved and the profits, SLM said, well as an orphan Habesha, as for the other than it will be for the augustinians. Right. And remember, that is the greatest of the three in some ways. Why is that? Because the last panel on messenger told us and another Hadees, he said, the most awkward and nasty and abnormal piano that has been will have the greatest, the largest of next on the Day of Judgment. And that's a that's basically a metaphor, which means that, then we'll have the greatest of honor on the Day of Judgment, and the profits of Selim gave the black people the greatest of the three honors. Well, as
an orphan Habesha, this is an authentic tradition of Rasulullah sallallahu. I remember, Dr. Han Allah, he wrote a book called off Russia and in herb Shan, an entire book writing about the great status of the block. Okay, even though he's from a school, which is part of Africa, but the idea is that this was not. This was around the ninth century, right? He died on 911 By the way, if I'm a CLT, okay, so you'll never forget that after today. 911911. So that means you died in the 10th century at that time, and I'm assuming it still meaning that these meanings have been disintegrated over the years. He's writing an entire book about the greatness of black people.
911 right? Hey, Judy calendar. So this is the the idea that racial profiling was decreased, it was eliminated, it was eradicated and even the one of the closest companions that showed some signs of racism to be larger or the among gala Anna, and the profits are sudden became very angry with this companion. Right? He became extremely angry at the fact that he's making a racial racial comment. Racism has no place in Islam. Okay. And we have to take that it's not about just block, right? It's about anything, where all the profits, send them send a nozzle. So I see our people are equal take those ill feelings of racism towards whatever race you have. Are you okay? And even when I'm drawing
this comparison between the western civilization and the eastern civilization, that doesn't mean we start hating the entire civilization. That's not the case. The only reason why I'm drawing it in this way is because I am well aware that a number of the history books today have admitted this and almost deliberately so so we have to set the record straight, right? That a lot of this information, these are realities from our legacy. And we have to bring it out to the world to see the glamorous and the splendor, the glamour and the splendor of the aroma of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam justice was given to all people. And I'll give you a story. And by the way, this is one of the most
unique stories in this vein. I don't think that an oma has seen a similar story. Allahu Allah. Okay. In this story, a woman, a Christian woman complains to her mother, Pablo, the Allahu taala. She can build complaints to her mother and hubbub that she was living in Egypt, so likely a Coptic Christian woman, okay. She complains to her notable hubbub
that hammer house who was the governor of Egypt,
he has entered my house my property into the masjid. They had a Masjid right next to her house. And the masjid started to become
the message started to become filled. Right, it became overfull will take lesser questions. Let's continue with the lecture. Okay. So the message started to become overfilled. And because of that, she asked, she was asked, but I'm gonna be asked, I will pay you a price for your house, and I'll pay you even more than it's worth. But she said, No, I want to live in my house. So I'm gonna ask he took the initiative of basically doing what what a lot of a lot of countries do today as well. And that is that they just took possession of the house. And they said, Well, this paycheck is for you. If you want to take it, take it, if you want to leave it leave it right. So he placed the paycheck
for her in the beta not in the Ministry of Finance. And he told her that I have paid you a price higher than the property because we need to increase the size of the ministry. The people need to continue praying and the message is becoming too full now. Right? So
when this woman ended up, going to a mobile hot tub right into her mobile hotspot complaining at what happened, he wrote back to us about the Allahu taala. And he said, break down that portion of the masjid. And we make his her house
because this was her house and we can't take it away from her.
She didn't give it to us with her own can with their own consent.
And that is a big statement that this was the house of Allah Subhana Allah but for the sake of justice and for the sake of the fact that this was made, not based on not based on our consent, asked for this portion of the house of Allah subhana wa tada to be taken down. So she may be this Christian Coptic woman may be given our house back, okay. One of the things that we also see is freedom of thought, okay, freedom of thought, and true freedom of thought, not when it's bothersome to me, then I, and then I don't want it over here. And when it's not bothersome to me, then it's Freedom, freedom of thought, right? Because that is the type of freedom of thought that we see
practiced today in many parts of the world. And there's many, many examples of this, but perhaps I mean, mentioned only one, okay. And that is an example, which, and by the way, on this subject, I sometimes teach a course on contemporary Islamic thought and I teach this particular idea of freedom of thought as as it as a lecture on its own, but as I said, I will mention one particular incident that shows you how people were getting along so there was no idea there was no there was tolerance within the atmosphere. You have on the one hand, a Sunni person, a Sunni grammarian by the name of holly Libby, Ahmed and fahidi. He is there. Holly Lim
who is a Sunni person right? side by side this happening. Were both
bussola which means is happening in Iraq. So that also means that people of Iraq can get along if other people Stop meddling with their affairs. Now, there's a Sunni. Number two, there's a Shiri she I have been there for a long time as well. There is a non Muslim have a sort another one of another sort. Another one of another's are different creeds and ideologies and so on and so forth, a Jewish person, a Christian person, and Medusa is our Austrian person, a sabian. And these are all the leading minds, I miss them, they are sitting together, and they would literally have a gathering regularly together in which they would discuss Arabic poetry, which they would discuss, you know,
historical events, and so on and so forth, without any real difference, any real problems with clear differences between each of them, right. So that means that the idea of dialogue was available and people people could really, really get along in a place today, which not many people believe that people could have gotten along historically, in the past and not please but place. But as I said, If external, external forces decrease meddling, then Muslims have gotten along, this is the Shiri sitting side by side with it with a sunny person as well. Now, if you look at ethics of work, ethics of work, in this vein, there is a famous statement of Abu Bakar or the Allahu taala.
Already we said that if you look at the numbers 918, during the lifetime of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, not all of whom are non Muslims, we're talking about people that died in all of the skirmishes and all of the battles that the Prophet had on both sides, right? 918 verses 1 million or 17 million or 18 million World War Two and so forth, right.
Now, Abu Bakar, when he was sending his people to, to Shang to Syria, he said, Let the hoonah do not betray anybody. He said law, the Holo do not steal, ever. While I do and do not cheat as well, don't don't become treacherous. While I do not feel true, and don't amputate the bodies of people as well,
while I talk to Ruth Lynn sahira, don't kill a small child, while actually hon Kabira. And don't kill an old man, either, when I'm going to attend and don't kill a woman as well, why not talk to knocklyon and don't, you know, uproot an entire field. And the reason for that is, historically, people armies would do this because they didn't want people to eat right? starvation, so they would destroy the entire field. So he said, don't do that. Why not? And don't burn them down as well let people eat for what they need to eat. Why not? Why not?
And don't cut down a single tree, which happens to be food fruit bearing, right? Well, that is the hotshot and whenever cotton, don't cut, or don't slaughter any sheeps, or any cows, or any camels, except if you happen to be hungry, okay, don't just start slaughtering animals because you want to starve other people. No, they they need they need their food as well continuing to allow them to eat. And this particular story that I'm about to tell you, okay, so these are basically 10 odd commandments that Abu Bakar gave, that kind of became the law code of warfare amongst muslims for centuries to come thereafter. And most of them have roots already within the statement of their
profits or sentiment, even if they don't, the profits are seldom said they do believe in human body, follow those two that will come after me, Abubakar and Roman, the Allahu taala. Now one of the things, or one of the stories and listen to this very carefully,
is the story of someone in modern Uzbekistan, right story of someone and how the people of Southern he came into Islam, and how Islam went there.
Now, the people of some kind, were raided by a Muslim army, led by a person by the name of potato, they made the mistake of going into someone hunt, without the permission of the people of some funds, because amongst the values of the Muslims was that they would actually warn the people so that they're prepared. So it's not just slaughter, it's there's actual combat or that they just given. Right.
So one of the things that the Muslims made a mistake on is they went straight in the people of Southern and they knew that the Khalifa that they have right now is a very just hanifa.
So they imagine this, an army of a country goes in to a country and the people of that country end up writing to the president or the king or whatever, of that country, Prime Minister of that country saying that your army had had disobeyed your law, right. What do you think they will do? normally just break the paper.
That's the end of that right?
Or moto. Z's immediately asked for a court hearing with putida in it.
In summary,
and he said in that court hearing, we will check if this really happened, the army made the grave mistake of not giving you a forewarning to prepare yourself, right.
If they didn't give you that warning.
So they had this court hearing. And, and the judge actually ruled in the favor of the people of some Muslim judge, he ruled in the favor of the people of Samoa. So at that moment,
as he said, already send the commandment that the army and the Muslims all have to leave some of immediately, because the Muslims didn't follow the law, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam had legislated, right. And when they left, now, they give them a warning, and they can come back in. So now they're already prepared mentally, and they're already, you know, they can't take anything with them, they can't destroy any, you know, portion of their civilization, their country, their buildings, nothing at all, leave it as it is, give them the time they need, and then you come back, and then if they are able to put up a fight, or if they just say, Okay, this is, you know, whatever.
The idea is that when they left, the people have somewhat unwillingly accepted them back in at that point, they said, people have this nobility, people have this sense, people have this lock, this beautiful character, they accepted the back and many of them, they started accepting Islam because of this gesture of beauty and character of the Muslim army.
And these are the Allahu taala. And the last but not least, are the last particular story that I want to discuss with you is a sad story, but it's a comparison at the same time. Okay.
It's a story of Salahuddin a UB.
And the only way we can truly know the greatness of our past is if we compare it too what was happening simultaneously during that time as well. Isn't that fair? So when I bring bring up another civilization, even people who are going to be watching this lecture afterwards shouldn't feel irritated? Because that's the only way we can index and say this is what was happening at that time. And this is what the Muslims were doing, right? Because even now, when we compare, we say, this is the GDP of this country. And this is what poverty looks like. Right? So you have to draw comparisons in order for you actually know what was what was true character and what wasn't. So you had the
Crusaders on the one hand, and you had the you had Salahuddin, on the other hand, the Crusaders in their second attack to a city by the name of Mahabharata Merman, okay, they besieged the entire city. And the locals, they, of course, could not, they could not continue to combat the Crusaders. They continued their influence within within the Arabian Peninsula for about 200 years, as we said earlier on, right. So they could not, they could no longer continue to combat. The people of Nara to Norman specifically, not the oma as a whole that was huge, right. But the people have not often not split specifically, which is a city, in, in not too far from Palestine, in Syria today, okay.
And they could not continue to keep up. So they decided that we will actually give in, okay, but they took all sorts of promises, and all sorts of treaties, and they said that you're not going to do three things, kill us
take our money, or *. Those three things we don't want. Other than that, we're willing to give up our city to you, okay?
Because they could no longer keep up.
Now, when they allow them in,
there was about 100,000 people who were killed at a moment's notice. 100,000 people were killed. And this is not based on a historian who's writing from an Eastern perspective, this was a historian who was with the Crusaders at that time, from the European side, who would record it 100,000 people were slaughter at a moment's notice. Even though there was a treaty, okay. And and these such incidents are not one or two there. If you read history, you will see wonders, then, not too long after they decided to go for Jerusalem now beta democritus, right. The Crusaders and of course, both Christians and Muslims, and Jews alike, they find the area of Jerusalem to be an area of religious significance
to them. That's why it's a region which is very troubled with worse all the time, right. So then they went
Jerusalem
and they found that the people of Jerusalem are also terrified perhaps the stories of Mahabharata Merman had reached to them allow them but anyways they could also not continue to keep up and they also decided that it's about time that we surrender okay. But again they took all the olds that the people have modeled romantic and they tried to seek as much shelter as they could in a domestic and now unless you that is not the dome of rock that's the first thing and it must be that upside is also not just that Masjid it is the entire Old City area. Okay. So the entire Old City not just the message itself the the entire Old City area is called message Alexa. Okay.
So now they all resorted the Muslims resorted in Jerusalem to message that upside this entire city area, okay. 70,000 were within the walls in the confines of this area.
And within moment's notice, as well, more than 70,000 were there. 70,000 people were killed on a moment's notice as well, in Masjid oxide itself inside of the mustard. Inside of msgid aleksa II those walls that we see today.
legs, arms, skulls were flying in every single direction.
of 70,000 people historians have it are saying that blood was so much because it's confined to a wall, right? It was spilling so much that in certain places in certain areas, the blood was leveling up to the knees of the horseman. Okay, that's how much 70,000 people you can imagine how much blood that would be. That's a lot of a lot of blood plus the bodies as well when the blood comes out of the bodies. So this was the Crusaders when they had entered into my man and also into into Masood Azhar. And of course, their counterparts today are not different as well, right?
That constantly day and night
attack the Muslims in and the non Muslims and everybody that's in the region,
by bombs and all sorts of things in Jerusalem, they're no different in this regard as well, right? It's been a * several decades that we've seen and it continues to be so I asked Allah subhanho wa Taala to make it easy for the people of Palestine, Armenia, but Atomy Okay, however, Salahuddin comes and we need a Salahuddin, we're like, we need us all our Deen with the same character of the Salah Salahuddin. We need a Salahuddin with the same charisma of Salahuddin. We need a Salahuddin with the same power of Salahuddin. But we need a Salahuddin that has the same look of Salahuddin look at this whole look of Salahuddin he comes in he re conquers
Accra, and goods after just about 90 odd years, in the year 1187.
And there was about 100,000 people who had moved from different parts of Europe now into beta knock this right.
He gave impunity to all of the 100,000 people.
The only people that died in this, in this conquer was the people, the army men who had resisted and that's it other than that, he and not even all of them, because there was not that much. There was not
most of them, as you see 100,000 people were given impugn impunity, right.
And he placed a small tax for each one of these people to give as they're leaving.
And along with that, they can take all of their belongings, all of their wealth, all of their possessions and everything they can take along with them outside. People who happen to be poor, poor, poor, they don't have to pay that tax as well. Okay. Some of the people who felt that they wanted to pay the tax, but they were poor. Some of the Muslim kings, they collected money for them and paid it on their behalf. It's going back to them anyways, but they paid it on their behalf. Similarly, the European patriarch that was there in the church of resurrection, which is known as Kenenisa to kiama. He has other names as well, right? The patriarch was allowed to take the wealth
of the church along with him and walk away with it. Some people went to Salahuddin. They said, that's a lot of money, we could do something with that. And he said, I'm not going to betray him. I've given my trust.
All the money, he gets to take it with him. All right. Some women came to celebrity.
And they cried before Salahuddin. They said we have no male relatives. We don't have fathers. We don't have brothers.
We don't have, we don't have husbands except the ones that that are in your, that were in the army and now they are your captives. So Salahuddin also began to start crying along with them as well. And he commanded for all of their male relatives to be released as well. Okay, and to be let go, and he released them, and they went with these women to wherever they wish to go. One of the great things that Salahuddin did as well is not just the fact that he gave them impunity, and he allowed them safe passage, he ensured that they reach to their city safely. So he commissioned a special force that will take them from there to whichever city in the European world or anywhere else in the
world they wish to go, they would travel with them, because there's a danger of bandits. If people hear that that entire city 100,000 people are leaving there, they have a lot of possessions. Of course, there will be theft as well. Right. So Salahuddin gave some of his army men to these people, so they will have safe passage to whichever city they wish to go to. So Panama, it didn't stop there.
And the story of the conquer the the beautiful, the noble conquest of Salahuddin continues, but on the other hand, we see that some of these people, they decided to go to the, the Antioch, okay, we're just today in modern Turkey. Historically, it was within Latin rule. Okay. The Antioch, which now is called an Takia, or unbox here in Arabic, right. So some of them decided to go to Antioch, and the Antioch Christian king, he refused his own brethren in religion into the city. Because when you have refugees, what happens?
And this is the failure that's happening today, as well in the world when there's refugees, and people, sometimes from the same faith, don't allow these refugees, and they said, they're not from our country. We don't want them here. Right. So something similar happened to these people over here as well, that they weren't accepted. And another place that they tried is Tripoli, which was also within Latin rule as well. Okay. And they, when they tried, the people of Tripoli, they didn't just not let them in, they went one step ahead, they stole all of their belongings and left them outside of the city. Okay. Now, when they were last, nowhere to go at that moment, they found shelter within
the Muslim lands yet again, these people who were betrayed by the people of Tripoli, and also the people of the Antioch as well. Now, these are all glamorous aspects of the past of the civilization, I also must say that there is also dark pages in history as well. I'm not blind to the fact that there is dark pages in the history of Islam as well. Okay, because every, every nation has dark pages in history. But I am sure based on my reads of history, and based on the witness of many, many, just historians, that the bright pages within the civilization of Islam, far outweigh the dark pages within the civilization of Islam. Now, since we talk about the past, and the civilization of
past, and we keep comparing it to our Western counterparts, and, and the reason why we did that, as I said, in the beginning, is because we pass the buck over, okay. And the problem that occurred, and I come from a western country, I come from Canada, right? I learned history in school, I went to school, the problem that occurs is that entire era of civilization is canceled out. And that is why it becomes irritating for Muslims to hear that entire era of Muslim civilization is canceled out, there's nothing that that people are writing on it. And it's as if there was nothing there as well. So with that irritation, sometimes, sometimes it can sound a bit irritating as well. And the point
here is not to try to bring about a clash within civilization. But the point over here is to set the record straight, that it was in fact, after the Muslims had passed the buck, and we need to admit that as well that we did in some ways pass the buck over, okay. At this moment, the Muslim civilization is not the most glamorous of civilizations. But we're not that far behind. And this is what I want to leave you off with. I don't want you to think that we as an oma are extremely far behind. while lying. There is a lot of hide within this oma today, by Allah. If you look at the type of character that factions of this Omar has been blessed with while lying, we still have within us
hide the fact that children still care about their parents. That is a sign of hype. And that's why I started off with the premise that true civilization is in meaning and character and we still have that and what if we can do
You have to hold fast to this and we continue to hold on to two values one advancement and two, we don't be lazy, okay? Don't be don't become lazy work, right? Because it was hard work that led those people to where it led to and we're human beings just as well as they used to be, isn't that so? So if we work hard, just like they worked hard, then Allah subhanho wa Taala will return back to us that glory and never underestimate your role as an individual within the oma. Because it was one Salahuddin that will that brought that that revived that spirit within the oma to gain the glory of an odds back, it was one person who did that. So don't ever underestimate the ability that Allah
subhana wa Taala has placed within you it was one person Ebensee now that wrote a book by the name of Alcon that became the textbook for centuries. Going forward, it was one person, it wasn't multiple people, it was one person that wrote and how he allottee it was one person basically that did everything that brought a greater change within within the society. So whatever you're doing, do it best. That's my message to you. And recognize that there's still opportunity and hide within this oma and of all places. Malaysia is a Muslim country and one of the greatest Muslim countries today on the face of this earth. Right? The famous scholar from Java now, right, that goes by the name of
Edmund, and for Barney, he has a lot of good poetry in Arabic.
And he writes that,
that I never forgot my land. He's in Egypt, he's talking about the fact that he you know, is in love with Egypt and how the splendor of the Nile River and, and things like that, and the beautiful, the tasty water of the Nile doesn't taste very nice anymore with all the pollution. But it used to that's how we, at least for Barney thought, right? So
he says that
firmer
Java, how beautiful, and how great is this land of Java, he was talking about the fact that he hasn't actually forgotten this particular line. So we are in a land in fact of opportunity. And still till today, the Muslim lands have economic power, amidst the 20th 20 most powerful economic countries, economically powerful countries in the world. Three of those countries happen to be Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Turkey. Right? Indonesia is also although Java, the land of Java, right. And similarly,
similarly, the the
five most richest countries in the world out of them three happened to be Muslim countries, five richest countries in the world out of them three happened to be Muslim countries, the first most richest country in the world today is Qatar. Okay, and Papa is really a beautiful country, even though it happens to be a.on the planet, right, but my sister lives in papa. And also Kuwait happens to be one of the richest countries in the world rating at four and also another country in Java as well, which is Brunei.
Brunei is the fifth richest country in the world today. Okay. So there is a lot of hide within this oma that's the realization that I want you to have at the moment the Islamic banking industry has left the financial power of the Muslims very, very strong today, the economic ability of the Muslim lands is as it's not not just comparable, in some ways, it is outdoing many of the other countries within the world today. And that's why we see the the banking system of many, many different countries is slowly changing, or at least introducing aspects of the Islamic banking, just as Islamic law was, you know, they're all afraid a lot of people are afraid of Sharia law. But they
forget that half of French law happens to be Sharia law. Right, happens to be Maliki. So similarly, a lot of now financial law happens starting to become Islamic law as well as Tomic financial law. That is in Toronto in Canada, where I come from, they're also introducing aspects of Islamic law, Islamic financial law, that is right. Islamic finance. So Islamic banking is starting to become something over there, right. Similarly, if you look today act, many of the conventional banks around the world they're starting to include aspects of Islamic financial dealings within their law because after the economic crisis of the world, which wasn't too long ago, people realize that the power of
the Islamic financial law is much greater because it's able to withstand it's not based on a web system. So it's
able to withstand all the difficulties that come today. Now let me tell you something, and leave you off with this.
And that is that, despite all of the evil notions about Islam and Muslims, and how Islam brought this, that and the other to the world in terms of evil, right, this.in the other you fill in those blanks. Everything is an evil word is a bad word.
I don't want to use those words, because I know they're wrong.
And that's not true. And despite the fact that there is so much negative press about Muslims around the world, okay. Islam still continues to be the fastest growing religion in this world. Despite all of the constant massacres and pillage and murders of Muslims day in and day out around the world, despite those numbers, can you imagine that the numbers would go down because of those massacres, 1 million out off now 500,000 in Syria and other and God knows what's going to happen next, right. Despite all of those things, Islam still continues to be growing in number that means people are actually accepting Islam. It's not that it's not that people were just having babies even though we
have a lot of babies. Right? But in addition to that, there is also a lot of people accepting Islam as well. And last thing that I want to leave you with, inshallah, dada is a statement of it'll be it'll be in a very even army, okay, which you said
to loosen, who was the leader of, of the Persians. He said that and this sums up the civilization of Islam and what Islam brought to the world. He said, Allahu
Allah has sent us so that we may take the people out of the worship of man to the worship of Allah, Lino, hurry, German Cha, min rebel, Rebel de la vida de la. So we may take people out of the worship of man and the worship of the slaves of Allah subhanho wa Taala, to the worship of Allah, Allah Buddha to general himself. Allah has also sent us so that we may take people out of the shackles of this world, to the vastness Allah has placed within this world. Allah has sent us so that we may take people out of the oppression of other religions, to the justice of the deen of Allah subhana wa tada and Allah has sent us so that we make call all of the creation of Allah subhanho wa Taala to
his religion I asked Allah Subhana Allah to grant us the Sophia to practice to convey that is what I will leave you off with all Allahu ala Sayidina Muhammad Ali, he also heavy engineering