The Life of Abdel Qader al-Jazairi – Lessons for Our Times

Today Shall I wanted to introduce you to one of the most important figures of the last century, a Muslim figure who became so famous that presidents Pope's sold Don's leaders across the world, they acknowledged his fame. They acknowledged his leadership. And he was actually an alum and a train scholar. And yet, our presidents acknowledged his leadership. He is a figure whose name many of you have already heard. But today, I wanted to summarize his love biography, and also to point out some of the facts that we should be particularly aware of in light of what is going on in the world today. And this is none other than a mere Abdulkadir algebra ad from Java from Algeria. I mean,

AbdulQadir is a household name in Algeria. Many of us have heard his name here and there, but very few of us have actually studied this man and his impact and his legacy. And obviously, in 1520 minutes, how much can we do but again, the goal is always to introduce and then you do your own research to lay the foundation and then to spark curiosity and you then you read some books, there's many books in English, there's many lectures given about amid Abdulkadir xiety. How can our President Abraham Lincoln, acknowledge his leadership and he was a chef and olive? How can there be a city in America named after him in the 1840s, some of the founders of that city and Iowa they

named their city el cada al Qadr, Iowa to this day, there's a city go Google it. It's a well known city in Iowa. They named it after Abdulkadir why he was a sheriff and out him and he was a Mujahid Mujahid supposed to be a term synonymous with terrorism in our times. Everybody knew he was a Mujahid yet they admired him and they respected him how so? What is his story very briefly. I mean, Abdulkadir was born in a household of knowledge in Algeria. His father was a local tribal chieftain and an elder and he memorized the Quran standard, you know, curriculum, studying all of the sciences. When he was in his early 20s. His father said, Let's go for Hajj, and back then it was

rare for a young man to go for Hajj. Usually they would wait until a later stage his father wanted to go. So his young son 25 years old, 22 years accompanied with him. Back then Hajj was not a two week affair. If you're going from Algeria, how long would it take you? It ended up taking them two and a half years. Hajj took two and a half years, but it wasn't just Hajj. They traveled the Muslim world, they interacted with the greater Allama across the world. They want to believe that they went to Damascus, they went to all of these different cities because in those days, it's the journey of a lifetime. And so Abdulkadir as a young man, he explores the world he comes back much more aware and

knowledgeable after having performed the Hajj and he comes back to his land of Algeria in 1830. What happens in 1830, a few months after he returns, the French invade. Now, the French invasion of Algeria is one of the most significant recent events in our overall global history. This was the first time a Western superpower invaded and grabbed this was the first time it happened literally the first time to pull the in attempt to to in Egypt and it was a miserable failure. I have a lecture online, you can listen to it. Napoleon came, he saw he failed, he went back, he wasn't able to do it. As for the Napoleon's successors, the French realized, you know what, if we do this

properly, we can actually carve out another empire. And that's exactly what they did. This was the first colonization experiment from the west. The British did it in a different way, the East India Trading Company very slowly, surreptitiously bit by bit, their traders eventually, in 1857, they become the rulers, it's not 1857 is 1830. Now, so in 1830, the French unprovoked literally raw aggression, land grab, just take over, they invade Algeria, they were to be there for another 132 years, I won't be in our generation 1962 Did France achieve independence? 132 years, by the way, before I move on, and I will inshallah give more talks about this, because we should be aware of

this, right? This civilization that calls itself, you know, the bastion of freedom and liberty, this civilization that says we are the, you know, the heirs of the Enlightenment. In these 130 years, some of the most barbaric massacres some of the most inhumane practices, they killed so many people, nobody knows how many they killed, varies. The estimates vary depending on who does the, you know, a counting the French like to say, oh, only half a million, only half a million, and the other side says 1.9 million were killed. Can you imagine like the level of depravity that's a whole different story altogether, literally, and stuffed full of rapes as well. You can just imagine this was 1830.

They really

didn't care about PR. In their minds. These were subhuman and they didn't care about their percussion. So can you imagine in that climate, the French invade, they began rampaging pillaging and whatnot. Now, at this time Algeria is under whom the Ottomans but the Ottomans are already almost an impotent state. The Ottomans are already almost physical, the old sick man of Europe, and they're not going to send an army all the way to Algeria, to fight against the super power of the French. They basically did pretty much nothing. They did nothing. They just let it be. So the local Algerians had to do something themselves. When the government is not doing something, what are you

going to do? And so the various tribes, and they were disunited, subhanAllah, but they realized they needed to unite. They actually united unbelievably, that united and they chose Abdulkadir as father because I'm so called as a young man, he's 2726 years. I will call this father because his father was a respected tribal elder just come back from Hajj. So they said, You are the emir, now you do something. The father said, I'm in my 70s 80s I can't do anything. But if you have unanimously chosen me, I believe my son is qualified. I believe he is worthy to be your leader. And so based on the recommendation of the Father, the tribes unanimously agreed you shall be our Emir. And ever

since to this day, he is called Emile Abdulkadir. He is the chieftain, and he was only 27 years old. Yet they saw in him intelligence and leadership. Thus began 50 plus years of a luminous career in which he was a statesman, a politician, a leader, a warrior, a rebel, a Mujahid an alum, everything combined, like literally this is a figure that is truly revolutionary. He is somebody who checks all the boxes in every single field. That's why he is and along with this Muslim and non Muslim admiration is unbelievable. So who is this person? How did he get that level of admiration in 1832 after trying to negotiate with the French finding is not going to work out 1832 He declared an all

out jihad against the French all out Jihad, this is an invasion, you are raping, pillaging, rampage and you're killing 10s of 1000s. The French had a policy of literally destroying any village that gave them any pushback, they would massacre. Everybody in the village, over 8000 villages over the course of 100 years have been eliminated from Algeria because of what the French have done 8000 villages not people, villages have been wiped off the map. That's how brutal they were. So in response, understandably, Abdullah, other declares jihad, and he begins waging the first serious defense of Algeria against the French. And guess what, in two, three years, he actually caused the

French to give up, believe it or not, he won. He routed the French he destroyed them. Why? Because he knew the desert, he knew his line. He knew his people, and he used his horses he was a lover of horse riding, he was an expert horse rider. And he was throughout his whole life by the way towards the end of his life when he was retired and and became a scholar full time he wrote a book about Arabian horses can you imagine this is the guy eventually his granddad write a book about Arabian horses as published in Arabic about you know how to take care of them the various types and varieties and breeds he was a lover of different types of horses and an expert in writing these

horses. So knowing how to fight the French, he routed them, he he managed to overcome one of their main generals, I forgot his name now, he actually managed to have the general you know, killed in the battle, and the entire army was routed. So in three, four years, I will call it a became legendary. However, he did not employ the tactics of the French, the French had a policy, no prisoners of war. If you are captured, you will be executed right then in there, the French had a policy of brutally decimating and you know, killing the soldier the prisoners in a very brutal way. When Abdulkadir captured the French, his followers wanted to do the same to the French prisoners of

war. He said, No, our Prophet system commanded us to treat the prisoner with dignity. And he would give the prisoners the same food and water that he would have to eat, they would get it as well, in fact, and of course, this is three, four years of war. In one occasion, when he ran out of water, there was no water to drink, he let the prisoners go free. He goes, You know, I'm not going to kill you. We don't have any water. It's not fair that you're locked up and we don't have water. He literally let them go free and go back to the French forces. This is why even though the French government wanted to portray him as a barbarian, a fanatic, a jihadist, a terrorist, the French

population and even the front soldiers had an admiration for him. This reminds us of Salah Medina up they didn't like him, but they loved him. He was a noble enemy Salahuddin he will be similarly I will call

as well, and once at a particular gruesome time when the French killed 1000s of prisoners, the next time his followers captured, they became angry. They said, we want to do unto them as they don't unto us. And he goes, No, it's not allowed. And they said, but the French are doing it to us. And he gave a very famous line, it goes down in history. And he said, The French are not our teachers. They are not our teachers. We don't take our Cedi out and our fifth and our cloud from them, regardless of what they do, we have the prophecy set up, we have a higher level that we have to answer to this line became famous around the world, they are not our teachers, we have a higher teacher, and that

is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, eventually, the French actually had to agree that you have one. In other words that you had was a success. And the French in 1836, they signed a treaty with him 1836, so six years of jihad, in 1836, the French said, Hello, us, this province of your tribes, we will leave it untouched, and that is your emirate. They granted him his own kingdom. So for the next five years or four years, he became the king. They called him Emile. And there was an entire country called the Emirate of Abdulkadir. He became an independent principality because he won. However, the French did not keep their part of the bargain. And as a part of the conditions

that he had, he had negotiated gentle treatment for other people and making sure that the French don't go too far in their barbarity. Obviously, it's only a matter of time where the French began encroaching, and doing other vicious acts on Abdulkadir felt I cannot remain neutral, I just can't be here and this is happening. And so he had to wage jihad, again, even though there was a treaty, but the French, their tactics and their evil nature of the father was not able to keep his peace in this regard that I can't just see this happening to my land as you're going rampage and brutally do what you do. And so in 1839, they had to cancel this. And again, wait, you had for the second time,

however, the second time, the French had learned from the lessons of the first time, and they had doubled or tripled their number of troops, and they had sent troops that were better prepared, and they had sent a new General General his name was visual. This general was one of the most vicious generals in French history. If you thought the first wave was brutal, this general had zero humanity in his heart. And he publicly announced that I will scorch your land, I will not leave one rock of a building intact I will follow you into your you know, your deserts and your and your and your valleys. And I will not leave a single one of you alive. And he began implementing that tactic. The

level of brutality was unbelievable and unprecedented. And again, this is a time and a place where the world was not monitoring and they don't even care the racism is public and blatant. Right now we see hidden racism right now we see this blatantly between one set of babies and another set of babies one set of prisoners under those prisons. We see that back then it was blatant, it was clear, you are French, these are Algerian, they're not worth the same amount of lives. So in response to this, I mean, Abdullah that had to once again go back to the fighting conditions, and he attempted multiple times, however, the French surrounded him. He appealed and he was in a small area of Valley

he appealed for help from the next dynasty, the Moroccan dynasty next door, he appealed for help he goes you need to help me or else initially they sent some attachments, some reinforcements when the French found out the French told the Moroccans that if you intervene, we will invade you and we will take over you. And then they pressured the Moroccan emir, the more like to send troops to fight I mean Abdulkadir. And so rather than help initially, there was some help within a few years, Muslims fighting Muslims, which is always the case, right within a few years, the one side was sending troops to fight against the other side from the north and the French are fighting from the south and

main Abdulkadir really was feeling completely trapped in this regard. In one incident, really famous incident. The French bribed the Moroccans to get rid of Emir Abdullah fathered by hook or through crook and so the mole I sent one of his trained assassins to go through and assassinate Amir Abdulkadir so famous story that in the middle of the night he managed to make his way through and he burst into the tent of Abdullah father and he finds him you know, reading a book in the candlelight because the other was an Adam and Schiff. He was a scholar and the Mujahideen and a warrior and a leader and a statement all in one. So in the middle of the night, he's reading a book unarmed he

looks up and there's this you know, attack assassin there. And looking at Amir Abdulkadir, it is well known the assassin through his dagger fell into such the and beg for forgiveness. And when the Emir asked, Why did you change your mind, you're totally here to kill me. He said. I saw

In you like looking at you, you reminded me of the persona of the Prophet salallahu Salam, like your your respect your haber looking at you as an assassin's conscience stirred and the assassin said I cannot kill you. He asked for forgiveness and he was forgiven. So and this assassin was sent by the neighboring Muslim country, by the way, so Subhanallah This is how it works. Eventually I made a call that is completely surrounded, he has no option but to surrender, he negotiates a surrender. And as a part of the negotiation, he demanded that the brutality of the French be tempered down, he demanded certain freedoms for the Muslims. And he also said, my family and my immediate followers,

just let us go into exile. These were the conditions of surrender, they agreed to all of them. And then they broke every single clause as they always do, right. They agreed to every condition just come out, we will listen to anything. And as soon as he came out, he was handcuffed, put in and sent to France, even though it was clear in the surrender, that he will be sent into exile. They don't care. They sent him to France as a prisoner along with his family, along with the immediate core followers, and they were misused and abused, you know, mistreated in the prisons, they fell sick dungeons and whatnot. Eventually, the French population themselves rallied for his freedom. It's

unbelievable. The French admired him, why did they admire him because his stories became legendary, his chivalry, his kindness, his humanity, and his dignity like he never lost his dignity. And in one specific instance, is really famous story, when he was paraded through one of the streets of the French towns. Instead of jeering at the prisoner making fun of him. The crowd lined the street and they cheered him. They applauded him, and he's meant to be the prisoner, and they cheered him as some type of hero, even though the government wanted him to be a type of war criminal because the people's hearts admired the level of dignity and the type of resistance that he did. Even the French

population so much. So Napoleon the Third, he's not Napoleon Bonaparte, that's another 50 years ago, Napoleon the Third from the same family, the third King from that dynasty, Napoleon the Third because of public pressure had to release Abdulkadir Can you believe his own people are demanding that the freedom fighter against US release him. So Napoleon the Third had to publicly apologize to Abdulkadir for putting him in the dungeons and his family for going against the treaty for treating me the way that he was. And he promised as an echo Farah, I'm going to pay you 100,000 French francs that's like a fortune, every year of your life, as long as you're alive, you're gonna get 100,000

francs, but I have one condition. You shall never step foot on Julia again, wherever you go, don't go to Algeria, you have a problem for us in Algeria. And so the mayor Abdulkadir left and he wants to, eventually setting in Damascus, where he began to teach and preach and right. This is where he wrote the books. I told you that he wrote a number of books, but that's not the end of his story. Another incident happened where again, his reality was shown the collapse the nobility were shown. What happened was that in 1860, in 1860, a mini civil war broke out in Villa de sham under the Ottomans. He's in Damascus, and the Civil War was between two other communities, not the Muslims,

the Druze and the Maronite Christians, the Druze, which is a fearful of Somalia, and the Maronite Christians, which is one of the segments of Christianity from back in the day, they had a mini civil war. And the Emir Abdulkadir complained to the viceroy to the leader that unless you take charge, the Guru's are going to eventually massacre innocent people as well. But the viceroy didn't pay attention, the leader did not pay attention. Eventually, the doodles did win, and they fought against the Maronites. Once they killed their own marinized out of Maronites. They began rampaging through the city and began killing every type of Christian just because they were Christian mob

mentality, their anger now they've won. Now they just want to kill every Christian, whether they're Maronite, whether they're involved in the war or not, doesn't matter, innocent civilians living there, a lot of them are Europeans. Now even the consul generals of France and others, they are now living there as a part of the Ottoman Empire. And the mob goes and begins to Rampage bring them out of the shops bring them up, literally a type of pogrom against the Christians, Amin, Abdullah, all that and now he's like, you know, how old is he and made Abdulkadir at the age of 60 or something. He wears his you know, jalopy again, he wears his beautiful claw robe and Garmin. He was a tall,

strong figure. He had that, you know, look of a warrior. Even at an old age, he jumped on his horse. At that age, he told his sons to jump on their horses, and he began galloping through the crowds telling the Guru's to stop massacring the Christians. This is against the Shetty against the law of Allah subhanho wa taala. And the Guru said to him, you were the ones who killed the Christians in Algeria. And he responded back I fought a

against people who invaded my land. And I fought and I would fight again. You are killing children and women you're killing innocent people of the city have nothing to do with what is going on. And subhanAllah his persona was so powerful, even the Guru's respected and he told the Christians of Damascus to take refuge in his house. He lived in a villa. He lived in a relatively large house, he got 1000s, including the Consul General of France, the country that imprisoned him, he brought the Consul General to his home and others, Europeans and others and all of the Christians that were not Maronite, he came into their houses, I'm gonna protect you. They stayed there, the moms are outside.

In one occasion, the mobs enter his house and he stands up, he puts his body between the mobs and between the Christians and he goes, You cannot get to them except through me. He literally put his life on the line, didn't have any weapons even if he did, what's going to be the use against the mob. And subhanAllah Allah wrote for him a level of respect that even the mobs and it's almost impossible to control the mob, even the mobs they pulled back. It is said because of him 1000s of people that would have otherwise been killed, they were spared because of one person and the respect that he had. This incident only furthered and bolstered his fan he was already famous, he was

already globally renowned. This incident shocked him up to an even higher level of fame, and the very French king, Napoleon the Third who had initially imprisoned him that asked for forgiveness. Now he called him back to give him the highest award that France ever gives. So he came back to France dressed in his Islamic garb and turban and he got the highest award for being a true chivalrous leader, the Pope, and never has the pope given the highest award to a non Christian. The pope gave the highest award to the Vatican to me and Abdulkadir Sultan Abdul Hamid gave us with Abdul Majeed gave him the award as well. Our own President Abraham Lincoln sent him two gold pistols

custom made two gold pistols that were custom made and engraved with his name from America sent as a gift to him. Those two pistols are still around, they're displayed in a museum, still to this day, and a town here in America. In Iowa, the founders of that town were so moved that when they thought of a name for that town, they chose el Qadr. To this day, al Qaeda is called an English al Qaeda but they called it al Qadir al Qadir, Iowa go look it up. It's an actual town in America. It's the only town named after a Muslim. And he continued to live his life in Damascus. He did Hajj one more time, by the way, And subhanAllah one of the most iconic stories. I wish we had more details in 1869 Just

a little bit before he passed away, he performed Hydreigon and he met with his contemporary and another major figure in revolution and positive revolution. Imam a Shah mill from the caucus Republic Imam, a shaman had fought against the Russians and Abdulkadir had fought against the French. The two of them met in their old age and they did hedge together and their interaction between them. I wish we were there to listen in on to that Imam Muhammad is another legend one day maybe we'll give a hotter about him. But he again amazing story against the Russian

the Russian czars that invaded Muslim lands, Imam Muhammad you might well powdered met together and they did hajj and they interacted he came back, he passes away. And he is and he was buried over there. Now, brief points here before we conclude today.

Abdulkadir Amir Abdulkadir. In one sense, eventually his mission wasn't a success. Algeria became occupied. The French took over Algeria. But in another sense, he continued to inspire generations and generations of activists. Up until our times, I mean, I will call it is considered to be a legendary name. And this is the spirit we need to think of and look at. How did he carve out that legendary name by adhering to the *ty by not following his own desires by rising up above sentiments that are not noble? And by embodying the spirit of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam even the assassin looks at him and it goes looking at you I can't tell but imagine the

prophets ism Can you imagine the assassin who's gonna get paid a fortune he's alone in the tent and even he has a conscience. This only comes from up there only comes from up there and there's hardly any figure that I'm aware of in the last two 300 years that has combined all of these characteristics of Islam. And by the way, I didn't even mention czar hit Yanni living an ascetic life sleeping on the floor sleeping in the tents. He has no pleasures of the dunya is literally for the era. He is and he is also he was in total so Wolf and living a very

very pious life in this regard, Zaha then Abbot, and along with this item writing books, teaching the people and the statesman and leader Subhanallah How can you not help be admired and inspire this type of person? So my plea to all of you, given this reality we're finding ourselves in, you know, sometimes we're going to find these types of figures as well, our me and others where they might, quote unquote, not, I don't want to say lose, because that's a harsh word. They might not win politically, but they will win the PR war, they will win the hearts of the people, they will win because they're doing what is right, and they're gonna lay the foundations, you know, up until 1962,

when the people were fighting against the French, they are invoking a bill called the and the memory of Abdulkadir. They're naming their kids out the other, our Algerian brothers, almost half of them are named after the other just as a joke, but still, so many of them are still named Abdulkadir his legacy lives on, even though his political movement did not come to fruition. And this shows us we need to think long term, we need to be strategic and we need to follow the principles of the Shetty and if we do so that insha Allah Who to Allah, we will win the hearts and minds of the people in this world and more importantly, the pleasure of Allah and the author of Sharla will continue more

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