The Umayyad Falcon Abdurrahman ibn Muawiyah

hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen

wa salatu salam ala Nabil Karim. While he was happy at Mount in Ahmedabad.

There are many stories in our history that often get glossed over. Now one of the problems we have today with history is that we tend to focus only on specific areas of our history. And the rest of the 1400 years is forgotten about. And in this history, there are many, many amazing stories. Some of the stories you think they were works of fiction, but they're actually historical events. And today, I want you to read one of these stories to you and perhaps extract some lessons from it. This is a story that, in many ways, would have led to the, to the birth of the modern world. Or even it was the beginning of a series of events that would have led to the birth of the modern world. But

it's a part of the story that's often overlooked. And this is the story of a man in our history, known by the name of King Abdul Rahman, the first

also known as Abdul Rahman, even more Alia, or the Falcon of the Romanians. And this slowly goes back to the second century of Islamic history. So for those who are unaware, the first dynasty to rule over the Muslim world with the Romanians, and the second were the Abbasids. And this story takes place at the time when the Abbas's are taking over from the domains. So the domain the this family ruled the Muslim world for about 70 years. And towards the tail end of those 70 years, the general public began to get tired of them, because many of the later on AIDS did not live up to the ideals of Islam. Many of them had fallen into major sins openly. They were at civil war with each

other. They were usurping, usurping the funds of the Muslims. And this had caused people to want somebody else to take over. So another family, the Abbasids, began to rally politically to get people on their side, too, so that they could take over now to understand the politics of the region, the Romanians and the Abbas. It's about Quraysh. Right either two different tribes of the Kurdish the Abbas is are the descendants of the prophets, Uncle Abbas. That's where they get the name from. So the urban Ohashi and the Quraysh going all the way back to the time of the Prophet slowly Assam, the Quraysh. The leadership was always disputed between battle, Harsha and Bernie

omega. So the same tribal dispute is popping up 100 years later. And the Abbas needs to get people on their side, they begin to politically campaign, the top people are going to do things more Islamically, we're going to do things better, we're going to bring things back to the way it was the time of the whole lava rush again, you're going to have a lot of these political rallies and a lot of these promises. And so eventually, they gain enough support, that they are able to stage a coup and take over the land. Now, very often when we study this part of history, what we study next is what the Abbas instead, right? And the bassins did some amazing things in the next 200 or 300 years.

But what we don't study is what did the Omega do next? Right, we know that the bassins took over from the omega that year. What did the Omega do next? This is another fascinating part of our history that's often overlooked. And this is where the story of Abdul Rahman comes in. Because Abdul Rahman was the last Omega prince. He was the last of the Omega bloodline at that time. So again, I have to point this out in every study history, the figures in our history after the time of the Sahaba are human. They're going to do good things and bad things. Right. They're not only are they not perfect saints, they're not the representation of the religion. They're human beings. There's

good and bad in them. And so the first Abasi drooler. One of his bad qualities, was that he was quite murderous in claiming power. His nickname was actually a boss, the butcher, right, and he got this nickname the butcher, for butchering the Romanian family.

And in many stories of how he did it, the most popular one was that he invited the last 50 princes of the Omega bloodline for a for a feast, and he hid 50 assassins behind the curtains. So while they were feasting, the entire family was wiped out overnight.

Some people see the story is not authentic, Allah knows best but whatever happened. We do know for sure that in the time of Abbas, the Bucha into in his time the immediate family was massacred. And it boiled down to just two princes were left Abdul Rahman and his brother. They were the only two left of this family and they went on the run. So understand this story. Abdul Rahman spends his whole life with a prince, and he's Abdul Rahman, the son of Mahalia, the son of Hashem, the son of Marwan even Hakob. His grandfather and great grandfather will be your kings.

His father was a prince and he was also a prince. So this is a man born into royalty. And suddenly he's a refugee. He's a fugitive, the assassins and police looking for him everywhere. He goes on the run. And many stories happen when he's on the run. One of the stories that happens is, very soon after he realizes that the ambassador after him, he and his brother and his servant, they jump into the river to swim across to Egypt. Nigeria is the robber separating Arabia from Egypt, they jump into the robber to swim across to get to Egypt. And he manages to swim across the river. And when he turns around, he sees his brother's swimming back. And all the assassins are on the shore waiting

for his brother.

And they promised him that if you come back, we won't have you. By the often false promises that politicians give. And in front of his eyes from one side of the river across the other side, he sees the assassins grab his brother and chop off his head. And so just like that, there's not only one prince left into omega dynasty, Abdul Rahman, and he goes on the run, he goes into hiding, he manages to go to Egypt, the ruler of Egypt at that time, his name was also Abdul Rahman. And he had wavering political allegiances. I at one point, he claimed to be loyal to the omega naught point he claimed to be loyal to the Abbasids. But what he really wanted to he wanted to be king himself, he

wanted to be the Khalifa himself. So initially, he led Abdul Rahman live in Egypt, right as a refugee, to Abu Rama and goes from living as the as the prince in in the baskets, to living as a refugee in Egypt. But, you know, Abdul Rahman was a very charismatic person. And people flocked to him and people rallied around him. And eventually, the king of Egypt, or the governor of Egypt, begins to get worried that he's going to lose, you know, his political power that people are going to want. This familiar prince will be the leader instead. So he hatches a plot against Abdul Rahman himself. And once again, Abdul Rahman finds himself on the rug, running now from both the Abbasids

and the rulers of Egypt, both of who want him dead.

And they say he spent up to 10 years in exile. And we don't know much of what happened in these 10 years because he's undercover. He's changing his name. He's living a secret life. He's a fugitive, he's a refugee. Everywhere he goes the assassins after him. They are spies trying to figure out who he is where he is, people know he's alive. They don't know where he is. And they want him dead. And this man spends the next decade on the run.

Eventually, he makes his way to Morocco, the land of his maternal ancestors, his mother was from Morocco. And yet he finds family, his mother's family, and he's able to live a simple life, and to at least be away from the politics of, of the East.

A man born as a prince in Arabia is now living as a refugee in Africa. But the story doesn't end there.

Across the ocean for Morocco, was the land of Al Andalus, Islamic Spain.

And Spain was very loyal to the Romanians. You see, early Spain, owed a lot to the Romanians. It became a Muslim land in the time of Walid the first, it began to truly develop in the time of Ahmed bin Abdulaziz. And so people there, in general, were supportive of the Omega family. And they saw them as people who liberated them who brought justice for prosperity to their land. And they were a lot of people there who were related to the roommates and who loved the roommates and who supported them. So Abdul Rahman, he's still a politician at heart. Even though he spent 10 years in exile, he sends his servant over to Spain to find out. What's what's it like on the on the ladder? Are people

supportive of us? Are they supportive of their bosses who say early on, and when he arrives, there is a civil war going on in Spain, because the Abbas is had appointed a new governor over Spain, and many people rejected him because they didn't want the passage rolling. And so there's our civil war between many of the local governors and the new representative of the party, the Empire in Spain, and all these others who are rebelling against the Abbasids. They learned that Abdul Rahman is still alive, he just across the ocean in Morocco, and he also you're gonna give him his full support. So Abdul Rahman takes a ship, he crosses the ocean. He lands in Spain, where groups of armies and

governors and leaders are waiting for him to accept him as the new leader. And he leads them into battle. And he conquered Spain. And he established his Spain as a new kingdom are made under those. And he declared himself the Emir of Andalusia, the king of Andalus.

Think about this is the kind of story that you think is fictional but since this is history, this is real history. This is a man born as a prince in Damascus, spending most of his life as a refugee and

In a fugitive, when he died, he was the king of a country in Europe. You as the king of Spain.

Imagine today if a refugee from Syria became a king in in Europe. It sounds mind boggling, but it happened in our history. And his story doesn't end there. Because the Abbas Hudson army armies to fight when he defeated Those armies, and he want the respect of the baskets. You know, in the beginning, I said that his nickname was the Falcon of the omegas. He was the Abasi King that gave him the nickname. When people ask the Abbas's, what do you think of this Abdul Rahman guy claiming to be king all the way in Spain. He said that man is the Falcon, of the domains. He the above seeds were amazed by the tenacity of this man who overcame all odds and somehow established the kingdom in

a completely different part of the world, and was able to oppose their own power. They didn't like him, but they respected him. He respected him. And then from that point onwards, the Ummah had two major kingdoms, there was made Spain, and there was the Abasi the Empire. And interestingly, both both kingdoms would enter a golden age at the same time. And Abdul Rahman is descendants would rule over Spain for 290 years. See, these are parts of our history that are forgotten. So many people you asked him about the omega the Empire, or the Omega drew for 70 years. And they forget the 290 year old me it's been, which by the way, was the better homemade empire in many ways. Read if you study

the history of of the homemade Spain, and the Abdullah and his descendants, that was, in many ways, the superior media empire in terms of their accomplishments in terms of what they did for this world and for the Ummah, in terms of the kingdom they developed, because under Abdul Rahman descendents, Spain became the most powerful country in Europe, it became the most advanced, most developed, most sophisticated, most cultured community in all of Europe, it became the envy of Europe, even Muslims of other parts of the world, Muslims on the above the Empire will look at me at Spain, and the nickname they gave it was Jana on Earth. That was the kind of kingdom he developed Jana on Earth.

And so this is a story of Abdur Rahman, the first and then read it so that we can become more aware of the history of the broad history of the Western world. So we can take some inspiration from his story, as we can understand, you know, the, the both the good and the bad of what happened in history. The end of the day, none of the figures in the story are perfect. None of the figures in the stories are what we would call Olia or saints or Alama. These are politicians, they had the good qualities and the bad qualities, but they were Muslims. And their legacy is also our legacy. And their story is also our story. And it's important that we familiarize ourselves with the history of

the Muslim world, not just with the main story, in this case, the baskets, but even the other stories as well, like that of Spain. So behind Arabic Arrabal is that the mIRC phone was salam ala mousseline what Hamdulillah, Robin Alameen?

In Al Hamdulillah na muda who understand Pharaoh we know behind our colleague, my bad. So what can we learn from the story?

It's very important that when we study history, we study history with the prime focus of taking lessons from history is not about memorizing names. History is not about memorizing dates. History is what can I learn from the successes of those who came before me? What can I learn from the failures of those who came before me? How can I repeat their successes? And how can I avoid their failures? The first lesson that we learned from the story of Abdul Rahman is a refutation of imagery that is present in the minds of many Muslims. Many Muslims because we haven't studied history, we have this myth in our mind that this ummah had one Khalifa until World War One. This only had one

ruler use one unified empire until the downfall of the Ottoman Empire in World War One. This is Imbert. In reality, this ummah had only one ruler for the first 100 years. Once Abdul Rahman established for me it's been, we now had the Abasi of empire, and the old lady Empire coexisting for 290 years. And he never ended there. Because then the Ottoman Empire will pop up tomorrow, but the Empire will pop up. By the time of the Ottomans, you had the Safavid Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Mameluke Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and many others all existing at the same time. It's not one ruler, ruling over the entire Muslim world. The problem with this myth is that people then have

unrealistic expectations. They think that the solution is if you have one ruler, all our problems go away. That's not true. Even when the Ummah had one ruler, there were still problems. I just need the life of the Colaba Rashidi and there was never a perfect time. So we need to be careful how we portray history that we are honest about our history, and we don't

make up things to, you know, to make it sound better than it was history is human. And what happened happened and we shouldn't lie about it, this OMA, it is part of its destiny to be divided. We still try our best to unite with ever we can. But we don't lie about our history, we see that this is what happened. And this is the way it was. Now let's go to some personal lessons we can take from the story, because there's really a lot of motivation you can take from the story. This is a man who went from a prince to a fugitive to a king, who was born in the Middle East, in Syria, who spent the bulk of a large portion of his adult life as a refugee in Africa, and who died as a king in Europe.

i This is an amazing story. And from the lessons we can take from this is number one,

that perhaps you dislike something and it is good for you. Perhaps you dislike something and it is good for you. This is a proverb taken directly from the Quran, that Allah tells us in the Quran that perhaps you dislike something and it is good for you, perhaps you love something, and it is bad for you. And throughout history, we see this very often something bad would happen to someone that in the long run, it leads them on a journey that leads them to the destiny. We see this with a story of use of a Saddam when his brothers throw him in the well. And that's the beginning of his story that leads to his destiny in Egypt. And he says in the story of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam

when he's exiled from Africa, which leads him to Medina where the story of Islam truly blossoms and that's why the Hijra is the beginning of our calendar. As we see again with the story of Abdul Rahman. In reality, Abdul Rahman was never in line to be king. Right? The Romanians had over 50 princes, he was like number 14 That list. He was never in line to be king. If you made Empire continued, he would have just lived a life of a prince in in Syria. But Allah's destiny for him was something else. Allah's destiny for him was to be a king in Europe, in Spain, and for his descendants to establish one of the greatest empires in the history of this world. And so that

series of events as horrific as they were as traumatic as they were, they were the necessary part of history that led to him getting to where he needed to be to establish what he needed to establish. And this is the history of the world even today. Very often we look at things the world today, we feel like why did this happen? In the long run, there is benefit for it. Let me give you an example. One of the things that many of us believe is the worst thing to happen to Muslims in recent times, was the migration of Muslims to non western lands. Right for 1400 years, or rather, for 1300 years, Muslims did not migrate to non Muslim lands. We live together in Muslim world right in that role

Islam in the past 100 years, first, the migration to South Africa, then we had the euro, Europe, then we have America. And so a lot of people think this is a bad thing. And in some ways it is. But what we don't think about is the other side, the amount of people in these lands, who have converted to Islam, who would never have been exposed to the messenger of Islam had our forefathers not been forced to migrate.

Think about it, it was Allah's Will, that the people of these lands, hear the message of Islam and be exposed to Islam. And the way for that to happen was that somebody had to be forced to migrate to that land, and to take Islam to that land. We don't think about this, if Allah wants Islam to spread in a certain land, sometimes political events happen that we don't like they force people to move out of the land to new lands, because Allah wants them to be in that land, not in the land they were born in, because that's where they're going to make a difference for this Omar. As we take this lesson from a man born in Serbia and died in Europe, we see that Allah wanted his destiny to be

somewhere else and to be something else. And perhaps he was the same for our forefathers as well, that for many of us, our forefathers came to Africa just trying to make a better living. But because of that Islam is spreading in this land. And the same thing is happening in many other parts of the world. And it's up to us to make the best of the situations we in and to understand whatever Allah has willed, whatever codon Allah has worked for this ummah, in the long run, it is what is best for this, Omar. Another lesson we take from the story of Abdul Rahman and we'll end with this lesson is never give up. If you have a goal that you think is beneficial that you think is worth chasing,

don't give up.

Abdul Rahman won the respect of his enemies because of his tenacity, because of his never give up attitude, because of his ability to take the worst of situations and build something great from it.

And even your enemies had to recognize that this was an amazing man.

And today we give up too easily. We live in the age of instant gratification, you know, we start a business if we're not millionaires, by the end of the year, we close out the business. You know, that's not how it works. You want to accomplish something you need to take 1020 years, you need to take your time. You need to work towards your goal you need to deal with the problems you need to face your obstacles to overcome them. Nothing worth accomplishing gets done overnight.

And this is a lesson we get

TiVo Abdur Rahman, it took him a long, long time to turn his life around and make something of it. But he never gave up. At the end of the day, he accomplished something amazing. Because when you look at the history of America and Spain, in America, it's been that we see the development of universities, we see the development of philosophy, we see the birth of the ideas that would spread to the rest of Europe, causing the Renaissance, the Renaissance, the cause the modern world. But it all goes back to the day that will mediate Spain was established. It's all linked. All of history is linked in this way. The golden ages of the art of the Roman Empire, led to the golden age of the

rest of the world as well, because knowledge was shared between different civilizations. And so we learned today, not to give up. We take inspiration from stories of people who were in difficult situations and made something good out of it, and were able to accomplish great things. We take lessons from that not to give up. And we take lessons from that to accept our destiny and to understand that Allah knows what is best for us and that perhaps we dislike something and it is good for us.

Probably not enough for dunya Hasina, fulfill Arthur the Huseynov working as a banal Robin hablan I mean as wodgina with a reality nakodar

Rama shabiha Shobhana Rebecca Robin is it Yama is the phone was salam Abu Salim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen Aki, me Salah