Ismail Kamdar – An Introduction to Muslim History

			Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Nabeel
Karim Allah Allah, he was herb he he Marine.
		

			Welcome to our first lecture in the Islam intensive series for the year 2021. Were insha Allah this
year, I hope to do a deep dive into Islamic history.
		

			focusing primarily on the lessons we can learn from history. And also we're dealing with the
difficult topics that pop up when it comes to history. So now just a bit of a recap before we begin,
		

			the Islam intensive up until this point, so it's been one and a half years, we've covered Zulu Feck
Mikasa, the Sharia Kaleido for PA, introduction to the Islamic sciences, introductions to some
classical works, and are committed to how we Hamdulillah we have covered six subjects over a period
of one and a half years. Now the next subject, I want to go a lot deeper. So with the previous
subjects, we spent about four to eight weeks on each subject. For this subject, I'm looking at 12 to
16 weeks, because you can't do history, any justice in just, you know, four or six weeks. And this
is an area that is neglected in our times we do not have enough knowledge of our own history. It's
		

			neglected at every level, whether it's Islamic school madrasa, even at the Alim level, most of the
early programs in the world today do not teach history. So this is amongst the most neglected
subjects of our time, and therefore I hope to do it some justice in the next six months inshallah.
So, to get started, what do we hope to achieve with this course as with any course there are
objectives, and the objectives of this Islamic history deep dive, number one, for us to be familiar
with every important event in Muslim history. Now, we can't be familiar with everything that
happened in Muslim history. That's not humanly possible, right. But the important events, things
		

			like the civil wars, kerbala, the rise of the Omiya, the rise of the Abbas's the fall of the Ottoman
Empire, the Mongol invasion, Muslims in Spain, anything that's a key event in shaping the Muslim
world in some way or another. We want to know what these events are, and what role they played in
shaping the history of the Muslim world. We want to become familiar with the legacy of Muslims in
various parts of the world. So for the most part, the average Muslim, may be familiar with the life
of the prophets and the sahaba. But beyond that, the history of Islam in India, the history of Islam
in North Africa, or the history of Islam, in
		

			Spain, under those in the surrounding areas, or the history of Islam, in the eastern part of Europe,
right apart, which are now part of Russia, and the Balkans. All of these areas have a rich Islamic
history, that is, for the most part, unknown, to the average Muslim, and we hope to cover at least
some of that in this course, obviously, we can't cover everything. Number three, we want to learn
lessons about the success and failures of the Muslims, we want to learn from their successes and
from their failures. So we are going to be very blunt and honest about when people failed, messed
up, sinned, cause problems with the OMA. So we can learn from their mistakes now, so we can judge
		

			them. Anyone who died upon Emang will ask Allah to forgive them and accept the cookies, forgive
their sins, but we want to learn from it. So we don't repeat the mistakes. So we will do a very
thorough analysis of these things. If someone is successful at something, we want to look at why
they were successful, and how can we replicate that in our lives? If somebody failed? You look at
why did they fail? And what lessons can we learn from there. So we want to gain some kind of
morality and spirituality from our history, as well. We also want to clarify doubts related to
historical events or doubts that people have about Islam come from history, whether it is jihad, or
		

			slavery, or the treatment of non Muslims or citizens, or the relationship between a man and a slave
girl. Whether it was how the Muslims treated the Greeks, whatever it is, they all these different
things that took place now history that cause some people to doubt Islam. So we're going to look at
these things, and we're going to try and figure out what's the best way forward to understand these
things and to put them into place and some of the content I'm going to cover today in the
introductory lesson will actually put a lot of this in its place, but we will tackle specific
incidents as they pop up throughout the history.
		

			of Islam, as they probably will look at them and the end see
		

			why they are causing us doubt? And what can we do about it? What can we say about it. And finally,
we want to be honest and truthful about Muslim history. Our religion is a religion of truth and
honesty. And therefore we find that the Muslim history books tend to be the most honest of history
books. I mean, every other culture tends to rewrite history in their favor.
		

			And so, you know, when you read a western history book, it's very much whitewash to make the West
look, you know, like they've always been at the pinnacle of civilization, hiding a lot of the
negatives in the history, right up until recently. But with Muslim history, our books are very
brutally honest, right down to the fact that the Sahaba fought civil wars against each other to the
fact that people are poor stated in the title Albuquerque low on who, to the fact that the Sahaba
were massacred in in Karbala and what happened after the Medina.
		

			Very, very brutally honest. And we want to maintain that honesty, because that's part of being a
Muslim that we are honest about things. We are not people who follow fairytales, we don't follow a
made up version of history, history is what it is both the good and the bad, the brutal and the
beautiful. And we go to look at all of it, and we're going to learn from all of it inshallah.
		

			So,
		

			now that we've clarified our objectives, let's take a look at some of the resources that I'm going
to be using for this course. My personal favorite book about history and habit here somewhere,
		

			should have taken it down before starting this recording.
		

			I forgot to do so. And I'll probably show it in the next lecture. It's literally right here next to
me one of my shelves for some reason, I suggest not going on it right now. Anyway, my personal
favorite book that summarizes the history of the Muslim world and one I always wanted to teach a
course on his last Islamic history by philosopher khateeb. This is a recent publication that really
summarizes the history of the Muslim world from the time of Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wasallam
until recently, very, very well.
		

			He's excuse me, this looks a bit unprofessional. I just know I have my copy nearby. I just
		

			have no idea where I left it.
		

			She's strange, it's normally right here.
		

			Next time, inshallah. But nonetheless, this is the book if you don't have this book, last Islamic
history by philosopher hottie. I'll probably show you a copy in the next video since I seem to have
misplaced my copy.
		

			But this book is amazing. Get hold of it either on Kindle or get the paperback wherever you can.
Really this this book is one of my favorite history books I've read in English. And it's going to be
the core textbook for this course. Right? Another one of my favorite books and I've read this book
multiple times i Listen, I can just grab it off the shelf. Because here it is right when the other
book should have been. Right civilization of faith by Dr. Mustafa Seba. What a beautiful book.
Really, if you haven't read civilization of faith, do yourself a favor, grab a copy and read it.
This is to me one of the most powerful and beautiful books about Islamic history ever written.
		

			Because it it covers Islamic history from very different perspective. This book doesn't discuss the
history of the wars and the politics and, and the majors and the herbicides. It discusses the
history of things like animal shelters, hospitals, libraries, walk off
		

			school systems, charitable institutions, the history of all of these things in the Muslim world. I'm
going to take a lot of content from this book for this course. It is really beautiful, really, if
you want to fall back in love with Muslim society, civilization of faith is a book that I highly
recommend. So as with last Islamic history, try and get yourself a copy of civilization of it. Even
if you don't plan to do this full course. At least do yourself the favor of reading this beautiful
book. For as classical resources are concerned, I'm taking a lot of the early history from Vidalia
when they hire or even Cassia. Now obviously, I'm not going to put that here in front of you. That
		

			literally takes up half a bookshelf. It's huge volumes work but even Cassia covering the entire
history of Islam from the time of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam until the time of
even casino, obviously it stops at a time of even concede because he can't write about what will
have been the future at his time. Another classical work is the Mocha demon of even Kowloon, which I
also have here next to my copy of Wilaya when you hire so all of these books that have physical
copies of at my home library. I actually didn't mention this, but history has always been a passion
of mine. From the time I was a kid, like my oldest memories of reading as a child
		

			Reading books of the Sierra in light of the Sahaba that my mother bought for me when I was very,
very young. That's like my earliest memories of reading. And I've always been, you know, captivated
by Muslim history. So if you had to come to my home and take a look at this bookshop next to me,
it's three shelves of history books, three anti shelves, just have history books, and you know,
really the detail books in the life of Abu Bakar or Omar Roseman. Already, the comprehensive books
covering the entire history of Islam
		

			is just lots and lots of history books, you know, so when will you be teaching over these next few
months, it's a passion of mine. It's something I really love and enjoy. And I want to share that
love with you. Too many people find history boring. Too many people find history, you know, to just
be the memorization of facts that don't benefit them. That's not how I teach history. That's not how
I study history. That's not how I approach history, it's going to be very different. I'm sharing
with you my passion, I'm sharing with you something I love. And therefore, you're going to really
get a very unique perspective on history. The last book, just plug in my own book, I'm only going to
		

			use this for two videos really just one year and one of the image is productivity principles of Omar
Ibn Abdul Aziz, which I wrote and published last year. So the beginning of this book, even though
the book focuses on the life of Omar bin Abdulaziz, the first 50 pages actually covers my approach
towards history, which I'm going to cover in the rest of this video. And then a summarized history
of the first 100 years of of the Muslim world, which I'm going to use also to for the first few
videos as well. Particularly when we do the omae yards, I will go into more details about Omar bin
Abdulaziz and that will be taken from this book as well. So, I'm not sure if you'll be able to get
		

			hold of even qasida in wholetones books or translations of some of the sections if you can good
Hamdulillah. The version that I'm using is Arabic. But the other three books my book, of course,
about oviductal Aziz, I hope you all have a copy of it already. Dr. Mustafa Seba, his book
philosopher, hottie books get hold of it. These are really the core of this course and the other
books I'm using as well. So for example, date is a foundation for this book. I found the other one.
So this is another book I'm using history of Islam by Professor Masuda Hassan's two volumes.
		

			This is the main book. I'm the guy founded before the video and before the slide ended. So this is
the main book that I'm using for this course it is my personal favorite history book that's
available in the English language, last Islamic history. Reclaiming Muslim civilization from the
past by Eros, or Hatim absolutely beautiful book goes through the life of Rasulullah sallallahu
wasallam. To call upon Rashid in the OMA yards, the Abbas's the Golden Age, under loose, the Ottoman
Empire, the African empires, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and then the modern world. So ready,
this is the core textbook for this course. And if you're not going to get any of the other books
		

			that I'm listing here, get this book because this is really what we are going to be studying in
Sharla over the next few months. So yeah, that's it. That's some of the books.
		

			And I really hope that you are able to get hold of some of these books, if you don't, and you're
just going to follow the slides, it's fine. I'm going to cover it in sufficient details where you
don't need the books where you just need the slides and the lectures to get through this. But the
books are going to benefit you these books are amazing. They are beautiful, they are powerful, they
are deep. If you are someone who usually finds Islamic history boring, I guarantee you reading books
like last Islamic history of civilization are fatal. Even my book on Omar Abdul Aziz will change
your perspective on history, you will see that history is exciting, it's interesting and is very
		

			beneficial. So these are the core books that we will be using for this course. And oh, yes, during a
robbery by Abu Jaffa recovery.
		

			So this actually goes we eventually our job injury recovery. So this book is on the shelf behind me.
I think I just mixed up the author's name, it's supposed to be even Jared Atari and mixed it up with
our job for Atari. We can always correct that. In the notes, we're handing it out. Just take note.
It's even Jared ottobre Lee, the founder of the chareidi madhhab. So that's in the bookshelf behind
me, I'm not going to grab it. Now. That's really the oldest book of history that's available in the
Arabic language today from all of the Muslim history books. So these are six sources that I'm going
to be using in this course. So the methodology of this course how am I going to approach the
		

			subject? Let's go through that for this introductory lecture. So each video will be basically a
brief timeline of that era. So we're doing the immediate our brief
		

			They go through the key events of the,
		

			of the Soviet era, right? If we go into the Medina and phase of Sierra, we will go to the core
events that happen in the verdienen phase of the Sierra. So we will have a brief timeline, it will
be in chronological order, that's number one, the course will be in chronological order, starting
with the life of Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam, going right up until today. And for each error, we
will cover the core events, summarizing them not going into details. If you had to go into details,
we'd spend a few years on the Syrah, right, and Hamdulillah. Other people have done that already. If
you're looking for something detailed on the series, I highly recommend chef Yasaka, these serial
		

			series on YouTube, it is absolutely the best you're going to find on that topic in English language.
But we only going to spend two or three lessons on the Syrah and then we're going to move on to the
whole of our Rajini error, because again, you want to cover 1400 years of history in about 14 weeks.
So we can't spend too much time on one error. So as we go through each error and we go through the
core events, any doubts that arise, we will discuss them. So as we go to the Sierra you no doubt
Tamir Rice about his marriages, his marriage to Ayesha his marriage, Xena, having 11 wives,
treatment of the Jews, or you know, the jihad, all of these things will arise you will discuss them
		

			as they pop up. Because I believe this is a very important part of history. For too many people.
History shakes the modern reality a proper study of his of history should strengthen our EMA. So we
are going to very bluntly and openly discuss these doubts as they pop up, and then derive lessons as
well. So for each event, where there are lessons to be learned, I'd like to go deeper into that and
derive some lessons for us. So this is the introductory lesson, right? You're not going to actually
do any history. Today, what I'm going to do is I'm going to just discuss with you my approach to
history and some important things that you need to keep in mind when studying history. And all of
		

			these points are taken from the introduction to my book on Ahmed bin Abdulaziz. So if you have a
copy of the book, if you open to the introductory chapters
		

			I have introduced in the introductory chapter history as a resource. And also what makes
		

			it go history as a resource. And before that,
		

			we have the chapter on why history often seems bizarre. Now that's a very important chapter, right?
I actually wrote this initially as a blog posts and then added in as a chapter to this book.
		

			So basically,
		

			a lot of people when they first come across Muslim history,
		

			they are shocked. They are baffled, they are puzzled, they are horrified by what they read. It's not
what are we expecting? You know, if you were raised in a household of fairy tales, about Olia and
how everybody until World War One, we pious, you know, only of Allah and Omar was perfect,
everything was fine until the Ottoman Empire collapsed. We then go back and actually read history,
it can really shake a person's fate. Why?
		

			Well, I think primarily because we have a very wrong understanding of what our history is. Right?
When kids are taught this legendary fictional fairy tale version of history by their parents, you
setting your kids up for disappointment. And that's why with my own kids from a very young age, I'm
very honest about our history, even if it shocks them, even if it's something they didn't want to
hear. Even if it's something that's not nice, I bring it up because you rather hear it from me. They
have a false fictional understanding of history. So you have to remember the history is honest,
human and brutal, especially Muslim history because we don't lie. Or you're not supposed to lie
		

			about our history. And the history of Islam after the death of Rasulullah, sallAllahu wasallam.
There is no way he coming down. It's human beings living their lives making mistakes, there's going
to be good, there's going to be bad, there's going to be righteousness, there's going to be evil,
there's going to be tests, there's going to be mistakes, all of this is going to be there.
		

			So when we study history, we have to be brutally honest about the fact that the people in our
history we human, they made mistakes. They sinned, they had faults. These are not all only some Olia
some issue. Some are pious people. The majority are just the average Muslim like you and I are
trying to pass the test of life and more often than not messing up. And just like you and I mess up
every day. The people throughout our history did the same. So expecting anything more data
		

			blunt human error from history is expecting too much, you setting yourself up for disappointment.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said khulumani Other Hatha every son of Adam makes mistakes.
So guess what? When we study history, we are going to study the mistakes of the sons of Adam.
		

			That's what we are going to study. Every Muslim throughout history with a human being every human
being makes mistakes. So yes, they are mistakes made by Sahaba. They are mistakes made by only bin
Abdulaziz. They are mistakes made by Salahuddin a UB they are mistakes made by Suleimani.
Magnificent. No one is perfect. Besides whom Allah grants perfection to. And that is generally the
prophets of Allah. And besides him, maybe a handful of people, but in general, whoever's lives we
are studying are human beings. And history is very human.
		

			So the first thing to keep in mind is that our history is human. And because it's human, it's full
of error. It's full of sin, it's full of mistakes, it's full of people messing up in, it's not all
nice, it's not all happiness, there's ups and downs, good and bad, all of that mixed together. And
when you go into history, knowing that, then you have realistic expectations, and you're able to
study history more objectively.
		

			The second point,
		

			is that outside of the Syrah of the Prophet salallahu, alayhi wasallam. Our history is not
necessarily Islamic. Now, what do I mean by this, you know, in I mean, I studying history at
university. This is actually part of the introductory lesson given by my teacher where he said that
we shouldn't call it Islamic history. We should call it Muslim history.
		

			And I didn't understand what he meant by that at first, but once we studied it, and I started
teaching it, I realized he was right. It's not Islamic history. It's Muslim history. Why? When we
attach the label Islamic, then people's perception is that we learn Islam from this. And so when
people look at everything before World War One as Islamic history, they assume whatever happened
before World War, World War One is Islam. So when they look back, and they look at the time they
say, Oh, wait, gays existed? Does that mean gays are Islamically? Fine? Were these people murdered
people that make murder? Islamically? Fine.
		

			The Muslim kings drank alcohol, does that make alcohol Islamically? Fine. You see, you see where the
issue comes in here. It's not Islamic. It's Muslims. Some are pious, some are sinners. Some are
good, some are evil, most are just mixed. The average Muslim is a mixture of good deeds and sin. So
we do not learn Islam from anything after this era. But we can learn from the mistakes and the
successes of the people that came after the Prophet sallahu wa salam. So when we study history, we
are studying the lives of human beings who try to follow Islam. Sometimes they accomplish amazing
things. Sometimes they fell into major, major sins, and most of the time was somewhere in between.
		

			And, you know, when you study our history, again, because most of the history is focused on
politics,
		

			we're going to see more often than not the bad side, the brutal side, the violent side, while not
going into enough details and everything else, because think about it, right, someone who lived 1000
years ago, a peaceful, happy life on a farm, just worshiping Allah and earning Halal income. That
person is not going to make it into the history books in making the general hamdulillah Allah grant
or all of the Muslims out history forgiveness agenda, but he's not going to make into the history
books. But that Muslim King 1000 years ago, who messed up massacred people who killed his own
brother, who started the Civil War, he's going to be the history books. So they may have been
		

			millions of Muslims, just living their lives being good, worshipping Allah, earning the vain agenda,
and one or two people causing corruption. But because those one or two people are the leaders, and
the rest are the average citizens. It's only the corrupt people who we get to know about. And we
begin to think that all of history is like that. It's not all of history that's like that. It's
political history. That's like that. Political is a brutal, brutal thing. And it brings out the
worst in people and we will go into that in more details when we come to the section on the inmates.
When it comes to your media day. We rarely get to see how politics really change a person and bring
		

			out the worst in them. Particularly we study the life of Abdulmalik even Marwan who started his life
as a move team
		

			Medina ended his life as the Omega caliph, who was responsible for the death of Sahaba. You know,
from where to where a person went because of politics. The next point that we need to keep in mind
when studying history is that we are living in a very unique time bubble. We are living in the only
point in time in the history of humanity, where there's no slavery with is no global expansion of
empires, where there's no military struggle between kingdoms to expand the borders, where there's an
age limit for marriage, where we consider adulthood to be an arbitrary number that people made up
rather than puberty. All of these things are products of the 20th and 21st century. So any history
		

			you studied before that is not going to have these elements. Any history you study before that there
will be slavery, there will be war, there will be military expansion of empires, there will be
people getting married very, very young, there'll be people very young, giving value to people very
old, because nobody in that time or culture cared about age difference in marriage, right? The
culture and norms of the bulk of human history is very different from the culture norms of our time.
And one of the biggest problems people make today that caused them to doubt Islam is that they judge
history by 21st century standards, to judge history by 21st century standards is unfair to history.
		

			It's unfair to history, that people in the world today are living a certain way,
		

			with ideas that we just came up with in the past 50 years. Why would we expect someone 1000 years
ago to be the same.
		

			And I understand that some people think of these as moral absolutes. But in reality, if you actually
have to go down, the Fick and Aqeedah of it, these are not moral absolutes. These are just
perceptions of our time based on the culture in which we live in. So
		

			a lot of events seem bizarre, simply because the culture and norm of that time is different from the
culture and norm of our times. And let me just give you an example of that degrades the hobby
Abdullah, even among even us, is only 11 years younger than his father degrades hobby armor, even
us, Allah be pleased the both of them 11 years. That means our even Allah's Cornell University and
became a father when he was 11.
		

			That seems utterly bizarre today. But I guarantee you 1400 years ago, that was completely normal.
And we have no right to judge history by what we consider bizarre today. That was normal for the
time, yes, perfectly halaal. There's nothing in fact, that goes against it. So we have no right to
be looking back and trying to change history. And that's something you're not going to find me
doing. A lot of people nowadays are trying to reread history and change history to suit the time to
say, oh, no, this person wasn't this age, he was 18 or he was 21. Or I'm not gonna do any of that.
It is what it is, and we're going to deal with it exactly as it happened. A few more things about
		

			history. The monarchy system, that's another thing that bugs people when they study Islamic history.
		

			So it's no secret that for the bulk of Muslim history, we've been ruled by kings, starting with your
maids, the Abbasids, the mom, Luke's the the Ottomans. Today we have the Saudis and many others.
		

			And you know, we have these debates throughout the Muslim world. The monarchy is haram and we need a
shooter system and we need democracy and we need an elaborate system.
		

			I'm gonna say something that some of you are going to find controversial and if you don't agree with
me, you know, do your research, bringing Quran and Sunnah.
		

			I don't believe that the monarchy system is haram.
		

			Why? Thou Alehissalaam and Sudama Ali salaam were kings. Allah praises them in the Quran.
		

			There's no way in the Quran that he ever abrogates the kingship. There is no way in the Hadith where
the Prophet SAW Islam says that being a king is wrong. He simply says that after the whole of our
rushing, they're going to be kings. He didn't say It's haram. He says it that's that's just a fact.
Right? So
		

			I believe not only is it not haram, but for the bulk of human history. This was the only way to have
a stable leadership. If we're looking at the media empire, or the Ottoman Empire, or the opposite
Empire at its peak, to expect any kind of democracy or elections or something of that nature at that
point in time. It would have resulted in civil war. It would have resulted in civil war, that
monarchy was necessary for stability. And I believe that Mahalia rajadamnern was the first person to
recognize this. And although his choice of successor was not good, the idea that this is that this
system may work
		

			Best for the time that they are living in proved to be true for the bulk of our history. Our Golden
Ages were ruled by monarchies. Right. And for people who think that's haram, it's really a difficult
thing to grasp. I mean, on one hand, you saying It's haram? On the other hand, that's our golden
age. How do you reconcile that? So I don't believe it's haram. Number one, there's no explicit
evidence in the Quran and Sunnah to prohibit it. Number two, the prophets were monarchs and Allah
did not abrogate that in a way I know of number three,
		

			all of the great scholars of Islam lived in systems had monarchies and they did not try to change
the system. They either saw it as permissible, or as the lesser of two evils or as necessary evil
for their times. None of them actively tried to change it and and take things back to an election
system. So this is something we have to accept when we studying history. If you are someone who's in
favor of democracy and thinks the monarchy system is medieval and backwards, and something that's
not applicable to our times, you're going to have a hard time enjoying history, when most of the
people who are studying were part of the system, they will immediately be a basket, they will
		

			Ottomans they were part of a royal family. And that's just a fact of life. Another fact of life
until recently slavery, right? You cannot study the history of any civilization. without studying
slavery. You can't it just it was just a fact of life and a norm for the bulk of human history. And
that's inclusive of Muslim history. It was
		

			It wasn't something Islam praised.
		

			But it's something Islam allowed, like how Islam allows divorce. I think that's the best the closest
example can have today.
		

			Today, all Muslims accept that divorce is halal, but it's not good. Right. And it only allowed
because in some cases, it's necessary, it's literally necessary.
		

			I think for the bulk of human history, slavery fall into into the same category, that is not
something that Allah praises is not something that's considered good or good deed. But for the bulk
of human history, it was kind of a necessity of life. They were no prisons. And by the way, I
believe the prison system is a lot more inhumane. And then the how slavery was in the Muslim world
or in other parts of the war back then, the prison system is much worse. But putting prison system
aside.
		

			There was the fact what do you do with prisoners of war?
		

			There was the fact that technology did not exist it and is a very strong argument that the only
reason we don't have slaves today, because we replaced him with technology. Right. So that's the
only reason why it was phased out and later on model. Morality was attached to it. But that wasn't
the initial reason. It's actually a very strong theory about that. Perhaps we'll get into that in a
later video. So Islam doesn't prey slavery. Rather, it praises the freeing of slaves. And we see
this in a very early revelation in Surah Ballard, when Allah explains what is righteousness, He
said, It is the freedom of slaves. Right, this is literally the verses were about the freedom of
		

			slaves as description of righteousness. So there are many verses like this that many have the
slightest, Islam recognizes, as a norm, a part of human life, something that's going to happen. It
says, checks and balances, for who can be and can't be taken, and what are the rights of the slaves.
And this is one of the earliest civilizations to give such rights to slaves, that
		

			for the most part, they lived a far more dignified life than many of us live today. And we'll see
this agricultural history. It's truly amazing what some of the slaves and freed slaves and children
of slaves accomplished in Muslim history, because they were given a status of Rights and Freedoms,
not to the level that we have today. But way ahead of what how other civilizations treated as
slaves. So when we studying history, slavery is going to pop up over and over again. And you have to
accept that it was a norm throughout history. And so it was a norm in Muslim civilization as well.
		

			A third norm that people find difficult to digest today, military expansion, right. So today, we
have defined borders.
		

			And no one thinks of expanding the border, you know, and taking over the country next door, except
maybe one or two countries, right. But we have to understand this is a very recent phenomenon. This
is something that came about in the 20th century. Before that, they will know clearly mark borders,
		

			and every empire was constantly expanding or shrinking based on the military strength. And so if you
are not conquering your neighbors, or in a peace treaty with them, you are at
		

			risk of being conquered by them. And so this kind of kept the world in a perpetual state of war. And
of course, for Islam to survive and to thrive, it had to take an offensive role in this war. So, for
example, if in the early years if the Muslims did not go on the offensive against the Romans in the
Persians, they will have been wiped out by the Romans or the Persians, because eventually those
people will have expanded into the areas and kick them out or, you know,
		

			kill them all something of that nature. But
		

			what we see is this constant battles for territory
		

			between all kingdoms.
		

			And we see this with Spain, we see this with India, we see this with the European account the
Ottomans, that there's this constant expanding of borders, they are Christians trying to take over
Muslim lands, Muslim Sankardeva, Christian lands, Mongols trying to do Muslim and Muslim thank Tico,
Mongolians. And that was just a necessary part of life before the modern world. Now, the Muslims had
the jihad system, that again, just like with slavery, it put in a bunch of checks and balances to
keep things humane. So Muslims weren't allowed to kill anyone besides enemy soldiers. They had to
honor their peace treaties, or they had to treat this prisoners of war humanely. They weren't
		

			allowed to harm women and children. They had to grant freedom of religion to the people they
conquered. All of this was there. And this led to a very beautiful empire, unlike anything else
existed. At that time, I will see this once we studied the time of the hull of our Rashidi and the
omegas. So again,
		

			these things are all part of facts of life. And now for the last one, I'm going to get a bit more
controversial on this point.
		

			For the bulk of history,
		

			the difference between a child and an adult was puberty. Right? Once somebody hit puberty, they were
considered an adult. Now, here's the thing in Islam, technically, when you hit puberty, you are
still considered an adult. And many people don't know that. And they get angry when we say that,
because they are so caught up in these modern Western definitions of what is an adult.
		

			And that means someone who hits puberty, and he's not praying, Salah is sinful in Islam.
		

			But because we're not talking about this anymore, you know, we are withholding information that is
necessary for people to know. Now, I actually want to do a separate video on this, that may be on my
YouTube channel, or maybe added to this course as well if it's beneficial. But I want to do a
separate video on this topic, basically, to cover the fact that I think
		

			humanity messed up maturity, when they moved away from the puberty model, and started making updates
for what is adulthood ordering when making updates. I mean, right until today, there is no set
global definition of who is an adult. In some places, it's 18. In other places, it's 16. In other
places, it's 20. In other places, it's 21. Where did these numbers come from? They just made up,
they just made up every place came up with the number.
		

			We messed up the world by doing this, because we extended childhood,
		

			past its norm. So what we have in the world today, are people who are physically adults, but society
treats them as children.
		

			And this has led to rebelliousness you know, this idea of the rebellious teenager. This is a very
modern idea because the term teenager is a modern idea. In the past, if someone is 12 years old, and
they hit puberty, the father would treat him as an adult and expect him to behave like an adult. And
we'll have that relationship with him that I'm an adult to an adult, and that child will grow up
respecting his father because his father treats him as an adult. But today, we have 17 year olds,
whose fathers and mothers treat him like little babies. And as a result, he rebelled against Him.
Because the nature the psychology, the body is helenium us adults, but society and the made up in
		

			constructs of society are telling him you are a child. And this is causing rebelliousness in them.
And we mess it up even further in the modern world that because of individualism and and this
glorification of childhood, people don't want it to end. They don't want you to end. And so now we
have the manchild phenomena. We have people who are 2530 years old, and they still haven't mentally
mature, they are still not yet adults.
		

			And what's going to happen is we're going to now move the age again, I'm going to see you're 25 to
be an adult you're 30 to be an adult. Are we just going to keep moving the number are we going to
finally realize Hold on, this made up manmade system is not working. Let's go back to what's
natural. Allah has created in human
		

			is a natural way of distinguishing between child and adult and that is puberty.
		

			Right? So to the bulk of history, anybody post puberty was considered an adult. Now, why does this
matter when studying history matters, because you're going to find nine year olds getting married,
you're going to find 12 year olds leading armies, you're going to find 11 year old being appointed
as kings, you're going to find all these things happening. Because in their societies in their time
in their culture, they were considered adults. And oh, people can't understand this today. And this
just causes people's brains to shut down. But as you study history, it becomes more and more clear
that this is just a fact of life for most people. And it's only now in the 20th century, that we
		

			shifted the goalposts and changed the definition of adult. And I really believe this has caused more
harm than good. I know it was done primarily to extend the education phase. So we added in high
school, so people are in school for the later age, but now the adult, how are you going to keep them
in school, so we start calling them children. And so we, you know, we set the age of adulthood as we
just finished school.
		

			First, the army sabam against the idea of schooling until that age, I actually think schools should
finish at the age of 12, or 13. That's a different discussion for different time. But we really
messed up like this. And the more you study history, the more you will see that not only was it
normal for the bulk of history for people that age to be married, working, having children going to
war, leading armies, leading countries, but
		

			people in those cultures mature faster, because this concept of the teenager never existed.
		

			And I really believe that was better for society than what we have today. But that's a different
talk for a different time.
		

			Really, I don't to go too deep into that. I know, it's controversial what I just said. And a lot of
people are going to be angry with me for saying it, but it is what it is. And that's really what I
believe about that topic. So
		

			when studying history, I this has been an introductory talk, and I hope you found it beneficial.
When studying history, you have to accept things were different back then
		

			there was a monarchy in place. And that's what it was. And it worked. There was slavery in place.
It's not slavery, the same as how we think of it today, because we our ideas of slavery all come
from American slavery, which was the worst form of slavery. But as you study history, you will see
the was the type of slavery in place, but it was radically different, radically different for
American slavery.
		

			She had military expansions, all of this was a norm. But again, with the checks and balances that
Islam placed on people, it was carried out in a far more humane manner compared to the opponents.
When you look at what the Crusaders or the Mongols did to the Muslims, and you compare it to how the
Muslims treated the enemies, you will see that we we are on the right side of history, for the most
part, of course, they were the
		

			few bad eggs here and there, but for the most part, we are on the right side of history. And
finally, when you study history before the modern world, understand that in every period before the
modern world, people were considered adults once they hit puberty, and that's why it's not strange
in the history books, to find 12 year olds in the army to find 14 year olds leading armies to find
15 year olds who are married and working and kings or scholars or whatever the case may be, because
that's just the way the world was until recently. So this is introduction to history. If you found
this beneficial, I hope you stay with us for the rest of the course. And inshallah we're going to
		

			dive deep into this over the next six months. The next three weeks you will focus on the life of
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam going into the doubts that people have about him, or the
proofs or prophethood lessons we can take from his life, and we're just going to cover it mainly
from those angles. And after that, Inshallah, we will look at the whole of our Rashidi era over two
weeks, two weeks in one weekend, Abu Bakr and Omar when we can Osman and Ali in recovered the Omiya.
It's the passage under loose the Golden Age, the Mongols, the Ottomans, and finally World War One
and the modern world.
		

			I'm looking at 12 to 15 weeks for this course
		

			could be longer could be shorter, Allah knows best. ask Allah to accept this from us to give us life
because we don't know how long we're going to live in this pandemic. I mean, I could pass away
before even make the next video Allah grant us a long life with Baraka in his service in good debt.
		

			May he put Baraka in the series may make it a means of hair and make it means of speaking the truth
may protect us from seeing that which is false and that which is untrue, and becoming just a means
of guidance for all and never means of chasing anyone away. Subhana robbing is at the embassy foon
wa salam ala mursaleen what hamdulillahi rabbil aalameen