Islam In China – Thoughts & Reflections

Yasir Qadhi

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Channel: Yasir Qadhi

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Episode Notes

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi indulges in a casual talk where he delves on personal reflections and eye openers from his trip to China.

A brief introduction about the spread of Islam in China is provided.Islam was present in China since 1 H. It can be heard numerous times in Khutbahs that the Sahaba travelled all the way to China to spread Islam. It is also said that the grave of Saad Ibn-Abi-Waqas is there which is more of a myth that history. The Sahaba could not have reached China as they were still conquering provinces far from China such as Uzbekistan. 

  • Amazing driving skills, impeccable cleanliness makes one humble oneself with propaganda . they take pride in a far better civil structure than others.
  • They boast of a civilisation and history that goes back 5000 to 6000 years.
  • Every city that was visited had Halal food and Masjids.
  • Chinese Muslims have a unique blend of Islam and China. Their calligraphy is unique which looks Chinese outwardly but when we look deep is actually Arabic. This shows us that to spread Islam, it is natural to imbibe the culture and traditions of that land as far as Shariah allows it.
  • The government has taken charge of the Mosques completely and the government appoints and trains the Imams who are trained in the Government operated Madrasas.

Shaykh Yasir appreciates the numerous blessings that we have been blessed with in the freedom of worship. The floor opens for a Q & A and numerous valid questions are answered beautifully.

 

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AI Generated Summary ©

The Chinese government has pressured the Uighur population to not pray or read Koran, causing them to become mini skirts and be punished by the Han government. The local Han community is being pressured to not pray or read Koran, causing thousands of Han Chinese to be fired and punished. The Hillel moon in Beijing is a holy ground for Muslims and the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman in the holiest woman

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alaminos salatu salam ala Sayyidina, Muhammad Ali, he will suck the marine. Apart from that has been a while since we've had the Wednesday class hamdulillah. It's nice to be back, and inshallah with data Today we're going to take a break from our regularly scheduled programs and do something different. And that is some personal reflections on my trip to China, as you know, generally when I come back from a trip, I like to just update you and just share personal reflections. This particular trip, a lot of you were interested. So we decided to do it a Wednesday afternoon relative rather than a typical after Asia that we typically do. And of course, I'm dressed for the part as

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well, obviously, this is a china shirt, my shoulder as well, I made sure that they came appropriately dressed for the part, my talk is not going to be at a prepared speech. It's literally off the cuff. I don't have my lecture notes. I just have some bulleted points. And I think I'm gonna keep it that way for this casual talk. And it's just going to be a series of bulleted points. Very briefly, I want to begin very briefly by a brief introduction to the history of Islam and China. Islam in China, Islam has been in China, since the first generation of the higit of the first century of the hedgerow. And the first time that Islam came to China, the commonly held theory or

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not theory, the commonly held perception, you hear this and read this in books and blogs, is that the Sahaba reached China themselves. And in fact, there is a grave above the province of Hong Kong there is a city going to master code the name is Xiao, there's a city there the the claim is that Sadie and Abby will cost his grave is over there. And if you read any history book that is at a basic level, not an actual academic book, but a just a book that is meant for the masses, you will hear the story that sad MW will cost traveled to China. He met with the Emperor, the Emperor honored him and his grave is over there. And you hear this many times and hobos and doodles that the Sahaba

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traveled all the way to China to spread Islam. The fact of the matter is that this is more myth than history. The Sahaba could not have reached China, they were still conquering provinces way far from China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, was being conquered in the time of the Sahaba. They could not have reached the lands of China, as for sadly what cost then it is impossible that his grave is in China. I gave his history in this very rescue, then you listen to the history, and he did not pass away in China, in all like gluten is in Persia, or it is actually in Medina. But we talked about this when we talked about this, it's not Saturday, Wilcox did not reach China. However, what is the case is

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that within the generation of the Tabby rune, ie the early oma years, groups of merchants, they reached what is now the area of Hong Kong. And this is the coastal areas, right. And they set up camp over there to spread their business, their trade. And this is one of the amazing things, Islam spread by two mechanisms in the early period. The first mechanism, which is the mechanism that we all know about, and unfortunately, many of those who oppose Islam make fun of Islam criticize Islam, they only mentioned that Islam was spread by the sword. While we talked about that it is a myth to say it was spread by the sword. But it is true to say the political establishment of Islam did in

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fact expand. And the people embraced Islam because of that, because they wanted to. And we talked about this in the lectures that I gave. This is one mechanism. And this is how Islam reached what we now call Syria, and Egypt and Tunisia and the lands of Iraq and Iran, where basically the political domain of Islam continued to expand, and people lived under the land of Islam, they decided to embrace Islam bit by bit of their own free will. As I mentioned, we prove this point many many times. However, the other mechanism of spreading Islam, and in fact, many countries are examples of this is the spread of Islam via merchants via businessmen, via people who would just go to buy and

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sell merchandise. That's it. They're going as traders, and the locals become so impressed with their clock, their honesty, their manners, they become intrigued, and slowly but surely, Islam begins to spread in these countries. Some of the most amazing examples of these lands are now the majority countries the largest Muslim countries in the world. Not a single army ever went to them. Not a single Mujahid holy warrior ever reached them. Islam was spread not by the sword, but by the honesty and the love of good Muslims. And the number one example of this is in doing

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Asia and Malaysia, the entire archipelago is over there. You have now the largest Muslim countries in the world. That's Indonesia and then Malaysia far larger than any other country. How did they embrace Islam? How are they Muslim too far this lens? How are they Muslim? It was simply the Arab traders. As you know, I've been to Maldives a few times as well. And the Maldives as well. The story is well known his grave is still in the Maldives, one Muslim one out of merchants, he went there. And I told the story. When I went to the Maldives, I told you guys when it came back, that basically he saved they had this pagan custom of sacrificing a young, unmarried lady to the gods of the

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tsunami. And every year they would slaughter a girl to the gods. And it just so happened that the Arab merchant who came he was living in the house of the mother of that girl. And he said, there's no way you're going to kill this girl. I'm not gonna let you kill this girl. So that Kim said we have to or else and then you know, long story, cutting a long story short, he basically said, Let me pray to my God, and I will make sure the tsunami doesn't come and attack you. Let me pray to my Lord, He is the Lord of the tsunami, and he will make sure it doesn't come. So he spent the night in the masjid praying to Allah subhanho wa Taala. And it was the season the monsoon season. It also

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would though it would come at that time, and it would basically wreak havoc, and it was a lot harder that no tsunami hit on that or no monsoon came or whatever when it was supposed to come. And so the king was so impressed, he embraced Islam. And he then when he embraced what's going to happen, everybody embraced Islam. So Maldives is now 100% Muslim because of what one merchant one Muslim one there and showed them what is the heat. So China is of those lands where there was never a majority, there is still not a majority. However, there is a sizable minority of Muslims, and they came there not by the sword, not by armies, but by early Muslims who went to there. And the first mosque that

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was founded in China was founded within the first century of the hedger IE, less than 5060 years after the death of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, Islam reached the shores of China. And that Masjid is still standing, not obviously the physical structure, but the location, we did not go there because it is really down south. And really, there's nothing else to see. Other than that one small Masjid. And that is where they say Saudi Arabia we will cost is very, Allah knows best. It is my theory that generally when these stories, they start spreading, there's a kernel of truth that is exaggerated. So maybe a student of sad, a grandson of sad, somebody who had something to do with sad

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when he will pass maybe some type of basis that the person there is two generations removed, or one generation removed from them, they will pass either a student of a student or a grandson or something, and then it just becomes bigger and bigger. Because generally speaking these legends and myths, they have some basis of theory. In any case, that was the first location where Islam went to now China at the time, as with most other countries, we're on our countries of our times was composed of many small dynasties kingdoms, okay. And so when it was found out that there's this one place that's allowing Muslim merchants, Arab merchants, these merchants are bringing in good,

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they're bringing in stuff that is not found anywhere else. Another major kingdom, one of the largest kingdoms of that region, called the Tang Dynasty, ta mg like the drink tank, called the Tang Dynasty. They were the first dynasty to officially allow Muslims to come and settle. They wanted Muslims to come. This is roughly in the year, maybe 692 700, ce, II 50 6070 higit are very early. Okay, so Islam has now reached the Tang Dynasty, and the Emperor gave an official license for Arab and Muslim merchants to come and establish a base in that province in that place. And the the outcomes that came there, obviously, they opened up a door of a channel of merchandise, sorry, an

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avenue of merchandise that no other group had. And the city or the capital of the Tang Dynasty was is now called Sheehan. XNX. I am Sheehan. And this is the city that I also went to as a group we went to the city of Cheyenne and the city of Cheyenne. Not coincidentally, it is the first city in the famous Silk Road. You guys know the Silk Road, right? Cheyenne is where it begins. And it ends past Damascus. Okay, so the Silk Road The famous Silk Road, what is the Silk Road for those of you who are in high school Middle School, you don't know what the Silk Road is? the Silk Road is the most famous passageway of goods and merchandise in the history of mankind. It caused civilizations

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to rise and fall it created dynasties and what made other dynasties bankrupt. It made multi billionaires for people of its time it connected cultures and civilizations. It is basically imagined

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In a superhighway, just imagine, of course it's not an actual highway, but it is an actual road, ie it's a physical, not a paved road, but it is a path where merchants would travel. And not all merchants would go from the beginning to the end, but they would go 10% 30% 70%. And then the rest would go on. So between all of the merchants, the entire Silk Road would span the globe, and it was from China. Sheehan, all the way to beyond Damascus, right. And by the way, she thought it was safe as I talk to you about this, it basically tapped into the Silk Road on the bottom, the top and the descending passageway on the bottom, go back to the zero, the rehabilitation, it was safe, it was a

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causal passageway between the two main highways of transaction. So Cheyenne is the beginning of the Silk Road, the Tang Dynasty is where it begins. So they said we want to get merchandise right at the source that nobody else can get. So they opened the door for Muslims to come. And the Muslims, of course, they, wherever they went, they showed their honesty, they showed their character, the legends goes, we went to the masjid, he told us, the Imam told us the story, that and these are stories that are passed down. There's nothing documented evidence that when the time for Salah would come, the people would basically close their shops and pray in the road. And other people complain

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What are these guys doing? They're stopping merchandise Buying and selling. They are, you know, clogging up the system the streets. So it reached the Emperor, that these people are with us every time of the day when it's a little hard time also time. You know, they have their weird customs they stopped there, the bazaar that they have, they have a bazaar there, everything closes and it's clogging the alleyways. So the Emperor visited them the emperor of the Tang Dynasty and he asked them what is going on. So they explained that when it is time for Salah, we need to stop everything we need to pray. And he saw them in their prayers, and he was so impressed and moved. He didn't

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embrace Islam, but he did the next best thing. He gifted them a large area of land, and he financed the construction of the masjid. That Masjid is still standing to this date, portions of it are original 1200 something years old. And if you saw my YouTube video or my Facebook video, then you will see portions of that machine. And the infrastructure or the the the the the dynamics of the mesh is also very interesting. I'll talk about that in a future in a future point. So he constructed the first purpose built, there was a message as he said in the city of goon Zhao that the Muslims themselves built, this is a message of the Emperor built. So she is basically the colonel where

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Islam was planted by the blessings, basically, of the governor, or the the Emperor himself. As we said, it's the second city there is a city smaller than that. But this is where the main city comes. And of course, where the Arab merchants came, they established a hub, they intermarried they began, you know, preaching and teaching. And essentially to be very, very simplistic pause here footnote. Obviously, this is not an academic PhD level talk. It's a very basic level. So I'm going to be generic and very superficial. And it has to be for this not only because I'm not an expert in Islam, in Islamic in China, I'm not an expert in the history of that region, but also because the the, you

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know, the time that we have is not going to be conducive to that. So, very simplistically, it is said that the descendants of that group are now what is called the hooey Muslim h UI. Okay, h UI. Now, before we move on, you should know one thing about China, China is a very interesting country, in many ways, of the ways that China is unique. The government of China has officially designated 56 ethnic groups as being Chinese.

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If you're not a part of these 56, you can't be a part of the Chinese mainstream basically. Okay. There are 56 ethnic groups that are officially sanctioned or blessed, or basically you are basically a part of the Chinese system if you're one of these ethnicities, okay? And 10 of them are predominantly Muslim 10 are predominantly Muslim.

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There's one of these 56 that is the dominant of all the country of China, so much so they Eclipse all of the other 53. Who knows that one that is the dominant? What's it called?

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What is it Han ha en the Han Chinese, the Han Chinese are the dominant Chinese. Nine out of 10 people of that region are hon and hon have their cuisine, their language, their ethnicity. Mandarin is from the Han. So the Han Chinese are the dominant Chinese. That's the 90% and obviously they're the ones in control the government you understand this. Okay. All the

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53 put together are less than 10%. Okay. And the harm by and large are not Muslim. Okay. They are the the mainstream that you know, the hooey h UI are one of those 56 of those entities, okay, one of them. And the hooey, it is said very simplistically that they are basically the descendants of the original Muslims that came, and their Dawa, and their intermarriage and their children. So basically, they go back a long time. And for practical purposes, from my from an outsider, I don't I cannot speak on behalf of the insider, as an outsider, the who a Muslim and the Han Chinese, they look the same. They speak the same language, you know, you cannot really tell them apart per se.

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Okay, if you maybe the insiders Can I don't know. But me as an outsider, they're exactly the same, you cannot really tell them apart. And that's because they are really a part of the culture, the holy, they speak Mandarin. They are a part of the mainstream, but they are Muslim. And they're given a different ethnicity. They're called the huie. And the mosques that I visited and are on my Facebook and YouTube are all hooey mosques. Okay, they are controlled by the UE and the moms are hooey and whatnot. So that is how Islam was introduced. Obviously, I'm not going to go over all 12 centuries of Islam in China. But there were times in places where Islam was given official sanction.

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There were times in places where not just Islam but other religions such as Christianity and Judaism, we're kind of persecuted. This is the way it was by and large, Islam was always allowed to be practiced and flourish within the parameters of the mainstream government laws. And there are a number of times where Chinese Muslims played a heroic role. And the Chinese government acknowledged that role, and of them is in 1949, World War Two, when the Japanese and the Chinese were at war with one another. The huie Muslims were at the forefront defending their land, the China mainland and their culture and their civilization against the Japanese invasion. And there were specific army

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contingents army you know, movements or you can say entire, basically, deployments that were who we Muslim, the Muslims there, and they fought a brave battle. And this is one of the reasons as well that by and large, the hooey Chinese are considered to be part of the fabric of China, because they have shed their blood they have lived amongst the people, they are amongst the people over there. This is the hooey. There are of course, many others as well. We're going to come to the Uighur one, the very end to talk about that. So this is a brief nutshell the history of Islamic China. How many Muslims are in China? Nobody knows. Because the census is not allowed to ask about religion. Nobody

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knows. You hear figures from 40 million to 100 million. Okay. You hear figures from 40 million to 100 million. You hear all of these figures, okay? Even if it's 40 million, some heinola. So huge. There's a lot of Muslims, okay. 100 million is most likely a settlement 100 million is most likely a little bit too much a very brave girl. Mashallah. That's exactly the guy. He's the one you see on YouTube. You have that's the one yes. Okay. Michelle 100 100 million is probably too much. Because 100 million would mean how many people just trying to have Who knows?

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1.2 billion 1.3 billion. They say the largest country is China's you know, 100 million would say one out of 10 Muslims, that's a little bit too much. One out of 10 is Muslim. That's a little bit too much being realistic. You I've been to China, people live in China. Now one out of 10 is not a Muslim, that's a bit too much. But maybe, you know, one out of 20 or something. Okay, that's a bit more reasonable. Okay. So I have five or six points, and then I'll hand it over to standard Tamia. This was my introduction, history of Islam, brief history, very brief history.

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Number one, the first point that I have personal reflections, this was my first trip to China, some of you have been, I know, for me, I had never been to China. And the image that I had of China was the image that I have of many of the countries I've been to, such as India or Pakistan or any other country that we call quote, unquote, the third world, you know, I was thinking it'll be something like Karachi or Mumbai, which I have visited many times. And the reason why I had this image was because of television and Hollywood, right. And when we landed, and I stayed a few days in these large cities of Beijing and Shanghai and Shenzhen.

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I myself was humbled at how easy it is to brainwash and indoctrinate one person against another. You see, we as Muslims, we always complain about the brainwashing of the media. And we don't realize that we to fall prey to that, after visiting Beijing and Shanghai and Shenzhen in particular,

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Are these three cities, I can say that I don't know of any American city that is cleaner than these three, that the infrastructure seems to be better. The public transportation, I mean, we in America don't even have decent public transportation. The people over there, China for me, in many ways, as an outsider seemed more of a first world country than America.

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And it, we were, we wrote on the fastest supersonic train, right? Not supersonic, but it's 300 miles an hour. So go figure, right from Beijing to Shia. We wrote on that fastest train in the world. And again, the service, the people, the everything, the ambience, so it humbled me, somebody who I think of myself as Okay, I'm educated, open minded, yet still, it is so easy to brainwash the image you have, I'm thinking of people with addictions and holding up the caravan. And, you know, upside down hat and running this way. This is my image of China, as an educated person, but this is what the media does to you. So if somebody who knows what the media can do can be fooled by the media, how

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much more so the people around us when they're duped about Islam and Muslims? You understand what I'm trying to say here? Right? Cut them some slack, like even people like us who know that the media is out for an agenda. And there is an agenda the agenda is to portray America as number one, everybody else's complete backward. And when you go there in many respects, I mean, even the driving, even though the cities there are double, triple the size of New York, I mean, talk about Beijing, Shanghai, I remember from our hotel, which was in downtown to the airport, no exaggeration, more than an hour. We're zooming on the freeway, no exaggeration, and that's from center to one

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district, right center to the airport, I was in downtown, one hour, more than an hour, an hour and 20 minutes or something zooming down the freeway, and we're surrounded by high rise shopping centers is as if you are in downtown continuously, and not a single car speeding, not a single car changing lanes, erotically, not a single car out of line, everybody is driving, as if I mean, honestly, I've never in my life seen a better driving system than that one. Also, the cleanliness, I was thinking, you'll see pawn stains, right? For those who don't know, quantities Don't ask.

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I was thinking, that's a good one. I was thinking is going to be like trash and garbage, like I see in Karachi or Mumbai, you know, people just leave it on the road, you know, like our own lens, not a speck of dust. Not one paper wrapper on the floor, in cities that are double, triple the size of Houston, Chicago, New York, think about that. The people as well, again, very, I mean, the problem we had was communication, because nobody speaks English. That is the biggest barrier we had. So my point is the first point for me to humble myself in propaganda, we all fall for it, even us, we all fall for it, in many ways, their country, for me, at least in terms of civil infrastructure.

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Obviously, there are other negatives that are beyond the scope of this talk. But at least in terms of our civil structure, it seemed far better than anything I had seen, you know, in the travels that I've done. The second point that that really, I reflected on is that, really, it is amazing to see a civilization whose history goes back five, 6000 years, you know, when you go to any site here in America, I mean, you know, we've all done the tours. When you go to Philadelphia, you see the Liberty Bell for the first time, you're in all Oh my god, 220 years old. Mashallah. Mashallah, okay. Then you go to Europe, and then you see churches, eight, 900 years old, like Oh, wow. Then you go to

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China 5000 years old. And you realize, Wow, there is no history to compare with that. Right? We saw the terracotta warriors over there, which is honestly, it's just a mind boggling sight to see 10s of 1000s of people that have been carved by hand. As you all know, the story I don't have time to get into now. But basically one of these emperors he has these weird theology, one says, you know, soldiers with him when he dies, so $10 was at 60,000. I forgot how many 1000s and 1000s of soldiers are carved out one by one. You can see the eyes you can see the hand you can see the face. They literally took a person carved and took a person carved him and the whole army you can see it and

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it's still there for us to see. So you see over here, a civilization a history that it is again, mind boggling. And what came to mind to me when I was looking at this is the Quranic phrases that Allah spent Allah says over half a dozen verses progression.

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In the Quran pulsera fill out the form dodocase I can ask people to let him go traveling the land and see what was the fate of those before you can do a shadow them in Cancun, they had more power than you walk through and while and voila, they had more wealth, they're more money than you, you think you are powerful, they were more powerful than you. And when I traveled to these to that land, I really sensed it. How can any other civilization really compared to these mighty civilizations, once upon a time fit around, once upon a time, these Chinese civilizations, and so we benefit and we also wonder where they know what happened to them, just like they left We too shall leave. So that's

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a spiritual reminder for us that we need to keep our legacy. The third point for me is that every city we went to as well Subhana Allah, there were halal, restaurants and messages everywhere.

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It truly is something that boggles the mind. China, historically for the Middle East was always synonymous with the end of the world. And that's why there's the fabricated Hadith that is fabricated in Willow facin. Okay, it's fabricated. It's not an actual Hadith the Prophet never said it. It's an actual fabricated Hadith. go search for knowledge, even if you have to go to China. It's not a hadith is fabricated, but whoever fabricated it in the first century. Why did he say even if you have to go to China, because China was the furthest known land, the Mashallah she really wants so.

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I'll say she's a brave girl. Mashallah, let's have 200 that much.

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China was the furthest known land there is no land after China, obviously. The fact that Islam flourished in China, within a generation after the death of the Prophet system, it truly boggled my mind. And I was reminded of the Hadith over and over again, Hadith isn't Bahati. When the Sahaba complained to the Prophet system, and he was feeling a little cabin. He was in the shade of the caribou. And they complained and they said the rule of law for how long do we have to bear this torture, Yasuda law, what are we going to do? And he stood up irritated and he said, Are you in doubt about this matter? federal law he, this religion of of mine of Allah subhanho wa Taala it

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shall reach whatever the night and the day reaches, layer below unnamable aka layer one now. In the other Hadith the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that there is not a single house made out of sheduled or Weber and you either from you know clay and mud or hair or tent, except that Allah will pause this religion to enter it. There is Aziz and we do live the live weather in a state of Arizona or a state of Voodoo, this religion will enter that house and yet another heading of the Prophet sallallahu I sent him predicted in the Lucha tada zoa li and out of photo a tumor sharika Mahadeva Allah subhana wa tada unrolled or unfolded the world for me. And I could see the eastern

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most and the western most, and I saw that my Ouma shall reach the eastern most under Western most. Now. I said to my group, we had 100 people from predominantly America. I said Subhanallah we are coming from the western most region of the world. We had people from Los Angeles and Vancouver in our group, and we are visiting the eastern most region of the world. And we are fulfilling the legacy and the prophecy of our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who could have ever predicted that from Anchorage, Alaska, all the way to bank Beijing and Shanghai, the oma is going to span the globe. And the Muslims of the time the process of couldn't even imagine Medina much less Shanghai

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and Anchorage. Yet the prophets of Salaam said Allah unfolded the world for me and I saw the eastern most and the western most and my own Michelle reach the both of these ends, and Alhamdulillah the western most Muslims traveled to meet the eastern most Muslims, and we could communicate with them with the language of La ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasulullah what a prediction that proves the veracity and the truth of our Prophet and our religion. Who could ever have predicted this, who could ever have said this when they're being persecuted in Mecca, the books of Hadith are there in front of you, and our profitsystem made this amazing prediction. Another point of mine the last two

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points in that were done, inshallah. Another point that I reflected on is that wherever we saw the Chinese Muslims Subhanallah, they had this unique blend of Islam and China.

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They had this unique blend in their colors and their clothing, and their cuisine. Wherever we went, there was a slightly different cuisine. So by the way, all of these, you know, shows one in Hunan, and all the way

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When you go Chinese American, right, these are provinces of China. They actually are. And their cuisine is different. And there are Muslim cuisines as well. And wherever we went, we made a point to go to the halal restaurants of those local Muslims. And there are different cuisines each locality had a different Chinese flavor. The point I wanted to stress here is that Chinese Muslims, when you enter their mosques, when you hear them when you see them, you can see China and you can see Islam. It's a unique blend. They have a unique calligraphy It is called C no Arabic, Chinese Arabic calligraphy, the calligraphy You know, there's a famous Chinese calligrapher in America, he

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lives here. How do you know routine? Right? You have seen him on whatnot on YouTube, that calligraphy, right? We went to Cheyenne, and we saw it everywhere. It is the style of Islamic China. And it is a unique calligraphy that outwardly looks a little bit Chinese. But when you look at it, it's actually Arabic.

00:31:00--> 00:31:42

Likewise, you know, I talked to you about the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, building the mosque, how did he build the mosque? It had elements of a Buddhist temple elements How so? Lots of gardens, for contemplation, fountains, but it had been adopted by the local Muslims, and Islam is sized. And so it is a mosque that again outwardly the shape if I don't know any better looks a little bit like a pagoda. I'm not an expert, right? But the local Muslim said, No, no, you can tell by this this. So they tell you the differences, but the style for the untrained eye is uniquely Chinese. Yet it is Islamic. And why and where am I heading with this? Because one of the points you've heard me say

00:31:42--> 00:31:43

this many, many times.

00:31:45--> 00:31:58

Many of us we don't understand that in order for Islam to flourish in a land, it must adopt the culture and custom of that land, as far as the Sharia allows it to adopt.

00:31:59--> 00:32:41

There's nothing wrong with this. It is natural. How Muslims flourished in China is not how Muslims flourished in Nigeria. If we can understand this, which we all do, because we see it in our mosques, okay, Indonesian Muslims, they dress differently, then Muslims have other lens, right? Every Muslim identity is somewhat unique. Yet when somebody dares comes and says, oh, let's think of how we can have Islam flourish in America. Let's not even call it American Islam because people get so crazy when we say this, right? We need to have Islam flourish in America. What can we rethink through what can people get so flustered istockphoto Allah, Allah, there's one Islam, these are platitudes. These

00:32:41--> 00:33:24

are slogans that mean little, they become emotional doesn't mean anything. Islam has always been practiced, according to the culture of the land, as much as the culture allows you to practice it. Now, many Chinese people eat the pork pig. Obviously, Chinese Muslims cannot do that. But did they change the Mandarin language? No. Did they change the architecture of the machine very slightly, did they they adopted their local culture and Islam and they came forth with their own unique see no Arabic civilization. And the same happened across the globe wherever Islam went. And anybody who's from any Muslim land, we from India, Pakistan, how do we dress the has the process of them dressed?

00:33:24--> 00:34:05

The shuttle, Archimedes is not sooner per se. What's wrong with it, though? Nothing. How do the Chinese Muslims dress? How do they Nigerian, everybody has their own culture. Islam did not come to dictate to us our culture. Wherever we go, the culture of the land should be adopted as long as Islam allows it to be adopted. And we saw this a lot with our own eyes when we went to China. And again, it just underscored the point that Islam is going to flourish in any land that it has to adapt to the contours of that land as much as possible. Also, one of the things that we learnt as well is we need to minimize our judgement about other civilizations and other people's and other

00:34:05--> 00:34:09

Islamic cultures. So for example, when we first visited the mosque

00:34:11--> 00:34:55

the first mosque we visited was the one in Beijing, we saw a dragon on the outside and immediately some of our youngsters they stopped for a long hold in a hotel Villa How can this dragon be outside the mosque? Okay, immediately. And even I am wondering, what is this? Why is there a dragon outside the mosque? You know, the core, we're talking about the arch of the masjid as you walk in. You see the dirt not inside the mosque, but like essentially basically the entrance to MIT imagine Okay, the arch has them and then we went to Sheehan which is the one of the first mosques of China, and the oldest pillar there has a dragon inscribed on it a dragon. And again, stuck for a lot. How can the

00:34:55--> 00:34:59

Muslims do this? Why didn't they object and our guide non Muslim

00:35:00--> 00:35:26

Simply casually talking to us, explains and clarifies and makes us silent for the rest of the trip. ignorance, right? We're so quick to judge. So Pamela listen to the story, the dragon, and that time in place was the Emperor's seal. Nobody is allowed to use a dragon, other than the Emperor. Nobody by penalty of death.

00:35:27--> 00:35:40

Nowadays, you can buy a Dragon Anywhere and dragon back then only the Emperor, the symbol is the dragon. So if you see the dragon symbol outside any property, what does that mean?

00:35:43--> 00:35:48

The Emperor is telling you, you had better not mess with this property.

00:35:49--> 00:35:54

It is the protection of the Emperor that has been given to the Muslims of China.

00:35:55--> 00:36:30

Now you tell me would you not take that mob mentality This is so again, we're so quick to judge I will lie this is the problem of a little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Just a little bit of knowledge, you start being so judgmental. You have no clue. And even I I didn't judge, but I'm wondering what is going on? How can Muslims allow a car of Dragon outside the mosque? I'm wondering, I didn't say anything. But questions come to my mind. Because I want to know, now the guy casually just you didn't she didn't know we're having all these discussions you just said and you will see the dragon outside. And that is because the Emperor symbol and now it is protecting. So

00:36:30--> 00:36:51

everybody knows you're not allowed to disrespect anything inside. Now everything is clarified. And you're like, oh, wow, rather than be insulted, we feel a sense of pride that the Emperor actually gave his protection and made sure that nobody would harm the Muslims. That's the respect that those Muslims had in the eyes of the Emperor see no changes the entire situation.

00:36:53--> 00:37:05

positives now there was some negatives as well. For the last 70 years, as you know, the government has been a communist government very different now. 1949, when they made the country, the modern communist country of China.

00:37:07--> 00:37:46

And what this has done is that it has caused the government to be controlling every aspect of our citizens life, including the religious aspect. So what the government has done is essentially taken charge of the mosques completely, we're talking about the cities we went to, which is Beijing, Shanghai, Shanghai, and other you know, the main cities, we didn't go up north where the Xinjiang province, I'll talk about that at the end. What this means is that in the government, the only the only mosques have to have licenses, you have to be government approved. And the government appoints the moms, and the government trains, the moms.

00:37:48--> 00:38:12

So one thing that really, frankly, very much hurt me at the personal level of having studied in Medina for 10 years, and having had many Chinese friends. When I was in Medina, there were hundreds of Chinese students. And I didn't meet a single one of them. None of the graduates of Medina were employed by the government, obviously,

00:38:13--> 00:38:21

who is employed by the government, only those who graduate from the madrasa that's operated by the government.

00:38:23--> 00:38:30

And I have to say, some of the negatives. In fact, for me, this is the biggest negative that really, genuinely kind of depressed me.

00:38:31--> 00:39:05

None of the Imams I met, and I met only the government imams because I didn't go inside society. So I'm going to the literally imagine walking into MIT and whoever is here, the government appointed in China, that's the people I met, I didn't meet the locals inside because there's a language barrier. I don't have the contact details of those graduates because they are, you know, under suppression or whatnot. None of the Imams I met, even spoke Arabic, and their graduates of madrassas. None of them I met was even a half of the Quran and this really hurt me.

00:39:07--> 00:39:10

Some had memorized to Jews, some had memorized for Jews.

00:39:12--> 00:39:29

None of them could recite the Quran with Tajweed that we are accustomed to. So much so that one of our innocent brothers came up to me and he goes, which camera are they reciting? I said, it's not a camera is just, they don't have the tweet that we do.

00:39:31--> 00:39:59

They are cut off from now there are Chinese Muslims that have graduated from us that are graduated from Medina from other places, but they are not active. They are suppressed. They are not put to give kudos. We went to the mosque of Sheehan which is the largest mosque again the Tang Dynasty Emperor right it's a massive complex, please log on to my Facebook go over the last week's post and one by one. We went to this Grand Mosque.

00:40:00--> 00:40:36

of Shan there's three or four moms there. We met with them in broken Arabic. And we communicated and what not one of them. One of them had studied in Medina for a year or two, just the Arabic level, then he came back, and then he didn't actually graduated whatnot. Then he went through the system, and then he was appointed. So he was the one I could speak with him broken Arabic a little bit. And honestly, it was a very painful interview. We interviewed him with all of our group, you know, and it was just a painful interview, because every second sentence was, you know, we thank the Chinese government, we thank the Chinese government, we thank the Chinese government. He said, it's so often

00:40:36--> 00:40:37

that we got the point.

00:40:38--> 00:40:40

He has to say this.

00:40:42--> 00:41:26

He has to praise every second third, any question we ask, bring it back down. And then Alhamdulillah, the Chinese government has been great to us. Like no matter what question you asked, the third sentence has to be praised to the government. Right? So much. So we asked him a point blank question. Listen to this. Do you have the recording or even know who had the recording for that as he was with us? So we asked him this question, said can we did you ask him for somebody yet? Yes. azima asked the question about Dawa. So as I'm asked him, can you give Dawa to the non Muslims? Okay, look at how he flipped it around. Well, light, genius. And hamdulillah the Chinese government

00:41:26--> 00:41:32

has given us full freedom to speak about Islam, to anybody who comes here.

00:41:36--> 00:41:38

That was a that was a switcheroo.

00:41:40--> 00:41:46

You get you get the point here. Right. And hamdulillah the Chinese government has given us the full free he said it.

00:41:49--> 00:42:11

He said the full freedom to preach Islam, then added here to anybody who comes right here. Okay. He's not allowed to give one pamphlet outside. He's not allowed to say anything to anyone. If somebody for some bizarre reason wants to walk into the masjid. Right, then the Imam is free to talk, whatever they want. Okay. I asked him,

00:42:12--> 00:42:13

does he prepare his own hotel bus?

00:42:15--> 00:42:55

And he said, Yes, they do. And all the moms prepared their own hood bus. So this means that like some of the other Arab countries and whatnot, where essentially, the hood does have to be completely apolitical. Okay, you have to give a hoot about something that has nothing to do with politics is just, you know, human in philosophy. What could what not one thing that really hurt me This is the largest mosque in all of China, Sheehan mustard, the largest mosque. I said, This is my question to him after years, I said, Do you have any doodles or had a heart for the Muslims? For the Muslims that you have Hadith class Tafseer class, once again, Alhamdulillah we have the full freedom to

00:42:55--> 00:42:57

teach Islam in my house.

00:42:59--> 00:43:01

Not in the masjid.

00:43:02--> 00:43:16

Not a single halaqaat in the masjid. Or like I just my mind, just like blanked out. You cannot even have a hug of God to teach your fellow Muslims, about Islam.

00:43:17--> 00:43:58

So what do you expect then of the level of practicing? Right? What do you expect when you cannot really even go to that level? So unfortunately, this was definitely for me one of the very painful realities. And this is in the mainstream cities, right where Islam is essentially relegated now, I have no doubt that privately there will be drusen halaqaat. Underground. That's how Islam has flourished. I have no doubt. I didn't have access to those circles. Did I right. I have no doubt in basements underground, under cover, you will have the Medina graduates the other graduates, they'll have married two or three or four key students. But guess what, the minute a spy infiltrates

00:43:59--> 00:44:14

the guy's head is cut off or going to jail or whatever. That's those circumstances. They're going to be you know, teaching advanced Islam. As for the public eye, very superficial. their level of salah and tweet and Quran was

00:44:15--> 00:44:23

depressing for me personally. very depressing. This is in the main cities. I want to conclude final point and then headed over to Saturday, Mia.

00:44:24--> 00:45:00

Of course, this is in Beijing and Shanghai and the main cities realize even this is not happening in the province of East Turkistan, which is the province that they have called jinjiang. This is their name in 1947 47. They the Chinese government basically invaded this province which was not under Chinese control, and they occupied it and they acquired it and they basically made it a part of China and the people there they are more Turkish than they are Chinese. They don't speak

00:45:00--> 00:45:41

Mandarin, they don't speak Chinese ethnically, they're different. They're not the only Muslim. These are what are called the Uighur Muslims. Okay, and the wiegers are a branch of the Turkish people. They're not two branch of the Chinese people. And the wiegers have been humiliated. They have been colonized for the last 60 years. And obviously push has come to shove and the Uyghurs are now fighting back. Of course, they have been fighting for the last 67 years, but especially in the last decade, is just gone beyond that, because what has happened is essentially, the Han government has started sending in hundreds of 1000s of Han Chinese to take over all the businesses to control all

00:45:41--> 00:46:15

the government to rob the lands of the people. So what do you think that people are going to do their land, their livelihood, their education has been stripped away, just like, you know, Israel and Palestine, what's happening there. So what are the Uighur is going to do, they're doing what any people will do when they have been subdued and humiliated. So when they are now fighting back, the government is saying, oh, guy there terrorism there, ISIS there, even though they have nothing to do with those movements, right? They have nothing to do. They're fighting for their independence, the weaker independence. So as a tactic now, the situation has gone from bad to worse in the last five

00:46:15--> 00:46:39

years. And it is now a situation of catastrophe of the highest magnitude. The UN and amnesty and others have said that this is one of the worst cases of human rights violations since World War Two is taking place right now in that province of Xinjiang or East Turkistan, where essentially the government now has taken the Uighur people as an enemy.

00:46:40--> 00:47:16

And they are attempting to wipe out Uighur civilization, by force. And they're doing this by forcing them to give up their language, their culture and of course, their religion. So the Chinese government are not attacking the hooey. They're allowing them to pray five times a day. And they're not attacking the other 10 ethnicities that are living in mainland China. They're attacking the Uighur province only because of the quote unquote uprising that theirs that they claim is taking place. And the tactics are truly terrifying.

00:47:18--> 00:48:08

They will make you their hair grow white mass incarceration, the likes of which has not been seen since Nazi Germany. This is what the UN has said the likes of which has not been seen since Nazi Germany, not 1000s not 10s of 1000s. It is said hundreds of 1000s of people have been rounded up at will and taken into concentration camps right now as we speak, where they are forced to be indoctrinated into the Han culture, Mandarin language, forced to eat pork, forced to not pray, basically cannot live their lives as Muslims, those that are not taken to the concentration camps. Within the Uighur population. The Han Chinese are now living amongst them. They say we are guests.

00:48:08--> 00:48:47

They'll walk into your house to say we are a guest. What does that mean? You're a government agent and you have the right to occupy the house and live in it at the expense of the host weaker and they're going to monitor that you're not praying. You're not reading Koran. You're not doing anything Islamic. This is like the Inquisition if you go if you know what happened. This is like the Inquisition when the Catholics would send people to monitor so the Han government is now doing this to the Uighur population. Recently there was an article where muslimahs are being forced to marry Han Chinese any Chinese person hand any hand I should say not any hand person can say I want to

00:48:47--> 00:49:09

bride and the local government there the Uighur which is Han government will literally hand one of our sisters over and forcibly married to this man with a villa and nothing can be done. This is a forcible marriage where the goal being to eradicate her identity her children are going to be hon she is no longer a Muslim. And then of course last week there was a article where

00:49:10--> 00:49:47

sisters who have long skirts they're being stopped and their their skirts are being cut in public so that they become mini skirts that you're not allowed to wear. Forget a job because hijab was banned last year, hijab was banned last year Koran was banned last year. Ramadan was banned last year, two years they have no no fasting you're not allowed to fat. In the broad daylight there is a table of food in Ramadan. And the weekers are forced to have free lunch on the government. What does that mean? If you don't eat you will be whipped, killed, tortured, taken away. Everybody is forced to eat and one of the Uighur brothers came to me and said his own brother had been arrested and he wants to

00:49:47--> 00:50:00

know the fatwa Can he eat in the daylight of Ramadan to save his life? This was I had to answer this question Is he allowed to eat in the daylight of Ramadan because he is being forced as a teacher school teacher. They took him in front of everyone

00:50:00--> 00:50:34

Buddy and they basically gave him a plate of food in Ramadan. And he noticed Ramadan, obviously, they're not going to give him a free lunch and show well, by the way, hmm, the free lunch is only in Ramadan because they know and he has to eat the food over there. So what is happening right now is a persecution of the likes of which we have not seen since World War Two, and the government to silent as you know, and the local and the world decided this is the reality Unfortunately, the oma unfortunately will often with Stan, so the least we can do is to thank Allah subhana wa tada for our own blessings and to make sure that we do whatever we can to help them out in our doors in our

00:50:34--> 00:51:10

prayers and our public awareness. I don't think we can even give money to them at this stage because the government has blocked everything. We could not go there physically, obviously, it would not even be safe for us to go. But we did meet some of them in other cities. And if they happen to be in other cities, then they're monitored, but they're allowed to pray in those cities. So it's really that province, where Islam is being clamped down upon no Juma no Ramadan, no hijab, no Koran, that province, the Xinjiang province. As for the other cities, as I said, if you do a government control, sanitized version of Islam, then you're allowed to eke out an existence over there. In conclusion,

00:51:10--> 00:51:48

it was an eye opening trip, it was a humbling trip. For me. It was something that again, I learned a lot from, and I came back with a renewed sense of appreciation, you know, no matter how bad it is over here, and yes, it is getting worse than it used to be in the end of the day and Hamdulillah, we thank Allah for the freedoms of this land. We thank Allah we're allowed to pray and worship as we see fit. And we pray that the people of this land never forget what their own Founding Fathers wanted of this country, which is the freedom to worship as you see fit. And that's one of the things that perhaps we as Muslims have to become the reminders because the majority seem to be forgetting

00:51:48--> 00:52:24

that the majority seem to be forgetting why this country was founded upon the principle of freedom of worship, they're changing that reality. And perhaps we are that little litmus test that we have to keep on reminding that we don't want to go down the route of China. We don't want to go into other countries, and Alhamdulillah I thank Allah that no matter how bad it is, there is no government control of our religious freedoms. And we pray that remains that way. So shall we open up for for q&a until Southeast Asia just will delay Russia by 10 minutes. So we'll have some q&a show, whatever I can't, because again, I'm not an expert in the history of Islam in China, but whatever

00:52:24--> 00:52:24

inshallah. Bismillah.

00:52:40--> 00:52:45

So, um, so the is the comment that even Christians have

00:52:46--> 00:53:19

restrictions and that that's exactly the point is not just against Muslims, even Christians there. So basically, if you're not a part of the dominant culture, you're viewed with a little bit of suspicion. So even Christians that are foreigners, when they go to church, they will have to, you know, take their passports with them. So I'll tell you one thing that happened when we were at the hotel of the city of Cheyenne. So one of the purposes of coming with me and my colleague was with Southern Marisa, was that you get to, you know, ask Islamic questions have had the hardest point, you go in the Muslim group that take care of everything. So every evening, we just have a sit down,

00:53:19--> 00:54:02

just chill and q&a. So one evening, we had it in the hotel lobby, and it just so happened that 70 of the group came like majority usually half come or something this time was 70. And some how to love there was a somebody that came in a walkie talkie uniform, taking pictures speaking into the microphone, and then just left. And it's like, you don't get that type of stuff in other places where just having a simple we're eating ice cream, eunomia ice cream, okay, we're sitting in the lobby eating ice cream, and just chill, just, you know, q&a, nothing. But it raised concern somebody called security, like the secret security on us somebody is coming. photographs are taken now, from

00:54:02--> 00:54:04

what I understand.

00:54:05--> 00:54:42

There was because there was no Chinese person amongst us. So they're a little bit lacks. But had there been somebody you know, that that is from the land, then that person is going to have to be pulled aside face question and whatnot. But I think the government understands that if you're a foreigner, they don't want a PR scandal. They don't want something like that. So they let these types of things go where you know, you do that, obviously, I forgot to mention so one of the things about Cheyenne was the Muslim province or the Muslim quarters that was founded by the original Muslims is still there. And it is called the Muslim Quarter of shin and it is one of the highlights.

00:54:42--> 00:54:59

In fact, for many of us, it was the highlight of the entire of the entire tour. The Masjid is in the middle of the quarter and all the round are Muslim shops. So you get different Muslim foods, the street bazaars, they're all the different types of exotic foods, no insects over there because it's Muslim right. But you

00:55:00--> 00:55:41

squids and shrimp and, you know, weird, you know, sea creatures and whatnot, just, you know, different types of food being sold over there. And our guide told us and she wasn't a Muslim. Our guide told us that people from all of the surrounding neighborhoods and cities, they come as a day out to treat their kids to the Muslim province. The food over there is what you treat your kids out to. Okay, so people go there, and we will and we saw this the majority of people there were non Muslim, the shoppers and the shops are all halal and Muslim. So the entire quarter is called the Muslim Quarter. And the mosque is in the middle. And there's you know, the all the different types

00:55:41--> 00:56:20

of merchandise and, you know, one of the calligrapher we had a calligrapher there and he wrote calligraphy for us, that's, you know, Arabic calligraphy. And then the street is full of shops of food, just street food, and it's delicious, exotic, very different cuisine. And interesting. hamdulillah I forgot to mention other point I didn't forget that didn't have time. So Subhanallah in China, obviously, the majority of people have not traveled outside the country. Right. And Beijing and Shenzhen and Shanghai are major cities that the villagers come to just to go somewhere. Like to them going to Beijing is like one of us going to California for example, to show our the Yellowstone

00:56:20--> 00:56:35

Park or something like this. Okay. So believe it or not, no tour of mine have I had more pictures of me taken? Not because I'm shifting, I sell coffee. But because I'm a brown skin bearded guy.

00:56:37--> 00:57:17

I'm not joking with you, you know, zoom was there, you know, my wife, others, are they they can testify to this? We're walking in the street. And Chinese families come up to us and they're taking our photos and laughing they're laughing like they've never seen somebody like this. They've had their kids come and they pose with us. They have no clue that it is just we are so exotic to them. Okay, sisters and hijaab brothers and beards this skin color everything is exotic to them. Right? That they they they want to take a picture of this so I was very bemused that there are still people like this that they only know their own culture they were talking about the villagers that come in

00:57:18--> 00:57:59

and they are I mean you know I don't even know how to say this to like you haven't seen a large city until you go to China forget New York forget Chicago forget la forget there's nothing compared to Shanghai and Beijing there's nothing I mean these cities they are obviously the largest cities in the world you need to go there to see like how large a city can be and of course they're so large so obviously therefore the villagers they come in and people from other they come in and so yes for them they've never seen an outsider, you yourself become a tourist attraction. So we went to the Beijing the Summer Olympics of 2008 were in Beijing right? We went to that

00:58:00--> 00:58:00

the park

00:58:01--> 00:58:09

the nest exactly the nest Yeah, went to that the nest is a beautiful park or whatnot. Rather than taking pictures of the architecture the people were taking pictures of us

00:58:10--> 00:58:37

so we became the tourist attraction like 100 people okay all brown skin and you know, hit jobs and exotic clothing and whatnot. Okay, I told my wife you start charging money it'll pay for my ticket home and let's say she charges charged some some Yuan here and so everybody's doing that I'm done. Anyway, it was an interesting to be the center of attention not because of who I am, because of who I'm not I don't know. It was interesting for me I'm Lila other comments specifically.

00:58:39--> 00:58:41

What we can do as you suggested number

00:58:43--> 00:58:46

number two what I did two weeks ago, Fox News

00:58:47--> 00:58:48

article about

00:58:54--> 00:58:57

COVID wrote to Washington DC and is a

00:59:02--> 00:59:06

great country because it's such a powerful and

00:59:08--> 00:59:13

it's very sad to see how he provided the human rights. So then I put all my friends to the links of the text.

00:59:21--> 00:59:35

So maybe complaining to the Chinese Embassy here as well. Whatever it will do, I mean, whatever. It's better than nothing. I mean, this is some some type of PR. I think as well PR re raise the PR in your circle of friends, you know, your Facebook and your email do that.

00:59:51--> 00:59:51

of knowledge

01:00:11--> 01:00:54

So, very good question and unfortunately will not be able to answer it thoroughly because I don't know. The question is how do the Muslims then of these cities maintain their Islam when there's no halaqaat? No gurus. And to be honest, I don't know, because we were not one of the biggest problems for us in China is the language, the language barrier. Wherever I have been in the world, you always find some people who speak English. In China, nobody spoke English like nobody other than our guys. Literally, nobody, the shopkeepers, the but I could not none of our group could even take a taxi. Because the communication is just not there. You are literally dependent on the guide. The only

01:00:54--> 01:01:31

person who spoke English was the guide, we hired to speak English, nobody else spoke. So. So we had the Chinese brother who, again, one of our one of our brothers was Chinese, so he helped us but otherwise we're completely disconnected. So we were not able to have a detailed conversation, number one, number two, even if we could, the people we interviewed could not be giving us that answers, because they're the government employees, you know, so what we were trying to ensure I hope that's one of the reasons I keep on going is to maybe get to that underground system of Who else is there? How are they preaching Islam? Let me just say, though, that it was obvious to me that the level of

01:01:31--> 01:01:49

knowledge was pretty dismal, very low, and I saw some practices even in the solid that you know, it was just for example, I'll give you one example. I mean, you can tell this is not coming out of any fix any nothing is just something happened along the way. And they started doing it. When the more advanced said,

01:01:51--> 01:01:58

are the karma. Karma to Sala he stopped. And that point, the Imam said Allahu Akbar,

01:01:59--> 01:02:40

in the middle of the karma, set, Allahu Akbar. And all of us we were there were five locals 100 us. Okay, so we're just like, pause, like, what, what just happened here? What just happened? And then he finishes the karma, while the Imam is basically reciting to her there. You know, like, Where did that come from? There's no Muslim that ever teachers and preachers does nothing. But it's happening over there. How did it happen? I have no idea. But you can understand how the Alma de hombre salla Allahu Akbar, he made a camo sweater. Okay. And then he finishes the camo while the Salah is going on.

01:02:41--> 01:03:23

It's very strange. And then again, other practices as well. So, to me, it seemed, and again, I mean, I have the event recorded on my iPhone. To be honest, if you didn't know it was the event you wouldn't even hear the add on in it. Because it's a very, the pronunciation is so different for us, you know, it's not gonna come the boys not gonna come here that well. So it's like, they're cut off. I mean, generally speaking, at least the weed is preserved around the globe. Generally speaking, you know, you go to even india pakistan and I learned my lesson here compared to them Mashallah Xbox 90 movies, they spread, they have their boss Abdul Samad, Mashallah all of them, forget what is widely

01:03:23--> 01:03:30

known, let it pass, okay, at least as well as worldly. And you can at least understand those Muslims Yani there, they're just cut off.

01:03:34--> 01:04:17

So obviously, Islam has become a cultural practice for them more, you know, this is now and it and the fact that they are, who we are, they are whatever they are khazar, or whatever. So Islam is a part of their cultural identity these groups, and they would have passed down what they need to know, such as the header, we saw a few ladies in the job. And again, I was very interesting, the type of job that we saw, very different than anything I've ever seen. never seen anything like it again, the style was very unique. And this was not the hooey. This was another one of the 10 I don't know which one but it was just a very unique, you know, literally like almost like a nun, you know,

01:04:17--> 01:04:34

but it was and the hijab had decorations like very interesting style, never, never in my life, seen it. So they're practicing Islam in their own way. But it's very clear to me that they have been disconnected from the rest of the world, they were only allowed to go for Hajj since 1979.

01:04:35--> 01:04:51

You know, before that point in time, the communist government would not even allow them to go for Hajj. So it's only been since 1980. Basically, where there's been a little bit of leeway. With a lot of conditions, you can go for Hajj. With some conditions you can go so it's still kind of sort of

01:04:52--> 01:04:56

controlled climate what can be done other than this, you know? Yes, pretty good.

01:05:00--> 01:05:10

To the world about our situation, I'm from Pakistan, from that region called cynjohn. new territory. One more thing I can have.

01:05:12--> 01:05:15

Everybody's DNA samples, taken

01:05:16--> 01:05:33

25 to 35 million Weaver's in that region. And then every one person for every family for two persons are in concentration camps. Now they are taking their organs freely, if any Chinese and Chinese.

01:05:34--> 01:05:37

Now recently I read the news that they are selling organs.

01:05:48--> 01:05:55

So our brother, here he is from the Xinjiang province, I'm not going to mention his name, because this is on on.

01:05:56--> 01:06:41

We're going to be broadcasting this later on on YouTube. But he himself by the way, he's not saying this, but he himself has been harassed here in this land. The consulate has called him and his family up, and he cannot go back. He does not even know the whereabouts of his own family. He has not spoken to his own mother for years. And he is a US citizen, what do you think about the rest. So just imagine that situation, he cannot go back, he has no clue what's happening. Even here, the consulate has called him up, harassed him as much as possible, they want him to come, you know, to China, and as if he's going to go at this stage, you know, and what he has told us is that they have

01:06:41--> 01:07:17

forcibly taken the DNA of basically all of the the Uighur population. And in every household, at least one person is in the concentration camp. And of course, that is like the threat obviously understand is going to keep them in control. In May Allah protect Imagine if one of your children were taken, what are you gonna do for the rest of them? Who don't? So that's the psychology. As I say, even amnesty has said, This is the worst travesty of human rights since Nazi Germany. Right, this is what they themselves are saying. And then the issue that we're now hearing, which is again, mind boggling, and that is that the people that are killed, or maybe even intentionally killed, we

01:07:17--> 01:07:25

don't know, their organs are now being harvested and sold. Our Muslim brothers and sisters, their organs are being now sold. And

01:07:26--> 01:07:48

if anybody needs an organ and amongst the hand population that will be getting it from, it's like unbelievable, the stories that are being heard. And these are again, it's complete undercover in the sense that there's no media allowed there. But these are all the people that managed to come out this is what they're saying. This is what they're saying in the the rumors that are spreading well long was done, what can be done in this time?

01:07:50--> 01:07:51

Yes, good.

01:07:56--> 01:08:17

So the Uyghurs passports and identity cards has been taken. And they cannot travel. Yes, this is also true. So when they want to flee, they cannot flee. They cannot flee because they don't have identity cards. They don't have passports. So it is a mass. Basically, humans rights murder. This is a war crime essentially, is exactly what's going on right now. Hold on Mustang is good.

01:08:34--> 01:09:14

So remember, all of this that is happening of the travesties is in one province far up north, and the main cities and whatnot, we did not face any problems whatsoever. And like I said, we were the object of curiosity and attention. And our guides told us that by and large, the Chinese people of those provinces IE, Beijing, and Shanghai and whatnot, the local indigenous Chinese, the Hawaii, they are considered to be a part and parcel of the fabric of China. You know, so there's not much discrimination in that region. Because again, the government has kept it under control. You have to follow the protocol. If you do then you can flourish. So like I said, you know, if you want to pray,

01:09:14--> 01:09:31

you can go to the mosque and pray, but don't pray outside. We were told where and that's why we had to schedule them outside in the mosques, because we were not. We were told that we you don't want to be praying outside anywhere. You know, not at home. You can pray at home. Yes, but I'm seeing in public. He's

01:09:32--> 01:09:56

not in the hotel lobby. We wanted to, you know, pray in the hotel lobby. We managed to pray fudger, one day at 4am. We had to leave at 430. So the guy allowed us just quickly to it and leave. So we prayed budget. Nobody was there at 4am. Otherwise, we were told Don't make a scene in public. In a one time we had a problem with NASA and the train station and you know, our guides like no, no, we'll schedule you in the mosque over here. Then we go to the train station. don't pray in the train station.

01:10:00--> 01:10:17

is we had an interesting, interesting experience where our group went on a beautiful boat ride in the guillotine city, which is one of the most scenic cities in China. And the boat had 140 people, of which 100 or us

01:10:18--> 01:10:32

majority were us. So we legitimately hijack the boat. So we went to the roof and we had had an officer Salah on the roof and hamdulillah we managed to do that.

01:10:33--> 01:11:00

Yeah, not Juma. It was Juma. We didn't do what Voges did the harasser hamdulillah shell, but we were told by our guys do not pray in public or else you might get into trouble. So it's something again, this is not to you're not in America again. That's the point in America, the max they're going to do is just, you know, I mean, it's legal to pray in public as a point. The max is somebody but he might say something rude or crude or something, but you're not going to go to jail for praying in public, you know, but you know.

01:11:01--> 01:11:04

So in a final point, bishops final questions.

01:11:10--> 01:11:13

So the Great Wall of China,

01:11:14--> 01:11:42

we went obviously to the Great Wall, there's obviously not just one area, it's a very massive wall. And if you want to go to the Great Wall, you will only go to one section, obviously right? So we went to one section, and you could climb 8000 steps, you know, to get to the top we can go from the bottom to the top 8000 steps Mashallah some of our guys went all the way to the top. Did you know Okay, Abdi did

01:11:44--> 01:11:48

Abdi Mashallah bada cola wears out, he's not here, when he comes, remind him.

01:11:50--> 01:11:50

He's still resting.

01:11:54--> 01:12:41

They went all the way to the top and came back to wash off the bottle cola. As for me, I, I admitted to everybody a middle aged man. Okay, I have admitted and come to terms with my middle aged status. So I went one fourth 2000. And I said that's good enough. So, and those steps are pretty larger to the they're not like small stuff, but to again, to me what I really to be again, on a serious note, the sheer size and determination of a civilization to build something so large. How much manpower you know, as you know, it is the only man made structure that is visible from space, right? It's the only man made structure that is visible from space. And when you see it as far as the eye can see in

01:12:41--> 01:13:23

both directions coming up and down mountains. So, again, there's no sense until you see it. Like this is something you've never seen the likes of this anywhere because it is one of the wonders of or one of the only original wonders that is still standing. So it is an awe inspiring sight to see. And just the amount of dedication that they had to build this wall to protect them from the Mongols, you know, they're worried about the Mongols and whatnot. Over there. I did a quick video is on my Facebook channel, where I talked about the myth that the Great Wall of China is the wall of the judge. That's a myth, complete fabric fabrication, no basis to it. But I just wanted to get rid of

01:13:23--> 01:13:50

that myth on the Great Wall of China. So I said the wall of jujitsu or Judo is supposed to protect people on one side from the other. Right now you see Chinese people going back and forth, there is no protection. So it's not the wall of your jujitsu, judo. Okay, so this is a myth out there. Sharla. So shall we dakolo Hey, we had a wonderful evening. Sharla. So we'll call it an evening for today and inshallah we'll resume our regular halaqaat sometime in August to shallow Todd.

01:14:03--> 01:14:09

We're looking at a mostest called a fourth one last 600 years old

01:14:10--> 01:14:27

Beijing. And we're now going to just go a quick tour inside of the mosque. I'm here with around 100 people or so from America and Australia and Portugal, and Fox and other places. And we're now doing a tour of the other

01:14:28--> 01:15:00

mosques there as well. So we see over here, an interesting architectural song first came to China around the time of the taboo and the notion that side of never cost came is something that most of the scholars do not consider to be. True story, most likely It was during the time of the Obama years. And if you look now, at the oldest mosques of this country, they go back to around 1200 years. And one of the most beautiful things about the Chinese Islamic culture is the fact that they've merged elements

01:15:00--> 01:15:33

their culture was, of course, the religion of Islam. And that's demonstrated not only in the language, not within the architecture, even in the script of Arabic, their practices and their understanding of Islam. It's something that inshallah, you know, I'm going to be speaking more about. But if you hear my lectures and talks, a lot of times I talk about a climatized, in Islam to our local environments and cultures. And that's something as you're probably aware that you're listening to me, a very big heart. And when you come to places like China, you actually see this firsthand because you see that these Muslims here, they adopted to, they took their culture, and

01:15:33--> 01:16:06

they took Islam. And they came forth with a civilization that is a very, very unique, it's see no Islamic, it's Islamic China. And that's really the way that Islam has in practice across the globe. And as we now are exploring a new world for us, the new world of America, England and Canada, they're going to have to be adaptions and changes, it's going to have to be fine tuning, there's going to have to be an adoption of certain aspects of our culture. And we find that there is resistance there's an ongoing controversy. And that's a healthy discussion and dialogue to what level do we adapt to what level do we change, that's something that this is not the time place to

01:16:06--> 01:16:43

get into in this particular video. But my point here is to demonstrate I will do this in future videos as well. Wherever Islam went, it adapted to an A climatized, the culture that it was in, and the people there had to discard some of their practices and they retained some of their practices. So inshallah in the next future videos, we're going to talk more about aspects of Islam in China. For today's video, the main point I wanted to stress is that this this country, China has been part of the Islamic civilization heritage for over 1300 years, Islam came here in the Omega timeframe. And as I want to reiterate the story that's added Nicholas came here actually, it is not

01:16:43--> 01:17:23

historically authentic, sided, and it will cost in fact, none of the Sahaba actually came to China. It is one of those myths and legends that we hear about. Most likely, it occurred in the time of the tab the room for sure, in the top of their buses. There were diplomatic relations between the Tang Dynasty and the ambassador Caliphate how not Rashid exchange ambassadors with the Tang Dynasty, so for sure, if we had diplomatic relations already established by that time, then of course, there must have been much more before that, I shall I will continue later I have my bustles to close. So I will make sure all the resume in a while. And every few days or so by the way, the the social

01:17:23--> 01:17:36

platform that I'm currently using is not accessible from this country, let's just say that there are ways around it. So that's all I'm gonna say for now. Otherwise, it is not allowed to access this particular social platform. Okay, that's all for now.

01:17:51--> 01:17:55

Okay, we are live at the Great Wall of China.

01:17:59--> 01:18:00

And we are now

01:18:01--> 01:18:02

one of the

01:18:03--> 01:18:08

signposts here, the watch towers, unfortunately, you can't see in the distance, but

01:18:10--> 01:18:19

wall is 3500 kilometers, the only man made structure you can see from space. And it is one of the wonders of the world. One of the seven wonders of

01:18:25--> 01:18:27

the fact that he got here is the eighth wonder of

01:18:35--> 01:18:37

your life. What would you like to say?

01:18:38--> 01:18:39

I'm so happy to be

01:18:41--> 01:18:42

under 10

01:18:44--> 01:18:46

and you are the square root of 25 wonder of the world.

01:18:50--> 01:18:51

Okay.

01:18:53--> 01:19:01

So, this is as far as our group is gonna go for some of our group, some have bravely ventured beyond and some have stayed at the bottom. But

01:19:03--> 01:19:12

definitely a sight are worth seeing. And by the way, this wall was built to protect the Chinese from the main goal, the potential Mongol invasion,

01:19:13--> 01:19:30

under the wonders of the world, inshallah, tomorrow, we'll be live from one of the most famous and oldest masajid of Beijing, and I'll be giving a longer commentary about the Muslims of China in that particular video. So for now, let me just go over here.

01:19:32--> 01:19:33

I'm giving you for now.

01:19:36--> 01:19:38

Of course, the wall goes much higher, as you can see,

01:19:39--> 01:19:47

some of our group members are going all the way to the top 3500 steps to the top. How many sets was this that we

01:19:48--> 01:19:54

do not? We've done 2000 Yes. So we've done 2000 and we will

01:19:55--> 01:19:59

we will Oh sorry. 8000 steps, right eight? Yes. Okay, so the top is 8000

01:20:00--> 01:20:11

steps we've done 2000 of them, and this is our distance. And we will be pausing over here and going back down. Okay. I will see you guys in Sharla live again tomorrow within the data center.

01:20:25--> 01:21:07

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. I am in the city of Beijing and the Muslim quarters of the city of Beijing. The majority of people who live in this vicinity are Muslim. Obviously the majority are still people of other faiths and ethnicities here. And the restaurants all around us our restaurants have halal food, you can probably hear me munching on something right now. We're standing in front of the new g Masjid. And this is the oldest and the largest Masjid in the city of Beijing. And it was built in the year 390, roughly of the hedgerow, so that is 1100 years old. Now obviously, the current structure is not 1100 years old. current structure is probably around 400

01:21:08--> 01:21:48

years old, but the location of the mosque is the same location that has been here since the beginning of its construction over 1100 years ago. What you are seeing here, this is the halal moon sighting tower of Beijing. This is the Hillel moon sighting tower of Beijing for the Muslims for over 1000 years that would climb to the very top to site to the halal kosher world. And the Hillel for of course, the month of Ramadan and shotguns. And obviously, or the Hillel of the villager for Hajj. And it wasn't used up until I think the 1950s was what I understand. But it was something that the Muslims of Beijing, they would declare there either. And they would declare the month from

01:21:48--> 01:22:31

observing the helipad from that tower over here, or currently outside of the complex I'm going to walk in this is I think, going to be a relatively long video. So bear with me, and inshallah it'll be posted. So for those that are not watching live, they can watch a shot of lozada when I posted, this is the entrance of the message. Welcome to the Luigi messages now, new g the new gms jet that is actually translates as the place of the oxygen. And the reason why it is called the place of the oxygen is because the halaal market was around here back in the day 1000 years ago, and the Muslims ate ox as their primary meat. And so it was called the place of the oxen because that's where ox

01:22:31--> 01:23:13

meat would be sold and we walked around and actually I saw different types of meat Oh hello duck and had chicken and all different types of animals being sold still to this day. So this semester there's the oxen messenger because of the location of the of the Helen meat shops here. We're walking now past what is the Woodville area. This is the blue area that has been converted obviously the blue area and I'm going to take you firstly to an interesting place a there's an outside location of the graves of certain people and then it will take you inside. So bear with me and shot lozada we're gonna keep the masjid area to the end. This is the masjid area over there. We're gonna

01:23:13--> 01:23:55

keep that to the end. All of this is the Imam headquarters. So wherever there's the Imams, they live within the masjid complex. So there's an Imam, dormitory. You can see over there if you can read mo dormitory. So this is where the Imams live. And we just had a conversation with their main Imam. He very graciously came outside and spent time with us and explain to us some of the peculiarities. So one of the aspects of this community of Muslims is that the Imams that are employed by the government have only trained locally by and large. It is very rare to find a foreign trained Imam, somebody graduated from HUD or Medina, generally speaking, they do not employ them. These are the

01:23:55--> 01:24:30

government madrasahs. So the curriculum is very different. And the Imam even though he is the main Imam of the main, a mosque of Beijing, still he could not speak Arabic with me except very broken. And I asked him if he's a half whether or not and he said, No, they only memorize for Jews in this particular matter. So this is the government madrasa. The madrasa has been controlled by the government, so they graduate from this federal state and then they are employed by the government to you know, give the services here. So obviously, as you all understand, I cannot be too explicit but this country controls aspects that are not controlled in other countries just leave it at that for

01:24:30--> 01:24:59

now but I hope you will understand what I'm saying this is a map of the masjid I'm going to just pause over here. Go over this slowly so that you get an idea of how large this is a massive complex I don't have that. I do not have time in this video to go over this entire region. What we will do right now we are at the men's ablution chamber and the amount dormitory and we just are passing the boiler room. I will then show you the shapes tombs, and then we will go to the worship Hall have already showed you the moon observatory tower tower. I've already showed you that.

01:25:00--> 01:25:40

We will go back in from the shifts tombs and they will go to the minaret and then inside the original worship Hall, that's what we're going to do. We will not be able to see the other locations of the mosque because time is limited. What I really found intriguing it really moved me immensely. I know nothing about these two men. As of yet I will hope to look up I'm going to do my research when they get back home. I don't know anything about these two men. And yet My heart is full of love and admiration and honor because this sheer, highly emotional called the mother dinner Buhari and Chef Achmed albir. For me, Erica Sweeney, we learned that these two people traveled from their lands

01:25:40--> 01:26:21

of water, and from their lands have been over 600 years ago, they came here sorry, 800 years ago, excuse me. They came here 800 years ago from their lands as scholars, and they came to teach the Muslims of this region, their religion, their purpose for leaving their lands in their homes, was to teach the Muslims of Beijing of China and they spent their lives teaching the Muslims and they died over here. And ever since that point in time, they have been buried and you see the of the original tombstones over here as well. And Subhana Allah, it really moves me that odema this is what you call real jihad. This is what you call people sacrificing everything for the sake of Allah subhana wa

01:26:21--> 01:26:55

Taala. And to this day, I know nothing about them. I don't even know you know anything about their backgrounds, and yet My heart is full of admiration and all and love. And I ask that Allah subhana wa tada blesses these people with agenda to fulfill those for their sacrifice for having come so far to this furthest regions of the world in order to teach the people their religion. And it is perhaps because of efforts like these, that Allah subhanaw taala blessed the Muslims of these lands to be able to survive for so long, relatively cut off from the rest of the world. And I'll speak about that in another video in the future. And it's all about how Muslims or China are somewhat different

01:26:55--> 01:27:36

in some aspects. So here we find the main Pavilion. And as I mentioned, in my previous video, we find this is Chinese. This is the minaret of the Chinese Mosque, the oven was given for 1000 years from this location more than 1000 years, actually 1250 years that was given from this location. Look at it. us as American eyes as Western eyes. I look at this and I think oh, this is Chinese, this is a pagoda. And yet, this is the Muslim minaret and I don't recognize it as a minaret that the Chinese Muslims saw this and they knew this is the minaret, this is what would have been one of the largest structures 1000 years ago, this is around 4050 feet high. So in that time, there was really only one

01:27:36--> 01:28:04

storey buildings. So this would be the icon of these messages. And this is where they would give the van from and claim of course five times a day to hear the name of a law and to mention the kalama being said loudly for all of the Muslims of this region to hear. And this is the weather we cannot go up obviously inside that it is blocked. Here again, we have some of the ancient structures and architectures. This is now a meeting hall.

01:28:05--> 01:28:43

And I want you to see this was built in 1442. This was built 700 800 or 700 years ago, and it was used to teach in and to have classes it is now a reception room. And it is used for visiting dignitaries. But this was a mini madrasa where students would memorize the Quran, they would learn the basics of Islamic law, and they would basically become people acquainted with their religion. Here again, this is just a simple example of the amalgamation of Islam which ends with Islamic you know, Chinese motifs and symbols. You see, this is the CNO Arabic Pacino Arabic script, as I mentioned, you know, there's different types of script, there's Moroccan script, there's screwfix

01:28:43--> 01:29:24

script, there's a script called C no Arabic, right. And this is the you know, you see a Chinese esque if you like calligraphy, and yet it is Arabic. And that's what I mentioned, the local people, they make their own culture and civilization, and they merge it with the religion of Islam and their own civilization to produce something as beautiful as gorgeous as explicit as this. I have never in my life seen this type of architecture in a mosque because obviously this is a Chinese mosque. So what do you expect from that? So it's a very, very beautiful structure with intricate designs, look at the bright colors, because the motifs and designs here we have the plaque of one of the Emperor's

01:29:24--> 01:29:59

who wouldn't be able to pronounce his name, I'm sorry, 600 years ago, the one of the Emperor's he visited the mosque, and he put a plaque here. Now obviously, the Emperor is not a Muslim. So the plaque has, you know, designs that are obviously not fully Islamic, but the Emperor visited the mosque and he basically declared the mosque to be a sacred ground, you know, for the Muslims. So it is something that he gifted if you like, Well, not quite gifted was already there. This is the sundial that they would use to look at the timings of the Salah. And if you notice carefully, you will find the Chinese characters so the most

01:30:00--> 01:30:18

limbs of old would actually use this sundial to calculate the timings of the slider. Here we have another plaque that was given by one of the Emperor's 1496 it was gifted to the mosque. So the Emperor's would visit this mosque, this is a plaque inside the mosque.

01:30:19--> 01:30:20

And

01:30:21--> 01:31:01

I cannot obviously decipher anything on this plaque. It is written in Chinese. But it is, if you can look, I don't know if you're able to see or not, you can see the Chinese characters here. And it is a plaque that, once again, is a commemoration for one of the dignitaries one of the Emperor's visiting this mosque. Let me try to see if I can show you so this is the Chinese characters that are showing the message of the Emperor to the Chinese Muslims of Beijing, where he's appreciating their efforts and he's basically allowing them permission or basically commemorating his visits to the mosque I'm now going to enter the original mosque This is again just another plaque. So there's this

01:31:01--> 01:31:23

mosque is surrounded by plaques of various employees. This is another plaque over here, you see of course, La ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasulullah over there, and this is another plaque we're now going to enter the actual mosque structure is a little bit dark. So I hope that's my iPhone is able to adjust the shutter level data this will not change Okay, this will not let us see. So this is the

01:31:24--> 01:31:38

actual Masjid structure. I do not read Chinese I have no idea what this says. If any of my followers knows and can decipher please post the meaning of this. I'm gonna lower my voice because I'm in the masjid. Now. Look, the mustard

01:31:39--> 01:32:16

ornaments and the mustard lights. Look, if you go to Saudi Arabia, you see different Arab structures, you go to Turkey Turkish, now you go to China, and you see the Chinese, you know, lanterns hanging from here. What else do you expect brothers and sisters, that's the whole point. Again, from my video yesterday or two days ago, we would expect the Muslims of each land and region to adapt their culture to this religion of Islam. This is a magnificent, beautiful facility. The colors are just striking. I don't know if I'm able to capture this on the iPhone, but just the exoticness of the colors of the turquoise, the blue, the green, the red, I have never in my life

01:32:16--> 01:32:42

seen a mustard as ornate and as beautiful as this mustard in its own way, obviously beautiful monsters around the world. But I have to say this is a unique, absolutely unique mixture, the ayat of the Quran, I spent a while deciphering them. And we saw sort of a man over there, so there's better over there. And so these this is a script that is going to be relatively old. I'm going to go up to the Mahabharata as well, to show you

01:32:44--> 01:32:49

the original script of and see if there are some of our Chinese Muslims here right now.

01:32:55--> 01:33:36

All Allahu taala in Allahu Allah you'll do more singing. So, you know you even find in different cultures, they take certain verses and they take them as motifs. So if you go to you know Angeles for example, they have a phrase la Hollywood in LA LA and you see it everywhere. And I found this phrase in multiple places here in China amongst the Muslims in the LA Hola, yo de Rajaratnam scene. And that is that Allah subhana wa tada does not go to waste to the efforts of those who are righteous. And I found this to be a common motif or a common idea in many of the places in China. And here we have again, this is a beautiful example of the merging of the sino Arabic the Chinese

01:33:36--> 01:33:38

Arabic, you know, civilization and culture.

01:33:45--> 01:33:46

Here, let me see if I can.

01:33:51--> 01:34:29

Okay, let us know go to the original ROM. Unfortunately, we don't have a tour guide over here that can tell us the details. You understand the country that we're in, you know, they don't really have a professional target. Our tour guide is a non Muslim, he stopped outside the mosque and he allowed us to come in. And now we're just seeing this all on our own. This is the original Mahal. I spent a while I have to be honest with you took me like five minutes or so to decipher. So I'm not going to pretend I'm just doing this on the spur. Please don't assume that of me. However, I did spend before I did the video Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim in Fatah Medina, el Faro, look alone at them and make

01:34:29--> 01:34:59

them become a hermit in Mineiro to adequately serve them soroptimists Emma, we are Soraka la nostra Aziza who will already answer a Seki netta fee Hello bill Mina de esta to Eamon and La Imodium and the vs gone of soda the fat so this is suited alfetta written in the calligraphy as I said there was probably calligraphy over there but it is now smudged out so this is the original or the ancient. Again, I don't know how old this is. I would guesstimate 800 years old. 700 years old but I'm not

01:35:00--> 01:35:08

Short our guide is a non Muslim and he does not know the details of the inner workings of the mosque. This is simply an Ancient Mosque.

01:35:10--> 01:35:27

Yes, I'm looking at that one as well, the the structures over there in the middle, you see some type of calligraphy doesn't include some type of dragons a lot of Dragon esque figures. So we see over here again, I don't know if you can read that

01:35:29--> 01:35:29

over there.

01:35:31--> 01:35:34

Now we're gonna continue backing out of the most

01:35:38--> 01:35:40

here's the view from the

01:35:41--> 01:35:43

from the Herald.

01:35:46--> 01:36:26

This these are all members of our group select the voters in around 45 minutes. So we don't have any Chinese Muslims that we met some Chinese Muslims outside, we could not communicate with them because they don't speak Arabic or English. And we obviously do not speak their language we found one translator. So we spoke a little bit of it with them. We asked them about we asked the Imam that is his foot but censored or not. And he told us that he writes his own photo. And he's allowed to say whatever he wants, that is what he said, we know that he can only say things that are spiritual in nature, nothing beyond that he cannot, you know, he cannot go beyond the red line if you like. And

01:36:26--> 01:36:34

we'll leave it at that because even I am not supposed to be doing this. But this is just simply too beautiful children. Okay, so this is again, some of the

01:36:35--> 01:37:08

senior Arabic designs over here. So inshallah with this, I'm going to call this video, a wrap. This is the, this is the view from when you enter. And I'm going to show you how to call it an end over here and then continue tomorrow or today we're going to the city of ziyan, which has one of the oldest mosques in China. So we're going to be going to that Masjid, and I'll be doing another video from there. May Allah subhana wa Tada, bless all of us. Hold on a sec, there's a beautiful calligraphy over here, the images show this to you as well.

01:37:13--> 01:37:44

Here we have, again, various aspects of calligraphy, because I'm doing the video right now. I'm not going to be able to decipher what is written on it. In any case, so inshallah This is enough for me. I'm trying to see if there's anything I forgot in this. In this. Oh, yes. Okay. Yes, yes, one thing. This is what I wanted to say, look at look at these designs. I have never in my life seen a Masjid, that has paintings of trees, or, you know, decorations of vases on the walls, look at that, right?

01:37:46--> 01:38:22

This is the first time that I'm seeing something like this. And that's of course, it's allowed, but it's something that is unique. We don't find anything like this. In any other mosque that I have seen, you know, these are just symbols and decorations, they would have been common in other, you know, Chinese structures here in the mosques, they have taken those and they have adapted them over here as well. So we see for example, if you can see that design, and it's something that you typically don't find in other most communities. So inshallah with that I will call this video a wrap finish Allah will continue from the city of Sheehan from one of the oldest mosques May Allah subhana

01:38:22--> 01:38:29

wa Tada, bless you and me and all of us to do that which is pleasing to Him was set equal to log in

01:38:43--> 01:39:21

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Firstly, I apologize. My voice is already running hoarse, I would try my best to speak to the best of my abilities. I am currently standing in the city of xi and xi and Cheyenne. And the city of Sheehan is one of the largest cities in China. And it is also it used to be the capital of the Tang Dynasty back in the seventh century. And I'm standing in the masjid complex in the masjid complex of Shin, which is the largest Masjid in all of China. It is the largest messages in all of China. And it is also considered to be one of the most beautiful messages in the world. This message of Cheyenne, it was built

01:39:22--> 01:39:59

around at least 700 years ago, but perhaps the location so the physical structures you're seeing are a few centuries old. However, the location or the measure is much older than this. also one of the most important things by there. So here we have the minaret of Cheyenne. So this is the minaret where they used to call the event and it is at least 600 years old. But I was I was saying that the the location of this Masjid and the city of Cheyenne the city of Cheyenne is the location where the Tang Dynasty first allowed the Muslims to settle and the Muslims came to this city in the seventh

01:40:00--> 01:40:45

jury of Islam. They came here in the seventh century of the sea, excuse me, that's around in the first century of Islam. So around 670 or so, the Muslims were allowed to come and settle in this region. This region, the city of Cheyenne was the very first city that allowed Muslims to live in China. The Tang dynasty was the first dynasty to officially recognize Islam as a religion that was protected by the state. We are in the masjid complex. By the way, the most complex is a very large complex. In fact, I cannot do the whole video, it's simply too long. This is the largest complex in all of China that is dedicated to a mosque. This is the minaret of the city of the masjid of Shia,

01:40:45--> 01:41:26

we're going to be walking throughout the entire, not the entire complex throughout portions of the complex. And we will in shallow data be showing you some of the things over here. So as I was saying the city of Shanghai was the first city that allowed the Muslims legally to settle in China and gave them official protection. Most of the other kingdoms at the time did not do that. So this is considered to be therefore the basis of Islam in China. There were Muslims that had come to China, some of the nether regions of China a few decades before, but those were travelers and traders, and they came to the city of goon Xiao, which is down south but they were only traders temporarily. This

01:41:26--> 01:42:06

was the city where the Emperor the Tang Dynasty Emperor basically gave the official verdict by the way looking beautiful this is as you're walking to the masjid. So the message of complex is here, as you're walking, this is what you're walking over. It's a beautiful decorated piece over here. So the Emperor allowed the Muslims to officially worship and he dedicated a piece of land for them, it is likely we are not sure it is likely that this very area would have been the the area that he gave to the Muslims Allah knows best. As I said, the physical structures of the masjid around six 700 years old, and it is constructed completely out of wood. There is no nail at all in the entire message in

01:42:06--> 01:42:43

all of this is pure wood, there is no nail structure, they have a technique where they're interlacing wood in order to support the pillars and to support the roof. And there's no nail there's no metal used in the entire structure. And if you enter the machine when we enter the masjid, you will not be able to smell but when I entered you can smell the teak wood you can smell the the ancient wood in there. And you can see of course as we said this you know Arabic calligraphy I've already mentioned this to in my previous video The sino the Chinese Arabic calligraphy that already been mentioned to you. here once again, as I was saying, getting getting getting back to our

01:42:43--> 01:43:23

story. As I was saying, this was the first locality the first city that allowed the Muslims officially to live in the in the country of Well, it wasn't the country of China at the time it was the city or the city state of Cheyenne. This is the beginning of the master this is the outer chamber. And just like other Chinese houses, there's an outer chamber and an inner chamber. This is the inner chamber over there. This is the outer chamber over here. Now I wish you could just smell what I'm smelling, which is pure wood you can smell the intensity of teak wood, it is such a pungent and get a strong and romantic I mean in a positive manner don't mean in a negative manner. I've

01:43:23--> 01:44:06

never been in a machine where all of this wood surrounding me and you can smell the ancient wood over here. Our guy told us that this is a Chinese phrase for a mosque. I cannot decipher it for you. It's also written in ancient Chinese Now, one of the most amazing things that you will see I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. And this is what makes this question unique in the entire world absolutely stupendous. As I'm coming closer, I don't know if you can begin to decipher or not as I'm coming closer. See what you can decipher. Over here. You have the entire port on written, not written carved out into woods, the entire book on written and carved out into wood. The

01:44:06--> 01:44:28

first paddle is the first judge. This is just the first juice over here. And underneath you have the Chinese translation. So the first panel has the first juice and guess how many panels are over here you have exactly 30 panels. This is the second panel and you have the second juice over here. Let's come closer and let's see if we can decipher what it is saying.

01:44:30--> 01:44:59

All dumela nanoparticle feasibility and photo krishnam in the arena of Nevada makuti ballyhoo Makita todo la ilaha illa minimum volume of volume and we'll call it the home the Vu in the LA for the button for Allah con todo de medica todo Anika moko Elena to the end of the ayah. So this is the end of the second just because we're on the second panel. You look down here, and I wish I could translate but I have no clue what this is saying. But this is the translation of the second use in Chinese. So we have once again

01:45:01--> 01:45:29

The first juice the second juice and it keeps on going and going and going. The entire book on is written on the walls of the masjid. And the translation is underneath it. So anybody who doesn't even have a Quran, all they need to do is to walk up and start reading from the walls of the masjid. This of course is slightly older and you can see some of the old calligraphy over there as well.

01:45:30--> 01:45:31

In

01:45:32--> 01:46:11

in debating older I did not I don't know if you can see it or not. But underneath the belt, let me see if I can show you in Oh, what a vatan will do. I did not see the lady but but that's what it says over there in the top. And you have again, as we mentioned the schematic diagrams from before. You have the names of Allah subhanaw taala, as well carved into the teak wood into the into wood. And this is the outer chamber now we're going to go to the inner chamber, which is absolutely stupendous. It is mind boggling. I when I walked in the first time, I was stunned to see the beauty that gorgeous carvings. Everything is carved around me, every single tile is calligraphy and styles

01:46:11--> 01:46:17

that I have never seen before. Even the wood at the top, even the roof.

01:46:30--> 01:46:33

So this is going to be a part two of the

01:46:34--> 01:46:35

video that we're going to be doing.

01:46:36--> 01:47:10

Because the internet connection is so poor, I just decided to do a video and then I'm going to upload to Facebook. So this is the largest machine of Cheyenne as I had mentioned in my previous video, and we decided to come back because yesterday it was raining. And I just wanted to show you the outer complex, the outer complex, we're going to be going very quickly over this, we're going to be showing all of the sites. This original structure that you see over here was the structure that was built by the Tang Dynasty over 1100 years ago, that is the original structure that was gifted by the Emperor, the Emperor at the time was the one who constructed the smallest by his expenses. And

01:47:10--> 01:47:45

this entire complex was gifted to the Muslims, that is the mosque over there. So there are elements of other temples over here as well in that how do Chinese temples work, there are large bases of meditation, just greenery just crashed, where people just go, and they meditate. So when the Muslims basically built one of the first massages, there were certain motifs that were had on his head to have a garden in the masjid, we have other things on the side. So the Muslims basically incorporated some of those things. And they made the masjid similar to structures that are known here in China. So you see over here, this is the original Tang Dynasty, then later on the Ming Dynasty built a

01:47:45--> 01:48:01

number of archways over here, and various other dynasties and other entities throughout the last 1000 years built more and more structures. So we're going to be going to see the entire structure the outer complex, as I had said, and I wanted to show you in particular, the original

01:48:02--> 01:48:47

structure that was gifted by the Emperor himself. I don't know how to pronounce his name zhangjiakou. Apologies, I must have messed up that translation pretty bad. This is the original structure that was standing at the opening of the mosques when it was gifted by the Emperor 1100 something years ago. And inside of this, you see a dragon, and this is over 1000 200,100 something 1200 years old, you see a dragon and that dragon, it kind of surprised us when we first saw it because we said Why would there be a dragon inside a Masjid, however, what we learned is that the dragon is a sacred symbol. And wherever there is a dragon, this means that the Emperor's protection

01:48:47--> 01:49:25

is under that structure. And so what this what this dragon symbolizes to the people is that nobody can harm this message of the people are not allowed to go inside and do anything wrong, anything illegal. So this this dragon is the royal seal that essentially gives the Royal protection to the Muslims of the Shia province where they are not going to be disturbed. So the Muslims basically allowed this dragon structure on the outside of the masjid because it guaranteed their safety and their protection inside the masjid and that the Emperor's political protection was given. So there are five chambers and each one of these chambers has plenty of architecture right now in the outer

01:49:25--> 01:49:30

chamber. And we're going to be going one by one into each of these chambers. And each one of these is a

01:49:31--> 01:49:51

carving whose translation is not available to me. However, I have just purchased a book which has all of these translations. So I will be going over that book in a few days in shallow data, but I will not be able to post it on this particular video set on one evening. This is a local, other local Muslims over here.

01:49:53--> 01:49:59

These were the side rooms that were used primarily for the madrasa students. This was the gift of the

01:50:00--> 01:50:17

Ming Dynasty as I have shown you, and the each one of them is a successive Emperor basically giving his protections his felicitations to the Muslims of the province. We're now in the second chamber and during the third chamber as I said there are five chambers.

01:50:27--> 01:50:34

Here we have again ancient Islamic Chinese carvings of the names of Allah subhana wa Taala in the ancient Chinese Arabic script

01:50:41--> 01:51:02

wherever there's a slack over here, I've been told these are the claps that were gifted by the various Emperor's to consecrate the place I guess that was their habit or their custom of old or the Emperor or the local kingwood calm and basically say that this is a structure that has been protected. Here we have an Arabic script as well.

01:51:04--> 01:51:08

I'm just going to record it and see if I can decipher it later on.

01:51:09--> 01:51:11

When I am at home,

01:51:18--> 01:51:40

this is we had said the minaret of the masjid, this is where the Muslim would stand and give the other and it is the complex This is the tower the tallest complex within the masjid and it is the minaret it is not used currently, this was only used in ancient times. This was used when obviously before the era of the microphone.

01:51:45--> 01:51:52

Now we are in the fourth chamber. This is now the fourth chamber be right before the final one.

01:51:53--> 01:51:56

The current restrooms are to the right and the left.

01:51:57--> 01:52:02

And we see very clearly carved up the Smith mando for him.

01:52:03--> 01:52:18

His mother him this is around 350 years old, this particular carving 350 to 400 years old. Now we have the final complex that we are entering and it is the complex that leads to the masjid.

01:52:19--> 01:52:24

These are the local Chinese Muslims that have gathered before Sadat

01:52:25--> 01:52:27

before so that's overtime.

01:52:29--> 01:52:45

Some of the local Chinese told me that they calligraphy that is in Chinese over here. So cannot be read by them because it is ancient Chinese. So even they do not understand this is the distinctive wear of the local wheat Muslims

01:52:47--> 01:52:49

to see the Mashallah tomato and just congregating

01:52:55--> 01:52:56

around money.

01:53:00--> 01:53:46

Right before we enter the masjid there is once again the dragon seal as I had mentioned for you, I'm not aware how old this one is, this is the dragon seal, which again signifies the protection of the Emperor. This is the mischief complex the final Grand masjid complex. And this particular structure, the physical structure dates back around 500 years 400 to 500 years. As I had mentioned, the land was gifted to the Muslims 1100 or 1200 years ago, but this particular structure dates back around five centuries and so you can see the emptiness of the masjid. You can see the beautiful calligraphy carvings. And as I had mentioned in my other video, the names of Allah Subhana homeported either

01:53:46--> 01:54:00

outside these are the local Chinese Muslims. And they speak of course, the Mandarin language but they also have a dialect of the holy language that because they are from the holy area or the ethnicity of China.

01:54:02--> 01:54:08

That is almost the whole time and we will now be entering one thing I liked about Chinese massage you look at the

01:54:09--> 01:54:22

Chinese brothers and sisters they put their shoes in this manner. And this is one shot list in particular our group from America martial arts. You can see the differences in how neat and clean they always line their shoes up I noticed whereas for us

01:55:38--> 01:55:44

Insha Allah was praying sada for Baba, I will continue later on, if possible, said I might leave tomorrow.

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There's a lot here, but I got through this as your brother knows me. So I'll be speaking to you live from the Great Wall of China. We're in cloudy weather actually right now, which is actually working out well, because otherwise this would be literally burning hot temperatures. The purpose of this video is to correct a misnomer, a misunderstanding that, unfortunately, a lot of Muslims have. And that's because of a translation error and a commentary error goes back to the lease of it and other people, those people who weren't that said that the misunderstanding is this claim, which is really bizarre historically, that little foreign name is the person who built the Great Wall of China as

01:56:33--> 01:57:08

one misunderstanding. Dual coordinate is mentioned in the Quran as we know so little cough. And of course this is completely wrong because little carbonate is a first historic figure mentioned in the Quran. In all likelihood, he wasn't Alexander the Great even. And even if it was even though it wasn't Alexander the Great did not build the Great Wall of China. This is one of those things that for some reason Muslims believe it has no historical basis to it whatsoever. The other misunderstanding is actually a little bit more profound. And that is this notion that Yeah, Jews and Jews that are mentioned in the Koran, there are actually the Chinese people. And the Great Wall of

01:57:08--> 01:57:43

China is the wall that was built by Joe Kernan, to keep your Jamba Juice inside. And so this claim that the Chinese people are actually the good, they do Jamba Juice, and this is the wall that was built by Bill Clinton to keep them in. And this is actually I mean, again, it's completely ludicrous, because I mean, where does even one begin to listen to correct this misunderstanding? First and foremost, you know, Judean Jews are a race that really are metaphysical in the sense that we can't understand we cannot comprehend them. They're not people that right here and now we can know. And their reality is from the middle layer from the knowledge of the unseen, they are not

01:57:43--> 01:58:16

living here and amongst us that we can feel and touch them. They're from the world of the unseen right here and now, and we do not know where they are, when they come, they will come and the foreigner is exquisite about this, but they are not living races that we can feel and touch. If they exist in this world, and they're living in a reality that is beyond our reality, we cannot interact with them. Secondly, this notion that the Chinese people that do Jim jujin, Andrew Carnegie built this wall to hold them in. That's ludicrous. The Chinese nation travels everywhere. This wall does not hoard them in, in fact, we're tourists here they're Chinese people walking in and out of the

01:58:16--> 01:58:51

wall, they go outside of the country. So even from a simple logistical perspective, this notion that you know, jujitsu, Judo, or the Mongolians or the Chinese and this wall is the wall that is mentioned as sort of, it has absolutely no basis to it whatsoever. We believe in jujitsu, Judo, we believe in our name, we believe in the wall because the Quran mentions it. All of these, though, are not in the palpable sense of a world that we can feel in touch. This isn't a reality that is beyond our reality. This is one of the signs of Judgment Day. And generally speaking, the signs of Judgment Day. They don't cater to the laws of physics, there are things that are beyond our understanding of

01:58:51--> 01:59:07

this world. So I just wanted to correct that. And I thought this was a good opportunity. Seeing that I'm on the Great Wall of China. We're here with a group committed to having a great time meeting with the Muslims of this land, seeing how Islam flourished in this land and seeing the heritage of the peoples inshallah to Allah until the next video cinema