Adnan Rashid – The Rise of the Islamic Civilisation Causes And Effects.
AI: Summary ©
The history of Islam is discussed, including the basket period, House of Wisdom, and the new-founded-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-ive-
AI: Summary ©
Let 100 Rahim
Al hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah Ahmad.
Thank you so much for inviting me to address you.
I have come from very far.
Especially when you look at Canada,
traveling within Canada is like traveling within a continent. And Vancouver is even farther. So this is the farthest I have come in my life to any place in the world. Okay, this is the western most part of the world as far as I'm concerned. And I'm honored to be here today. Thank you very much for inviting me. I have delivered this lecture in different places. For example, I was in Edmonton and I was in Fort McMurray today I'm here and inshallah tomorrow I'll be in Saskatoon and then Winnipeg and then back to Edmonton and then to Toronto, and life goes on.
So, today's topic is a very important one. It's a very interesting one, a lot of people haven't been actually
explored exposed to some of the things I will share today with you, some of them are fascinating, because of the nature of the topic and the details I will discuss with you today inshallah. So, the top topic is House of Wisdom.
House of Wisdom basically refers to, generally speaking, an institution that was established in
a basket period or during the basket period.
A basket period was a period ruled by a basket, Caleb's in the history of Islam.
And it is considered to be the second major Muslim dynasty after the Iliad dynasty. The Ommaya dynasty was formed
in the seventh century, in Arabia,
and the capital of the Omega dynasty was Damascus, where the immediate Caylus are ruling from and then came another dynasty.
And that was the basset dynasty. The House of Abbas Abbas was the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad and his descendants basically established this new dynasty having ousted or removed the OMA youths from power.
So one of the immediate Caleb's actually the second a minute, Caniff established an institution in the city of
Baghdad
currently Baghdad which was previously previously known as Dr. Medina, salaam, Baghdad was a new city established by the passage and it was called Medina to salaam or the city of peace.
And later on, another name was given to the city and it was called Baghdad.
So in this city,
Kelly Feldman saw he ordered for an institution to be established and this institution will basically work on or people working within the institution, they will translate books from other civilizations into the Arabic language. By this time, the Muslims had become a superpower, militarily, economically.
And in many other respects the Muslims were a superpower
and Muslims are a global power. Muslims are ruling a very, very large territory, stretching all the way from Spain to China. By this time, the Muslim empire was the biggest power in the world.
And
this was due to a few reasons that I will discuss discuss in due course.
Can we not make this louder?
Okay, don't worry about it.
So
the basket period was one of the most
interesting periods in Muslim history. A lot happened in this period Muslim theologians had already pioneered the theology. Quranic manuscripts were copied throughout the Muslim world and they were disseminated.
Then Muslims were masters of the tradition, the history. In other words, called the prophetic tradition, the Prophet of Islam, his tradition, his president, his examples, His stories were documented carefully. And then they were also spread around the Muslim world. So Muslims had already mastered the basic sciences or basic arts.
And now they were looking beyond
having mastered the theology having understood their religion, or compiled it, having compiled it, having canonized it, they were looking beyond.
So they started to translate books from other civilizations, Greek works are translated into the Arabic language, many Persian works, many works from India, some some of the Roman literature was translated into the Arabic language from Greek and Latin languages.
And this institution then became a hub of learning for all types of people, the Jewish, the Christian, and the Muslim people, together collectively, they would come to this institution, they would seek knowledge, they will learn the Arabic language, and they would master these works. And then they produce, they would produce their own independent researches. So Baghdad became basically
a hub of learning. Many people from around the world were flocking to Baghdad, to seek knowledge from Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars. All of this was facilitated by the rule of Islam.
And why am I talking about this? I'm talking about this because
the topic is,
is Islam in conflict with science? Or in other words, modernity or advancement?
The answer is absolutely no. Islam is not in conflict with science or any type of advancement. So long as it's moral in his outlook, let me explain. Islam is not against modernity, when it is guided by moral principles revealed by God Himself, in our case, as we the Muslims believe the Quran.
So, modernity that comes without moral principles of guiding principles
that protect that modernity from corruption, from causing destruction.
Such modernity
that is guided by these ethical principles, moral principles is cherished, it is celebrated Islamically speaking, but modernity or any
advancement, whether it's scientific or otherwise, if it's not guided by moral or ethical principles, if it's not moral in its outlook, then it is a recipe for destruction.
Let me explain what do I mean by that? Hitler? Hitler, is a very good example of this.
Hitler was very modern,
he was the most modern person in the world. What do I mean by that? You may be thinking, What is he talking about modern Hitler? Yes, Hitler was very modern, very advanced, very, very powerful. Technologically, he had some of the best scientists working for him in the world. German scientists at that time, were the best scientists in the world. Even Einstein was German. By the way, did you know that?
Einstein was German. Einstein moved out of Germany because he didn't like what the Nazis were doing. But Hitler had a huge collection of very learned scientists who were working for Hitler.
They were producing machines weapons, they were conducting researches for him, so that he can do what he did.
Now, this was modernity, par excellence. If you define it as scientific advancement, this was modernity par excellence, right? But what did that modernity do? To the world in general, and to the Jewish people in particular, the Jewish people of Germany were destroyed by this modernity, because it wasn't guided by moral principles. Hitler was an immoral man.
He was an unethical man. And because of that,
power in his hands, or modernity, in his hands, was a recipe for disaster.
So if you give power to the wrong people to the wrong political entity, or to the wrong leader, what happens? That leader will abuse that power because he is either mentally demented or he is an immoral person.
Okay, we have many examples in recent history. Hitler is one example. Saddam Hussein was another example. Right? Saddam Hussein was very powerful.
And
he committed atrocities because of the weapons he had in his possession.
And then the list goes on and
What happened? What's been happening in the world recently caused by Western nations? Let's say the US,
okay? Very powerful country, a lot of military personnel. Okay, a lot of power. But because this power is not guided by moral principles, you can see what's happening in the world today.
Okay, so I'm trying to be fair, I'm trying to be fair, that when morality is not the guiding force, when ethical principles are not leading, modernity or advancement, then it is a recipe for disaster. Some of the some of the biggest mass murderers today are some of the most eloquent people in the world.
The only difference between them and gang is con is that these people are eloquent, highly educated, they've been to some of the most sophisticated institutions and they dress in suits.
And they have double O sevens working for them.
Right.
Very modern, very advanced.
And they commit atrocities. Some of these people have been educated at Harvard,
Eton, Cambridge, Oxford, they come from these institutions, but they commit atrocities. They argue for atrocities. They fight for atrocities, because they're not guided by moral principles. They are immoral people.
But when modernity is guided by moral principles, it causes civilizations to blossom. It gives gives birth to peace, and justice. People live in peace together. There are no wars. There are no killings, there is no injustice, there are no massacres.
What happened in Canada, for example, today I was in
I was,
you know, what do you call your city center? Downtown? Okay, sorry, I'm from Britain. So, I don't know your terminology. Okay. Downtown, or Australians called the desert outback.
Okay, so I was downtown, walking around and I saw this memorial dedicated to children who were murdered by
those schools. They were given to as a trust.
Actually, they were taken away from the parents by force.
So I'm talking about this mass grave that was found in
sorry, Cam, Kamloops, thank you. I forgot the word as well. Okay. I was reading about it Kamloops. 215 children found buried in a mass grave. And this was an educational institution. It was a school.
It was a residential school, where the children were being civilized. They were being civilized, they were savages.
And they were being civilized.
And instead, instead of being civilized, they were completely, you know, decimated and they were killed off. And they were buried. So this was basically an educational institution that was meant to educate them and make them better human beings, and do well by them and make them citizens so that they can contribute positively. What does this institution do? This institution institutionally murders them, abuses them, sexually abuses them, and kills them. And I'm not making this up. By the way. I'm not making this up. Everything Everything I said, has been stated in news reports, by academics, and by Canadian journalists, they have reported on this, right? So don't blame me for
being the messenger, don't shoot the messenger, as they say, Okay, this is what I read. And I read it today. So, up to the year 1951. All of these kids had to be surrendered, by law, to the authorities, for them to be civilized and educated by the natives by the first people.
And they had no choice. So these kids were taken away by force from the parents. And then hundreds of 1000s of them were kidnapped.
Sent to these institutions, and many 1000s disappeared without trace.
Parents were not told as to what happened to them. And one of the reasons why they were buried into these mass graves was that it would cost too much for them to be transported back to the parents.
So these kids go buried at these institutions. And this was not one incident. They found many mass graves, nearly 1000 children have been found buried in mass graves at different locations in British Columbia.
Grim history, dark history, right? Why did that happen is the question, why did that happen? Is the question I'm addressing, because these people who were educated, they were organized, institutionalized,
and claimed to be more people, in fact, in this case, the Catholic Church.
And yet they did something like this. So what were they lacking? They were lacking empathy. They were lacking sympathy. They were lacking compassion. They were lacking mercy,
basic principles for any good human being.
But the reason why they failed to do what they should have done,
which was to return these kids to back to the parents and let the culture flourish. This was a cultural genocide. Again, I'm using a term used by the the Reconciliation Commission, established by the Canadian government, they said this was a cultural genocide. Because these kids were not allowed to speak the language. They were not allowed to speak their languages, they were not allowed to express their cultures. And as a result, if they did, they would be beaten, at times killed by the Guardians, the parent, not the parents, or the Guardians, the staff, the nuns, and the priests. In fact, one of the survivors, he stated that sometimes kid kids would be thrown at the wall.
So this is unbelievable cruelty. Okay, why this happened? Is because these people were not moral people.
They did not follow the principles they themselves were preaching.
So morality, ethics, sympathy, compassion, empathy, are necessary principles for a great civilization to come about. Because without these things, or these principles,
any civilization that acquires power or influence is a recipe or is
bound to commit atrocities and destructions.
And one of the points from the Indian subcontinent, Muhammad Akbar, he said,
in one of his political
collections, in two verses, he summarized this principle beautifully, eloquently. He said, Judah, whoa, Dean Sassette, say, to Russia, th and
if you separate politics, from ethics and morals, in other words, faith, the religion, if you separate politics from religion, then what is left is Ganga is Khan.
Because Ganga is candid politics, he came up with his armies, he designated civilizations. From China to Syria, he went killing on a killing spree. He did it himself for 10 years, from 1219 to 1227, nearly 10 years, and then afterwards, his children carried on the following cargo vans or the following hands of the Mongol Empire, unless or until they themselves converted to Islam, many of them later on third and second generation of Genghis Khan, converted to Islam, and their waist started to change. They abandon the Mongol brutal ways for a better system, which they found in Islam. So even though they came out to conquer Islam, the lands of Islam or the civilization of
Islam, that they themselves got conquered spiritually, having realized that this is a flower.
The Islamic civilization is a flower that leaves its fragrance in the hand that crushes it.
And that's exactly what happened. The Mongols came to crush it.
And yet they found the fragrance in that very hard.
And then they got converted to this very faith themselves. So I'm going to talk about the rise of the Muslim civilization and one of one of the reasons why this civilization even came about Muslims acquired immense power, immense influence immense education and knowledge and what was guiding what was guiding this civilization and what gave rise to this civilization. And why was it the way it was?
It was due to the guiding principles, and I'm not claiming a utopia perfection. Yesterday I mentioned something very funny.
People found it humorous. And that was there was no My Little Pony land
yet. You know My Little Pony Have you watched that cartoon as kids? Maybe you have some nostalgic, you know feel feelings about My Little Pony, remember? Yeah. Some of you may be thinking is this guy's Wait, buddy pony, okay, it's a girly Katana. No kids all kick kids. I used to watch as a kid was so beautiful. You know, he was so amazing rainbows, ponies flying around stars swirling from the, from the skies. So it was beautiful. My Little Pony, right? I'm not claiming that Muslim empire, the Muslim civilization was not My Little Pony land, there were no ponies flying around, there were no rainbows. Okay, it was as human as other civilizations, but it was special, what it
achieved, other civilizations could not.
And I say Western civilization, modern Western civilization, as we know it today has been has has come the closest to what the Muslims had achieved for 1000 years. And even this, what the Western civilization has achieved is, is a direct result of the what the Muslims gave to the Western civilization.
So many influences that we can find today are many, many patterns of behavior, in terms of tolerance, and justice, and, you know, many, many positive and great things about the Western civilization and the rest of July, I'm talking about Canada, Australia, Europe, okay? Despite all the problems like Islamophobia, racism, xenophobia, these things, these things are caused by the media, okay? The people themselves inherently are not like that. They have been conditioned to think in a particular way. And because the media is in the hands of the wrong people, again, modernity in the wrong hands,
media, channels, print media, in the wrong hands. And this is what happens, what happened in Germany,
what the German media was doing to the Jewish people,
once upon a time, where a Jewish man would be shown on a globe, leaning over a globe with long nails with a long nose, as if the Jewish conspiracy is there to take the world, or something like that, or Jewish people were shown as rats, by German media.
And all of this affected the German people.
So much so that many of them supported Hitler in his program.
And this is exactly what's happening today. Today, this same media, similarly is painting the Muslims in that light.
And you have seen for the last 20 years how the media has been reporting on Muslims, and this is not even even a controversial statement to make is an academic project now, where scholars are studying this phenomenon of Islamophobia.
So when you demonize people, and when they you lack moral principles that guide your endeavors, or your enterprises,
then things like this happen.
So, the reason why Muslims organize themselves to the extent they did was because of the principles, they are certain principles that guided them. So how do I explain this? In simple terms, this is
how I explained
there was a chain of gold with a golden chain of events, I call it the golden chain of events in the history of Islam. Okay, and what does that chain constitute? It constitutes
four events.
This chain has four locks. So remember this, this is the map of the making of the Muslim civilization what follows now, what I'm about to tell you, is the map of the making of the Muslim civilization, or the Islamic civilization. Okay. So event number one,
the revelation of the Quran, or the emergence of the Quran in the seventh century, the Quran emerges from Arabian from the from, from the seventh century Arabian Desert, how it came, how it was revealed, where the prophet Muhammad was a true prophet of God, whether the Quran is from God or not. All of these questions put aside,
everyone agrees all historians and scholars studying the history of Islam they agree,
Muslims or non Muslims, all of them they agree that the Quran emerged from Arabia in the seventh century, there is no doubt because we have manuscripts from that time. We have manuscripts in global libraries from the seventh century.
So the Quran definitely emerged in the seventh century.
Okay, from that Quran came a peculiar sense of justice
that was very special to these followers of the Quran, that's the second event, the second lock in the chain. So the first
event is the revelation or the emergence of the Quran. And the second is
the dispute kill peculiar sense of justice that originates from the Quran or the teachings of the Quran, as it was delivered and practiced, then the third event is
peace that came from the justice, because
effective justice was applied, peace, King, and from that peace came progress. So this is the golden chain of events, the emergence of the Quran, a peculiar sense of justice that originates from the Quran, from that Justice came peace. And from that peace came progress, what we call the Muslim is civilization or the Islamic civilization. So now go backwards. Can you have progress without peace?
Yes or no? Can you have progress without peace? Are you sure?
Can you ever have progress without peace?
No. Yes, you're right. No.
You got confused for a second.
You can never have progress without peace. Hello. You can't? That's impossible.
You cannot Hello, if you are, let's talk about you as an individual. You're sitting in your living room. Do you call it living room in Canada? What do you call it? Yeah. Okay, I'm speaking to civilize people there.
Okay, you're sitting in your living room at home, right. And there are things flying around, your kids are fighting it throwing things at each other, someone spilled coffee on you, and you're trying to write an essay.
You're trying to write an essay? Do you think you will be able to do it? Yes or no. Because there's no peace for you to do that. You will not produce your masterpiece, because there is no peace for you to do that. So it's not gonna happen until you shout at your wife and tell her to take the kids away. I'm trying to do some work.
And then your wife comes back and tells you don't shout at me.
So, the point is, you cannot have progress without peace, full stop. And you cannot have peace without.
Without
justice.
You cannot have peace without justice. If you don't have justice, you will not have peace. Because people who are wronged who are unjustly treated, will cause problems.
They will always fight back, they will always campaign for justice. So that will cause lack of peace and justice. In our case, when we talk about the Muslim civilization in particular, came directly from the Quran.
It came directly from the Quran and the Quran, the principles of the Quran was the driving force of the Justice Muslims took to the world. So from the Quran came justice from that Justice came peace. And from that peace came progress. So let's talk about
that Justice I'm talking about we all agree Quran came, it emerged, and it transformed the Arabs. beyond recognition. The Arabs completely switched. Something happened to them. Okay. And I'm not talking about those movies where you, you know, Incredible Hulk. Have you seen that movie? Incredible Hulk? Yeah, something happens to this guy and he turns into a hole. And then he goes, does all the good work, right?
I'm not talking about something like that. But it was, by the way, something similar to that. The Quran did something Quran did something like that to the Arabs and the the Arabs went out, and they conquered the Persians, and the conquered the Byzantines. And then they went all the way conquering North Africa, up to Spain.
And in the East, China, what happened? Why did this Why did did this is another question. But the question I want to address is, how were they able to do this so rapidly? Within a century, they had the largest chunk of land ever taken by one group of people to that date, unprecedented. Even Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hannibal, and all those people in the past could not achieve this. Something happened in Arabia, this book is revealed these guys read this book, and lo and behold, yeah,
They come out conquering lands, without any special weapons. And they were fighting superpowers. They were fighting the Persian Sassanid Persian Empire, which was a superpower. On the other hand, they were fighting another superpower called the Byzantines, the Romans
with immense power.
And they took the land of Persia, the land of Iraq, the land of Syria, the land of Egypt. And when I say Syria, I mean greater Syria, greater Syria mean, means Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, this was all Roman territory, Romans were ruling this territory.
And then they went beyond conquering all the way up to Morocco.
And then they landed in Spain.
The question is how to do this.
Historians to this day, don't fully understand this phenomenon. They come up with many theories, that talk about the fact that the Byzantines and the Persians had already exhausted themselves by fighting each other. These empires were at war with each other, and they are already exhausted. But even then, some historians are baffled that the Arabs are not able, despite the fact that the these two empires had been completely
exhausted.
The Arabs did not have the ability to do what they did.
And then they went beyond not only that, and this they were fighting simultaneously, the Persians are the Byzantines.
When Muslims are this question, how did this happen? We have a very plain and simple answer, which is an answer from a faithful person.
That this was a promise made by God in the Quran, and the promise was fulfilled not only in the Quran, even we believe we claim that this was foretold in the Bible
13 centuries before the Prophet of Islam was born. Okay, when you open the Bible today, it is foretelling the coming of an Arabian messianic figure who will not only take lands, he will take lands and establish justice on those lands, he will, he will apply a new law, not the law of Moses, because these revelations are coming to the Jewish people. eighth century BC, there was a prophet called Isaiah. And his book can be found in the Bible today, the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, chapter 42, is a prophecy about a messianic figure who will come in the future with a new law.
We'll take islands.
In other words, he will take the planet
and
on these islands, he will apply his law and he will put justice on earth, He will take people out of darkness into light.
He will take people out of darkness into light.
And he will put idol worshipers to shame
and he will triumph. He will be triumphant against his enemies, his enemies will not be able to defeat him. And he will be a messenger of God. I'm quoting word by word, by the way from Isaiah 42. And he will have something to do with the villages of Qaeda.
And
he will have something to do with the mount Salah
verse number 11 of the chapter, who is k.k.is, the second son of Ishmael in the book of Genesis we read in chapter 25 Verse 13, that K DAR is the second son of his mile. And K dar was in Arabia according to the book of Isaiah chapter 21. We are told that Qaeda was in Arabia. So this individual is
connected to Arabia. And Sarah is the mount where something is going to happen and salah is a mount mountain called you know, this mountain salah is in Medina,
you Google right now, the word setup s e l a and you will see a mountain in Medina. In Arabic it is spelled with sa la amine.
And in English, s e l a mount Sara put it in Google and EWZ is a mountain in Medina. So this is far too much for us to be ignored for us to be ignoring. And this prophecy is about an Arabian Prophet clearly.
And this much has been by the way testified to or clarified that this prophecy is about a new law, a new law that will come and this new law will spread throughout the world and it will establish justice. There is a scholar or there was a scholar from the University of Oxford, and his name was Christopher north. Christopher North was an expert on the book of Isaiah a non Muslim. It was not I don't know if he was a Christian or Jewish but he wrote
extensive commentaries on the book of Isaiah, in one of his books titled suffering servant in deutero. Isaiah, he states that this prophecy or the person who will bring this system,
it will be something like the Arabic deen the Arabic Dean, or in other words he the same scholar he says it will be something like the Islamic Deen.
So this is an expert on the book of Isaiah is not a Muslim, and he's saying it will be something like that. So this prophecy is there. And the Quran makes the same claim
that it is a promise of Allah to those who believe among you and do righteous deeds, chapter 24 of the Quran, verse 55.
It is a promise of Allah to those who belong believe among you do righteous deeds that Allah will grant you succession in the land like he did to those before you?
What are the loan Ladino Mahnomen Khumba Amira Sala hard layer start Lafonda hahnville or Comstock Lafonda Xena min public him?
Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
So the Muslim say all of this, what happened later on Muslims to call this land from China to Spain was a fulfillment of that prophecy in the Quran. And not only that, it was even foretold in the Bible. So glad tiding the prophecy is fulfilled. But historians don't accept that secular
non religious historians don't accept that explanation. So they have to come up with some kind of empirical or some some kind of naturalistic explanation. They have to explain that the Arabs had some kind of super weapons for them to achieve all of this, but they can't find those weapons. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Okay, not only Iraq, in Iraq, but also the Arabs, they had no weapons of mass destruction. So they went out, and they took all this land. And now Now the question is, what did they do after that? What did they do after that? They took this land, what happened afterwards?
They
basically Subhan Allah established justice, as it was foretold. Okay, now, who says that? Who says that the Arabs, the Muslims, they went into these lands and they establish justice? There are a few testimonies I want to very quickly share with you in this regard. So I am still on the second lock of the chain justice. Okay. And then then we'll come to peace. So how did these people that came out from the Arab Arabian Desert looking like barbarians, when they came to Damascus, the city of Damascus for the first time when the people of Damascus Christians, baizen team Christians, and the Orthodox Christians of the city of Damascus, when they looked at these barbarians from the walls,
they thought these guys will chew us alive. They will cook us they're cannibals, these scruffy looking people from the desert. How do we deal with them? So they resisted. They resisted. From the from the Arab side from the Muslim side. There were few generals who were really leading the army. Oh, by the way, injera was one of the companions of the Prophet, one of the companions of the Prophet. And so was called Mindvalley. So long story short, the city of Damascus, half of it was taken by treaty, the other half felt
big, and they forced their way in the Arabs, the Muslims forced their way into the city. The city of Damascus was taken. And the Muslim said to these people of Damascus, that you may live in peace. All of you keep your churches. Okay. Yeah, except the other half which was taken by force that was taken by force. That city doesn't belong to you that part doesn't. The other part that was taken by treaty, we have to honor the treaty, you live in peace. You pay us a tax, which was called Jizya. Tax, we will protect you, no harm will come to you, you will become our responsibility.
And then what happens? Because this was Roman territory.
Emperor Heraclius, the Roman emperor, the Byzantine emperor at the time, he musters an army never assembled before 300,000 men are assembled by him, the Arabs, the Muslims in Damascus, they hear the news that the Roman Emperor is coming with a giant army.
What do we do now?
So they start thinking, we have two options. Either we fight a siege battle, stay within the city and fight
or we fight an open battle in the desert. And if we lose, we go back to the desert. The Romans will not perceive us in the desert, because that's our territory. So they decided we will fight in the desert
and when they are retreating, now remember they have taken tax from the Christians.
They have taken tax money from
The Christians for their protection. And it was a very small amount.
So
Aveda, the leader of the Muslim army, he commanded his treasurer to return all the money to the Christians.
Because we can no longer protect them. We cannot keep our, our
our What do you call it? agreement we made because it's not possible for us to do that anymore. Therefore we don't have the right to keep that money. We took this money from them so that we can protect them. But we now need to return this money and they are in a state of war when they need this money the most. So when the Christians receive this money, they they they express us, you know, they express the shock that how is it possible that you people coming from the desert looking like barbarians behave like this? While the Romans, our own brothers and Christian brethren, they would rob us dry.
And then these Christians said we pray to God that you come back, not the Romans.
And I'm not making this up. By the way. There are references to this. There is a historian called Dionysius of tamari, who was writing in the ninth century documented all of this. So the Romans come back.
They fight the Arabs, the Arabs defeat them, despite the fact that the Arabs are out number three to one. Okay, the Muslims 40,000 Muslim nearly 200,000 Romans. Okay, they defeat them the famous battle of yarmuk.
Completely complete route. The Romans never return again to the land of Syria. Never.
Never because the last is very important war. So what happens the second time now when Muslims turn up at the gates of Damascus? What happened? The first time was going to tell me what happened the first time. What happened the first time?
No, no, no. When the Christian saw them what happened?
They resisted why.
Sorry. They didn't know what these people are. Right? They didn't know. They had no idea. But this time, they had lived with them. They knew who they are and what they will do. They open the gates and the shower flowers upon them.
And they thank God that it is these people who came back not the Romans The Byzantines,
and they open the gates. Same thing happens in Egypt, Coptic Christians, Orthodox Christians, who were very unhappy with the Romans, the Byzantines, who were forcing their version of Christianity on the masses.
Okay, they were very unhappy. So when the Arabs came conquering, there's a please come in and rescue us from the Romans. So they sided with him, sided with the Muslims.
Then when Muslims landed in Spain, fast forward a few decades, the Jewish people open the gates for them. Zionsville are an American historian who wrote a book of the history of the book on the history of the Sephardic and Matrigel Jewry. He writes in his book is a Jewish historian writing the history of the Jewish people. He writes in this book when the Muslims arrived in Spain in the year 711. See, the Jewish people welcomed them as liberators.
So they went conquering these lands. This is why Professor Thomas Arnold
wrote a book in the late 19th century titled preaching of Islam. And this book was published in 1896. Professor Thomas Arnold was a historian par excellence. He was he had he had taught history and philosophy in India. He taught at the earlier University and he also taught at the government college Lahore, and he was one of the teachers of the famous point, the Cabal who I mentioned earlier. So Arnold was very sympathetic to the civilization of Islam. But he had seen what the British Orientalist and colonial administrators and authors were doing with the Muslim civilization, they were painting it as if it was a very bad experience. They were writing against it. And they
were doing this so that they can show the British colonial rule as a noble thing
as the most as the best thing that happened to humanity. So to present their model as an acceptable model for the natives of these lands, they started to paint the Muslim past, very negatively. Thomas Arnold, who was one of them, a British historian and philosopher. He came back to Britain. He said, I have to do something about this. This is injustice. These guys are lying on the Muslim civilization. These propagandist colonial propagandists, scholars qualified, but writing
very, very negative works on the Muslim civilization and claiming that Islam was spread by the soul. So he comes back. He spends four years in the British Library, and he writes a book titled
preaching of Islam. And that book blew every Orientalist away.
And the second edition was published expanded in 1913.
So, Thomas Walker Arnold, in this book argues that one of the reasons why Muslims had such a rapid expansion in such a short span of time was because when they came into these lands, the people welcome them, because they were just
they were just because of their justice, people open the gates. Now,
moving on to the third chain of the making of the Muslim civilization or the sorry, the third lock in the chain peace.
These people having brought the Justice established peace is the question now, if they brought justice, which wasn't justice, could they have peace? Now? Who do we go to we go to the non Muslims who are living under them, we go to the Christians and the Jewish people and see what they say. So we take examples from different places at different times so that we can have a representative example. We can have representative examples, not one place at one time, that can be an accident, that could be like one good ruler or good did good things. But let's see what these Christians and Jews said across the board in different places at different times. So we have, let's say,
John bar pinkeye. Writing in the seventh century, when we're Avia Roger lawan what are the companions of the Prophet Muhammad was ruling over the Muslim empire, the first Ommaya cave, right, he ruled for 20 years. John writing in Damascus writes, there is so much peace in the world that we have never seen anything like it. Even our ancestors have never heard of anything like in
writing in Damascus under the Muslim rule, ruled by a Muslim cave called Maha via fast forward, Jerusalem during the Bassett period, the patriarch of the city of Jerusalem, the Christian patriarch, his name was Theodosius Theodosius wrote a letter to his counterpart in the city of Constantinople, which was still in the Christian hands. And he was writing this letter to the patriarch, the Christian patriarch of the city of Constantinople. He writes in the letter that the Saracens, ie the Muslims allow us to live in peace. They allow us to build our churches and they express goodwill towards us. They don't oppress us they don't persecute us. At the same time, when
Theodosius is writing his letter, a French traveler, traveled from France all the way to Palestine, to the city of Jerusalem as a pilgrim as a French pilgrim.
Okay, he writes, in his travelogue,
that
there is so much peace among the infidels.
And he's talking about the Muslims while they're here. Okay, there is so much peace among the infidels in the city of Jerusalem, that if I was to leave my belongings in one place and came back later, my belongings would be found untouched.
Now, you say that today about New York,
right? Or let's say Karachi, Cairo. I'm being fair. The whole world is in chaos. You can't trust anyone anywhere in the world. You cannot show me a society. Maybe Geneva? Yes. Switzerland, where people? You know it gold? Yeah. Okay. Or, or somewhere else? Like, you know, Saudi Arabia, where you would lose your hand. If you stole right. Okay. So yeah, places like that. These are exceptions, right. But around the world, if you were to leave your belongings, like let's say a Gucci bag, okay. Or Louis Vuitton bag, right. You left it on the street in the middle of the street. Okay, leave it. I can, let's do an experiment. Let's, I mean, let's do an experiment. Okay. Leave it downtown,
somewhere on the road, on the pavement, and give it five minutes. Give it five minutes. What do you think's gonna happen? Sorry, she's
gone.
Okay. So, George, Bernard, the wise writing in the ninth century is writing you leave your luggage, you go away, you will find it untouched Jerusalem.
At the same time, a Jewish author who wrote a commentary on the Old Testament, and it is an anonymous source. We don't know the name of the author, and the sources separate Patreon. The name of the sources set for Patreon and Karen Armstrong in her book, a history of Jerusalem. She quotes this source. And this Jewish author says that the temple is in the hands of people who honor us they don't we worship together in the temple as believers in one God.
Then we go to Cordova. Let's fast forward to Cordova 11th century 1080s. There was a Jewish rabbi called Barbuda, writing and Muslim Cordova right
And he states that our living standard or our living condition is far better. If not equal, if not equal, it is far better than the Gentiles. Who were the Gentiles, the Muslims, he was talking about the Muslims, the people who rule us, our living conditions are better than them. The Jewish rabbi living in Cordoba.
And this goes on and on and on, and let's move forward. Fast forward. Let's come to the Ottomans. Now, okay. This is not all accidental. This is not just accidents happening one after another. This was due to the system that was upheld. It wasn't. The people were not perfect. The system was good, but the people were not perfect. And even though the people were not perfect, they achieved this
fast forward ottoman, Ottoman Jerusalem
and Israeli scholar named Amnon Cohan. Are you getting bored? Are you getting bored? Hello. Did you have food today? I can't hear you. Are you getting bored brothers and sisters? Okay, so shall I carry on? Or just fast forward and summarize.
Okay.
So Amnon Cohen and Israeli historian, published a book titled A world from within the court records of Jerusalem.
In this book, he studied the the court records, the Muslim court records from the city of Jerusalem for the year 1500 to 1570. So he studied court records of the Muslim court in Jerusalem for 70 years as a scholar to see what type of cases came. And he was specifically interested in the Jewish people and their history, because he's from Israel. And he was interested in this. So he found within the 70 years, from 1500 to 15 71,000 Jewish cases filed at the Muslim court,
even though the Jewish people had their own court back then, which was basically
organized by the Jewish rabbis living in Jerusalem. So Jewish people were leaving their own port coming to the Muslim court, bringing the cases to the Muslim judges. Amnon Cohan, he argues that this was because they would get justice quicker at the Muslim court than they would get at the Jewish court.
And even though the rabbis did not allow this, the Jewish people are still coming to the Muslim court.
And cases varied from custody of children and divorces and provisions after divorce and, and land disputes and things like that.
And then he writes, In conclusion that the Jews of Ottoman Jerusalem were happy, prosperous, and very successful.
And many, many more examples can be given right in this regard. So this was peace, which was promised through justice, and it was established, then what came as a result.
Lo and behold, the Muslim civilization, the Islamic civilization, which wasn't only made by the Muslims, it was made by a collection of ethnicities, tribes, people and religions. It was multicultural.
It was not homogeneous. It was not the doing of Muslims, only the system was Islamic. The system that governed the civilization of Islam for 1000 years was Islamic, no doubt. But the people who participated in the system are from all sorts of different lands and different religions. For example, some of the most powerful Jewish people in Jewish history.
could still hear me right. Okay.
Some of the most powerful Jewish people in Jewish history were born in Muslim Spain. Right. In fact, the same historian I mentioned earlier, Zion zohore writes in the same book, the history of the Jewish, Sephardic and Mitra Jewry, he writes that the Jews at the Golden Age in londolozi in Spain from the year 950 to 1250, the Muslim period, right. And during this period of bond, some of the best Jewish points best Jewish philosophers, theologians, politicians, generals, okay.
You name it, okay. For example, let me give you examples. The most powerful monarch in Western Europe in the 10th century was who was going to tell me
think about it
without Googling,
who was the most powerful monarch in Western Europe in the 10th century?
Okay, any guesses? Anyone?
Okay, let me break the silence then
it was up to him on the third of Cordoba.
Now because I said Western Europe, you completely minused the Islamic element, right?
And you're not wrong in that because to this day, a Eurocentric historians, writing for Western institutions in Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard and Columbia and Pennsylvania, all the university, they don't even consider the Islamic period as the history of Western Europe. Call it racism, call it bigotry, call it prejudice, call it bias, call it what you like, but this is the reality. When you read the history of Western Europe, Islamic Spain, is either a paragraph or doesn't exist at all.
And this is something we need to change. It was Western Europe. Is Spain, Western Europe. Is it or not?
Okay. Are you sure?
I don't blame you. Because you live in Canada. Geography is a very difficult subject in this country. You know,
if you are someone where is, let's say
Edmonton, people say, somewhere, is somewhere in Canada, right? I don't blame you because it's so big. Right. But
Spain has been Western Europe
from time immemorial, right. So
the most powerful monarch in Western Europe in the 10th century was the Katif Abdurrahman, the third Omiya cave of Cordoba, the most civilized the most powerful city in the world, with a population of 1 million people. In the 10th century, this was the largest concentration of human beings on the planet, anywhere, anywhere on the entire planet. When the population might have been, maybe 50 million, maybe 50 million people lived in the whole world at that time. Okay. And 1 million people were in Cordoba. So the prime minister of this California has thy dementia proof, who was a Jewish physician, very powerful man. And he was writing letters to Jews around the world, asking them if
they need anything, because I'm a powerful man. I am the prime minister to the most powerful monarch in the world, arguably, if not in Western Europe. I can do what you want. I can support you I can finance you, what do you need? He was writing letters to the Jewish academies of Baghdad.
In a basket Baghdad, there was a Jewish Academy, the Babylonian Jewish Academy. He was writing letters to them, Do you need anything from me?
So and in fact, under Lucien Jews became so sophisticated and educated and powerful that they started to look down upon Iraqi Jewish academies. Because the Jewish academies, or the Jewish authorities in Iraq, again ruled by the Muslims that our baskets were the most authoritative Jewish rabbis and scholars in the world. During the Middle Ages, they word was the highest, right? But under Lucien Jews started to look down upon them, because they thought we are more educated, we are more civilized we are more you know, advanced because of the civilization in Spain.
So this progress consisted of libraries scholars, scientists,
born in places like Damascus, Baghdad, summer con Bokhara. Kashgar okay later on in India as well daily Okay, Lahore, Multan Okay, come to North Africa, Egypt, Cairo, Cara Juan in today now the current day Tunisia. Okay. Then move forward to Morocco all the way okay. Then to Spain. Okay. The the best civilization or the best model created by Muslims, by far was in Spain, one of the best models, okay. Some of the biggest libraries in the world were in Islamic Spain. Okay, even the rulers themselves, were putting a lot of effort into establishing these academies and libraries
in Spain. So how come the second again in the 10th century, okay, who died in 1970s Hukam. The second one of the most powerful monarchs again, in Western Europe, he had agents working for him. Okay, doing what?
Double Oh, seven? No, no, collecting books, collecting books. He had agents planted in every single major capital of the Muslim world to collect books.
Send them to Spain. And he had basically poured money poured gold to collect all of these books. So he accumulated a library of 400,000 volumes 400 to half a million books in his personal library. And it is said that he had read almost every single one of those volumes. Now, how is that possible? You everything? How's that possible? So when we say read, he had gone through a sift through it, basically, he had actually personally examined every single volume of his library.
So learn he was appointed par excellence for a scientist himself.
Okay. And this was the largest library in the world. And by the way,
you know, every single one of these books was handwritten. There was there were no printing presses at the time. Printing Press, was invented in the mid 15th century in Germany. And the first book that was published was the golden rule. The Gothenburg Bible, the famous Gutenberg Bible, okay. It there was no printing press. These were all handwritten volumes. A lot of them survived as far as late as the 15th century when the last Muslim stronghold was taken by the Spanish kings and queens. Okay. In this case, Ferdinand and Isabella 1492 was the year when the last Muslim stronghold in Spain in the Iberian Peninsula, fell to the Catholics, the city or the state of Grenada. Okay. That
was the very same year when Christopher Columbus discovered India.
Okay.
He discovered India did you know that?
Did you know that?
He discovered India. Hello. You're laughing? You think I'm joking? No, I'm serious. He discovered India.
Yes, he thought he discovered India. It was later on. When? And erroneously, the Native Americans are called what? Indians Come on, actually does, you know, are the Indians.
They're not even Americans. America was.
Who? America who was that?
Portuguese.
Portuguese explorer. Right?
They were something else. Right? So Christopher Columbus in the very same year, he left from Spain looking for, you know, India, a route to India direct route to India, because it was too dangerous for the Europeans to go around the Cape of Good Hope and cross all of Africa and then into the Arabian Sea and then to India. So they want to trade with India. And he was looking for a new route. So this was the year when Muslim Granada fell to the Catholic Monarchs and they burnt 1 million books.
The library of Grenada had 1 million books, they were burned. So two catastrophes in the history of Islam took place that cannot be how can I put it replay repaid on irrepairable catastrophes, right? One was the destruction of the Library of Baghdad in 1258, at the hands of the Mongols.
They took the library, the entire library, hundreds of 1000s of volumes on so many different subjects science, philosophy, literature, poetry, the flute, the core of the Muslim civilization. The achievements were chucked into the river tigress, and the river became black. And then the second catastrophe was Ferdinand and Isabella, burned the entire library of Grenada. A lot of the works had been shifted or moved to Grenada for for a very for a very long time. Because when the Spanish monarchs came down, conquering all that territory from the Muslims, so Muslims ruled Spain for nearly seven centuries, this was one of the best achievements of human history. Okay, this is
where works on science and geometry and alchemy. And it doesn't stop there. Moving fast forward to the progress part. Okay. How does this help us today? The final point of the conversation I want to mention because I've been speaking for one hour now, and I want to go to q&a straightaway. What happened? After all these achievements, and I haven't even I haven't even given you the tip of the iceberg. The details are far too
far, far more fascinating and, and overwhelming. And you can read books on the history of Islamic science, right. One book in particular, which I strongly recommend is by an author called Salahuddin, I'll design a read and the book is titled, The Hidden debt to the Islamic civilization, the hidden debt to the Islamic civilization and there are many more books
but then we can inshallah talk about them at the time. So
moving fast forward, what did this mean?
Knowledge due for the Europeans, the hand that was crushing the flower. In Spain, the same hand, the Mongols were crushing the flower called the Muslim civilization in the east. Now in the West, these Catholic Monarchs coming from the north, they were crushing this flower. You know, when they came into Muslim territories in Spain, they were blown away. They were so they were like, what, what is this? What is this? Okay, because the irrigation system was so sophisticated the streetlights, public libraries, paved roads, okay. And none of this could be found in Western Europe, France, Britain, Germany, all you had was sheep and fields. People living in grass houses seriously. No
joke, no insult. But they were simply sorry, Bob raised the semi civilized the Europeans, not not Northern Europeans or Western Europeans. So what happened after this, when these Catholic Monarchs took all this land, they found these libraries. So they realized that one of the reasons these people are so civilized and so advanced is because of these books, this knowledge. So they started to translate these Arabic works into the Latin language. So many translations were made, in particular, in the city of Toledo. And all of these translations, then we're moved to places like
Italy, France, and lo and behold, the University of Oxford one book in particular deals with what Britain took from Islamic Spain in Sicily, Muslim Sicily, okay. Because Muslims ruin Sicily for two centuries. Okay. That's why when you look at the Sicilian Mafia,
I hope you don't see them. Right. But if you have seen this movie God, the Godfather, right? Yeah, it's about Sicilian Mafia. So if you go to Sicily to this day, you will see people, they are not white. They look
what we were called olive color. They have this Arabic mix. The Arabs ruled Sicily, the island, Sicily for 200 years, until the Normans in the 11th century took it back from the Muslims, right. And
the impact of Sicily and Spain on Britain alone has been documented in a book titled The matter of Araby in medieval England. Very important, very powerful, very, very inspirational book, The matter of Araby in medieval England, the author is a Jewish lady called Dorothy McCluskey, Dorothy Metz litski is an amazing author and she has put down all of these details in this book. So I invite you to read this book and you will see the magnitude of Muslim contribution to Britain alone as a civilization to this day that even Canadians benefit from that influence because Canadians speak what language no offense to the French
Sorry, no offense to the French sorry English predominantly English right.
So, majority of the the Canadian people they speak okay and the Queen rules right, Queen rules Canada right. Okay. So, the English language is directly influenced on the Arabic language and this happened during the Middle Ages, when the Arabic language was the lingua franca of the world. There are so many words in the English language that come directly from the Arabic For example, sugar is Sucre. Okay, cat is it. Camo is jumbled mirror is mirror attune. Okay, then other examples there are so Earth, planet Earth is an Earth is a word from the Quran. Okay, so many words, the etymology of the English language when you study it as a language how it developed. So much so much of the Arabic
language can be found in the English language. This happened in the Middle Ages.
This didn't happen recently. This happened when in the Middle Ages, for nearly 500 years, Englishmen were traveling to Spain, taking knowledge from the Arabs and going back to teach. So the University of Oxford was initially organized by a man called Daniel Daniel of Morley. Daniel of Morley traveled to Muslim Spain having been to France and he writes in his book filosofia. In the preface, he writes himself in Latin. When he wrote the book and the manuscript can be found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He writes that when I got when I got to Paris, I saw these monks teaching philosophy, and the more they pretended to be learned, the more brutish they appeared to me, the more unlearned and
illiterate they appeared to me, then I heard of the Arabs in Spain, and I made my way to those masters of knowledge and I took knowledge from them and he comes back to Britain. Then he is advised by the Bishop of Norwich Bishop
John to establish a school of philosophy in Oxford, and that later on became the University of
Oxford. Okay, so a lot of knowledge that was taught during the middle ages, from the ninth century to the 14th century in Britain and France and Germany was coming directly from Muslim Spain and other parts of the Muslim world. In fact, one of the books has been even European Renaissance, even the European Renaissance, when people talk about Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. And, you know, other names like Galileo later on here, they were directly inspired by either directly or indirectly inspired by Arabic research found in Islamic Spain and other places. Okay. It doesn't stop there. Even as late as the Enlightenment period, 18th century,
British intellectuals were paying lavish tribute to the Muslim civilization, people like Adam Smith, does anyone know Adam Smith?
Adam Smith, who was
the founder of the liberals? Yeah, one of his students was Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine. Yeah. Adam Smith was an economist. His book,
titled, The Wealth of Nations is taught to this day to the students of economics. He was very intelligent man philosopher, right. And he wrote essays on many different subjects. On on in his essay on astronomy, he wrote, he writes that after the Roman Empire, the Muslim empire was one empire that gave the world so much peace and tranquility, that scholars and students could
basically invest in the connecting principles of nature for them to produce the great magnificent Muslim civilization. I'm paraphrasing his words, and he's so important in British history that you can you could find him on the back of the British 20 pound note. Now, that note has been changed. But
you might say, Oh, what's the big deal? Even Churchill is on the back of the British note, right? Okay. Even though Churchill was a mass murderer,
you know, he, he basically committed committed a mass murder in Bengal. You know, the Bengal famine, that killed 4 million people was a direct result of church Church's policies during the Second World War. That's another type of topic you can have, you have to invite me to discuss the topic. Right, so moving fast forward. So all of this progress, you know, basically left fragrance in the hand that was crushing it. The Spanish Catholic Monarchs who came down conquering and destroying at the same time, but, but also translating this knowledge into Latin. And the European Renaissance was a direct result of Muslim learning or the Arabic learning through Spain and other lands. Okay. And one book
in particular, finally, to mention one book was
written on this very issue by Giorgio Saliba from the Columbia University, George Saliba. He has written a book titled The Islamic origins of the European Renaissance. It is an academic book, he's not a Muslim, is a historian of science. And he has written this book the Islamic origins of the European Renaissance, okay, he believes that you cannot imagine European science without the Arabic contribution, the Arabic participation during the Middle Ages, there would be no European science without that. So a lot of the stuff we use today even in our computers and laptops, algorithm is used, it is direct product of the Muslim civilization, alpha is me, right? Even optics, everyone
hate some even hate them. optics were used later on to produce cameras and lenses and things like that, right. And books on medicine and philosophy, you name it fields upon fields, books are written by Muslim scholars, they had this tranquility and peace for for them to achieve all of this. So this was the House of Wisdom. This was the house of wisdom from China to Spain. It was the House of Wisdom called the Islamic civilization. And it was a product of that golden chain of events, the Quran,
justice, peace and progress that I discussed. Thank you so much for listening salam alaikum.