Adnan Rashid – Madinat al-Zahra Cordoba Spain July 2024
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Welcome to Madinat Al Zahra.
And as I mentioned earlier,
that, this is
continuation of the Umayyad dynasty.
So it's still the Umayyads.
We had Abdur Rahman
arrive here,
lay the foundations of one of the greatest
civilizations
the world has ever known. So if Abd
ar Rahman, the first, hadn't done what he
did,
then we wouldn't have had Al Andalus,
and we wouldn't have had the great civilization
that we do have
in Spain.
And, also, what would not have happened
for the west?
The Renaissance wouldn't have happened.
You wouldn't have had the transfer of knowledge
from Spain, Al Andalus, from Toledo
to Europe.
They wouldn't have had that knowledge and they
wouldn't have woken up. Not at that time
anyway.
So you had a direct chain of, events
taking place.
So this was very important, Abd ar Rahman
the first arriving here and doing what he
did. You have to really understand how amazing
a guy, an individual
Abdur Rahman the first was.
Why? Remember what happened to his family.
Imagine being in his shoes.
You're a young guy. He was a teenager.
You your family
is the superpower of the world at that
time.
Okay? Nobody comes close. They were the superpower.
The Umayyads were the superpower.
And imagine
everything being taken away,
your whole family being wiped out,
being on the run for 5 years, being
the most wanted man on the face of
this Earth. Can you imagine the bounty on
his head that the Abbasids had sent?
Anybody who hands him over, gives information,
ridiculous amount of bounty, ransom for him.
So he's on the run. He can't trust
anybody
because if he tells anybody who he is,
somebody
will tell the Abbasids.
He witnesses his own 11 year old brother
being beheaded on the run. While they were
on the run. They had to dive into
the Euphrates.
His brother couldn't swim. He came back and
the Abbasids
promised they wouldn't do anything. But in front
of his own eyes, they beheaded his younger
brother. He continues, makes his way to Morocco.
We all heard why did he come to
Morocco?
His mother's from there. Okay. He will find
sanctuary. He will find help there.
Now
did he do what most of us would
have done and, like, you know, broken down
and become depressed and everything has been taken
away? The whole world is against me and
that's it. Like, you know, I'm angry now,
and I'm not I'm just gonna fade away
into history.
No. This 20 year old, 21 year old
guy looked across the water from Tangiers
because you can see Al Andalus from there.
You can see Spain from there. And he
says, right. That's where I'm gonna go and
make my destiny.
And he came across. He took over
control very very quickly,
took control and laid the foundations.
He had to fight on three fronts.
He had to fight the Christians in the
north. He had to deal with the Abbasids
who were trying to bring him down because
they wanted to finish him off. He also
had to deal with the local
Muslims, the emirs that were here. Remember? There
was infighting. You had all these emirs
who were here
carving out little kingdoms for themselves. And then
all of a sudden this kid comes along
and changes everything. So they wanna bring him
down. They wanna deal with him. So he
has to fight on three fronts
while at the same time
establishing
the greatest civilization at that time.
Building roads, castles,
bridges,
institutes, etcetera,
laying the infrastructure down. What an achievement.
What a leader.
There's many many stories, many many stories about
him. How how old was he roughly when
he arrived in Anadol? 20, 21 years old.
He was 15, 16 years old when all
this happened in Damascus.
5 years, we know he was on the
run. So when he arrived here, 20, 21
years old.
Was how old?
18. 18, 19, something like that as far
as we know. How old was Mohammed bin
Qasim?
17.
17, 18 years old. Teenagers
were the driving force.
Imagine Mohammed bin Qasim 711, 712 in Sindh
dealing with an army of a 100, 200,
2 how many how many was it? Well
outnumbered. No. Well outnumbered. Well outnumbered.
And the Muslim army was much smaller. Taariq
ibn Ziyad, we know the numbers there. 12,000.
They were 7,000 first, re and, reinforced with
another 5,000, 12,000
against an army of a 100,000.
Well outnumbered.
These were the two front lines of Islam
on both ends.
On the eastern end and the western end.
These are the front lines
led by teenagers.
And and a very quick point I want
to add before I forget because we're moving
on quite fast.
If you think about Abdul Rahman the first
life on the run as a fugitive,
you realize
that
you realize that,
that he has been put through this hardship
for a greater purpose.
If you had seen him then when he
was on the run, you would feel sorry
for him. The whole world is against him.
The whole world is crashing down on him.
Right? The Abbasid empire is against him.
Caliph
Safa and then al Mansur, a great
powerful figure with
a immense with an immense army at his
disposal. He's after
this one young man.
They want to kill him so that there
is no Umayyad threat left.
So the whole world would feel sorry for
him, but Allah took him through that journey,
through hardship.
He's running on foot. He's hiding,
and then he's running. He's hiding. Then he's
running. He's hiding.
Imagine those 4, 5 years when he's on
the run.
So think about it. What is Allah preparing
him for? Allah knows the future. We don't.
Sometimes in life, we face challenges
and we start saying, why me? Why me?
Why me? Oh, Allah. Why me? Why me?
But we don't know what Allah wants to
do with us. We don't know what Allah
plans for us in the future. Abdulrahman the
first, he is the far he's the one
who laid the foundations of
Muslim rule
in
Al Andalus.
I don't think it was Tariq bin Zayed
or Musa bin Nusayr or others who came
afterwards.
It was Abdul Rahman the first who actually
laid the foundation of
an organized
state
that continued for the next 300 years.
And then, of course, afterwards, we discussed what
happened. So keep in mind, when hardships come,
not that we look forward to them, but
if Allah has chosen chosen you for hardships,
then endure because Allah plans to do something
great with you. This is the idea. Thank
you.
Okay. I'll hold it. Oh, yeah. You can
hold it. Yeah.
Yes. Exactly. And, Abdulrahman, the first, we
do, as I mentioned early, the bulk of
our work is youth work. We work with
young people, and we have a project called,
Deep Roots, the Muslim Youth Leadership Program.
The main character in that is Abdur Rahman.
Because if you wanna study a great leader,
he's one of the greatest leaders that you
could you can study.
So Abdur Rahman the first arrives, lays the
foundations,
and they go from strength to strength. Now
remember Abdurrahman the first arrives here with what?
Nothing.
What's just happened to his family?
Wiped out. What's happened to the Khalifa that
they had? It's taken away from them. Okay?
Fast forward now and you have Abdurrahman the
third.
What does he have? Everything. Has everything.
Does he have family now?
He has huge family.
Does he have a history? Does he have
armies?
Does he have wealth? Does he have power?
And what does he do? He also
reclaims the Khalafah.
He's reclaiming the Khalafah.
K. It was taken away from his ancestors.
He's reclaiming it here. And, also, what is
more well, not more important. What is important
is where is he doing it?
Where is he reclaiming the Khalifa? Where are
we?
Where is Andalus? Western Europe. In Europe?
The very place today saying, oh, Islam has
nothing to do with the West? Come on.
There's a Khalifa here.
The Khalifa was based here. This is where
he was based. You saw exactly the spot
where he was
made caliph.
You stood in the very spot where he
was actually made the caliph.
So, what does he do? This is a
big big event now. You know, declaring yourself
as a caliph is not a small thing,
it's a major thing. You can't just go
around claiming yourself caliph. You have to do
something, you have to show the world something.
Okay? America wanted to show the world that
they're the superpower of the world now. They
wanted to make the statement. How did they
do it?
They bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This was a statement to the world. They
didn't need to do this. Japan had been
defeated.
They didn't need to do this. But they
actually wanted to show the world that we're
not just saying it with words.
We want to show you that you mess
with us now, we'll wipe out whole cities.
Whole cities we can wipe out now. This
was a statement to the word. So what
does Abd al Rahman the 3rd do? He
goes and bombs Saragossa,
wipes it off the face of the earth.
Not really. There was no bombs at that
time.
What does he do? Builds a brand new
city. He builds
a brand new city for the first time
in Europe. What do I mean by that
brand new city being built for the first
time in Europe?
Other cities
had grown like Rome, Aphis. They've grown from
towns and villages, and as they became powerful.
But for the first time, somebody came along
and says, I'm gonna build a brand new
city. This is where the palace is gonna
be. This is where the, Masjid is going
to be. This is where the administration,
the sewage, the streets are gonna be like
this. What we call city planning
that took place here. Okay. So it builds
a brand new city here.
Okay. And that's what we're gonna be doing.
We'll stop there. We need to go inside.
But we're gonna go inside, see the museum,
see the film, then make our way out.
As I mentioned, that's where the 10% of
the archaeological site is. We're gonna go there
and the this is as far as the
bus can take us. The bus cannot take
us up there. So we have to go
up along there, around the back.
And you see the yellow building?
Then we're gonna have a wander around the
archaeological site and make our way back to
the bus. Okay. Everybody got their walking shoes?
What is that big building there? Not really.
We're not gonna be walking up. There's gonna
be a shuttle bus which is gonna take
us from here and take us up there.
It's a monastery. It's a monastery. That's a
old monastery. Yeah. That's a monastery.
Okay.
So That's brother Tariq has done
a good introduction of what the city represents.
When we get to the site, then we
can look at things step by step. The
the documentary
will, highlight
those, develop, developing stages of the city.
And,
there are a few important things that we
want to mention as to why Abdul Rahman
the third,
did this. Okay?
One of the main reasons was caliphate. 929,
he declares himself to be a caliph. Now
a caliph cannot be living
in
a a a humble abode because he's now
a caliph, so he has to now show
splendor
and a spectacle
of his caliphate or for his caliphate. So
he builds a city here, and it this
starts in 9:36.
It starts between 936 to 940 CE, and
it continues being built
well into the reign of his son, Hakam
the second, who ruled from 961 to 976.
Okay? So he ruled for 15 years.
Abdul Haman the third, his reign was
painfully long.
How long was it? What do you think?
He came to power in 912
912
as a very young man,
and he ruled until
961.
How long is his reign?
50. About 50 years.
He had a long time to do a
lot of things, and he did. He was
a very powerful, effective ruler,
very organized, very
strategic in his thinking because he made a
falling
emirate into a real power.
Because when he came to power of the
third,
his power was simply confined within
the walls of the city of Cordoba. He
didn't control much outside, and then he went
out crushing rebellions.
So scholars divide
his reign into 3 parts.
Okay?
The first part is the expansion part,
the aggressive part where he goes out to
assert his power
to take the reins of power into his
own hand, defeats
his enemies, rebels,
invades the border territories in the north to
basically show that he's the boss.
He's the man who rules this territory.
Okay? He will not tolerate any rebellions.
So this part,
it it basically starts from 912 to 929
when he declares himself to be the caliph.
After caliph, it starts.
He, of course, turns into a completely different
monster. Now he's a caliph. He represents Islam.
He's not only representing his small principality here
in,
Cordoba or in Spain, rather he is now
claiming to be khalifa
to Allah.
Okay. He is the representative of Allah on
earth.
So that's why now he has to show
that. So from 929
to 939,
he's again on an expansion
spree. Right?
But something crazy happens in 939
that tells him to hold on.
Go easy.
Not so fast.
It was a disastrous
loss,
in 939,
the battle of Khandak. It's called Khandak. Okay?
It's not the battle of the ditch the
prophet fought in Medina. It's another battle of
the ditch where he was nearly killed in
the battle.
Okay. This is 939 CE.
And after that day, he never personally took
part in a battle because his advisers told
him,
caliph, you are the caliph. If you get
killed on the battlefield, you leave us in
chaos. You cannot die. You have to live.
So don't not not on the front line.
You're not fighting anymore. You're not on the
battlefield. So he remained behind in Cordoba,
and he focused more on developing the state,
which was again succeeded by his son, Akm
the second, who became the next caliph. So
this is a short introduction of the of
Durman the third. Okay. I have his coins
in my pocket. We will look at them.
They were minted right here. Those coins from
Madinatul Zahara were minted right here. We will
look at them later on. Inshallah, let's make
a move to the museum and to the
documentary theater.
Okay.
We are right now
in this museum.
It represents
Madinat of Zara.
Madinat of Zara was named after the famous
the the not not not the most famous,
but,
the favorite
concubine
of Abdulhaman the third.
Right? Her name was Zahra.
Okay. So he named the entire city
after
his, favorite concubine.
Okay.
And
this city represented his power, his glory,
his strength as a caliph, his wealth.
So as we will see in the documentary,
we will just, go into the auditorium,
and they
they will play a documentary that will show
us how the city was built and why
it was built. It's in Spanish. You're gonna
have to focus on the English subtitles,
but it is absolutely mind blowing. Okay? What
we have today
is 10%.
Only 10% has been excavated.
The rest still remains under
earth, and it was only excavated recently just
about a 100 years ago. This city was
lost, by the way. This was a lost
city. What other lost cities come to mind?
Atlantis. This was the Atlantis of of Al
Andalus. No one knew where Madinatul Zahra is.
It's mentioned in the sources. There is so
much about it. Right? But no one actually
had seen it. So only a 100 years
ago,
they found
some remains of it, and they started to
dig. And what we will see later on
today
are the remains of. Are we ready for
the documentary? Yeah. Yeah. In few minutes? Exactly.
10 is locked. Okay.
Yeah. If you want to yeah.
Okay. Anyone who wants to look at the
coins? Can you touch it also? Yeah. You
can touch them. These are
coins from the reign of Abdul Rahman
the 3rd. These are his coins. His name
is mentioned
on the coins. Do please do not squeeze
them. Do not drop them. Do not try
to take test their strength because they're very
fragile. Do not step on them. Do not
do not bite them. You can take one,
Naveen.
Yeah. So
yeah. They're very fragile. But the name of
Abdulhaman
the third is mentioned there. Okay?
Abdulhaman,
his name is mentioned there, and the the
mint,
is also mentioned
on the coin. Okay? The mint is also
mentioned.
Right? So
these are dirhams minted right here.
You can only find them with,
a museum a walking museum called Adnan Rashid.
Oh, yeah. Okay? Right? And he's he's gonna
give one away to you on the Mhmm.
From South Africa.
No. These are not for giving away. These
are only for looking and beholding and Okay.
Okay. And getting inspiration. Okay. Then Okay. So
but these these are made here. What what
what's so amazing is that they were possibly
used by someone in this city once upon
a time That's it. Walking around this city,
which is now under Earth.
Okay? So,
these are dirhams. Dirham is a silver coin.
How did you get hold of them? How
did I get hold of them? This is
a question.
This is why I wear this hat. You
know, Indiana Jones? Yeah. Yeah. I go I
go
no. I I buy them from coin dealers
and different,
collectors. There are collectors who collect these,
and there are dealers who sell them. Right?
So they're all legally acquired.
Yeah.
Yeah. So so so there is a lot
of information on them, by the way, but
I we cannot read them at at at
this point at this moment. Yes, dear. Okay.
So this is Madinah Zara. We're gonna okay.
We're gonna now make our way, and we
will continue with the vlog later on once
we get to the marina to Zahra, Insha'Allah.
Thank you so much.
We are in a very important defining moment
in the history of Al Andalus.
And again, as I keep saying, there's lots
of lessons for us. But it's a defining
moment in the fact in the point because
we started with Tariq ibn Ziyad conquering. Abd
ar Rahman arrives, lays the foundations
of al Andalus, the civilization that was to
come. They go from strength to strength to
strength,
and this is the peak.
This is the high point of the Islamic
civilization here.
Okay. So what is the defining moment? It's
the building of Madin al Zahra. At this
moment Al Andalus is so powerful
so so powerful that there is actually a
Khalifa based here. We have a Khalifa here
now.
Okay. The Khalifa, he was he had a
throne room,
Dignitaries were coming from all over the world,
including big parts of Europe as well. You
saw in the film
how many, many, many kings from and dignitaries
from Europe were coming here to pay homage,
to show
loyalty,
to, get favors from the caliph based here
in Al Andalus to Abd ar Rahman the
third. So when we talk about the khilafa,
we don't just mean Al Andalus.
Big chunk of North Africa was part of
Al Andalus at that time, and many,
countries in Europe
many countries in Europe,
including places like Switzerland, etcetera,
they were paying
to Abdurrahman
the third here.
K. We have evidence of this. We have
proof of this that they were paying
at that time. So when you pay,
generally speaking, that's part of your empire, basically.
So big chunks of Europe were part of
the Khilafah
of al Andalus at that time.
So why is this a defining moment? It's
a defining moment because of the deep lesson
is so when you reach a peak,
what happens after that?
The only way is down. So now things
are gonna start falling apart.
What happens is you have Abdurrahman.
He passes away. Al Hakam, his son takes
over after him. He leaves behind an heir
who's just a bit of a nobody. Well,
he's he's very very young.
He's very young. So he can't really run
a huge empire like this.
So who really takes over
is Al Mansur.
Who was Al Mansur?
Who remembers?
Who was Al Mansur?
But what what have we discussed about him
so far? What did he do?
Sorry?
He was the?
Yes. The he was, but what we've discussed
so far, where do you remember him from?
We fought from someone mountain east of They
don't remember. I'm leaving. They want no.
No. No. Yesterday, you remember Punishment. Prescribe some
punishment.
Dinner tonight is on who? No. No. Put
put monetary fine. They will remember all the
details. Okay.
So remember the 4th extension to Masjid Al
Kortuba? The 4th extension
where he paid the old lady, and he
was buying houses and that. He was the
emir. Okay? He takes over now. He started
from humble beginnings, but he made his way
all the way up to the top and
became the prime
minister. In the West, he's hated.
Okay. They were petrified of this guy. Absolutely
petrified.
Because every time there was a change of
rulership here, obviously the Christians in the north
were always trying
to make inroads
into Al Andalus. And when there's a change
of power, there's instability. This is a good
time to take over if you're gonna take
over somewhere. So what Abdul Mansur would do
is every year, he would run campaigns into
the north
and put the Christians in their place to
say, right, don't mess like, you know, don't
even think about trying to do anything with
Al Andalus. The other point about him was
that the Muslim battle cry is what? Allahu
Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
So what the Christians started to do was,
you know, in in Christianity there's a lot
of like, you know, relics and things like
this because it's a control system. Okay. So
to get people to follow you, you say,
oh, somebody saw the Virgin Mary over there.
Somebody saw a certain saint over there. We
found this. This is a piece of the
true cross and that and that brings people
and, you know, emotions and things like that.
And they use that to
drive Christianity.
So in one battle,
they discovered
the
the
bones
of Santiago, Saint James, who was one of
the disciples of Jesus.
There's no proof evidence that he ever came
to Spain.
Nobody ever knows of any story where he
actually came to Spain, but the church used
that and they said, oh, because Santi there's
one battle which the Christians won. It says,
because Santiago
was there, he helped you win this battle.
So the Christian battle cry became
Santiago,
and he became he became the patron saint
of Spain. And today, I'll I'll send a
photo later on in the group. But even
in the mosque and around Spain,
there's statues
of Santiago.
Okay. He's sitting on a horse,
and the horse has got his hooves raised
up, and they're trampling a Muslim underneath.
He's given the title Santiago Matamora, the Moor
Slayer,
the killer of Moors.
And that became their battle cry. And then
in the north is Santiago de Compostia,
the biggest
pilgrimage in Christianity.
Today,
the biggest pilgrimage
in Christianity is to Santiago de Compostia.
People come from all over the world,
and they go walking
for 100 of miles for
days and make a pilgrimage to Santiago de
Compostia.
Even today, every year this happens. It's the
biggest pilgrimage in the world, not to Jerusalem,
to Santiago.
Okay? What did
in the north in the north. Northwest. Northwest.
Okay.
So,
what did Al Mansur do?
Al Mansur used to do battles every year.
He used to go campaign.
He went and sacked Santiago
de
He sacked it, the bells from there, from
the monastery. He made
carry them, bring them to Cordoba, and he
turned them into lamps to decorate Masjid Cordoba.
Okay. But he didn't touch the priests.
You know, we have the saying that the
priests and monks in in in Islam,
there's a commandment that don't touch them. Leave
them alone. And that's why he said to
his soldiers, he said don't touch them.
And just to quickly add,
what are those 10 commandments?
Not 10 commandments of Moses,
but 10 rules
or regulations,
Muslim army or Muslim generals
must obey and abide by.
Let's cut it short. Do not kill women,
do not kill children, do not kill elderly,
do not cut trees, do not kill animals
unless you're eating them, do not kill monks
who are in the monasteries.
That's a very important clause, and this comes
directly from the companions of the prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Abu Bakr
when he was sending this expedition to,
Syria led by Yazid bin Abi Sufyan. Yazid
bin Abi Sufyan
was the elder brother of Mu'awiyah, razhi Allahu'an.
When he was sent on an expedition by
Abu Bakr, these 10,
instructions are given and they can be found
in Kitabul Jihad
of Mu'athfa
of Imam Malik. So these guys are what?
They are already Malikis.
They are Malikis.
So nothing could be higher for them
in authority than Imam Malik's Muwatha, which is
very popular. So they abided by those rules.
Thank you. Continue. It's Zaklakha for that. So,
Al Mansur, he went and sacked that to
show them you are praising santiago of Allahu
Akbar. Allah is greater And then also as
mentioned yesterday, Al Mansur,
it said that he used to carry a
handwritten Quran which he apparently wrote himself
everywhere he went. And then when he used
to come back from the battles, he would
ask his servants to shake the dust off
his clothes
and gather the dust, and then he left
in his will that
when I die, bury me with this dust.
So on the day of judgment, when my
hishab is done, this bears witness how much
I fought in the way of Allah. He
also built another wonder city. This is called
Madinatal.
He built Madinatal
Zahira,
another city which was further down completely ruined.
Al Mansur,
he came from nowhere. He's not nobility. He's
not royalty. He's not nothing like that. Okay?
So he needs to protect himself.
Friends can be disloyal as well, but otherwise
Marry into loyalty or You can marry, but
also
you buy
Loyalty. Mercenaries.
So he had a mercenary army, which was
Berbers.
Okay.
And what happened is a mistake al Mansur
made
was when he was dying, he tried to
place one of his sons as the new
caliph.
Remember, he didn't declare himself caliph. He declared
himself amir, but when he tried to put
his son, now what's he doing? He's challenging
who?
The Umayyads.
He's directly challenging. Are the Umayyads gonna be
happy? No. In of course, the renewal Mansoor
is running things, but officially, he's not the
caliph. Okay. He's a mere riot. Okay. Everybody
lives with it. Fine.
But now if you officially say in your
face that, okay. No. We're gonna become the
caliph now. So what happened is civil war.
Civil war amongst the Muslims.
Okay. This wasn't destroyed by Christians.
This was destroyed by Muslims.
Masjid called, the, library of Cordoba wasn't destroyed
by Christians. It was destroyed by Muslims.
Cordoba wasn't sacked by Christians. It was sacked
by Muslims because the Berber army, the mercenaries,
they're loyal to?
When they realized that, okay, there's a civil
war going on here. Maybe our guy is
gonna lose.
Our paymaster may be gone. So what should
we do? Let's just grab what we can.
So they started to loot and pillage and
take whatever they could, and then they went
whatever. And then what happens, this is why
this is a defining moment, is Al Andalus
breaks up into lots of petty kingdoms known
as molokota
wives.
Molokota wives. Okay?
Petty kingdoms
with petty rulers,
each competing with one another,
against one another, turning to the Christians to
come and help us to defeat
my next door neighbor.
And then after a little while, the Christians
will take over my kingdom and your kingdom
and start carrying on 1 by 1. So
this is a defining moment because what happens
is this is where the downfall begins now.
Okay. From this, it's just downhill.
1 by 1, the Christian kingdoms are being
taken, but then we had the 2
revivals by
and
then these were the 2 revivals.
Then after that, no more revivals and we
will carry on to Granada to see how
the final
fall happened
and the end happened. So why is this
a defining moment, and what lesson do we
have to take from this?
Okay.
This, you remember right at the beginning, is
the,
the blueprint.
The blueprint.
Is the blueprint for what?
For colonialism,
occupation,
etcetera, etcetera, that we see that's called went
on around the world. This is a blueprint
for it. How is it the blueprint?
So if today
you want to know how do you defeat
Islam and Muslims,
Do we have an example in history? We
have 1400 years of Islamic history now. That's
a long time.
Okay? So do we have an example in
history where this has happened? Where we've been
able completely been able to deal with them
or wipe them out or so you look
at all of Islamic history, where is the
only place where this took place?
No. Brother, come on.
Al Andalus, exactly where we are.
We need to find some people.
Yeah.
I know people are coming. We need to
make examples.
We need to make examples. Yes.
So,
Al Andalus is the only place. Okay. So
let's study this now. Let's study Al Andalus.
What happened?
From this point to this point, couldn't touch
them.
Too powerful.
Too strong.
So what was going on from here to
here?
Okay. Okay. They had one leader. Initially, an
amir
and then
a caliph. But in whichever context, there was
one leader and the whole entity was united
as one.
When were we able to start taking
land and,
you know, the, empire from them? So at
this point from this point, what was going
on at this point? They were all divided.
They were chopped up into.
So how do we take that blueprint
and apply it globally now?
Okay. This is an example. How do we
apply globally? What did we have until 1922?
In principle, whether it was functioning, khalafar.
Okay. Whether it was working or whatever it
was, but from the time of the prophet
until now, we had the Institute.
What happened to the Institute of the Khalifa?
It was?
It was it was it
was
dismantled.
Officially dismantled by who? The autumn is British.
British and?
French.
And the French. And this was called what?
The chopping up of the Ottoman Empire was
known as the Sykes. Sykes Picot Agreement. Sykes
Picot Agreement.
The chopping up. So after that, the Muslim
nation, which was one in name initially,
became what?
Became? Nation states became.
Powers to help them deal with their fellow
exactly the same. This is a blueprint.
This is a recipe. Same thing happened in
India. Same thing happening in India. Same thing
happening in other places.
So if others
have studied
this history,
learned from this history, applying this history, what
should we, as Muslims, be doing?
We should also be learning from this because
it's only when you learn from history that
you can recognize what is happening today. It's
only when you recognize what is happening today
that you can do something about it. Remember
I gave the example that if on this
tour, I'm going along every day taking something
from you, taking something from the from you,
from you, from you, and you don't even
realize
I'll be successful.
But if you wake up, you realize I've
taken something, and you tell everybody else, what
are you gonna do? Beat you up. Beat
me up.
But more than that,
you will make sure that I'm not able
to do you will defend it, and you
will recognize what moves I make that, oh,
okay. He does it like this or he
does it like that. You recognize how he
did it. Just like that now today, that
if we don't look at history and we
don't understand what is happening,
you won't recognize what is happening today. So
if you don't recognize what is happening today,
how are you gonna do anything about it?
You carry on blindly. You just think that,
oh, it's happening. It's just random. It's just
a coincidence.
No. It's not a coincidence.
Okay? So this is a very, very important
defining moment in the history. A lot of
lessons. We will talk more about it later
on,
but just remember where we are in the
in the timeline.
And then after this, the Mulukul Tawafs, then
the 2 revivals which we've already seen in
Seville, but then after this, we head. We're
following the chronology. Remember we're following the chronology.
After this, we're gonna go where now to
Granada.
Granada held out for 200 years.
We're gonna see what happened in Granada,
how it fell, why it fell, and then
finally, on Friday,
we will go into the Al Bukhara mountains,
where the remnants of the Muslims that were
left here, the Moriscos who were forced to
convert to Christianity,
where they ended up and how they were
wiped out, how they were ethnically cleansed.
Okay. So that's the timeline,
that we are following. That's where we are
in the history.
You wanna add or you wanna turn it
on? Yeah. Just very quickly, I wanna add
to the personalities, you know, just to focus
on the personalities
a bit more.
Abdurrahman the third
is the person responsible for building this city
or this city state, you can call it.
It's like an estate,
which is a giant
project.
Okay? He started
it in 936
CE
about, you can say, 7 years after he
declared himself to be the caliph in the
West.
Okay. Why he did that is a long
story.
Scholars have talked about it. He was basically
trying to assert his Islamic
right as he saw,
as he saw it because the Fatimids were
rising in North Africa.
In Egypt, the Fatimid Caliphate, the Shia
Fatimid Caliphate was taking territory,
in North Africa. They were coming westwards.
So the
3rd,
had
to reassert his claim to caliphate, the initial
Umayyad claim, because he descended. He was a
direct descendant of the
Umayyads.
Right? Direct direct line. So he reasserted it
to be able to save his domain in
Andalus and also
North Africa. So he raided North Africa and
he took territory from the Fatimids to stop
them. Okay. This he did,
with this goal
in mind because the Abbasids now
have lost
power. By this time, the Abbasids in Baghdad
are already in sharp decline,
right? By 9th century or by the, by
10th century, the Abbasids are already falling, Right?
So he knew the Abbasids are not able
to do anything about the Fatimid, so he
had to do something. And he said, okay,
I'm the caliph.
I have the I have the bloodline.
I have the claim. I'm Qurayshi. I'm Umayyad,
and I'm claiming to be the caliph. Okay.
And this was a very strategic move on
his part. Okay? Because once you become a
caliph, then you become an Islamic authority.
Right? Then you have to be obeyed by
the Muslims in the land. Right? So those
who are fighting you, those who are rebelling
against you from petty,
kingdoms or petty towns or petty principalities, let's
say, they now become traitors to Islam. You
see that you see you see what's happening
here? They become now so this was a
very genius move on his part. In order
to unite the Muslims around his personality and
around his entity, he did this, right?
And this is why he became what he
became. Abdul Rahman the 3rd, the most powerful
man.
An Nasir. An Nasir. An Nasir. Okay. His
title was An Nasir. Okay.
The the one who does nusra for the
deen of Allah. Right? So he claimed this
highly religious, highly charged title for himself,
and this is why he built the city,
Madinatul Zahra, so that he can show his
splendor, his power, his glory,
and the spectacle
when all those northern Christian kingdoms send their
ambassadors
from, let's say, France and Britain and Germany,
they are come as you saw in the
documentary, they're walking in and they are being
blown away because for
kilometers,
many kilometers,
what is what do you see on the
road? You see soldiers.
Okay? They are called
Okay. These are Slavic
Eastern European
slaves bought from slave markets because at this
time,
Europeans started to invade
when I say Europeans, Western Europeans
started to invade Eastern Europe, and they bought
many slaves from there. When they would invade
territories, they would capture people, and then they
would be sold in slave markets. There would
be Jewish
merchants who would buy them and who would
bring them to Al Andalus and sell them,
and the caliph would buy these slaves, and
this became a huge
contingent. Actually, he depended on these,
slaves,
military slaves, who became very powerful, very influential,
very educated,
to the extent that the Umayyads
started to go into decline. The Umayyad families,
because there were too many intrigues, the caliph
wanted diehard loyal
followers,
loyalists like his sons, you know. So these
slaves were bought by the caliph. The caliph
was directly owning them. They were like his
sons. They would defend the caliph with their
lives because they had no loyalties. They had
lost their families back home, they were now
slaves, so the caliph was the father.
This is why
Jaafar,
the man Who is Jaafar?
Who is Jaafar?
The eunuch.
The
eunuch. The eunuch. Who was he?
The the what?
His title.
Finds.
We have to find. We have to find.
Okay. Okay. So
Ja'far is the man who is mentioned on
the arch in Masjid Kartoba. Remember the name
Ja'far?
Yes. After the caliph,
after the caliph's name. What was the name
of the caliph?
Al Hakam.
Al Hakam
and immediately after Al Hakam's name is Ja'far,
who is Hajib, who is the prime minister.
Okay. And he was from the Saqaleba.
He was from that he was a
eunuch, right?
Eunuchs are castrated slaves who are used for
specific reasons, and they became so powerful. Some
of them became wazirs and generals and administrators.
So the caliph depended on them because they
didn't fear rebellion from them. They would not
succeed because they didn't have any clans backing
them, like the Berbers, like the Arabs, like
the Syrians and the Yemenis. Too many problems.
So the caliphs, they decided to help with
these clans, I'm gonna make my own army
who are going to be my die hard
followers.
Same thing happens with Hakam the second. Now,
very quickly, I wanna move forward because we're
taking too much time
here. Hakam, Al Hakam was also ruling from
here. He ruled from 961 to 976.
He built one of the largest libraries
in the world at the time.
400,000
volumes,
400 1,000 handwritten
manuscripts
in his library. This was unprecedented
in the history of the world. Never before
such a large number of books,
including the library of the famous library of?
Baghdad and
Alexandria.
Baghdad, I cannot say. Baghdad Probably bigger. Probably
bigger. Probably bigger. But when I say
in the world, he has created something
40 volumes
alone, folios, 40 folios
were just the the catalog,
just the catalog. He had female
scribes,
scholars
transcribing
manuscripts for him for for him. He had
specifically sent agents around the world in the
eastern part of the Muslim world, Baghdad, Damascus,
Samarkand, Bukhara. He would send agents
to go and buy just do just buying
books, nothing else.
Just buying books
for him to bring those books back to
his library and so that they can be
transcribed or copied and put into his library.
Unfortunately,
unfortunately,
all of that was destroyed here.
When in 10/13
in 10 when when when was the city
started? This one?
936.
In 10/13,
the Berbers, the army,
as mentioned by brother Tariq, they came in
and they destroyed the city. And with the
city
went the library up in flames, unfortunately.
Right? One of the greatest treasures of Islam,
we don't know what we lost there. All
the books on philosophy, poetry, literature, tafsir
and hadith and Quran manuscripts possibly coming from
the time of the prophet or companion, All
of that went up in flames, unfortunately.
2 2 or 3 catastrophes
we must not forget in our history.
I'll mention,
them 1 by 1. That library
lost here in Madinatul Zahra,
okay?
The second library was when Baghdad was sacked
by the Mongols in 12/58.
They destroyed the library of Baghdad. We don't
know what we lost there. And the third
destruction was in Granada in 14/92.
Over a 1000000 books were collected by the
Catholic,
priests and monarchs
Ferdinand and Isabella. They were put to fire
in a square that we will see, Insha'Allah,
we will visit. Right? These catastrophes,
unfortunately
are irreversible. We don't know what we lost
there. On that note, we'll stop there. Again,
Ibnu Abi Amir was also a very important
figure here related to Madinat al Zahra. Three
figures, Abdur Rahman the 3rd, Hakim the second,
and Ibnu Abi Amir al Mansur. Okay. Al
Mansur. His name is Ibnu Abi Amir,
also known as Al Mansur. He was also
very active here. So let's go, inshallah.
We will start moving down there,
and, then we have some time. We're going
to look the ruins,
and then come back. We have a very
good view of the ruins.
This is Madinah tul Zahra.
Only 10%
of it has been excavated.
What you see down there in the valley,
pretty much the rest of the the city
is under those fields.
It could be
very far. We still don't have any idea
as to how much is actually buried there.
Okay? But this this this part with the
the with the roofs, you can see,
with the with the triangular
roofs, this is the great hall. The the
the audience hall where the caliph would receive,
dignitaries and ambassadors
to basically,
you know, give them a sense of awe.
Okay?
Because this was lavishly decorated. Unfortunately, it's locked
for the past few years because they're doing
renovations in there, but it's an absolutely amazing
sight to see. So you can where you're
standing right now could easily be royal quarters.
Okay. Caliphs'
favorite wives and concub living in these quarters,
and, the royal family, cousins and aunts and
maybe,
people from the royal family. And the wazir
also would be living somewhere close by.
The details are far too many for us
to discuss right now, so let's keep moving,
inshallah. Okay?
Yeah. The cameraman is back. So just try
to have an idea of,
the magnificence
of this city when it was
newly built.
It would be
so awesome and so
amazing
that anyone who came here, people who have
actually visited the city, they they have described
it, that there's nothing like it in the
world. There was a nun, a German nun,
who came to Cordoba in 10th century. Her
name was
if I'm,
pronouncing it correctly because that's how the word
is written in the English language.
She described
the city of Cordoba and what he saw
here around
the the city
as the ornament of the world.
Okay. The ornament of the world. Obviously,
she was
directly inspired
by
what she saw here. So now we are
walking
in the in the streets
or in the in the pathways
where only the royalty would walk. An ordinary
person from Cordoba,
a Muslim or a non Muslim, could never
make to this place. They were not allowed
to come here.
Sorry. Can we
Yeah. No worries. Thank you. Thank you so
much.
So this is strictly
for the royalty. This where you're walking right
now,
easily the royal family, their servants, their chosen
servants,
high ranking eunuchs,
and
slaves and slave girls,
they would be serving in these quarters.
Right?
And some of these slaves
who
were part of the the Royal household,
they would become so influential and so powerful
that that they would even challenge
people who had who would who would have
royal bloodline,
right? Like the Umayyads.
So these slaves
were very, very powerful. They were not not
slaves anymore. We have so many examples in
the history of Islam where slaves became kings
and sultans. For example,
what is the famous dynasty?
We have
There is a dynasty called the slave dynasty.
Where was it?
The Mamluks of where? Egypt. Egypt. Egypt. The
Mamluks of Egypt. The word Mamluks literally means
slaves.
Slave kings
and Memeluks
basically took power from the Ayyubids.
When the Ayyubids had become weak politically,
The Memeluks who were the slaves of the
Ayyubids, they took power from the Ayyubids,
and they ruled
around 12 50 CE
to 15/17
when the Ottomans,
Sultan Salim
defeated
the Memeluks and took the land of Hejaz,
and Egypt from the Mamluks. But there was
another
slave dynasty.
No. No. No.
Very often belittled
and not appreciated as much as the Mamluks
of Egypt, but they were no less powerful.
Where is this second slave dynasty? In India.
India. India. India. India. India. The Mamluk dynasty
of India where slaves, Turkic slaves
became so powerful
that they created this dynasty called the Delhi
Sultanate.
Right? That lasted from the year around 1200
to 1526
when Zayruddin Babur, the 1st Mughal emperor, came
from Central Asia, and he took this land.
Now look at this.
This is absolutely amazing. This is
amazing.
This is a structure standing
to this day. Obviously, it has been renovated.
There are still remnants from the time.
You can still see.
So this building
housed the main state administrative
offices.
This building must have been the headquarters
of one of the Caliphal administration departments.
Materials
and decoration
were simple.
Okay? So this is like an administrative building.
But look at the the the magnificence
of this building,
and there are still there are still,
signs
from the Muslim period.
Okay.
If you read here on the on the
on the capital,
right, these are pillars columns.
If you zoom in, if you can,
maybe, you can zoom. Okay. No. It says
Amal?
Amal. Amal. Okay.
This is the the the work of the
hand. I cannot read the name. I cannot
make out what the name is, but there's
a name of someone. It says Amal Yad.
It's this is made by the hand of
such and such person. So you can see
the name there. Right? So this is a
this is a capital
carved by a Muslim,
worker,
engineer,
or architect,
or or a labor. But think about it.
Where does the design come from?
The Romans.
Abdurrahman the first, when he built Kartab al
Masjid, these capitals were taken from a Roman
site, but this is a copy of the
Roman capitals. Okay? And they've done an amazing
job,
as you can see. Right? So,
this design actually inspired from Roman
architecture.
So the Muslims so this was
an administrative building.
This was some sort of administrative,
compound
where caliphs,
possibly Ja'far,
possibly Ja'far the eunuch, who was the hajib
or the prime minister or the or the
or the finance minister.
He was possibly working here with his staff
and he had a lot of work to
do. And you saw his name inscribed
or, put
by mosaic
work,
on the on the meharab in Masjid Kartaba.
He was a very important figure. He was
a eunuch.
He was from the Saqaleba.
He was Slavic, possibly, originally
from Eastern Europe, but became so powerful that
his name is on the mihrab.
And you see that mosaic work, the verses
of the Quran on top of the mihrab,
those workers actually came from Byzantium,
from Constantinople.
We know there were embassies being exchanged between
Sultan sorry, Caliph Abdurrahman the 3rd
and the Byzantines. The the Romans, they were
sending embassies, and he was also sending embassies.
So let's keep moving, Insha'Allah.
So some of the
the the the workers who knew how to
do mosaics, they did that work.
Let's go. Keep moving, Insha'Allah.
Are there any questions so far? Any questions?
Keep moving. Keep moving together brothers.
Yeah. Yeah. The,
did the Muslim castrate him or was he
castrated before? He was castrated before. So Muslims,
they don't castrate.
So Muslims, they don't castrate? No. No. No.
Muslims are not allowed to castrate slaves. This
is completely haram. This is not allowed. So
unfortunately,
these slaves are already castrated before they arrived
in slave markets.
Okay? And why they were castrated,
is a very good question. There were a
number there were a number of reasons why
they were castrated.
Okay.
Usually, eunuchs would would be used for
the wom women's quarter. You know, the Haram.
Okay? So so this is to avoid fitna.
So he's a eunuch. Obviously,
he is,
he is safer than men to have in
the harem, basically.
Right?
To buy
slaves from from if if Well, if they're
this these are these are very good questions.
Historically, all dynasties, all kingdoms
at that time,
were buying slaves, okay, for a number of
different reasons.
So
the everyone was buying slaves.
Obviously,
and, this was out of their control. But
when these Muslim kings
from Spain, in particular, were buying slaves, they
were buying them to give them high positions,
in the state apparatus because they didn't fear,
any rebellions from them. You understand? If they
had put Arabs and Berbers in high positions,
they always
feared rebellions
and,
intrigues. So this is why they bought these
slaves.
They would belong as a property to the
caliph
and the caliph would put them in high
positions because caliph could trust them blindly.
They could not easily,
you know, betray
the caliphs and the kings and the sultans.
Okay. So this is a very important place.
As you can see, when when you Google
Madinah Zuz Zahra,
this is one of the places
that comes,
in front of you. If we can show,
inshallah,
these arches, the compound,
the palace compound of the palaces or the
houses
of the royalty.
And,
the the the
actual,
how they they they looked at the time,
we can only imagine.
You can I mean, if they look like
this today,
you can imagine what the full
building, the complete building would have looked like
looked like or the compound? Unfortunately, the ruins,
for the last 1000 years,
okay, people
over time were taking blocks and building materials
from here. There was a lot of plundering
and vandalism and looting,
and, obviously, then it was buried under dust.
1000 1000 years is a long time. Okay?
So but still, for this to survive
and to have been excavated, this is absolutely
mind blowing. Look at those bricks and those
walls.
This was built very powerfully.
Very strong foundations were put.
Even after a 1000 years, having been plundered
and vandalized
and
and destroyed systematically,
the site, the foundations still stand. Let's go.
Keep moving because it's very hot. Insha'Allah.
So I want to very quickly mention,
that we do these tours
every few months, every few weeks.
Anyone who wants to join us on these
tours, you can go on halal getaways.com
and check out the future dates. We are
doing Spain and Turkey.
Right? And we will be doing Morocco in
October as well.
And,
people with us, they don't care about these
dates anymore because they're already here. Okay. But
those of you who want to join us,
you are most welcome to join us, inshallah,
on the future dates.
Right?
So we're gonna go around, guys.
I wish we could stay here for longer,
but our time is very limited. It's very
hot. We don't want casualties.
So so if you look from here, from
this side, it gives an
an idea
of what this complex would have looked like.
And this would have been the most powerful,
the strongest complex because this is the royal
quarter. I have no doubt that this was
one of the most important parts of the
city. Maybe library, the caliph's library was held
here. Maybe the administration was being,
taken care of. But this is the royal
part of Madinat Az Zahra, and the city
would go down into the fields all the
way.
It's still not fully discovered or excavated.
We hope
sometime in the future, this can be done.
No. Some of these places still remain.
The reason they have blocked these places because
people come and vandalize.
They start inscribing
their names. Like, some if someone came here
with their girlfriend, they would just put the
name with the heart, with the with the
woman, or maybe someone with the wife or
something. You know? So as you know, if
you go to India and Pakistan to some
historic sites, you see inscriptions,
graffitis all over the place.
And,
as you might have seen in Al Khazar
Al Khazar as well, you saw the graffitis.
Right? This was before they started to take
it it seriously. And Alhambra Palace, unfortunately, is
the same situation. You see a lot of
graffitis on places. Because people, I don't know
why they wouldn't inscribe their names on,
who cares you have with your girlfriend? Who
cares? You just go you know, why are
you destroying history? Just because you have your
girlfriend with you, is your brother leaving me
last year, a month? Yeah.
Right?
So
history is our collective
human
heritage. Historic sites must be protected.
They must be studied
and
looked at. In fact, we are we as
as Muslims,
we have been told to study history very
carefully. 30% of the Quran is history. 30%.
Why? Because we take lessons.
Okay. I want, can someone please tell the
the brothers and sisters behind us to be
quick. Insha Allah.
Okay. We can take some rest here very
quickly. This is the great hall.
You can see the roof.
And Which we which which which we are
showing from the top. Right? This is Yeah.
We saw we saw the great hall from
top from top. These these are the roofs.
Okay. Underneath
is the great hall, the audience hall of
the caliph, where he would demonstrate his political
power to ambassadors and dignitaries,
who would visit him for political reasons to
pay homage, to pay taxes.
You know, Abdul Rahman the 3rd was so
powerful
that
kings would send gifts and presents to him,
from distant lands.
He had
people ruling parts of Switzerland. Muslims ruled did
you know that? Muslims ruled parts of Switzerland.
Muslims are ruling parts of Switzerland,
and
they were there at the time of Durkheim
the 3rd. Durkheim the 3rd, he would receive
a lot of gifts,
a lot of,
token,
you can submissions for example, people want to
submit to his power. He was very powerful.
He had made a name for himself because
of his campaigns. He had consolidated the power
here. And,
there was a lot happening here. At at
that time, scholars were flocking to Cordoba.
Many political,
you know, important dignitaries, they were coming here.
So he would receive them in this hall.
Okay. And when they would walk into the
hall, the hall was lavishly, richly decorated,
and people would be immediately blown away by
the splendor,
by the the magnificence
of the hall.
The roof tiles, they, later on Yeah. Yeah.
The roof tiles are later, by the way.
These are these these are ray these are
later recent renovations.
But the white
wall No. Not even the white wall. No.
No. No.
The there is original
stuff inside. Inside. Inside. Okay? All of this
is later. This this the this the the
Spanish government did to protect
the the original,
yeah. But you can when when you go
in, when you can, you will see signs
of fire, you know. Because all of this
was burnt down by the Berber
rebels
who had rebelled and they destroyed Madinatul Zahra,
unfortunately.
No. I haven't seen it inside, unfortunately,
because it's been closed for many years. They
are, carrying out renovations.
So
So here, I want to very quickly
end the vlog here. I don't want to
make it painfully long because I think people
who are watching online, they have a fair
idea now,
what the city,
looks like today
and what it might have looked like, in
the past. We can only imagine. We can
never get a 100% accurate picture. So this
city,
this city complex was called Madinat Zaharah,
was built in 9:36 by Abdul Rahman the
3rd, the most powerful man,
ruling Western Europe,
the most powerful king in Western Europe
by
all
measures.
Right? His prime minister was a Jewish man,
not the prime minister, so his treasurer minister
or his his finance minister was a Jewish
physician called Hazdai Imet Shaprut.
So this is how
powerful the Jewish people had become under his
rule and in during his reign.
And this is why Jewish scholars state that
this was the golden age of the house
of Israel. From the year 900
to 1200,
this was the golden age. 300 years, the
Jews went through,
a revival of Jewish religion and Jewish intellectual
activism, and the the Hebrew language is revived
based upon Arabic
grammatical model. So on that note, thank you
so much everyone watching all, on live next.
You will see us
in Granada
checking out Alhambra or somewhere else.
Until then, Assalamu alaikum. We have changed
we have changed our mind. We wanted to
show you more of Madinah Zuzahara.
If you look at this part,
okay?
Everyone, if you can move this way, yep,
you're gonna take pictures, no problem.
Okay? Look at this compound. This is so
beautiful.
Again, I must emphasize, these are royal quarters.
We don't know for sure who exactly lived
here.
We can only guess by looking at the
the the quality of architecture
and the amount of work that's gone into
this,
this compound.
The the foundations
and the walls and the decoration on the
arches. Okay. A lot of this has been
renovated recently because
this was all destroyed and it was on
the floor, it was buried under, under rubble,
it was taken out and
resurrected again,
thanks to the Spanish government
and archaeologists
who have worked hard
unearthing.
Yeah. So let's keep walking. So you can
only imagine now
what it might have looked like
at the time.
Okay. So if you look there,
you see that?
Now,
I can only imagine
what might have been
housed in that building
under those arches or behind those arches,
but it was definitely
royal quarters. Something royal, something important
was happening here. These are all royal
buildings. Maybe a library, maybe a masjid, maybe
a maybe a resting place, maybe caliphs,
his own room, his own living compound. It
could be anything.
Keep moving. Let's go.
Now we can look down there.
There are maybe rooms or dungeons or basements.
For whatever reason, possibly escape route
or something like that. Allah
knows best. Let's keep moving everyone.
Let's keep moving. Let's stay together. Time is
up.
Okay.
If you remember the documentary, they showed a
pond, right? Yeah.
That pond,
it would have been here,
right?
And again,
it's only a guess. It is
assumed that Ja'far lived here. This was Ja'far's,
quarter.
Ja'far the eunuch,
the Hajib or the Prime Minister or the
Finance Minister. Because Hajib,
Hajib was a comprehensive,
title and a comprehensive,
duty or responsibility.
Hajib was like a prime minister,
someone who received delegations,
some basically, the private secretary,
the action man of the caliph.
And this person would be executing. You know,
he would be the executive,
representative of the caliph. The caliph doesn't get
involved in the nitty gritties and all the
signing of papers and documents
and checking the finances. He chooses a trustworthy
guy, a trustworthy person.
He can fully trust. Okay? And then he
gives these responsibilities
to that person and he executes everything. This
is, in some cases, a more powerful person,
a more powerful figure than the caliph himself.
He can move and shake things. Right? So
Ja'far
might have lived here in these quarters. If
you look at the arches and the rooms,
this is Madinatul Zahra. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Let's
go. Keep going. Let's go.
Do
you do you do you notice a change
in my energy when the camera
turns on? Yes. Yes. Yes. You speak so
loud. So you guys need to keep keep
your cameras on.
We might be walking inside the rooms of
the kelief, his favorite wife or one of
the wives of, you know,
maybe a prince or something. You know,
unfortunately
there is no narrative. There's no history
that describes
the details of the court because this was
this was a very private area. This is
very private. This is royal pallet. Like, it's
like going to Saudi Arabia or Dubai or,
you know, one of those kings and rulers
of the the Gulf states.
You don't know anything about their private quarters.
Not that we want to know, but, you
know.
Yeah.
Very quickly now, because time is up.
Again,
there are some descriptions. There are archaeologists.
This is where the prime minister's servants lived
and worked. Okay. Amazing. This is where Ja'far,
the prime minister,
his servants
lived and worked. Again,
I don't know how they assumed this, but
there must be a reason. Look, the the
color, the paint from the original walls
still
it's there. I don't know if this was
the original color,
but this is what
maybe this is, this is what the color
was, of the wall. But over time color
changes, as you know, it fades. Right? So
let's keep moving.
Yeah. We are now getting out. We're heading
out, actually.
Right?
It's a very richly built
detailed
living quarters.
This is an oven, everyone.
This is an oven.
Right?
Okay. This is an oven where they would
cook bread.
Around or something. Yeah? Right?
So this is the tandoor. This is where
you get your chicken tikka, tandoori naan
with butter
and all that. Okay.
I can only imagine.
Well, clearly, the best food
in Alangelos would be cooked here in this
quarter, because this is caliph and his royal
household, the family,
right? This is where this is where the
best food be would be cooked.
So now,
where are we? We are now heading out
towards the exit
because we have to catch the bus, neck
next bus.
Guards quarters. Yes. Okay.
Again, guards were kept here.
Again,
this is where
the servants and the guards would be kept.
There are so many passages and secret chambers
and dungeons and
And this is just one big building.
Well, it was all interconnected. Okay. It was
all inter roof or a quarter? No. Maybe
there were different roofs,
housing different quarters.
But this was all interconnected.
This is clearly the the establishment.
This is where the establishment was, Caliph's household,
his administration,
and his wazir.
So on that note, I think this is
enough from Adinat of Zahra,
and more to come. Assalamu alaikum everyone.