Ismail Kamdar – How to study Muslim History

			Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah that mean also that oh seven w Karim Allah
Allah He was happy in. So, today inshallah very briefly want to share a few words about how we
approach and discuss and understand the history of,
		

			of Islam of the Muslim world. And the point I want to discuss today are taken from my new book on
the life of Omar ibn Abdullah zS, Rahim Allah, this book inshallah is coming out in about a month or
two just depends, as soon as the editing is done, the book will be released.
		

			But there is a chapter in his book in which I discuss the methodology of studying history of
approaching history because that's the methodology I adapt in this book. And it's, it's, it's very
important that we understand the correct approach to history, because they have been a lot of
mistakes in recent times in how people deal with history.
		

			The biggest one, which I addressed in the book, is the concept of
		

			reinterpreting history to be suitable to our time. So what do I mean by this? So for example, when
we study the history of Islam, they are topics that that, according to modern culture are not
acceptable, right? child marriages,
		

			military warfare in expansion, slavery, all of this is there in our history. Now, a lot of people in
order to make history kind of sanitized, they hide these aspects, they take these aspects and they
hide it or they like change the name, or like they won't see slaves as the servant, or even was to
change history completely, like in the example of the age of Ayesha revealing her when she married
the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam.
		

			Instead of accepting that she was
		

			a young age, as mentioned in Sahih al Bukhari, some people magically change your age to the age of
consent in America, which is ridiculous, right? We cannot change history, to suit our times or our
understanding of morality based on our cultures. This is, you know, it's no longer history, when you
change history to suit your culture. It's no longer history, it's now it's not fiction. That's
basically what it is when you change history. To accept it, listen, there are things in our history,
which may seem strange to us, because we live in a different a different place, just like how people
in one part of the world find the practice of another part of the world strange. It's the same thing
		

			when we deal with history. Right? A good example of this is people getting married to their first
cousins. In some parts of the world, it's the norm, complete norm, and it's possible in Islam as
well. In other parts of the world, people are disgusted by it, because it's something they are not
accustomed to. So this is being disgusted by something that we're not accustomed to, we should not
use it to judge history, or even worse, to rewrite history. So this is the first point, which is a
very important point. And therefore, when I write my books, or give my lectures on history, I make
sure to tell as it is, I mean, if somebody owns slaves, they own slaves, you can't hide that you
		

			shouldn't deny that somebody was asleep, we should see diversity. If someone got married into a 910
or 11 years old, we shouldn't be ashamed to say, it's not saying we should do these things today.
Nope, we live in a different time, a different place, a different culture. This isn't for us to
practice in our time and culture. But there's no need to rewrite history, there's no need to hide
these points in our history. On the other point, which I mentioned in the book, which is very
important, is that not everything that happens in Muslim history is something that that is
justified, right? So we have to differentiate between the life of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa
		

			sallam, and the teachings of the righteous on one hand, and the practices of the masses of Muslims.
On the other hand, reality is that throughout history, the average Muslim committed sins and made
mistakes. those sins and mistakes are not justification for us to do that today. What do I mean by
this? So for example, you notice some of the liberals they will say, oh, but throughout history the
way homosexuals that makes it fine, no, it doesn't make it fine. Throughout history, they were
Muslim murderers. It doesn't make murder fine. Right? somebody's doing something doesn't make it
fine. It has to be approved by allostery hana with the Allah or the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
		

			alayhi wa sallam. So we need to make a distinction here between Syrah and diary, we have to make a
distinction between studying and extracting lessons from the life of the prophets law exam or
righteous person which is called Syrah and diary, which is the political history of Islam, which is
narrated as is without,
		

			without saying it's right or wrong. I can get narrate the political history of Islam, you're going
to say so and so forth. So and So somebody committed
		

			Somebody did this, that it doesn't mean that these things are right. It simply means that they
happen and that these things happen. So we have to embrace the fact that our history is a history
full of human beings, and that human beings made mistakes, and they did things wrong, what they did
is not a justification, what they did does not make it right, it simply means that it happened.
Right. So we have to distinguish between what one of my teachers called it is the difference between
Islamic history, the life of the Prophet sallallahu, wasallam, anti Sahaba, and the righteous and
Muslim history, which is everything else, we must make this distinction. That's why you will notice
		

			my online course on Islamic history, I do not call it the Islamic Golden Ages, I call it the Muslim
Golden Ages, because in reality these the Golden Ages wasn't essentially Islamic, it was simply
something that happened to Muslims, which can happen again inshallah, in the future. So these are
two main points about history that we must keep in mind, or other I would say three main points
about history that we must keep in mind whenever we are reading a history book, or studying history.
Number one, only the life of the prophet SAW you somebody Sahaba and the righteous people can be
taken as role models, not anything and everything that happened in history. Number two, that there
		

			are things in history, which we may not like, because we live in a different culture a different
time, place. And so we need to accept the reality of this. And we should not judge history by modern
culture. And number three, is that we should never try to change history to suit our tank, you
should never try to change history to be a more in keeping with more than culture because when you
change history, it's no longer history now becomes fiction. So these are the three points that
discuss them in more details in the book. If you're interested in the book, it is available for pre
order. I will put up the link a bit later in Sharla in the comment section, and in the description
		

			of this video. It's available for pre order in both PDF and Kindle format. The paperback format
should be available in a few months time. And if you're interested in reading my other books, I now
have all 10 of my previous books available as one package for only $30. I'll put up the link for
that as well deserve a lot of hate for your time and attention of Salaam Alaikum warahmatullahi
wabarakatuh