Mirza Yawar Baig – Cii interview – Education Matters
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Seated in your place,
whether you're listening on the radio while driving
or whether you're lounging
or whether you're concerned about the the humor
and having a discussion
or thinking of a discussion
for a table topic,
let me tell you,
you and I know little of our history.
In fact, we know little history,
in totality,
competitive to many, many people.
And many people too who know history
are probably
indoctrinated
with a different
understanding
of the world. And the understanding of the
world, and,
is is sometimes correct,
and
sometimes it's incorrect.
So that that is where we are at
the moment. And,
you and I do know
that
the world
is is is carrying on. And,
you
and I,
in terms of the topics
that
normally
come up at table at the table or
at dinners
or at barbecues
or thrice as we say in South Africa,
we
talk
from hearsay. We don't talk from fact.
And because of this, we contaminate the understanding
of what the world is. So, yes, the
package is very behind the moment. So,
let's welcome our guest.
Welcome out to the program Education Matters.
Thank you so much for
the opportunity to speak to you, and,
I think you and I should speak,
more often, not necessarily only for interviews. That
is that's something. Absolutely. I was telling myself
Absolutely. What prevents us from speaking otherwise.
That's absolutely.
I love your smile. I humbly love, and
I miss your presence. Yeah. In fact, I
was talking about a friend to a friend
about the Sheikh Yawuru recently because we were
talking about history.
And, strange enough, our topic today is history,
this forgotten subject. Yes. And I asked him
I asked him, just how much do you
read on history?
And he says history books are boring. You
know? And
I just say, okay. Let's stop there, but
let me tell you something about history. So,
in the meantime,
I've introduced yourself to our audience,
and I have 2 books in front of
me. I'm not going to read from them,
but just to show you that they are
my reading currently.
The 1 I went quite deep into, but
but very unsettling
is called massacres,
the account of crimes
the an account of crimes against humanity by
Brian Bailey. Mhmm. Very uncomfortable reading, but necessary.
The book that really, really got me interested,
and as I as we discussed in our
WhatsApp chat, I actually put the I actually
closed the book and put it aside because
it was too difficult to to stomach what
the
Islamic history really is in certain parts of
the world. And it is Usama
Makaddesi's
book, The Age of Coexistence,
the Ethnemical
Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab
World. Now that's my current reading, which you
will sort of, punctuate our talk with. But,
yeah, Howard, to begin with you, you know,
on 1 of your favorite reminders, you mentioned
something about,
history,
but, you know, people writing from a fictional
point of view, but the facts are there.
So,
I gave us an insight as to some
of the
titles perhaps to begin the discussion. So so
our listeners can get an understanding
that if you're finding the reading of factual
history boring,
there's some fictional blade, but, the truth is
underneath the surface.
See,
as I mentioned to you,
in
the context of,
historical fiction as it is called.
For example, 1 of the,
1 of the,
my 1 of my favorite authors
as far as,
historical fiction,
is concerned
is,
Conigolden,
CYNIGGULDEN.
Conigolden.
Now,
he has written a series of books,
called 1 1 is called The Gates of
Rome,
which is
a novel of, of Julius Caesar,
who was an amazingly,
important and influential
man in history
because his name, Caesar, itself
has become,
has come to mean,
ruler or king.
Caesar of Rome, Caesar of this, and including
very interestingly,
when the,
the Turks, when the Ottomans, the first,
member of the first,
he,
conquered Constantinople,
in his formal official
declaration,
he did not say, I am the Khalifa
al Muslimin.
I am the Amir Momineen.
He said, I am the Caesar of Rome.
That's not a work. Yeah.
He did that. That that that's on that's
on record. Now,
and it makes entire
sense from a historical perspective and from the,
perspective of, you know, making a
statement which would be understood by the world
because
he was coming to the throne
after
the complete destruction of the Muslim,
Khalifa
in Baghdad in 1258,
when,
Udaybohan,
he killed, Khalifa
al Mustasim Billah,
and,
he sacked Baghdad completely. I mean, he wiped
it out,
in 1258.
And all they they say that,
about a 1000000 people,
men, women, children were put to the sword.
Yeah. You know,
literally, which means that's Mhmm. Physically every single
1 of them was slaughtered like a sheep.
Now,
to the extent,
that,
you know, that they say that,
the
the the the army the the Mongol army,
there were so many dead bodies that the
that
Mongol army could not
walk,
on the so they had to put planks
over on top of the dead bodies for
the, Mongol troops to march.
Now that is the level of brutality,
that happened at that time. We'll come back
to this, in a different context Absolutely. Yeah,
later, but just now.
So,
you know, the so now remember the first
to come and say I'm the,
Khalifa
would not probably have sounded too good because
Khalifa was the 1 who got killed.
So instead of that, everyone knew the Roman
Empire. Plus,
Constantine,
who he,
unseated and who died,
fighting in that battle,
was the,
was was the Caesar of Rome. He was
the Roman empire Roman emperor.
I mean, at that time, there was hardly
any emperor
empire, the Eastern Roman Empire was just the
city of Constantinople, which was obviously in shambles.
But, for whatever it was worth, it was
like the, the Mughal Empire in India, for
example, even until the end,
until 18 57 when the then the mutiny
happened, and then the British completely took over
as as rulers. The East India Company
even though the East India Company do,
for almost
a 100 years before 18 57,
even though the East India Company, to all
intents and purposes, was the ruler of India,
they never dared
to call themselves the rulers of India.
They always ruled in the name of the
of the of the Mughal emperor.
So and so, the Marathas,
the Holkar and the
and and the and the other the Guarriya,
they were the 2 big,
Maratha
rulers.
They
also Holkar actually,
and they took turns in this term. Holkar
as well as Gwalior,
they
they took turns to
pay
a, they paid a, you know, not not
much, but they paid a kind of a
pension
to the Roman,
to the Mongol emperor who was the king
in, the Red Fort,
in Delhi,
to and they ruled in his name. Now
effectively,
he was their,
pensioner. You know, he was existing because of
what they gave. His literally his food came
from what the were paying him. But
just the,
just the overall,
you know, the the the
the dignity, the,
the awe
of the Mughal empire was such that,
no 1 dared to say I am the
ruler of India
unless it was somebody from the Mughal royal
family.
Right? So so also in the yeah. So
also in the Eastern Roman Empire, it was
the Roman Empire when you even even if
you take over as Mehmed the first as
the as the Ottoman,
Sultan,
you he he he said I'm the I'm
the Caesar of Rome. So, you know, this
is the
so Carnegie Mellon. Now Carnegie Mellon also has
written another
series of books, about,
Genghis Khan,
which which is, again,
really worth reading.
It covers,
from Genghis himself all the way to Kublai
Khan.
So it was Genghis and his Kublai Khan
was a brother of of Olego Khan, so
these were the grandchildren grandsons.
So he consider he covers 3 generations.
Very, very interesting reading, also very important because
it is interesting to see how this man,
Genghis Khan came, literally came out of nowhere.
He started
with his
head and arms,
in the stock,
at the bottom of a pit,
about to be executed,
tortured and executed
the following morning. That was his, you know,
his fate until Allah,
decided otherwise.
And,
absolutely. And and and somebody released him from
there.
And,
you know,
as this is the rest of history, so
he created an empire,
which was
the largest, or which even now is, not
just was,
which is, the largest
land empire
in the history of the world
that ever
to give you a comparison,
Alexander, who is called Alexander the Great for
no reason that I can imagine,
he his empire was
roughly
1, 000, 000 square miles.
The Roman Empire at its peak,
which was,
Augustus Caesar and, and and his immediate,
successors.
The Roman Empire at its peak was roughly
3, 000, 000,
3, 000, 000 square miles.
The Muslim,
empires, the
Banubaya and the Banu Abbas,
Banu Abbas did not do much
of expansion.
All the expansion
happened in the
during the of
and
and
and then continued into the Banu Umayyad.
The Muslim Empire was 5000000,
square miles.
Genghis Khan's empire was 13000000 square miles. So
he was roughly 3 times,
the Muslim empire, and he was 12 times
that of Alexander,
and he was, you know, 4 or 5
times that of,
of the Roman Empire. So he created this
enormous, enormous empire.
And very interestingly,
you know, we talk about empire building and
this and that, and we like to talk
about,
lofty values and,
and and lofty goals and so on. They
asked, Genghis Khan. He said they said, you
know, what is the what is your purpose
in life?
What do you, enjoy? Why do you do
all the why, you know, why you,
conquering land and so on? He said the
greatest pleasure
is in,
slaughtering the men,
winning the battle, slaughtering the men,
* the women, and drinking airag. Airag was,
the the, the alcohol that they drank. He
said, this is my this is my joint
life. Can you imagine? On this basis, on
this absolutely
base, just killing the men,
* the women, and drinking Iraq. On this
basis, the man created the largest land empire
ever.
And so basically, you know,
on books.
Yeah. John Mann, I was about to mention,
John Mann is not historical fiction. He is
actual history. And,
he does a he does a brilliant job.
Just now I'm
reading, The Last Samurai, which is, which is
John Mann about the, about the Japanese, good
to
read.
Also,
I
strongly
recommend,
good to read. Also, I strongly recommend you
must read his book, Saladin, which is.
Very, very I read a book, Shadi. You
did. Right? Book and I enjoyed it, ma'am.
So Yeah. And until you come to the
last, page or the last line on the
last page. I mean, that brought tears to
my eyes 1 of the what what he
wrote in the the last page of the,
last line of the last page of,
saladin should be literally written in letters of
board and stuck everywhere where you can see
it.
That is such an incredible statement,
you know. Mhmm.
And and and very
at least from my perspective of where I'm
where I'm,
in in terms of space and time,
it is very tragic. What else can I
say?
So Absolutely.
Sheikh, you know,
we'll just pause for just 2 seconds because
we'll go for an air break and then,
add budget on our recordings. We'll know.
You know, I explained to the author, to
the listeners that we're actually doing a recording.
So,
now let's get back into this topic at
hand because before you know it, this program
will be history.
Now. Why is it that history
is not taken seriously in schools anymore? And
this is my experience also as a teacher
of history. In, in down as well as
in the Friday Jummah talk, history is not
given a chance.
Is it because we are just not interested,
or there is no concern for it by
the leaders of the aforementioned
institutions,
chef?
You know, I
what I want to say is I think
there is just a lack of appreciation
of the
value of history. And I think this has
to
this is very it is very insidious. It
is very,
potentially destructive.
And I think this has to do with
not with history per se, but with about
how history is taught,
the method of teaching history.
If you ask yourself, ask ask a history
teacher, what is the purpose of teaching history?
So you're going into the class, you're gonna
teach some history. You ask the teacher why
why are you doing that?
I have never got a
a reasonable answer from any teacher till today.
You know? So why are you doing it?
Oh, it's it's part of the syllabus. No.
No. I'm not that's not the reason you
teach something. Right? What is your purpose of
teaching something?
Why I'm teaching history? And then the next
question is why you did this particular history.
You're talking to for example, you're teaching about
the American Revolution. Why?
I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying
what is your purpose of doing that?
So that's 1. Second thing is
it's a dumb question, but I should ask,
do teachers prepare classes on this basis? But,
obviously, if you are not even thinking about
that, you're not preparing your class on based
on why am I teaching this history.
My question to the teachers is do teachers
even think about why they are teaching history?
Or do they just teach it as they
learned it to complete a syllabus? And I
think this is the root of the,
entire problem. History should be taught for 1
reason and 1 reason
only, and that is for
the potential to apply it in today's world
and life.
Right? What are the for for the lessons.
You say why am I teaching history for
the lessons from history? Now the problem is
we teach history as a fact course. This
happened, this happened, this happened,
series of things. You say, what shall I
do with what happened? Because if you're gonna
tell me that I need to mug up
the date of birth of, this emperor, that
emperor,
you know, I'm not celebrating their birthdays. Why
do I want why do I need to
know what when they were born?
So the whole purpose of why what are
the lessons that can be extracted,
from this history
with the clear intention lost the plot,
whether it's in the dark rooms or in
the schools and so on. Lost the plot,
whether it's in the dark rooms or in
the schools and so on.
We have completely,
you know, left,
god knows what I forgot me. So, therefore,
the there is a whole,
the teacher himself is not interested. So what
do you expect from the students?
You know, Sheikh, when I was teaching history
to the grade 10, 11, and 12 Mhmm.
And I remember
we we came across and I came across
this word during the Cuban Missile Crisis called
brinkmanship.
Mhmm. And I said to them, let's discuss
this word and how it applies to the
current day war. You know? It was that
time,
during the Afghanistan
war. And the people said, sir, so who's
going to write the history of Afghanistan as
we are seeing it today? I said, it's
you
or the people
who are victorious
in their minds about it. That is the
forces who are there. And they say, sir,
but we must write it. I said, well,
doesn't history teach you to be writers? They
were stunned
because they thought history was just to pass
the subject to get an a, you know,
because it's an easy subject. So you're very
correct there. So so let's let's get into
this whole thing. Right?
We find the current world is very shaky
given all the conflict and unrest. And I
don't want to get into the nitty gritty
of it.
Millions don't know what is happening. And really,
here, millions don't know history
and what led to the crisis.
We see whether it's in Europe, in Africa,
in the Middle East. We see all of
it. So, Shavya would I want to say
this. You know? Is it the fault of
bad parenting
or hopeless school curriculum
that is designed to dumb the people down,
chef?
You know,
I think it is probably, a combination of
the 2, but, 1 thing I want to
Khan,
sacking Magda. The million people are being killed,
and this didn't happen instantaneously. It took, you
know, several weeks
and so on and so forth. But,
if you would now, at that time, take
a look at what was happening in the
rest of the world, concerning that,
you will find that nothing was happening.
You had
a very
strong,
you know,
in
in Egypt, for example,
you had, you had a very strong,
the,
Mamluks,
Sultan Babers,
who was in Cairo. And,
he actually
defeated,
Hulagu Khan,
when Hulagu then attacked,
Egypt.
But he did not come to the aid
of the, Abbasi
Khalifa,
who was, for whatever it was worth, he
was still got the Amir Mobean.
But,
Correct.
But Bebirt didn't come. So, obviously,
Mamluk,
the Mamluk rulers in,
in Egypt had the power.
They had the army. They could have dealt
with the Mongols, but they did not. They
chose they just chose to sit there and
and then have them.
Where,
and but when the Vonruks attacked them,
they defeated them. And this was the first
defeat,
for the first significant defeat for the for
the, man Mongol,
army ever in their history. In the they
they were beaten. They were beaten.
The only time they got beaten was when
they fought the,
Mamluks
and and Andresudan Baibars,
in in Cairo.
So whereas today, if you see,
there is a
huge
the all kinds of, you know,
international,
reactions and protests
and so forth happen,
concerning,
things that are happening right now in the
world and also in the past.
So,
the big difference today is that there is
actually a
a huge amount of information,
that is available to people. They don't necessarily
see it as history in the making, which
is what which is what which is what
it is. This is history happening as we
watch.
As as you said, you know, it's not,
at least a lot of it is not
very pleasant. It's,
very painful, but it is happening. This is
history being written as we speak.
But the point that yeah. But people don't
see it as history.
They just see it as, you know, this
is something happening. But the kind of,
for example, if you say, well, the the,
the Egyptian person on the street in 1258,
did they know what was happening in Baghdad?
Yeah. The answer most likely is no. They
did not know what was happening in Baghdad.
Did Sultan Babers? No. I'm sure he did.
Did he did his ministers and so on?
They they they would have known, but the
average person on the street did not know.
However,
today we see,
the average person on the street, thanks to
especially thanks to social media, and and you
know I'm not a great fan of social
media by any stretch of the imagination,
but this is
1, service that the social that social media
has done, which is it has broken
the
stranglehold
on the dissemination of information
that,
newspapers
and, what is called mainstream media, which is
television,
used to have. They don't have that anymore.
People almost exclusively and it's not only the
young people, everybody. They are they almost exclusively
go to social media
to get their information.
Now,
is that a good thing or not? Now
we have to analyze that, and that's the
reason why it is important to understand.
There are 2, therefore, 2 very,
important things happening here. 1 is
the instantaneous
nature
of the conveying of information.
So it happens instantly.
Somebody takes a video, puts it on the
on the on the net, and almost literally
within minutes,
definitely within hours,
you know, everyone who's on the social media,
they come to know, they see in,
in complete
gory detail,
or nice detail. You know, it might be,
somebody's baby's born, so everybody mom's, everybody sees
the baby smiling, and so forth and the
opposite of that. Yeah. Opposition of that.
They are seeing that almost in instantaneous. So
this is the instantaneously.
So this is 1 of 1 aspect of
it, which is information is being disseminated across
the world
almost
instantaneously.
The other issue here, and I think that
is a very important,
thing for us to keep in mind
is,
now that I have seen something,
what do I do with that?
Now that is it. That is it. You
do with it. Yeah.
Because,
I saw it. So now, therefore what? Now
this is where a,
you know, that's why in a continuous
updating of yourself, first of all,
is important.
Second thing is
this is where we need the capacity
to understand
and analyze the data that is coming before
us.
Otherwise, what happen that is the reason why
the same social media which I was speaking
speaking about in nice terms now, the other
other and other side of it is that
does that same social media
has opened us and made us susceptible
to
deep fakes, to all kinds of misinformation,
deliberate misinformation.
And we have seen the effect of that
in elections. We have seen the effect of
that in,
in, you know, random
violence happening in the world in different places,
not because something actually happened, but because something
was,
shown to be happening and that something
never happened
or it was something which happened in some
other place and it was brought and shown
as, oh, this is what is happening in
this country and that country, and people reacted
to that instantly. Mhmm.
Later on, they regretted it, but, you know,
since you can't bring the dead back to
life, whoever died died.
So social media, the capacity of social media
to also deceive. So capacity
to,
convey information across the globe,
thereby creating reactions and in some in many
cases, very positive reactions,
global protests about something which is happening in
in a place,
where the people who are protesting, if you
look at them and say, how are you
connected with that place?
We are not connected in any way
whatsoever, but we stand for what is happening.
We stand for we stand against, whoever is
oppressing. We stand for the oppressed and so
on. How does that happen? Thanks to social
media.
Because social media gives them that information. But
what should we do with that? How do
we analyze it? How do we
we have no clue with that. And that's
why social media simultaneously
also has created
a huge
casualty in
trust
and in casualty in credibility
because today, I mean, there was a time
when you said, look at the picture, but
let's just see. Here's a photo. Pictures don't
lie. Today, we know that pictures do lie.
You can with with the with AI, you
can actually create a completely,
you know, imaginary situation
which never happened. We're not even talking about
manipulating something which happened and showing it as
something else. We are creating and we are
capable of creating
something which never happened altogether and and make
it so,
you know,
so persuasive that people believe it until they
find out. So now what happens the moment
you get caught caught on the wrong foot
a couple of times, you lose
their money cup of coffee. At the same
time, the trust in consume their money cup
of coffee,
at the same time, the trust in social
media
is completely is is is not there. Any
any thinking person doesn't trust it, and that
has destroyed trust in society
at large. My Khutba yesterday, I was I
was telling,
my, you know,
whoever whoever came to the and was interested
in listening to it,
I said to them that the biggest casualties,
is is trust. We live in a world,
where we don't trust anybody. Right? It it
it's, we don't trust politicians or religious leaders
or or
business heads or teachers.
Nobody. Parents
I mean, we are constantly looking, for example,
for second opinions. Not because we say we
we're doing that because we want to be
accurate, but the truth is we do that
because we don't believe anybody. Our doctor tells
us something. Right? You go to the doctor
because, you know, you trust his knowledge, but
you don't take your opinion. You want to
go and
check on Google and you want to do
this, you want to do that. People come
to me, for example, and say, sir, what
is the position on this particular thing? I
tell them I don't give to anybody. I'm
not a. But III will give them the
the of,
of of 1 of our 1 of our
scholars or I will give them the hadith
or something. Then they then they come back
to me, but, you know, so and so
said this.
I mean, 1 of 1 of the classic
things.
Yeah. So I I so my point is
what my point, why don't you listen to
that song? So, I mean, why why do
you come to me? For the classic 1,
for example.
Chef is, eating hamburgers in McDonald's halal. I
said, first of all, it's not halal. Secondly,
secondly, it is also bad for your health.
Okay.
Why is it not halal? Because it is
not zabiha. No. But they they put a
they put a tag saying halal. That tag
does not mean anything sorry to say unless
it is hand slaughtered, unless it is hand
slaughtered, zabiha,
it is not halal. If it is machine
slaughtered, it is not halal. Okay.
But so so said, now the the whole
problem is
that this lack of credibility,
which also results in lack of disrespect. You
know? And think about this. I mean, I
alhamdulillah. I have studied under under teacher. Like,
the knowledge didn't come to me by come
to me by wahi or something. You know?
But I would not my teachers were not
the rasul alayhi salaam. My teachers were not
were not in infallible.
Maybe they they made a mistake. But, you
know, we we were raised to say that
even to point out a mistake of a
teacher is a
mistake. It is a lack of Adam to
say to your staff, for example, if he's
reading salah,
that,
your
recitation of the Quran,
the
Tajweed of some of so and so, you
know, your your
makaraj for and and so on
are are are not correct. You should do
something. I mean, you we would not even
dream of
that. And and all all the I I
did not,
read,
salah behind Abdul Basel Abdul Sabat. So, you
know, my my my when they,
led salah, they some of them, made mistakes
in. So what? We said, it's a it's
a barakah. It's a blessing to be able
to pray behind this.
We we didn't but today, this is so
common you won't believe it.
So I'm saying, hamdulillah. If somebody points out
to me, I say, very good. You do
me a favor. I mean, hamdulillah, I accept,
you know, but I'm
you don't even know my faults. I mean,
Allah has covered me with the 1 fault
you saw, you picked it out. Thank you
very much for that. But my point from
your perspective,
you know, I'm old enough to be your
grandfather,
and then you come to me because you
think that I know more than you.
Absolutely. I must tell you, you know, you
made the point so clear. Because we discredit
our teachers and discredit everything that we see,
we eventually discredit
factual
information. Yes. Now now, you know, chef, you
know,
immediately after the outbreak, we continue. Yes.
Right. Bismillah, we are back on air. And,
chef, you know, we we spoke something very
credible
before the ad break. And I want to
pick up on that because,
you spoke of the
and how we disrespect the. Also, I'm sure
you're going to love this 1. We think
that the teaching of the sierra is marginalized
and the subject in Muslim schools.
Any doubt, wudungs as a case in point.
Therefore,
how is this making us forget the real
practice of the life of life and times
of Nabi Muhammad's house? And I want to
just extend this because
Muhammad
behaved at the conquest of Mecca, there are
lessons and there are lessons and there are
lessons which we don't even know because we
don't know history,
because we don't teach it appropriately.
So,
Sheikh, I mean, I need you to comment
on this because I'm so irritated
that
when we talk of the
to people, then they say no. It's just
a few facts that we've got to give,
but we don't teach it well. Therefore, we
don't appreciate through the history like what you
said of Genghis Khan and
and Saladin AUB and the likes. Chef, take
it away. You know, the this is something
which,
I have it completely boggles my mind,
and I've never understood it. And when I
have, when I have a question, I always
made a point to question this in,
with any of the all of my friends
who I meet and in the in the
room where it is where
is not a particular subject.
My usual answer is, oh, you know, we,
we read Sira and when we read Hadith,
we get, bits and I said, we're not
talking about bits and pieces of seera. I'm
talking about why is seeratul nabi
not a subject of study,
in your in your syllabus
to which students have to study and which
they are examined upon, like, for example, anything
else. Right? 5th is a is a 5th
is a, subject to study. Why not Sira?
Because Sira is the
field book of the Quran.
The Sira is the tafsir of the Quran
in action.
Right? Now, Arundel, I have written 2 books
on Sira as you know,
so and I have studied the Sira.
So,
1 of the 1 of the finest books
ever
written about the Sira is the book called
Sira of the Nabi by,
Hazrat,
you know, he's a new star of mine,
as you know, and you know him very
well yourself.
So you must go and talk to him
about, about.
Absolutely fabulous book.
The point is that,
Seera is not taught as part of our,
definitely not in Darazin Izami,
and definitely not in most of our Daruloghs.
I have not understood why. I mean, my
point is if I want to study
the life of Muhammad
Where do you want me to go? To
an American university? You want me to go
to some,
theological,
ecumenical,
institution? I should be able to study that
in a Muslim religious institution, but we do
we don't have that. Right. And, so therefore,
the reason for that is because we don't
see Sira
as
something to be applied
in terms of an application
to us,
and That's why it seems to have lost
importance because we we even when we teach
here, we just teach it chronologically,
you know, as a story, which, of course,
this is,
there is that aspect of it. But at
the same time, like you mentioned, Fatamaka, for
example. Now 1 of the biggest lessons in,
by further reminder, yesterday, which will which will
which will get broadcast in the next day
or 2, is on that. But the biggest
thing in Fatima,
was and we all talk about that. We
talk we talk about how Rasool forgave
everybody.
Now when you say forgive everybody,
my question is
think about 2 things.
What did he forgive?
He forgave
murder.
He did not,
for example,
his mother and father
were both murdered by Abu Jahl.
And,
Abu Jahl, of course, had,
had died in Badr.
So he was not there at Fatabaka,
but his son, Ikrima, was there. There there
are other people there.
Rasoolullah sallam forgave Badr. He forgave,
the looting
of the property of the Waha Waha Waha
Waha Jiro, including himself.
His house in Mecca, he did not have
it. Somebody else took it.
The, the the properties of,
of the Sahaba of who migrated to,
Madinah, who,
you know, the Mahajirur,
their properties,
were left and and so on. He forgave
all of that. Now the key thing is
not only did he forgive that, he did
not even seek compensation
for that from the people of Mecca. He
did not say give,
Diya,
give, you know, blood money
to,
Amar Bin Yasir, because you people killed his
mother in Abu Dhar. Abu Dhar was not
there, but it was the who did that.
So give him give him, you know, blood
money for his mother and father. He didn't
say that. He did not say
return
for the compensation.
You took $10 from me. Give back my
$10.
Now
return what you what you what you took
or or pay for what you took which
would which would have been completely fair and
just.
He did not ask that. Not only did
he not ask that, none of the
None of the sahaba went to him and
said, you are Surah,
you are the rasul of Allah. It is
against your wakhar. It is against your honor
to ask anyone anything, but we are not
there.
I'm a poor man. Whatever I had, I
lost everything. I'm a I'm I'm struggling in.
Give back my thing. Right?
So tell these people, return return return my
property. They did not do that. Not 1
of them.
And
the final bottom line is very simple. We
have the hadith of Rasulullah,
alaihis salam,
which is,
you know, which, of course, we all,
we
we know this hadith,
where which is in Sahib Bukhari,
that Abu Abu Hurairah who he narrated
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said,
whoever has oppressed another person concerning his reputation
or anything else, he should beg him to
forgive him before the day of resurrection,
when there will be no money to compensate
for wrong deeds. But if he has good
deeds, those good deeds will be taken from
him according to his oppression, which he has
done. And if he has no good deeds,
then the sins of the oppressed person will
be loaded onto that person. So we know
this is Hadis and Bukhari,
saying hadis. So we know this,
this hadis. Mhmm. But the so therefore, what
are we saying here? We are saying that
if you did something wrong to somebody, go
and apologize.
Right? Now let me ask you a question.
Is there anywhere anywhere in the Sira that
is sure or any record anywhere in the
Sira Hadith,
were any of the people
in Makkah who oppressed Rasool Allah sallam and
actually went and asked for forgiveness.
Is there any record?
The even the public statement
where they asked him, when he said, what
shall I do with you? They said,
you are our honored brother. You are the
son of our honored brother. They did not
say, please forgive us.
We have sinned against you. We have transgressed
against you. Go to heaven. Please forgive us.
They did not say that. Did Abu Sufia
But did he go and say, yeah, Muhammad
salallahu alayhi,
the point. Yeah. That's the point I would
bring in that we we can teach history
in such a dynamic way like this discussion.
I think it go for hours.
Imagine and we start teaching the hadith
with this history. It makes it lively. It
makes it very, very real. Now, chef, you
know, my current reading, and it ties in
with what chef just said now. My current
reading, the age of coexistence
by Usama Makidesi.
Mhmm. In 3 profound, you know, he says,
the contemporary
usage of coexistence
hints at inequality
between people of different faiths
that is not warranted by historical scrutiny.
It's quite scholarly.
Now this is a loaded it's loaded because
it illustrates
coexistence.
I asked the question, chef, based on the
CRO in the Visas Islam, Concord, Mecca as
we just spoke
now, it is clear that he did not
make the people forget the past
as the accounts for the suffering and torture.
So why must 1 know your history,
but learn to coexist keeping in mind that
what is the past will always be there,
so you don't repeat it.
Shef, what is what's your take on this?
My take is very simple. My take is
again, it comes back to the thing I
began in the beginning which is what is
the reason we teach history? If you teach
history as
what are the lessons we can take away
from this history, then we must know the
history. We cannot brush it under the carpet.
We can't we don't we don't have to
say, no. No. No. Everything was hunky dory.
It was beautiful. No. It was not. It
was lot of blood and gore. It was
a lot of mistakes. It was mistakes serious
mistakes made by people,
who should have known better, but those mistakes
were made, and they resulted in so much
of, you know, whatever negative stuff that happened.
But
what do we take away from this? This
is what we learn from this and therefore,
let us not take away the mistake. The
reason it happens is, especially in Islamic history,
especially where it comes to,
dealing with historical incidents
that involve
people who are
very dear to us,
who are very,
mukhabdas to us, who are very respected and
honored and and venerated by us
is that we conflate and we mix up
the
personality
of the of the individual
with their actions.
Right?
We mix up the personality with the actions
and therefore, we can we say, no. No.
No. No. We cannot talk about this person
at all. Now my point is we are
not talking about the person as a person.
We're not saying so and so was a
good person or a bad person. We are
saying, this person
who I venerate,
who I respect beyond,
what I can describe,
in this particular case, took a certain decision.
Please note I'm not saying right or wrong.
I'm saying took a certain decision.
The result of that decision was XYZ.
This is historical fact. We are not saying
right or wrong. We are not saying good
or bad. We are saying this person took
this decision.
The result of that was XYZ.
Now given the circumstances of the time,
what other decision could this person have taken?
What were the options available to that person?
So we say, okay. This person could have
done this or he could have done that
and then we say, alright. Very good. So
if he had done a,
which he did not do,
if he had done a, what were the
potential or possible consequences
of that a?
So we said these are the consequences.
Right? Oh, fantastic. Then maybe
when now my turn comes
in life,
I will
think about what are the the
take because you brought that subject up. Rasul,
what were the options available to Rasul and
his father?
In
all If I were to look at it
Yeah. In all fairness. Right? I mean, I'm
not saying he he he he's a he's
a nabi of Allah, so we don't expect
him expect him to oppress anybody.
Being fair,
his his his option was
very simply I'm not saying put the whole
whole population to the sword. No.
That was the norm of the time.
Any other ruler would have done that.
We are not saying that. No. But we
are saying the option available to him like
I just mentioned, the option available to him
was saying,
pay for what you did. Whoever committed murder
is now going to be punished for murder.
Who we know who did that. Whoever is
not there, their suck their successors
will pay blood money
to the person who whose, parents or or
relatives
were murdered. He could have said
pay compensation for whatever you took away. So
these were also options. Right? He could have
done that. He did not do that. So
now question is, why did he not do
that? Purely, we are not I'm not putting
myself in the place of Nabi alaihis salaam,
but I'm saying 1 of the reasons I
believe he did not do that was he
wanted to break the whole cycle of revenge
and mutual hatred once and for all.
So he said,
even if I have to take a decision
which goes against me,
even if I have to take a decision,
which means that I will never get justice
for what was due to me in this
life, I am taking it in the interest
of the future
to cut down and finish off
all vendettas. He was looking at a society
which was very addicted to vendettas,
very addicted to taking revenge. If people could
kill,
you know, some
human beings because
dragged from the wrong end of a well.
Can you imagine what kind of society that
was? Now imagine what would have happened if
he had said, okay. I'm going to hang
so and so because he did this and
so on. That that could have continued. So
he said, stop it once and for all.
And, alhamdulillah,
that that had an amazing effect because people
there there are statements from sahabah. They say,
I hated the face of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam until that day, but today, there
is no face that I love more than
the face of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He's not saying that saying that because he's
a nabi. He's saying that because the man
saved my neck.
Right?
Simple. I mean, this is a very, very
personal,
you know, it's not a very lofty thing.
Oh, masha'Allah, this is a nabi. No. It's
a way. I should have been killed. He
saved my neck.
So these are the options. So
when you when you teach history from the
context of saying, how can I extract lessons,
what were the options available,
then you get some benefit out of history?
But we don't do that,
especially Muslim history. The moment you name some
oh, no. No. No. No. We can't talk
about that. He's a sahabi. This
we are not talking about the sahabi. We
are talking about when we can talk about
the nabi, why can't we talk about the
sahabi? If we say here is the here
is an option that was available.
Here is what the person did. These are
the these were the consequences.
Here is what could have been done.
We're not saying he should have done it.
Now go back to him. We're not talking
about it. He is out of the picture.
We're looking at the action, and we are
saying what can we learn from this action
which we can apply tomorrow. Now I'm in
a position of authority.
I have I have the option of doing
this or that. What do I choose to
do? Now that is the purpose of history,
and this is how history should be taught.
Absolutely. You know, chef, you know, because we're
fighting for time and I, you know, I've
penned so many questions. I'm gonna
Uma.
So
Ummah. So for myself, I'm not talking of
anyone else. 2019
to 2023,
for me, it's known as the history of
division in the Ummah in South Africa as
a case in point from the Tablir Jawa
to the Halan authorities.
And upon close examination,
none of them them can offer a history,
hence it becomes a word of a word-of-mouth,
you know. It becomes a word fight. And
the temple is lost and you do not
discuss from fact.
You discuss from hearsay.
Therefore, you know,
we should think who should write these histories.
And I want to tie this up with
the next point, and Sherk can then discuss
this. I just completed writing Ilfala's,
historiography
as I want to say. So Manuwa, it
speaks a great story of the school. Now
if schools were to write their own histories
or get pupils to do
or get pupils to do serious writing
or research on their towns, their people, and
achievements,
What do you think this will result in?
Would it be that history becomes alive, or
would it be would that also allow us
to become more critical
of how our generations who will come after
us, study us, Sheikh. And Insha'Allah,
that will bring us to the close of
the program. JazakAllah,
let me start from the second question first,
which is you know, 1 of the very
important things to do which we don't do
is to differentiate between,
criticizing
and critiquing.
Right? So when you say critical, we are
not talking about being,
critical as in criticizing.
We are looking at critical as in,
as in critiquing, which means analyzing
a situation or an or an, or a,
incident or a decision and
coming to positive
conclusions about that or or extracting positive conclusions
from that.
As far as writing the,
I must congratulate you on writing the,
historiography
of, college, and I've been there several times.
I know the place, and,
beautiful school.
Very, very,
I applaud that. IIII
hope people concerned and appreciate it.
The idea of, idea of getting students to
do that, I think a brilliant idea. Absolutely.
And I know that you have been doing
this kind of work even in the earlier
schools that you were in where you had
a newspaper of the school and a TV
station of the school and so on. I
I strongly applaud all of those things. I
think they're excellent, excellent things to do.
I have long advocated this in my family
business consulting practice, example, for business fact that
Mhmm. For business families to document family histories,
and this is a key the key thing,
however, the ingredients. We are not we are
not writing here,
you know, obituaries. We are not writing here,
sort sort of exponential
Hasidas
about people.
We the key is to be factual
and objective and frank,
not convert the history because
you
cannot learn from a fan page. You can
learn from a factual,
because you cannot learn from a fan page.
You can learn from a factual
documentation
of what happened and then a
objective analysis
of why,
this happened. So by all means, write about
successes, but also write about failures because the
purpose of all history
is only 1, which is to learn from
it.
If we don't learn from it, there is
no benefit. Now I was talking about the
first question you asked me about the divisions,
in South Africa as well as the and
so on. I I did 2 talks on
the division of Tablighi Jamaat.
It's something which is,
which rankles,
in my heart and my mind to this
day, and it won't go away. The to
me, the biggest problem
was not that the difference of opinion
among the,
the the,
aqabirin, as we like to use the term,
protect us from ourselves,
in in, Nizamuddin,
the
the problem to me was how this division,
then like a virus,
spread through the entire world,
and we have the tabligh I jaman split
into 2,
in places where they don't even know the
names of the people in Nizamuddin
who had the original difference of opinion.
Right? If you simply ask them, I don't
wanna go into the details, but if you
simply ask them, what was the reason that,
you know, that that, Moraesad,
said what he whatever he had to say.
They have no clue. What is the history
behind that? They have no they have no
idea, but they will not talk to the
other person. I have seen a case where
few years before this division,
whenever a person was mentioned,
he was
saying,
you know, the the the Amir is coming,
so and so is coming. You know? You
understand this because there's a level of respect.
They say,
Today they say,
you know,
completely degrading.
Why are you speaking to speaking about this
person like this? So that is why here
in our verses, I said
any
word of division, I'll draw at everybody.
You want to come here?
Both the both the, you
know, sects of which
is a shameful thing to say are most
welcome. Please come
here.
Everybody's welcome.
Talk the language of unity. Talk the language
of oneness.
Talk the language that Mawrana Zakaria Ramutulalia spoke.
Talk the language that Marana Elias Ramatulani spoke.
Talk talk the language that Marana Youss Ramatulani
spoke. Right? We talk the language that Hazarajir
Ramatulani
Don't talk the language of of whoever is,
is is poisoning your mind and and putting
you against your own brother. The division in
Tamilnadu is not a division between Shia and
Sunni. It is a division between
and Now what worse can how worse can
it become?
Accept this. And,
make it as a means of
for all of us.