Abdullah Hakim Quick – Muslim Spains Legacy 2 3
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altomare idrisi they described America.
They described America and must Udi in his book mudaraba 956.
He described a journey of a man named khachkars. Inside this book is still existing now in Arabic in the libraries. He describes the journey of a man who went across the ocean, and he came back with goods and everybody in Spain knew about this journey.
Also al idrisi in his famous geography book, he describes the journey of seafaring people who went to a deserted island, went to another island, they were blindfolded and captured, and the king spoke to them through an interpreter who could speak Arabic. That's in the 12th century, Allah Almighty reported the journey of Mansa Musa, the West African Islamic ruler, who made pilgrimage to Mecca with over 72,000 followers. He changed he carried so much gold with him, he changed the economy, every country that he reached when they came into Egypt, and they asked him about his authority. He said, I'm from a lineage and my predecessor Abu Bakar, crossed the Atlantic with 2000 ships. These
are mandinka of the mandate, language group, and mandate writing is found in Brazil. It is found in Panama. It is found in Mexico. It is found in the southwest of the United States, and a man by the name of Leo whiner, Harvard University scholar, and his book called Africa and the discovery of America show that the men Dinka Muslims actually came into America and they mix with the Iroquois and Algonquin, First Nation people. And so a powerful legacy is they're coming out of Andalusia, North Africa and West Africa, of people crossing.
And those of us who truly read the memoirs of Columbus, not toto just watch the movie read his memoirs. Columbus knew he went to Iceland first. Then he went down to West Africa. And he described dugout canoes, huge canoes going Africans going across.
If you if you look and see that people who traveled with him, many of the people who traveled with Columbus, and the early Spanish and Portuguese are Conquistadores. They were are what we call motorcycles. Now, what is morasco? morasco is we find that in 1482, the Spanish Inquisition began.
And in this Inquisition, they would take you to an Inquisitor.
And they check you out. Are you a Catholic or not? If you say you're not, they'll burn you at the stake, will torture you to death. And so 1000s of people were dying in the Inquisition. Some people could not take the torture, the Jews were called medanos. Who could not take it the Muslims aka moriscos. Now what they had done when they were coming down, they conquered Muslims and they made them slaves is another term comes from Buddha. Buddha, john Arabic is like a like a name of ridicule. So dodges. These people are slaves. And there was rules that would be passed with the Jews and the Muslims would be used as slaves by Ferdinand Isabella and the forces of Aragorn and
Castilian when they were coming down. And so in 1492,
the importance of that from our point of view, and it's always good to see history from two sides, right. 1492, like they said in 1992, it is the Age of Discovery, right? Find the Quint quincentennial 500 salvation of the celebration of the Age of Discovery. And I'm asking myself, and many people, especially if you're a native person, right, and many of us have native blood. My grandmother has a mohawk. Right? So I'm saying if you have this blood, you know, you're asking yourself when Columbus landed on the shore, okay, the people were standing there looking at him.
So how can you discover a place when the people are standing and looking at you? And they've been there for 10,000 years? They have great civilizations. The Aztecs, the Incas, the olmec people, the Mayan people, they had pyramids. These pyramids in Mexico,
go to Belize, go to Mexico, you see pyramids. In Peru, there's pyramids in
Mexico City was larger than any city in Western Europe. The Aztecs had a complicated
society, constitutions governments. The the Aztec calendar is the similar to the Egyptian calendar, the ancient Egyptian calendar, the Cherokee Nation in the United States. They had three storey apartments,
but you don't hear you hear Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492.
What I would say is that Christopher Columbus was discovered in 1492.
Because he was lost, and he bumped into the Caribbean.
He thought he was going to India. So the great Han, right? So he said, You're Indians, Indians, the people here know India, but you're Indians. Okay. But what is interesting for us that we're tracing the names, and you will find on the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, you find you trace some of these names the captain, I think it's of the of the of the Pinta is Bob Dylan. He has a name Bob Dylan. This is a moresco name, Abu Abdullah.
Okay, and you find Rodrigo de Triana, you find this message, the person who cited land first, he was a moresco.
So many of the people who came into the region here, and I had the opportunity to live in Jamaica for a while to travel, I went to Honduras to Costa Rica, to Panama, to Curacao, to Belize, to the islands in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, asking different people check in the names of the people checking the history. And what we come to realize is that actually what happened in the in the region was a genocide.
The native people were exterminated, disease and treachery, that the native people who populated the islands and the region suffered under this rule. And one of the worst things that was done by the Conquistador days was they used to burn the books,
they would come into an area and they would burn the books. And when you burn people's books you destroy in their history you destroy and their memories of themselves. And this is part of the reason why we're confused. And researchers and historians were trying to do research, you got to like, get a lot of pictographs and wall writings and things because we can't find the writings and the people could write.
And so
we find this legacy in the region. And I want to touch on just In conclusion, before we go into the question and answer period. I want to touch on the fact that there is a book and anybody who's interested in this book, I have the name of the book, and it's about a group called Billa engines. And these Malaysian people, there's a man called Brent Kennedy. And he had this disease, sarcoidosis. And you know, we have these people in the south, and many Afro Americans may have a like an ancestor, like in the south, you're like native, are you white American, or there's another one called gi cheese.
They're not natives and they're not Afro Americans. We call them geechie like Portuguese, okay? Now, this man of the Geechee people are looking for his disease when they got a grant, I think it's a Ford Foundation. And they and he found out that his disease the gene pool is similar to people who live all around the Mediterranean region, especially in North Africa. And in Turkey.
He also found out that the Malaysian people, that these people were actually the people who are working on the boats. And when Santa Alina was conquered by the British when they came into America, because you know, the Spanish were first here, right? So So when the British came in, and it was conquering territory, these Malaysian people went into the mountains, and they mixed with the native people. And so there are actually literal reports, which are coming out of Jamestown, Virginia, which are coming out of North Carolina, South Carolina, where the people are actually writing about individuals who dropped down to pray five times a day facing east. One group called himself Mecca
Indians. They found Qurans the PO Hatton Indians description of Paradise is exactly as the Quran is. And so these Malaysian people, and it's a very interesting study, because these Malaysian people have played a role in history. Nancy Hanks, the wife of Abraham Lincoln, was a Malaysian
This is a serious study it's going on right now. And people who are coming from that part of the world, you know, who have names like Bennett and Coleman and Adkins and go ins and Williams, if you're coming for that part, you probably would be one of these Malaysian people. And so they made they had an impact, which is not being discussed in the history books. Also, when the Spanish were opening up the Southwest, they were Muslims. As I said, moriscos some of them they brought right in from Morocco. One famous guide esta vansickle as the vaniqa went all the way to Arizona, and opened up a lot of the territory in Arizona. And so el Cal de system, the Spanish we're using LKL de system
of law, it is from the Arabic elkaar dish, which means the judge Amir, like the Amir is that means a little
Or the leader is the mayor.
Right? Amir al raha is the admiral,
the Sharif meaning the controller with the gun is the sheriff. Some people even look into California and look at the word Khalifa.
In terms of California, it's amazing. And you know, there's a study that was done by a brother named use of Motorola. He did a study and interesting study. And He found you could in America, there were names being used by the natives, Arabic names. Now, I'm not saying that the whole of the native culture was for Muslims, no, they integrated with the population. But Mecca, is found almost
100 times, Medina, you know, there's a city called Quran, Louisiana,
is Mecca, California, Medina, Ohio. There's the meccan Indians live in Seattle, Washington area called Mecca Indians. And so you will find these names being used all throughout the Americas, that there was a contact being made, you know, and that it was through the legacy of these people who had fled the Inquisition, and had come to this part of the world, and had brought their cultural mix with the people here, there was an interchange going back and forth. And the legacy of what happened out of Al Andalus still affects the world today, the basis of the computer age, for your number system, the scientific method, the historical method, the basis of many of the sciences, that we are
studying in this university. And so this is part of the legacy of Muslim Spain. And, you know, I would also change that that title of the Dark Ages, you know, and really it is the bright ages, is the age of light, because light was all over the world at the time. Okay, and so darkness maybe was for some people, but it was not for all people. And I think that the only way we can really go forward as one, our race, the human race, is that we have to appreciate the histories and the struggling, and the suffering of all people tell Columbus's story from both sides, man. Tell it from both sides. What did the people think when he came? When he said to them in Spanish, I conquer you
in the name of the king and the queen? They probably said cool down man drink some water.
probably try to calm them down.
Okay, you have to tell a story from two sides, right? I'm not getting on Chris. Because Chris, he's only it's the mentality.
It's a mentality.
of bellboy, he discovers the Pacific right people are in the Pacific. For so long, another one discovers the source of the Nile. And they know it for 10,000 years.
Now, the one Vasco de Gama, the Cape of Good Hope, Good Hope of what you want to go around the Muslim world and get to India and China. That's the hope.
So tonight's contribution really is to try to tell the story from another point of view, and I hope and pray inshallah, that that this can be the beginning of a period of understanding, and that the rest of our lectures this week would give more awareness has to the legacy of Muslims and Islam, and the need for people of conscience to come together in the coming years as we go into the 21st century. And so I leave you in peace or Solomonic.
Now, we want to open up the floor for a couple minutes for any questions that anybody may have or any any feedback that you have. Because for some, this may be kind of different. In terms of Bessie, this stuff about coming across the Atlantic before Columbus, I got a book too. Okay. So if you want the sources, you really want to get into the sources you Everything is documented inside of the book that we have in the back by one open up the floor for questions, so please feel free
to ask any question that's on your mind. flows open.
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that that that is another area and really, it's a very important area to tonight we were focusing on the legacy and Muslim Spain. House, I didn't go into that area, but actually in the Bahia section, in Brazil, there is there's a number of documents and traces and some of the people are still there today, of Muslims who are coming especially from what is now known as Nigeria, hausa, and Fulani, and they were taken down by in large numbers by the Portuguese and there are a series of revolts, and many of them revolted so vigorously, that they were actually allowed to go back
You can find now in Lagos in Nigeria, there are mosques, houses of worship of Muslims that are built by Brazilian Muslims. And you can go so that's the Brazilian mosque. So they say, these are people who are captured, taken to Brazil, and returned. Now, what is interesting is to see how religion changes, you know, as time goes by when people lose contact with the source of the religion, and what is happening now. And that's one of the places I want to visit myself. But what is happening now is that the people
are starting to get reintroduced to the religion again. But I read one article sometime in the past where the only thing that was left for some of the people in Bahia for their prayers was that women would stand in a circle and they clap their hands. And the men do dances, the type of jig, and he says, you know, something, which in a broken day language, mixed with Portuguese says La ilaha illAllah, which means there's no God, but Allah. So he's saying this. And that's the only thing left to their prayer. So the study of Bahia section of Brazil is a very important study. And there are a few works done in Portuguese.
There's a certain I don't have I don't have it right here. But there's some works being done. Now. you familiar with the works done? Right. Right. So so he I saw some of the work that he did, and it's a very interaction, they have Arabic documents, too. I saw some of the Arabic documents they had from the area.
Well, actually, all over the Caribbean, there's documentation coming now. What we're finding is about 30% of the slaves were Muslims, coming from the guinea coast of West Africa. And what I found that I've got some in my research in the back there, like it, for instance, in Jamaica, in 1821. It was a document being passed around in Arabic watseka. And they had a big revolt in the Manchester section of Jamaica. in Suriname, there was Muslims leading the revolt, to sort Lovato, one of his generals was called Mandela. He wasn't the mom. I went to, I went to Bahamas, and they had these documents. They told me it was Amharic. It was Ethiopian. But when I went in there, it was Arabic.
And the man he he wrote a like saurez his chapters of the Quran that we're familiar with, when you're seeking refuge and God from evil. He wrote NASS Falak kohala had ayah. To courtesy, you know, it's the other shades on that he was trying to do. And they said, it's Amharic, because they didn't know that it was Arabic. And so there's a series of things coming also the names of people, because of the
the attitude
that the early Portuguese and Spanish had coming in. They were so paranoid of Muslims, because of the war they were fighting that they are, they would not use the name Muslim, when they describe somebody who was a slave. So you won't find the name Muslim being used. See, and this was threw people off for a long time, because you didn't see a name, but now we'll reinvestigating the names, and you find names like Boubacar, or Booker, which actually is Abu Bakar. You find like Wally, you find a lot of
West African names Jolo, and Kaaba. And these are very well known Muslim names. And you can actually trace the ports on the guinea coast of West Africa, where they were taken. This is how the percentages are now being reanalyzed. And in terms of, you know, knowing, you know, the percentage of Muslims who came is a large percentage, actually, the Maroons in Jamaica, in the maroon territory, there's a Quran up there. So the Maroons, who were originally they call Symbionese, like wild horses, because they escaped from the Spanish they were fighting the Spanish. They were they were a conglomeration of different tribes. So anybody who would escape you go to Maroon territory,
but the Muslims were one of the powerful groups. While off mandinka. how soft Fulani, they one of the groups powerful groups will resisting the slavery so there's a slave revolt and in America, there's a book called
African Muslim, African Muslims in antebellum America. It's by a man named Alan Austin. And you can get the name of it back there in my book, he actually brings the primary documentation for a lot of places, even for the United States. And so there's a series of people does that does a book called the fortunate slave.
Another one by Philip curtain called Africa remembered. And these books trace Muslim slaves in the United States. Actually, just recently, there's a there's one slaves name is Omar bin Saeed, because it's a South Carolina and they actually had handwritten Arabic letters and documentation. It was sold in New York City, and there's a library now it's going to be in Detroit. They bought it in Detroit, and you're going to have it on display soon. It's Arabic handwritten document by Omar bin site.
And so there's a number of things works like this. That you will find okay.
Yes, sir.
Okay, do you have that?
Okay, it's if some, if somebody wants to write a question on piece of paper, we have a brother that's going to collect, you know, some of the brothers and sisters set up who collect them. Okay, go ahead.
I've heard things about the colonies in the Latin America, Dominican Republic sooner somehow was transferred that in Spain failed. A lot of the Muslims were expelled. And that a lot of traditions like, go to *.
Well, there's a lot of trace, actually, when you read the memoirs of Ferdinand Columbus, and Christopher whatnot, you see, and many of the early arms Spanish and Portuguese who came, they they ran into African people in the region earlier, they ran into Muslims, one piece or one writing in the memory of when Columbus came into Cuba. And he came into a certain Bay and I read this thing. And they said, there's a mosque on the top of the hill.
That's how they described it. So there's a mosque on the top of the hill. So it was unbelievable man, when FirstNet Columbus rates when they went to Honduras, they said the people or women had heavy gold in the air. And it's just like, in West Africa, in Mali, they had so much gold that it was a style to wear a big piece of gold, so like, extend your elope.
And then the names like one name is called l mammies. Which is from le ma ma, ma ma ma l l Imam. That's a West African way of saying that you're the leader of the prayer. And that is a grouping of people in Honduras.
So it's all over the place, you know, in terms of they even in Columbus also writes about one of the memoirs, he's writing about they a boat came by them.
And they said when they looked at the boat, the men on the boat had on a type of cloth, which had the same patterns as the cloth in Grenada. And some of the women on the boat had a veil over their face, like some of the women in Grenada used to wear. So let me describe this boat. They said this is in the Caribbean, they ran across this. So like, you know, they're running across these things all the time. But then but you don't get that.
You know, they they filter out that aspect?
Yeah.
I haven't heard any connection between that. Alexa.
Alexa is the the furthest musk or the fireplace? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of names that you can start to get things out of.
One question he has is, as a historian, do you find that many of your non Muslim colleagues argue and disagree with Muslim contributions? Yes, actually, this would be considered revisionist, a type of revisionist history that if somebody says systems like no, no, in certain circles, but but what I put out my first issue of deeper roots, this book I have here, the geography department of McGill University in Canada, they challenged me, and they brought me there and fed me lunch and everything and set me up and said, Okay, now give it to us. So I spoke to them for about an hour straight. I go through all these contributions and all this stuff. When I was done. There was silence for about
five minutes. Nobody said anything. And the leader near the head of the department said, You have challenged everything that we stand on. Like everybody was silent. Then they started to come at me. Now did geography. I'm not a geographer, right? They admitted that it was possible to cross the Atlantic. They can freely admit that because Thor Heyerdahl the Scandinavian you know, scientists took a number of journeys, he went he used Papyrus materials. And he went from Morocco. And he went across using the currents. And he went right into Brazil in the Caribbean. So so they admitted as possible what they were arguably they said how they get back.
And they would they wanted me to prove like, you know, geographically, I'm not a geography man. Yes, there was just only point that they could get me on, you know, which current it was they came to go back and all that, but they admitted freely, that it was possible for people to cross we know even that the Celtics, like Viking people from the north. The Phoenicians, many people cross the Atlantic when they got stuck on this Columbus syndrome.
But Mary Chris was late. He was very late. Like many people will go on across the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Polynesian people, Chinese people, they made contact with the Americas on the Pacific side. And if you go into the culture of the people, you will see Polynesian blood Polynesian traces if you go on the Pacific side
so it's just
Matter have gone to the documentation and looking at it from another people's point of view. That's all it is.
Well, you know, I mean,
I could say If a person's you know, European, you know that he's biased. When he writes a history book that says Christopher Columbus discovered America, they call it eurocentrism. Okay, but you know, in historical circles, the bottom line is your documentation. It's your it's your argumentation, which comes out of your documentation. So I don't care what you are, the bottom line is like, what's your proof? Bring it to me.
Show me your reasoning and show me your documentation. So it doesn't matter what you are. If you're open minded, and you have the documentation, and really, you know, the documentation is there. It's not like it's not there. It is there. But just for a long time, it has not been resourced or not been brought out to the public, as to you know, what is really happening in America before Columbus. You know, now now people are changing the mentality about Columbus, but they still try to push this thing in 1992. They still try to push it
to make people think that everything started with him. Another question is about other a lot of Muslims in Jamaica today. Now they received well, there are a number of Muslims in Jamaica. You know, Jamaica itself is in Spanish town. And there isn't Black River and in Clarendon and Kingston in Kingston is, there's a big mosque in Kingston, and now Montego Bay, they have land in Port Maria area on the north coast. The Muslims, I lived in Jamaica for four years. So there's a number of Muslims there. And it's one of the places where a lot of people are accepting Islam. But the problem there is that there's a, there's an economic problem. So unless you have employment, or some way for
people to, you know, deal with their life economically, it's hard to really practice a way of life that's very different from society, unless you've got an economic base, and I think that's the problem that Muslims have today is a practical way where people can accept Islam and it can really change their life completely. That's the problem. It's not a problem with people listening to Islam, and especially in Jamaica because of the Rastafarian movement. And Marcus Garvey, there's a consciousness in terms of of African culture and you know, Middle East and culture that people are open minded like they're so people there are there are a number of people Jimmy cliff, if you don't
even know Jamaican culture, Jimmy cliff, he's a Muslim. Name, his name Bashir is named Jimmy cliff.
Okay, anybody else have a question?
Yeah.
Yeah, also one of the propaganda things I said, just like, you know, the terrorists thing that comes today, like historically, they say that Islam was spread by the sword. And, you know, they have this image, they say, Saracens, you know, what happened was, because when you really look at the crusades, the crusades, I believe, were really more economic and political wars, as opposed to religious wars. Because really, when you study Islam, there's not that much difference really, between early Christianity, Judaism and Islam. And Christians and Jews were living in the Middle East at that time, and they didn't have any problems. But economically when Marco Polo came back,
and the princes in Europe realized about the treasures in the Middle East, and India and in China, they needed to open up the trade routes to go through the idea that the Middle East is that central zone. So they wanted to control it. So really, I believe it was more economic and political than it was actually a religious war. And so, you find that a body of literature comes out of the crusades, where they describe, they say muhammet, meaning Mohammed, they say he was a devil worshiper, you know, and they say Saracens, Michel de Yun, Eastern people, Turks, and whatnot, and they just start to describe Muslims with this curved sword except the samurai chop off your head. But the Quran says
there's no compulsion in religion, truth stands clear from falsehood. What you do find for those of you who have studied history, in the seventh century, at the time, when the Prophet morpc poem came, there was the Byzantine Roman Empire. Okay, Eastern Orthodox, the capital was Constantinople. And there was the Persian Empire sassanid dynasty, okay, in present day, Iran. And so these were the two world powers in the Middle East. And so they attack the Muslim the Romans attack from the north, and the Persians attack from the east. So the Muslims responded to the attack. When they responded to the attack. The sassanid dynasty was in in a corrupt state and it felt
So they opened up all the Persian holdings, the Byzantines were also in a weak state. And so they took the Byzantine holdings in Palestine. And they went right around North Africa. They were all Byzantine Mediterranean holdings. So it was it was a war going on, between the Muslims and the Byzantine Roman Empire. Other places, when you look at the spread of Islam and other places, you find it's mainly merchants. And it's mainly people of knowledge, who are spreading Islam. It's not the sort the largest Muslim country 170 million is Indonesia. No army went to Indonesia, only merchants by the sea, and Ola scholars, when that's all there's no,
no armies went there. So again, it's it's um, you know, it's, it's a, like a stereotype. I will be honest with you, though, is that we have the right to defend ourselves. And some people don't like that.
And that's one of the aspects of Islam. The Quran says, if somebody does you harm, then do back to them what they did for you, or you can forgive them. Right? Like, it's not totally eye for eye, tooth for tooth. It's not totally turn the other cheek, you got two alternatives. So the verse says, if somebody does you harm to to him what he did to you, or you can forgive him, and the end of the verse says, and forgiveness is probably better for you, if you only know. So but it gives you the right to establish justice. And so Muslim, that's why in the slavery period, many times the Muslims with people in leading the revolts resistance
because people have a right for self determination. And they have a right to defend their land. And I think that's a principle that everybody trashes in America. This is a founding principle of the country with the British, right? In all of the countries, right? I mean, it wasn't for everybody. But I'm just saying on paper, right? It's a founding principle. So everybody has that. So we have the right to say that we have the right to self defense, we have the right you know, not to be oppressed. And that's a clear, you know, statement that comes out of Islam. I think this is what makes some people paranoid. But but but but but the whole propaganda, you know, about the sword is
really something that was made up were Muslims or new Christians, important at Prince Henry, the navigator school in Portugal,
where their crew members on Portuguese ships exploring African coast. Did Prince Henry use their maps? Yes, the Muslims were crucial
to the Portuguese and the Spanish.
And I would say probably the majority of the seafaring information that was being used by Prince Henry, the navigator came from the Muslims. Because if you look at the civilization, you're going to find the majority of their technical knowledge. I mean, Muslims were in Spain for 700 years. 700 years, America's only 200 years, right? 700 years. And you start going into Spanish, and you see all these Arabic words, which are, which are regular Spanish words. Now, so many Arabic words. So 700 years, and especially in navigation, the Portuguese is well known. They went down to Cape Verde Islands, they went to West Africa, Vasco de Gama was actually they they led him around there.
Muslims helped him showed him the way.
So yes, it was it was very important. And the maps are very important. I have a map on the cover of my book there of must Rudy alamelu, DS map and 956 is the oldest map in the world that shows America on the map. 956 is the oldest in the world, and must add the map for the king of Cecilia or Sicily, the king of Sicily, did a map for him.
And so you find that it was very crucial for the people in those days. Now, the question is, is it not also important to suggest that today's Muslims could contribute meaningfully meaningfully to civilization? Yes, and really, actually, you know,
Muslims are making a tremendous contribution today. But it's not mentioned. Even if you go to Cape Canaveral, right? And you look at the scientists names,
you know, you look in American universities, engineers and doctors, and you're going to find a significant proportion, have Arabic or Turkish, or audu, or some Muslim name, a significant proportion of scientists today in America
have this names. So there's contributions being made right now, but it's not being recognized, you know, as a body partially because, you know, we don't seek recognition just for the name itself, you know, it's like raw, it's like sort of showing off, you know, like that type of thing. But
there is a great contribution you know, being made by
Think Muslims just need to be more
more forward not be ashamed to come forward with the culture was here before Columbus Smith.
So you know, they give you a green card and say you're an alien or something like your alien, right?
Okay, and then you know they call you an alien. So we're not aliens man, we were here before Columbus. So, how can you be an alien? See this point? Anyway the whole earth is is belongs to a lot anyway. Like people have been, you know, cultures have been interchanging.
So these are just some, you know, 20th century hang ups. You know, the people have any other questions Anybody else?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, inshallah, we're gonna have we're gonna show the slides want to take a break. And then we're going to show some of this. I have some slides for those of you before you go. It's some slides on Spain, on Cordoba and Granada, Gibraltar
and then something from North Africa as well. fez and Marrakech robot, some from robot showing the architecture and you know, some of the different things okay, so I think I'm going to stop here. And we will take a break anybody who has any other questions you can ask me straightforward, and then afterwards, I will come back inshallah was Salam. aleikum wa rahmatullah.
But the Rock of Gibraltar is a very strategic position, because it sits in at the mouth, the Mediterranean. And so people have fought over this rock in this position for a long time for 1000s of years. And so that that was the first part for me to go to the rock. And again, the rock, Gibraltar is Jebel todich. So that itself has a connection with Islam. Also, you look at the walls there.
And when you when you're in Gibraltar,
you know, if you can look at structures, and see the size of the bricks, like the wall that's there, and the inner wall, and then the houses, you can see different time periods. And you're, you'll be able to start to recognize what they call morish morish. Architecture, the Moore's they use that terminology gets referring to people of color, but actually the Maus means the Muslims. Were living in Spain, I guess the famous most famous one here in America is probably Othello. The Shakespeare fellow right, that they had a movie with a fellow to it. So now he's famous. So Fishburne knife is
now on the rock itself.
As you go up,
that's a that's a, that's a fort built by the Muslims. That's as you're going up. And when you get up near the top, actually, inside,
there is there's a series of underground tunnels, and World War Two, it was a very strategic position. And the Allied forces built an under a network of underground tunnels there, and they were living inside of there, and they were storing equipment. And when you look closely up there, if you can get close,
you'll see that there are monkeys, there's monkeys up there to live all up in the side. And the British have a superstition that as long as the monkeys are there, in Gibraltar, they will control the mountain. So they actually replenish the monkeys. It's like a superstition they have but the British control the Spanish are angry about this too. And so that there's a problem that's going on, you know, I'm coming from Canada. And so I was I had a problem because at that time, if you know what was happening in 95, you know, there was a big boycott because of the fish with the Spanish right? With Canadians. So I made in just in time as I was leaving, the Spanish authorities gave me a
lot of trouble when I was leaving you. I was coming out of Canada.
So this is right up at the Ford itself and says when the Moors recaptured Gibraltar from the Spaniards and 1333. They rebuilt an earlier tower ruin than the fighting into the solid tower of homage which has since withstood 10 sieges. So this is a tower that you will meet when you first go into Gibraltar.
This is the inside of it, that they're doing it over again to show
how the Muslims lived on the inside of the tower itself.
Now when you're standing on the top of the rock, this is a shot from the Top of the Rock of Gibraltar and then you're looking down on the Spanish shot.
coastline.
So you're facing east.
And you can see the the airport runway down on the bottom. That's the runway.
Now that this is on the left side, just like the rest of the runway,
and it goes right out, you know, if he doesn't have breaks, you're gonna go right back into the ocean again. But you go around there to Al Jazeera does that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah that that that is another area. And really it's a very important area to tonight we were focusing on the legacy and Muslim Spain. So I didn't go into that area, but actually in the Bahia section in Brazil, there is there's a number of documents and traces and some of the people are still there today of Muslims who are coming especially from what is now known as Nigeria, hausa, and Fulani, and they were taken down by in large numbers by the Portuguese, and there are a series of revolts. And many of them revolted so vigorously that they were actually allowed to go back. And you can find now in Lagos, in Nigeria, there are mosques, houses of worship of Muslims, that are built
by Brazilian Muslims. And you can go see that's the Brazilian mosque. So they say that people were captured, taken to Brazil, and returned. Now, what is interesting is to see how religion changes, you know, as time goes by when people lose contact with the source of the religion, and what is happening now. And that's one of the places I want to visit myself. But what is happening now is that the people
are starting to get reintroduced to the religion again. But I read one article sometime in the past where the only thing that was left for some of the people in Bahia for their prayers, was that women would stand in a circle and they clap their hands, and the men, your dances, the type of jig, and he says, you know, something, which in a broken day language, mixed with Portuguese says La ilaha illAllah, which means there's no God, but Allah. So he's saying this. And that's the only thing left to their prayer. So the study of Bahia section of Brazil is a very important study. And there are a few works done in Portuguese.
There's a certain I don't have I don't have it right here. But there's some works being done. Now. you familiar with the works done? Right. Right. So so he I saw some of the work that he did, and it's a very interaction they have Arabic documents to I saw some of the Arabic documents they had from the area.
Well, actually, all over the Caribbean, there's documentation coming now. What we're finding is about 30% of the slaves were Muslims, coming from the guinea coast of West Africa. And what I found that I've got some in my research in the back there, like it, for instance, in Jamaica, in 1821. It was a document being passed around in Arabic wasseypur. And they had a big revolt in the Manchester section of Jamaica. in Suriname, there was Muslims leading the revolt, to sort lova chose one of his generals was called Macondo. He was an Imam. I went to I went to Bahamas, and they had these documents. They told me it was Amharic. It was Ethiopian. But when I went in there, it was Arabic.
And in America, he wrote a like saurez his chapters of the Quran that were familiar with, when you're seeking refuge in God from evil. He wrote NASS Falak, Kula had ayah. To courtesy, you know, it's the administrate on that that he was trying to do. And they said, it's Amharic, because they didn't know that it was Arabic. And so there's a series of things coming also the names of people, because of the,
the attitude
that the early Portuguese and Spanish had coming in. They were so paranoid of Muslims, because of the war they were fighting, that they they would not use the name Muslim, when they describe somebody who was a slave. So you won't find the name Muslim being used. See, and this was two people off for a long time, because you didn't see it, but now we'll reinvestigating the names and you find names like
Boubacar or Booker, which actually is aboubaker. You find like Wally's you find a lot of
West African names Jolo, and Kaaba. These are very well known Muslim names and you can actually trace the ports on the guinea coast of West Africa, where they were taken. This is how the percentages are now being reanalyzed. And in terms of, you know, knowing, you know, the percentage of Muslims who came is a large percentage actually, the Maroons in Jamaica, in the maroon territory, there's a Quran up there. So the Maroons, who were originally they call Simone Ace like wild
Horses because they escaped from the Spanish they were fighting the Spanish. They were they were a conglomeration of different tribes. So anybody who would escape you go to Maroon territory, but the Muslims were one of the powerful groups. While off mandinka how soft Fulani, they one of the groups powerful groups will resisting the slavery. So there's this slave revolt and in America, you know, there's a book called
African Muslim, African Muslims in antebellum America. It's by a man named Alan Austin. And you can get the name of it back then my book, he actually brings the primary documentation for a lot of places, even for the United States. And so there's a series of people does act as a book called the fortunate slave.
Another one by Philip Curtin called Africa remembered. And these books trace Muslim slaves in the United States. Actually, just recently, there's a there's one slaves name is Omar bin siete, because it's a South Carolina, and they actually had handwritten Arabic letters and documentation. It was sold in New York City, and there's a library now it's going to be in Detroit, they bought it in Detroit, and they're going to have it on display soon. It's Arabic handwritten document by whom I've been site.
And so there's a number of things works like this. That you will find. Okay. Yes, sir.
See, okay, do you have that?
Okay, it's if some, if somebody wants to write a question on a piece of paper, we have a brother that's going to collect, you know, some of the brothers and sisters set up who collect them. Okay.
I've heard things about the colonies in the Latin America, Dominican Republic, sooner somehow was transferred that in Spain bill, a lot of the Muslims
out
there.
Well, there's a lot of trace, actually, when you read the memoirs of Ferdinand Columbus and Christopher, what not you see, and many of the early Spanish and Portuguese who came. They they ran into African people in the region, early aspect, they ran into Muslims. One piece, one writing and the men, Roman Columbus came into Cuba. And he came into a certain bait, I read this thing. And they said, there's a mosque on the top of the hill.
That's how they describe it. So there's a mosque on the top of the hill. So it was unbelievable man. When Ferdinand Columbus writes, when they went to Honduras, they said the people the women had heavy gold in it. Yeah. And it's just like, in West Africa, in Mali, they had so much gold that it was a style to wear a big piece of gold, so like, extend your elope.
And then the names like one name is called Al mammies, which is from Mr. Mo. Mo, Mo l Imam. That's a West African way of saying that you're the leader of the prayer. And that is a grouping of people in Honduras.
So it's all over the place, you know, in terms of they even in Columbus also writes about one of the memoirs, he's writing about, they a boat came by them.
And they said, when they looked at the boat, the men on the boat had on a type of cloth, which had the same patterns as the cloth in Grenada. And some of the women on the boat had a veil over their face. Like some of the women in Granada used to wear saloon to describe this boat. They said, this is in the Caribbean, they ran across this. So like, you know, they're running across these things all the time. But then but you don't get that.
You know, the data, they filter out that that that aspect?
Yeah.
I haven't heard any connection between them. Alexa.
Alexa, is that the furthest musk? Or the fireplace? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of names that you can start to get things out of.
One question he has is, as a historian, do you find that many of your non Muslim colleagues argue and disagree with Muslim contributions? Yes, actually, this would be considered revisionist, a type of revisionist history that, you know, some of this history is like a no no. in certain circles, but but what I put out my first issue of deeper roots, this book I have here, the geography department of McGill University in Canada, they challenged me and they brought me there and fed me lunch and everything and set me up and said, Okay, now give it to us. So I spoke to them for about an hour straight. I go to all these contributions and all this stuff. When I was done. There was silence for
about five minutes. Nobody said anything. And deleted near the head of the department said, You have challenged everything that we stand on. Like everybody was silent. Then they started to come at me. Now did geography. I'm not a geography
Right. They admitted that it was possible to cross the Atlantic. They can freely admit that because Thor Heyerdahl the Scandinavian, you know, scientists took a number of journeys. He went, he used Papyrus materials and he went from Morocco. And he went across using the currents. And he went right into Brazil in the Caribbean. So so they admitted as possible what they were arguing, they said how they get back.
And they would they wanted me to prove like, you know, geographically, I'm not a geography man. Yes, there was just only point that they could get me on, you know, which current it was they came to go back and all that, but they admitted freely, that it was possible for people to cross we know even that the Celtics, like Viking people from the north, the Phoenicians, many people cross the Atlantic when they got stuck on this Columbus syndrome.
But Mary, Chris was late. He was very late. Like many people will go on across the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Polynesian people, Chinese people, they made contact with the Americas, on the Pacific side. And if you go into the culture of the people, you will see Polynesian, blood, Polynesian traces, if you go on the Pacific side.
So it's just a matter of going through the documentation. And looking at it from another people's point of view. That's all it is.
Well, you know, I mean, I could say If a person's you know, European, you know that he's biased. When he writes a history book that says, Christopher Columbus discovered America, they call it eurocentrism. Okay, but you know, in historical circles, the bottom line is your documentation. It's your argumentation, which comes out of your documentation. So I don't care what you are. The bottom line is like, what's your proof? Bring it to me.
Show me your reasoning and show me your documentation. So it doesn't matter what you are. If you're open minded, and you have the documentation, and really, you know, the documentation is there. It's not like it's not there. It is there. But just for a long time, it has not been resourced or not been brought out to the public, as to you know, what is really happening in America before Columbus. You know, now now people are changing the mentality about Columbus, but they still try to push this thing. In 1992. They still try to push it
to make people think that everything started with him. Another question is about other a lot of Muslims in Jamaica today. And they received well, there are a number of Muslims in Jamaica. You know, Jamaica itself is in Spanish town. And there isn't Black River and in Clarendon and Kingston and Kingston is this big mosque in Kingston, and now Montego Bay, they have land input Maria area on the north coast. The Muslims, I lived in Jamaica for four years. So there's a number of Muslims there. And it's one of the places where a lot of people are accepting Islam. But the problem there is that there's a, there's an economic problem. So unless you have employment, or some way for
people to, you know, deal with their life economically, it's hard to really practice a way of life that's very different from society, unless you've got an economic base, and I think that's the problem that Muslims have today is a practical way where people can accept Islam and it can really change their life completely. That's the problem. It's not a problem with people listening to Islam, and especially in Jamaica because of the Rastafarian movement. And Marcus Garvey, there's a consciousness in terms of, of African culture and, you know, Middle Eastern culture that people are open minded like, they're so people that there are a number of people Jimmy cliff, if you don't even
know Jamaican culture, Jimmy cliff, he's a Muslim. Name, his name Bashir is named Jimmy cliff.
Okay, anybody else have a question?
Yeah.
Yeah, also one of the propaganda things I said, just like, you know, the terrorists thing that comes today, like historically, they say that Islam was spread by the sword. And, you know, they have this image, they say, Saracens, you know, what happened was because when you really look at the crusades, the crusades, I believe, were really more economic and political wars, as opposed to religious wars. Because really, when you study Islam, there's not that much difference really, between early Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and Christians and Jews were living in the Middle East at that time, and they didn't have any problems. But economically when Marco Polo came back, and the princes
in Europe realized about the treasures in the Middle East, and India and in China, they needed to open up the trade routes to go through the end of the day.
The East is that central zone. So they wanted to control it. So really, I believe it was more economic and political than it was actually a religious war. And so, you find that a body of literature comes out of the crusades, where they describe, they say muhammet, meaning Mohammed, they say he was a devil worshiper. And they say Saracens, Michel de Yun, Eastern people, Turks, and whatnot. And they just start to describe Muslim to this curved sword except the samurai chop off your head. But the Quran says there's no compulsion in religion, truth stands clear from falsehood. What you do find for those of you who have studied history, in the seventh century, at the time,
when the product morpc pantum came, there was the Byzantine Roman Empire. Okay, Eastern Orthodox, the capital was Constantinople. And there was the Persian Empire sassanid dynasty, okay, in present day, Iran. And so these were the two world powers in the Middle East. And so they attack the Muslim, the Romans attack from the north, and the Persians attack from the east. So the Muslims responded to the attack, when they responded to the attack. The sassanid dynasty was in in a corrupt state, and it felt and so they opened up all the Persian holdings, the Byzantines were also in a weak state. And so they took the Byzantine holdings in Palestine. And they went right around North Africa.
They're all Byzantine Mediterranean holdings. So it was it was a war going on, between the Muslims and the Byzantine Roman Empire. Other places, when you look at the spread of Islam and other places, you find it's mainly merchants. And it's mainly people of knowledge, who are spreading Islam. It's not the sort the largest Muslim country 170 million is Indonesia. No army went to Indonesia, only merchants by the sea, and Ola scholars, well, that's all there's no
no armies went there. So again, it's it's um, you know, it's, it's a, like a stereotype. I will be honest with you, though, is that we have the right to defend ourself. And some people don't like that.
And that's one of the aspects of Islam. The Quran says, if somebody does you harm, then do back to them what they did for you, or you can forgive them. Right? Like it's not totally eye for eye, tooth for tooth is not totally turned the other cheek, you got two alternatives. So the verse says, if somebody does you harm, do to him what he did to you, or you can forgive him at the end of the verse says, and forgiveness is probably better for you if you only know.
So but it gives you the right to establish justice. And so Muslim, that's why in the slavery period, many times the Muslims were the people in leading the revolts resistance.
Because people have a right for self determination. And they have a right to defend their land. And I think that's a principle that everybody cherishes. In America, that is a founding principle of the country, with the British, right? In all of the countries, right? I mean, it wasn't for everybody. But I'm just saying on paper, right? It's a founding principle. So everybody has that. So we have the right to say that we have the right to self defense, we have the right you know, not to be oppressed. And that's a clear you know, statement that comes out of Islam. And I think this is what makes some people paranoid. But but but but but the whole propaganda, you know about the sword is
really something that was made up where Muslims are new Christians, important at Prince Henry, the navigator school in Portugal,
where their crew members on Portuguese ships exploring African coast. Did printing Henry use their maps. Yes, the Muslims were crucial
to the Portuguese and the Spanish.
And I would say probably the majority of the seafaring information that was being used by Prince Henry, the navigator came from the Muslims. Because if you look at the civilization, you're going to find the majority of their technical knowledge. I mean, Muslims were in Spain for 700 years. 700 years, America is only 200 years, right? 700 years, and you start going into Spanish new see all these Arabic words, which are, which are regular Spanish words. Now, so many Arabic words. So 700 years, and especially in navigation. The Portuguese is well known. They went down to Cape Verde Islands, they went to West Africa, Vasco de Gama it was actually they they led him around the
Muslims helped him showed him the way.
So yes, it was it was very important and the maps were very important. I have a map on the cover of my book there.
Masaru de al Masud is mapping 956 is the oldest map in the world that shows America on the map. 956 is the oldest in the world, and must add the map for the king of Sicilia or Sicily, King of Sicily did the map for him.
And so you find that it was very crucial for the people in those days. Now, the question is, is it not also important to suggest that today's Muslims could contribute meaningfully meaningfully to civilization? Yes, and really, actually, you know,
Muslims are making a tremendous contribution today. But it's not mentioned. Even if you go to Cape Canaveral, right? And you look at the scientists names,
you look in American universities, engineers and doctors, and you're going to find a significant proportion, have Arabic or Turkish, or ODU, or some Muslim, a significant proportion of scientists today in America
have this names. So there's contributions being made right now, but it's not being recognized, you know, as a body partially because, you know, we don't seek recognition just for the name itself, you know, it's like,
it's like sort of showing off you know, like that type of thing. But
there is a great contribution you know, being made, but I think Muslims just need to be more
more forward, not be ashamed to come forward with the culture. We was here before Columbus Smith.
So you know, they give you a green card and say you're an alien or something like your alien, right?
Okay, and then you know, they call your alien. It doesn't we're not aliens, man, we were here before Columbus. So, how can you be an alien? See this point? Anyway, the whole earth is is belongs to a lot anyway. Like people have been dead, you know, cultures have been interchanging.
So these are just some, you know, 20th century hangups, you know, that people have any other questions anybody has?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, inshallah, we're gonna we are going to show the slides want to take a break. And then we're going to show some of this. I have some slides for those of you before you go. It's some slides on Spain, and Cordoba and Granada, Gibraltar.
And then something from North Africa as well. fez and Marrakech. Robot, some from robot, showing the architecture and you know, some of the different things. Okay, so I think I'm going to stop here. And we will take a break anybody who has any other questions you can ask me, straightforward. And then afterwards, I will come back, inshallah, Salaam Alaikum.
But the Rock of Gibraltar is a very strategic position, because it sits in at the mouth of the Mediterranean. And so people have fought over this rock in this position for a long time for 1000s of years. And so that that was the first pot for me to go to the rock. And again, the rock, Gibraltar is Jebel todich. So that itself has a connection with Islam. Also, you look at the walls there.
And when you when you're in Gibraltar,
you know, if you can look at structures, and see the size of the bricks, like the wall that's there, and the inner wall, and then the houses you can see different time periods. And you you'll be able to start to recognize what they call morish morish. Architecture, the Moore's Law, they use that terminology gets referring to people of color, but actually the Moore's means the Muslims. Were living in Spain, I guess the famous most famous one here in America is probably Othello, the Shakespeare, Othello, right, that they had a movie with a fellow to it. So now he's famous, Sam, said fishburn de Fishburne and
now on the rock itself.
As you go up
that's a that's a, that's a fort built by the Muslims. That's as you're going up. And when you get up near the top, actually, inside.
There is there's a series of underground tunnels. And World War Two was a very strategic position. And the Allied forces built an under a network of underground tunnels there and they were living inside of there and they were storing equipment. And when you look closely up there, if you can get close,
you'll see that there are monkeys, there's monkeys up there, too.
Live all up in the side. And the British have a superstition that as long as the monkeys are there
in Gibraltar, they will control the mountain. So they actually replenish the monkeys. It's like a superstition they have, but the British control the Spanish are angry about this too. And so that is a problem is going on. You know, I'm coming from Canada. And so I was I had a problem because at that time if you know what was happening in 95, you know, there was a big boycott because of the fish with the Spanish, right? We Canadians, so I made it just in time as I was leaving the Spanish authorities gave me a lot of trouble when I was leaving, you know, so I was coming out of Canada.
So this is right up at the Ford itself and says when the Moors recaptured Gibraltar from the Spanish and 1333 they rebuilt an earlier tower, ruined in the fighting into the solid tower of homage which has since withstood 10 sieges. So this is a tower that you will meet when you first go into Gibraltar.
This is the inside of it, that they're doing it over again to show
how the Muslims lived on the inside of the tower itself.
Now when you're standing on the top of the rock, this is a shot from the Top of the Rock of Gibraltar and then you're looking down on the Spanish coastline.
So you're facing east
and you can see the the airport runway down on the bottom. That's the runway.
Now that this is on the left side, just like the rest of the runway,
and it goes right out. You know if he doesn't have brakes, you're going to go right back into the ocean again. But you go around there to AlJazeera us that