Adnan Rashid – Seville, al-Andalus July 2024
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AI: Transcript ©
All the archives,
the stories, the manuscripts, everything
were
kept in here. Many of the documents are
still kept here. We went in last time.
Yeah. You remember there was, still many, many
documents are still inside here. So when they
would come back and bring all the goods
and things like that from, America,
everything was logged.
Everything. And even the stories of what they
found over there, everything is still in here.
Much of it is still in here. And
then at one point, it became the headquarters
of the Inquisition.
Who knows what the Inquisition was? Spanish Inquisition.
Yeah. What was it?
Nobody knows? I'm just trying to chase them
and then the the And prevent them from
the Yeah. So mainly, officially, it's like anybody
who's a lapsed Christian.
Okay. Somebody who's who's losing their Christian religion.
So, officially, it's supposed to be that.
And, but they used it to find secret
Muslim. So how do you do that? So
if, for example, if officially, it's only
Christians
that the inquisition can question,
that you're not practicing religion anymore, etcetera, etcetera.
How do you make
that compulsory for other people as well then?
What would you do?
You force them to convert to Christianity.
So now whether they like it or not,
they're Christian now. So what are they not
gonna be doing?
They're not gonna be practicing this religion,
the new religion. So now the inquisition has
authority to question them and punish them and,
like, you know, go after them.
Okay?
And if we keep walking, everyone,
so I just want to quickly introduce where
we are. We are in Seville,
the medieval Islamic capital of Spain,
Al Muhad and Al Murabitoun,
Al Murabitoun and Al Muwahidoun capital.
And now it's very changed. Doesn't look like
an Islamic city, but once upon a time,
it was,
flourishing Islamic capital.
There would be book markets here. There would
be stalls of halal meat. There would be
commodities
sold in this neighborhood.
There would be scholars walking around
with turbans
and tobes and books in their hands.
So
you can imagine a medieval Islamic society
and that was here. Okay? Unfortunately,
none of that
remains today
apart from few monuments that we will look
at. So the building behind me there, you
can see,
is now the cathedral,
the the Grand Cathedral of Seville.
This is where once upon a time the
Grand Masjid,
stood.
And looking at the structure and its size,
we can tell
that it was a huge masjid. It was
a gigantic,
magnificent,
super masjid,
like epic mosque as they say. Right? And
now, unfortunately, nothing remains of it apart from
one tower that remains from Al Almohad period
that we will look at inshallah in due
course. But this cathedral is actually
from, the 13th century. That's when they started
to build the cathedral. This city fell to
the Christians,
the Catholics coming from the north in 1248
in 1248.
And since then,
there was
a systematic
We are here in Seville
in Spain, Al Andalus. Once upon a time,
the capital of Islam
in,
South Central Spain.
And today, we will be visiting
Alcazar or Alcazar.
It is a Christian palace
built by a Christian prince in the 14th
century.
And
the palace was built by the Muslims who
remained behind
and,
we're gonna be talking more about it. Okay,
everyone.
So,
welcome to
Seville
Al Khazar or Al Khazar.
Remember we talked about 2 dates.
What were those 2 dates?
711. 711.
14/92. 14/92.
What happened in between two dates? These two
dates?
Any idea?
The Muslims came
to Spain in 711,
and the last stronghold of Islam in Spain
was Granada that fell to the Catholic Monarchs
in 14/92.
So 2 states,
Castile
and Aragon
had united
through marriage.
Okay. Aragon was ruled by Ferdinand or Fernando
and Castillo was ruled by,
a queen called
Isabella. We have company.
Okay?
They agree with me by the way. So
both of these monarchs, they united the
countries within Spain
and the armies,
and Isabella was bent upon removing Islam from
the Iberian Peninsula.
Her life mission,
she was a devout Catholic.
She was
a
a follower of the pope at the time.
Almost
all the popes
before her
had desired to remove Islam from the Iberian
Peninsula
as a military power.
Power. But Islam had produced a great civilization
here.
Europeans
benefited immensely from the Muslims, what the Muslims
had produced here.
So, Isabella,
her life mission was to remove Islam completely
land from
land from the Muslims in,
Southern Spain, Granada.
This was already taken. Seville was already gone.
So what you see here,
if you follow me,
the reason we stopped at this monument
is for you to see. What do you
see on top of the Okay.
You see how important this date is in
Spanish history? And by the way, this date
is also very important
in
Muslim history.
It is a very important date.
It is so important that this date
from this date onwards,
the global history would change. The history of
humanity would completely switch.
As we know,
it it was in 14/92,
this very date when Christopher Columbus
came
to queen Isabella,
and he wanted her to fund,
to sanction,
or to patronize
his mission to the Indies.
Indies. India.
Christopher Columbus was looking for a route to
India to bring more gold
home. So Isabella,
she decided to back him. And long story
short, you will have to go and study
Christopher Columbus's history and, what he did.
He
basically makes his way towards the west
Atlantic Ocean. And he bumps into current day,
Caribbean Islands. Right?
At that time, he thought he was in
India. That's why the native Americans are called
red Indians. Okay? But it wasn't India. It
wasn't India. It was the Americas.
It happened
on this
very date, 14/90 or this year in this
year. It happened in this year. And
Seville is the place where Christopher Columbus left
from as brother Tariq explained yesterday.
From the river, Warul Kavir,
he left,
towards the Atlantic Ocean, and from there, he
went on to the Americas.
So 1492
changed the history of the world.
The Americas were discovered discovered. Okay? And then
from that discovery,
the history of the Americas changed.
We have North America. We have Canada. Canada
is basically,
actually Canada, the US, and Latin America. Much
of Latin America was born
from this very takeover
of Catholics,
from Muslims. Right? And then
were
opened the floodgates of persecution,
genocide, and all sorts of things. And this
is not by the way, these these are
not controversial statements. This is well attested,
well
confirmed by historians and scholars that,
a floodgate of
colonialism,
genocides,
illegal settlements,
and massacres,
and deliberate
mass murder of natives,
in particular, the Americas continued.
In fact, where Christopher Columbus landed,
he landed in 1492,
1493,
let's say. Right? By 1585
by 1585,
less than a 100 years later,
those islands, that region was completely cleansed of
the native people.
They had died in the millions partly because
of,
lack of humidity against the diseases that came
with the Europeans, partly because of that. But
when the Europeans,
in particular, the Spanish had realized that they
are not immune, they would actually throw their
dead corpses inside their,
settlements so that they die in big numbers.
So all of this is all documented. This
is not made up. So 14/92 is very
important. So the fall of Islam impacted the
history of the
shall we move on or you Yeah. To
mention,
shall we move on or you Yeah.
To mention,
we are a group.
Couple of things to keep in mind is
as this is not history.
This is just like a general Logistic details.
Logistic details. As we move, please move together
as one body as we are supposed to
be. One ummah. Okay? So try to move
together as one body.
Also, when we gather, we stop for talks
and things. Please keep in mind other people
don't block the pathways, etcetera. Consider other people.
We don't want to, like, you know, be
a nuisance or anything like that.
Secondly, if somebody does get left behind,
if you lose the group, you get left
behind, do not
panic. Don't worry.
Don't do anything. Just stop and stand still
in the place where you are. Don't move
from there. And then next week, when I
come with my next group, we will pick
you up We'll pick you up. And we'll
take you. So don't worry. Okay?
And the locals are very generous. They will
give you something to eat. They'll drop food
out every now and then until next week.
Only
so so very quickly before we move on,
will you see the name
Fernando on the ship or on the on
the vessel? Yeah. This is Ferdinand, the husband
of Isabella. Right?
Isabella is on the other side. Okay. So
Fernando on this side, Isabella on the other
side, and then there's a line on top
on top representing their power. The date 14/92
is very important. Remember that. Let's go. Insha
Allah.
Pause. Which angle do you have? Wide angle?
No. Just do, 0.5 or something. I don't
know. Wide angle. That's, 0.5. Yeah. Yeah. Wide.
Wide angle. Okay. So
here we are. We're just walking towards Al
Qasr of Seville.
Seville was a capital of Islam.
And,
right. Now we have company as well.
Again, there is,
I think they these are known as Spanish
gypsies, and they sing
their local songs,
folk music.
So if you look at the street, it's
pretty pretty much the same, you know, since
it was built. These walls are from Al
Qasr.
And this was the capital of Islam and
Muslims for a very long time. The size
of the streets is exactly the same. You
can see
not much has changed.
There's a street down there.
These would be Muslim homes once upon a
time about
800 years ago,
but the design hasn't changed. The only change
was that the Christians came in, and they
took all these homes and streets and
even the monuments.
Another long street.
If you look down there,
you see, it's a long street.
Yeah.
Right. So if you look up here,
you can see that
these are the walls of Al Qasr.
Al Qasr is literally
the palace,
and we will see inside
in a minute.
It is absolutely magnificent, mind blowing.
So everyone,
this is Seville.
South Central Spain
once dominated by Islam and Muslims.
And this was the Muslim capital
of Andalusia
during
the Almorabitun
and Almawahidun
period, or also called Almoravids
and almohads.
These were 2 dynasties
that came from
currently Morocco
to,
prolong the rule of Islam in this region
because Muslims had started to lose territory in
the 11th century in Spain.
The Catholics were coming from the north and
they were taking all this territory from the
Muslims.
And,
the only reason this territory
lasted,
for another
150 years in Muslim hands was because of
this intervention from North Africa, from Morocco in
particular.
The Almoravids and Almohads,
they came in and they sustained. So this
is like a courtyard we can see. What
you see behind me there is the same
tower.
Okay?
This tower was built during the Almohad period.
It is about 800 years old. Right? It
still stands. This is the this is the
this is one of the
only standing Islamic monuments in Seville today. Unfortunately,
the rest of it has been destroyed.
There was a big massive masjid right next
to it. That masjid is gone now. There's
a cathedral in its place. We're gonna go
to Al Qasr now. Al Al Qasr Al
Qasr
to visit Inshallah. Tari, but you want to
say something or yeah. Basically,
so the area that we've just walked through
is known as the huderia.
What is the huderia? It's called the the
Jewish quarter.
K. This is the old Jewish quarter. So
what you had in every single
major city of Al Andalus was Jewish quarters.
The Jewish community was very, very prominent. We
will talk a lot more about them once
we get to Cordova. Just to give you
an idea,
like, under Islam,
the Jewish community prospered. And just like this
was a golden age for us
as Muslims,
the golden age of Judaism,
and I mean the golden age of Judaism
was Al Andalus.
Does anybody know who the Jews what the
name of the Jews is from Spain?
No? Sephardic. Sephardic. Thank you very much. Very
good. Sephardic Jews. So the way we call
Spain, Al Andalus,
they call Spain
Sepharda.
This was Sepharda,
and Sephardic Jews are from here. And anybody
who knows their history, they understand that this
was their golden age. Their philosophers, their,
politicians, their thinkers, their books that they wrote
at that time. Actually, under Islam here was
the revival of Judaism and Hebrew, the language
itself,
was revived here. Otherwise, it was nearly completely
lost.
A few years ago, this Jewish intellectual, he
wrote,
an article in which he started the article
by saying
that if the Muslims had not arrived in
Al Andalus in Spain when they did in
711,
the Jews would have been wiped out in
Europe.
Absolutely.
Because the persecution
and the annihilation of Jews were just going
from strength to strength. They were hunting them
down. They were wiping them out. They were
completely getting rid of them. If the Muslims
hadn't arrived,
they would have been wiped out. But Muslims
arrived, and they prospered and went from strength
to strength. And then when the,
Christians took over again, the first people they
started on was the Jews. They persecuted them.
They threw them out. And where did they
go to?
To Tunisia, to to Istanbul
to Tunisia
to Algeria
to North Africa, all Muslim lands took them
in. In fact, Muhammad al Fatih,
the conqueror of Constantinople,
the one
who conquered Istanbul,
sent ships to pick up the Jews from
here and took them to Istanbul.
And they prospered and became a a very,
very successful community there. So under Islam,
they owe so much to Islam that, like,
you know, the only reason they're still around
really, basically, is because of the Muslims.
And and this much is historically documented. What
Balot Tariq is telling you
are basically statements that you can do PhDs
on, literally. I mean, there is so much
detailed archives, documents,
the golden age of the Jewish people, their
scientists, their theologians,
their rabbis,
of the best rabbis.
The the Jewish people from Islamic Spain were
the most sophisticated
Jews in the world. This is why when
they left from here,
escaping with their lives, they got high positions
in the Muslim society wherever they went because
they were highly qualified.
So the Muslims actually opened the doors for
them, and they had the golden age from
900 to 1200.
Scholars usually put these two dates. I mean,
in between these 300 years, the Jewish people
had the golden age in Al Andalus, and
then after the land was taken. So when
the Catholics came in, why were they going
after the Jewish people? Because the Jewish people
to them were God killers.
God killers. Who is God?
Jesus Christ. And he was what happened to
him according to the Christian narrative?
What do you see in the churches? In
Catholic churches, what do you see? There's there
is a man on the cross.
Right? And it's a very * picture. Right?
And this is the image all the Catholics
had in their minds that our God was
crucified by who? By the Jewish people. So
everywhere they went, they were persecuting the Jewish
people in particular.
Okay? But Islam had no such blame on
them because the Quran says,
Jesus was not Islam was not killed. He
was not crucified. So the blame is lifted
from anyone. Right? So this is why,
and even what brother Tariq mentioned that if
they had not come here, the Muslims, they
would have been extinct. The Jewish people would
have been extinct
from European territories, and this is
very, very well documented fact. In fact, in
633 CE,
there was a council,
a church council
in the city of Toledo, not far from
here, where the Catholic church at the time,
they decreed that all the children of the
Jewish people are to be snatched away from
their parents, and they are to be raised
as Catholics. Forced forced conversion.
Okay? And they are to be raised as
Catholics.
And that was the beginning of the end
of the Jewish people, but only Islam's intervention
in 711 CE
protected and saved the rest of the Jews,
and then they became a global power, okay,
later on. So that's it. This is these
are some these are there are books written
on these topics, so we can't just,
go into the details. Let's go. The Jewish
quarter during Muslim time, Still today known as
a Jewish quarter, but at that time, that
was a Jewish quarter. And you find on
each city,
Grenada,
here.
Okay. Here we are in front of Al
Qasr. If you look behind you,
I'm talking to the camera and
if you look behind, yeah, the wall, you
you can see there, it says
Khazars.
Khazars. Okay. No. Actually,
real real Alcazar. Real Alcazar.
Basically, it means the royal
palace.
Okay. Royal al Khazar. So that's the the
Christian,
shield there, and these walls are from the
Muslim period. These blocks are from the Muslim
period.
Of course, there were renovations and,
changes made. And this is the main square.
That would be the Grand Masjid behind me,
the Grand Mosque of Seville. That structure now
is a cathedral. The masjid was raised to
the ground,
over time.
And
the tower you see is from the Muslim
period. That's an Al Mohd tower beautifully
constructed. You can see there's a huge difference
between the tower
in architecture, the design,
and cathedral next to it. So the tower
remains
and now we're gonna make our way towards
inshallah
the queue so that we can enter the
palace. I am here in the courtyard, the
hunt hunting or hunters courtyard
in,
Al Khazar. What you see there is the
gate, the main gate or the main entrance
of the palace, the palace itself.
This palace was built by a Christian king
called Peter the first,
in the mid 14th century, 13 fifties sixties.
13 fifties sixties, he ruled, and he was
known as Peter the just or Peter the
cruel depending on who's talking about him.
Without going into too much history about him,
what you see there, blue tiles on top.
You know,
they seem to be like a Christian
symbol or something like that or Christian messages.
Right? But
it is Arabic. It says.
So even that Christian king, Peter the first,
was so inspired by Islamic calligraphy,
Islamic messages that he put the Islamic formula.
But if you look at the word Allah,
there's a cross on top of the word
Allah. Okay? So he wanted to bring 3
Abrahamic faiths together,
in this building. Okay? So it's richly decorated.
So we're gonna get close to that very
quickly. If you follow me, I want to
show you,
an audience hall that was built at that
time.
So
these are clearly from the Muslim period. These
arches.
Okay?
So if you look here, look inside.
This is absolutely mind blowing.
This is magnificent.
So this is again from the 14th century,
and there is some,
part that is from the Islamic period, which
is cordoned off.
This part is
from the Islamic period.
We cannot go there because it's protected.
And
the pillars and the capitals
of the pillars, they come from Roman sites.
The Muslims have taken these and recycled them
into this building.
So this is an audience hall
that is just outside the palace,
and it's richly decorated. There's Arabic Arabic calligraphy.
Even though the king was Christian, but there
were Muslims
in this territory at the time. They were
called
or
is the word that is used for those
Muslims who remain behind
under Christian rule when the Christians, the Catholics
had taken this territory.
Watch your step, please.
Watch your step.
So we're gonna go now. We're gonna go
inside the palace. We're gonna show you some
of the palace inside. It is absolutely mind
blowing. It is so amazing. It is so
magnificent. It's unbelievable.
And this is a symbol of Islam
standing to this day because it was built
by Muslims. Although the the the person behind
was a Christian king, his name is there
in Latin,
and
is written in the Arabic language.
So this is the original entrance from the
14th century, 13 fifties,
Very well preserved.
And you can see in Latin the name
of Peter
the first,
Okay? And the year all of this was
built. Okay? Let's go inside Insha'Allah.
So when we enter, it is absolutely amazingly
richly decorated.
You can see the Arabic calligraphy.
The whole palace
is filled, packed with Arabic calligraphy
and Arabic character.
Even this tiling, the style of tiling
is very Arabic,
inspired from the Muslim architecture
from Granada and other places. There was already
a Muslim palace in this place
built by
the the Muslim kings during,
from the
from the previous centuries.
So when al Murabitun came here, they obviously
added to the palace, and then so did
the al Muwahidun or Almohads.
And then,
the that palace had fallen into,
ruins,
and then Peter the first basically resurrected a
new palace in the 14th century,
at the same spot.
And this is what we have right now.
So if you're following here.
Now brace yourselves. This is a very special
place. Okay?
This is the courtyard
of the palace. It's absolutely, magnificently, richly decorated.
If you follow me very quickly.
If you look at the woodwork and the
arches, they are very original.
These remains are from the Islamic period.
They were discovered later on. So this was
a garden.
Okay? So arches
represent palm trees.
Even the doors are richly decorated. There's a
lot of Arabic calligraphy on the doors. You
can see. It was engraved. They're all hand
carved.
Okay?
And something very special happened in this courtyard.
In 2005, a movie was released
called
Kingdom of Heaven. It was
basically
a movie on the crusades,
and part of the movie
was filmed here in this courtyard. There were
scenes filmed in this courtyard.
As you can see, if you go and
watch the movie again,
and it is about the crusades
Always watch your Right.
So if you look at the courtyard here,
this is where the movie some of the
scenes from Kingdom of Heaven
were filmed. The movie is about Sultan Saladin
Ayubi and the Crusaders, how they faced each
other
in those days. And,
this is the courtyard
because it gives a very medieval look. And
if you look inside this hall, it's absolutely
magnificent.
Annie? Excuse me.
This is absolutely mind blowing. I'm just showing
you glimpses, brother and sisters, so that you
realize
why we are here. We are here to
show
you
that this exists,
and this is Islamic heritage, Islamic past, even
though it is a Christian palace, but it
was built by the Muslims.
People called Mudijers, al Mudajarun.
Many of them were actually sent from
Granada Kingdom the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. They
came here, and they helped
the the Christian king Peter the first built
this. And this art still survives in very
good condition. You must come here to be
inspired.
And we have future trips taking place every
few months. You must go and check out
halal getaways.com.halal
getaways.com,
where you will find these tours,
and dates. You can actually
join any of these tours in the future,
at your convenience. But if you're not coming
here and if you're not showing your children
this, then what reason do they have to
be inspired
by the heritage of Islam or the Islamic
legacy in the land of Los in Spain?
So
we'll,
share a lot more
about our heritage in Spain for now.
This is something I wanted to share with
you very quickly from Alcazar. Now if you
look on top, there is there are depictions,
there are images or pictures of kings
who ruled Spain
from the very beginning,
to until very recently or to until when
this,
panorama was put up there.
Okay?
And
the names of the kings are there. For
example, king Roderick is up there. Okay? The
one who was defeated by Tariq Bin Zayed.
Okay? And there are other kings who came
afterwards,
ruling kingdoms of Leon, Castile, and Aragon, and
all other minor kingdoms ruled by Christians. Yeah.
But, amazingly, none of the Muslim kings are
mentioned there for some reason. Okay? So one
of the problems we have with
the the history of Islamic Spain is that
for some reason, the history of Islamic Spain
is not even considered the history of Europe.
When European historians
talk about
the history of Spain, for some reason, they
completely cut out the Islamic period. It's for
some reason not part of the the history
of Spain. It's like an alien civilization.
But how alien is it? Look at it.
How alien is
it? Right?
And there are clearly Islamic messages on the
door.
Okay? And these are hand carved doors from
the 14th century.
Still stand in very good condition to this
day.
So this is the civilization of Islam
looking at you in your face.
You come here, you cannot fail to be
inspired. This is absolutely mind blowing. This is
crazy.
Okay? This beauty, this kind of stuff cannot
be done today. I mean, we don't have
artists or architects who can reproduce this in
hand.
Keep following me.
So this is a mixture of
the Islamic civilization
with Christian symbolism.
But Islamic
imagery is very, very
visible and pronounced.
So we'll come back with more.