Adnan Rashid – The British Raj #01
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There was a debate in the Roman Senate that Roman Roman women are so fond of Indian cloth that a lot of Roman gold is being shipped off to India to buy this cloth. So Indian were supplying cloth to the world up to the point when the mobiles are rolling
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah Mabon our Adobe live Sameer elimina Shavonda regime. This is Liahona Rahim Allah, Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Ameen.
Bacala also Allah He sallallahu alayhi wa salam, Bolivar new Elia respected brothers. And those sisters who will be listening to this later on Assalamu alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
I welcome you all to this very important topic. The topic of the day is the British Raj, Pakistan or India. How did we get here? How did we get here? Okay. History is a very important subject which we have collectively neglected criminally. The Muslims have today neglected the history to the extent that most of us, the overwhelming majority of us are not aware of our basic history facts. If you were to walk into a masjid, and ask people questions about basic history of Islam, including the life of the prophet Sallallahu sallam, most Muslims will struggle to answer the question. And the irony is, our entire faith is based upon history. Our entire faith is based upon history and
appreciation of history, our studying of history and learning history. Because what is Islam? Islam is based upon precedent. precedent, what is precedent? precedent is an example. This what he means precedent means an example, something that's happened before. And when we look at the life of the professor Salam, it is a precedent for us. Allah tells us in the Quran, how do we learn chatango regimes flaticon the Rahim locket Karnala computers will Ilahi also atone Hazara in his life you will find a good model sallallahu alayhi salam in the life of the Prophet salallahu Salam. So Allah is telling us to study his life. In other words,
then Allah tells us the stories of the prophets in the Quran repeatedly. Some say 30 to 40% of the Quran is the Stories of the Prophets to set a precedent for people like us that we can learn the histories and take lessons then Allah tells us in the Quran repeatedly see you will art from Guru cave akana aka butter Mocha, demean go into line and see what happened to those who came before you. And then we cannot know anything about the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and his companions and their followers and followers. Unless we studied the history, which which is what we call Elmer Hadith, and then followed by Elmer, Rajon, or Elmet hadith is actually dependent on Elmer ritual,
your Hadith science, your history of the prophet comes through men, and these men, even these men, we have to study. So the point I'm trying to make is that history is life. It is identity, it is your faith. If you don't study history, you are cut off, you are like a lost child in a great desert without any navigation without any tools for you to find the way and what happens to such a child. Even adults don't survive in such circumstances. So that's why we have to study history. I keep emphasizing this, you want to rise again, you want to taste the glory of Islam. You want to see Islam flourish, as a global power, as a civilization as a torchbearer of education as a torchbearer
of morality and ethics. You want your people to be great your scholars to teach once again in global libraries and universities and institutions, then you have to know what happened before you were born. What were the Muslims doing before? In that light? We will conduct this lecture today? Why are we talking about the British Raj because it is directly relevant to the history of your ancestors, your ancestors? When I say your I mean, the majority of you majority of you are from the subcontinent the Indian subcontinent right, what we call the Indian subcontinent. Collectively,
the subcontinent consists of three countries, Pakistan, India, and
English. So, your history your ancestors
lived under the British rule in India for nearly 200 years. So what is the British Raj? The British Raj is basically to simplify is the period when the British rule India Raj means rule in simple terms, Raj means rule the British rule in India. So, the British ruled India from the mid 18th century, to the mid 20th century for at least 200 years. In the first 100 years, parts of India, significant parts of India were ruled by the British
by a company called the East India Company. And it is a misconception that people think that this company was ruling independently without the British government or the ruling establishment of Britain at the time behind it. No, that's a misconception. Because the East India Company was no doubt a business establishment, it came to trade in India as a company
as a trading entity. But later on, it became a ruling entity. It had a private military of its own. It was directly supported by the British government of the time, British MPs, the British ruling class in Britain, were directly involved in the profits of this company. In fact, 24% of the shares of this company at times different times the amount fluctuated, of course, but an 18th century, in the late 18th century, late 1700s 24% of the shares of this company were owned by BDM. Beasts, this is why it took so long for slavery to be abolished in the West Indies. Why was slavery not abolished? Earlier is a very good question. Atlantic slave trade, one of them was one of the most
brutal episodes in human history, people talk about the Holocaust. People talk about other catastrophes, people talk about the one that that I want and genocide and things like that. But do you know one of the greatest catastrophes in human history, one of the greatest injustices
one of the greatest disasters in human history was the Atlantic slave trade, whereby close to 100 million human beings were kidnapped from West African coasts, taken across the Atlantic Ocean, put into slavery and killed off, only 6% went to North America. 94% of them went to Central America and South America, they trace cannot be found, okay, for 400 years from the year 1450 to 1850. This trade continued. There are estimates that close to 100 million people were taken across the Atlantic in these four centuries. The minimum number is 11 million, the maximum number is 100 million anyway, between 11 to 100 million people are taken from the homes and the afro Americans you see today in
the US fighting for the rights to this day. Under this movement, called Black Lives Matter are the descendants of those people taken by force against the wishes, they lost the identity. The history was cut off completely. Some of them are Muslim scholars. By the way.
Some of the all Muslim scholars taken from West Africa from places like Senegal and Gambia they were Muslim scholars. There is a book I highly recommend for you all to study in this regard. It is titled servants of Allah, servant of Allah. It is authored by an American
Afro American scholar. Her name is Sylvia and
ad off. She has authored this book. That's not my topic today. By the way, the reason why I mentioned that was that the British MPs were already debating in the late 18th century to abolish slave trade. The reason why the abolitionist were finding it so difficult to do so because many of these MPs had stakes in West Indies. In those plantations, they were making a lot of money from sugar plantations in the West Indies. And that's why slavery was absolutely instrumental to keep that trade alive.
This is why people like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson and the list goes on, foreign founded so difficult to abolish slave trade. Likewise, the East India Company in its atrocities, were kind of, you know, tolerated because many of the British MP
at the time had stakes in this company. So this company was established in the 16th century, late 1500s. In fact, in the year 1600, Queen Elizabeth the first officially, basically, you can say initiated this company and gave permissions for this English company to trade. These were basically merchants using ships and vessels to go around the world to do trade. So this is how colonialism actually started.
Okay, it started with trade. These European explorers, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the British, they went out, traveling through the seas. And they found their way into these lands. They established colonies, they started trading with the locals and they realize the locals are not being ruled by strong entities where they found the locals to be weak, they overpower them militarily and occupy the territories. Hence, these colonies like Australia, South Africa, South Africa, much of East Africa and Central Africa, okay. And India later on, not initially because when the British came into India in the early 17th century,
they had realized that the Mughals are far more powerful than they had encountered any other power around the world. The Mughals were a central Asian dynasty established in the 16th century. In India, the first Mughal emperor, the European barber defeated, the already existing Muslim dynasty called the daily Sultanate, okay are the remnants of it. The Lodi dynasty was removed by the Mughals. cut the long story short, he comes to power and then sport, the Mughal dynasty was established. The topic is not the moral dynasty so I'm not going to go into the details just know that the Mughal dynasty was established in 1526. When they Rudy Muhammad Baba, the first Mughal
Emperor took Northern India or much of northern India from another Muslim dynasty called the Lord ease.
So
they came to power and they became more and more powerful.
The third Mughal Emperor Akbar, gelato Did Muhammad Akbar who was a very controversial figure no doubt, he expanded the mobile territories. Then, his grandson Shah Jahan also expanded the territories, then the son of Shah Jahan, orange Zavala give the most powerful mobile emperor to sit on the Mughal throne, expanded the territory as far as Southern India, he ruled 95% of India, he was the only Muslim king to rule that that much territory in the the Muslim history of India oronsay Varlaam Gi, who ruled from 1658 to 1707, when he died in 1707, as an 89 year old man, having ruled for nearly 50 years, he left behind a very powerful India, even though it was weakened by continuous
war. In the south, he fought rebels in Southern India for nearly 25 years. And that weakened state no doubt because the territory was too large. He never came back to Delhi, the city of Delhi for 25 years, he remained in the south, fighting all these wars, trying to subdue Murata rebels.
He died in 1707, when he died, India was one of the richest countries in the world. His treasury
was bigger than all the European kings put together, all of the Treasury's put together, the Treasurer of oronsay Bottom gear, his progressions, the wealth he had, and the military prowess and all things necessary to rule. His ability is capacity was bigger than all the European kings put together. And India had 24% of global wealth. India, basically offered 24% of global GDP. This origin there was, it was a powerhouse. It's very powerful. Very, very powerful. A lot of people ask this question that if any of us are rich and powerful, why didn't they lead the world in technology like the Europeans did during the Renaissance?
The answer to this question is
that when empires are powerful when they possess so much gold that they don't need to produce scientists to invent things for them to go and start looking into
prospects or making money or bringing money or bringing provisions they just
by things. For example, you may be thinking, why don't the country's produce scientists, or the Sultan of Brunei and these people are so rich, they just go and buy the latest technology, the best cars, the best jets, the best devices, the best phones, you name it, they have the money they're going by it. So as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Europe was very poor. Europeans were struggling. They were very, very poor in the 15th, and the 16th century. This is why they produced many thinkers and scientists who were experimenting so that the people of the land can find ways to manufacture things to have some kind of industry whereby they can become rich and
prosperous. The Mughals are already very rich. So that's why they were buying European technologies. They had European guns. They bought many, many European items, whatever good or handy came from Europe. They possess them because they are so much money, and they produce their own stuff. They are their own technologies, local technologies. India was supplying cloth to the whole world. The best cotton was coming from India in the world.
As early as the Roman period, there are Roman historians Pliny the Elder, he mentions that there was a debate in the Roman Senate, that Roman Roman women are so fond of Indian cloth that a lot of Roman gold is being shipped off to India to buy this cloth. So Indians were supplying cloth to the world up to the point when the Mughals were ruling