Abdullah Hakim Quick – Pivotal Moments #06
AI: Summary ©
The golden age of Islam was created to combine knowledge and knowledge that Islam has created. The history of Islam is centered around the idea of the golden age of thinking, which was created by Muslims to navigate the universe. The importance of history and cultural events like the journey of Mecca, the use of map, and the use of the twisting s modules and the layout of the map are emphasized. The transcript describes the history of the Middle East, the rise of Mahe Chobak, the use of the map as a reference point, and the importance of history and cultural events like the journey of Mecca, the use of the "brahala" in the story of Navadae, and the history of the United States. The importance of history and cultural events like the journey of Mecca, the use of the twisting s modules, and the layout of the map is emphasized.AI: Transcript ©
All praise are due to Allah, Lord of
the worlds,
And peace and blessings be upon our beloved
prophet Muhammad,
the master of the first and the last,
and his family, his companions, and all those
who call to his way and establish his
sunnah to the day of judgment.
As to what follows, my beloved brothers and
sisters, to our viewers, to our friends,
Assalamu Alaikum.
Alhamdulillah.
This is the last,
in our series
on pivotal moments
in Islamic history.
And there are so many pivots
that happened in the past that we didn't
cover,
and so many left for us to
cover. But we wanted to have this to
be, a special class,
in that
we're not looking at the
well known,
famous incidents
that happened in Islamic history,
but we want to look at some,
phenomenas,
some things that happened
that were of great importance
and made a difference
to the Muslim Ummah and the world,
but are not so well known,
to the average student of knowledge
and especially to the average,
individual.
And so
in order to do this,
we need to reorient
our minds
to the golden age of Islam.
And that went from,
you could say, the 7th century,
to the 15th, 16th century,
AD,
where the Muslims
were at a golden age of knowledge.
Allah
had blessed the Ummah
with the consciousness
of tawhid,
of the oneness of God,
of the oneness of humanity,
and the oneness of knowledge.
And so Muslims recognize
that all of the knowledge comes from Allah,
whether it be sacred knowledge
or or secular knowledge.
It all ultimately comes from the creator of
the heavens and the earth who has set
systems
in the universe.
Systems
for the planets to function by,
systems for life to be developed,
Systems within
the different types of creatures, the insect world,
the animal world.
Systems within our own bodies,
And it is these systems, this infinite amount
of information,
that really makes up
what secular people call science.
Because really they are gathering
the,
different,
structures
and the different
bits of knowledge that Allah put into the
world. And they put it together in a
science,
but they didn't create it.
The creator of the heavens and the earth
is something else.
And so,
Tawhid
brings it together.
It brings together our understanding,
and it unites
our way of thinking.
And so with that as a base,
Muslims went out into the world.
Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him,
in his Arafat sermon.
He told his followers,
those who are present
should take this
to those who are absent.
And so the companions of the prophet, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, saw themselves
as ambassadors
of Tawhid
That they had to take this message out
and they also had to stand
for Towheed. They had to call to the
good
and to forbid evil.
So many historians look and see that the
majority of the companions
actually died outside of the Hejaz area,
the Mecca in Medina area.
Because Islam was for the world.
It was not just for the Arabs
of the Arabian Peninsula.
And when the Muslims went out,
when they crossed
the sands into Iraq,
when they went into the high mountains in
Yemen in the south,
when they went up into Egypt,
Mediterranean,
far north,
they encountered civilizations
that had been developing
for 1000 of years.
And instead of destroying everything in sight like
the Mongol invasion,
where they would literally burn all the books,
And it is said by some reporters that
when Baghdad,
had been conquered in 1258,
That at some points in the Tigris Euphrates,
there were so many books
that were thrown down into the river
that you could literally ride your horse over
the books to the other side
because of the thickness of the amount of
books that they plunged into the river,
itself.
And so
Muslims
gathered the knowledge
and incorporated the knowledge.
And that was one of the great contributions
of the Abbasid
dynasty.
In that,
they developed what was known as Betel Hikma,
the house of wisdom.
And in the house of wisdom,
scholars were invited from all parts of the
world.
Knowledge was accepted regardless of the person who
was bringing the knowledge.
And so by bringing together the theories and
the understandings,
and the knowledge of the ancient ones,
Muslims were able to develop precise
methodology
to be able to
structure
the sciences,
structure the aspects of knowledge in a way
that people could benefit
from this knowledge in the time period that
they were living in. So that was really
the debate of Hikma because Hikma means wisdom.
The wisdom is not creating something from nothing.
It's not magic.
But it is the ability to deal with
what you have
in a relevant useful
way.
So many aspects of knowledge were covered in
Beit al Hikma, in Baghdad,
and also in the great cities,
of Islam,
especially you see in Cairo
and North Africa and in Andalus,
which is Spain and Portugal,
we see that
in Granada and Valencia
and Cordoba and the great cities
of
Al Andalus,
Muslims were able to make great strides
in knowledge.
And one of the areas
which is important
to our
opening of the untold
pivotal moments,
and that is when the golden age of
thinking
touched astronomy.
Now Muslims were naturally oriented towards
direction.
Because in order to pray,
we need to know qibla.
So we need to know which direction is
Mecca.
So wherever you are,
you need to know this. And I there
was a time when we didn't have cell
phones and we would carry around compasses with
us.
And, because we needed to know wherever we
were
which direction to face
in order to make our salat.
And so it was natural
for Muslims to now
develop precise
methods
in understanding
direction,
understanding
the universe itself.
And that was different than astrology
because astrology is seeking,
from the knowledge of the stars and the
planets and the universe.
It's seeking type of magic.
So astronomy is the natural science,
and
just by making salat, Muslims were oriented toward
this.
Also, in making the pilgrimage,
to Mecca,
Muslims needed to have
maps.
So they needed to have,
some way to
get from one point to another.
Because, for instance, if you are coming from
the high areas of India
or Tibet
or high in the Caucasus
Mountains
of Afghanistan,
you need to come down mountains through passes,
crossing deserts
to the to the, side of the oceans,
over to Mecca to a desert again.
You need to have direction.
And even in the modern world that we
are living in, we have direction. Now,
many years ago, they used to have,
books, triptychs.
Now you have your Google Maps. You have
your Waze,
which could actually lead you
to a place. That's a guide.
And and if you're getting
a
a complicated,
a higher level version
of these Google Maps and the Waze, it
actually tells you it shows you on the
way where you can get gas, where you
can eat food,
where you can have a place to stay.
So that is like your guide that you're
carrying with you.
In those days with no cell phones,
people needed to have a guide.
How do you cross this desert?
Where is the best place to get water?
Who are the most friendly people on the
way?
And so this is where Muslims started
to excel in geography.
So astronomy,
geography,
and everything needed.
And so the astrolabe,
quadrants,
sextants,
compasses.
These are developed by Muslims. These these compasses,
in the picture, I picked them up while
I was in the country of Oman in
Muscat,
and I visited the home of a great,
seafarer, Abu Ahmed.
And he took me to his house
And his family heirloom
that they passed down, some people passed down
swords,
some passed down Quran,
some passed down jewelry.
Because the Omanis were seafaring people,
his parents,
passed down to him
huge compasses
and quadrants
that they could use on their boats,
that the Ormatis would take on the ocean.
So astronomical
instruments.
Muslims developed and made great contributions.
They cataloged maps and visible stars.
They corrected sun and moon table.
They were the first to use the pendulum
to build observatories.
The invention of the sundial,
that's in the 11th century.
Muslims predicted sunspots,
eclipses,
comets.
Some of the famous astronomers were Ibn Yunus,
al Farghani,
al Battani,
al Biruni,
ibn Rushd.
These are great scholars, and this is how
their scientific texts would look like. So now
you see Arabic there, and now you see
mathematical equations and maps.
This is literally a Muslim
scientific textbook.
Now
the pivotal moment
in the age
of golden understanding
when the Muslims were leading the world.
This is what I call
the age of exploration.
So now with this ability
to travel with the the the compasses there,
with
the the,
books that are being written,
with the long distances
in the Muslim Ummah.
It was a chance
for Muslims to do what other nations could
not do.
Because when you travel out of your continent,
out of your people, you may run across
hostility.
But if a Muslim crosses,
then yes, there's there's hostility on the road.
But if you get to another Muslim center,
then you will find people who are united
with you, with their understanding of God, and
also with their general knowledge.
And so
these
travel logs,
these geography books
are of crucial importance to us
in unlocking the age of exploration.
And this that you see,
on the right is a map.
This is El Idrisi,
who's a very famous,
geographer, historian, scholar.
And he actually did a globe,
for the, the king of Sicily.
This is back, like, 13th century.
And this is a map, and if you
if you were able to
understand what this map is, then you'll see
that it looks like it's sort of upside
down.
Because Muslims had a different understanding of the
world.
We
today are thinking in Eurocentric terms. We think
that north
is,
positive or it's developed,
and south is underdeveloped.
We say that the north is like the
first world
and deep south is the third world,
But Muslims have the opposite.
They were mecca centric. They were based in
Mecca itself, and recognize that knowledge,
human knowledge came from the south.
The first human beings came out of the
south and then traveled north.
Similarly, knowledge
traveled from south
to north.
And
to give you, an example, this is another
map
here, and this is a map
done by al Mas'uri.
And you'll see in the Arabic that is
there, it's 957.
957
that he drew this map.
And he put on the map
in the Arabic, it says, Arud Majhula,
unknown territory.
And so, again, the map is actually what
we would call upside down.
So let let me turn it around for
you.
So if you look to the left of
the map,
you'll see the the the wide territory.
I don't have a pen to actually show
you, but but you'll see where Africa is.
It's to your left center,
and then you'll see Arabia.
And go around,
you'll see India, Indonesia.
Go around to the top, Russia, then you'll
see Scandinavia.
Right? Is it coming clear to you now?
Then you'll see Spain.
Okay? So now Africa is there,
and below Africa,
there is a huge
mass of land,
and this is called
unknown
territory.
So therefore in 957,
Muslims knew
that there was land across the Atlantic.
This is long before Christopher Columbus.
It was known and it was put on
the map,
but it was given its proper
understanding because they did not know,
who was living there. There were people there,
but but they were honest enough to say
that they didn't know.
So amongst these,
important
geographical texts
is the text
of Eleumas Udi,
and that's his book in 956, 957.
He he he wrote a book. His actual
book was in 956,
and this is called Muruj ad Dhab wamadhan
al Johir.
And al Mas'udi was called
the imam
of the historians.
So he's not just a historian.
He was called by the historians
their leader,
and he actually traveled. He didn't just write.
He went on long journeys himself,
so he was experiencing and he was recording.
And this is a very important,
text which
opens up one of the untold,
pivotal moments.
In the 11th century,
al Idrisi, who did that map that we
saw, Kitab al mamalek wal masalek.
So this is the book of the kingdoms
and
of the journeys
into the kingdoms.
In the 14th century, Al Umarih
did the work masalik al abrafimamalik
al amsar.
And that is the journey of enlightened people
into the kingdoms,
of the cities
and the countries of the world.
K? So this is these are very important
points,
very important texts.
In 15/17,
Piri Reis,
who was a great,
historian,
geographer,
and he served under the Ottoman Empire.
And Sultan Salim the first,
was the the leader at the time, the
Khalifa
for the Muslims.
And,
Piri Reis
gave him a handbook of,
nautical
maps.
Okay? And this was made up of
219
detailed charts
from over 200 years. So what the Ottomans
were able to do, because they conquered many
lands, they gathered together the maps and the
information.
They codified it, and Piraeus was able to
make a handbook out of it.
And this is amazing because it's 15/17
now. This map,
if you could see
close-up onto the map and and look at,
this is actually
South America.
So if you were at the top, Guyana,
for those of you who may be Guyanese,
would be right at the top, not in
the picture.
Right here would be right at the end
of,
Suriname and, you know, the the the the
French Suriname,
and then going down into what is now
Brazil.
And if you follow the map down, you
will see it's actually giving you the Brazilian
coast.
15/17.
Now if this is the Brazilian coast, and
and and and when they looked at the
longitude and latitude
later on, they found out that it was
almost perfect.
How could Piri Reis
in 15/17
have a map
that showed
the latitude, the longitude, the detailed coast,
South American coast, if Columbus discovered
the Americas in 14/92.
That's like 25 years. How is it not
possible?
It's not possible.
So this is hard evidence.
This is an untold story, and we have
hard evidence to show that Muslims and other
peoples were in the Americas.
There was contact being made
across the lands.
And
this takes us to one of the journeys
again, because we're looking at the journeys.
And these are subjects that you can,
study. If you have a chance, do some
research.
One important journey
is the journey of Mansa Musa.
He was a great emperor of Mali in
West Africa,
and he's considered to be
the richest person who ever lived. Now that
might sound strange to you. This is a
black African
Muslim
leader in the 14th
century. How could he be richer
than Bill Gates?
How could he be richer than the Nizam
of Hyderabad
or all the famous rich people in the
world today, Jeff Bezos? How is that possible?
Google it.
Put in
who is the richest man who ever lived.
That's not a Muslim Google.
And when you put it in, you will
see
Mansa Musa,
pound for pound,
was the richest person who ever lived on
earth
because the gold,
they were mining gold the size
of grapefruits. So
literally every place that he went,
and he made his pilgrimage to Mecca in
that year, he changed the economy
of every country that he reached.
And as he moved across Sahara Desert, you're
going West Africa,
going up into North Africa across,
You're crossing the Sahara Desert.
And he carried with him over 65,000
people. Some say 72,000
people
traveled with him
on his pilgrimage to Mecca.
So as he was moving across,
changing the economy,
and finally they reached into Egypt.
And Al Umar, you remember that book that
we looked at, one of your great geographers?
His
informant sat with Mansa Musa.
And he said, where did you get this
power from?
And Mansa Musa said, I got it from
my
older brother, my predecessor,
Abu Bakr. Mansa meaning king, Abu Bakr.
And
he
explained
that there was great cities of knowledge.
There was a city of Timbuktu,
that by the 16th century had 25,000
students
in its university. These are black African Muslim
universities
in West Africa.
It was an amazing thing, and Al Umarie
writes in his work
in Arabic. We have it up until today.
It's been translated to into French and English.
Al Umarie mentioned
the Americas,
that there was journeys
across the ocean.
This is an untold
story
with hard evidence.
And al Omari
spoke about Mansa Abu Bakr,
who had the wealth like Mansa Musa. Remember?
Richest man who ever lived.
He heard about land
across.
Remember, out of Machula, it was on the
map.
So he wanted to find this land.
And so he went out with a flotilla
of over 2,000
ships.
A thousand for his men, a thousand for
their supplies,
and they went into the ocean,
and they never came back to Mali.
Now when you look at the map here,
you will see West Africa,
and look at the distance between
West Africa and South America.
You see, that's different than North America
and and,
Africa or Spain.
This is the closest point you can get
for land.
And and if you look at your map,
you will also see these lines that are
being drawn.
These are the currents,
the equatorial currents. And you see the current
is like
a a a force in the ocean.
And Mansa Abu Bakr described it. They said
it was like a river in the ocean.
And the boats that got on it, they
got pulled away.
One went came back, and he took 2,000
ships. They got onto the river. You don't
need sails.
So if you follow this current here from
West Africa, it will take you directly
into Brazil.
You go north into Barbados,
into the Caribbean region. You don't need sails.
It's a natural way to get across. 2,000
ships.
This is contact
that was made
the Muslims,
African people,
and the people in the in the Caribbean
and Brazil.
But many people would say, no. Like, we
don't accept this story because there's no Europeans
who agree.
But in the sixties, a Norwegian
scientist named Thor Heyerdahl,
he
actually
had boats made from indigenous African material,
and he sailed from Safi in Morocco,
and he went all the way across,
and he landed in Barbados.
And that is his his boat,
the Ra the second.
Okay? Done by a European.
Taken the currents.
So it was definitely possible
for those who needed to have
Eurocentric
authenticity.
In Brazil
and across the Amazon,
there have been found
the writing Mandinka
inscriptions. These are inscriptions made by African people
found in Peru
and in Amazon going across South America,
right into Central America,
up to Panama,
into Mexico, and even into United States.
And Leo Weiner, a Harvard University scholar,
who wrote a book called Africa and the
Discovery of America,
showed how these Mandinka Muslims
actually reached the United States, and they intermingled
with the First Nations,
indigenous people.
So this is an amazing story
and hard evidence again.
There is a European scholar.
He based himself in Mexico City,
and he wrote a book called Unexpected Faces
in Ancient America.
And this he had a display
that was in Mexico City in the museums
public,
and he was showing
the sculptured heads before Columbus
that was in Mexico
and in Central America.
And if you look at this particular one
that he found,
you will see
that,
it's got scarification.
So this was being done by West Africans.
But look at he's got a turban
and a cap.
This is typical Muslim dress.
So this is in Mexico
before
Columbus.
This is hard evidence
of of the presence of Muslims in this
area.
And the people of Panama,
the people of Central
America actually trace their lineage,
some of their lineage back to these African
Muslims
who actually came across. This is an untold
story,
and it's a pivot.
It's because these Muslims are now
making contact internationally.
And quiet as it's kept, this is why,
so much was done on an international level.
Another important person in these untold stories
that came out of this same golden age,
of Islamic knowledge
was a great Chinese
admiral
named Chen Hua.
Now they spell it with a zed or
z,
but the pronunciation
Chen Hua,
who lived,
this is from 1371
to 14/33
or 35.
K?
So he was a famous Chinese
explorer, diplomat,
admiral,
and it was during the Ming
dynasty.
This is one of the famous dynasties in
China,
itself,
that he became famous.
His name was originally
Mahe,
and he came from a Muslim family.
Now if you know China itself,
you you will see
that
it is made up of,
so many different nations.
And to the in the center,
of China,
and also if you go to the northwest,
you will see
Turkic Mongolian people.
Many of these Turkic nations, as we have
found out in our pivots,
became Muslim.
And relations,
diplomatic relations, trade relations,
were held
between the Muslims and the Chinese dynasties.
So this is the Ming dynasty now.
And,
Chenghuo,
he,
rose in the ranks. Now
it is said that, you know, to actually
get his story, he was the great great
grandson
of Sayed Agile Shemsadeen
Uma.
And he was the governor of the Yunnan,
province, and it was being controlled by the
Mongols,
at that time.
And the Ming dynasty now comes in, fights
off the Mongols,
a struggle is going on,
and,
conquest is happening.
So his grandfather had the title *,
and his father
actually had the title *.
And this points to the fact that they
more than likely made Hajj.
They made pilgrimage. So these are, Chinese Muslims.
They're in the area now known as China,
but they are Muslims. Now in the struggle
between the Ming dynasty and the Moguls of
the Yunnan
area, his father died.
And so Mahe
was captured.
And he was taken into
the court of the leader, and it is
said, you know, that, he had a big
appearance. So he was strong,
and he was tall.
And some descriptions,
say that when he grew to his final
height, he was 7 chi tall. That's about
11 inches. So he was about 6 foot
4.
Now 6 foot 4 for a Chinese
person at that even today,
6 foot 4 in China is really big.
And you'll see a couple Chinese who made
it to the NBA
basketball,
but the average height of the people,
there in the continent, you know, they're they're
short.
So in those days, just imagine back,
there in the 14th century, 6 foot 4
is a giant. And it also said that
he was 5 chi in circumference.
So he was 4,
point 5,
you know you know, feet around
his waist and his stomach. This is a
giant of a man,
and he's described as having
piercing eyes,
teeth like shells.
His voice was like a bell.
So he's an imposing
character.
And when the conquering Ming
people captured him and they said, where is
your leaders?
And he said the leader jumped in the
lake.
So they captured him, not killing him because
maybe they could use him. Because remember slavery
was an ins worldwide
institution
at the time.
And so,
they captured Mahe,
put him in the court,
and after a period of time, they castrated
him.
And this is something that was being done
by different,
empires and kingdoms when they wanted somebody
to work in their harems
or to work close, they would castrate the
person, keep them alive,
and then give them another life.
So Mahe was,
was castrated,
and but he was so
imposing.
He rose in the ranks
until he reached the level of being considered
as the admiral
of the Chinese
imperial fleet.
So this is not this is something
that is serious.
Because what it means
is that he is the admiral of this
fleet,
and this fleet,
when it went out, the fleet had 317
ships.
Think about this now.
317 ships,
28,000
sailors
was in the fleet. So when they come
into town,
this is a huge thing. This is a
worldwide,
phenomena. This is something that every person on
earth
should study about. Think about this. How many
people know about Columbus?
Three ships he traveled, the Nina, the Pinta,
and the Santa Maria.
But go around the world and they know
Columbus
so called discovered America in 14/92,
which was a lie.
Okay? This is Mahe now, Cheng Heo,
who becomes the admiral,
and he,
went on a number of journeys.
This is
28 years,
14005
to 1433.
And he he he he covered 50,000
kilometers.
Okay? He had the greatest
navy
in history
at the time.
And if you pound for pound,
proportionately, it would be the greatest navy up
until now.
And this is is the Chinese,
glyphs, the writings for his name.
He's an amazing person,
And this is, an artist conception
about what Chen He might have looked like.
Very imposing
person.
Strong,
glaring eyes.
He was he was a master of warfare.
He was a master of sciences.
He he was the great general. And when
the Chinese had the Olympics,
a little while ago there in in Beijing,
And, you know, you have the cultural part
of the Olympics.
They brought out a float
with the boat of Changhe.
That's how important it is in Chinese history.
But they didn't say in the float that
he was a Muslim.
They didn't say that. That would have been
a shock,
to to a lot of people if they
knew that Zheng He was actually a Muslim.
Now
look at the comparison
between
Chang Heo's boat
and the Christopher Columbus's boat. You have to
now fix your eyes. Look at the little
boat down in the middle.
See the little boat?
That's the Nina
of Christopher Columbus. Look at the size of
Chang Hee's boat.
Okay? This is
the journey that everyone in the world who
is supposed to know about.
Right? This journey
changed history.
It's an untold pivot,
in history.
And when they came into town
this is an artist's conception when they're coming
into town, when they're moving into your port.
This is something serious. People have never seen
anything like this before
with 317
boats coming in,
coming into you you you you your your
shores.
So with this,
he traveled,
the Pacific Ocean, even the Western Pacific.
He he he traveled the Indian Oceans,
all China Sea, Indian Ocean.
There's even discussion about him going all the
way across the Pacific.
Okay? What did he do?
First, it was a diplomatic
mission.
He was making connections between the peoples of
the regions that he went to and the
Ming dynasty.
And in some cases, he would actually facilitate
on voice
to return with him
back to China
to meet the Ming dynasty leadership.
And so,
it was it was diplomatic. It was also
trade.
So he would bring,
they would carry with them porcelains and
silk
and and and different,
gold and silver. And
they would receive
based on that,
they would get ostriches,
especially from Africa, zebras, camels,
ivory,
giraffes,
all types of gifts that were being given
by the people.
And they traveled to Brunei, Java,
Thailand, Southeast Asia, India,
the Horn of Africa. He went to Mogadishu,
right, Somalia.
He went into Yemen.
Right? All of these here. Did you ever
hear of a Chinese
admiral go into Yemen
or go into Somalia?
No.
And it was shocking at the time because
when he was in,
East Africa,
and there, you know, he he went along
the Horn of Africa and down into now
the Swahili coast,
to Mombasa,
you know, Malindi,
Lamu,
into this area there.
And he visited the town of Kilwa.
There's only ruins left in Tanzania now of
Kilwa.
And, it was described,
by anybody who reached in this area as
as one of the most beautiful cities in
the world. So this is what's left of
Kilwa itself,
up until today. But he reached down this
area, and I even saw a documentary
where there are people
living on the coast there in the Pate
Islands and, you know, they're on the coast,
of, Kenya,
Swahili Coast,
who are part Chinese.
So they say that they are descendants
of,
Chen Heo's people who who stayed for a
little while, intermarried.
Right? And they are
the part,
Swahili
and part Chinese.
So he strengthened the relationships of the people,
of this region.
And another thing that he did is that
he brought
order
to the whole of Southeast Asia.
Because during these journeys, he would ruthlessly
destroy
pirates.
So anybody who was threatening
trade routes
and that's really important on the islands of
Indonesia.
You go up Malaysia, the Malacca Straits, and
then over into the area of Bangladesh
and down, into Oman. And all along that
region there and going to China,
he brought order to the region,
and organized it.
And this this was a world event, a
world class event.
It's a pivot point,
and it it's a great Muslim leader,
who is actually the leader of this event.
So this is another one of our great
heroes,
Chen Jia.
The third that I wanted to look at,
today,
is,
ibn Battuta.
And ibn Battuta,
whose actual name was Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn
Abdullah
Allahuwati,
Atanji.
And, he was born
in 13/04.
He was generally known as ibn Battuta.
It's interesting because, ibn Battuta actually
means the son of, it's like a little
duck,
a duckling.
This bat.
So Batuta
in their language, you know, in sort of
Arabic sized language. So, you know, so it
was like a nickname,
that Ibn Battuta,
was given.
But his name was Mohammed Mohammed
ibn Abdullah.
And,
he was born in the area of Tanja,
of Tangiers,
modern day Morocco.
He grew up in a scholarly family.
And once he had completed his basic studies,
and he was Faqih,
in Maliki Fik. He also studied Shafi'i Fik
as well. So once he,
got his studies together,
you know, then he began,
a series of journeys. His his original intention,
was to make Hajj.
He's, like, 20 years old and, you know,
he he he wants to just to get
out.
And he wants to make his Hajj.
He wants to see
Cairo. He wants to see Mecca and Medina.
He wants to see Damascus.
Open his horizons like many young men,
would want.
And so he he began his journey. And
this picture here, I actually took this picture
myself.
And, this is in Tonja, in Tangiers, Morocco.
So this is what is left,
of the actual place where he was born,
there in Tonja. They fixed it up, of
course, but this would be his alleyway. And
this is and they still keep it, you
know, as a type of museum,
you know, for the home of Ibn Battuta.
He's such an such an important,
traveler.
Ibn Battuta,
he visited
went across North Africa, the Middle East, East
Africa,
Central Asia, you know, Southeast Asia.
He I would consider him,
and many people consider him,
to be the greatest traveler who ever lived.
Now Europeans talk about Marco Polo.
But really, if you look at the journey
of Marco Polo,
which is disputed by a lot of people,
and the journey of Ibn Battuta. Ibn Battuta,
you know, went further than him and had
deeper experiences and was able to catalog it,
in a better way.
And,
he has actually
done a book. It's generally known as the
rehla, rehlaibin Batuta, but it's called a gift
to those who contemplate
the wonders
of cities and the marvels of traveling.
So this is a gift,
that he is giving to you.
And he he totaled in his travel,
117,000
kilometers, 73,000
miles.
This is in those days, right? Think about
this.
He went further than Chen Hui,
okay, who was about 50,000,
about 31,000.
He went further than Marco Polo who's only
15,000.
Okay. Now this is an untold story. It's
a Muslim traveler,
right, coming in the golden age, you know,
of Islam.
But you don't hear about this.
And
it's an amazing story. This is an artist's
conception,
even of of Ivan Batuta. But he must
have been
a very imposing
type of person,
charismatic
kind of person because he was able to,
gain
the the attention
and gain the trust
of people,
everywhere that he went. So his first journey
was to make Hajj,
and he made the pilgrimage,
to Mecca.
That was in, 13/25.
21 years old,
set off.
He had some difficulties on his way, but
made it across North Africa.
He went south in Egypt, but there was
a
revolt
happening. It was the time of the Mamluks,
and there was a revolt happening down in
the south. He had to go back north,
and eventually,
he had to go to Damascus.
So in Damascus,
he,
found a caravan,
and then he went down into Mecca
and Medina,
and he made his pilgrimage. Now normally,
that would be enough because 16 months,
of traveling in those days,
ibn Battuta did not return home for 24
years. He never returned
home, and he continued on his journey.
And this is a
artist's conception of the maps
of the travels of Ibn Battuta.
And,
this is amazing. And if you follow the
different colors there, there there's there's a red
color, there's an orange color, there's a maroon
color.
These are these are the journeys that he
was actually taking,
as an individual. This is amazing because how
much gold he doesn't have a credit card.
Okay? How much gold can you carry with
you?
So he's got to survive
off his wits.
He survives off interaction with the peoples
that that he comes to, and he's able
to move from place to place. So,
what he did on his first journey
was that, you know, he went,
up into,
Damascus and around on those areas.
And then he went into Iraq,
over into Isfahan,
into Shiraz, which is now present day Iran,
up into Tabriz.
Right? All of those areas.
And he went into the area of the
Ilkhanate.
Now you remember how the Mongols had divided
the Golden Horde,
right, and then the Ilkhanate of Hulagu,
right, and then the may the major group,
of the Mongols in China.
So he entered into Tabriz.
Tabriz was the capital,
of the Ilkhanate.
And
he he was such an imposing character
that immediately he was taken to the court
of the Mongol leader, who was impressed by
him. And everywhere he went, he was so
knowledgeable and charismatic
that they wanted him to be the Qadi.
So they wanted him to be the judge
because he had mastered Malek I Fik, also
Shafi'i Fik.
And the Shafi'i Fik was spread into so
many different areas. Maliki fiqh, you know, you
know, was was also a good base.
And so,
he he traveled,
around in these areas.
And, from there,
he returned back,
and he made another Hajj.
He went down into Yemen,
into that area, and then he traveled down
into East Africa.
So he went to Somalia,
Mogadishu.
He went down into Mombasa.
He went to Kilwa.
And this is where he described Kilwa as
a beautiful town,
one of the most beautiful
organized cities
he's ever met in his journey. This is
East Africa.
K? Present day Tanzania. If you ever get
a chance to go there,
you can see it.
Now
from 1332
to 1347,
he made Hajj for the 3rd time.
And then instead of going home, he went
north. He wanted to go north, so he
ended up going into Anatolia.
So that is the present day Turkiye and,
Antalya.
And he went around to, Erzurum.
And it's interesting
because,
he even he wanted to go to Constantinople.
He went north
into this area of Siberia.
He wanted to go to Constantinople.
Okay? Because the Muslims had not conquered Constantinople
at that point. It was the time of
Orhan Bey.
Now remember, we we studied the Turks in
our pivotal moments.
So this was the time of Sultan Orhan
Bey of the Ottoman Empire.
And he made it to Iznik,
which was Nicaea.
And he wasn't able to meet Orhan
because he wrote that Orhan had a 100
forts, and he was constantly moving around
taking care of of his territories. But he
met the wife of Orhan,
and he said she was a gracious
Muslim woman. She treated him kindly.
He he he ended up going on to,
to Constantinople
itself.
And there he met
Andronicus
the third,
who was the the the the Roman Empire,
Byzantine
Roman Empire. This is how impressive he was.
He actually met the emperor.
And
from there,
he traveled back down,
he went east
to Bukhara,
and to Samarkand.
He loved Samarkand and all of this area
there.
Then he returned down to Afghanistan,
and then he went over to India. Now
by that time, most people would be finished.
He continued,
and he went down into India.
And you'll see this trip that he made.
And he met there in India,
the Sultan Mohammed ibn Tughlaq.
This is another Mongol Mughal,
leader of the Mughals,
And he was considered to be the richest
person in the Muslim world
at the time.
And Ibn Battuta was so
charismatic.
He was so influential
that, Sultan Mohammed wanted him to be his
Qadi.
So he took him on as the chief
judge of
Adelhi
in India itself.
And,
he stayed there for a period of time.
He even got married,
but eventually, he wanted to travel because
one of his goals was China.
So he eventually was able to leave India.
He went what is now Pakistan
to the Maldives,
in the Indian Ocean and got a boat,
and he went up into China.
And finally there,
moving around from place to place, he met
Muslim,
Chinese,
who were there,
even somebody who was from North Africa.
And he was able to travel around into
China
and record this information,
and then he started to make his way,
back home until he reached back to to
Morocco.
Now when he reached Morocco,
he found out that his mother,
his his mother and father had passed.
So there was nothing left really to hold
him.
And so he went north into Al Andalus
to struggle with the Muslims because it is
said that Gibraltar was being captured.
So he went to struggle,
but Alfonso did not make it there.
And so he continued on to Valencia and
Granada,
and he writes about this. Then he went
south. And because he's such a a traveler
and he hadn't seen, parts of his own
country,
so he went down into Marrakesh,
and then he went south
to Sejil
Masa, and he crossed the Sahara Desert
to the Mali Empire.
And there,
he actually met
Mansa Suleiman
of the Mali Empire. This is before
Mansa Musa.
And he said that, you know, he never
saw people so interested
in reading the Quran.
And he said the beautiful clothes that they
had, you know, the West African riga,
you know, that the people had.
Meticulous. He said they were meticulous at teaching
their children,
the quote added south. Some of their habits
he didn't like, like bowing down too much,
you know, to the leaders.
And, you know, he made his criticisms,
but he said it was the safest place
he had ever been in all of his
journeys.
He did not have to worry about any
robbers
on the road.
And he wrote about this, you know, in
Israel.
A message came to him while he was
in the town of Gau,
which is there in Mali today, from the
Sultan of Morocco,
Al Maghrib,
that he must return. So he returned to
Tanja
and put his writings,
sat down with the scribes,
gathered information
from other books,
put it together until he had a series
of his journeys, the rihala,
of ibn Batuta
Rahim UHla. So this
is another game changer. This is an important
person.
This is a pivotal moment for us because
it opens our mind to history. You know,
there is some discussion that Chen He,
the Chinese emperor, actually made it to America
itself.
And a person by the name of Gavin
Menzies,
and he wrote wrote a book 14/21,
the year China discovered America.
He's proving
that Chen Yu made it into South America
because they had the boats. Right? They had
enough.
And he's trying to prove this from that
side and there's remnants there of Chinese present,
even though that's so this is a game
changer, a pivotal moment,
for the whole,
of the world.
And, again,
as the Quran
tells us
that, you know, in their stories,
there is cert certainly
lessons
for men of understanding.
And so I want to open up the
floor,
for any questions, that anybody may have,
concerning this untold,
pivot,
the final in our series,
for this semester.
And
this these are stories we can continue to
research.
Look it up, get the documentaries,
and open up the doors of untold understanding.
So I wanna open up the floor. Are
there any questions
that anybody may have,
concerning,
our travelers
and those who are traveling
on the oceans around the world?
Floor is open for any questions. I have
a question online. Yeah.
Went, North Africa
and then Arabia,
East Africa. He went up into, what's now
Turkiye,
up in near Siberia,
India,
then down into Southeast Asia,
and then around up into China.
Right? So the and then back to,
to to Morocco,
which is base,
and then down into,
West Africa
and to,
El Andalus. But even Batuta never made it,
to the Americas.
You know, his main mode of transportation
he would travel any way that he possibly
could. He would ride a horse. He would
ride a donkey. He would ride a camel.
He would take a boat.
Any possible way that he could move, you
know, he would move. He would walk. If
he had to, he would climb.
That this is a resolute
person.
Just imagine what he had to go through.
And if you read Israel,
some of the boats crashed,
almost sunk. He was captured a number a
number of time by robbers.
He had to escape,
from criminals on the road. But he was
intrepid.
He was charismatic.
And and he had this
personality that just impressed people.
And he was able to gain confidence. And
he worked for his living because he was
a faqih.
And he actually established
Islamic law in the Maldives,
the Maldives Islands off India.
He actually established Islamic law there because they
wanted him to be the party.
And actually, he went too far for them
because he was saying that he wanted the
women to dress, you know, better. And, you
know, he wanted, you know, punishment for the
thieves.
And, you know, he was trying to implement
Islam in a majority Muslim area. It was
a little bit too heavy, and so he
eventually left the Maldives. But he worked,
for his living because
Muslims he traveled in Muslim
societies,
and he was he was also a diplomat,
an ambassador, an envoy.
He did so many things, you know, to
earn his living.
K? So the floor is open for any
other general questions,
that anybody may have.
Does China recognize Zheng He as a Muslim?
The question is, does China
recognize Zheng He as a Muslim?
The time of the Olympics, they brought out
his boat,
but they didn't really say that he was
a Muslim itself. But in China itself,
the Chinese Muslims, they're the masjids in Beijing,
and,
he is known. His story is known in
China. I don't think it's put into the
main Chinese textbooks.
But amongst the Chinese Muslims and those, you
know, who study,
they would know that he is a Muslim.
But it's not popular knowledge,
unfortunately.
Did Islam reach the Americas before
Columbus?
Yes. So Islam reached the Americas
before Columbus.
I have a book called Deeper Roots,
and, you can get this text from my
website.
My website is www.hakimquick,
h a k I m
quick.com.
So go to this website, and you can
get my book, Deeper Roots, where I can
bring you the proofs
to show Muslims in America,
before Columbus and other texts.
You know, that are there. There is documented
proof.
So this will be the conclusion of this
semester of our classes
on pivotal moments. To continue,
this journey that we are constantly
to my Facebook page, Sheikh Abdullah Hakim Quick.
It's public figure.
Instagram, abdullah dot quick. I'm on Instagram as
well.
Of course, the website
hakeem quick dotcom.
You can also continue to follow and get
more lessons
out of the Islamic Institute of Toronto's website,
which is Islam
dotca.
So there you can go back. If you
didn't get all of this series,
you can go back, you can join, and,
you know, come on, and you can get
some of the other tapes for the other
pivotal moments
and other,
bits of information
from the Islamic Institute, you know, of Toronto.
We also will continue our classes,
at islam.ca,
and that will be our new Muslim corner,
which will be on Fridays.
Insha'Allah, we'll try to go through the summer
as much as we possibly can. That's Friday
evenings at 7:30.
Friday evenings, you can come on with studying
the life of prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings
be upon him,
for new and revived Muslims. So I leave
you with these thoughts and if anything you've
gained out of this, this is from Allah,
the mistakes are mine. And I ask Allah,
you know, to forgive me and to have
mercy on me and you. I leave you
with these thoughts.
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