Muhammad West – The Revival #12
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AI: Transcript ©
How are you all doing?
It's Friday.
And, we ask Allah to accept us our
fasting. Another,
basically, 2 weeks. We're almost there at the
halfway mark of Ramadan, night number number 12.
It's gone very quickly. May Allah
bless us in in what remains. Ameen.
We have another jam packed evening this, tonight.
A lot of information, but I hope, inshallah,
we can keep track of all the different
strands and threads.
So we are still in the 11th century.
11th century,
the 10 nineties, 10 9 basically a 1000
years ago. And it was in this century
when the, we started off the century with
3 Khalifas. The beginning of the millennium were
3 Khalifas. At the end of the millennium,
we basically had no Khalifa.
The Khalifa we had was the the Khalifa
of Cordoba, and we spoke about the fall
of the caliphate of Cordoba
after a civil war. And, eventually, by the
end of the the the century,
Toledo had fallen and the Muslims were holding
on for dear life,
thanks in part by the Almorabitun,
the,
the the Almoravids.
We also had, and we'll talk more about
them now, a a caliphate in the middle
of Northern Africa based in Egypt, and this
is called the Fatimid Caliphate.
The Fatimids were a Shia
Ismaili dynasty. Now I must take a bit
of moment a bit, a bit of a
side story here. We know that Islam is
a schism between Ahlus Sunnah ur Jama'ah and
the Shia Shia. The Shia are a minority,
a sizable minority. About 10, 15% of the
Ummah are Shia. Within Shi'ism,
there was also
split between what we have, Isma'ili Shias. This
was the majority. This was the dominant shias.
And the 12 ishias, which we have which
we see today, the 12 ishiyas were a
minority.
So for much of Islam, the dominant strand
of Shi'ism was called Ismaili Shi'ism, and they
had a very unique set of ideas. One
of the things that they all shayas believe
in this concept of an imam,
the belief that there is an infallible
guy that Allah has sent after the Nabi
salallam who would,
interpret the Quran and bring us out of
darkness to light. The the concept of all
shayas believe in the concept of an imam.
Now the
Isma'ilis believe in a living imam. In fact,
the Isma'ilis still exist today, and they are
known as the Aghaans.
So the imam is still alive today. They
have a living imam, and he alone interprets
the Quran and they and they follow him.
And they also have a very unique way
because one might say, but why do we
need an imam when if I open the
Quran, I can read it to myself? They
said, no. You only read the external
of the Quran.
Every ayah has a hidden internal meaning which
only the imam understands. This and this is
why it's called the Baati Niya. One of
their names is the Baati Niya. The Baati
means the hidden. So the imam knows these
hidden secrets of Quran, and every time a
new imam comes, he reveals more of the
hidden secrets. So this is the Ismaili,
Shia sect, and they were very powerful
University. The Fatimid dynasty established Al Azhar University.
And of course, then we had the official
Khalifa of Baghdad. The Sunni Khalifa in Baghdad,
the Abbasid Khalifa, who was basically powerless. He
was a figurehead, and his authority
barely even extended outside of of Baghdad.
The the and at this point in time,
SubhanAllah,
Shi'ism was so prominent and strong
that the the Khalifa of Baghdad was
controlled
by a 12 Shia family called the Buayids
dynasty. A Shia family controlled the behind the
scenes. The Umayyad Khalifa was the Abbasid Khalifa
was basically a prisoner within the the palace.
So this is the state of affairs within
the Ummah politically.
Ideologically,
we said that
the the strongest threat to orthodox Islam was
the emergence of the Baltiniyyah,
this Shia group. And because they're speaking about
hidden meanings and hidden secrets
and people are always looking for mystical
answers,
this became something of a of a of
a of a of a a a a
huge uprising within the Ummah. And we had
very strange groups. For example, we had a
group called also another Ismaili group called the
Karamita.
Karamita, these are Muslims,
Shia,
who attacked
Makkah.
They lived in Bahrain.
They attacked Makkah on Hajj, killed 3,000 Hujaj,
stole the black stone, the Hajj al Aswad.
For over 20 years, it was in Bahrain.
And they said,
to to prove the point that what you
read in the Quran, you people are backwards.
They say, where is the?
We basically destroyed the Kaaba. Where is the
Tayron Ababil? Where are these birds that's going
to destroy us? Like you people read. And
so they took the black stone to Bahrain,
and it took a long long
black stone.
Also within
this, there's a also a secretive
so within the within the Isma'ili, there was
a very secret sect called the Nizaris,
and this is where the the the the
term of
Hashashin, the assassins.
They were a offshoot group of Isma'ilis,
and they had set up a secret headquarters
where they would preach
undercover.
And if any group,
sort of infringed on them, they would assassinate
you. The word assassin comes from them. They
were called the Hashashin, assassins.
So all of this is happening during this
this period. And, therefore,
orthodox
Islam, which was established by Imam Ahmed al
Hambali, we spoke about that in Baha'Dahd, which
was humbly literal understanding of aqidah called Athari.
This was about to be this was on
the verge of being extinct. This was really
going out of fashion. It couldn't deal with
all these new ideologies.
The philosophers are making a comeback. The Muertazil
are basically on the rise again, and so
things are really falling,
going going wrong. And that's why we
see Toledo falls, Sicily falls. Really, there is
a need for a revival in the Umma.
Now
like the Al Murah, the the Al Murabitun,
a group that would help bring strength to
the Ummah would come from a very unexpected
place.
The Turkish
tribes,
when we think of Turkey,
we think of Istanbul.
That's not really where they originate from. The
Turkic tribes were from deep Central Asia, and
they were nomadic
people. They embraced Islam. They were still a
warring a a warlike,
you know, Bedouin type of people. They didn't
have major cities, but they embraced Islam. And
as they emerged into the Islamic world,
they proved to be very proficient warriors,
and they were very devout Sunni Muslims. And
so the Khalifa of Baghdad
called to them for help. The Khalifa is
besieged by the Shia family. He's calling to
the Turkish,
this Turkic they call the Seljuks.
Save me. Help me. And they answer his
call. They ride into Baghdad, and they basically
take over Baghdad. So now we have
a,
inverted commas, illiterate, warlike,
warrior people, pious people, but not very
schooled
in in in in in theology, not very
deep in knowledge, they take over the most
advanced civilization on Earth, a place where the
most universities, the most schools, the most libraries,
they take over the realm. What do we
do now?
And this is where a man, and this
man, you should we should know his name.
He is if anybody has the title, even
more than Al Ghazali, that revived Islam at
this very low point, he wasn't a great
scholar.
He wasn't a great mujahid.
He wasn't a Khalifa.
He was a bureaucrat.
He was an administrator, a paper pusher, but
he would change the administration of the Ummah.
He's called Nizam Nizam al Mulk. Nizam. Actually,
not not it's Nizam, but it's actually Nizam.
Nizam means to order the Mulk, the dominion,
the the whole country. He was the grand
vizier of the so the Sarduks
are a warlike people. When they take over
the bureaucracy, they said, we don't know how
to run a government. Who can we find
to help? So they found this man who
was a pious man. He started off as
a wanted to learn to be an island,
but then he left that and he became
a tax collector in the revenue services. He
worked for the czars, and eventually he rose
up as being a very honest and and
proficient,
administrator. So they chose him to be the
grand vizier,
and he's basically got free rein to run
the whole bureaucracy of the ummer while the
sultan is going out fighting wars and whatever
sultans do. The Khalifa is a so we
have a Khalifa who's a figurehead. He's just
there to wave. You have the sultan who's
really, you know, the military ruler. He doesn't
want to know what numbers and figures. He
doesn't have time for these things. And then
you have Nizam al Mulk, who is actually
running the administration,
and he will basically change a lot of
the
as, as they say
that in the history of Islam, he's perhaps
the most important administrator in our entire history.
Up until the fall of the caliphate, many
of his administrative
policies remained. Till today, you'd find many institutions
of learning called the nizamiyyah
after him because he would start this thing
of universal,
universities.
And he has a book, on governance. Now
what a little bit about him. So he
was a Persian man.
He grew up in from a humble beginning,
but a pious family. His father was also
you know, he grew up in a family
that loved the ulama,
ulama, started off going to the madrasas, but,
eventually, he didn't
go all the way. He followed a corporate
career, as we could say. And this is
and there's a a lesson in here that
the ummah does not only need maulanas and
ulama. The ummah doesn't only need mujahideen and
khalifas. It also needs engineers and lawyers and
doctors. And so long as they have a
a a love for the deen and they
have a desire to build Islam, there is
a place for everyone. In fact, we have
too many maybe even too many mawlanas. We
need more of our,
as we could say, secular people
coming into the sphere of Islam, learning the
basics of the deen and then pushing the
deen forward. Here we see a man doing
this. And he's viewed by, as we said,
by many historians as the greatest statesman within
Islamic history, overzia in Islamic history, and his
policies survived until the, you know, till the
20th 20th century. The ulama,
the historians write about him that he was
a man who was full of goodness and
piety. He was inclined to righteousness.
He submitted to anyone who criticized him. He
listened to them, and he show and he
he he acknowledged his faults, and he would
weep openly if he made a mistake. He,
subhanallah, he would this is what his routine.
Before he comes to office, he makes sure
he has wudu. Before he does, he logs
on to his computer and he's going to
work on his Excel or whatever, he's in
the state of wudu. I'm doing Ibadah. He
saw his job as an act of worship,
and he would fast regularly, and he loved
being in the company of the ulama. So
he saw the 'alim, but he loves the
ulama. And so when he, you know, come
and and and and so he wrote this
book, the book of governance, because the sultan
was a young man. He's a much older
man, so he's trying to give this young,
wild,
Turkish,
sultan who's running around with his sword, trying
to teach him the the way of ruling
a country. And his book of governance,
you know, a 1000 years before we had
the king code and all the the rules
of how to to govern correctly, we have
this man writing the rules of how a
government should be run. And one of the
hadiths he brings there, he says he tells
his, sultan that there's a hadith where the
prophet says everyone who has given leadership
will be tied up on the day of
Tayama. Allah's gonna tie you up. That leadership,
that control that you had would be a
noose around your neck. And if you dealt
justly,
as an amana, not as a privilege. He's
a servant of the ummah, and he's desperately
looking to revive the the the ummah.
And one of the things that he believed
was paramount in bringing the ummah back on
track was to establish was to reestablish Islamic
learning. And that's why
he began what is now the prototype of
the university structure. Yes. We had Al Azhar
University. We had Kirwan, but these were one
major institutions. What he wanted to do was
like a franchise of universities across the ummah,
and they have one syllabus.
And, also, we want the best students to
come here because he himself comes from a
poor background. Very good students. You must live
and you must live at the uni you
must have a residence. And if you are
a good student, we will pay you to
stay there. This was new. We didn't have
this in the world. And so he establishes
these nizamias.
He also has another agenda in that he
wants to openly counter
Ismaili, Bantanism,
and the growing,
philosophers who are encroaching on Islamic theory. He
wants to reestablish orthodox Islam.
And so he he builds the
greatest nizamiyah. The biggest one is, of course,
in Baghdad. This is the capital. So he
builds the biggest, at that time, the biggest
institute of learning in Baghdad. He establishes it.
And as we said, Baghdad is a
a cesspool of heresy, of ideas, well, good
or bad, but really Islamic orthodoxy is falling
far behind. People are moving towards all these
modern ideas. Now, subhanAllah, don't we know of
a time like that? Where
new ideas and ideologies are the norm or
are exciting. People want to levitate to that,
but you have a class on hadith and
salah and wudu. That's empty. No one wants
to go to that's old. That's antiquated. That
must be reformed and come with times. So
how does he make Islam, orthodox Islam,
you know, relevant for his day and age?
So he builds this in his army here.
Remember I said at the end of Imam
Ahmad ibn Khambal that a group of scholars
came with
philosophy, and they said, Sheikh,
I know you hate philosophy. Philosophy caused so
much problems, but there is a root where
philosophy can be used for good and we
can get to the same conclusion. This is
the Ash'ai the beginning of the Ash'ari, aqidah.
And Muhammad said, no. I don't like this,
and he banished them. And this group, this
tiny group were pushed out of Baghdad, and
they settled in a city called Lesha Pur.
And this is where Nizam Amur grew up.
So he grows up learning from a very
branch group of Sunni Islam that is not
as literal but tries to get to the
same conclusion, and it's and it uses
theology. It uses a bit of kalam
to get to the same conclusion.
So Nizam Ammu comes from the school,
and he finds that this
is a bit bitter at countering the modern
theologies. And so in his nizamiyyah,
he wanted someone that has a he's a
shafi himself, nizamamu. That's why the shafi madhab
kind of gets into a dominant position. He
wants a school
that propagates the 4 madahib, but in particular
the shafi madhab, and finds a way to
bring rational thought and kalam to establish orthodox
Islam. The first is armyya he establishes.
He chooses a very, you know, well renowned
scholar, and this scholar, to the best of
his ability, tries to to to teach orthodox
Islam, but he basically gets thrown out. The
people of Baghdad want nothing to do him.
There are riots. They are fighting. On the
one side, the the the modernists, as we'd
call,
are rebelling, and on the other side, the
orthodox, the conservatives are rebelling against him. The
literalists are rebelling against him. And Nizam al
Mulkih writes a letter. He said, I established
this
university
to revive Islam, not to cause riots in
Baghdad. Just imagine, maulanas of this madrasah is
is killing maulanas of that madrasa, subhanAllah. He
said, what's going on? So he realized he
needed a very
special kind of scholar, a scholar who would
be
so good, so prolific that he could challenge
all these different sects, whether it was the
Martiniya, whether it was the philosophers, whether it
was the Shia, whether it was Christians. He
was able to debate in a way that
would really
dominate the conversation, but he also had a
charisma that people want to follow. And he
asked around, is there any scholar that we
could put as the dean, as the chancellor
of the Nizamiyah Baghdad? And the ulama said,
there is an up and coming rising star
in Persia.
His name is Abuhamid
Muhammad al Ghazali.
He seems to be a superstar
on the rise.
And Nizam Mahmood calls him. They have a
brief interview, and he likes what he sees.
And he said, this man is just starting
out. He but, I mean, at 30, he's
already authored a few books.
A unknown scholar, but in the field, in
the in the in the academic circles, he's
making waves. Nizam al Moug likes him, and
he says, you will be the dean of
the Naz Nizamiyah of Baghdad. And from there,
if you are able to establish
and defeat basically all these groups and sects,
then we're gonna take your curriculum, we'll photocopy
it, and we'll put it in every Islam
in the entire world. And your curriculum
will become the standard. This is the project,
the idea, that your
teaching and your books would become the doctrine
of Islam. Now, subhanallah, if you were to
ask what is orthodox Sunni Islam? It
is Shafi'i,
Ash'ari, with Athari as well. The Athari creed
still remains. And a bit of Tasawwuf as
well. This is basically, it's the Ghazalian
creed. Imam Ghazali would establish this. So we'll
get to Imam Ghazali tomorrow, Insha'Allah. So now
he just gets this
prime job. How is he gonna do this?
But back to Nizam al Mulk.
Nizam al Mulk, of course, he's got a
grand project for the ummah. And, of course,
when you do this, you're gonna have many
enemies.
And perhaps the enemies that were most
the most
serious to worry about are these hidden assassins.
No matter where you look, there could be
an assassin. And these, and it's an interesting
story about them as well. They would be
they are called,
you know, these were assassins of the death.
They would come, they would kill their target,
and then they would commit suicide. This is
part there's, like, deep kind of of,
fanaticism,
following their ruler or their imam to the
t. And
it is,
this group of the assassins who would, for
about 200 years, would be like the the
the boogeyman in the closet. Every every amir,
every sultan, every scholar, even every crusader
general would be worried. You'd never know when
an assassin would come to you. As a
warning, they would leave. You'd have the most
protected
ruler in the world. He would come to
his room, and he would find a dagger
on his pillow. That's warning number 1. They
would get in when no one knew how
do these people get in. And so they
but their first victim, the first man that
they killed, a high profiled man, was Nizam
al Mulk. Nizam al Mulk was in Ramadan
on his way from Izamiyah,
fasting on his way for Hajj, and a
man comes looking like a Sufi sheikh. And
Nizam al Mulk wanting to beat this man,
he's an assassin, and they stab Nizam al
Mulk. 10/92,
the man who was basically in charge of
the ummah dies.
3 months later, the sultan, the Turkey sultan,
also assassinated
by the, the Ashashin, the
assassins.
The historians say
Nizam al Muq was the first of a
long series of such attacks by the assassins,
which in a calculated war of terror brought
sudden death to sovereign,
rulers, to princes, generals, governors, and even,
divines who had condemned Ismaili doctrine and authorized
the suppression of those who professed them. Within,
as we said, Nizam al Mulk is killed.
3 months later, the assassins kill the saljuq
sultan, and this throws the ummah into absolute
chaos once again. Now as we said, Nizam
al Mulk is killed 10 92.
1095, 3 years later,
Europe
now sees a prime opportunity
to do something which they haven't couldn't imagine,
that the Muslims are on their knees. We
just beat them in Spain.
We just beat them in Sicily. They have
no ruler. Let us make a grand march
to conquer Jerusalem.
And the 1st crusade is called the pope,
Urban the 2nd. He calls a
a a a meeting,
at Clermont, not Clermont here, Clermont in France,
where all the
nobles and the kings and he says basically,
he gives a rousing speech about how long
are you going to allow the land of
Christ to be in the hands of the
infidels? How long are you gonna allow our
sacred relics to be desecrated by these people?
Now is the time. Now is the time
for Christianity to unite.
And all of you, if you sign up
to this jihad Crusade is basically a Christian
jihad. Your sins will be forgiven and there
are many people that were who had a
lot of sins to pay for. And his
call resonates with Europe. It goes throughout every
country. It unites Christianity
under one banner. And this begins the First
Crusade. 100,000
people leave European lands all on their way
to
to the Middle East to capture Jerusalem. And
so we'll talk about the fall of Jerusalem
and Imam Ghazali tomorrow.
Alright. Okay. So tonight's question or yesterday's question,
which city
is the most populous and prosperous city in
Sicily during the Islamic rule? Is the capital
of Sicily, Palermo. Right? Palermo, that's the name
of the city.
Yeah.
Ismail Asmal. Yeah. Ismail Asmal. It's it's okay.
Was the name of the pope who called
on Christians to march onto Jerusalem? He called
the 1st crusade. Pope which pope was it?
Inshallah. You know who that is. And then,
just a reminder, please, for those who are
into those who can, to support our Maharajah
program as little as a R100 and you
can support in feeding people. Or if you
so wish, you can buy a whole pot
for 4,000 rand. May Allah bless you.