Islam Slavery And The African
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and cultural significance of Islam, including its use in political settings and political parties, as well as its use of devalued culture and black people. They emphasize the importance of history and transparency in the context of the culture, and mention upcoming events and taking questions during sessions. The conversation also touches on the definition of slavery within Islam, including the use of "oppress" and the history of slavery within the church, as well as the rise of slavery and resistance to criminal behavior. The Atlantic region is discussed as a hub for slavery, with drug detection methods and police use noted as methods used in the region.AI Generated Transcript ©
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim In the name of Allah was gracious, most merciful. I began with the greeting words of paradise. salaam aleikum, wa rahmatullah.
And those are the words of peace. And I pray that the few moments that we have together tonight would be a source of peace, and would also be a source of understanding.
And peace and understanding, I believe are two very important qualities in these times, especially with the world becoming a global village. And that people are sharing culture with each other. And especially with the rapid change in technology,
and with the
tremendous of fearsome weapons that are in the hands of humanity today, it is very important for us to understand each other, it's very important for us to be honest with the history of this planet, and where we are going. And I want to in the beginning to congratulate the Muslim students, and the Muslim community, people who are here tonight,
on their completion of the month of Ramadan, that is the fasting month for Muslims. And I pray that Allah would give them the best for their fast, would accept their prayers would accept their struggle, and would help Ramadan to be a doorway for the rest of the year. I also would like to congratulate and to welcome the African students and community people who are here tonight. This is Black History Month. And when cottagey Woodson, began this idea in America,
the intention really was to bring out some of the stolen legacy. Some of the misunderstandings concerning African people in this part of the world and Black History Month has come to be a very important time for people throughout America, in the exchange of information. And in Canada, I have had the opportunity in Toronto to be on a number of panels and a number of lectures in the exchange of information. During this month, my only hope and prayer for Black History Month is that it wouldn't be restricted to the month of February. Not only is it the shortest month of the year, but up in Canada is the coldest. And really that that's sort of the opposite of what you think about
when talking about African history. Because that's something that's really warm, especially to those who understand it well.
And so my hope and prayer is that this could extend to the whole year. And what we are struggling for now is to have the misunderstanding the stolen legacy of African people and other under represented groups to be part of the curriculum, part of the mainstream curriculum. So that we shouldn't actually have to have a black history month or native history month or Islamic Awareness Week. This should be part of the curriculum. And the the the average young person growing up should have the opportunity to benefit from the history of Islam from the history of Africa, the average person growing up should not have to go through a racism change in their value systems, you know,
when they're looking at television. And I as a young African American with West Indian parentage, went through a very serious change from a young age as an African American, trying to find my own place on the television in the history books. And sometimes I really had a problem. Because the only characters that I was finding on the television in the movies and this last up until today, to a certain extent, were usually people who were either comedians or athletes are the villain. This is what African people usually play. And I challenge at the outset, anybody go through the television programs today? And think about how many African people are actually heroes in the program. Not a
comedian, not a joker, not an athlete, not a villain. There's a few programs now, but it's not many.
And when you think of people of Chinese descent, how many Chinese heroes Do you know? Not kung fu fighters? Right? When you think of person of Indian descent? How many Indian heroes Do you know not Gandhi? Or Indian movies or no, and a mainstream program? Think about it.
A person who's an Arabic speaking
American, what do they think about TV? Right now in most of the movies.
We are finding that the bad guys who used to be when I was growing up Japanese, Russians, Germans and natives. Now the bad guys are usually spent
drug cartels, Afro American posse or Jamaican gang. Or the most sinister character you can bring to the screen is the Arab terrorist. they seize their their their their their hostages, and they will not release them until their comrades are released from the prison. And then the Delta Force is in motion. Chuck Norris, Otto swats nigga, big guy, Steven Seagal, with a little ponytail. on his head, all the heroes are in motion, to read the world of the new terrorists. This is stereotyping
is stereotyping. And it's gone on with a number of people in our history, and especially with Hollywood, which has a license to do what it wants, without any historical authenticity, they can make anybody who they want to be the hero ought to be the villain. And so tonight, I wanted to shed some light on a very misunderstood area. And that is concerning Islam, slavery, and African people. This is a very serious topic. And it is one that really requires a number of lectures to be really you to be able to get into this topic, actually, it would probably require a whole university semester, to really get into it properly. What I want to do tonight, is to really sort of like give
you an overview, and maybe let you understand something about this area, from the horse's mouth, as they say, or from the primary source from a Muslim. And I want to speak not only from myself, but I want to speak to you from the primary sources of Islam, meaning from the Quran itself, from the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, also from history. And then from the perspective of the people who live in the countries themselves. And not somebody who was writing about the country, from the outside. In the beginning, I think it is very important for you to understand, when we are talking about Islam itself, we are not talking about
a Middle Eastern group.
We're not talking about a way of life that is restricted to any particular nation, or any particular linguistic group. What Islam means in the root essence of the term is submission to the will of Allah. And when we say Allah in Arabic, you can translate that into every language. And there is a way that people throughout the world have expressed the concept of the Creator. You'll find it in every language. And so Islam really means that submission to the Creator.
Not worshiping are created things, but going beyond the creative things to the power that initiated life. This is what Islam means. Right now there. There are over 1 billion Muslims in the world today that the latest census coming out of out of Egypt is 23.1% of the earth's population.
There's over 70 million Muslims in China,
over 60 million in the former Soviet states.
It is the majority religion on the African continent. By the year 2000, it will be the second largest religion in North America. So this is not a restricted way of life, and quiet as it's kept. If you are aware of a recent struggle that went on in a place called Chechnya, which is in the former Soviet Union, the Chechen people are Caucasian people. They come from the caucasoid Mountains. And so those old racist definitions in terms of dividing up people to negroid, caucasoid, Mongoloid, those racist definitions, if you are using those definitions, Chechens are Caucasians and they lead one of the most intense Islamic struggles that we have witnessed in the second half of the
20th century. They have a long tradition of Islam. So what I am trying to say is that Islam is not a racial thing.
But Islam is that feeling of submission that that expresses itself in the individual and then within the nation within the collective. This is really what I mean by Islam. And and just to wrap up that definition, according to Muslims, over 124,000 prophets and messengers came to every nation and every tribe. In the Quran, it says, well, aka bafna, frequently O'Meara sulan Hon de la ha, what's tonybet tahu This is Arabic, we have sent to every nation a messenger that they would worship the creator and they would stay away from false deities. Okay. So so this is an international phenomenon. So according to
Understanding the Prophet Abraham Ibrahim Alayhi Salam submitted to the Creator, he was a Muslim, the Prophet Moses Musa alayhis, salam, we believe the water opened up for Moses, he was a Muslim, the Prophet Jesus, Isa alehissalaam, we believe, was a prophet. He was born of a divine conception, his mother had him without a father.
But we believe that he is one of the prophets of Islam, meaning only submission to the Creator. The difference between the mainstream Christian church and us, for definition purposes is that when when it is mentioned in john the Comforter, we believe that the one who was destined to come after the time of Jesus peace be upon him was the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, who was the seal of the prophets who lived 1400 years ago or more in Arabia, the Seal of this long line of prophets and messengers. And so when we talk of Islam, we are speaking about monotheism.
For the definitions of people who may not be aware of
religion in Africa itself, there's a discussion that goes on. And you have an a different levels. But basically, there's a discussion that happens where people
propose that in Africa, originally, there was traditional religion.
And the people worship the river, or they worship the tree, or they worship the sun. And then later on that religion evolved into a higher level or changed into a higher level, with the Semitic people coming into Africa. And then they say this, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this is what you get in a lot of university courses that you take, I want to challenge that that root definition right from the beginning.
What we are finding from going to the primary sources, going to the sources the people themselves, and not other people who wrote about them, is that we find that Africa has been a place of multiple beliefs. From the beginning of time, there have been people who have a number of different beliefs. And this is the way Africa is, if you go to the African continent, especially in traditional Africa, and you go to the city, you will find people of many different nations in the marketplace, who are discussing with each other, who are trading with each other, who understand different cultures from different parts of the continent. It is a continent that is very much diverse, in its languages, in
its culture, in its expression, as far as monotheism is concerned, from the teachings of pata hotep, and this is published or this was first published in the fifth kinetic, or you could say Egyptian dynasty, around 2388. Before the Christian era, putao tap believed to be a sage, who served under the king Essa was reported to have said, Do not scheme against people, God will punish accordingly. If a man says I shall live by scheming, he will lack bread for his mouth. People schemes do not prevail. God's command is what prevails. Therefore, in the midst of peace, what God gives comes by itself. And so you will find in this book which is considered by many historians to be the oldest
texts that we have written texts, in these teachings of patala tip, it is recorded that
monotheism was alive and well. Also in the Middle Kingdom of ancient Kemet or Ancient Egypt, the well known Pharaoh Akhenaten, who was somewhere around 1358 bc to 213 40. He expressed his dedication to the soul God at all. And he was expressing a belief that focus not on the different gods not on the sun, but on the power behind the sun,
the power behind the sun. This is an ancient Egypt, which of course, is an Africa and within the south, the Psalms of Akhenaten, you find the following how manifold are your works, though hidden from sight, all soul God, besides whom there is none. You created Earth according to your desire you alone, all people, cattle, and all kinds of animal all on the earth that walks on legs and all on high that fly with wings. You set every person in his or her place and satisfy their needs.
All have food, and their time of life is determined. their tongues differ in speech, and so to their characters, the colors of their skins are different also, for you distinguished people, how excellent are your ways, oh, Lord of eternity. This is an African Pharaoh's speaking. This is before the time of Moses, before the time of Jesus, and before the time of Muhammad, peace be upon, this is an Africa. And you will find other writings throughout the continent, you will find in Shona writings, the strong belief in one God, the great spirit, you will find in the writings of lanky of Uganda, also the concept of the Great Spirit, you will find this throughout the continent. So
really, the root definition of Islam, meaning submission to one God or the concept of monotheism is something which is not new in Africa. It is something which is not new throughout the world. But the only thing that the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him did was to confirm what came before him was to confirm the natural belief, or the natural tendency in all human life, to recognize the Creator of the heavens in the earth.
And this is very important definition for us to begin with. Because what, when people speak about Islam today, when they try to define Africa, we tend to do this in a way that separates instead of a way that unites, I'm still trying to figure out
how they separated Africa from Asia.
Because this didn't happen until the European colonial period. It wasn't until then, that the Red Sea divided Asia from Africa, if you look at the people who live along the Red Sea, you will find that for the past 10,000 years, their cultures have been one, people have been traveling across back and forth of the Red Sea, as though they were traveling from one city to another in America. It is only when the European colonial system came that they said, if you're on the eastern side of the Red Sea, you're an Asian. If you're on the western side, you're an African.
This is a definition that really when you actually go into Africa itself, when you really try to figure it out, or to put a racial feature upon what is an African or what is an Asian, it starts to get ridiculous.
And so it is the same thing with Islam. When you start to divide people up or start to categorize Islam, you will realize when you go to the root sources of Islam, that it is ridiculous. Because from the beginning of the message of Islam, or the last message of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, had with him, people of all different nations.
Now, what I also want to look at, before going into the specifics of Muslims themselves and their relationship to slavery, is the concept of slavery itself. What we have to realize is that slavery in the ancient world, was an international phenomenon. Slavery was in China, in Africa, in Europe, in the Americas, in the Middle East. It was everywhere in the world is almost similar to worker and boss today. Even the word slave itself, many historians are saying comes from slavery, you know, like Czechoslovakia, Slavic people, because they were enslaved by the Romans.
And so they looked at blond haired, blue eyed people coming from the north as slaves. That's a strange definition today, especially with racism haven't take overtaken everything. That's a strange definition. But in the ancient time, slavery was not defined by color. Slavery was a was a class or it was a way a life that a person was put into, for a number of different reasons. And so, when you look back at the ancient times, you will find in ancient Byzantium the Byzantine Empire under the digests compiled by a Christian Emperor, slavery was considered part of the law of nature.
marriages between slaves were not legal in the Byzantine Roman Empire. marriages between slaves and free were prohibited under severe penalties.
You will also find that within America itself, amongst the native people in China in Africa
There was slavery. And slavery usually came about through warfare, that after the war was over the prisoners of war, were usually women and children were taken by the other side and incorporated into the society. So the definition of slavery itself, if we are to look at Islam, which began not recently, but over 1400 years ago, to have the proper perspective, we need to have a proper perspective about slavery itself. You are talking about a relationship between people that was established throughout the planet, it was the way of life of the people on earth. If you were in a war, and you were not killed, you were taken as a slave.
This was all over the planet. Now, what has clouded The issue
is that in the 15th and 16th century, and starting from the 15th century, when Christopher Columbus bumped into America, thinking he was going to India lost and discovered by the people in probably the Bahamas, who cooled him down and probably tried to give him something to drink. When he told them, I discovered you, I control you. And we foolishly have maintained this in our institutions for years, even only recently, in 1992. It was the 500th anniversary centenary centennial of the Age of Discovery.
But my question was, at that point in time, who was discovered? Was it the people here or Columbus, it was Columbus. That's what they should actually have been saying. But why what you have to deal with is the mentality.
Not Columbus himself, because Columbus was very late. And historians recognized now that many people made it across long before Columbus, that's another lecture in itself. But African people made it across Muslims made it across Vikings made it across Phoenicians made it across many different nations were able to come across the Atlantic and the Pacific, on the other side, and come into the Americas. The important point is the mentality.
It is a call it is the mentality where you deny the civilization of the other people. Just imagine this. Now we look at the picture. And we see Columbus landing on the shore. And he's looking at people. And it says, Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. I tried this out. I went to Nigeria, Kenya, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore. And I said to the people who discovered America, they said, Christopher Columbus, I said, when they say 1492, I said, Did you look at the picture. They said, Oh, that's right. There's other people in the picture. So this mentality of exclusion,
the mentality where people are living there, yet, you don't recognize that humanity.
That is the one that has the poison,
that destroyed the relationships,
where racism became a tool of oppression, and a tool of mental and physical exploitation.
And we find that from the 15th, and especially 16th century, that slavery became a racial phenomena. When you're found in Africa, a source of cheap labor to bring into the Caribbean, South America and North America, to to to to produce sugar and cotton and tobacco, and the other products. They looked at Africa, they tried poor whites first. But that didn't work. Because they looked at themselves, they looked in the mirror, and at the mass, they said, Wait a minute, I look just like you. I'm not going to be a slave. They tried the native people. But the native people had been here for over 10,000 years. And so they refuse to submit, they would either run away and fight, or they would just
die.
So they look to Africa. Because African people not only would be very visible especially if you brought people out of West Africa or Central Africa, they will be very visible. Also the climates. In the guinea coast, the Gold Coast, Angola coasts, is very similar to the climate in, in the south, here in the south, and also in the Caribbean and South America.
Also, people had ways of dealing with agriculture, advanced ways of agriculture. So they figured all these things in and then targeted Africa. As we know, the slavery period began. And millions of people were brought out of Africa into the Americas.
Slavery became racial.
History also records that there were African people who lived in America at the time of the of the 13 states who had their own property.
Some of them even had slaves.
Some of the African people, I believe were also part of the native culture, because they had come across with the mandinka. And there's a book called deeper roots. Here, you can read Ivan van sertoma, and other people, and you will find out about the discoveries before Columbus. So African people were already here. But slavery became racial code, nah, the black laws,
these laws came in everybody of African descent became slave, whether you are free or slave, regardless of your tribe, regardless of your status in society, once you fit a particular definition, racially, you became a slave. This, this is how everything changed. And so that definition, that concept, that concept is with us today. This is what makes it extremely difficult to talk about this topic. Because this is a very emotional topic, especially for people who have had ancestors who were in a state of slavery, including myself, this is a very emotional topic. But we have to be able to look at this topic in the proper perspective. So that we ourselves would not fall
into stereotyping,
or into wrongly accusing people of something that they did not commit.
When you look, in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, I want to again, take it back to Arabia. And we're going to go 14 110 years
before
or more into this period of time in the Arabian Peninsula. And what you have to understand about the Arabian Peninsula itself, is that the Arab people who are living there are actually a mixed people themselves. And so when you start to talk about racial definitions, you have a problem even in Arabia to do that, because people will not necessarily distinguished in the Arabian Peninsula by the color of their skin. This strict color definition is something which is only recent, from the 16th century. Now, if you look back to Harada tests and other Greek and Roman historians when they talked about ancient Egypt, they said the ancient Egyptians were dark skinned people with wooly hair, they
had no problem with color, they had no problem at all. It is only at the 16th century now that colors becomes so crucial to people's definition.
And so the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, who was the seal of the prophets who came in line with the other prophets began his mission in Mecca, in the city of Mecca.
And he basically taught the belief in one God, he basically confirmed the teachings of those who came before him, that you should be honest, you should not steal, you should not lie, you should not commit adultery, you should not oppress, you should believe in one God, you should pray, you should given charity you should fast, he confirmed what the other prophets taught before his time. And it is recorded in the history books and you can go to a book, even his heart, there are a number of very serious Islamic works that are written in Arabic language, Arabic was the lingua franca of Islamic civilization. And so in Arabic, Africans, or people from many different parts of the world
wrote, and you find that from the beginning, the prophet peace be upon him was surrounded by people of all nationalities. One striking quality though, about his followers, would that they were generally from the lower class. He himself was from the tribe of kodesh. And the Quraysh was considered to be a noble tribe. That is because they were descendants of Abraham, of the Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him also, they were descendants of one of the tribes from Southern Arabia, Georgia home.
And they will also a descendant of Haggar, or hajah, who was an Egyptian, who was the wife, one of the wives of the Prophet Abraham peace be upon. And so they will consider a noble tribe. And they were in a in a leading position in Mecca itself. Although he came from that tribe, he wasn't a rich person.
He was surrounded by people from the lower class. And so you find the slaves in Arabia at that time. Were not from one particular racial group. They were from any racial group, including the Arabs themselves, because it was based upon your position in society and not your racial definition. And so it is recorded that a number of his followers and one of the famous followers below even a robot rhodiola one. May Allah be pleased with him was the person who call to prayer for the Prophet one of the early Muslims also
So sell man and fantasy a Persian man. He was also a slave. There was also sohaib, a Rumi sohaib, the Roman was also in a slave position. And you will find that the Arabs are Zaid, a number of people who are Arabs, who are enslaved positions. And so from the beginning, Islam taught, that people should not submit to create things, but they should submit to the Creator of the heavens in the earth. In the opening chapter of the Quran, it says, you're gonna have to do what you're gonna start Stein. This says, You alone, Oh, God, do we worship and You alone? Do we seek for help. And so this concept, which is called tawheed, the strict concept of monotheism gave the individual a
feeling, not to submit to create things, but to submit only to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. And so from the beginning, one of the strong actions done by the Muslims was to free the slaves. And so you find a number of people being freed from the beginning, especially by one of the Sahaba companions of the Prophet, whose name was Abu Bakr as Siddiq rhodiola one who was recorded to have freed a number of slaves, a number of people from the lower class, and many of these people became a rose up in the ranks of the Muslims to become people of distinction.
It is also reported that the Prophet himself freed 63 slaves. His wife, Ayesha, freed 67
the prophets uncle abas freed 70, slaves,
of Germanic and one of the rich Sahaba there's a number of reports but he freed 1000s of slaves.
Zhu Kala hemmati freed 1000 slaves, Abdullah bin Omar freed 1000 haccombe, even hasm freed 100. And this list continues. And you will find within the the annals of history, if you read the history book of October 30, Katamari, even Cassia even a Thea, you go into the actual reports from the language of the people living at the time, you will find a number of people who were released from slavery by the Muslims who are struggling, struggling very seriously in those times, to try to right the wrongs and and to bring the society into a society of justice. Also,
we find that the Prophet peace be upon him, made it very clear in his language to his followers, what the relationship should be. And one Hadith whose report on on the authority of a Buddha, who was one of the famous companions of the Prophet peace upon him, he said, that the Prophet peace be upon him reported
a saying from the Creator Himself. And this is called Hadith Pudsey for the Muslims who are here, it's not the Quran, it's not a saying of the Prophet, but it is one of the Prophet quotes from the Creator.
And this is what it says,
a lot of the Almighty said,
there are three
whose enemy or adversary, I shall be on the day of judgment or the Day of Resurrection, a man who has given his word by me and has broken it, a man who has sold a free person, and has consumed the price. And a man who has hired a workman has accessed exact did his due in full from him, and has not given him his wages. This is reported in a text which is called Bahati, which is a very authentic which is the second most authentic source for the Muslims. And so Islam struggled to liberate, liberate the people from physical bondage, from psycho psychological bondage, and from spiritual bondage. You also found that Islam allowed slaves to buy their freedom. Now, what was
happening is, again, you're coming into a society where slavery is an institution spread throughout the world. And so within the society itself, this is a class of people, there is free and there is slave. This is the way it is. And so the Quran itself in chapter 24, verse 33, says,
and if those of you
and if those who are in your possession, ask for a deed of emancipation, execute the deed of emancipation with them, provided that you find some good in them, and give them something out of the means Allah has given to you. Also one of the pillars of Islam
Which is called as a cat. And this is the third great pillar of Islam. And this is charity. This is the do two and a half percent of the wealth, which is given every year to the poor and the needy, one of the categories of people who were defined by the Creator that you should use your wealth for is a person in slavery, that you should spend your money to get people out of a state of slavery.
And so what we find is that the definition of slavery itself
was narrowed down. Originally, slavery could be a person who captures another person, a person who just goes to a marketplace and buys a person. The only definition that was that that remained within Islamic Sharia, which is the law of Islam is for the prisoners of war. So actually, the word slave itself is really the wrong definition, it's the wrong term. Because when you say slave in English, what comes into your mind is somebody who is captured, and somebody who, you know, is put in ball and chains working on a plantation. This is not the Islamic definition.
The Islamic definition of right hand possession, is a person who comes into the society as a prisoner of war. And so what Islam basically was doing, was phasing out this institution of the prisoners of war, it is not a needed institution. It is not one of the pillars of Islam, as the New York Times might say.
But what it was, it was an instant, it was an international institution.
It was a relationship that people had throughout the world, and Islam was bringing the people out of the institution, phasing out, phasing it out, it was not wise at that time, according to what we understand, to try to totally eliminate,
because the relationship of slave to master was a relationship throughout the world. And so therefore, what was done, it was narrowed down, capturing a person was prohibited, go into the marketplace and just buy in somebody, for any reason was prohibited. It is only when a person is a prisoner of war. in that condition, according to the traditions of the Prophet peace be upon him, we find that if a person person fell into that condition, that they were supposed to eat the same food, as the person who was above them, with the same clothing, not supposed to be punished or harmed. And they were supposed to be helped to come out of that condition as soon as possible. This is the root
definition of quote unquote, slavery within Islam. It is a narrow down institution, which was not a pillar of Islam, and not a necessary institution within Islamic life. And so you find that as Islam spread to different parts of the world, in many parts of the world, slavery completely disappeared.
In some parts of the world, when people in the name of Islam
wanted to take advantage of other people, slavery then continued. And I'm not here today, to stand in front of you, and say that slavery did not exist in the Muslim world. And they were not people who are quote unquote, Muslims, who were not involved in slave raiding, or slave trading.
What I am here, basically to show you is that there is a difference between a person who was actually practicing Islam in the proper way, according to Sharia, the Islamic law, and a person who has an Islamic name, who comes from a Muslim family, and carries out what they want to carry out anyway. There's a difference between the two, you might find the person Will he ever be allowed May Allah protect us from it was a Muslim, you may find them drinking alcohol, Muslims don't drink alcohol, but you might find somebody who drinks. That's his problem.
That is not Islam that made him do that. That is the choice that the individual made to carry it out. When you look at the history of Islam, in the era that is called in Islamic
jurisprudence, the time of the self assault. This is the first three generations of Islam. You find within that early time. There is no slave raiding that is going on. There's no historical report that shows that Muslims were involved in slave raiding or in slave trading, as it happened later on in Islamic history.
That is the source for Islamic lifestyle. And so people have practiced Islam based upon their understanding of their relationship with the Creator, and their ability to perform the Sharia.
When African people were taken into slavery, from the west coast of Africa, and quiet as it's kept, we are now understanding that maybe close to 30% of the slaves taken from the from the guinea coast of West Africa, were Muslims, close to 30% in Bahia, in Brazil, which was the largest slave population, created by the Portuguese, there was a huge slave revolt in Bahia, a successful slave revolt, to the point where the hausa and Fulani are the full of people who were the who were taken into slavery in that part of the world, were able to defeat the Portuguese, they were given boats, and they returned to West Africa. And you can go to Legos today, and you can find Brazilian mosques,
which is which which is a mosque, a house of worship, built by people who were captured, taken to Brazil, and then one day liberation and return to West Africa. You also find that in Suriname, the bush blacks that a great revolt and if you go to the interior of Suriname, today, you will find African people who are free people who fought for the liberation. One of the leaders in this revolt his name was Adobe. And his general was zam zam. zam zam is water in Mecca, that the Muslims drink has been flowing from the time of the Prophet Abraham. This is uncertain and also you find that in Trinidad, Mohammed CC, and a number of Muslims who are living who were captured, prisoners of war or
slaves, were able to get their freedom and actually gain get property in Trinidad. And they actually had a society going on in the Caribbean. And you find it all over the Caribbean in the writings. Now we are reinterpreting the writings and understand and we understand that when the term Mandingo is being used, they are referring to a Muslim Mandingo. This is the terminology. They wouldn't use Muslim, because you have to remember that the Spanish were paranoid of Muslims, because they were Muslims were in Spain for 700 years. And so the Spanish had to overtake the Muslims in Andalusia, right Seville to Lido Granada, Cordoba. So they didn't want to hear the words Muslim. They wanted to
erase it, they just baptize everybody on the boat.
And so nobody could use it, especially the Muslims. But still records are coming to us. In 1821.
In the Manchester parish of Jamaica,
a document was being passed around which is called watseka watseka. It was written in Arabic. This is a document which is now being linked by Nigerian scholars to a document written by a West African Islamic revival of the faith. His name was check with man Dan fodio. of the fuller Fulani people. He wrote a document which was called watseka, urban, urban foodie, Illa, Allah, Sudan woman sha Allah who may not be one. This document says it is the document or manifesto of the son of a scholar, even foodie to the people of the Sudan, meaning right across West Africa, you know, to the Sudan today, and those who Allah pleases from the brethren, meaning his students or tala. This document was the
ACA, was calling the people to resistance resistance at that time, it was against the Petit House of Kings, who who are oppressing people in Gaza, and other parts of house or land. There was a revolt or resistance that went on in the time of check with men rahimullah. What happened now in Jamaica, and the link is being made now. A doctor was man magaji, one of the scholars in in northern Nigeria today, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Oz man last summer in Leicester in UK. And he gave me this paper and he linked it. They were linking it together. There was a lot of urban foodie, they're linking it with the document passed around amongst the slaves in Jamaica. And sure enough, in 1821,
there was a slave revolt in the Manchester parish. You also find in Bahamas, I went to the archives in Bahamas and Nassau. And I was surprised to read and one of the documents that it said that a certain amount of slaves were taken to the island of exuma and a large number called themselves followers of Muhammad. Now they didn't know what this term Muhammad was. Ma H o m et. This is
The crusading middle age definition for the word Muhammad, these people in the Bahamas were defining themselves as Muslims. And so Muslims were one of the groups, one of the groups who resisted oppression and slavery in the Americas. Very interestingly, what has happened to me recently is that check for him Joep, who is a Gambian scholar, who is living in New York area and teaching check for him was linking now the concept of Maroons, the maroon people with a strong tribe known in Gambia, this is interesting, because the definition that came to us and I had the opportunity to visit the maroon settlements in Jamaica. I was there for four years. And the the the Maroons, basically in
Jamaica, were known as it is said that the word comes from Cimarron Ace, which is a Spanish word for wild horse. Because when the Spanish came, these people were so resilient, that they resisted slavery went into the interior, and the Spanish couldn't get them out. They left them alone. The French came along, left them alone, British came left them alone. But the British had a plan because they're very crafty. So they made a treaty. They made a treaty. And in that treaty, they turn the Maroons against other people of African descent people who know Jamaican history will know that negative side of the existence. What is important is what check fam is showing us is that in West
Africa, there is a nation of people in Gambia, who are very strong stature, known for their fierce war like nature, they're all of them are Muslims, and their name is Maroons. This is serious. This is serious. Because this would link us now in the name directly to a nation in West Africa. And research is being done right now to look into the records to see whether this definition really was this so called Spanish word semi erroneous, or actually was it a terminology that had come from an African language that was trying to be covered up by the colonial powers? What is important is that Muslims were resisting slavery. And you find in America, you will find the story of Eben Suleiman
was in Georgia, you find updraft man in Mississippi, you will find solace bill Ali, Bill Ali Mohammed in the Gullah islands,
you will find Muslims
very strong within African American culture. in mainland United States, the presence is very strong. And it is probably that same spirit of resistance that was passed on from family to family from generation to generation that is coming to the surface today with an African American society, in the name of Islam. And this is a strange phenomenon. Because even though the New York Times and The Washington Post and other so called authentic media publications, are trying to put out propaganda against the Muslim world and against Africa and different liberation movements, still people are looking at Islam. We recognize now that there is a link in terms of lineage, and in terms of
knowledge and resistance. And again, I want to make it clear, it's not only Muslims who resisted slavery in America, there's other groups who are very powerful as well. But we now identify this as one of the strong groups who resisted slavery within the Americas.
A colleague of mine, Imam nafion Mohammed Rahim, Allah, may Allah have mercy upon him, who studied with me and Medina, he was from Georgia. And he reported to me that he remembers the slave master would say, to their great grandmother, anytime they got angry at the slaves, they would say you are late. Nothing but at haggis illegitimate children. Now you know what that means. Now let's try to unwind that at Haggar. This is hajah the wife of Abraham, right?
Okay, so you say you're nothing but an hag is illegitimate children. In other words, you're a bunch of Muslims.
Because it was harder, who went with Abraham and Ishmael and they built the Kaaba in Mecca. Now, how now is this man, this slave master in Georgia, calling the slaves and haggis illegitimate children?
It is a it is because he understood that they were Muslims. And so that same spirit we see coming out in individuals, probably the most important individual for us is Malcolm X. And within his spirit, Alhaji Malik Chavez, Rahim Allah, may Allah have mercy on him, we find that same resilient spirit. We find that same resistance to it
oppression,
resistance to slavery and tyranny in any form. That is the essence of Islam. That is the root definition of the terminology. And this is what has existed throughout the world. That is the reason why in the Muslim world today, there is turmoil.
That is the reason why you see it in the press, because Neo colonial powers were put into place in the Muslim countries, that when the colonial system left, a person was put into place, who spoke the same language as the people look like them, but he was worse than the colonial master. He was worse. And this is what the Muslim countries are suffering from today.
And so what I want to make you aware of, that you may not be aware of is that when you are dealing with a country like Sudan,
which is a big country, and to go from one end of the Sudan to another, it's like driving from Toronto to New Orleans or maybe Brazil. The place is big. I mean, when I when I would drive from Cano just to get from Cano to Sokoto, those are, you know, northern Nigeria is like you drive in forever.
If you look at the map, Nigeria is small compared to the Sudan. It's huge. So to try to lump everybody together in one little group, to try to blame one group in Khartoum, for something that goes on in another part of the Sudan, you don't understand the country. What you have to understand is that the people they want, they want to be independent. They are now in terms of their agriculture, the economy, they do not depend upon foreign powers, that growing their own food.
They did this a serious education that is going on in the Sudan. These are some of the things that you don't see, the Sudan is a refuge in the northern part two, it has been a refuge for people from all over Africa. And if you go there, you will find people from all over Africa. So you know, when we are defining terms, you have to try to define it from the perspective of the people themselves. I am not here today, to cover up any exploiter, any oppressor,
who in the name of Islam, or Christianity, or nationalism, or whatever it is, or presses people, I'm not covering them up, and I'm not making an excuse for what I want to say very clearly, is that there is a difference between what Islam stands for as a way of life. And what peeps certain people have done in the name of Islam, who would try to use this international way of life as a means of gaining wealth, or exploiting other people. I want to close this phase of our discussion tonight at this point, I've been talking for a while, and you know, I'd like to get some feedback inshallah, from you. And I want to thank you for your patience so far. And I pray that the rest of our evening
would be a source of peace and understanding. And I leave you at this point in peace by saying assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah.
Thank you very much. Zack, love, halen, Jimmy's a lot. Give him give you goodness.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam peace and blessings be upon him said, there's one thing that you should do from the cradle to the grave, and that is to seek knowledge, and wherever you find it to take it. So on that note, that any delay, we're gonna have a question and answer session. And I believe everyone was given a note card and some and some pencils to write down the questions on. And if you want to, you can just raise your hand and just ask the question out loud, but if not just pass the cards down the aisles or outside the aisles and someone will come by and collect them. So inshallah we'll go ahead and go into that.
Okay, and if anyone leaves during the session, the chef has written the book, deeper routes, and it's available right out here. And, and there's some tapes of different lectures that the chef has given. And I, I've, I've had some of those tapes myself and listen to them. And it's incredible. There's so much you can learn. It's very important concept in Islam to take knowledge where you find it. And when when men like this was studied so much of their life about Islam and, and things about which we do not know, we shouldn't know. So I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to stay and ask questions and to get a book and to maybe purchase some tapes and sell live God's will.
Yeah,
The floor is open for any questions that anybody may have.
Now, what I would like to ask, and I would like to reserve the right to basically deal with questions that are connected with with this topic. I know there are Muslim brothers and sisters here. And there's a lot of questions, right. But some of them is going to take is going to go too far off another angle. And with respect to the non Muslims who are here tonight,
we want to keep it restricted to the topic itself and not go too much. There's a question about the Ahmadiyya movement is about Sufism. And Islam lost brothers and sisters, we can have a session afterwards. You have a session want to deal with this thing? Yes, sir.
Make sense?
So what I like to hear more from you, since you have a
pleasant day.
Well, basically speaking, slavery, as you know, has taken different forms. And
what I would say is that slavery today, you know, has gone from ball and chain slavery to economic slavery. And there's also psychological slavery. Because really, what has happened to African people in the West, as I'm sure you're aware of, is that people were enslaved, not only physically, but they were enslaved, psychologically, mentally, spiritually. And so therefore, there's a physical resistance where you fight back the system, you run away, you revolt, okay? But now, when the institution is gone, the slave institution in this part of the world, for instance, doesn't exist. However, there's a psychological one, there's a spiritual one, where people are being put down where
racism is continuing. And so you will find that one of the
elements, or one of the important aspects that that Islam has to bring to this part of the world, is that concept of submission to the creator and not to create a things. And so you will find that there are Muslims in different parts of America, the Caribbean, we're trying to give the children like a different definition of life, and resist that old Christopher Columbus mentality type of thing in the Muslim world itself. Okay, as I said, the Muslim world is going through a very serious change in the sense that the authority themselves the authorities, in most cases, represent the colonial period, the colonial period has not ended in the Muslim world. It is what you call the Neo
colonialism, the new colonialism. And so there are people who are ruling the Muslim world now, who are still holding the masses of the people down.
They're still favoring one family or another family. They're still dividing people. They're still being tools of imperialism. And so therefore, Muslims are resisting it throughout the Muslim world, and there is a great change which is going on there. And so this is really how, you know it is it is being resistant because slavery as an institution,
in terms of a marketplace and buying and selling and that type of institution, really, from my own understanding. I haven't seen it.
There's a brother from California named Chuck Hamza Yusuf, he studied in Mauritania. He lived in Mauritania for a while. And his witness was he never saw anything he never saw, buying and selling of people. He never saw that.
In Sudan, actually, next week at Rutgers University.
There's going to be a very important session, if any, if any of you can get up to Newark, New Jersey, next Saturday, that the Minister of Justice of the Sudan is going to be there. He's going to be on the firing line. Also Dr. Suliman Yang, who was a Gambian scholar in Howard University, and myself inshallah will be on this panel. And it's dealing with slavery. So the Minister of Justice is going to be there, man. So like, I don't know what's going on in the Sudan itself. What I do know is that, you know, basically what I've heard from it is that the government in the north, basically the people in the north,
they have no they are not involved in this. If there are people who are involved in reading or trading, these are renegades. This is a renegade group that is doing this. It is not a group which is attached to the mainstream Islamic movements in the north. This is this is what I understand so far. But most of the parts of the Muslim world, what is going on it is a resistance to economic slavery.
In other words, what is happening in the Islamic system, for instance, there is no interest and so there
Banks being developed. Now, economic systems that would not be capitalist or not be socialist, they're outside of the realm of the other so called Eastern Western systems. So that is a very serious resistance that is going on. And that says, In the other sense, there are no marketplaces, and there is nothing like that even to resist there. However, people who are oppressed in low classes and low castes or groups like that, you know, if they exist in the Muslim world, you generally find there's a struggle going on right now, is a struggle with these authoritarian groups who are trying to maintain supremacy over the masses of the people. This is basically what is
happening. Any other oral questions anybody has?
says, How can Islamic history be included in school and college curriculums, with the existing separation between church and state? Well, when I'm talking about including Islamic history, I'm not talking about practicing Islam here. I'm not talking about Islamic State. Okay, what I'm talking about, is that when you are dealing with Islamic history, you should go back to the primary sources in the same way, in any discipline, you know, you want to first deal with the primary sources, and then the secondary sources. And then the other sources, what happens when you're dealing with Islamic history, and sometimes African history is that they don't deal with primary sources. They
deal with what somebody said, three or four levels down. And because he came from Oxford University, or Sorbonne, they say he's an expert.
And, you know, and scholars will start saying crazy things. You know, and I've heard a scholar, I'm not gonna mention any names. But I've heard a scholar of so called scholars say, you know, with, with authority, that Bilbao taught the Prophet Mohammed how to pray.
Now, for Muslim, this is totally against all levels of understanding. And no, nobody, even a drunken historian, in the Muslim world, or anywhere has ever said anything close to that. But somehow, people are making these
statements off of propaganda books, and of stereotyping, which which has been done, you know, in the name of scholarship. So really, what I'm saying is, is that, to include it within the curriculum, we should go back to the primary sources, and then try to be as objective as we are with other
types of history. And within history, fields. Now, people are trying to tell the story from different perspectives. Because if there's a great battle, then you can tell a story from either side, right, the winners or the losers. I mean, it's usually told from the side of the winners. Okay, you can also tell it from the point of view of the people on whose land was the war. And maybe these people never even fought in the war. But they suffered over these two kings, or two rulers fighting and killing each other on their territory. So history can be told from a number of different perspectives. And what I'm saying is to understand Islamic history properly, you would
have to also give the testimony of Muslims themselves to be able to to understand Islamic history. Unfortunately, we have hundreds of authenticated historical works in Arabic and Persian and Turkish. in Swahili in a number of different languages, we have a number of works, that that can be read, and can be used as as primary and secondary source material. Any other questions? Anybody has oral questions?
Yes, ma'am.
To support some of your points that
say that I can't remember the author's name.
In the 17th century, at 1691, West Africans as long as
in that document, we describe nations that may be taken in slavery.
And in the document, it describes the Muslims of
specifically states
of the IDI condition, because they are their brothers. And probably that document, the myth of ham was created
perpetrated by Christian slave owners to justify why dark skinned people deserved being enslaved in the
go
The metal pan is not at all but it's a discussion of which peoples in Africa I submitted.
Music
That's right. Any other comments or questions? Anybody has?
Yes?
Have you done any study?
situation that exists?
What is the slave trade?
Well, I had an opportunity in 1995, to go to Zanzibar. And I was a friend of a family who knows that there's a solid family. Actually the solid. My friend's older sister was karuma, his wife, the one who was overthrown. And we were looking for Dr. Sharif is a doctor Sharif was well known writer out of there, I was looking for Dr. Sharif. And so I went to Zanzibar and we went downtown. And one of the one of my friends, there was a tour guide, he did this to make money. So I said to him, I want you to take me on a tour of Zanzibar, just the same way you take somebody from France or Russia or wherever. I just just give it to me the way you're supposed to give it to a regular. So he took me
to a place.
They said this is the slave chambers to downtown right? The slave chambers, and it was a stuffy place you go down inside there. And my friend is from the solid family there Omanis. Okay, although he looks like an afro American, but he's Romania. Right.
And so he was talking about the dirty Oh, Arabs and what they did, they took the Africans and they did this to them and whatever. And I was getting uptight myself and I was gonna punch the brother in the head. Like I was really like, Yeah, I was feeling like because my own thing was coming out, right? And he was almost crying. Because he was like, How could my family have done this? Okay. And that was definitely one up and there was a cathedral there. And they said that this Catholic church was built on the place of a slave market. That was their downtown. Okay. And then it took us to Sultan Bala, gosh, he had a palace there and whatever. And it took us around. So then I went to the
archives. And I met Professor Hammad, who was one of the main professors in the archives. And we started to talk and he told me that Dr. Sharif, and the main historians in the island, when independence came and they opened up these these slave chambers, they challenged the place, what they said they found out, and they have historical proof to show that the slave chambers was actually a place with a British stored medicine, because there was an outbreak of cholera, it was not slave chambers, okay. Also the so called slave market, they said when they checked the records, there was one stand that was there. Okay. And you know, that there was there was a low volume of
actually slaves were sold from that market. And when Sultan Baraka was, was ordered by the British to, to count the slaves to to free everybody and to count the slaves on Zanzibar. He counted 10,000 people who could be of a slave lineage. And there's a there's a fairly large population there. And so what we realized from that, is that there has been exaggeration that has gone on, there's been a big exaggeration, okay. And no doubt that the Roman is when they first came in, into the coastal region there. They were working with the Swahili people, the people had already been in Islam before the remedies long before some people even dated back to the second or third century after the
Haggadah, that that Muslims penetrated East Africa. So Swahili culture was already developed. So when the Romanies came in, they were helping the people resist the Portuguese. But after a while, when they took over, they became pirates themselves. And they actually were involved in transporting people from the interior of Africa, East Africa, into different parts of the Muslim world. And even in Pakistan and other places. There are some African groups, that that can be linked to the slaves, the macronix Macron, they call in Karachi. And there's certain people that could be linked possibly to the Africans who were transported up there by the Chinese. So it definitely did go on. But but
but what I understand what I'm seeing is that is a big exaggeration, because what is happening now is that the the scholars quote unquote, want to try to make Arab slavery, so called Arab slavery or Islamic slavery. I don't know how they say Islamic. They're not calling European slavery, Christian slavery. They're not saying that right, but but if somebody from anyone from the Muslim world takes us that is Islamic slavery, so what you do you indict the religion
So what they are doing now is they're pushing so called Islamic slavery in order to turn off Afro Americans, or anybody who resists slavery to accepting Islam. That's the bottom line. And it's really unfortunate. Because there's a lot of people were being confused. And even policy was being shaped and the British did it. Purposely, they divided the Swahili lease from the people from the upcountry in Kenya and places like that, saying, You're African, you're Arab.
Okay, although the person who was supposed to be an Arab, for all intensive purposes, is an African. Maybe he has a grandfather or great grandfather who came from huddled mount or Yemen or something. But for all intents and purposes, he's an African. Okay, but they say you're an Arab, and you're an African. So they divided the people up. So it's like divide and rule. It's divided rule, I, you know, it always is strange to me when they say, the Arab Sudan and the African student. Because when you talk about Arabs from the north, they are they are as dark as anybody in the darkest part of Africa, many of the people from the north, so for us, for Afro Americans, like we get thrown off
when we go to Africa, man. I mean, they get thrown off by us, like, even when Malcolm X went there, and he had we got red here, right? And he's light skinned, or somebody like myself was a mixture, right? So then you go over there, and they say, you know, which part of your African But for us, you know, we because of racism, and we, you know, I am an African American, I got no and that's my understanding. That's our definition. But in Africa, that's not the definition, man. When you go over, they say like, what's your tribe? What's your nation? What's your language? That's what they're asking you. Okay? Now, Islam breaks a lot of that down, because if you're a Muslim, then
people will accept you anyway. So Islam breaks all that down. But if you're not dealing underneath Islam, then you you you come up with this some different understanding that and our understanding here is different. Cuz you know, you say, Arabs, you're thinking of a light skinned person with a big with a nose and then do the African whatever the definition, right? This is totally opposite to what it is man,
as the so called Arabs can be anything, they can be light skinned, or they can be dark skin. It is not a racial group. It's not a racial group. It's a linguistic group and a cultural group.
And this is a total misunderstanding, Papa because people do not have access to direct information from the Sudan or Africa. They just look at the people see those Arabs, they're doing it again.
You know, and you develop this. There's two auto swats nigga, get them. Chuck Norris, get them, Stephen, go get them.
Because they're terrible, right, the krimson jihad, go get a man send the Delta Force and get all the merits. This is what has happened in it. stereotyping is stereotyping. And it really has a negative effect on a lot of young people who get confused when they go to Africa, and find something different when they when they go there. I'm studying West African history. And they were saying about
you know, in West Africa, they are talking about the almoravids, El Mirage.
And they came in the 11th century, you know, out of North Africa, and they destroyed the kingdom of Ghana, in the 11th century. Then when you look at the records this, Conrad and Fisher, they put out this article, they call it the conquest that never was. Because when you go back and you read about it, and you read the different writings of the people who recorded it, the almoravids, Morabito, they never invaded Ghana.
They assisted the king, the king stayed in power after they reached. Now if you invade a country and defeated the king does not stay in power, you kill the king, the king stayed in power, and all that all the definitions being used by you know, the Raiders of the history were not conquest.
But they again they want to divide north from south, the Berbers in the north, the Arabs in the north, the Africans in the south, right in the same way, like here, the light skin, the dark skin,
okay, like we got blue veins societies in America, and you have the, you know, whatever. in the Caribbean, small island and Big Island, you know, you have all this different you know, things where you know, a person from Barbados feels like negative when it goes to Jamaica, this is a Caribbean thing for people who are there like my grandmother's from Barbados, right? So you go to Jamaica, and you know, you say you're a Bayesian.
Okay, so where do you get this division of people?
So this is what's being done to divide up people so that they cannot work together. And they can't really understand what is going on, because they're caught up in their division.
And an Africa is probably one of the biggest areas for misunderstanding and division, you know, for the whole definition of Africa and it goes right back from the beginning of history. As I said, you look at the ancient Egyptians. There's no proof
that anybody other than Africans built the pyramids, there's no primary information. It's not until 1650 years old and the pixels came in that that that somebody came from outside of Africa and came in.
And the pyramids are already built. What are the historians say? Either they say the aliens came down from outer space, build the pyramids and flew back out.
Or they give you Stargate in the modern version, or they say somebody who looks like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, or you Brenda, they built the pyramids.
Because that's racism, and it's racism.
It's racism and it's being used to divide and conquer. Yes, sir.
question concerning considering
revolution
in America, have you drawn any connections between
nations with strong?
Yeah, definitely. In my book, deeper roots, which I have here, one of the generals of Toussaint l'ouverture, his name was Macondo. makanda was an email. And there's I've just heard there's a paper, which is going to be released by a single East woman scholar. I don't know her name, I'm going to hopefully find out in Charlotte next week, but the paper is going to be released. She has documents, Arabic writings from Haiti.
And they have found amongst the slaves, a considerable population of the slaves in Haiti, where Muslims a considerable amount. And so this, this paper, hopefully will be released within the next few months. As a single single woman scholar. I'm not sure what her name is, don't want to find out. Hopefully I can find out next week. Yes.
That's right.
The same kind of
job.
And
okay, I agree, as I was speaking with the brother on about one man, that there were definitely Arabs were involved in the slave trade. Definitely, there were Africans were involved in the slave trade. If it wasn't for Africans, the Europeans would never have been able to go into the interior, the tsetse fly was killing them. And the malaria they knew they couldn't make it in. But it was one nation pitted against another nation.
And then selling captives of war, or people or prisoners or whatever they people, they want to get rid of making money to get the guns and you know, whatever else. But if they were tricked, and they were used, so so people, you know, other than Europeans were involved in slavery, Europeans did not invent slavery. They did not invent slavery, it is existed in every part of the world. The only difference is that the the volume of slaves in European slave slavery is higher than anywhere else ever. And then racism, racism coming in, and the effects of it's still on the minds of the people up until today.
That is the difference between what happened within the Islamic so called slavery. There are leaders, major leaders in Islamic history, who are from slave families, in the Abbasid
Caliphate, Haruna Rashid, who was probably maybe one of the richest men in history, in Baghdad, okay, he was from a slave family. Put a bit Dean, one of the famous leaders in Delhi, in India, a famous leader, he was from a slave family. And you go on, you'll find many of the great leaders within Islamic history came from slave lineage. So there's upward mobility. But this form here, there's no mobility, but down into the ground, that's your mobility. And racism still makes it difficult for people to make it up in the ranks. The left this is this is what the difference is within it. But definitely Arabs were involved in it, Africans were involved in it. Indians were
involved in it. But what I'm trying to say is that Islam, as a way of life is free of this. Islam is free of this. Now, to understand why Islam did not totally abolish it at that time. That's a question. Okay. What we as I said, what we understand from the perspective is that it was phasing it out because it was a worldwide institution. And it narrowed it down to such a small level that you know, in many parts of the world of the Muslim world, it ended and there's no
need for it. But some only people who explore you wanted to explore it, try to bring it back to life. But it is not a pillar of Islam. It is not needed within an Islamic State, or any type of Islamic community, it is not needed at all.
And as I said, you know, in the great Pillars of Islam, there's a constant reminder, even when we fast, like we just finished Ramadan in when you're fasting, if you break your fast, intentionally, okay, the prophet PC problem when a person broke his fast intentionally, he said to him,
can you fast? Two months? Can you feed 64 people?
The man said, No, that's the first penalty feeding 64 people. If you can't do that, then
can you
was the second one feed first feed 64 people Okay, can you can you fast two months in a row 60 days? And the third one can you free a slave.
So I mean, even though there's no slavery that still exists within Islamic heritage, that if you break your fast, one of the ways to make it up with Allah is to free somebody from slavery. So all throughout the religion is a constant reminder that you should be fighting against this institution, you should be getting rid of it, phase it out, resistant, that all the way through, and the people who maintain it
just using the name of Islam, but they are exploiters. They are exploiters. And they are oppressors. And we have to suffer under them, as well as non Muslims.
Any other questions or comments anybody has?
This question is going off. And I went off myself a little bit, but it said, How can you explain the fact that there are only pyramids on the north of the equator? In Aztec Egyptian blood is the same? Didn't they possess the knowledge we have? Okay, this pyramid is another discussion, this pyramid understanding, maybe I can have this with you afterwards. Whoever this cow asked this question. It says your question about a different form of slavery. Do you know of any evidence that can substantiate the claim that the government use the CIA to introduce
slaves are drugs to the African American community? Okay. I don't have specific evidence in myself in terms of that, but but it is definitely something happens. Because I can remember in the 60s,
you know, when people were, you know, really organizing in the black communities and consciousness was out there. And suddenly you had like, Superfly, and this movie called Superfly. You know, suddenly everybody starts straightening their hair, and then these trucks start pouring into the community.
And then crack cocaine use I mean, this was not done.
Just by chance. Okay, you'd like to call it
that was produced recently,
in Washington, DC, and there were several government officials who participated, like Maxine Waters, the congressman
from Los Angeles and some other people, a professor at the University of Maryland in the history department, and they documented that there was a connection with the Nicaraguans in terms of bringing cocaine into into
Los Angeles. I think some of you might be aware that there's an article written, published in the San Jose Mercury, exposing the CIA connections, and actually there are now government investigations of CIA, FBI, their complicity with bringing in drugs in the country, Maxine Waters and some other Congress, people have been involved in this. If you can
contact
Maxine Waters office, you can probably get a copy of this tape is a very enlightening videotape about this relationship. And there was an African American who was complicitous with this with receiving the drug, silent drugs.
And Maxine Waters actually went there interviewed this person, so if you contact her office,
and the investigation continues, so there's clear evidence of CIA government bringing drugs into the
Yeah, there are questions anybody has.
Okay, I want to thank you for your patience. And I want to invite you to Rutgers University campus, Newark, New Jersey. Next time
Saturday night at 630 sharp. The Minister of Justice secretary is the Assistant Secretary, Assistant Attorney General of Sudan of Jamal Khalifa will be there, along with Dr. Suliman Yang of Howard University and my humble self inshallah, just back in the month. inshallah. So you're invited to come to Newark, New Jersey next week, and I leave you in peace was Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah.
Come, after the time of Jesus peace be upon him was the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, who was the seal of the prophets who lived 1400 years ago or more in Arabia, the Seal of this long line of prophets and messengers. And so when we talk of Islam, we are speaking about monotheism.
For the definitions of people who may not be aware of
religion in Africa itself, there's a discussion that goes on. And you have an a different levels. But basically, there's a discussion that happens where people
propose that in Africa, originally, there was traditional religion.
And the people worship the river, or they worship the tree, or they worship the sun. And then later on that religion evolved into a higher level or changed into a higher level, with the Semitic people coming into Africa.
And then they say, there's Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This is what you get in a lot of university courses that you take, I want to challenge that that root definition right from the beginning.
What we are finding from going to the primary sources, going to the sources of the people themselves, and not other people who wrote about them is that we find that Africa has been a place of multiple beliefs. From the beginning of time, there have been people who have a number of different beliefs. And this is the way Africa is, if you go to the African continent, especially in traditional Africa, and you go to the city, you will find people of many different nations in the marketplace, who are discussing with each other, who are trading with each other, who understand different cultures from different parts of the continent. It is a continent that is very much
diverse, in its languages, in its culture, in its expression, as far as monotheism is concerned, from the teachings of pata hotep, and this is published or this was first published in the fifth kinetic, or you could say Egyptian dynasty, around 2388. Before the Christian era, putao tap believed to be a sage, who served under the king Essa was reported to have said, Do not scheme against people, God will punish accordingly. If a man says I shall live by scheming, he will lack bread for his mouth. People schemes do not prevail. God's command is what prevails. Therefore, in the midst of peace, what God gives comes by itself. And so you will find in this book which is
considered by many historians to be the oldest texts that we have written text in these teachings of patala tip, it is recorded that
monotheism was alive and well. Also in the Middle Kingdom of ancient Kemet or Ancient Egypt, the well known Pharaoh Akhenaten, who was somewhere around 1358 bc to 213 40. He expressed his dedication to the soul God at all. And he was expressing a belief that focus not on the different gods not on the sun, but on the power behind the sun,
the power behind the sun. This is an ancient Egypt, which of course, is an Africa and within the south, the sounds of Akhenaten, you find the following. How manifold are your works, though hidden from sight, all soul God besides whom there is none
You created Earth according to your desire you alone, all people, cattle, and all kinds of animal, all on the earth that walks on legs and all on high, that fly with wings, you set every person in his or her place and satisfy their needs, all have food, and their time of life is determined. their tongues differ in speech, and so to their characters, the colors of their skins are different also, for you distinguished people, how excellent are your ways, oh, Lord of eternity. This is an African Pharaoh's speaking. This is before the time of Moses, before the time of Jesus, and before the time of Muhammad, peace be upon this is in Africa. And you will find other writings throughout the
continent, you will find in Shona writings, the strong belief in one God, the great spirit, you will find in the writings of lanky of Uganda, also the concept of the Great Spirit, you will find this throughout the continent. So really, the the root definition of Islam, meaning submission to one God or the concept of monotheism is something which is not new in Africa. It is something which is not new throughout the world. But the only thing that the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him did was to confirm what came before him was to confirm the natural belief, or the natural tendency in all human life, to recognize the Creator of the heavens in the earth.
And this is very important definition for us to begin with. Because what, when people speak about Islam today, when they try to define Africa, we tend to do this in a way that separates instead of a way that unites, I'm still trying to figure out
how they separated Africa from Asia.
Because this didn't happen until the European colonial period. It wasn't until then, that the Red Sea divided Asia from Africa, if you look at the people who live along the Red Sea, you will find that for the past 10,000 years, their cultures have been one, people have been traveling across back and forth of the Red Sea, as though they were traveling from one city to another in America. It is only when the European colonial system came that they said, if you're on the eastern side of the Red Sea, you're an Asian. If you're on the western side, you're an African.
This is a definition that really when you actually go into Africa itself, when you really try to figure it out, or to put a racial feature upon what is an African or what is an Asian, it starts to get ridiculous.
And so it is the same thing with Islam. When you start to divide people up or start to categorize Islam, you will realize when you go to the root sources of Islam, that it is ridiculous. Because from the beginning of the message of Islam, or the last message of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, had with him, people of all different nations.
Now, what I also want to look at, before going into the specifics of Muslims themselves and their relationship to slavery, is the concept of slavery itself. What we have to realize is that slavery in the ancient world, was an international phenomenon. Slavery was in China, in Africa, in Europe, in the Americas, in the Middle East. It was everywhere in the world, almost similar to worker and boss today. Even the word slave itself, many historians are saying comes from slavery, you know, like Czechoslovakia, Slavic people, because they were enslaved by the Romans.
And so they looked at blond haired, blue eyed people coming from the north as slaves. That's a strange definition today, especially with racism haven't take overtaken everything. That's a strange definition. But in the ancient time, slavery was not defined by color. Slavery was a was a class or it was a way a life that a person was put into, for a number of different reasons. And so, when you look back at the ancient times, you will find in ancient Byzantium the Byzantine Empire under the digests compiled by a Christian Emperor, slavery was considered part of the law of nature.
marriages between slaves were not legal in the Byzantine Roman Empire.
marriages between slaves and free were prohibited under severe penalties.
You will also find that within America itself, amongst the native people in China, in Africa, there was slavery. And slavery usually came about through warfare, that after the war was over the prisoners of war, were usually women and children were taken by the other side and incorporated into the society. So the definition of slavery itself, if we are to look at Islam, which began not recently, but over 1400 years ago, to have the proper perspective, we need to have a proper perspective about slavery itself, you are talking about a relationship between people that was established throughout the planet, it was the way of life of the people on earth. If you were in a
war, and you were not killed, you were taken as a slave.
This was all over the planet. Now, what has clouded The issue
is that in the 15th and 16th century, and starting from the 15th century, when Christopher Columbus bumped into America, thinking he was going to India lost and discovered by the people in probably the Bahamas, who called him down and probably tried to give him something to drink. When he told them, I discovered you, I control you. And we foolishly have maintained this in our institutions for years, even only recently, in 1992. It was the 500th anniversary centenary centennial of the Age of Discovery.
But my question was, at that point in time, who was discovered? Was it the people here or Columbus, it was Columbus. That's what they should actually have been saved.
But what you have to deal with is the mentality,
not Columbus himself, because Columbus was very late. And historians recognized now that many people made the cross long before Columbus, that's another lecture in itself. But African people made it across Muslims made it across Vikings made it across Phoenicians made it across many different nations were able to come across the Atlantic and the Pacific, on the other side, and come into the Americas. The important point is the mentality.
It is a call it is the mentality where you deny the civilization of the other people. Just imagine this. Now we look at the picture. And we see Columbus landing on the shore. And he's looking at people. And it says, Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. I tried this out. I went to Nigeria, Kenya, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore. And I said to the people who discovered America, they said, Christopher Columbus, I said, when they say 1492, I said, Did you look at the picture? They said, Oh, that's right. There's other people in the picture. So this mentality of exclusion,
the mentality where people are living there, yet, you don't recognize that humanity.
That is the one that has the poison,
that destroyed the relationships,
where racism became a tool of oppression, and a tool of mental and physical exploitation.
And we find that from the 15th, and especially 16th century, that slavery became a racial phenomena. When you're found in Africa, a source of cheap labor to bring into the Caribbean, South America and North America, to to to to produce sugar and cotton and tobacco, and the other products. They look to Africa. They tried poor whites first. But that didn't work. Because they looked at themselves. They looked in the mirror, and at the mass, they said, Wait a minute, I look just like you. I'm not going to be a slave. They tried the native people. But the native people had been here for over 10,000 years. And so they refuse to submit, they would either run away and fight, or they would just
die.
So they look to Africa. Because African people not only would be very visible especially if you brought people out of West Africa or Central Africa, they will be very visible. Also the climates in the guinea coast Gold Coast Angola coast, is very similar to the climate in, in the south, here in the south, and also in the Caribbean and South America.
Also people had ways of dealing with agriculture, advanced ways of agriculture. So they figured all these things in and then targeted Africa. As we know the slavery period began, and millions of people were brought out of Africa into the Americas
Slavery became racial.
History also records that there were African people who lived in America, at the time of the of the 13 states who had their own property.
Some of them even had slaves.
Some of the African people, I believe, were also part of the native culture, because they had come across with the mandinka. And there's a book called deeper roots. Here, you can read Ivan van sertoma, and other people, and you will find out about the discoveries before Columbus. So African people were already here. But slavery became racial code in law, the black laws, these laws came in everybody of African descent became slave, whether you were free or slave, regardless of your tribe, regardless of your status in society, once you fit a particular definition, racially, you became a slave. This, this is how everything changed. And so that definition, that concept, that concept is
with us today. This is what makes it extremely difficult to talk about this topic. Because this is a very emotional topic, especially for people who have had ancestors who were in a state of slavery, including myself, this is a very emotional topic. But we have to be able to look at this topic in the proper perspective. So that we ourselves would not fall into stereotyping,
or into wrongly accusing people of something that they did not commit.
When you look, in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon it, I want to again, take it back to Arabia. And we're going to go 14 110 years
before
or more into this period of time in the Arabian Peninsula. And what you have to understand about the Arabian Peninsula itself, is that the Arab people who are living there are actually a mixed people themselves. And so when you start to talk about racial definitions, you have a problem even in Arabia to do that, because people will not necessarily distinguished in the Arabian Peninsula by the color of their skin. This strict color definition is something which is only recent, from the 16th century. Now, if you look back to Harada tests and other Greek and Roman historians when they talked about ancient Egypt, they said the ancient Egyptians were dark skinned people with wooly hair, they
had no problem with color, they have no problem at all. It is only at the 16th century now that colors becomes so crucial to people's definition.
And so the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, who was the seal of the prophets who came in line with the other prophets began his mission in Mecca, in the city of Mecca.
And he basically taught the belief in one God, he basically confirmed the teachings of those who came before him, that you should be honest, you should not steal, you should not lie. You should not commit adultery, you should not oppress, you should believe in one God, you should pray, given charity, you should fast, he confirmed what the other prophets taught before his time. And it is recorded in the history books and you can go to a book, even his heart, there are a number of very serious Islamic works that are written in Arabic language, Arabic was the lingua franca of Islamic civilization. And so in Arabic, Africans, or people from many different parts of the world wrote,
and you find that from the beginning, the prophet peace be upon him was surrounded by people of all nationalities. One striking quality though, about his followers, would that they were generally from the lower class. He himself was from the tribe of kodesh. And the Quraysh was considered to be a noble tribe. That is because they were descendants of Abraham, of the Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him also, they were descendants of one of the tribes from Southern Arabia, Georgia home.
And they will also a descendant of Haggar, or hajah, who was an Egyptian, who was the wife, one of the wives of the Prophet Abraham peace be upon. And so they will consider a noble tribe. And they were in a in a leading position in Mecca itself. Although he came from that tribe, he wasn't a rich person.
He was surrounded by people from the lower class. And so you find the slaves in Arabia at that time. Were not from one particular racial group. They were from any racial group, including the Arabs themselves, because it was based upon your position in society.
It and not your racial definition. And so it is recorded that a number of his followers and one of the famous followers Bilaal, even a robot rhodiola. One. May Allah be pleased with him was the person who call to prayer for the Prophet, one of the early Muslims also sell man and fantasy, a Persian man. He was also a slave. There was also sohaib, a Rumi sohaib, the Roman was also in a slave position. And you will find that the Arabs are Zaid, a number of people who are Arabs, who were enslaved positions. And so from the beginning, Islam taught that people should not submit to create things, but they should submit to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. In the opening
chapter of the Quran, it says iaca Naboo. What yaka Stein, this says you alone, oh God, do we worship and You alone? Do we seek for help. And so this concept which is called tawheed, the strict concept of monotheism gave the individual a feeling, not to submit to create the things, but to submit only to the Creator of the heavens in the earth. And so from the beginning, one of the strong actions done by the Muslims was to free the slaves. And so you find a number of people being freed from the beginning, especially by one of the Sahaba companions of the Prophet, whose name was Abu Bakr as Siddiq rhodiola one who was recorded to have freed a number of slaves, a number of people
from the lower class, and many of these people became a rose up in the ranks of the Muslims to become people of distinction.
It is also reported that the Prophet himself freed 63 slaves. His wife, Ayesha freed 67
the prophets uncle abas freed 70, slaves,
of Germanic and one of the rich Sahaba there's a number of reports but he freed 1000s of slaves.
Zhu Kala hemmati freed 1000 slaves, Abdullah bin Omar freed 1000 haccombe, even hasm freed 100. And this list continues. And you will find within the the annals of history, if you read the history book of poverty, tariqa tabari, even Cassia, even a Thea, you go into the actual reports from the language of the people living at the time, you will find a number of people who were released from slavery by the Muslims who were struggling, struggling very seriously in those times, to try to right the wrongs and to bring the society into a society of justice. Also,
we find that the Prophet peace be upon him, made it very clear in his language to his followers, what the relationship should be. And in one Hadith, whose report on on the authority of a Buddha, who was one of the famous companions of the Prophet peace upon him, he said, that the Prophet peace be upon him reported
a saying from the Creator Himself. And this is called Hadeeth Pudsey for the Muslims who are here, it's not the Quran, it's not a saying of the Prophet, but it is when the Prophet quotes from the Creator.
And this is what it says,
a lot of the Almighty said,
there are three
whose enemy or adversary, I shall be on the day of judgment or the Day of Resurrection, a man who has given his word by me and has broken it, a man who has sold a free person, and has consumed the price. And a man who has hired a work man has accessed exact did his due in full from him, and has not given him his wages. This is reported in a text which is called Bahati, which is a very authentic which is the second most authentic source for the Muslims. And so Islam struggled to liberate, liberate the people from physical bondage, from psycho psychological bondage, and from spiritual bondage. You also found that Islam allowed slaves to buy their freedom. Now, what was
happening is, again, you're coming into a society where slavery is an institution spread throughout the world. And so within the society itself, this is a class of people. There is free and there is slave. This is the way it is. And so the Quran itself in chapter 24 verse 33, says
and if those of you
and if those
are in your possession, ask for a deed of emancipation, execute the deed of emancipation with them, provided that you find some good in them, and give them something out of the means Allah has given to you. Also one of the pillars of Islam, which is called zakat. And this is the third great pillar of Islam. And this is charity, this is the do two and a half percent of the wealth, which is given every year to the poor and the needy. One of the categories of people who were defined by the Creator that you should use your wealth for is a person in slavery, that you should spend your money to get people out of a state of slavery.
And so what we find is that the definition of slavery itself
was narrowed down. Originally, slavery could be a person who captures another person, a person who just goes to a marketplace and buys a person. The only definition that was that that remained within Islamic Sharia, which is the law of Islam is for the prisoners of war. So actually, the word slave itself is really the wrong definition, it's the wrong term. Because when you say slave in English, what comes into your mind is somebody who is captured, and somebody who, you know, is put in ball and Shane's working on a plantation. This is not the Islamic definition.
The Islamic definition of right hand possession, is a person who comes into the society as a prisoner of war. And so what Islam basically was doing, was phasing out this institution of the prisoners of war, it is not a needed institution. It is not one of the pillars of Islam, as the New York Times might say.
But what it was, it was an instant, it was an international institution.
It was a relationship that people had throughout the world. And Islam was bringing the people out of the institution, phasing out, phasing it out, it was not wise at that time, according to what we understand, to try to, totally eliminated
because the relationship of slave to master was a relationship throughout the world. And so therefore, what was done, it was narrowed down, capturing a person was prohibited, go into the marketplace and just buy in somebody, for any reason was prohibited. It is only when a person is a prisoner of war. in that condition, according to the traditions of the Prophet peace be upon him, we find that if a person person fell into that condition, that they were supposed to eat the same food, as the person who was above them, with the same clothing, not supposed to be punished or harmed. And they were supposed to be helped to come out of that condition as soon as possible. This is the root
definition of quote unquote, slavery within Islam. It is a narrow down institution, which was not a pillar of Islam, and not a necessary institution within Islamic life. And so you find that as Islam spread to different parts of the world, in many parts of the world, slavery completely disappeared.
In some parts of the world, when people in the name of Islam
wanted to take advantage of other people, slavery then continued. And I'm not here today, to stand in front of you, and say that slavery did not exist in the Muslim world. And they were not people who are quote unquote, Muslims, who were not involved in slave raiding, or slave trading.
What I am here, basically to show you is that there is a difference between a person who was actually practicing Islam in the proper way, according to Sharia, the Islamic law, and a person who has an Islamic name, who comes from a Muslim family, and carries out what they want to carry out anyway. There's a difference between the two. You might find the person when he has to be loud, may Allah protect us from it, who is a Muslim, you may find them drinking alcohol. Muslims don't drink alcohol, but you might find somebody who drinks. That's his problem.
That is not Islam that made him do that. That is the choice that the individual made to carry it out. When you look at the history of Islam, in the era that is called in Islamic
jurisprudence, the time of the self assault. This is the first three generations of Islam you find
Within that early time, there is no slave rating that is going on. There is no historical report that shows that Muslims were involved in slave raiding or in slave trading, as it happened later on in Islamic history, that is the source for Islamic lifestyle. And so people have practiced Islam, based upon their understanding of their relationship with the Creator, and their ability to perform the Sharia.
When African people were taken into slavery, from the west coast of Africa, and quiet as it's kept, we are now understanding that maybe close to 30% of the slaves taken from the from the guinea coast of West Africa, were Muslims, close to 30%, in Bahia, in Brazil, which was the largest slave population, created by the Portuguese, there was a huge slave revolt in Bahia, a successful slave revolt, to the point where the hausa and the Fulani or the full of people who were the who were taken into slavery in that part of the world, were able to defeat the Portuguese, they were given boats, and they returned to West Africa. And you can go to Legos today, and you can find Brazilian
mosques, which is which which is a mosque, a house of worship, built by people who were captured, taken to Brazil, and then won their liberation and return to West Africa. You also find that in Suriname, the bush blacks that a great revolt and if you go to the interior of Suriname, today, you will find African people who are free people who fought for the liberation. One of the leaders in this revolt, his name was out of beach and his general was zam zam. zam zam is water and Mecca, that the Muslims drink has been flowing from the time of the Prophet Abraham. This is uncertain and also you find that in Trinidad, Mohammed CC, and a number of Muslims who are living who were captured,
prisoners of war or slaves, were able to get their freedom and actually gain get property in Trinidad. And they actually had a society going on in the Caribbean. And you find it all over the Caribbean in the writings. Now we are reinterpreting the writings and understand and we understand that when the term Mandingo is being used, they are referring to a Muslim Mandingo. This is the terminology. They wouldn't use Muslim, because you have to remember that the Spanish were paranoid of Muslims, because they were Muslims were in Spain for 700 years. And so that the Spanish had to overtake the Muslims in Andalusia, right Seville to Lido Granada, Cordoba. So they didn't want to
hear the words Muslim. They wanted to erase it, they just baptize everybody on the boat.
And so nobody could use it, especially the Muslims. But still records are coming to us. In 1821.
In the Manchester parish of Jamaica,
a document was being passed around which is called watseka watseka. It was written in Arabic.
This is a document which is now being linked by Nigerian scholars to a document written by a West African Islamic revival of the faith. His name was check with man Dan fodio. of the fuller Fulani people. He wrote a document which was called watseka events in foodee, Illa, Allah, Sudan woman sha Allah who may not be one. This document says it is the document or manifesto of the son of a scholar, even foodie to the people of the Sudan, meaning right across West Africa, you know, to the Sudan today, and those who Allah pleases from the brethren meaning his students are talabat.
This document was the ACA was calling the people to resistance resistance at that time, it was against the Petit House of Kings, who who are oppressing people in Gaza, and other parts of house or land. There was a revolt or resistance that went on in the time of check with men rahimullah. What happened now in Jamaica, and the link is being made now. A doctor was man magaji, one of the scholars in in northern Nigeria today I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Oz man last summer in Leicester in UK. And he gave me this paper and he linked it. They were linking it together. There was data of urban foodie, they're linking it with the document passed around amongst the slaves in
Jamaica. And sure enough, in 1821 there was a slave revolt in the Manchester perish. You also find in Bahamas, I went to the archives in Bahamas and NASA and I was surprised to read and one of the
The documents that it said that certain amount of slaves were were taken to the island of exuma. And a large number called themselves followers of Muhammad. Now they didn't know what this term Muhammad was ma H o m, et. This is the crusading middle age definition for the word Muhammad. These people in the Bahamas were defining themselves as Muslims. And so Muslims were one of the groups, one of the groups who resisted oppression and slavery in the Americas. Very interestingly, of what has happened to me recently is that check for him Joep, who is a Gambian scholar, who is living in New York area and teaching check for him was linking now the concept of Maroons, the maroon people with a strong
tribe known in Gambia, this is interesting, because the definition that came to us and I had the opportunity to visit the maroon settlements in Jamaica. I was there for four years. And the the the Maroons, basically in Jamaica, were known as they It is said that the word comes from Cimarron Ace, which is a Spanish word for wild horse. Because when the Spanish came, these people were so resilient, that they resisted slavery went into the interior, and the Spanish couldn't get them out. They left them alone. The French came along, left them alone, British came left them alone. But the British had a plan because they're very crafty. So they made a treaty. They made a treaty. And in
that treaty, they turn the Maroons against other people of African descent people who know Jamaican history will know that negative side of the existence, what is important is what check phi m is showing us is that in West Africa, there is a nation of people in Gambia, who are very strong stature, known for their fierce war like nature, they're all of them are Muslims, and their name is Maroons. This is serious. This is serious. Because this would link us now in the name directly to a nation in West Africa. And research is being done right now to look into the records to see whether this definition really was this so called Spanish word semi erroneous, or actually was it a
terminology that had come from an African language that was trying to be covered up by the colonial powers? What is important is that Muslims were resisting slavery. And you find in America, you will find the story of Eben Sulaiman was in Georgia, you find updraft man in Mississippi, you will find solace bill Ali, Bill Ali Mohammed in the Gullah islands,
you will find Muslims
very strong within African American culture. in mainland United States, the presence is very strong. And it is probably that same spirit of resistance that was passed on from family to family from generation to generation that is coming to the surface today with an African American society, in the name of Islam. And this is a strange phenomenon. Because even though the New York Times and The Washington Post and other so called authentic media publications, are trying to put out propaganda against the Muslim world and against Africa and different liberation movements, still, people are looking at Islam. We recognize now that there is a link in terms of lineage, and in terms of
knowledge and resistance. And again, I want to make it clear, it's not only Muslims who resisted slavery in America, there's other groups who are very powerful as well. But we now identify this as one of the strong groups who resisted slavery within the Americas.
A colleague of mine, Imam nafion Mohammed Rahim, Allah, may Allah have mercy upon him, who studied with me in Medina, he was from Georgia. And he reported to me that he remembers the slave master would say, to their great grandmother, anytime they got angry at the slaves, they would say, You are late nothing but at hag is illegitimate children. Now you know what that means that let's try to unwind that at Haggar This is hajah the wife of Abraham, right?
Okay, so you say you're nothing but an hag is illegitimate children. In other words, you're a bunch of Muslims.
Because it was harder, who went with Abraham and Ishmael and they built the Kaaba in Mecca. Now, how now is this man, this slave master in Georgia, calling the slaves and haggis illegitimate children?
It is a it is because he understood that they were Muslims. And so
That same spirit we see coming out in individuals. Probably the most important individual for us is Malcolm X. And within his spirit, Alhaji Malik Chavez, Rahim Allah, may Allah have mercy on him, we find that same resilient spirit, we find that same resistance to oppression,
resistance to slavery and tyranny in any form. That is the essence of Islam. That is the root definition of the terminology. And this is what has existed throughout the world. That is the reason why in the Muslim world today, there is turmoil.
That is the reason why you see it in the press, because Neo colonial powers were put into place in the Muslim countries, that when the colonial system left, a person was put into place, who spoke the same language as the people look like them, but he was worse than the colonial master. He was worse. And this is what the Muslim countries are suffering from today.
And so what I want to make you aware of, that you may not be aware of is that when you are dealing with a country like Sudan,
which is a big country, and to go from one end of the Sudan to another, it's like driving from Toronto to New Orleans or maybe Brazil. The place is big. I mean, when I when I would drive from Cano just to get from Cano to Sokoto, those of you who know northern Nigeria is like you drive in forever.
And if you look at the map, Nigeria is small compared to the Sudan. It's huge. So to try to lump everybody together in one little group, to try to blame one group in Khartoum, for something that goes on in another part of the Sudan, you don't understand the country. What you have to understand, this is the people they want, they want to be independent. They are now in terms of their agriculture, the economy, they do not depend upon foreign powers, that growing their own food.
They did this a serious education that is going on in the Sudan. These are some of the things that you don't see, the Sudan is a refuge in the northern part two, it has been a refuge for people from all over Africa. And if you go there, you will find people from all over Africa. So you know, when we are defining terms, you have to try to define it from the perspective of the people themselves. I am not here today, to cover up any exploiter, any oppressor,
who in the name of Islam, or Christianity, or nationalism, or whatever it is, or presses people, I'm not covering them up, and I'm not making an excuse for what I want to say very clearly, is that there is a difference between what Islam stands for as a way of life, and what peeps certain people have done in the name of Islam, who will try to use this international way of life as a means of gaining wealth, or exploiting other people. I want to close this phase of our discussion tonight at this point, I've been talking for a while, and you know, I'd like to get some feedback inshallah, from you. And I want to thank you for your patience so far. And I pray that the rest of our evening
would be a source of peace and understanding. And I leave you at this point in peace by saying assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah.
Thank you very much Zack of love, hi, Ron, Jimmy's a lot give him give you goodness.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam peace and blessings be upon him said, there's one thing that you should do from the cradle to the grave, and that is to seek knowledge, and wherever you find it to take it. So on that note, that in delay, we're going to have a question and answer session. And I believe everyone was given a note card and some and some pencils to write down the questions on. And if you want to, you could just raise your hand and just ask the question out loud, but if not just pass the cards down the aisles or outside the aisles and someone will come by and collect them. So inshallah we'll go ahead and go into that.
Okay, and if anyone leaves during the session, the chef has written the book, deeper roots, and it's available right out here. And, and there's some tapes of different lectures that the chef has given. And I, I've, I've had some of those tapes myself and listen to them and it's incredible. There's so much you could learn. It's very important concept in Islam to take knowledge where you find it. And when when men like this was studied so much of their life about Islam and
And things about which we do not know, we should know. So I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to stay and ask questions and to get a book and to maybe purchase some tapes and sell live God's will.
Yeah.
Okay, the floor is open for any questions anybody may have.
Now, what I would like to ask, and I would like to reserve the right to basically deal with questions that are connected with with this topic. I know there are Muslim brothers and sisters here. And there's a lot of questions, right. But some of them is going to take is going to go too far off another angle. And with respect to the non Muslims who are here tonight,
we want to keep it restricted to the topic itself and not go too much. There's a question about the Ahmadiyya movement is about Sufism, in Islam. Last thing, brothers and sisters, we can have a session afterwards, you'd have a session want to deal with this thing? Yes, sir.
Make sense?
So what I like to hear more from you, since you
present this?
Well, basically speaking, slavery, as you know, has taken different forms. And
what I would say is that slavery today, you know, has gone from ball and chain slavery to economic slavery, and is also psychological slavery. Because really, what has happened to African people in the West, as I'm sure you're aware of, is that people were enslaved, not only physically, but they were enslaved, psychologically, mentally, spiritually. And so therefore, there's a physical resistance where you fight back the system, you run away, you revolt, okay? But now, when the institution is gone, the slave institution in this part of the world, for instance, doesn't exist. However, there's a psychological one, there's a spiritual one, where people are being put down where
racism is continuing. And so you will find that one of the
elements, or one of the important aspects that that Islam has to bring to this part of the world, is that concept of submission to the creator and not to create it things. And so you will find that there are Muslims in different parts of America, the Caribbean, we're trying to give the children like a different definition of life, and resist that all Christopher Columbus mentality type of thing in the Muslim world itself. Okay, as I said, the Muslim world is going through a very serious change in the sense that the authority themselves, the authorities, in most cases, represent the colonial period, the colonial period has not ended in the Muslim world. It is what you call the Neo
colonialism, the new colonialism. And so there are people who are ruling the Muslim world now, while still holding the masses of the people down.
They're still favoring one family or another family. They're still dividing people. They're still being tools of imperialism. And so therefore, Muslims are resisting it throughout the Muslim world, and there's a great change which is going on there. And so this is really how, you know it is it is being resistant because slavery as an institution,
in terms of a marketplace and buying and selling and that type of institution, really, from my own understanding. I haven't seen it.
There's a brother from California named Chuck Hamza Yusuf, he studied in Mauritania. He lived in Mauritania for a while. And his witness was he never saw any he never saw it, buying and selling of people. He never saw that.
In the Sudan, actually, next week at Rutgers University.
There's going to be a very important session, if any, if any of you can get up to Newark, New Jersey, next Saturday, that the Minister of Justice of the Sudan is going to be there. He's going to be on the firing line. Also Dr. Suliman Yang, who's a Gambian scholar in Howard University, and myself inshallah will be on this panel. And it's dealing with slavery. So the Minister of Justice is going to be there, man. So like, I don't know what's going on in the Sudan itself. What I do know is that you know, basically what I've heard from it is that the government in the north basically the people in the north,
they have no they are not involved in this. If there are people who are involved in raiding or trading, these are renegades. This is a renegade group that is doing this. It is not a group which is attached to the mainstream Islamic
movements in the north, this is this is what I understand so far. But most of the parts of the Muslim world, what is going on it is a resistance to economic slavery.
In other words, what is happening in the Islamic system, for instance, there is no interest. And so there are banks being developed now, economic systems, that would not be capitalist or not be socialist, they're outside of the realm of the of the so called Eastern Western systems. So, that is a very serious resistance that is going on. And that says, In the other sense, there are no marketplaces, and that is nothing like that, even to resist there. However, people who are oppressed in low classes and low castes or groups like that, you know, if they exist in the Muslim world, you generally find there's a struggle going on right now, is a struggle with these authoritarian groups
who are trying to maintain supremacy over the masses of the people. This is basically what is happening there. Any other oral questions anybody has?
It says, How can Islamic history be included in school and college curriculums, with the existing separation between church and state? Well, when I'm talking about including Islamic history, I'm not talking about practicing Islam here, not talking about Islamic State. Okay, what I'm talking about, is that when you are dealing with Islamic history, you should go back to the primary sources in the same way, in any discipline, you know, you want to first deal with the primary sources, and then the secondary sources. And then the other sources, what happens when you're dealing with Islamic history, and sometimes African history is that they don't deal with primary sources. They deal with
what somebody said, three or four levels down. And because he came from Oxford University, or so born, they say he's an expert.
And you know, and scholars will start saying crazy things. You know, and I've heard a scholar, I'm not going to mention any names. But I've heard a scholar of so called scholars say, you know, with, with authority, that Bilbao taught the Prophet Mohammed how to pray.
Now, for Muslim, this is totally against all levels of understanding. And no, nobody, even a drunken historian, in the Muslim world, or anywhere has ever said anything close to that. But somehow, people are making these
statements off of propaganda books, and of stereotyping, which which has been done, you know, in the name of scholarship. So really, what I'm saying is, is that, to include it within the curriculum, we should go back to the primary sources, and then try to be as objective as we are with other
types of history. And within history, fields. Now, people are trying to tell the story from different perspectives. Because if there's a great battle, then you can tell a story from either side, right, the winners or the losers. I mean, it's usually told from the side of the winners. Okay, you can also tell it from the point of view of the people on whose land was the war. And maybe these people never even fought in the war. But they suffered over these two kings, or two rulers fighting and killing each other on their territory. So history can be told from a number of different perspectives. And what I'm saying is to understand Islamic history properly, you would
have to also give the testimony of Muslims themselves to be able to understand Islamic history. Unfortunately, we have hundreds of authenticated historical works in Arabic and Persian and Turkish. in Swahili in a number of different languages, we have a number of works, that that can be read and can be used as primary and secondary source material. Any other questions? Anybody has oral questions?
Yes, sir.
points that
say that I can't remember the author's name
in the 17th century round 16 at 1691, West African Islamic scholar in that document, describe nations that may be taken in slavery.
And in the document, it describes the Muslims of
the state
of the IDI condition because they are their brothers and probably that document the mid the panels,
Creation
perpetrated by Christian slave owners to justify why dark skinned people deserved being enslaved in
the metal pan is not the pan at all. But it's a discussion of which peoples in Africa has submitted.
Music.
That's right. Any other comments or questions? Anybody has?
Yes?
Have you done any study
situation that exists?
What is the slave trade?
Well, I had an opportunity in 1995, to go to Zanzibar. And I was a friend of a family who knows that there's a solid family. Actually the solid. My friend's older sister was karuma. His wife, the one who was overthrown and was looking for Dr. Sharif is a doctor Sharif was well known writer out of there, I was looking for Dr. Sharif. And so I went to Zanzibar and we went downtown. And one of the
one of my friends, there was a tour guide, he did this to make money. So I said to him, I want you to take me on a tour of Zanzibar, just the same way you take somebody from France or Russia or wherever. I just just give it to me the way you're supposed to give it to a regular. So he took me to a place.
They said this is the slave chambers to downtown right? The slave chambers, and it was a stuffy place you go down inside there. And my friend is from the solid family there Omanis. Okay, although he looks like an afro American, but he's Romania. Right.
And so he was talking about the dirty old Arabs and what they did, they took the Africans and they did this to them and whatever. And I was getting uptight myself, and I was gonna punch the brother in the head. Like I was really like, Yeah, I was feeling like, because my own thing was coming out, right? And he was almost crying. Because he was like, How could my family have done this? Okay. And that was definitely one up and there was a cathedral there. And they said that this Catholic church was built on the place of a slave market. That was their downtown. Okay. And then it took us to Soto and Bala, gosh, he had a palace there and whatever. And it took us around. So then I went to the
archives, and I met Professor Hamad, who was one of the main professors in the archives. And we started to talk and he told me that Dr. Sharif, and the main historians in the island, when independence came and they opened up these these slave chambers, they challenge to place what they said they found out and they have historical proof to show that the slave chambers was actually a place with a British stored medicine, because there was an outbreak of cholera, it was not slave chambers, okay. Also the so called slave market, they said when they checked the records, there was one stand that was there. Okay. And you know, that there was there was a low volume of actually
slaves were sold from that market. And when Sultan Baraka was, was ordered by the British to, to count the slaves to to free everybody and to count the slaves on Zanzibar. He counted 10,000 people who could be of a slave lineage. And there's a there's a fairly large population there. And so what we realized from that, is that there has been exaggeration that has gone on, there's been a big exaggeration, okay. And no doubt that the Roman is when they first came in, into the coastal region there. They were working with the Swahili people, the people had already been in Islam before the remedies long before some people even dated back to the second or third century after the Haggadah,
that that Muslims penetrated East Africa. So the Swahili culture was already developed. So when the remondis came in, they were helping the people resist the Portuguese. But after a while, when they took over, they became pirates themselves. And they actually were involved in transporting people from the interior of Africa, East Africa, into different parts of the Muslim world. And even in Pakistan and other places. There are some African groups that that can be linked to the slaves, the macronix Macron, they call in Karachi. And there's certain people that could be linked possibly to the Africans who were transported up there by the Chinese. So it definitely did go on. But But what
I understand what I'm seeing is that is a big exaggeration, because what is happening now is that the the scholars quote unquote want to try to make
Make Arab slavery so called Arab slavery or Islamic slavery. I don't know how they say Islamic. They're not calling European slavery, Christian slavery. They're not saying that. Right, but but if somebody from anyone from the Muslim world takes us that is Islamic slavery, so what you do you indict the religion. So what they are doing now is they're pushing so called Islamic slavery in order to turn off Afro Americans, or anybody who resists slavery to accepting Islam. That's the bottom line. And it's really unfortunate, because there's a lot of people were being confused. And even policy was being shaped and the British did it. Purposely, they divided the Swahili lease from
the people from the upcountry in Kenya and places like that, saying, You're African, you're Arab.
Okay, although the person who was supposed to be an Arab, for all intensive purposes, is an African. Maybe he has a grandfather or great grandfather who came from huddle mouth or Yemen or something. But for all intents and purposes, he's an African. Okay, but they say you're an Arab, and you're an African. So they divided the people up. So it's like divide and rule. It's divided rule, I, you know, it always is strange to me when they say, the Arab Sudan and the African student. Because when you talk about Arabs from the north, they are they are as dark as anybody in the darkest part of Africa, many of the people from the north, so for us, for Afro Americans, like we get thrown off
when we go to Africa, man. I mean, they get thrown off by us, like, even when Malcolm X went there, and he had we got red here, right? And he's light skinned, or somebody like myself, who's a mixture, right? So then you go over there, and they say, you know, which part of your African But for us, you know, we because of racism, and we, we, you know, I am an African American, I got no and that's my understanding. That's our definition. But in Africa, that's not the definition, man. When you go over, they say like, what's your tribe? What's your nation? What's your language? That's what they're asking you. Okay? Now, Islam breaks a lot of that down, because if you're a Muslim, then
people will accept you anyway. So Islam breaks all that down. But if you're not dealing underneath Islam, then you you you come up with this some different understanding that and our understanding here is different. Cuz you know, you say, Arabs, you're thinking of a light skinned person with a big with a nose and then do the African whatever the definition, right? This is totally opposite to what it is man,
as the so called Arabs can be anything, they can be light skinned, or they can be dark skin. It is not a racial group. It's not a racial group. It's a linguistic group and a cultural group.
And this is a total misunderstanding, Papa because people do not have access to direct information from the Sudan or Africa. They just look at the people see those Arabs, they're doing it again.
You know, and you develop this thesis to analyze swats nigga, get them. Chuck Norris, get them, Stephen, go get them.
Because they're terrible, right? The krimson jihad, go get a man send the Delta Force and get all the merits. This is what has happened in men. It's stereotyping. It's stereotyping. And it really has a negative effect on a lot of young people who get confused when they go to Africa and find something different when they when they go there. I'm studying West African history. And they were saying about
you know, in West Africa, they are talking about the almoravids, El Mirage.
And they came in the 11th century, you know, out of North Africa, and they destroyed the kingdom of Ghana, in the 11th century. Then when you look at the records this, Conrad and Fisher, they put out this article, they call it the conquest that never was. Because when you go back and you read a Bacary, and you read the different writings of the people who recorded the almoravids, Morabito, they never invaded Ghana.
They assisted the king, the king stayed in power after they reached. Now if you invade a country and defeated the king does not stay in power, you kill the king, the king stayed in power, and all that all the definitions being used by you know that the writers of the history were not conquest.
But they again they want to divide north from south, the Berbers in the north, the Arabs in the north, the Africans in the south, right in the same way, like here, the light skin, the dark skin,
okay, like we got blue veins societies in America, and you have the, you know, whatever. in the Caribbean, small island and Big Island. You know, you have all this different you know, things where, you know, a person from Barbados feels like negative when it goes to Jamaica, this is a Caribbean thing for people who are there like my grandmother's from Barbados, right? So you go to Jamaica, and you know, you say you're a Bayesian.
Okay, so where do you get this division of people?
So this is what's being done to divide up people so that they cannot work together and they can't really understand what is going on.
Because they're caught up in their division,
and in Africa is probably one of one of the biggest areas for misunderstanding and division, you know, for the whole definition of Africa and it goes right back from the beginning of history. As I said, you look at the ancient Egyptians, there's no proof that anybody other than Africans built the pyramids. There's no primary information. It's not until 1650 years old, and the pixels came in that that that somebody came from outside of Africa and came in
and the pyramids already built. What are the historians say? Either they say the aliens came down from outer space, built the pyramids and flew back out.
Or they give you Stargate in the modern version, or they say somebody who looks like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, or you Brenda, they built the pyramid
because that's racism and it's racism.
It's racism and it's being used to divide and conquer.
Us concerning considering
revolution
and a strong presence.
Have you drawn any connections between
nations?
Yeah, definitely. In my book, deeper roots, which I have here, one of the generals of Toussaint l'ouverture, his name was Macondo. makanda was an Imam. And there's I've just heard there's a paper, which is going to be released by a single East woman scholar. I don't know her name, I'm going to hopefully find out in Charlotte next week, but the paper is going to be released. She has documents, Arabic writings from Haiti.
And they have found amongst the slaves are considerable population of the slaves in Haiti, where Muslims a considerable amount. And so this, this paper, hopefully will be released within the next few months. As a single single woman scholar. I'm not sure what her name is, don't want to find out. Hopefully I can find out next week. Yes.
That's right. Don't bother with the same kind of
theoretical.
Okay, I agree, as I was speaking with the brother on about one man, that there were definitely Arabs were involved in the slave trade. Definitely, there were Africans were involved in the slave trade. If it wasn't for Africans, the Europeans would never have been able to go into the interior, the tsetse fly was killing them. And the malaria they knew they couldn't make it in. But it was one nation pitted against another nation.
And then selling captives of war, or people or prisoners or whatever they people, they want to get rid of making money to get the guns and you know, whatever else. But if they were tricked, and they were used, so so people, you know, other than Europeans were involved in slavery, Europeans did not invent slavery. They did not invent slavery, it is existed in every part of the world. The only difference is that the the volume of slaves in European slave slavery is higher than anywhere else ever. And then racism, racism coming in, and the effects of it's still on the minds of the people up until today.
That is the difference between what happened within the Islamic so called slavery. There are leaders, major leaders in Islamic history, who was who were from slave families in the Abbasid
Caliphate, Haruna Rashid, who was probably maybe one of the richest men in history, in Baghdad, okay, he was from a slave family. Put a bit Dean, one of the famous leaders in Delhi, in India, a famous leader, he was from a slave family. And you will go on, you'll find many of the great leaders within Islamic history came from slave lineage. So there's upward mobility. But this form here, there's no mobility, but down into the ground, that's your mobility. And racism still makes it difficult for people to make it up in the ranks. The left this is this is what the difference is within it. But definitely Arabs were involved in it. Africans were involved in it. Indians were
involved in it. But what I'm trying to say is that Islam, as a way of life is free of this. Islam is free of this. Now, to understand why Islam did not totally abolish it at that time. That's it.
Question. Okay, what we as I said, what we understand from the perspective is that it was phasing it out because it was a worldwide institution. And it narrowed it down to such a small level that you know, in, in many parts of the world of the Muslim world, it ended. And there's no need for it. But some only people who explore you want to exploit, try to bring it back to life. But it is not a pillar of Islam. It is not needed within an Islamic State, or any type of Islamic community, it is not needed at all.
And as I said, you know, in the great Pillars of Islam, there's a constant reminder, even when we fast, like we just finished Ramadan in when you're fasting, if you break your fast, intentionally, okay, the prophet PC problem when a person broke his fast intentionally, he said to him,
can you fast? Two months, can you feed 64? People?
man said, No, that's the first penalty feeding 64 people. If you can't do that, then
can you
was the second one feed first feed 64 people Okay, can you can you fast two months in a row 60 days? And the third one can you free a slave.
So I mean, even though there's no slavery that still exists within Islamic heritage, that if you break your fast, one of the ways to make it up with Allah is to free somebody from slavery. So all throughout the religion is a constant reminder that you should be fighting against this institution, you should be getting rid of it, phase it out, resistant, that all the way through. And the people who maintain it are just using the name of Islam, but they are exploiters. They are exploiters. And they are oppressors. And we have to suffer under them, as well as non Muslims.
Any other questions or comments or anybody else?
Tom, this question is going off and I went off myself a little bit, but it said, How can you explain the fact that there are only pyramids on the north of the equator? In Aztec Egyptian blood is the same? Didn't they possess the knowledge we have? Okay, this pyramid is another discussion, this pyramid understanding, maybe I can have this with you afterwards. Whoever this cow asked this question. It says your question about a different form of slavery, do you know of any evidence that can substantiate the claim that the government use the CIA to introduce
slaves or drugs to the African American community? Okay. I don't have specific evidence in myself in terms of that, but but it is definitely something happens. Because I can remember in the 60s,
you know, when people were, you know, really organizing in the black communities and consciousness was out there, and suddenly you had like Superfly, and this movie called Superfly. Suddenly, everybody starts straightening their hair, and then these trucks start pouring into the community.
And then crack cocaine use I mean, this was not done.
Just by chance. Okay, you'd like to call it documentary that was produced
recently,
in Washington, DC, and there were several government officials who participated, like Maxine Waters, the Congressman,
Los Angeles and some other people, a professor at the University of Maryland in the history department, and they documented that there was a connection with the Nicaraguans in terms of bringing cocaine into into
Los Angeles. I think some of you might be aware that there's an article written, published in the San Jose Mercury, exposing the CIA connections, and actually there are now government investigations of CIA, FBI, their complicity with bringing in drugs in the country, Maxine Waters and some other Congress, people have been involved in this. If you can.
Contact
Maxine Waters office, you can probably get a copy of this tape is a very enlightening videotape about this relationship. And there was an African American who was complicitous with this with receiving the drug, silent drugs.
And Maxine Waters actually went there interviewed this person, so if you contact her awkward
PBS video is very illuminating, and the investigation continues. So there's clear evidence of CIA government bringing drugs into the African region.
Any other questions anybody has?
Okay, I want to thank you for your patience. And I want to invite you to Rutgers University campus, Newark, New Jersey next Saturday night at 630 sharp, the Minister of Justice secretary, he is the Assistant Secretary, Assistant Attorney General of Sudan of Jamal Khalifa will be there, along with Dr. Suliman Yang of Howard University and my humble self inshallah, just back in the month. inshallah. So you're invited to come to Newark, New Jersey next week, and I leave you in peace with salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah.