Nine Hundred Years: Reviving the Spirit of Andalusia

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Event Name: Nine Hundred Years: Reviving the Spirit of Andalusia
Transcription Date:Transcription Modified Date: 5/25/2019
Transcript Version: 1


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I was asked to talk about Al-Andalus.  It is one of the most extraordinary portions of our great Islamic history and in reviving the spirit of Al-Andalusia it's important that we first of all look at

what Al-Andalusia means to the Muslims and Andalus is the greatest European expression of Islam. 

Islam has been in Europe for centuries.  Islam was in Eastern Europe for centuries but the Islam that Andaluz is a Western European phenomenon and we should remember that that for over 800 years Islam begins in Spain in 711 in Christian era and it does not end until the final expulsion in 1609.

People forget they think of 1492 as the end of the Muslim experience in Spain the reality is is that the Muslims continued to exist in large numbers in Spain until 1609 which is the final expulsion and in 1568 for two years 1568 and fifteen - fifteen seventy that was the last actual resistance, the war of Mijares or the alfajores mountains which are just east of Grenada.

And this was led by a Muslim Ferdinando or whose Muslim name the Muslims by that time had both Spanish names and their Islamic names just like many converts here have their Western names and their Islamic names these Morisco's, who were living in Spain as Muslims and

they were actually Spanish Muslims they

spoke Spanish they wrote in Spanish that

you often used Arabic script this man

who's named his Muslim name was Muhammad

bin umeå led a two-year resistance

against the Spanish in 1568 to 1570 so

it's important to remember that that

nine hundred years over nine hundred

years the Muslims were in Spain now I

want you to imagine America is a country

that's over 200 years old and we feel

like we've been there a long time even

though we're all newcomers

I have ancestors that came very early

and then I have ancestors that came as

late as 1896 through Ellis Island my

grandfather my great-grandfather and

with him his son who was my grandfather

came through Ellis Island he's my

mother's father as late as 1896 so I

want you to imagine that the Canadians

who were really the loyalists of the war

of independence they did not split off

from the United States or rather from

England and many of the loyalists in

America in the United States of America

fled to Canada because the Canadians

remain loyalist when I was reading

Canadian history I was shocked to find

out that we were the bad guys in the war

of 1812 I always thought we were the

good guys but I was reading Canadian

history and they looked at it very

differently and we're neighbors so I

want you to imagine that the Canadians

decide that the Americans are out of

control this is just an imaginary

scenario so don't worry that the

Americans are out of control they're

threatening the world with proliferation

of weapons of mass destruction they're

cheerin izing and terrorizing and doing

all these horrible things and also the

fact that they're burning the vast

majority of fossil fuels they're causing

permafrost in Canada to melt and the

permafrost is very important for the

stability of the atmosphere and now we

know that the polar bears which our

Canadian citizens are really suffering

right now so the Canadians are fed up

they say we're going to drive the

Americans out of America into Mexico so

they they basically invade America

imaginary scenario they invade America

the Canadian Mounties on their horses go

down into America and drive the

Americans into Mexico and the Mexicans

being the generous people and warm

people that they are they embrace the

Americans as refugees from economic

deprivation and loss of housing and all

other things so they embrace them and

say nuestra casa es tu casa no I

problema

so there's your scenario now what would

the Americans do they I think personally

you know being from America I really

think they would begin a resistance

movement in Mexico and start operations

to get their country back because

they've they've been there for 200 years

200 years now imagine the Muslims in

Spain 900 years 900 years and they're

driven out of their homes by an invading

force from the north that called the

Reconquista which is not a valid term it

wasn't a reconquest the northern

Spaniards were never they weren't from

southern Spain they weren't from

attended OU's so you imagine what would

happen in that scenario it's a very

interesting problem now the Spanish have

basically denied the 900 years of Muslim

Spain really they've completely denied

it they see it as arab invaders and i

want to talk a little bit about that

first of all thought up in Ziad was

actually encouraged Musa even Messiah

who was the governor then of the

Umayyads of the East badhak bin zayed

was his general but they were encouraged

to cross over to Spain the reason for

that is because there was a count in

suta swetha which is part of Morocco

it's actually Spanish Morocco it's still

part of Spain but it's in Morocco this

count Julian and

he's called urban as well had a daughter

Florinda and he it was the habit of the

the nobility at that time to send their

children to the courts of the Visigothic

Kings in order for them to become

culture so he sent his young daughter

she was 14 or 15 to the court of King

Roderick which was in Toledo and in that

court she was raped by the king

now she was blamed for this but when she

came back what happened was her father

was completely alienated from the

visigothic king of Spain and so he sided

with the Arabs and helped them to cross

over into Spain so they had

expeditionaries when they sent these

reckon ordering groups over into Spain

to look around and when thought of the

things he had finally crossed over in

711 and the famous story that he burnt

the ships is just fantasy it's first of

all it's just a stupid thing to do you

don't burn your Navy down if you're

gonna send it back you send it back we

have a problem in our history is we have

what are called the pool sauce and the

puffs were people that told stories to

encourage people in the mosques and

things like that and they often

embellish stories what the Arabs call

you the head of the Slav to spice up the

story and so that's a spicing up of the

story so far occupancy ad when he

crossed over and quickly really it was

quite an extraordinary conquest begins

to really take over this country and

within this first period

the Omegas basically

control of a large segment of Spain now

this initial million period will last

until 756 so from 7-eleven to 756 which

is when a brahmana dolphin who was the

grandson of the hanifa Hisham who ruled

in the seven 40s he actually moved from

the 724 to 743 I think and he had

trained his grandson he actually

believed because I'm profound a dolphin

was very brilliant young man he believed

that he would be a caliph at one time

but when the abbasids took over in 750

he flees and he goes to Morocco he

actually had relatives from the burghers

in Morocco and they took him in and then

he crosses over and establishes an

amazing capital in Corcovado a brilliant

man really unusual a highly gifted

general and statesman and the Omegas had

a great deal of intelligence the the Oh

merde rulers they didn't last long

and one of the things that I've noted in

Islamic history is that intolerant

dynasties in Islam are very short-lived

one of the really interesting things

about Islamic dynasties is that the

intolerant ones never last more than a

hundred years and the great dynasties of

Islam that either were intolerant in the

beginning but learn tolerance quite

quickly the Abbasid dynasty is a good

example of that or the Ottoman and the

Ottoman is the most extraordinary in

terms of tolerance and they're the

longest-lived

dynasty in human history there is no

Theo smiley is the longest live

family dynasty that we know of in human

history so it's really quite

extraordinary that they lived as long as

they did if you look at the the period

the Umayyad period when the Umayyad

dynasty collapses in the east with the

takeover of the Abbasids

that most of the Umayyad family were

wiped out and the few that got away

among them are brahmana Dafa fled he

goes to Spain sets up this extraordinary

dynasty and it is a reasonably short

live dynasty I mean it doesn't it

doesn't go on for long because well

there's a number of reasons for that

that I don't want to go into this

because I really want to get to the

point of this of what's so extraordinary

about this but here's the second of that

man of the man the second is another

very extraordinary ruler he basically

creates a court that is a completely

multicultural court he has people coming

from all over the ins and out they bring

Persians are imported from Persia

brought in Shiraz was one of the cities

that a large contingency of Persians

came from and one of the things they

brought to Spain was the knowledge of

Persian winemaking and there's a area

just outside of Seville today's day

Frontera which is where they grew their

grapes and and it's actually Shiraz de

fronteira and which is where we get the

Western world sherry from

and I know none of you know what that

means because you're Muslims but sherry

is considered a very fine type of line

in the West so that actually came from

Persian Muslims that brought that

knowledge to Spain now during this

period in 950 in Cordoba just to give

you an example of what type of city this

was in 950 and for Taba and we have very

strong documentation of this there were

six hundred thousand people living in

this city which is an extraordinary

number for that period in human history

six hundred thousand over half a million

people a very large city there were

ninety two thousand seven hundred shops

and trade establishments in that city

can you imagine the the wealth that that

city possessed ninety two thousand seven

hundred and that means most people were

self-employed and were doing quite well

they had 50 hospitals 50 hospitals in a

city of 600,000 people they had one

university and they had 300 colleges I'm

just imagine that the university had

20,000 students full-time 20,000

students and that does not overlook the

fact that people were allowed into

because classes were held openly and so

people were allowed to come in what they

call in Western universities auditing a

course people were allowed to come in

and audit without actually being

registered at the universities but

20,000 out of 600,000 the population

just an extraordinary number of people

and they were coming from many many

places there were 300 public baths 300

public baths in that city and 72 public

libraries 72 public libraries imagine

that in 950 this is their one average

house in for Koba at that time had more

books than all of Europe contained at

the same time I mean so imagine that

there was lighting there were actually

lights in the streets so there was

lighting and you could see the lights of

buh-buh-buh from 40 miles away according

to accounts at the time later they

introduced indoor plumbing and they

actually in Granada where they had

gravity they had very sophisticated

systems of gravity they actually had

running water with faucets and you can

imagine the level of civilization that

was there now during this period one of

the things that the Muslims were noted

for was their tolerance of other

religions and this is obviously because

the prophets of varieties that have

taught us about the venmo system and I

want to say a few words because the

dimmest system is considered very

negatively now in the modern world of

global community what they call the

global community where everybody cares

about everybody else and nobody steals

from anybody else's wealth or property I

mean I'll give you an example of them

Mattoon

now in the Gulf War go for one right the

United States protected Kuwait when and

protect and it was a good thing because

Kuwait was unjustly but it wasn't for

free it cost a lot of money really like

several hundred tens of billions of

dollars so it costed a lot of money in

the kwaity

government paid quite dearly for that

protection so things aren't free

protections not free I mean that's just

the way the world works so you can call

it paying for our weapons or whatever

you want to call it but in Islam it's

just them my means responsibility it's

much cheaper than America charges for

protection I guarantee you it's a much

better deal and it's all out in the open

it's just there right in the open just

sign on the dotted line enter into an

agreement and we'll protect you you

don't have to do anything and what's

amazing the justice of the Muslims is

that when the Muslims retreated from

certain areas in Syria because they were

unable to protect the Christians and

Jews of that area they actually returned

their money to them and this is

documented historically so they weren't

squeezing people out and we even know

that Saint Omar said if they can't pay

it don't force it from them in other

words it was paid if you're able to you

have that capacity there were all people

that could no longer

and saying Alma would excuse them from

that so then the truth was not a

negative thing

in fact some will whom saw your own have

two heads for Al Jazeera and hidden

wahoo solve your own which is in the

Quran there's a big debate about what's

all gear means and I really find it

dangerous to say in a state of

humiliation which is how many of the

tafseer say it salvia is also something

that somebody who's under somebody else

so we could look at it as a minority

they pay with their hands because

they're a minority they're in a weakened

position and then my means

responsibility what who's them are they

in there in the limit of Allah and His

Messenger the limit alayhi wa rasuluh he

and that's your responsibility the

Muslim to protect and defend their

mosque that their synagogues their

churches and according to the monarchy

and hanafis schools that were operative

in the majority of the Islamic lands

also the Buddhist temples the Hindu

temples because the chef is restricted

to the three major al khattab Jews

Christians and then the miju's but the

monarchies and hanafis extended it to

anybody who was willing to enter into a

covenant with the Muslims and in fact

one of my teachers said Slava valeriani

includes in his word el buana Anja Dida

which is a book he wrote on manic effect

he includes secularists that they would

also enter into that covenant to be

protected and the prophets Edmond

Adderley the median for Ana hospital we

AMA p.m. whoever harms a thin knee a Jew

a Christian or anybody else in a

covenant with the Muslims

whoever harms then

I will be the advocate of that than me

on the day of judgement the Prophet will

be the advocate of that Vimy now one of

the things I want - one of the fantasies

that many Muslims have about Muslim

history is that when the Muslims came

everybody just said Allahu Akbar la

ilaha illallah muhammad rasool allah

we're Muslims that that's the fantasy

that Muslims have in fact Imams ate once

remarked that when you read Islamic

history you have to take a double dose

of Eman vitamins because it can be

actually quite disturbing to see some of

the things that occurred in Muslim

history now according to dr. Hana

Blankenship who I regard is probably one

of the greatest living historians that's

my own personal opinion but I really

he's the even harden of his time dr.

Colin Blankenship said that in Egypt it

took 300 years before the Muslims

reached 50% of the population in Syria

it took five hundred years so during all

of that early period the majority of

people in those countries were not

Muslims and if you read in the history

and all just one example of this because

it's very important in relation to

Andalusia one example of this is the

extraordinary scholar tragedy no suki

who wrote a really beautiful book or

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