Muhammad West – The Revival #13
AI: Summary ©
The fall of Jerusalem is due to the cycle of the Islamic spirit of revival, with the rise of Neoism and Bartiniya Christina leading to the decheral of the Quran. The "monster" of the Bible, Nizzamiya, is the cycle, and the "monster" of the book of the Bible is the cycle. The "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "monster" of the "
AI: Summary ©
Hope you're all well. And and we say,
a warm welcome to Moses,
to all the listeners on radio 786. Alhamdulillah.
We're glad to have you here. We continue
with our series on the Islamic spirit of
revival.
And this is part 2 of yesterday's lecture.
We were talking about the fall of Jerusalem,
the beginning of the Crusades, and this coincides
with the life of Imam Ghazali. And so
we're almost running 2 parallel stories, and we'll
jump between the 2, as we go along
this evening. And, just to give a bit
of backstory, we said yesterday that, the Ummah
really was in a in a difficult, desperate
state. And the grand vizier, a man called
Nizam al Mulk, the man who's in charge
of really bringing stability,
a man who's really in charge of having
to bring bureaucracy and,
have a plan for the ummah,
is in control of Baghdad. He is in
charge of the government of the umma, and
there are many, many areas,
particularly theological
deviances, heresies that he wants to fix. And
his his grand strategy for Islam
to revive Islam is to develop what is
called the nizamiyya system. Nizamiyas are universities. He's
going to establish
a university in every major city. They will
have a they will have students living there.
This is the first university where you have
students living there for free. They're being paid
a stipend to live there, and he will
try and he gathers the best teachers in
the world to teach at the Nizamiyah.
That's his plan. And the 2 major
areas that are causing theological
threats to Islam is the rise of Neo
Platonism or
philosophy, and we'll talk more about
this later on in this evening, and, of
course, the rise of Bartiniya Ismailism,
a
belief that the Quran has a hidden meaning
and only some supernatural
infallible imam has the right to interpret the
Quran. And modern and and rather orthodox Islam
that
people grew up with or people knew was
becoming irrelevant. So Nizam al Mulk is trying
to to solve this problem, and he establishes
the biggest Nizam
nizamiyah in Baghdad, which is the capital, and
he needs the, right the right dean, the
right chancellor to run this Lizamiyah, who's going
to be able to teach a whole generation
of people about orthodox Islam. He's going to
have to reestablish orthodox Islam, and he has
to take on all these different divergent views
in a manner which really leaves no room
for doubt without causing chaos.
And, you know, when he consulted the scholars,
and they said there is a rising young
man in Persia, he's just basically finishing his
doctorate studies, if you will, in our area.
He's already authoring books. His name is, Al
Ghazali. His name is Muhammad Al Ghazali.
Niram al Mulk met him and said this
is the right man for the job. So
let's talk a little bit about who this
man, Imam Ghazali is. Imam Ghazali, rahimullah,
is undoubtedly
unanimously agreed as the 5th, the the mujahdid
of the century.
The scholars have all agreed that as we
said, we spoke about this concept of mujahdid
where the prophet said every 100 years, a
man will come, a person will come rather,
who will revive the deen. And many different
scholars are are
are postulated as who are the Mujadids of
each century. As for the 5th century, it
is almost unanimously agreed that Imam Ghazali is
the mujaddid of his of that century. He
was a jurist. He was a philosopher. He's
a mystic. He's he is the most written
Islamic scholar in Europe. So if you take
up any scholar who has been written, who
had the most books translated and spoken about
and had the most impact on western,
theology or western philosophy, it is this man,
Imam Al Ghazali. And he shaped, I said,
a whole generation of of Muslim scholars and
thinkers, and he begins sort of a reformation
movement.
He of course, his great legacy
is bringing orthodox Islam back into mainstream
and to defend it against, deviances and heresies.
So how did he start? Started, SubhanAllah, from
a tiny unknown village, Tuz, in the middle
of Persia, from a very poor family. We
don't know much about his mom. Perhaps his
mom passed away when he was young.
His dad was a gaza gazala, meaning a
spins he used to spin, wool. It's a
very menial job. And his dad was not
a very educated man, but deeply loved the
scholars, deeply loved the ulama. And so you
can imagine this man in our terms. He's
always with the imams and the shiuk, but
he's just in the dhikr jamaah. He's just
around the centers of learning, but never felt
he was good enough to really go into
learning. And he imprinted on his young sons.
He has 2 sons, Muhammad and Ahmed. Ahmed
is the older one. Imam Ghazali is Muhammad.
He wanted one of his one of you,
please become shuyu. 1 of you must become
a sheikh one day. And
as Allah would decree this the father, Moghazali,
would die when Imam Ghazali was only 6
or 7. And before he passed away, he
asked a a a teacher, look look after
my sons. This is all the inheritance I
have. I give it to you. Spend it
on the education.
And so Imam Ghazali is is raised by
this, a a teacher for a few years,
and then the money runs out. Now remember
I mentioned, Nizam al Mulk established these new
madrasas where people can go and live and
learn, and there was this new madrasa where
they're accepting students, and it was a place
to live. So, Imam Ghazali says, my brother
and I initially
went to go learn Islam, not for Islam,
but just a place to live, a plate
of food. We went to go join the
madrasa, and that's how he joins the Nizami.
Yeah? And he starts learning and studying there.
And, of course, once
he enrolls in his, in his classes, it
becomes quite clear that he's mine. He's an
exceptional
student,
and he's he's really a genius in the
way he thinks, the way he can memorize,
and the way he can grasp concepts.
And and he becomes devoted into his learning
and excelling in his academic pursuits. He became
a bit of a teenager. There's a story
of him travelling, and he would always keep
his books with him. So he loved learning.
He loved knowledge and and and and,
pursuit of of knowledge. He would even travel
with his books and the caravan that he
was with,
got, hijacked or got robbed and the bandits
took everything, including his books. And Imam Ghazali,
you know, runs after the bandits, not worrying
about his life, and he says, please, you
can take everything, but I've spent years comp
those are my notes. I mean, I went
from sheikh to sheikh to compile my notes.
That's all the knowledge I have. If you
take it away, that's like my lifetime of
knowledge. And the head of the bandit said,
what kind of knowledge is it that a
man like me can take it away from
you? And this, Imam Ghazal, he says, was
a sign from Allah that I need to
devote myself even deeper to commit the knowledge,
not to my books, but to my mind.
And so he becomes even more serious in
his in his his learning.
He, of course, excels and becomes the brightest
pupil of his tiny Nizamiya,
and it's time for him to so we
could almost imagine he's graduated top of the
class. He has finished his degree. Now it's
time to do postgraduate studies and he goes
to the big Nizamiyah in Persia And the
imam there is a man called Imam al
Juwayni Imam al Haramain al Juwayni. Just like
the icon of the previous generation.
Old Sheikh highly regarded, and Imam Khazali now
enters his class. So he's now you could
almost think like a PhD student. And already
at at at at now really now he's
in a class of
super,
you know, high caliber,
and
it his his real genius starts to show
the quickness in which he can grasp concepts.
He's writing books. He's coming up with new
ideas. Imam Joanne has a famous statement. He
says, Ghazali, I'm not yet dead, but you've
already buried me. You're already sort of excelling
over me and I'm still I'm still alive,
dude. Like, slow down. And that is why
when Nizam al Mulk asked aljuwani,
as he asked the head of the Nizamiyah
in Persia,
look, Persia is already more established than Baghdad.
Is there anyone in Persia that we can
get to to run this university in Baghdad?
That's when they said, look. This guy, top
of the class, PhD
graduate, he's writing books already. He's a master
in Shafiq.
He's the right man. He's
on on course to be a judge, a
Qadi. He's your man. And so Nizam al
Mulk,
meets Khazali and says, please, you need to
be you need to be the head of
the university
in Baghdad. Now this is at the age
of 34,
he is the head of the biggest university
in the world and it's the most prestigious
job in the most prestigious university in the
world. His specialization at this time is really
deep Shafi fiqh. In fact, he's,
regarded as the, according to the 2nd Shafi'i.
Within the Shafi'i madhab, he understands the madhab
in and out, but he is really the
expert, I would say, in his field. Even
there's no scholar equal to him. He's in
the field of what we call usur al
fiqh, the way in which a judge
draws rulings, in which are given. His book,
Al Mustafah,
is still studied today. If you go to
Islamic University of Madina, you go to Cairo,
any university in the world that teaches usul
al Fik, Mustafah is the it is the,
textbook of that university. Even those who might
not agree with Ghazali's theological views, they would
agree when it comes to usul fiqh, this
was the best. I mean, it was a
1000 years ago. No one has written a
better book in usul fiqh, and this is
a very, very complicated field of study. This
is the area in which judges understand the
Sharia, dissect the Sharia, how do we extract
laws, how do we develop Islamic law. His
book,
is that book. And
as he is now,
you could say, you know, a a university
professor, he has a charisma. His classes are
full people. Like his personality,
he is being consulted to to,
part, on Fatawa. We mentioned in a in
a few nights ago that the Amir of
the Morabitun,
Yusuf bin Tashfin, before he invaded
al Andalus, he asked Al Ghazali, give me
a fatwa. So rulers are consulting him for
his opinion, for his fatwa, and he's writing.
He's a prolific writer. But, of course, the
Zaman murk says that's great. You know, you
keep doing what you're doing, but you need
to take on all these heretical views.
And so 1 by 1, he's going to
Ghazali says of himself, without any care for
myself, I delved into every different group and
heresy. I tried to master
their field to know what it is that
they believe, what it is that they are
saying so that I could counter them. And
the first group that he really, and really,
it's all about he wants to understand
everyone is is showing this is the way
to to to Allah. This is the path
of truth. So what is the right way?
Is it complete literalism? You take the Quran
and you follow the Quran literally without much,
you know, interpretation? Or is it that you
apply philosophy that your mind is the tool
that guides you to Allah? Or is it
that we don't have the tools to understand?
We need a guide that will take us
to the to the truth. These are the
kind of issues that he is he is
grappling with. So the first group that he
really takes on,
and and these are the the the philosophers.
Now it's important for us to understand what
is philosophy here. Philosophy at that time encompassed
many sciences of today. Ghazali made it very
clear. I'm not talking about mathematics. In fact,
he liked mathematics. He said, maths is one
of the few subjects where the answer is
certain. There's no room for debate. 1 +1
is 2, and that's it, wherever you are.
So he loved that. It's certainty. And natural
sciences, he says, no problem. But when we
take those laws of natural science
and
Neo Platonism and we try to implement it
in Islamic theology, it becomes a problem. Now
as I said, Islam at that time was
the leading civilization,
and these,
highly educated,
thinkers and philosophers
began questioning some of the principles within the
Quran. And they basically, their view was, listen.
The Allah wants to explain himself to you,
but he can't explain it because we are
all very dumb laypeople.
And therefore, the Quran is putting very simplistic
childlike terms for you people. But for us
philosophers,
we have mastered the,
the realm of rationality.
We have a way of understanding Allah beyond
the Quran. Now this was
exciting. The new and don't we live in
a time where people look at
secular theories, modern technology, and feel, look. Islam
is backwards.
These new trends, this is what we should
be doing. And so Ghazali really needs to
take aim at that. And he's brilliant in
the way he sort of not attacks the
philosophers, but he dispels them. He first publishes
a book called The Aims of the Philosophers
and he uses the language of the philosophers
to explain what it is they are saying,
what are the objectives. He basically simplifies philosophy
for, you know, philosophy for dummies. And the
philosophers
love this. They say, wow. This is amazing.
You're actually doing us a service.
Interestingly, this book, which really explains philosophy, would
be taken on by European
Europeans.
And from there, they would base their renaissance
movement on Ghazali's basics
of how you understand philosophy. So the, you
know, the scholars are saying, you are supposed
to defend Islam from philosophy. Here, you write
a book about philosophy and how to understand
it. He says, just hold on. Then he
brings a second book, the incoherence of the
philosopher. He said, and now that I've shown
you I understand philosophy, I've mastered your language,
I'm not gonna throw Quran and hadith at
you. I'm gonna show you from your principles
that your conclusions are wrong. So for example,
one of the big debates was that the
universe is universe is eternal. There was no
scientific way of determining that the universe had
a beginning. The philosophers were adamant. The universe
must have been eternal because Allah
attributes are eternal. Ghazali is philosophically proving that
the universe was created. We know now scientifically
that the that the universe was is indeed
created. And this was like a knockout punch
for philosophy.
Remember, Christianity
would basically fall to philosophy about a 100
2 you know, a few 100 years later.
Islam was saved. This is one of those
big, steps by Ghazali. The next peep the
next group that he took on were, as
we said, the Isma'ili Baathani, the the the
people who believed that you cannot
Islam except through a living imam.
And this is by the Khalifa asked him.
He says, Ghazali, I've got a big issue
with these Shia groups. You need to write
a book. And within, like, a he just
finishes the one book in January, the the
the reputation of the philosophers, when by June,
he has to publish his next on the
the, in the the the the enormities or
the errors of the Bartinia. And once again,
he knocks out a he gives them a
knockout blow. Basically, the Bartinia ceases to exist
soon after after that in which he describes
the Arabs, like, which imam should I follow?
And then he concludes beautifully. He says, fine.
I agree with you. We should follow an
infallible imam, an infallible person who has been
guided to the truth. We call him Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So then they say,
but that, the Nabi is dead. So they
say, but your imam is not existent. He's
absent. So what's so rather I follow an
imam, I follow a Rasool who I know
to be correct than someone who is absent.
So this also kind of ends the Bartini.
And so he really achieves massive praise. He's
more like a celebrity now than a scholar.
People are
you know, jostling. He wants his autograph. He's
publishing books. His classes are, like, you know,
as we said, jam packed. And then he
comes to his class one day,
He's gonna give a seminar, and he's unable
to talk.
He completely has a nervous breakdown.
He goes through a deep, deep depression.
Something hits him
and he will he writes and that's what's
great about Ghazali. He keeps writing books. So
in this very deep depression, he writes a
book, we'll talk about this tomorrow, insha'Allah, about
what he's going through. And he basically asks
himself, and this is what he says. He
says, I reflected on myself and I asked
mine, was my intention, all this work and
study that I did, was it for public
teaching?
And was this this was it for Allah's
sake or was I there to humiliate my
opponent? Opponent?
Was I there to debate and to to
to be,
close to the government and I was going
to be this great scholar? Was that my
intention?
So now he questions his sincerity and he
says, I became certain now that I was
on the brink of a crumbling bank, and
I was on the verge of falling into
Jannah.
I felt like I've I need to change
myself before I'm going to go to jannah.
So that was his first
real crisis was, am I sincere in what
I'm doing? I've achieved all this fame, but
for what? The second thing, which is a
bit deeper, is saying, you know, if you're
the master at poking holes in everyone's argument
and saying, that's not the truth. That's not
the truth. Now how do you find the
truth? So I can't trust my mind. I
can't trust my senses. I can't find a
guide, a spiritual guide. How do I find
Allah
He says the path that I've been on,
I've been teaching Quran and Sunnah my whole
life, but it I don't feel like it's
brought me closer to Allah. How do I
get to Allah? And so now he enters
a new stage in his life. And we
said at this time,
Nizam al Muq gets assassinated. The sultan gets
assassinated. Ghazali, the greatest scholar in the world,
he resigns his job, and he almost go
in goes into some kind of
self imposed exile. We'll talk about him tomorrow.
But as I said, there's another part of
the story that's we're not done yet. We
jumped to Europe quickly.
We said, while Islam is going through a
crisis,
Christianity and Europe is on the rise.
And the Pope has just we saw that
they conquered half of Muslim Spain. They conquered
Islamic Sicily. The time was right for Islam.
It was the was there for the taking.
And that's when the Pope Urban the second
called for a mass,
jihad, inverted commas, against the infidels, against Muslims
to reclaim the land of Christ. And all
over, there was this massive,
you know, euphoria and sincere desire to join
this movement that over a 100000
people signed up for what is called the
First Crusade, and they traveled from
Paris, from France, Paris. They're going through all
of Europe, a like a mass jama'ah
going through Europe,
going to, on their way to Jerusalem.
And they go through. They pass the Muslim
lands. We won't talk too much of the
details. And every time they're confronted by an
a a Muslim army, this group of Crusaders
defeat them. And with every victory, it feels
like Allah is on our side. God is
on our side. They start winning incredible
victories that really you can't explain how this
is possible. They reach and I'll just end
off with this fur with the with the
one victory. The they reach this the the
city of Antioch. Antioch is like the last
fortress
before Jerusalem.
When they get to Antioch, Antioch is this
massive fortress. The Mussooths built it. They fortified
it. It was described as being impregnable. You
can't capture this fortress. The Crusaders get there.
They have no siege equipment. They have nothing.
So they just trust in their belief in
in in in divine will. They besieged it
for 8 months. 8 months, this army is
standing outside trying to get in the city.
And the scholars write that, you know, if
any of the sultans,
any one of the rulers we have so
many rulers in the Ummah. If any of
them sent an army, we would have basically
put them you know, stopped them, but nobody
did anything. We just sat there and watched
Antioch being besieged. I mean, doesn't that sound
familiar? We're just watching
a whole 50 countries, a whole 1,500,000,000
Muslims
watching a city being besieged, bombarded, and no
one is doing anything. No one's lifting a
finger. And so after 8 months of besieging,
1, you know, Amir says, okay. I'm gonna
do something. I'm gonna send an army. The
crusaders decide, look, we have to get we
have to either break the siege or leave.
We otherwise, we're gonna be destroyed. And of
course, how did they do it? They managed
to bribe 1 of the guards
to open the gates
and they enter the city of Antioch. They,
of course, capture the city of Antioch. This
was what one of the great victories,
in fact, the historians could say it is
one of the most,
interesting sieges in history of that shouldn't have
succeeded. They enter the city, and now they're
in
there. When they get inside, they realize there
isn't much food left. Now they are being
besieged. The the the emir reaches the city.
The Crusaders are inside. Now they're being the
besiegers are being besieged, and they realize, look,
we can't last any much longer. And while
they are there, one of them have a
dream that the the spear that killed Nabi'Isa,
according to them, they believe Jesus was crucified
and he was stabbed to death. They believe
there's the spear under the the the cathedral.
They dig and they find something, Allahu'ala, what
they found, but they believe this is a
sign from from God that we are on
the right and they go. We're gonna have,
like, a suicide march. We're gonna open the
gates. We're gonna charge this Muslim army. They
were outnumbered, like, you know, 10 to 1
and they besieged and they, you know, they
exit the gates and they beat the Muslim
army. And with that, they are convinced
God is on our side and the next
destination is Jerusalem, and they're on their way
to to conquer Jerusalem. And we'll talk about
that tomorrow.
Right. So yesterday, we
asked in terms of our quiz,
who was the pope that called for the
first crusade? His name was Urban the second,
Pope Urban the second. And we have sister
Anissa
Ndlau.
Sister Anissa? No sister Anissa's here.
Okay. Mishka Roberts?
See now on the radio, everyone knows they're
not here. It's a bit awkward now.
It's a little awkward.
Fatima Salih?
Yeah.
Okay. And then
Zakaria Adams.
Tonight's question,
how old was Al Ghazali when he was
appointed the dean of the Nizamiyah in Baghdad?
How old how old was he? It's easy.
And then just one announcement, please, inshallah, those
who would like to contribute for to cooking
pots of food and fee feeding people on
Eid,
Please let us know.