Muslim Legends #5 Sayyida Al Hurra

Bismillah Nura,

Nura?

Smilla. So we are carrying on our journey journey in

going through legends going through

figures from our history that a lot of us have never heard about, or they're very new to us. And last time a couple of sisters came up to me and they're like, Hey, how come you're not doing any female affairs? It's been all males so far. Like, okay, we'll get you some female affairs. There's a lot of them. Right? There's Zahler a lot of them. So if I was to tell you, and I let the kids figure this out, let's see if you guys can figure this out. Okay, so this person who we are going to hear about her biography

if I was to tell you that

she was an admiral, and she ran the largest naval fleet in the Mediterranean Sea.

She was a master in Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic language. She had a she was a full de facto and by the way, like a queen of her era at that time. What era? Are you looking at that this particular event will take place? Oh, which era? Do you think she belongs to? Somebody have that much power? She literally had an army under her control.

Okay, and she was the queen of well de facto ruler because it was no king her from her husband died. So she became the queen and nobody challenged her for almost a, you know,

almost 25 years. Where do you think something like this would take place? Which error?

Recent or really, really far?

Couple 100 years ago, okay. What would you say?

A couple 100 or 500?

Were like 500. Okay. Okay, more or 500? Very good. So, it is it is almost 500 years ago.

So let me give you a little bit of a background, how does how we usually do our stories, because you need to know what was happening in the world at that time. Because we don't live in that time. And we may not have read stuff about that time. So we'll go through some basic history of what's happening at that time very quickly. Right as as is the case we tried to just touch on some things. So when did Renata

like ultimately fell? And that whole event of

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella Isabella taking the keys when did that happen? Roughly? Who can tell me

any idea

when you can look it up if you have phones pick it up, pick up the phone and write when did the last fall?

What roughly Yes. Mashallah, we have the youngest answer. Go ahead. Tell us

when? Yesterday

in the future, yes, that's so true in the future. That is 100% true. Mashallah. So why did this happen? Roughly? Yes.

1492, okay. 1492, roughly, is when

under loose eventually diminished, and the keys were given. Okay, so this event takes place. So right now, fall of analysis happened. The Portuguese missionaries, they want to establish a port, they want to establish a you know, a capital where they can run the missionary work of converting entire Africa into a Christian continent. And they have chosen chef shown and top one, two areas in Morocco and they want to be established over there. Okay, usually, when I teach these courses, I have like entire Google world maps, you know, and I show you the spaces and stuff like that just because we have people also watching online it becomes very difficult for them to see that and this

but you know, when we do standalone courses, hopefully we'll be able to do those. Then I can actually show you guys like entire each era and where everything takes place. So it's it's really visual and you can actually enjoy it. Right? So just be with me that this is Morocco and Morocco. There are two places called that one and you know shepstone Those are the two places where the Moroccan the Portuguese they want to establish their mission report and they want to send

Spread crit spread Christianity throughout Africa from there, okay. So this is what is happening and so Moroccans are defending themselves. They're trying to fight the colonizers, they're, you know, there's different fights and the city of the Diwan completely is annihilated at the hands of the Crusaders, and it's in ruins. It's completely gone. It's very important for us to remember this something else is going to happen in that city future down the road. So a little bit about her. This lady that we're going to talk about her her name is say that a lot of law

Okay, say that her law. Hora is what what does it mean in Arabic, the free, she is free. Now, she was born in 1493. She was a person that was born to a mixed race, which means that her mother was Spanish. Her father was from the Arabs. And her father was Mola live in Russia, a very famous figure in history, you know, a lot of accomplishments. And her mother was a Christian woman, Catherine Fernandez. later down the road road, Catherine Fernandez, she actually accepts Islam after she sees Muslims and she lives amongst the Muslims. And her became her name becomes Lala Zara.

Lila Zara. Her name's becomes Lila Zara. So she is the mother, her name. So you tell her there is a massive dispute amongst the history. What? What is actual name, this is the title that she has say that Laura, now a little bit of a tangent. And it's important for us, especially for parents, and especially for people who are you know, 1012 13 and older, you'll be able to understand this point, you know, history in general, is either written from the perspective of the victor are the one that was defeated in that war. So the one who was victorious, he's also got he's always going to expound on that victory is going to say, you know, this happened, and this happened and they were completely

weak. Now, the one who lost, what are they going to do? They're going to demise and diminish the greatness of that victory by writing history in which it was actually not that bad of a loss. It was just like, it was a loss, right. So they will diminish that. Now, if you look up about seydel hora. In the Western accounts, they call her the pirate queen.

So this is how they they diminish the value of this woman. She was the queen. She was the queen of pirates. She was actually an actual queen. She had a sovereignty she controlled the land. She signed off on papers, she signed on treaties, she did everything. But despite that, if you read English accounts, if you go to Wikipedia, it always says the pirate queen. She she is actually listed at the top 10 Female pirates have have ever lived and all of these things. Why is that? Because she is the furthest thing furthest thing away from any other pirate on that list.

So example being most of the pirate woman on those lists, were not women that were chased. They had relationships, they had illicit relations. She never had anything like that. That what is she doing on that list? Only to demise the victory or or that character of that person. And this is what Western historians as well, as the colonizers did really well to us.

They diminish the value of the heroes that we should have looked up to. But when we asked and we don't have access to Arabic, right, as a matter of fact, in the Spanish and the Portuguese accounts, we're going to read that further. You actually found that they themselves are really astonished at why she called the pirate queen. She was just defending her land against people that were invading it. She's She didn't go out to Portugal attack. She was in her land. They weren't coming on her land and attacking her. And she's defending.

I so her name was it's mentioned in the in the accounts port both Portuguese accounts and the Spanish accounts that her name was Aisha that's one name. There is a second name that was given to her which was Fatima. Right so there are records of us showing that her name was Aisha, there are records of names showing that her name was Fatima there is record especially on her Nikka certificate on her Nikka certificate that was written by the famous scholar of that time at one Cherie See he actually writes her name as sayeeda

So from there because that's the only Muslim record we have that tells us that her name was actually say that that was her name because that was a name that was written arhaan on her Iran after Iran that was written on her Nikka

why was it evil for right there's an entire discussion Mimosa historians Why was she named her right that time was such as

range name for somebody to have at that time. Number one Chautala in the christeli language or Castilian language refers to a female Falcon.

So Al Shara actually refers to a female Falcon.

The second reason that is given is when Renata fell at the fall of Renata she was given the name hora. So in the process if she gets enslaved, people would know that she was a harasser, she was a free person. The third reason that is mentioned is that the mother of the last king of Angelo's, the one that gave the keys of under lost the castle of Karnataka to Queen Isabella, and King Ferdinand

hurt me was horrible. And the father of say that Laura was so inspired by that woman, that he named her say that, after the Aurora, the mother of the Last King of andalas. So these are the three reasons that is mentioned that why her name was Alpha.

Her second name was Barbarossa. De that one Barbarossa was a very famous name, as I mentioned, even you know, a few few weeks back, there is a new Turkish series that is built on that character Barbarossa, right. If your kids are not watching it, they should. It's something really, like if editable was something really good. This is like the next edit. All right, it is the edit the whole of the sea. So Barbarossa was a very known figure. At that time, she was the Barbarossa, after the western side of the Mediterranean Barbarossa, the actual Barbarossa he actually ran the eastern side of the Mediterranean. As a matter of fact, true fact, I did a story on Barbarossa over here in

Canada in 2018. And there was actually a person who came up after the lecture, and he showed me his driver's license, and his name was Barbarossa. And I said, Why would you be called Barbone side of all the names, and he said, My grandfather was a naval admiral in Pakistan Navy. And he was so inspired by Barbarossa that when I was born, he commanded my father and said, You were going to name him Barbarossa. Right. And he said, that's the only reason I came to the lecture because it was the first time I heard about a lecture that is after my name, Barbosa. So, so Barbarossa, again, you know, a very important historian for us to learn about, she was called Barbarossa, she another name

that was given to her the lioness of the sea, and the Arabs used to call it in murottal Hadiya. She was an iron woman before an Iron Man, she was an iron woman. Okay, now 1492, Spain to Morocco, what happens she was living in Spain, life was good. What happens in 1492 Renata falls right before 1492 Little bit of history of Granada. So you understand what happens. So around 1031, something a new phenomena started happening, and under Los Angeles had one ruler, and everybody followed, and they were governors or they were different states and all those governors, they aligned, kind of like provinces today, and provinces have what premiers and premiers, they eventually they don't break

out, although we have three levels of government. They didn't have that. But you know, they don't usually go against the Prime Minister. Right. They don't say something, they all come together and say, We are not listening to the Prime Minister. They don't do that. Similarly, governors in the United States in all the different states, so they had something like that. And they had one king, right. And that King was aligned with the abassi Khalifa at that time, right? In the Iraq in those areas. So that's what was happening for 1031. That's where the Kings, they started defecting. The, you know, the defecting, and they said, We don't want to listen to the kink, we will create my own

kingdom. And they call this era from 1031 to 1490. Sorry, from 1031 to 1492. How long, almost 200 years. That is how long it took for under loss to fall. That's the issue actually happened in 1031 when people started defecting from the King. And they said, I've got nothing to do with the king MapInfo see my own kingdom, right? This is my own kingdom. I'm not going to listen to them. So that air little era was called Moloch. Dow if

and if you read history of underdose, you're going to find it very, very, you know, it's a written part about that. Now, so this is what happened. This is what happening. And Mola I live in Russia. At the fall of Angelo's, he decides and he says, it is not safe for us to live. He was a very known figure at that time. And he was a statesman. He had a lot of land, he sold whatever he could, and he decided to move back to the town of Chef shown in Morocco. And he built in a really, really interesting Lala Zahara Catherine Fernandez, the mother of say, the Laura, she said, listen, when I was living in alternata You know, I

I had access to the Grenada Palace I had access to the palace of Renata. And I'm not going to move with you to Morocco and show and unless you build a similar Palace to me, that is why if you today look at the pictures of the city of shepstone it is very, very reminiscent of the under Lucien architecture that you find over there. So, Mola I live in Russia, he builds a palace called Alka

Palace, which is still found today, you can actually people can go and see it. It's really sad that you know, we don't have curation we don't protect our history. It's filled with garbage and nobody cares. Like it's just you know, it's left to ruins right? And Alhamdulillah many, many countries are are waking up and realizing that we must protect these heritage of Heritage's of ours. And investing in that. And then it's a good source of income and tourism. We just don't, you know, mobilize it sadly.

So the palace is built and they all move and say that horror also moves to Sharon in Morocco, and this is where her life starts in Morocco. Now here's a question for people I would let's see if you guys can figure this out. So she grew up in palaces, so she's a princess.

And she is growing up growing up in under Lucien palaces. She's around 20 When she comes to Morocco, what advantages do you think she? She got when she was growing up in a palace? Let's see if somebody can guess.

Make a guess. What's an advantage of a woman growing up? In a in a top palace and nonetheless, yes.

That's what you're worried about. Better food. Nice burgers. Lots of pizza. Right? But yeah, food. So she was healthy. Right? She was a healthy person. What else?

She was she had protection. What else? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Sorry.

It's okay. We'll come to you again. Yes.

Okay, she had a title. She what happened? What would you think her do? Would she have a lot of exposure or less exposure to other cultures?

A lot of exposure to other cultures. So she understood other cultures. Yes.

She knew all extra, she had good political understanding. She understood politics, right? She met the kings. She was in the company of the kings. So her brain was already wired from childhood to have exposure to all of these things. Then she came across, She almost got the exact same education as her brothers. So she was not less educated than her brother. She was living in a palace. So there was a teacher that was coming in the palace brothers and sisters were studying together, she had the advantage of education, top class education that others may not have access to. And more importantly, she got to study and under one of the biggest scholars of that time, which was Muhammad

ibn Abdullah Al was one. He was a very famous scholar because of a lot of the efforts of Muhammad Ali was wanting in Morocco today, you have the reminisces of that Zarya concepts. Those of you that have ever been to Morocco or Tunis, Tunisia, and Algeria, they have these wire, they have these corners, you have these seclusion areas, and a lot of these kids, we have madrasahs in India and Pakistan. They have the wires, they have these these corners, so I mean, the corner and they have these areas where kids learn for until this day, you know, yes, a lot of them have deviated and you know, they've taken extreme paths and they've gone into extreme Sufi tendencies, but most of them

have still held on to that tradition today.

So

how many languages do you think she spoke? Because she lived in a palace?

I said that in the beginning. Yes.

I gave you all the three languages in the beginning. Yes.

Okay, three, I gave the three languages he spoke three languages.

Arabic and

Portuguese and, and Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish. She spoke three languages. So do you think all of this is going to help her? She's definitely going to help her when she's going to be in the palaces she has. She has a political acumen which he has developed by living in a palace. Now rise to power 1510. The first step that happens is remember the city of San Juan that the Portuguese people had destroyed. There is another guy who is doing this reform movement, and he is rebuilding the city from the ruins after the Crusaders. The Portuguese crusaders have been kicked out in that one. And he is building a new city of that one.

And here comes Seda al Herrera,

a perfect match for a person who is trying to establish a city from the ruins because she understands politics. She understands society. She speaks languages, she understands cultures, she understands architecture, she has that access

stew, all of that information. So her father Mola, I live in Russia, it decides that it's best time that she marries

Saudi abolhassan Elementary elementary or Monterey. He marries, they get married, and he becomes the new founder of that one and she becomes the queen of top one. That is why she's also called Barbarossa. The third one, she was a Barbarossa of the town of 31. Okay. So eventually, she becomes a very, very powerful figure within the new city of the Diwan, and she becomes the de facto vice governor, whenever her husband would leave for conquests she become she became the de facto ruler, nobody would question her role at that time, then, her advantage was she actually knew the Catholic culture, and the Catholic religion, and she knew the Islamic culture and religion. And she was able

to fix the city from a culture perspective. So building markets and allowing traders to come in and it became a flourishing port. So much so that the other Barbarossa which we will talk about further down the road, the other Barbarossa, the real Barbarossa has, they actually created a treaty with her that whenever our ships are going to run, you know, Jebel parrot, the you know, that's, you know, passage between the Spanish Spanish and the Moroccan area when they're going to be passing, can we stop over at your city and refuel? They didn't have fuel to refill, I like food, right? It was galleys, they were using sales and galleys. They didn't have engines at that time.

So that led to her being the most powerful figure. Now something interesting happens. Her her husband, Mullah Ali Bin Rashid, she passes away, he passes away. And at this point it he dies in 1520. So from 1520, the next quarter century, 25 years, she ends up becoming the undisputed ruler of that one. And she has shown those two cities, nobody objects to her. Nobody wants to appoint a king because they're so happy with her room.

Now, she realizes that the Portuguese people are not going to be happy with this.

So what she does is all the under Lucien people that had been kicked out, that are just roaming around in Morocco right now. They have nowhere to go, what does she do, she gathers them into an army. And they find hope in her because she is under Lucien. So they find hope in her and she never forgot the fact that she was kicked out of her homelands.

And now she builds an entire deli galley means, you know, a naval fleet made of galleys. Now if you want to know galleys galleys were those ships that used to have, you know, the upper deck and then the lower deck, you would have slave workers at that time. So Muslims were enslaved by the Crusaders and all the galleys that were run by the Crusaders, in the lower deck were all Muslim slave workers that would be running the massive oars. So you would have like one person, one giant or that is going all the way to the end of you know, touching the water, and you would have seven or eight men, they would be sitting in a position and they would all row together. And you would have sometimes

100, like 50, on the side, 50 on the side, and they would have one guy that would lead them and it would say, row and they would all row at the same time. And this is how the ships would, you know, this is the power they had. And if they became if they wanted to put a turbocharger on that they would put a sail on it, that was the turbocharger of that time, right, you know, get the get the ship going faster.

So, say the Laura, she decides that she's going to build this fleet, she uses some trade routes, builds a lot of trade, and then she starts buying these ships making these galleys and now she has an entire fleet.

And the Portuguese people are terrified of her.

So the quarter century they tried aligning with so many countries to get rid of her naval fleet and they failed. They could not do that she was too powerful.

Now, when they saw that Morocco, despite the fact that say a dull Hora is such a powerful figure, and she has established this rule, she the Portuguese people found out that Morocco is not united anymore. So Morocco has that one and Chef shown under the rule of seydel hora. Her brother Ali ibn Rashid does not like her anyways, there's some dispute. So Ali has his own little island that he's running. And then the other kings on the other side, they are you know, they're also not very supportive off her. So what happens is, she was very smart, you know, a book written again, I'm sorry to quote this book, but either called woman pirates. It was

was written in 2004. She says, then she became smart. And much of the prosperity that she started driving from was attacking those galleys and ships that were coming from either Spain or Portugal that were leading with goods. And they were crossing her territory without her permission. So she laid a rule and said, if you're going to cross my territory, and you, they all had to cross her territory, if you had the maps, you will see, she was like, if you're going to cross this portion, this is my territory. You're going to cross you're gonna pay taxes, and the Spanish and Portuguese I, you know, pay taxes to you. Why would we pay taxes to you? We're Spanish, we're Portuguese. And

what she did is she started taking those ships. As a matter of fact, she started taking prisoners, as you know, ransom. So she captured some princesses, she got some intel. So she became smart. She's like, I'm not going to attack head on, I'm going to do a political slash of warfare. So she held hostages, princesses, and that put a lot of pressure. What actually happened was something really interesting, despite the fact that they used to call her blood thirds, like type of titles that were given to her. And these in these books are really, really horrendous. But they would still come down and sit down on a table and negotiate with her. Because she had so much control, she understood how

to pull the strings. So she was like, Oh, you want to negotiate? I've got to have your princesses. Let's negotiate. Right, and she would treat those princesses really well.

And these princesses would go in, they would talk about her because they would see in a woman in power that like wow, how can we can be in power in Spain. So for them, that was really a shocking thing.

Then what happens is she realizes that she needs an ally. So she aligned herself with the Barbarossa brothers. And this is a beautiful. So Barbarossa brothers were running Algeria, Libya, and all of that land. And she was in Morocco. So Western Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean, she sends an envoy and says, Listen, we can control this entire Mediterranean.

And no ship will cross except that they pay taxes to us. Let us align together and create an alliance. And this is where, you know, Barbarossa the greatness of that person at that time that, hey, there's a woman that is running a fleet. Why should I support her? And he's like, No, this is a rightful cause. The cause is protection of Muslims. And then them combined together. During those quarters, centuries, they saved Barbarossa and Barbarossa did that one say the Torah, they saved over 70,000 Jews and 70,000 Muslims from the hands of the Spanish inquisitions in Renata in Honduras.

So the Jews were being tortured, the Muslims were being tortured, and they would send their little commando fleets, they would go in there. And subhanAllah if you read some of the letters that were given by that time, for example,

you know, she has a court court at that time, when he sends a letter, he sends a letter to both Barbarossa and se de la hora. And he says, when you take out those prisoners from the basements of those churches, where there's, you know, there were punishment that were happening to them, just read up on the Spanish Inquisition, and you will be shocked, like how they were killing Muslims and Jews at that time senseless killing and merciless torture, right, there was no mercy on them. And he said, out of his care for that, those prisoners, he says, when you take them out of the prison, please cover their eyes because they have not seen sun for so long. So I'm afraid that they will

lose their eyesight.

Like, this is the command that the ruler at that time is giving, that, you know, when you take them out, please take care of my brothers and sisters. So that that alliance, the Portugal, people from Portugal, they were like, really tired of it. And, you know, put it in perspective, like, they don't have social media.

So this alliance was such a powerful thing. That at the same time, the fall of Bombay, Bombay in India had recently fallen, and they didn't have the Suez Canal. So Barbarossa and some of the fleets of say that hurrah sailed all the way across Africa, coming into the Indian continent, Indian Ocean, going into India at the port of Bombay, to defend the Muslims

because they heard about so people of Bombay asked that you guys are a good naval fleet, can you come and help us? And they took a month long journey to get there just so they can defend their brothers and sisters. Right. So a lot of learning

For us over here. Now what happens would say that Hora is

she loses power and she's recognizing that the Portuguese people and the Spanish people and also the Moroccan have now started aligning themselves with the Portuguese to get rid of her. So there's one king, Hamad Al wa PASI, who happens to be the most powerful ruler in Morocco at that time.

And she decides that it's best interest that she gets married to him, because that will solidify her position as the Queen. So I heard that about bossy being one of the most powerful king at that time, guess what He commands, he says, You must step down.

And you must leave your palace. And you must come and live with me in Fez in Morocco. And she declines to every single one of those conditions. She says, no, no, listen, you got this wrong, boy. You're going to come and live with me. And I'm not living my palace. And you're going to actually your Bharat is going to come to me, I'm not going to you. You are coming to me, and you're bringing your cavalry to me. And the nega is going to take place in my palace. And I shall stay here and you can come whenever you want.

But I'm not leaving. And that is why even the Spanish people, they said, this was an unheard thing at that time, that somebody a king of the stature of Armadale was Aussie accepts such conditions.

X except for the fact that he recognized the power of this woman at that time.

And the need for the OMA to support somebody like that.

So what happens is she she gets married, and now she is fortified. In 1541, she gets her second you know, she gets married second time. And in 1542, the Portuguese people, they launch a coup entire trade by caught

and demand from her that she steps down. And she says I will live on leaves and on nothing. But my Muslim pride refuses to step down to a non Muslim nation. I'm not going to step down. And she refuses, then what happens? Unfortunately, the businessmen and the tradesmen on the street, they started plotting against her. They said if she's not going to step down, we're gonna have to go and use other means and use other political measures to get her out of the power. So they went to her son in law.

They went to her son in law. And they presented her as being a female lion that is losing power. And he they told her son in law, listen, if you take over and get rid of your mother in law, and send her to some Palace, walk in there, because you have full access to our we cannot enter, you just enter and get rid of her. Don't kill her. i We will support you. And we will give you this much taxes and this much this and dismiss this. And the Portuguese crusaders also came to her own son in law and said, If you will allow her, you figure out a way to get rid of her, we will send you this many gold coins.

What do you think he did?

He agreed. Sadly, he agreed against her own mother in law. And he said fine, you pay me X amount. And there's a dispute on how much they give him. But his progeny today his family today still is receiving funding from Portugal.

Because that contract was that my entire progeny until it can be and similarly, you know, last time when we talked about Abdulkadir

at

his family till this day, right French are still paying them because his conditions, you know, they broke their conditions. So when Napoleon Bonaparte he actually resigned the treaty. He actually stipulated that you will pay my family there actually, you can see documentations of French government sending money to Abu Bakr Al Jazeera in his entire family till today as part of the contract that that was done back then. Right. These are like long contracts. So eventually, she stepped down. And she said, it's rather you know, it's better for me that, you know, I don't kill myself over this. And he let her son, son in law take over the power and then the remaining of her

20 years that she lived. She lived for 20 years after she stepped down. She went to her town have shown where the house of Molalla live in Russia till today is used as a madrasa. It's actually the only madrasa in Jeff shown in the town of Morocco in the city of Morocco, where you actually find that there are routes that are held for woman on a regular basis. A lot of the the festivals that you know

Moroccan culture has are things that they celebrate at that time. All of these celebrations usually take place for men.

And this is the first time we find that, you know, in chef shown there's actually a proper

anything that happens for men also happens for the woman in her in that house. She passed away on July 14 1561. And she was buried in the town of Schoen. And the historians they write about her and let me read this passage.

So there's a there's a historian by the name of Libby day, and she says, so say the Hora was doing the same thing that the librarians as well as the Portuguese as well as the Spanish were doing. The only difference was the Spanish and the Portuguese were going into foreign land and enslaving Moroccans. Whereas she was defending her lands and enslaving the ones that were attacking her.

So it is not befitting that we call her a pirate

to refer to her as a pirate is to put the blame on those who are defending their lands from excess from aggressive colonizing powers. And that is not a fair characterization of anyone until this day, unfortunately, she is known as a pirate for most of the people. Most of the people if you read in English literature, she's known as a pirate, but if you go to the Moroccan sorry, the Portuguese archives in the Spanish archives and you know I actually listened to a lot of the interviews that were given by the Portuguese people themselves talking about her from the records that they have and the they have depicted completely proper historians they complete the depict a complete different

picture off her say that Hora Rahim Allah Rama tun wasa and this was our leader for today. What are some of the lessons that we learned from here and this is what we end with this Inshallah, number one, that what we learn is Life will never remain the same. There will always be ups and downs in our parts of lives. So she was in a palace. We saw this in our first story, what was our first story that we did, but those remember what those he was a son in a palace, he goes from a palace, he goes down, he becomes enslaved from in slavery, he becomes

a student in a madrasah from a madrasa he becomes a soldier from a soldier, he becomes a soldier right next to the king. From there, he becomes a vice governor from there, he becomes a ruler. Likewise, you look at her life, she's a princess from a princess, she has to leave her home land and run away her own homeland, she has to leave runaway come to a new land her father's land, learn this whole culture, going to a new city, from there being taken into another city of Tijuana, that one, there's, it's a city that is in ruins, and it is being built. They're building that city, and all of this cycle that goes through that tells us that life is going to have ups and downs. What is going

to make a difference in your life and my life. And everybody else's life is how do we deal with those challenges? Do we give up? Or do we say this is just a phase of life and my life is going to move on? And what do I do best and what's the best I can do in this life. Next is culture and environment. This is for parents, culture and environment plays a huge role in your children's life in the future, more so than schooling.

A lot of time we have focused on schooling. But understand that culture environments, such environments, you know, skill sets that they learn, they are far more important than the stuff they learn at school. Because the intersect of what they learn at school. And what they need in life is very little. There are some transferable skills. But where it's more required is that you know, if your son or daughter, they're involved in some organized sports, or they're involved in some volunteer activities, those skill sets are what are going to separate them from being successful in life. And that's what she had, she had access to those skill sets. So when she went into different

situations, she was able to turn around. And she was able to turn that opportunity that adversity into an opportunity for her self.

Languages. Do not undermine languages, right? At all languages are a really powerful tool for your children. Make sure that they invest in languages, make sure that you expose them even if you have to force them at this age to get exposure and it's not necessarily any language. Right? You for Muslims, our identity is based on Arabic language.

So you focus on Arabic language first. But if your child can pick up other languages, make sure that they do that. Because languages is

And that's what helped her. Right? I remember that noon, I used to work in the Middle East, it was like nobody could, you know, fool, fool around with me because I spoke Urdu, English and Arabic. Right? So anybody, like, you know, because I know that sometimes you would be sitting in gatherings and the Arabs would be talking about something or the guys in order would be speaking about these guys. And I'm like, I understand both of you, right? Like, you can't fool around, right? So it's powerful. It's really powerful. And, and you know, you get that power, and other thing, alliances, you cannot achieve goals alone. You can't say I'll do it myself. You have to work with others. You

have to learn to work with adversaries, you have to learn to work. Sometimes you have to make your enemy your best friend because there is a greater goal, and you can only achieve through his help. Right? Having said that, you don't give in your culture, you don't leave your values. You don't say okay, I leave everything. Right. These lessons are for parents, by the way. So the kids are like, Yreka What's this? Right?

This lesson everybody can walk away with

the cause of the downfall of the Muslim ummah. Today, in the past, you read the history, it has always been people who were hiding, who were traitors from within.

So if you look at Moeller, I, you know, I live in Russia, then you look at other stories. It's always somebody from inside.

You know, it's always when we talked about the Hmong who was there for the koto, story, say, for the Anacortes. So when we talked about the 800,000 people that died in Baghdad, it was people from within Baghdad who allowed the Mongols to enter, it was people from within Baghdad, who secretly went and opened the doors of Baghdad in the middle of the night for the Mongols to attack in the middle of the night. It wasn't somebody from outside, so treachery and treason. It always finds its roots from within. But more importantly, that becomes a cause our primary cause of downfall for most nations, same thing for other nations to not just Muslims. Okay. And lastly, the root cause of a lot

of what we see today, a lot of the facade a lot of the fitness that are that we're seeing, even on a community level, even on a you'll see a small project that will start it, it starts benefiting communities. I mean, recently, you know, a small project, it started it was benefiting the youth. And then some, you know, I don't want to mention names, but like, you know, some major Muslim organization sued this young youth guy for $1 million.

Ally and it's on public, you guys can go read it, right? It's not something. But again, like what, this this 25 year old guy did something for the Muslim youth, and this major Muslim organization sued him for $1.5 million.

And he comes out in public, he's like, you know, this, what did I do wrong? So the lesson we learned, these things are happening around us. The lesson we learned is the root causes love of power.

Right? And money. Yeah, power brings money. So what are they afraid of? An organization that is a $60 million donation organization, what do they have to do with this 25 year old, you know, kid who just you know, he's just, you know, and his his problem was, his program was successful. And it was attracting lot of youth. Similarly, there was another program that was started, you know, it completely you know, a lot of your I don't want to mention names, because, you know, this is Canada, and people can take things. There's another program that started again, this is things happening around us. And history tells us that these things, it's the power, people are hungry for power, and

then power makes them do things that are sometimes completely not appropriate. Cool.

All right. Guess

what is sued mean, you will learn soon.

You'll learn as you grow. Today, you will learn municipal, federal and provincial, you will learn about that too. Inshallah. That's all you need to know for now. Now, I was actually not going to do this story today. This story I had planned for the week after I was going to do a story of Imam Shamil. He was from Dallas don't remember I told you guys. So guess what happened? When I was researching for him? I'm shaman and I was putting my content together and said Here, let me just go to YouTube and find in English anybody done anything on Imam Shamil guest who has done an entire lecture on Imam Shamil? Yasir? qadhi. Right. So I was going through my notes, and then I listened to

his lecture and I was like, You know what, you guys should just go and listen to his lecture. Because like, he was like, I went to Harvard University's archives, and I pulled these documents out. I'm like, I didn't do any of that. So his lecture and I listened to it. And I was like, There's no way I can do justice to it and it's in English. So please watch it. It was a really good lecture. It is from the Muslims of the Dallas Danny's a Russian, he stood up to the Russian Empire. Fascinating story, how he was an extremely feeble sick person, you know, people could not cure him and how he ended up being one of the most till this day. He is seen as the the figure who brought

who preserved Islam in Russia.

So, go and watch Imam Shammas lecture for Yasir qadhi For verily I think he has done a better job than me on that. And that's why I didn't do it in English I'm like there's no me, you know Hamdulillah we can do some other story in JAMA. Okay Zakka locker