Islam and Religious Tolerance #3
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Channel: Mohammad Qutub
Series: Mohammad Qutub - Islam and Religious Tolerance
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and tolerance of Islam, including its strict enforcement of artist's religious practices and rise of religious tolerance during the ADframe. They also touch on the rise of Islam in other countries and its impact on economics and society. The history of tolerance is discussed, including its importance in political and moral environments and its history as a practice. The potential impact of the pandemic on the company's performance and outlook for the next year is discussed, as well as the potential impact on their ability to deliver on their guidance and reduce debt. The speakers provide an overview of the company's financial results and outlook for the first quarter of 2019, including the impact of the coronavirus on their business and financial results for the year.AI Generated Transcript ©
I don't use it I don't use I stopped using Facebook
I was never that active
last time active 2014 or 15 or something
because normally we
spend I take the shipping right right right understood
right no no I don't do
it
come in
are we ready
let me just
spell level of manual Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala to attend moto Salim. Or let's say you didn't know what Imam you know I had been a material I mean,
I will pass him Mohammed Abdullah. He was so happy with him and Toby. Send laomi Dean Subhan Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Montana indica until Ali, will Hakeem, be shrouded in sundry wire silly Emery determinedly 70 Of course will probably. I praise Allah Almighty and I send prayers and blessings upon Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam his noble family, righteous companions, and all those that follow them the right guidance until the Day of Judgment, I mean, glory be to you Oh Allah, no knowledge, we accept that what you have taught us indeed you all you are the All Knowing the all wise,
dear brothers and sisters as Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
Very nice to be with you again,
on a bi monthly basis. Today insha. Allah, we continue with our series Islam, the misunderstood religion.
And today, we want to deal with one of the prime misconceptions about the religion of Islam, and one of the accusations that has leveled against the religion of Islam, and that is that it is an intolerant religion, or that it is somehow
not
a amicable towards other faiths and other ideas or ideologies.
I will
attack this
subject this topic from two different angles. One being the practical angle, and the other one being the theoretical.
And allow me to begin with the practical, even though the normative order would be to deal with it on a theoretical level and then go to the practical, but in this situation,
I can, I don't want to get lost in the theoretical and then not have enough time to talk about the practical and the non reality. I think I would need more than one talk to really give it justice. But unfortunately,
otherwise, Islam the misunderstood religion will be a one year or a two year series. So for that purpose, I'm going to try to squeeze whatever I can into today and then we deal with another misconception
the next time inshallah so I want to try to deal with some of those practical examples, which is going to show us
from the very beginning, before we even get into the theoretical, and especially if we have non Muslim friends present. It's going to show them that
tolerance is not just a theoretical concept in Islam, but rather it is a modus operandi.
modus operandi. It's a mode of operation in Islam, and it was practiced, for the longest time as we will see.
Any
observer and student
of history
will immediately realize that history was full of comfort
Correct.
And to a large extent, much of that conflict
was civilizational
was civilization. It had a civilizational factor.
And when we talk about civilization, we're talking about religion, we're talking about culture, politics.
We see that in a lot of the conflict in history, some of it was pure economics.
Pure real politic.
Just one people trying to dominate another, some of it was like that. But a good part of it was also civilizational. It didn't have to do with religion, it had to do with culture.
And
you might have all heard of the
famous thesis of Samuel Huntington, the clash of civilizations,
a theory and a book that was widely
circulated and commented upon criticized as well. Okay. Some may even say, totally debunked. Okay.
Maybe when we're talking about the present era,
but I think when we talk about history,
it's not very difficult to see that there was a lot of clash. And a lot of it did seem to be civilization. Okay.
Having said that,
when you look at all of that conflict, and Islam like other religions, other empires,
other
political
groupings
was part of that equation.
So, if you take all of that history of conflict
in mind, you may think to yourself, tolerance has no place in the religion of Islam.
When you talk about the history of conflict that had occurred,
and sometimes in Islam is name
you may think that therefore tolerance doesn't have a place in Islam.
However,
we will see that in fact, it is the diametrical opposite.
So please give me your ears, your eyes,
not so much your noses, your brains your attention, okay. And try to concentrate because there are going to be a lot of quotations in this talk, alright. So try to follow and inshallah it will be fruitful.
One Orientalist confessed, and we are glad that he had he confessed, okay, maybe grudgingly but he confessed that only the Muslims were able to combine
missionary zeal
with tolerance.
Again, it may seem that these two things are
in Clash. How can you have missionary zeal, right?
The fervor
to bring people to your religion.
Missionary meaning calling people to the religion calling to Islam? How can you have that and tolerance as well? It's almost as if it's an oxymoron. It's a contradiction, right? He's confessing only the Muslims were able to combine these two ostensibly
opposite things.
So he's saying the Muslims had missionary zeal.
They love to convert people to their religion, but that did not prevent them from being tolerant. And this is an important confession.
And here we say to this Orientalist and his likes. Then as you have realized this, you have to now also realize
by corollary
Right,
that this must be because tolerance is an inherent Islamic paradigm.
As Muslims were able to demonstrate this, this cannot be somehow, just the actions of some of those Muslims who are tolerant cannot be
because we see it OMA wide, everywhere the Muslims went, so therefore we cannot attribute it to those specific Muslims being tolerant but rather, this is something that is inherent in the religion. It's in the texts. It's what the religion teaches. Otherwise,
they wouldn't have been able to demonstrate such tolerance
after the death of Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, as you all know, the aspirations of Muslims were focused on the blessed lands the blessed land here being what
what is it?
Medina, Medina and Mecca are the lands of Islam
but now
after the death of Prophet Muhammad's Allah loves Muslim aspirations are their eyes are on the blessed land of a sham Yes. alcance is part of a sham. Be careful. I might have to get up
how did I get up? Oh, I just put this but this one is yes.
My My hand is itching to draw to show you a sham but
what is a sham brothers and sisters?
Once a sham
Sorry.
Okay, Syria. Syria is part of Sham.
Okay, what else?
maca. Maca is not part of a sham. It's the blessed land. The most list of lands. Do I write with this? Or the brother? Okay.
Okay, so Syria,
Lebanon
Palestine all of this is part of Sham
Turkey also
was one.
Jordan masala. All right. Interestingly, when I was giving a talk about the blessing of the land of Sham
he was kind of a talk about what's happening in Syria but from a kind of a religious perspective, religious angle. So I was talking about the the blessed land of a sham and I had, it was a PowerPoint presentation. So I showed them the pictures and the map and so on. So after I showed them some of the authentic hadith, so everyone was excited to be part of a sham. So when sister raises her hands as she's, what about Turkey? Is Turkey part of Russia, you know, everyone wants to be part of this blessed land. Okay, so we have Syria, right?
But yeah, and then we have Lebanon, right.
And we have Jordan.
We have Palestine right.
So all of these, yes, this is all Sham.
This is all Sham. When the Prophet sallallahu seldom talks about the blessing of the land of a sham in the Hadith, he doesn't only mean all goods.
Clear.
This is all a sham.
These are not our demarcations.
These are not our lines.
These are the lines of sites.
And because
they drew those lines not us, too. We don't have any differentiation.
And that's how it always was. So this is a sham
sham study.
And what was it called an English
the Levant.
levanta is all of this. Thanks and Pico put these lines
I like to say
If Sykes and Pico were to come out of their graves today, they would be shocked.
You idiots are still following the lines we drew more than 100 years ago.
This is what I think they would say.
New idiots are still
obeying these lines that we just randomly draw on a map over 100 years ago.
This is a sham.
And some may see
the very northern tip of Saudi Arabia, it'd be part of a sham, some difference of opinion of how to demarcate the blessed land of a sham. The point is,
the Muslim aspiration was towards a Shem, after the death of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam.
As the Muslim armies took one
place after another, these places were inhabited by Orthodox Christian communities. Okay. So keep in mind when we're talking about Christianity
all the way up until
all the way up until
Martin Luther in the early 16th century
1518 or so.
All the way up until this date.
The main chasm between or in Christianity is between the two main Christian sects, and they are
Catholics and, and the Orthodox.
This is the main chasm. Because until now, we don't have something called
Protestants.
Clear.
Protestantism starts in the early 16th century with Martin Luther.
So
all the way up until this time, the main chasm is here.
And it's a huge chasm.
The conflict that happened between Catholic Christians and Orthodox Christians is
difficult to describe.
They were mortal enemies of one another.
All right.
So
of course, when do Muslims this is what you can describe as Eastern Christianity here.
And this is pretty much Western Christianity.
So whenever you read a room there Hadith of the Prophet SAW Salem, it's talking about
the Eastern Christians.
The Byzantines, whose capital is Miss antium. Byzantium is accustomed to the Constantinople as we said before modern day Istanbul you remember good all right.
So
the the the Muslims were only really exposed. You gotta you have to stop me when I go on these historical tangents. Otherwise, we'll never finish we have to come back to tolerance, we have to come back to tolerance. Okay.
The Muslims are only really exposed to Western Christianity, Latin Christianity with the Crusades, but that's much later. Right.
That's in the end of the 11th century, right 1095 1099 When the crusade started, so most of the time, especially in the early period, they are dealing with the Orthodox Christians, the Eastern Christians, okay. So these Orthodox Christian communities that populated a sham,
okay. They actually welcomed the new Muslim rulers. All right.
Why? Because they attributed to them,
their deliverance from
the repressive tyrant Heraclius
also known as Huracan.
They even
saw it. Some even saw it as a manifestation of Divine punishment
that God is punishing this tyrant
by the coming of the Muslims
today actually welcomed
the Muslims taking over
many of the lands of a sham because they were being persecuted by their own Christian
co religionists. So now we're talking about a chasm within Orthodox Christianity as well.
What are called the Caledonian Christians as opposed to the non Caledonian
one anonymous Syriac chronicle quotes the following.
In this, we gained no small advantage, in other words was a huge there was a big advantage in that we were saved from the tyrannical rule of the Romans.
So they felt that these Romans though they are co religionists, were persecuting them. And now the Muslims have come and delivered them from them.
So
when you hear things like this, you immediately make the connection
that the rapidity with which
the Muslims were able to take over the lands of a sham
is definitely due to their ability not to take over the land.
But to take over the hearts first.
Here are the people welcoming them.
And seeing them as an AMA is a blessing from Allah. Right. Otherwise,
taking over the land of Hashem wouldn't have been that easy.
We have to realize that.
So this is religious tolerance.
In another quotation by one scholar, he says the Byzantine administration,
the administration now was well known for both its high taxation and its strict enforcement of Orthodox religious beliefs.
Islam was a pleasant alternative.
For it was religiously tolerant, and even the taxes that a non Muslim was obliged to pay. The Jizya
were significantly less than those levied by Constantinople. Constantinople being the capital being wrong, right? This point we're talking about
the second room Byzantium, Constantinople, right.
These victories, my brothers and sisters, pave the way for the bloodless acquisition of
Elbasy. The laksa and outputs was a bloodless acquisition, there was no blood. There's no bloodshed, there's no killing, a far cry from what will happen during the time of the Crusades. Right. A far cry.
In fact, as we know, the presence of Omicron Kappa was specifically requested in order to receive the key to the city in order for the sorry oops. For the patriarch to hand over the city to say now Omar, criminal kappa.
On one occasion
the Muslims had to vacate some of these Levantine Levantine is an adjective of
the event. So the Muslims are to vacate some of these Levantine cities, okay, in order to face the large army of Heraclius
as they were vacating hemps and hamsters were sitting.
At one point it was considered the capital of the Syrian revolution
as they were vacating hems
In other words, they're leaving it now. They have to all congregate because they have to face Heraclius
guess what they did?
They returned
the GCR money that they took from
On the Christians, they give it back to them.
Right?
This has never happened to them before.
They couldn't believe it.
Who are you people? Where did you come from? You know, so they returned whatever money, you think correctly is whatever returned the taxes that he took?
Why did they return it?
Because the jizya money that they were taking from the non Muslims is actually it's like a fee that the non Muslims are paying for the protection of the Muslims for the protection of the state. And now they're leaving.
So they cannot protect them anymore. So gave they give them their money back refund
Subhanallah
upon which the Syriac residents replied, indeed, your rule and justice is more beloved to us than the oppression and tyranny we were under.
And with your deputy,
they left the deputy with your deputy, we shall repel the soldiers of Heraclius. So now they're going to fight with the Muslims against
reckless when they saw this magnanimity this toleration, this kindness, right?
This is what we're talking about.
This is at a time where Islam is
at the peak of its strength. No one can say all the Muslims rekts it's exactly the opposite.
Toleration is an inherent aspect, it's an inherent characteristic of this religion and the Muslims displayed it in the best way.
Of course, similar incidents occurred in some of the other cities that they also had to vacate.
We have to understand
that all of this tolerance is a practical implementation of the Quranic injunction or principle, that there is no extra fee. There is no compulsion in religion,
though we would love more than anything
to bring that one person
to the religion of Islam.
But there is no compulsion doesn't work that way. Right? You cannot force anyone, no one, as they claim was forced into Islam by the sword. This is a myth.
A myth that even some of the objective Western scholars
started refuting that this is not true, as we will see.
So these newly annexed lands, enjoyed freedom of religion under Muslim rule, and there was no pressure on them to convert in any way. Okay.
Nothing is better proof of this, then the large number of Jews and Christians that lived under Islamic rule
whose religious demographics did not change hardly changed even after the Muslims took that city or that location.
I'll give you an example. After about a century
of the celebrated conquest of Syria,
it was found that Muslims constituted just over how much what was the percentage of Muslims in Syria in this area?
What's the percentage of Muslims 100 years after the Muslims entered? When did the Muslims enter in whose reign?
I'm gonna cut up? Right? So just 100 years later, you're talking about 120 130? Right. Hijiri
so what was the percentage of Muslims in Syria after the Muslims entered it?
100 years later.
Take a guess. as well.
Yeah, absolutely. You're talking about the Omega killer. 611 60% Okay.
Other guesses? 40. Okay.
Sheila fellow Maria. That lasted all the way up past 100 years.
Right.
After about a century, it was found that Muslims constituted just over 6% 6% have a stable population of 4 million. This is according to the study by cabbage and fog. 1998.
What does that tell you?
There's no forced conversion.
There's no forced conversion.
Yes, and we're talking about the couple of clever. It's a very good point.
So the Muslims are just 6% They left the Christians be
Nikolina Cool. Well, yeah. Right.
The Muslims were ruling. Yes. They were ruling the Muslim the ruling them justly, right with the justice of Islam with the freedom and toleration of Islam. You want to convert Alamosa right?
Later on, as we will see, especially in Spain, yes, people are converting in droves.
Actually, some of the Muslims started feeling that
we're losing
economics. There's no Jizya they're becoming Muslim. Right.
But they understood, at least Al Khalifa, Amara lab Lazarus was was teaching people as well. That we are not here to collect money. We are here to guide people. If they convert to Islam, genuinely. They don't pay the Jizya anymore. This is what we want. Leave the economics to Allah. Right.
Of course, the same was not true, unfortunately of Christian rule.
Places where Christians ruled
where Jews survived their persecution but not Muslims.
Okay.
Listen to this incident.
There was widespread voluntary conversion, from Christianity to Islam. Were in an area some of you may know maybe your brother in Quran. Okay, that's close.
Despite the absence of any religious pressure on the indigenous peoples, so people were coming willingly converting from Christianity to Islam.
This annoyed ishow yob the third, who was an historian, Patriarch, he's a Christian, almost like a priest is a patriarch.
And he expressed his indignation in a letter to see me on the metropolitan of Reve, or the shields, and the Prime Minister of Persia. He says, I quote, and the Arabs to whom God at this time has given the Empire of the world. Behold, they are among you, as you know, well,
and yet they attack not the Christian faith.
But on the contrary, they favor our religion.
They do loaner to our priests and the saints of the Lord.
And they confer benefits on churches and monasteries.
Why, then have your people of MERV Maru Balarabe Maru? Why have they abandoned their faith for the sake of these Arabs? So he's basically saying they didn't put pressure on you. They didn't put a sword on your neck. Why are your people converting? And so many no large numbers.
And then he says, and that too, when the Arabs as the people have merged themselves declare have not compelled them to leave their own religion, but suffered them to keep it safe and undefiled if they gave up only a modality of their goods that Jizya they didn't want anything from you say with your religion, you just have to give a small Jizya that is a symbolic brother's it's not like the taxes of Constantinople, the jizya is symbolic. So you're saying it's just give up a small majority of their goods, meaning
it would be ludicrous for some
ignorant person to say Oh,
They were converting so that they don't have to pay the Jizya ah, Bologna. Did you see I was nothing was symbolic.
That's not an incentive for them to change their religion so that they don't have to pay it right. And he says it clearly here
Thomas Arnold, a famous orientalist,
when he laments the fact that there are not enough Christian documents, telling us about the first century after the hijra, he refers to this letter I just mentioned as one of the important ones. And this ultimately elucidate the peaceful nature of Islam.
How much time do I have?
I think to get through all of this, we might do in three lectures. Step one.
The yes short How much do I have? How much time? 14?
You can't sit that long. Can you?
Hell Andalus is another case in point.
Once I land there is
Muslim Spain. Right? The time when Muslims ruled Spain, which was for how long?
Yes, Monica? Luffy 800 years. It's a long time. Right.
From the first century Hijiri in, in CEE, we're talking about 700 Right. 711 or so all the way up until 1492. Right.
The time of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic
when they
destroyed Islam in Spain.
But the word that is usually mentioned in conjunction with ln Delos, Muslim Spain, is convivencia.
It's a Spanish word.
And
if you know a little bit of English or Latin, you might know that the root of the word seems to indicate what con we when sia con con together,
coming together, right?
Something along those lines, right. convivencia just means the almost
almost relatively utopian coexistence
that happened during the time of Muslim Spain.
In fact, when you talk about coexistence, especially in history, Muslim Spain is the
is the archetype
example, the archetypical example of coexistence, a time where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived peacefully
where non Muslims were contributing as much as the Muslims
to civilization.
This is a Muslim Spain, you cannot find this anywhere else. And that's why this term was used convivencia okay. Again, there may be some who will try to detract from it and say no, it wasn't a utopia and this and that. Well, I mean, there is no fully perfect utopia. But especially for that time, where empires are at each other's throats. That was an amazing example.
Truly amazing example. In fact,
many people might even say we wish we could really live the competency of Spain, maybe even nowadays.
And that was
some 1500 years ago.
Okay.
Or, say 1000 years ago, during the time of Assam, Spain, and especially in the first few centuries after the Muslims ruled and entered Spain.
This is why
Jews migrated to Muslim Spain in their 1000s.
So many 1000s of Jews migrated to Muslim Spain
and
It is no exaggeration when one of them called it their salvation,
the Jewish salvation
where the Muslims rule in Spain Subhanallah killer.
How ironic, right? So here are the Jews finding their salvation under Muslim rule.
And here we are in the 20th and 21st century. And the only real military occupation we have in the world is under the Jews. And they are occupying Muslim lands.
How ironic.
They forgot their history. No, they didn't forget they know their history.
So that's why the Jews call that and historians call it the Jewish Golden Age, the time where Jews were in Muslim Spain.
As we know, the economy venture did not last there was a Reconquista movement
whose purpose was to get Spain back
and bring it under the fold of Christianity again. And they succeeded in 1492 when they
took the last Muslim stronghold in Granada
and started their campaign
to
decimate whatever was left of Muslims in Spain. And of course, the famous, notorious rather,
institution
which they began
also known as.
What is it known as?
How did they destroy Islam in Spain?
The Inquisition, the Spanish Inquisition,
whereby
score scores of Muslims and Jews for that matter, were thrown out of Spain, there was a mass exodus
of the Jews.
And whoever was left in Spain was tortured many times to death, or the other option is to become Christian. So if anybody forced people
into their religion, by the tip of the sword, it was the Christians in Muslim Spain.
After establishing convent, Valencia for centuries,
the Christian started the notorious Spanish Inquisition.
Some of the most unspeakable torture that happened happened during that period.
To Muslims, because they refuse to
apostatize and leave Islam.
In fact, according to Karen Armstrong, she calls it the most evil of all Christian institutions, the Spanish Inquisition.
And that one had that
that Spanish Inquisition turned centuries of Muslim toleration and convivencia on its head, right.
And that's when Spain, according to these Catholic Christians, became a homogeneous nation. Subhanallah the tyrants always liked the word, homogeneous. I also liked that word, but I like it from a chemical engineering perspective. Right? When you make something homogeneous, you blend it. But when it comes to people's, when you say homogeneous, you mean, you completely destroyed other cultures or ideologies, and you only left one type. Exactly the opposite of what the Muslims did. We said 6% Is that homogeneous? It's homogeneous in the Christian on the Christian side, not on the Muslim side. It's totally heterogeneous. But once the Christians come in on press, they want to make
it homogeneous. MashAllah said use the same word?
No, during the Syrian revolution,
as he was starving one town after another. Okay.
especially in central Syria, and in the south, especially in El Hoopa, the blessed area of water. And he said, Now we have
a homogeneous
population. In other words, only people who do sudo to him.
Right?
So homogeneity is something that tyrants like.
Again, I mean, there's so much to say so I'm just kind of
let's fast forward to the Ottoman period.
Or let's call it a doubleheader with many.
Or smugly
whether you speak Turkish.
Yeah, okay, good. So, so you can correct my pronunciation of this initial
less than half a century
before the thriving civilization in Al Andalus. breed, its last
the Byzantine capital at Constantinople had finally fallen. So, when did Spain become Christian?
1492 When did Constantinople become Muslim?
1453 857
HD.
Unfortunately, rather,
a lot of us we're only doing dealing with the Gregorian calendar 1453.
We have more Tiama.
For the Christians, the last day
alone will add
1453 That's what they call it.
If Constantinople fell, Byzantium,
the capital, the second room for over a millennium, more than 1000 years. This is the last day for them. How much between it and
what happens been less than half a century, less than a year? Less than half a century, right? Less than 50 years.
Constantinople became Muslim.
Spain became Christian. Okay.
In the words of one author, he puts it very nicely.
He said, Spain and Anatolia, Anatolia, being Turkey constantly Constantinople, Spain and Anatolia changed hands. At about the same time, almost the same time, right.
Christians expelled the Moors from Spain, the Moors being the Muslims, Christians expelled the Moors from Spain, while Muslims conquered what is now Turkey.
Every Muslim was driven from Spain
put to the sword,
or forced to convert
whereas the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church remains in Istanbul to this day.
Imagine
I
can say
So who of these two is tolerant? Where does tolerance lie?
Very interestingly
if you really understand that this is the last day
you might as well die if you're an Orthodox Christian, and your capital just fell. Okay.
Taken by the Muslims. If you really understand
how
serious this matter is. It will only make you more shocked to hear the following
the impending threat of the siege the siege that eventually led to the fall of Constantinople was so dire that Emperor Constantine Pena logos, found himself compelled to seek the immediate assistance of Latin Christendom, son
Now, you have Orthodox Christians
calling on their arch nemesis, the Latin Christians, and they've been fighting each other forever. The Crusades in 2004
the Crusades were between again in CEE 1099 and 1291. Right.
In 1204, the crusade was not against the Muslims. It was the Latin Christians against the Eastern Christians. They, they pledged
Constantinople
they're all coreligionists.
So now, but this is a human, this series, so now he feels compelled, he has to seek the assistance of his arch enemy, right?
Many Greeks objected Greeks, Eastern Orthodox, many of the Greeks objected to the Emperor's request, and even an indicated a preference for for the Turks.
Let the Turks come rather than our own Christian call religions, okay.
Is this an inclination towards the Muslims? Not likely,
it seems more like Greek abhorrence of the the Latins, the Latin Christians
Byzantium, Constantinople,
their own Grand Duke,
famous Grand Duke Lucas, no terrace
is popular for his caustic remark. When he said quote, he had rather Behold, in Constantinople, the turban of Muhammad, turban of Muhammad, then the Pope's
tiara
or a Cardinals hat. So in other words, I'd rather see a Muslim turban rather than a Cardinals hat or a Pope's tiara. Look at
the enmity between them the animosity, subhanAllah right.
Now let's read the Quran talked about this as well.
And this is why
as Emperor Constantine was riding through the streets, the you could hear the general public shouting, better we turn Turk
rather than Latin.
We'd rather become Turk rather than become Latin.
It's very interesting.
Definitely, they must have heard and realize the tolerance of the Muslims as well.
Where have you heard these things before? Have you heard these things before? Have you read them?
No, definitely not hear it in the media.
Much less some of the scholarly work some books. This is the tolerance of mystery. This is the this is our legacy. Right? We need to know this.
So
the fall of the second rule, this one,
after its millennial legacy, was a more historic occurrence than the end of Muslim Iberia. That followed four decades later, this is more historic than this.
Therefore, it could have easily produced similar, horrific oppression of the indigenous population.
Why wasn't this like this? Even though this is more historic.
The Muslims could have annihilated the Christians.
It's not the way of the Muslims.
Even a Sultan Mohamed El Furter. He started talking he is the one who obviously performed the conquest. He started talking to the eastern Christians and gathering them not slaughter
them forcing them into Islam or exiling them as happened just four decades later in Iberia.
Let us quickly look at the situation of Al Kitab in dola, los Manaea. Okay. Many of those who are religiously persecuted in Europe after
the
Turks got Al Castanea. And you have to remember that this is a time of strength for a doubleheader with money at the time of weakness doesn't start till approximately after 1571
with the Battle of Lepanto, after that, weakness starts to set in, even though there's still another three centuries or so for it to fall right, but weakness started to set in, actually with the son of Soloman, aka Mooney, Celine, a fanny, that's when weakness started.
But up until this time, this is the age of strength for a doubleheader with money. Okay, so for many of the religiously persecuted
guess what the Ottoman Empire as they call it, was a refuge.
Many of the religiously persecuted Christians and Jews sought refuge in again, as we saw in Iberia, Spain, sought refuge in
Muslim lands.
In Anatolia, Turkey, right.
Here was a prime destination.
And what the Turks implemented is a system they called the millet system Milla from Mila, right?
And the roots of this millet system originate in Islam and Islamic laws concerning what is called an edema. Okay, and this is why the sublime port meaning a double letter with Manaea, they gave unprecedented privileges to these non Muslims that were living
in their land, okay.
These freedoms brothers and sisters
were
so
wide ranging,
okay,
that many Western scholars have to admit
those that too much freedom that was given to the Europeans entering the lands of
the Ottoman Empire. It Was that too much freedom that was given that eventually also contributed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Too much tolerance, too much freedom. Eventually it came back to bite them.
And we remember that when we talk about another famous paragon of tolerance
in history, Saladino, UB
Salahuddin at times was criticized for being too tolerant to merciful even towards the enemy, not the other way around. Even though he's hailed as the Muslim hero who got Palestine back and Al Aqsa back from the Crusaders. He must be a monster.
It's the other way around. And the Christians are the first people to admit it.
And he was criticized that times by Muslims and some Muslim historians as well. Too much tolerance, right? This is our history, not the crap you see on television or spouted by Islamophobes
other enemies of the religion
okay, there's a lot about
what happened in
the Ottoman Empire.
So they kept on giving them concessions and concessions and concessions. And eventually,
these European Communities started forming almost mini states within the greater empire. And this eventually led to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, obviously, in addition to other things, I mean, every empire civilization goes up and down. And the Ottoman Empire was getting weak but this is one of the
important contributing factors
as well.
Let me just give you
some of the
key examples of Islamic justice and tolerance leniency.
I told you that
Western objective Western scholars and historians were realizing that Islam never actually converted people by the edge of the sword.
Don't take my word for it, the famous historian of the Roman Empire,
Edward Gibbon.
Nobody can argue about him.
He says,
a pernicious tenet has been imputed to the Muhammad 10s. The Muhammad ends are the Muslims, right they could use to just like they attribute themselves to Christ being Christians. They say the Mohammed ends or the Muhammad sins
in reference to Mohammed Salah lorrison. So he's saying a pernicious tenet has been imputed to them.
The duty of extirpating all other religions by the sword.
This charge of ignorance and bigotry is refuted by the Quran. They used to spell it Koran still, their knowledge of Islam is still quite limited. They don't call it the Quran, the Quran right with a que
this chart of ignorance and bigotry is refuted by the Quran, by the history of the musulman conquerors and by their public and legal toleration of the Christian worship
will show you the show hidden here. So this is your own historian
par excellence of the Roman Empire. There's not a historian of Islam is a historian of the Roman Empire. And he is saying this, and he's exonerating Islam of what he called a pernicious tenant. But this is not correct. And this is not Islamic, right.
Interestingly,
Norman Daniel says the toleration had no place in medieval Christendom,
as it did within what he calls strictly defined limits in medieval Islam. And he cited the disappearance of Miss Muslim communities living under Christianity, as opposed to Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule.
During this acquisition of Jerusalem, something very memorable happened.
Between Cena, Amara mill hottub and the patriarch known as patriarch Sophronius.
Omar refused to pray inside the church. You heard this How many have heard this story? This is famous everyone knows it. Everyone should know. Right?
Why Why didn't he want to pray in the church?
Because It's haram.
Why? Yes, brother.
Pictures, okay. Why? Because well, because he was Muslim to come to Britain Baraka Luffy.
Kappa was looking ahead.
If he prays there, what's gonna happen years down the line, Muslims will come and say,
our Ameerul Momineen prayed here. So they'll raise the church. He's afraid of that. So we refuse to pray. Allahu Akbar, Omar even will cut up who is sometimes accused of being a strong personality, and maybe he was harsh and this and that.
Look at the way he's thinking.
So there are different accounts of the dialogue that occurred. But this is an interesting account of
a learned Christian authority that I will quote to you, the Melkite patriarch of Alexandria, known as you tikkis. Side number three.
Those of you who speak Arab Arabic might have heard of them. Number three, he says, when the time of prayer approached, Rama said to patriarch Sophronius, I want to pray.
So the patriarch respond
Did Commander of the Faithful Emile meaning pray in the place where you are now.
And Omar said, I do not want to pray here. The patriarch then led him to the church of Constantine, the church of the resurrection.
Also known as Ken he said, LTM, where he spread a mat, made of straw on the floor of the church. But Omar said, I do not want to pray here either. He went out to the steps which are at the gate on the eastern side of the Church of St. Constantine.
And he prayed alone on the steps SubhanAllah. Then he sat down and said, to patriarchs of Fronius, Patriarch, do you know why I did not pray inside the church. He said, I do not know Commander of the Faithful, I'm going to say to him, If I had prayed inside the church, you would lose it. And it would have gone from your hands, because after my death, the Muslims would cease it saying or Omar has prayed here.
But give me a piece of
almost like Papyrus, to write a document.
And he wrote that Muslims should not pray on the steps as a congregation, but rather individually and that they should not gather here for the purpose of communal congregational prayer, nor should be called together by the voice over Mo and then
Allah, look at the tolerance.
Look at the Justice.
This tolerance towards the Christians in Al Quds
was not restricted
to not interfering in their affairs. It went beyond that the Christians at times would request them the Muslims to arbitrate some of their differences.
Some of their own differences out of confidence in their justice
in their objectivity.
Subhanak era and we know that Omarama pub gave the people of Jerusalem the man right assurance of security, okay.
And this ultimately ended centuries of religious intolerance, even in the area of outputs. Okay. It was the man of Sade NAMA, which made this place a place of peace accords
has been the object of conflict for centuries, right? between different empires. We know that the story mentioned in the Quran of how the Romans and the Persians were vying for it right now, I
mean, we live at a roofie and the Lord, this is Al Aqsa, this is Palestine. So the Persians were palette were vying for it. The Romans, okay, and civilizations before that. So there was a lot of conflict in Al Aqsa pods.
I remember reading a nice
comment, I think it was by Karen Armstrong. And she's written plenty on, on Islamic religious history as well as Palestine. And she visited, she can.
So she says, when I when I stood in the church there,
I almost froze, in all
thinking about the amount of bloodshed that occurred in history
in order to
take control of this place.
But that all changed.
Now, these are my words, these are no longer end quote for Karen Armstrong, just the fact that, you know, she was thinking about all of the bloodshed that occurred before and she's standing there now. Now I am saying
all of that change with the amount of sadness
that he gave to the people of Palestine.
It again became a place of bloodshed when what happened?
The Crusaders came and took it for that short
period less than a century.
We're running out of time.
As you can well see, what is it?
Yeah.
10 minutes
I told you I talked about the theoretical. Seems you guys are enjoying the practical. They forgot about the theoretical after the theoretical and 10 minutes. All right.
Let me just say quickly, were there exceptions to the rule? Yes, there were exceptions, was everyone.
So magnanimously tolerant, not always, there were exceptions. And I have some of those exceptions, I don't have time to mention them. But you know, what's more important than the exceptions, that whenever there was an exception, a violation of the modus operandi of tolerance,
there was someone to correct it.
There was someone to say, this is wrong, what you're doing is wrong, while you're doing is against Islamic principles.
Even at the time of
Prophet Muhammad, Salah Salem, of course, at the time,
people were still close to the time of the Helia takes time to reform themselves. So there may be certain manifestations of that, the practice of the time of day Helia. But there was always someone to say this is wrong, people would not be quiet, because this was part of a narrow funnel Animoca even if it was dealing with the non Muslims.
But I don't have time unfortunately, to go into those examples.
So my brothers and sisters
when we talk about tolerance,
I feel the matter is
largely misunderstood.
Tolerance today is understood by many
to mean
almost a wholesale acceptance of the other person
and his beliefs and his ideology.
But I claim this is a very erroneous definition of tolerance.
In fact, it's almost
farcical.
Because
if I accept you, and I almost agree with what you think and what you say,
and I almost find credence in what you believe.
It's no longer called tolerance, it's called, we're very close. We're very close and thinking, we're very close in ideology. So these Christians who are fighting each other for centuries, in reality, they're quite close.
And they can be tolerant to one another.
They just have some differences about, you know, the single nature or the dual nature of Christ. Fine, they are issues of creed of Qaeda, but
they're not that huge.
They're not that different.
So this is not where tolerance comes in, you're already quite similar.
Tolerance comes in when we are drastically different.
Tolerance means something when I am
most vehemently opposed to what you believe or think,
on a theoretical level.
But on a practical level, I'm able to show you respect to treat you well.
And to be tolerant of you, this is tolerance.
This is the ultimate definition of tolerance.
So nowadays,
everyone wants to say tolerance is almost like I have to accept you wholesale, almost like we have to say, if we were talking about saying Christianity, that oh no, we can accept that. You know,
the Son of God, that is the Son of God, maybe metaphorically, no.
We can never accept anything like this. And this is the ultimate Coover and the Quran is unequivocal about this.
Will that lead to intolerance for Muslim? No.
Similar to the comment of that orientalist, when he talks about being able to
demonstrate two seemingly contradictory things, missionary zeal and tolerance similar here, the Muslims are the only ones who can really combine
complete aversion
to the other party's aqidah because we realize it's all Cofer.
But still be tolerant of them, and show them respect and be just with them. Because Allah loves justice loves the just, this is tolerance. This is the ultimate definition of tolerance.
I don't have to in any way except your aqidah I am my aqidah is diametrically opposed to yours. One is Iman and the other is Cooper.
clear is that clear as day, right.
But
I can be tolerant and I was tolerant. And the entire history of Islam demonstrated that tolerance in the most beautiful way
is saying it in another way.
And we know of course, all of the textual evidence, talks about the importance of al Qaeda
tells us clearly that everything else is Kufa.
But despite that, we talk about even a higher level of tolerance towards al Kitab.
Right, because there are certain legislative matters
between us and Al Kitab, that do not apply to others. Because their origin
is from Allah, their origin, before it was corrupted, was a truly monotheistic religion. So they have a special place.
Again,
this is a demonstration of that tolerance, right?
To the extent that you can even
marry
a Jew or Christian, even though
you must understand and believe that what they are worshipping.
If it is something other than Allah subhanaw taala they're associating, it is good for
but yet, there is another connection between you, Allah, Allah SubhanAllah. Right. There is love and respect between you as husband and wife. Even though you view technically, you view her as a disbeliever.
And maybe she views you as a disbeliever. By the way, it's not unidirectional. Keep that always in mind.
They view you as a Kaffir as well.
Yeah.
Your kuffaar According to them, right?
And that's why caffeine is a pejorative term, even an English,
caffeine, caffeine. It's a pejorative term, right? They used to call us the heathens, right? The Saracens, sometimes even the Turks at the time of the Turks, to recommend Muslim and Muslim men to work, you know.
So,
I say
it is the concomitant existence of humane treatment,
and such an extreme rejection of another systems another another's system of belief and practice, which makes Islam substantiated history of tolerance truly, or inspiring. So, when you look at all of the stories we mentioned about tolerance, practical tolerance, the history of Muslim tolerance. When you add to that
the unequivocal aversion and rejection of Islam of any party the other than its own,
it makes all of that tolerance and toleration even more inspired
I think
those stories are enough on their own.
Even if we were like others not so
inclined to the issues of
it. Okay, orthodoxy.
Maybe, let's say we were more like the Buddhists. Oh, that's all good. You worship Buddha, you worship dirt you worship the wall. It doesn't matter, right?
So let's say, you know, just hypothetically, that was our Arcada. That's all good.
Still, those stories of toddlers are all inspiring.
But then when you see that, actually, the Muslims are the most strict. When it comes to the issue of orthodoxy and Arcada.
You are even more inspired with all when you read about all of that. Tolerance
and peaceful coexistence that we promoted. Allahu Taala Allahu Akbar. The second law
of SallAllahu wasallam Americana. venum. homily.
Yes.
being tolerant, and being accommodating.
Precisely, precisely my point. So a lot of people are equating toleration with accommodation, almost like, you know, let's worship your God one day and your worship hours one day, as the kuffar of old used to say, this is not this is not what tolerance is about. This is why I'm trying to correct this misconception. Everyone seems to think tolerance means that as you tell me, and try to explain to me how God is a statue, or his the sun and the moon, or that he's a human being, or that he is the Son of God or God incarnate.
They almost think that they want me to nod as they're saying, No, this is this is clear as sunlight for a Muslim, and this is totally unacceptable. But that does not in any way, detract or Vitiate. From my tolerance. This is what we're trying to say. You think that these Muslims that demonstrated this tolerance,
when he was doing this, he didn't think Sophronius as a Catholic
or a disbeliever.
Oh, Martin COPPA was wishy washy or nakida. That's why he, he was so tolerant, and I don't want to pray in the church and this and that.
They were even more strict. When it came to these issues. That doesn't touch tolerance, tolerance is a different domain. That's why I said here.
You see.
A higher level of manifested tolerance need not mean greater acceptance. The relationship mathematically speaking is unidirectional. And this is the crux of the misunderstanding of tolerance as a concept. Tolerance is a practical phenomenon, not a spiritual or intellectual one.
Thus practicing tolerance need not derived from an acceptance of another's beliefs, and or culture at all.
In fact, true tolerance is the display of humane treatment, despite the rejection and possibly a fierce one of another system of belief and practice.
So that's, that's the whole idea, people do not differentiate. So they think tolerance, that means I have to totally accommodate, right? Almost as if I have to accept what you're saying as true. It's not the case.
That's not what tolerance is about.
And this history shows that it is indeed achievable and achievable. No to a level people are finding difficulty implementing even in our day.
And all of this brothers and sisters, as you see,
is not under a secular system.
In all of this
History. Was there such a thing as secularism?
It was under Muslim rule.
So when the enemies of Islam keep trying to fear monger, right?
And scare everyone Oh Islam is coming, shutting your eyes coming. funds coming. These people are you know as if we're judging by Jews, we're going to surely destroy the world have you mean the world never no tolerance until the Muslims came
when Muslims were ruling, the world enjoyed peace.
There was true civilization there was true coexistence under Muslim rule. Right?
This is and this is a very critical point as well.
Anything else?
Yes Mother
Western Christian and Eastern Christian,
very long time brother more than 1000 years,
more than 1000 years until
until
Protestantism
was born.
After Protestantism was born, the end of course, orthodoxy was no longer that important because of the fall of their capital.
So, it almost you know, this conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism almost substituted what conflict there was between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.
But it wasn't as fierce this was brutal for over 1000 years. Yeah, Mashallah. Excellent question. Mashallah. Mashallah.
So, whereas Orthodox Christianity Today,
Russia, mainly Russia, right. So, this is why, when Samuel Huntington talks about civilizations,
he calls it Orthodox civilization, obviously, represented by Russia.
Even though
Orthodox and
Catholicism or Protestantism nowadays, they don't seem so different, right. On a geopolitical level, you have Russia and the US at loggerheads, even though it's not at the level of the Cold War, though some people were afraid it might develop into that, especially after what happened with the annexation of Ukraine and so on and so forth. But sometimes their positions are not that different. Right? They'll they'll, they'll work together, okay, maybe against a common enemy.
So that's why he even talked about having different civilizations, even in the United Nations.
different civilizations, if this is, if Orthodox, Orthodox civilization is represented by Russia.
Then who are the five permanent members of the Security Council in the United Nations, China, Russia, France, Britain and us, you as France, and UK,
are all part of one civilization, Western civilization. So Western civilization has three permanent seats. This is unfair.
The other seats is for Orthodox civilization. And the last one is for cynic civilization, the Chinese civilization whereas the Muslim civilization not represented, whereas Islam
there is no Islam.
You just have
Malaysian Islam, in the in Islam, African Islam, Arab Islam, right, Russian Islam,
Turkish, you we divided Islam into all of its different countries. Furthermore, we divided it into ideologies you have a quantity Islam, Sufi Islam, Salafi Islam,
Tbilisi Islam, do you
had a slap Allah.
Allah will start We ask Allah subhanaw taala to
unite the ummah.
Anything else
was her brother, yes. Hello.
What is the first rule? The first rule is wrong.
Rome, Rome in Italy. So it means
the second Rome is Byzantine.
No, now we have the third room
the third room, so Moscow,
the seat of Orthodox
civilization.
The first room the first room is way before and
what is called the the Western Roman Empire, which fell in the late fifth century and the late
before Islam a
little bit before Islam.
And that's why most of the interaction of the Muslims at the time of the Prophet SAW Selim was with Eastern Islam with the Byzantines a rule
before the age of
innocence, how does the media have to sleep Empire
before the time of the Prophet Osella.
At the time of his death, only Arabia
and Ben slowly it started to spread to the rest of Arabia, and then to a sham. And then to Iraq, and Faris Persia, the Persian Empire which finally fell also at the hands of Sedna, Hama, and this is why you need to know since we mentioned that, why do you think the the the the Persians hate Satan, the American Khattab so much?
For that reason? Because he is the one who ended their empire, the Persian Empire, okay.
So until today
the grave of the one who assassinated so now it stands in Iran, I will not know how to reduce it's there.
And when the scholars, the Sunni scholars tried to convince them in
dialogues between the Sunni and the Shia, and the Sunni scholars try to tell them, you know, if you want to achieve some kind of proximity between the Sunni and the Shia, at least for God's sake, remove this shrine that you have for the the for the killer of Ramadan kappa. They refused.
This is the the abhorrence, they have said that
he's the one who finished them with the Allahu Allah. And a lot of the
a lot of Shiite fervor today
is also somewhat nationalistic, Persian,
the Persian glory against the Arabs, the Arab barbarians, of course.
A lot of it is Persian. That's why they want to call it the Persian Gulf. Sorry, I keep interrupting you. That's why they want to call it the Persian Gulf as opposed to the Arabian Gulf. Yes.
send letters to the king have exactly.
Many of the kings Yes, absolutely. So one of them was Roman. Right. Right. And Bahrain.
Yep. So so. So now what are you trying to get to?
This? Is it this is it. Because the Romans had this area? This is this is where the Romans were really dominant in a sham.
And this is where the Muslims quickly spread, right? So they're in Arabia, which is south of the Levant. So they started spreading into the rest of Arabia up north. Right. I don't have a map here. So from Arabia, they started spreading up north to a sham. Okay. And then further east towards Iraq.
Iran
further down the line. Now we're on to your areas, brother. Right. The center
Soviet Republics slowly, slowly started. And of course, part of it also went west towards Egypt and Libya, right and eventually taking the whole north coast of Africa. Right. So how, which is the best reference for study with history? The spirit of the man of Islam?
It depends. I mean, there are some decent books, some of them are history, you don't read Arabic, do you rather, you know, read early.
Some books focus
on the conquest of Sham, only.
Others talk about Iraq and Faris
Persian Empire and then going a little bit further, it's probably good to read it in a in a history book, okay? Unless you really want to go into detail of each one. If you read it in a several volume history, okay, that might be helpful. I can try to give you some,
you know, maybe I can send you some references that will be helpful, but to be honest,
there's a lack. There's a lack of proper study and resources on these issues. Unfortunately, even though it's our own history, and a good part of it is in Arabic.
Yeah. So in sha Allah, ask Allah subhanaw taala that He grant us, neither the ability and the time to try to fill that gap. Because there's a gap. There's a gap, especially in the English language,
so that Muslims can really better understand their history and their roots.
Some of the Arabic books have been translated, but I feel there's a there's definitely a gap and a need. Yes, rather.
Just
Yes,
to the China of Allah, Allah, Allah Allah, this issue of getting to China, it seems to be maybe a little bit weak. But Saddam interview of course was of course the shining name in the conquest of real often Persia. Yes, absolutely. But going as far as China Allah Allah may not be authentic
but our our conversion absolutely absolutely.
That's why I'm saying it but you know, there there's talk that Saddam a bit more cars went as far as China and so on. That's another very interesting aspect to study the beginning of Islam and China. Okay. And that that is also quite old.
Anything else