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