Adnan Rashid – Unveiling the Muslim Civilisation #9
AI: Summary ©
The history of Islam is discussed, including the rise of Islam and the development of modern technology. The printing of the holy Bible and the holy Bible is also discussed, along with the printing of the holy Bible and the holy holy Bible. The importance of finding accurate information and learning from history is emphasized, as well as the loss of diversity and knowledge of Islam among Muslims in the Western world. The historical and political bases of the region are also discussed, along with the importance of learning in writing and translation of the Arabic language. The upcoming episode of the next chapter on the "roost of the Middle East" and the "roost of the Middle East" is mentioned, along with a recap of the upcoming episode of the next chapter on the "roost of the Middle East."AI: Transcript ©
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato Alhamdulillah layerable alameen wa salatu salam ala rasulillah, about respected brothers and sisters in Islam. I welcome you all to another episode of unveiling the Muslim civilization. I have been away for a month I was traveling, I was busy. And now I'm back on hamdulillah. So I just wanted to let you know that it was not
something out of the blue rather, I was busy for work, and Alhamdulillah now I'm back. So we're gonna resume with the remaining episodes of unveiling the Muslim civilization. So today, we will be covering episode nine of unveiling the Muslim civilization series. And today in particular, we will be talking about how Muslim civilization produced giant libraries, book production, scholars, points, intellectuals, scientists
who are writing these works. And then these works are later transferred to the rest of Western Europe. Spain, when it was governed by Muslims was one of the most civilized regions of the world. It was the largest
territory in the sense of demographics. Or let's say quarterback was the largest city in the world with 1 million population. This was one of the largest cities in the planet. And for this reason, it became very civilized. Cordoba was one of the most advanced
cities in the world. How? Because there was street lamps for miles, there were 60,000.
mansions, they were 200,000 homes. They were bustling markets, they were mosques, they were libraries. They were teachers teaching in these academies. In particular mosques, they were teaching the teacher sitting in the corners, and they were doing the Holocaust, what we call the Holocaust classes for students who may want to learn theology may want to have lessons on Arabic literature, Bulaga eloquence, or possibly one of the subjects of science, let's say alchemy, or mathematics, or astronomy. These are the sciences that were being taught throughout Cordoba in the Muslim period. Generally speaking, that was the case, despite all the turmoil despite all the difficulties Muslims
may have been facing in these plans. So from now on, my brother and sister just want to highlight very quickly, episodes of unveiling the Muslim civilization will be a lot shorter than they were previously, right. There are many reasons for that, it is easier to follow up that way. For those who are watching the for those who are following, it is easier for them to watch a 20 or 30 minutes episode than then to watch an episode for 60 minutes or an hour. So we will try to cut them short. Not the content, but the episodes so you can watch more episodes of unveiling the Muslim civilization either on live Deen Facebook page, or my YouTube channel, which is titled a non machine
if you go on YouTube, you type my name, you will find me there in sha Allah. So just going straight to the point. Muslim civilization as I was explaining in the previous episode,
in particular, episode eight, I explained that Muslims had pioneered book production, partly because of the teachings of Islam. Of course the Quran, the first
revision revelation in the Quran or from the Quran was to read Accra Mira baccala Holla Holla Collinson. Amidala, Accra? bukan, Accra under the alhama bill column allemaal insaan Mala Mala. These are the first five verses that were revealed to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the cave of Hara. And I went through the details of that in previous episodes, that the Prophet sallallahu Sallam was in the cave, he received the first revelation of the Quran. And these are first five verses of the current chapter six, Chapter 96 of the Quran. So chapter 96 of the Quran. These are the first verses revealed to the prophet and what were they about? They were about
knowledge. They were about reading and writing, the use of pen and Allah God Almighty, the Creator of the heavens of the Earth is reminding humanity that remember, I am the one who taught you everything. Okay? So read in the name of the Lord. So now, in other words, Allah is possibly announcing
an educational revolution through Islam. And indeed Islam brought that revolution through education. So after the Quran was revealed, slowly, in 23 years, the Quran was revealed upon Muslims and Muslims started to learn, they started to read, they started to teach, and they started to write, they started to produce volumes upon volumes of the Quran. So they started to compile the Quran in volumes. This was a new revelation revolution as far as the Arabs are concerned. And wherever they went, they took the Quran and these books with them. So the Arabs primarily and the Muslims, who became Muslims from other nations, they started to involve or indulge in book keeping, book
production and book writing. So they started to transcribe copies of the Quran that encourage them to write other stuff. For example, the prophetic tradition, the Hadees literature, they start to derive the lease literature. And from that came a huge revolution of book production. Muslims started to write books, they started to pioneer books, they started to write their poetry, they started to write their theology, they started to write their jurisprudence. And this created a huge influx of scholars, books, paper, and other things. And it was because of this book production on a massive scale. paper was later on invented in the ninth or the 10th century, see, in the Muslim
lands, to be precise, possibly Iraq. They were paper mills, they were established. And now, some of the busiest places in the Muslim world were bookmarklets. So what I'm what I'm trying to tell you here is that Muslims became the most bookly people in the world, just as we have become the most unfortunately, bookless people in the world today, Muslims. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages, for over 1000 years, Muslims are the best book collectors, they were the biggest book collectors, they were the biggest library builders, the largest libraries in the world, were in the Muslim lands. Okay, if we were to talk about North Africa all the way to Central Asia. To this day, you can find
manuscripts lying around in book markets, they were produced on such a large scale, such large numbers of books are produced throughout the Muslim civilization that it is baffling for any book collector who collects books. It is absolutely baffling that the amount the sheer amount of books that were produced throughout the Muslim civilization at the time, is absolutely fascinating, right? Why was that the case? Because there was a specific emphasis throughout the Muslim civilization throughout this period I'm talking about on reading and writing. Okay, so many subjects, because of the inspiration that came from the Quran directly in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad Salallahu
Salam will put maximum emphasis on reading and writing and attaining knowledge. Because of that influence, that inspiration that came from the Prophet and the Quran, Muslims started to read, they started to produce books, they started to produce libraries, and they became the most learned people in the world. For over 1000 years. Again, with confidence, I will say that Muslims were the most learned people in almost all fields in the world.
I will repeat, Muslims was a most learned people in almost all fields in the world.
So Muslims,
Muslims, were basically mastering, mastering all the fields. In science, for example, in philosophy and literature, not only theology, a lot of people think that Muslims just pioneer theology, there are books on Hades, thick, and aqeedah. And prophecies of the Quran, for example, commentaries in the Quran, and that's all Muslims produced, like the Christians were throughout the Middle Ages. If you go to Latin Christendom, you will see that monks were only writing scripture and some of the commentaries on the scripture from the early church fathers. That wasn't the case of the Muslim world.
The Muslim world,
the case was very different, where a lot of scholars are producing works on other subjects. So Muslims, studied with sympathy, the works of the Greeks, the works of the Romans, the Indians, and they brought this knowledge together in the Muslim world, and then centers like Baghdad, Damascus,
Because codabar and much of central Asia, they these, these centers of power became centers of learning. Many libraries are established institutions established scholars of teaching throughout the Muslim civilization. Now cut the long story short, what these libraries actually do for the rest of humanity. This is the point I want to make, okay? There is much detail in books like Aaron debt to the Islamic civilization is a giant volume. And it is an encyclopedia of information on what the Muslims did for the rest of the world, in particular, the Western world, okay, and how Muslim libraries in the Muslim lands transformed the condition of Western Europe beyond recognition. And
throughout Renaissance to the Enlightenment period, scholars, thinkers, intellectuals are taking full advantage of some of these sciences that came from the Muslim world. Another book I highly recommend is studies in Islamic civilization, the Muslim contribution to the Renaissance, okay, the European Renaissance. So this is another very important book that you must get your hands on. And you will get some of these ideas I'm talking about, oh, by the way, these are simply introductions, these are not details, these two books are introductions, the details are far more fascinating than what these books contain. But these books will guide you into the direction so that you can do
further research. We need more scholars, we need more historians, we need more thinkers to come forward to take benefit from these books, and start talking about the Muslim civilization so that islamophobes, and their propaganda can be put to rest so that they can go on holiday permanently, right? Because they have been very busy for the last 20 years demonizing Islam and Muslims highlighting some of the
disturbing events in the Middle East and connecting them with the Muslim civilization. While the reality is that these events are geopolitical in nature. They are the outcomes of policies assessed certain Western countries, right? I don't want to indulge in that. So very, very quickly, I want to get back to my topic. So these libraries that were produced throughout the Muslim civil civilization from Central Asia, all the way up to Spain, were absolutely magnificent. In the previous episodes, I talked about how some of the Kaylee's in Spain in London has amassed books, massive collections, for example, one of them was hukam. The second
How come? How come the second was an avid, an avid book collector, to an extent that he had amassed about 400,000 volumes in one library. This was possibly the largest library in the world. He had agents running around collecting books for him. Okay, this is one example. There were 70 public libraries in Cordoba, Sicily, where the Muslims govern for nearly 200 years, which is in southern Italy. It is part of Italy today.
And Sicily is known for math yesterday. But previously throughout the Middle Ages on the Muslims of governing the island, from the ninth century to the 11th century, Muslims govern this island, a lot of libraries and scholars are present in this particular island of Sicily. Likewise, in Iberian Peninsula, Spain, also known as Spain, so many European scholars were flocking to the Middle East. If they had the desire and the drive to go that far, those who couldn't go that far, they will get a taste of the Western civilization in these two places, Sicily and Spain. So they will travel from Northern Europe into these lines, and they will start to study there are so many examples of people
who came from Germany, from France, even Italians, who had learned the Arabic language, okay, and some came from as far as Britain, British men, some in particular Englishman who came to Sicily and Spain to seek knowledge. One book in particular particular which I have previously mentioned, is titled, The matter of Arabic In medieval England, the matter of Arabic In medieval England. In this book, you will see the author Dorothy messalonskee, talks about how England benefited from Arabic knowledge that came directly from Spain and Sicily. So England in particular, not all of Britain, not Wales, not Scotland, not Northern Ireland. England, in particular, benefited directly throughout
the Middle Ages, from the knowledge that came from Spain and Sicily. How did that happen? They were English men in particular, if not other Europeans, English men in particular, they were traveling to Spain.
ancestrally to seek knowledge from the Muslims. So what was happening in Spain at this time. So it is clear that Muslims produced giant libraries. They amassed books from all over the Muslim world that were translated into Arabic from Greek from other languages such as Syriac, and possibly some Persian works. And some work from India. They were all translated into the Arabic language and then they were transferred into other lands, they were transferred into other lands, where the Muslims were ruling at the time. So this was the largest empire in the world at the time that stretches from Central Asia all the way to Spain. So books traveled very, very fast. You will find books from let's
say, sometimes Spain, you will find them in India, you will find books in the Middle East. They came from Spain or sometimes they came from Central Asia, the author of the scribe had written that book that particular manuscript in India, or in Bukhara in Salman Khan in Damascus. Okay, so the books were circulating, they were traveling with scholars, scholars were travelers, they would wander throughout the Muslim world with the books in the libraries. There is an example of Feroz Abadi, the author of the famous Arabic dictionary, which is called almost feroza body, but also body he lived in the, in the 14th century. See he he was known to have carried his library with them on the back
of the camels. Okay. So he had his Library's books, traveling with them wherever he went. And it is very possible that people took those books from him. He sold books, he gave books to his students. So this is why you see throughout the Muslim civilization, even in Spain today, whatever has survived, although 90% was destroyed after Reconquista, after the Catholics had come and taken all the land back from the Muslims from northern Spain all the way down to southern Spain and the last stronghold to fall was Grenada, which fell in 1492. And it is recorded that over a million books were burned by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella
Spain, because of the prosperity and
relativity, political stability for some time, many scholars of Bombay and many libraries are created there. So when there is stability, when there is sense of security, when there is justice, it is natural for scholars to flourish for institutions to flourish, and people study. And then they conduct researches. They write books, they produce libraries, and that produces civilizations, just like what we have in the West today in western lands, there is relative peace, there is justice, right? This is why there, there are so many big, flourishing institutions. This is how the Muslim world wars for over 1000 years, people look at the middle east today, and they think the Muslim
world has been in a mess. No, that's not the case. The Muslim world was the most civilized part of the planet for over 1000 years. This is where people flourished economically, socially, culturally, educationally, you name it intellectually people flourish people. This is why there are so many books. To this day. There are books that can be found throughout the Muslim world and book markets that can come from the Middle Ages. Okay. I personally possess some of them that came to me from my ancestral library. If you look at some of these manuscripts, you'll be fascinated, you'll be shocked. Right? So a lot of these books were they. And these books were now being translated into
other languages. Just as these books were translated into Arabic from other languages. This knowledge was disseminated throughout the Muslim civilization. And it was kept in libraries from Spain, to all the way to Central Asia. Unfortunately, Central Asian libraries are destroyed by the Mongols. When they started killing and pillaging and destroying from Mongolia all the way up to Syria. They destroyed hundreds of 1000s of books, possibly millions of books throughout the eastern civilization of Islam, starting from the quaza mite Empire all the way up to the mameluke.
Egypt. The next target of the Mongols was Egypt. And fortunately, the member Luke's in Egypt, were able to push back the Mongol advance. And that's what that's what stopped the Mongols. So all these libraries throughout this region were destroyed, burned, thrown into rivers and fires destroyed them, unfortunately. Likewise, similarly, when Reconquista was happening in Spain when the Catholic Monarchs were reclaiming Spain, when they were coming back to reclaim Spain, my brother and sister
A lot of books and libraries are destroyed, a lot of scholars are killed. So what remains in Spanish libraries today?
In Barcelona, let's say in Madrid, and in Cordoba and Granada. All the libraries that house a medieval legacy of Spain, in the libraries. That's not even 10% of what Muslims left 90% of it was destroyed by fires by wars by Reconquista. The Catholics who came from the loss, they hated Muslims and the legacy. There was a lot of Islamophobia throughout the Western world at the time, the Catholic clergy, in particular, friars and monks were writing on Islam, and they were distorting facts. They were lying about Islam and Muslims and the prophet of Islam. There are so many books written on that very topic. You can pick up any book for that matter, on that particular topic as to
how Western authors at the time who were mainly clergy, who were mainly monks writing in monasteries, how did they treat Islam? How did they see Islam? And how did they actually depict Islam to the masses, one of the books I strongly recommend is Islam and the West making often images.
This book is a must read, or it's a good start for anyone who is interested in in how Islam was depicted throughout the Middle Ages by the learned man of Europe at the time, the literati of Europe at the time. It's a very important book.
So libraries were destroyed. But you see, Islam had already made its impact before all of this took place. Islam had already
by the grace of Allah, but fulfilled its promise that was made in the Quran, Allah subhanaw taala. He stated in the Quran in surah, Colombia chapter 21, verse 107, out of 1100 gems on the Rahim, ma Sol Naka, Illa, Allah Allah, Allah mean, humbleness, sent you not as except as a mercy for the world. So this mercy in the form of knowledge which the Muslims had accumulated throughout the Muslim civilization was transferred to the rest of the world, in particular Europeans, who had a deep interest in this knowledge Muslims had to offer the Muslims were so civilized, that the Europeans were completely blown away, just as some of the Muslims will come from Bangladesh today
from Pakistan, from Egypt, from some of the very unstable countries, unfortunately, in the world, not saying Pakistan and Bangladesh are unstable. In fact, they are
huge powers. But there are some other Muslim countries that are unstable when they come to the Western world when they come to Canada when they come to the US. And when they come to Britain, or Germany. They get mesmerized by the level of civilization in these lands, how roads are paved, how everything is organized, how there is peace and harmony, right. So, just like that, the Europeans, the lands were in turmoil throughout the Middle Ages, and when they would come to the Muslim lands, they will see paved streets, they will see public libraries, they will see scanners, they will see your hospitals, they will see institutions that are organized, they will they will see courts where
the bodies would be sitting over people's affairs. All of these things are mesmerizing for a lot of people coming from Europe, and this was happening throughout the Middle Ages, there were Englishman Germans and French people coming to the Muslim lands closest to them, such as Spain and Sicily, and they would be mesmerized, they would be completely blown away by the level of civilization they would witness in these lands. It was unbelievable for them to, you know, behold something like that, in fact, one of the German nuns who traveled to Spain to Cordoba in the 10th century, when she saw the splendor, the glory of the Muslims in Spain at the time, she described it as the ornament of the
world. And one of the authors as a historian, who is also an expert in Spanish literature. This author is Maria Rosa manacle, she has actually paid tribute to this particular civilization created by Muslims in the city of kurzawa or Cordova, in particular, and in Spain in general. Her book is titled, the ornament of the world taking the words from this German nun who described Cordova, Cordova in the 10th century in these words, so Cordova was indeed an ornament of the world whereby there were libraries. There were people studying so many
scholars who came from Europe, many students of the Arabic sciences that were taught in Spain in Sicily at the time by Muslims, Jews and Christians, all of them teaching in the Arabic language, they were collectively Arabs. The words were written in the Arabic language, therefore, they were considered to be Arabs. All of these works. All of these books are being studied by studied by Jews, Muslims and Christians, they were all interested in this knowledge. And without any discrimination, they were able to seek this knowledge. They were studying this knowledge. So Western Europeans or northern Europeans.
If we were to speak of countries like Germany, France, and Britain in particular, they were very deeply interested in this civilization of Islam. They want you to know more about it, they were blown away, they were very impressed. They were inspired. They were
actually mesmerized by the level of knowledge and learning and advancement they found in Spain. In fact, some of them paid tributes. One of them was Daniel of Model A, Daniel of Model A was
Daniella Morley was an English scholar, who came from Britain, in a place called morally or from a place called Model A, he traveled to Paris to study. This is something he wrote himself in his book, titled filosofia, which is a which was written in Latin, and then later on, it was translated into I'm not sure if there is an English translation of this book.
I'm not sure if there are there are translations of this book.
filosofia in the preface, Daniel of Morley
writes that I traveled to Paris to learn philosophy from teachers who were teaching in Paris. And then he realized that they were very ignorant people, they had little knowledge of philosophy. And the more they pretended to be learners, the more ignorant they appeared. This is what Daniel of Morley wrote in his previous and he then sets then he then states that then I heard of the Arabs in Spain. And I heard about the philosophy. So I traveled to them to learn from them, and they were the masters of this field. So danila Morley is one of those people who paid lavish tributes to the Arabic learning that was found in Spain
at the time, so he went there, he studied, and he brought many books back to Britain with him. Another man was a lot of bath. So how are these people able to learn from the Arabs at the time? How did they do it? They learned the language, they learned the language. And after learning the Arabic language, they started to translate some of these works into Latin language so that they countryman, people living in Western Europe at the time, which was
in relative poverty, and backwardness. If we were speaking of knowledge, and learning, only monks were reading and writing at the time, and they were mostly reading Latin commentaries, and they were copying scripture, they were copying the Bible. And there wasn't much learning at the time, at this period in European lands, most of the learning was taking place in the Muslim lands. And this is why these European scholars who were hungry for knowledge and new fields of learning, they were traveling to the Muslim world to learn from the Muslims and non Muslims are writing in the Arabic language. And all of this was facilitated by the civilization of Islam throughout the Muslim world.
So after these people traveled to Spain, they started to learn the Arabic language people like a lot of Basque people like Robert of Catan, people like
Petros Alfonsi people like Daniel have, morally The list goes on. Some of those people are discussed in this book the hidden debt to the to Islamic civilization. It's an encyclopedia of information, you will find much information in this book. inshallah, on these individuals I mentioning, English men, French men, German men, traveling to the Muslim world, to learn from the Muslim then translate these works into Latin. And then afterwards, after these works were translated into the Latin language, they were transferred to the rest of Europe later on, and this phenomenon, the translation movement that happened mainly in Spain, will be discussed in the next episode, Episode 10
unveiling the Muslim civilization. I want to see how far I have gone so far, it has been exactly half an hour since I've been speaking. So I will stop now and inshallah continue next Saturday, at the same time potentially inshallah, the time doesn't change at the same time on live Dean Facebook page and subsequently on my, my, my Facebook page as well as my YouTube channel, you can watch this video there as well. And I will continue to cover these topics in the future as well. unveiling the Muslim civilization is the topic and then we are going through
some of the aspects of Muslim civilization that really benefited humanity in the future. So Next Episode Episode 10 will be about the translation movement that was born in Spain, all the libraries that God created in Spain, and then these works that were
translated into the Arabic language were then translated into Latin by Europeans who felt sorry for the country man because they were so ignorant at the time of the sciences, they wanted to take this knowledge to them and then after being translated into Latin, this knowledge or this treasure was then put throughout Western Europe and then later on the results will be discussed inshallah, in the next episode and the following episodes. Until then, I seek your permission to leave for today are salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah Zakouma located and what hamdulillahi Rabbil aalameen
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