The Most Interesting City in Pre-Islamic Arabia Muharram

Yasir Qadhi

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The city of yesterday known as Medina, is one of the most interesting cities in pre Islamic Arabia. Even before the coming of Islam. Of course with the coming of Islam you have to do was to become Medina and Medina has a special place in all of our hearts. Every single person of iman loves Medina and we love Medina because our profits are made a special dua to Allah that every Muslim should love Medina when the Sahaba migrated to Medina, they did not like it, and they missed Makkah. And so the Prophet says he made a dua to Allah. Allahu Muhammad bin Elaine l Medina. Oh Allah cause all of us to love Medina gahoo bina micarta Oh Ushant like we used to love Makkah, or even more than we used

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to love Makkah. And Allah granted the prophets Assam, that DUA and that's why every movement who enters Medina feels the love of Medina and they desire Medina and they miss Medina because that special place exists in our heart for Medina. But what was Medina before the migration of the Prophet sallallahu? I think he was setting him it was the city of strip and the city of Yathrib had many interesting, unique characteristics. The city of yesterday, when was it founded? We don't know for sure. But we have remnants from the time of the Babylonian inscriptions that mentioned the name yes, Riba and 550 BCE. And we also have the famous geographer, the Greek geographer, Ptolemy, the

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most famous geographer of the Greeks, his name is Ptolemy. He wrote a massive geography of Ptolemy. And in it, he went over the cities of Arabia, this is hundreds of years before the coming of Jesus Christ. And in it he has the city of yesterday, but the city of yesterday is mentioned by the famous Ptolemy, even Abraha, the one who came into Makkah, you know, the one of the elephants Abraha, had ventured into Arabia before the incident of the field by two, three years, he had come in, and he had gone north past Makkah. And he had conquered the city of yesterday for a little bit of time before he went back down, and it was then left, you know, as it was, and there is an inscription I

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actually once posted it on my Facebook, there is an inscription of Abraha, the actual Abraha, one of his, you know, calligraphers wrote something in their language in Arabia, that says, we conquer this land and this land of this land, and mentioned also is the land of yesterday or the city of yesterday. So the city of yesterday was something that of course, it was there from the beginning of time from how long ago perhaps as long as 1000 BC maybe even more than this, in other words, 3000 years ago, yes, rip has been around according to recorded history for over 3000 years. The name yesterday, what does it mean? Most likely, it comes from the founder of the city, one of the

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Amalekites, the AMA, the cop, he founded the city and it was named after him. And some say it goes back to an Arabic verb which is highly unlikely because there was no Arabic when the when the city was founded. But we know for certain that it has been a human settlement for two to 3000 years now, yesterday was unique in many ways. Today, we'll mention seven of them yesterday pre Islamic Medina was unique in seven ways. Point number one, point number one, the location of yesterday, yesterday, Medina, it is close to the main highway, there were highways pre highway of our times, right? There were highways where camels and people would walk the famous highway is the largest superhighway that

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connected Byzantine land to Yemen past a stone's throw away from Yathrib. So yes, three was very conveniently located not right on the path which would have been dangerous or miss can come and not too far from the path but a very reasonable distance from the path half a day's journey enough that if you need to be connected to civilization you can and it's not too close that the armies can attack you and that is why the Battle of better for example took place on that highway that massive highway because I was defense caravan is going up there so that city of yesterday as they say Location, Location Location yesterday was situated in terms of its geography in central Hejaz,

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Central Arabia, you look at the map Maca is way down you know South it is close to the the ocean it is close to the Red Sea. Yesterday, Medina is up north and it is somewhat Central. And it is right next to the super highway but not too close to that highway. So that is point number one. Point number two. It is one of the very few places of the entire Arabian peninsula that has something very unique in geography and geology. And that is under water rivers. I forgot the term is that sub alternate sub sub altern river something like this is a geological term. It's

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A common phenomenon, not that common in Arabia. There's actual rivers that run underneath the ground just like the rivers that run above the ground. I'm not making this up. This is true. You have rivers that run beneath the ground. Yesterday, Medina is situated on top of multiple rivers that run underneath the ground. And this is very unique when you have rivers that run on top of the ground that has a lot of pros, but it also has a lot of cons. And of those cons, the water dries up easily of those cons, you can block and dam the river such that it doesn't reach your city. There's cons as well in the desert, if the water goes a little bit less, the river will dry up. So when you have

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underwater rivers, which yesterday have has, you have under and I've seen this by the way, I visited a farm when I was a student at the center, and you know we the person had dug you see the water just gushing, gushing, gushing, and it's not on the top of the soil, it's underneath the ground. So if you tap in the right location, and that's where there's wells of Medina, if you tap in at the right location, you go down 20 3040 5060 feet, you will tap into that freshwater, this water is rainwater coming from the mountains of Tehama, or sorry, not the Hamas of North and it's going down towards the hammer. So there's underwater rivers, and it is those rivers that allowed people to settle in

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yesterday. As you are aware, the majority of Arabia is a desert, there are no rivers, there are no water, the people of Makkah, Allah bless them with the miracle of one well, one well of zamzam. That's why there was a small city there. As for yesterday, it has plenty of underwater streams. And this is a blessing that yesterday I've had thirdly, because of this because of the underwater streams, what are you going to get greenery cultivation yesterday was one of the only cities in the entire Arabian peninsula in the entire region of the ages, that is based on agriculture. What other cities based on agriculture in that region, very few. And the time of the Prophet system yesterday

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was one of the only cities that is based on agriculture, you plant Zira you have gardens, you have massive date palms, there were a few other pockets, highborn and whatnot. But yesterday was located centrally and it is one of the only places that has agriculture. Now when you have agriculture, what comes as a result of agriculture, civilization, permanent buildings. If you have agriculture, you're not Bedouins, which is most of Arabia, you're not wandering every day, you don't know where you're gonna go. The majority of Arab tribes were Bedouin in nature. They're wandering in search of food and search of water in search of greenery. As for the people of yesterday, because they were located

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in one area, they can build an infrastructure, they're permanent people. And when you are permanent, and you're not nomadic, nomadic, then you build a civilization, your culture, your kapha, everything, it raises up a level. And that's why Bedouins are harsher people, people of the city have a little bit more, you know, adapt and civilization that's the people have yet to do that is point number three. Point number four, yesterday was absolutely unique. Because it was one of the only places that was multi religious, multi religious, hardly any other city in Central Arabia had different fates. But Medina or yesterday, as we know, Maccha did not have a population of Christians

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or Jews. Okay, the majority of Arabian Bedouin tribes and cities, they might have had the odd Christian or the odd Jew wandering through, but to have an actual group of large people that are belonging to different fates, coexisting together. Of course, Yathrib had that you had number of tribes of the hood, and you had a number of tribes of the polytheist and they were living together for centuries. This was very, very unique. We're going to come back why all of this is useful, obviously. So point number four is that the diversity of the people now there were other places where there were your hood Khyber had your hood, but haber did not have pagans did not have

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machinery, corn, it was all your hood, most of Arabia was only machinery corn, yesterday had half your hood have machinery corn, and they're living next to each other for centuries. And this is going to come important and keep so this is point number four. Point number five. The story of how the hood ended up there. Very interesting, very bizarre. Now there's many theories here. Footnote tangents been a while since we're going to do tangent. But how did the hood end up in the middle of Arabia, there's like five different theories, the theory that I believe has the most evidence and Allah knows best. It is after the destruction of the Second Temple during the time of Jesus Christ,

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you know, the Wailing Wall that you see that is the second temple when that temple was destroyed, and Jews were scattered once again. So groups of them went down from Jerusalem, they went down south, and either they settled in yesterday, or they came down to Yemen then went back up to yesterday. One of the two, right so these are Jewish

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people from Jerusalem that are coming down after the Second Temple in the time of Jesus Christ, and they're finding shelter. They've been expelled from Jerusalem. And they work their way down. Either they stop in yesterday, or they go down to Yemen, why Yemen because Yemen had some of the largest population of Jews outside of Jerusalem, up until 1947. Iraq and Yemen had the largest concentration of Jews in the Arab world in 1947. They all migrated, as you know, so Yemen had a large group of Jews, either they came down and then for whatever reason they came back up, or they just stopped at yesterday. This is the expulsion of the Jews in the time of Jesus Christ. They ended up in

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yesterday. Point number six. The Arabs of yesterday were totally unique. They were not our robes of Central Arabia. They were not the Quraysh. The house was in the Tiama Wk lab. They were not of the famous tribes of Central Arabia. This is really bizarre. In the middle of Central Arabia, you had Arabs who were not from Central Arabia, where were they from the ocean, the husbands were from where? Yemen, the Osen, the husbands were not central terrabytes they were not from that region. They spoke a slightly different accents. They spoke a different ledger, they wrote slightly differently. They had a slightly different dialect. Their culture was different. They didn't belong

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to that region. They came from Yemen. Why and when did they come from Yemen. They came from Yemen, perhaps 200 years before the Hijra 150 years before they hit Europe, when the great massive dam, the biggest dam ever built pre modernity. In fact, in fact, some modern scholars say the dam of it is called the, the dam of Murghab. The sailor, the Allah mentions in the Quran, right? Allah mentioned Quran is the beginning of the verse.

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Gender tiny and Yamuna CheMin kumara SABIC was a builder for Santa Fe himself. It me world father, it was a 50 year old father nobody else me out what's the point of having a father when you can't quote from the top of your head for our sadhana I let him say lil Adam, what do you say let him have some

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No, that's not the damn sale an item is the flood that destroyed the down close enough Nice try. Sale. Adam is the flood of Adam. Okay, sale Adam is the flood of Adam that destroyed the dam of Rob. The dam of Mount Rob is what the Queen of Sheba who is the Queen of Sheba Suleiman from that timeframe that civilization this Queen of Sheba, they built the most magnificent dam known to mankind. They say it is double the size of Hoover Dam here in America, they say double the size built 2000 years ago, and Allah azza wa jal mentioned in the Quran because they were ungrateful, right, because they were had Kibera forbidden now homogeneity we substituted their beautiful gardens

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with with the thorns, and we destroyed them out of dam be sailing Adam with the flood of atom. Now what of course the dam broke, the region flooded over 50,000 Yemeni Arabs were forced to migrate and Allah knows how many drowned This happened when around 300 C 350. C. Okay, so the Yemeni Arabs and who are the Yemeni Arabs, the Yemeni Arabs had a king and a kingdom. They had civilization. They had a very different culture. Their idolatry was different than the idolatry of the Kurdish so the Yemeni Arabs went up north and groups amongst them settled in yesterday, two main tribes hosts and coverage they settled in yesterday. So this is point number six here that the Arabs of yesterday

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were disconnected from the Arabs of the region, their culture, their paganism was a different strand slightly different than the Karachi paganism, their language was slightly different, and they had no connection to the region, unlike everybody else. And then point number seven. What makes us unique is this, this interesting mix of the Arabs of Yemen and the Jewish tribes for 130 years they coexisted together. And during this time, they had some times of peace, and they had serious times of war. And in the course of 120 years, civil war broke out between the House and the huzzah Raj, and between the three major Jewish tribes who laid the vital Cardinal clock and the vinyl Corolla.

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And I don't have time nor are we interested at this stage to go into all of the details of the civil wars, suffice to say 120 years three generations of wars within these three generations of wars, four of them are considered to be complete all out civil wars were yesterday it was almost completely destroyed. And each one of these is worse than the last one. And if you go into the books of history, brutality, complete massacres people

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almost seemed to protect and then backstabbing. In one case they gathered up the children of another tribe and they massacred the children like ruthless, brutal, raping, plunder, raping, literally and plunder, very brutal. And the worst of these wars and the last of them was the wars of broth, which took place when the Prophet system was preaching in Makkah. He is now preaching in Makkah, he is calling the people to Allah. And 120 years of civil wars, the last of them, the war of blasts takes place and it is the most brutal and it it more than half the people of yesterday were killed more than half of yesterday, killed. All of the senior members of the leadership of the OST and the

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Hazaragi are massacred in this war, all of them except for two from the O's you have a Brahmin or raw hip who is called a Muhammad faster. He's mentioned in the Sierra and my theater Elektra mentioned I mean, then he fled away, and from the huzzah Raj, who was left of the Hazaragi, the one leader left of the cartridge, who was he? Abdullah innovativeness saloon, the one leader left from the huzzah Raj after the wars of wife, one from the O's one from the huzzah Raj Abdullah of innovativeness saloon. He was the only leader who refuse to go to war. He tried to get peace before the war, his people didn't listen to him. They went into war, when the war finished, he emerges as

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the hero because he was the one preaching peace and his MACOM is lifted up until the Prophet system comes and then his Kibana kicks in because he thought he will be the king. So what has all this got to do with us today? Well, 1444 years ago, what happened?

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The Hijra we just celebrated the first day of the hedge a few days ago, right? You guys were following the news right? Following the calendar 1444 years ago, the Hijra happened. And that Hegira was from Makkah to where yesterday. Now, why did Allah subhana wa Tada choose? Yesterday? I mentioned seven points. Actually, there's more than this lecture only allows us seven. Every one of these seven points is a reason why Allah subhanho wa Taala chose yesterday for our Prophet sallallahu. Either he was setting him he did not think of yesterday. He did not desire yesterday, yesterday was not on his map. So much so that when Allah subhanho wa Taala showed him the land of

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yesterday, there was no title on the dream. This is yesterday, there was no subtitle. This is yesterday, Allah showed him the date pumps. And Allah said, this is where you're going to make Hegira to, but there was no subtitle. So our profit system started yearning and desiring and his mind went and he said, I began to think of Yemen, Yemen for down south. It also had great date pumps, and it had water and it has civilization. So I began to think of Yemen, and lo and behold, it was a mini Yemen. Yesterday is a mini Summit. Why Yemen, by the way, because Yemen had strength. Yemen, the people of Yemen were different than the people of other regions. That's why our provinces

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and praise the people of Yemen and hikma to Yamani will Emmanuel, Yemen, Iya right. He praised the people of Yemen, a people are going to come to you that the softest of heart and the best of Eman wisdom is Yemeni and Eman is from Yemen. He praised the people of Yemen and yesterday is a mini Yemen how so? Because Oh 700 or Yemen look at all of these points in order to have an Islamic capital it had better have a location and yesterday bad location yesterday about ideal location. If you want to build a civilization you need water yesterday has water you need to have structures Makkah didn't have two story houses yesterday did yesterday have had civilization yesterday have had

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agriculture if you want to capital you better have food to eat you cannot be starving hence when they were trapped for an entire month remember in the Battle of condo they had water they would never run out of water but they were running out of food but still a month of supplies were there even though no trade is coming in for one month. Yes trip can supply them. That's why you need yesterday over there. As for multiculturalism and multi religiosity Subhanallah Islam is going to be multicultural Islam is going to be multi religious is going to rule over large populations. You cannot have monochromatic societies when Islam is being revealed the Quran is coming down. The Quran

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has to demonstrate how fates live together how different religions come together, and yesterday have demonstrated that as for the Jews of yesterday, can you imagine if the process was in Makkah, what would we where would we get all the stories of the funny Australian the stories of the previous prophets, all of the verses that take on the challenge of the Jews and Christians that challenge the who the Bani Israel and we benefit from and it situates Islam in the global history, we needed the Jews of Yathrib so that the Quran can come down so that Allah subhanaw taala can demonstrate how this faith is connected to the previous faith traditions as 407 Huzzah, Raj Subhanallah we don't

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want tribes

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that have connections with other tribes. We don't want tribes that are deeply rooted in the region, a new faith is coming. It's going to uproot the other people. And so oh son has Raj cannot have ties with the house and with the Kinder with the Quraysh. They have to be independent, as they were, ethnically, they were different. They didn't have strong biological ties with other tribes. So when Islam comes, Islam can now take over the ocean hazards, and they are unique. They know they're unique, and they can take a new fate. And as for the wars of bras, Isha herself said, Hadith isn't Buhari, she herself says, Allah gifted the prophecy of Saddam with the wars of breath, Allah gifted

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the process and with the words of why, how so because people were tired of the Civil War. 120 years of civil war, mass murder may have chaos, nationalism, and Bad Religion come together, and they just hated it. And so all of the elders are destroyed except for one or two that we need to take on and understand what Nipah is, understand how to deal with evil people, Allah Allah for them for that wisdom, but society couldn't have those evil leaders in the majority. So they're completely wiped out. And the new generation in their 30s in their 20s, the new generation that is not set in the ways of the elders, and they're tired of the ways of the elders, and they're open minded, and they

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want to see how can we overcome this last 120 years, and now the here of Islam Subhanallah brothers and sisters will law he if you look at this entire summary and it's much more it is as if Allah azza wa jal is planning 2000 years of different things happening, the expulsion, the study of martyrdom coming down, the Jews coming here that oh San Jose is doing that the location of everything is being put right into place for the right time and the right location and the right incident. But see, this is how Allah has covered works. When Allah azza wa jal wants to do something then Allah does it. We don't understand how wama Yeah, and Mo Judah Rebecca Allah who no one can understand the armies of

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Allah other than Allah. This is how Allah subhanho wa Taala facilitates. We don't understand how and this is what we know. How about what we don't know about yesterday? How about we don't know about why the city was chosen. When you look at the wisdoms of why the city was chosen by Allah subhanho wa Taala you began to just be astounded and everything fits into place and you realize that Subhan Allah when Allah decides something, when Allah azza wa jal says couldn't then indeed the fire cool happens, and it happens upon the right time and place and methodology. One final point I've been saying yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, the reality is that we should only say yesterday, if we're

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talking about pre Islamic Medina, which is what I'm doing here. We are not supposed to say yesterday for the modern city of Medina, and I'm not using it for the martyr syndrome or the classical city, Allah subhanaw taala mentions in the Quran, whereas yesterday mentioned where the phenomic was you guys, were there her father? Where does Allah say about what you ever started in? Fudger? Two days ago, right?

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Yep. What if called a toy for two minimum? Yeah, Allah yesterday by law Muqaam. Allah conferred you, right? Somebody can say shelter you're saying we shouldn't say yesterday. Allah says yesterday in the Quran, we respond. Allah azza wa jal is saying what the leaders of the hypocrites said they called it yesterday. They didn't call it Medina, what is called a party for two men whom in the Battle of Azzam when the hypocrites said Yeah, Hala Yathrib so Allah is describing what the hypocrites called Medina we don't call it Medina hadith is we don't call it yesterday. He didn't say Behati the Prophet system came back from an expedition and he saw the city of Medina and he said

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Yahoo Runa yesterday but well he has Medina they call the city yesterday but it is the city of Medina and the Hadith in Musa by Muhammad Fitbits beside it that feed off that the Prophet system is reported to have said Whoever says yesterday let him say a stole federal law. Whoever says yesterday let him say a stole food Allah meaning if you call Medina yesterday we don't do that anymore as a modern city but in that time you should not do this. So yesterday is only set for the historical city. As for the modern city, we do not call it we call it Medina and of course the other names of Medina most importantly play Abba Baba Baba and taba our process him call the city playbar and taba

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and also the Quran calls the city what is the city called in the Quran? Half yourselves other who fuzz we got like 50 of your father what is the Allah called the Quran? Allah call Medina and the Quran

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Come on. I should not even tell you we have so many profile Well, the inevitable what

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a dog the Abode Allah calls Medina Adar the house, it is the house the Ultimate House. This is one of the names of Medina right and there are other names as well found in the Quran and Sunnah. Bottom line. purpose of today's brief Hatha remind ourselves of the hijra,

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and remind ourselves that the plan of Allah is infinitely wise. And we can begin to just see some wisdom, some wisdoms, but when Allah wants to do something, it will be done. And whoever puts there trusted Allah, Allah's plan will come into effect and whatever happens in our lives, it's all of these interconnected things happening going back many generations we don't know how and why and what but it is all Allah's other as Allah says to Musa when he's wandering in the desert lost with his pregnant wife not having any food and water and he sees the light here and in the middle of the desert, he goes to that light, Allah says to him, through my Gita, Allah Kadar, yah Musa, all of

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this chaos that you think is chaos. It's not chaos or Musa, you came here because it was my cuddle, I had said and I had decreed and it was preordained, that this is what is going to happen. There is no chaos in this world. Everything that happens happens with the color of Allah we put our trust in Allah we make dua to Allah for the best color and inshallah we'll continue later on. We said I'm

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in

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love

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who use one Luna Island um

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yeah

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levena

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swallow water. He wants to label this NEMA

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in Alladhina you know, Allah, Allah wants to hold on

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to Nia.

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Mother, Molina, Wallasey know you Luna meanie now Amina TV while at MCC DESA Boo.

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Boo Boo. Oh, man, movie