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
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p>even noun 1 will be the neck and nip on

how to maintain

and how to avoid calamities in that book

he mentions that he wished the Muslims

would leave all their disputations and

arguing amongst each other and reach out

to all of the non-muslims in the

community

he said we use these people in the stuff

in the home

I mean he's living in the eighth century

mr. Hill no home he said we exploit them

in this table for home we go to them for

medicine and he said what a stock dinner

home in the tuxedo home Kodama we take

them as servants but we don't teach them

what Islam is we don't tell them about

Islam so he was complaining at that time

and he mentions that they were all over

there were so many of them so as late as

that there were many many non-muslims

but over the years and over the

centuries many of these people ended up

becoming Muslim but we are still and I'm

proud of the fact that there are several

million Coptic Christians in Egypt

really I think it's a source of pride

it's not a source of failure for the

most it's a source of pride that their

churches were protected in a time when

the Europeans were literally banishing

from their land anything that had to do

not only with other religions but with

Christian doctrines that did not accord

with their own so the Catholics were

expelling Unitarians and when the

Protestants emerged the Catholics

persecuted them mercilessly many of the

great Protestants actually who were in

Eastern Europe ended up moving to the

Ottoman lands because the ottomans

didn't care if they were Protestant or

Catholic they just said you're welcome

to come and they let them come so it's

very important to see that as a source

of pride that the Muslims defended their

minorities and I'll give you one example

of the martyrs of Cour Kaaba who are a

very interesting group of Christians

these were really fanatical Christians

were very disturbed by the numbers of

most of Christians that were converting

to Islam from the Visigoths the martyrs

of Cordoba would go into the mosques and

they would curse the prophets Elijah and

Weatherby that openly because they

wanted to be martyred so they were doing

it to revive the spirit and this is

something any beleaguered religious

community will often resort to a type of

stupid martyrdom a really useless

martyrdom as a way of trying to keep a

resistance alive do you see this is this

just it's it's it's a religious

phenomenon that you see throughout

religious history so this is what they

did because the the rulers at that time

realized what they were doing they would

go to extraordinary ends to prevent them

from being punished and they actually

would actually protect them and do this

it's a very interest although some were

killed and Muslims would get very angry

I mean Muslims if you do something like

that to a Muslim they'll literally go

insane and could kill a person just

because it's a type of temporary

insanity because they're so enraged that

somebody could desecrate or degrade one

of any of the prophets but certainly the

Prophet Muhammad salat is to them so

during this period cheb root was one of

the prime ministers of this government

of a man the second he was a Jewish

minister with immense influence and

power and this was another aspect of

Muslim Spain and also the ottomans it

was it was very interesting as with the

Ottomans which is meritocracy the

Muslims would often because of the the

meritorious qualities of an individual

they would elevate them and allow them

to rise up in the community irrespective

of their origins this is very

contradictory to feudal systems whereby

you have feudal lords and then you have

the gentry and then you have the

peasants

the peons be honest in what the Arabs

call the bay idea you know the ponds the

bay dock they're the lowest people pay

honest actually comes from base which is

a Latin word for foot they're the people

that have to walk everywhere because

they don't have transportation now they

take buses right those are the paleness

and so these these people could rise up

so a cobbler could become a minister

city ahmed shah rukh was a cobbler he

was a very poor man in the ninth century

of in Fez but because of his brilliance

he ended up becoming a great scholar

although you did have aristocracy in the

Muslim world it was a very fluid system

so Jews who were in historically in

Spain they were treated as the lowest of

the low and these are called the

Sephardic Sephardim you have three types

of Jews you have the Ashkenazi Jews that

are the Eastern European Jews and then

you have the safar beam that are the

Spanish Jews and then you have the MS a

team that are the Eastern Jews of Egypt

and Palestine Iraq Daniel Pearl who was

killed unjustly in Pakistan his mother

was a misery and she was actually in

Iraqi Jew so that's why he had that dark

complexion because he was Eastern

Eastern semi so the safar beam were

actually if you study and I read a book

on October when I was in Spain I read an

extraordinary book that had statistics

of the Jewish community in Port Oba at

the height of the Muslim civil magadh

civilization the Jews were largely

middle and upper-middle class they were

not ghettoized they were actually a very

successful community one of the most

interesting characters in Jewish history

is Moshe even Mamoon who's known as

Maimonides now Maimonides

in the 11th century during the period of

even the rush he was actually a student

of even Russian during the milwaukee

dean period now even Russian who was a

brilliant malachy jurist but he was also

a brilliant philosopher and Abu Jakub

who was the ruler at that time actually

was his patron and because of that he

wrote several commentaries on Aristotle

that ended up becoming the preeminent

commentaries that led to a renaissance

of thought in Europe because

Albertus Magnus who's the great

philosopher Christian philosopher who

taught st. Thomas Aquinas and Saint

Thomas Aquinas is a very important

historical intellectual in Christian

history because basically the Catholic

Church based the entire foundation of

their theology on st. Thomas Aquinas

thought so even Russia was the man who

gave access to Aristotle to st. Thomas

and he actually mentions him many many

times in the Summa contra Gentiles and

Summa Theologica very very interesting

now that word itself that Saint Thomas

Aquinas uses Summa it means jamon which

is a specific Malachy term the Maliki's

use the word dammit in their books

you'll always see key table JAMA which

is a book that has a lot of different

issues in it so this was a direct result

of the Islamic influence in Spain on

Europe now during this early period

another very interesting phenomenon

happens and this is important in terms

of the influence the

the Muslims have had on the West in in

the ninth century and the eighth eighth

50s one of the extraordinary characters

that shows up in Spain and becomes a

character in the court is a man called

zivia and Xillia was an absolute genius

he was a poet he was a musician he was

actually a connoisseur of food he was

also a type of bow grumble character who

was a bon vivant he liked very fancy

clothes and he actually his hairstyle

was different from the Spanish hairstyle

but because he was so popular the span

Spanish men began to actually imitate

his hairstyle which shows you

celebrities have always been around and

have an effect on culture people think

it's a modern phenomenon but the reality

of it is it's not now Julia who was

actually fled from the court in Iraq one

of the things that is every up did which

is really interesting is he started a

conservatory of music and began to teach

music to the Spanish Muslims now he

developed us a type of instrument from a

lute the loom and lute in European

language comes from an ood he developed

it by adding a string and the Spaniards

called it the key guitar amour risco the

Moorish guitar which becomes the guitar

now because of this he introduced very

sophisticated music from the East

Persian Mohammed what are called

Mohammed and one of the things this

music was used for was to treat people

for illnesses and so there were actually

hospitals in Cordoba that used music to

treat the mentally ill

and this is based on a Greek theory that

comes from Pythagoras called the ethos

theory of music that the soul is

actually affected by the vibrations of

sound and we know this from the quran

the quran is a very sonorous very

mellifluous and soothing speech that

part of it is the resonance that it has

on the soul and so the Quran is a Shifa

as well

but and I don't want to compare the

power on to music at all because that's

hot on to do but it's very interesting

that they use these and I'll just give

you one example in this science there's

the Muhammad rust which is a mom that

uses the key of C and the key of C is a

very soothing key and it's often used in

popular music and in fact when I was

talking with use of Islam about this and

he said that that was one of my favorite

keys to write in so like peace train is

written in the key of C but this

Muhammad rust actually soothes people

and calms them down so they would use

this in the hospitals and they called

the medicine OB Matty Stan and this was

also in fest and I visited one in fest

this science is still taught in Turkey

and they still use music therapy in

Turkey so it's actually used now this is

a very interesting influence on the West

and it's a little sidetrack here but I

find it fascinating there are two major

musical influences on Western

civilization the first is Spain and then

Italy through Sicily that goes up

classical music develops in Italy and

the reason is is because classical

music's roots are in Sicilian Andalusia

music which was very very popular and

even many of the ulema of that time

would listen to it and this is still the

case in Morocco even though the majority

in the mush whore of the form ed hem so

I'm not promoting music or anything the

mesh Horeb the form ed halves is

stringed instruments in these things

they say don't listen to them but

percussion instruments are permitted in

for festive occasions things like that

and singing the majority permit that

some prohibited so I don't want to talk

about the specificities of halal and

Haram

as I'm talking about the sociological

phenomenon of music in Andalusia this

music actually moves into Europe through

the troubadours now troubadour most of

the dictionaries of etymology say

troubadour comes from paratha the mutton

you know the Arab says a Madrid hey leo

trip you know the the musician of the

neighborhood doesn't entertain anybody

they don't want to listen to him so the

multiple of the troubadours were the

traveling musicians and they would often

sing love songs which is hustle because

the Arabs and the Arabic language is a

language of love it's a language of hope

and so these troubadours move into the

provincials France and you get all of

these troubadours singing in France love

songs and then that moves to England and

also to the Celtic lands so Celtic music

is directly related to and this has been

proven by ethnomusicologists that there

is a direct relationship to Celtic music

and Spanish music now the other very

strange connection and this was only

recently developed in a very interesting

book called Africa and the blues because

blues is a very American music and it's

the music of the African American slaves

and if you listen to early slave

recordings and I've heard them from the

late 19th century where they still had

freed slaves who were alive and they

recorded them singing you can't

distinguish between their singing and

the Adhan it's just amazing I have a

recording of this and it just amazes you

the same guttural sounds now these two

influences through Europe via Spain and

through Africa come into America with

the Appalachian Celtic influences and

then the Delta Mississippi blues

influences

and this creates what we call rock and

roll but I really believe we should call

it Moroccan roll because the connection

is really extraordinary and I'll give

you an example the basis of rock and

roll is a 4/4 beat in fact they call it

the Bo Diddley beat that's called the Bo

Diddley beat in rock and roll now if you

ever heard man Morrison and I liked him

before I was Muslim if you ever hear Van

Morrison from he's a 60 singer he sings

a song where he goes say it again

where'd that come from La Nina in LA

that's where it came from now one of the

interesting things about rock and roll

music because my father plays piano and

one of his friends who was a jazz

musician in New York Sai Walter when

rock and roll first came out in the late

50s my father asked him what do you

think about this wretched music he said

it'll never last and he said why not he

said because all it has is a beat but he

didn't know what that beat was based on

you know because I really believe that

it's actually resonating in people's

hearts

something's resonating in people's

hearts they're hearing something and the

rock-and-roll beat is based on a 4/4

beat and the Kalima la ilaha illaallah

muhammaden-rasul allah is based on four

four beats and that's why all of the

muslim in Schad is based on these basic

rhythms and so you have this connection

in Spanish all the Spanish see if you've

ever heard the end ricean singing a lot

of it is singing that

Namah a lot of the West African music is

singing la ilaha illaallah so here

they're saying nananana in morocco

they're saying na na na ma

so we just need to fix the bowing for

them right which is gonna take some work

but it can happen and in fact there was

a album that won a Grammy a few years

ago that Santana produced and in that

song you know the song says there's a

devil under the bed he's telling you to

be afraid and there's an angel over your

head and you can hear him say and then

it comes in the in the law like that

just they sing that's literally la la

hey la la and it fits in that 4/4 rhythm

so that's just a side thing which is

what I find really interesting and I

think Muslims should study this to bring

this out it's really important that

people see where this stuff comes from

and why it has an effect on people so

that is one of the interesting aspects

of Spanish influence on the West is the

musical influence now the the Muslims of

Spain were completely in love with

learning or I should rather say certain

cities in fact Poltava how the of

evocative in and out of a who grew up in

Seville Siviglia he said about Cordoba

Edom atomos shipping fee fee for Taba no

peanuts

laughter when Musa Pia illa Ashby AHA

Tituba if if a musician import opa died

he had all his instruments were sent to

Seville in order to sell them where da

Matta

a demon fish via new Pinatubo who in

Oporto bahattar too bad but if sky

in Seville died his books were sent to

poor Papa in order for them to be sold

because Seville was known as a party

town

there's people when they go to

university they don't choose like

Harvard or Yale they choose universities

that they know are known for partying

seriously this is true people go to

universities I'll give you a good I

don't want any of you to apply here but

a good party school is the University of

Arizona in San Antonio that's a famous

party school people go there to have a

good time for four years but if you want

to study you have to go to a serious

school well the same is true in the

Muslim countries there were cities that

were known like baklava was a city known

for knowledge

Elia was a city known for a lot of fun

and activity to this day Seville is

still known as the party town and

Poltava is considered a city of great

learning to this day Futaba is still a

place it's a university town that has a

much learning in it that's just amazing

it's sooner to love you humping heat so

the learning the desire for learning was

immense in Andalusia and this is really

the strength of this country during the

period of the Umayyad scholars came from

all over one of the most interesting

aspects of engineering scholarship is

that they encouraged something was

called a reflow the retina was where a

scholar would travel to another country

and to take a journey to the east in

order to gain more knowledge and then

would come back and they would often see

an extraordinary change

in that scholars perspective this is

very important and I would encourage it

for our it won't enough elite some of

the anima in the college would really

benefit by taking journeys of knowledge

to other countries where they can sit

with other Illuma and listen to other

anima because when Illuma are stuck in

one little provincial area and all they

know is their own area they're not able

to really think in in a more global or

more broad perspective so exchanging of

students is very important this is what

the end editions would do in fact Haven

has him who's of muta shepherded amongst

those scholars was known for not making

the retina and maybe there's a

relationship to even husband's harshness

in certain issues and the fact that he

never took that great journey to acquire

knowledge from scholars in the east one

of the great travellers of the East was

a medieval Muslim and the GDP now this

man in the late 10th early 11th century

he made a journey and he brought back

the system of numeration that had gone

all over numeracy in the east so he

brought back what are called the obama

to india and he they developed under the

sands and the Moroccans developed their

own system which is called an ottoman

Arabia and this is very important to

note that the Arabic numerals are not

Indian numerals the Arabic numerals of

the Morocco and of the North African

countries were developed by the Muslims

themselves and relate to angles these

were taught to one of the students

Gilbert who learned in Spain studied in

a school in Spain gehrig art becomes

Pope Sylvester Pope Sylvester introduced

numerals into Europe where

you get that knowledge he got it from

the Muslims and numerals I will

guarantee you numerals are the secret of

the power of Western civilization and if

you don't believe me read a book called

the measure of everything which is about

how the Western scientists began to

measure everything and they did it

because they were empowered by numeral

and that's why and I've said this before

but the problem is not weapons of mass

destruction the problem is weapons of

math instruction because it's only

through higher mathematics that you can

develop weapons of mass destruction and

that's why even the Imam al-ghazali they

warned about atomic film pizza because

they were concerned about that aspect if

the people that master these Sciences

aren't morally righteous upright people

they can actually really harm people and

do terrible thing so the Muslims

introduced these numbers into Europe and

then Europe took these numbers and

measured and quantified everything they

developed calculus Leibnitz and Newton

developed calculus and calculus has

empowered Western civilization really

completely so the Western dominance that

we witness now on the globe is a direct

result of a pope that studied from

muslims who believed that knowledge was

for Humanity and this is very important

and I want to wind down here because

it's such a fascinating period and I

actually lived in Spain I lived in Spain

for over a year in Granada so

just a few things about the

contributions of Spain the Spaniards

invented crystal Spanish Muslims

invented crystal the highest form of

glass the Spanish invented the idea of a

movement in music Nova it's called a

nova nobody attend alwah it's a change

western music if you look at classical

music western music the hallmark of it

is movements where did they get the word

from they got it from Spanish music many

of the instruments used in classical

music came through Spain do you see in

fact the piano which is the highest of

the Western classical instruments were

along with the violin both of them are

introductions from the east by Muslims

the piano is a an extended what they

call the cannon the cannon if you look

at a condo and look inside a piano it's

identical really it's identical the

piano is a percussion instrument the

kanoon is a plucked instrument the piano

is struck and who invented the condom

and Farabi the Muslim philosopher al

farabi a Farabi was a genius

he spoke 70 languages there's a famous

story he came in to a gathering in Holub

of one of the Umrah and he was wearing

an Anatolian suit because he studied

magic from Greece and the he was just

sitting there and the animal were

talking and and one of the servants

spoke a very strange dialect and the

Emir was trying to explain something to

the servant the servant couldn't

understand so far avi spoke to the

servant and the Emir looked and he said

ëno had Elijah he said do you speak this

dialect he said another King no Sabina

Doha he said I speak 70 language they

say do you know anything about Arabic he

said well test me and so the grammarian

start testing him they went on until

they all said this man knows more than

anybody and then he began to talk about

logic and they were completely amazed

and so the Amir said do you know

anything about music and he said

bring me road so they brought him a dude

and he played the and made them all

laugh and then he played the rude and he

made them all cry and then he put them

to sleep because he wrote a book which I

actually have in my library called cheat

abend will see a funky you the big book

of music it's this big I mean it's it's

a Madame Osama and in that book he

teaches you how to use music to affect

the emotions of people which is the

reason Plato in the Republic said music

should be prohibited because it's too

powerful a weapon and it affects the

emotions of people and most musicians

don't know what they're doing so they

get people educated you know you go to a

rock concert and suddenly people are

beating each other up and they don't

know why well if you play that music

like that you know everybody's going

like that and lighting candles and so

this was something that the Muslims the

influence that they had all of these

things music on the movements and also

the extraordinary advancements in

astronomy and I'll tell you a secret

that this is something I've never seen

this written you know Bennetto said that

he liked Imams he'll be used to say the

hallmark of a civilization and I've seen

this throughout my study of history the

hallmark of a great civilization is it

has two great concerns two major

concerns the first concern is a concern

with law jurisprudence what we call

fifth and the second concern is within

metalic and the reason I believe that is

true see people wonder why America spend

so much money on NASA

and spend so much money on astronomy

because that's the nature of a vibrant

dynamic civilization they're interested

in the heavens why is America's flag the

Stars and Bars because the bars when

they put you in jail because of the law

they call it behind bars and that's not

that's the way America works you know if

you don't follow America's law they put

you behind bars right so who can give

adequate enough sect like the Egyptians

say but the the this flag of the America

is the Stars and the bars in metallic

aluminum and that's that's the secret

why are Americans obsessed with law

Americans are the only people that I

know of really it you would be amazed at

how much legal language Americans know

deposition they're legitimate I mean

they sue each other a lot right but they

really know look at how many American

programs are about law courts and

lawyers look at how many films have been

made that are just court scenes because

they're obsessed with law and as long as

they're obsessed with law there'll be a

powerful nation and when they begin to

lose that desire and that's why what's

extraordinary and I'm not really blowing

any pipes for America right now what's

really extraordinary about that country

and I I just say you know turbines off

to them is that you have people in that

country that no matter how criminal the

activities of the country get you have

really great jurists and people in the

country that fight to redress the wrongs

of that country and I have to say that I

I feel proud of being

on the side of those people I really do

because there are really good people in

there that are working to redress the

Guantanamo zation of people I mean it's

a word in our vocabulary now to

Guantanamo as people and the whole point

of these laws that are so extraordinary

the high principles that many of them

came through Sicily cheated Raja

people don't know about that the history

of Sicily in fact a lot of people wonder

where Americans got the jury system or

the English Anglo jury system of twelve

and some of the researchers in the u.s.

actually believe that there's a

connection between a Malak you principal

of taking 12 people in the absence of a

polity and using 12 notables peers to

judge a people because the idea of some

of the manikins scholars like email

Madhavi if you have 12 people it's hard

for them to make agree on an error right

so much of what we see in America and in

the West in terms of laws and things

there's a direct info statute law was

influenced by Napoleon who adopted many

of the monarchy principles in Napoleonic

statute law which is a very important

legal development in Western legal

history so the influence is immense and

so what how can we revive the spirit I

would say that there's a few things that

we can do the first thing that we can do

is recognize that Spain is one of the

greatest testimonies to the power of the

Islamic religion to facilitate the

flourish meant of human society and

civilization it is one of the most

powerful testimonies to the ability of

Islam to actually create a better life

for ordinary

citizens not just for the elite the

parks in Andalusia were for everybody

they developed parks where everybody

could go to the poorest of the poor and

the richest of the rich the street

mining was for everybody the wealthy the

poor the public baths were for everybody

this is one of the secrets of Andalusia

is that it really helped human society

flourish now one of the tragedies of

Western civilization that they have yet

to come to terms with many many people

in the West have not come to terms with

this fact Christianity as a religion

failed to create societies in which

human beings flourished this is a

historical fact and this is why

Christianity when it ruled Europe with

with its iron hand knowledge was not

promoted and when it was it was only

promoted amongst the priestly class

common people were not allowed to learn

the standard of living was never

promoted the Krish early Christians in

Europe believe that taking baths was

ungodly that it was better to be a

unaesthetic

and so in many places baths were never

encouraged this is very well known many

many other things but the most important

thing that they failed to do which

Islamic civilization and particularly

Spain succeeded in doing was creating an

environment of religious tolerance this

is the great accomplishment of Spain is

that in Spain muslims jews and

christians lived under the beautiful

umbrella of islam the protective

umbrella of islam that put them in the

shade of justice from the sun of tyranny

and during that time

you had extraordinary intercultural

dialogue you had extraordinary

introduced dialogue and debate Muslims

were not only tolerant of other methods

in their schools but they were tolerant

of other people's beliefs and honored

those people in their right to believe

what they believe this is the great

achievement of Spain and this is

something that the West directly adopted

from ottoman and Spanish influence and

one of the great proofs of this is Henry

Stubb who in 1701 a book was released

into the intelligentsia of England Henry

stop was a close friend of the great

English British philosopher Hobbes

Hobbes was very troubled by the

religious Wars of the 17th century

because of that he wrote a book in which

he really wanted to create a space where

the secular and the religious were

separate because he felt the religious

always ended up creating tragedy

creating wars creating dissension and

thus the great student of this idea is

another extraordinary philosopher who

returns in the great revolution in 1688

from the the the the tolerant land of

the Dutch he returns with them and this

is Locke John Locke and John Locke wrote

a very important treatise which is

called the treatise of toleration and

one of the things that I discovered

about this man in reading a biography of

him

was that the most influential teacher on

Locke was a man named Edward poco and

Edward Poe Koch was the Arabic Islamic

professor at Cambridge and Edward Poe

Koch introduced these ideas to Locke at

a very early

of the sophistication of the ottoman

system of toleration and that is why the

first act of toleration in European

history was under the suzerainty of the

Ottoman Empire done in Transylvania this

is the first act of toleration and then

the next is in England so the secular

religious crises of Europe was a direct

result of the inability of European

religion to help benefit human society

and this is the great achievement of

Islam this is the great achievement of

Islam and this is why Prince Charles in

an extraordinary and prescient address

said that the Muslims are unique in

religious history in being able to join

the secular and the sacred in a

harmonious interrelationship and it

behooves us in the West to bring the

sages of Islam to the West in order for

them to edify us and illuminate us on

the secret of that ability because we

are facing a great calamity if science

does not serve humanity under the great

umbrella of the religious truths the

moral truths of religion science is out

of control

science is completely out of control and

that is why we do not want to see a

separation of religious principles from

secular tradition this is not a Muslim

problem this is uniquely a European

problem it is not a problem of Islam and

although I don't want to see the mullahs

running everything

I really don't

I want them in the Masjid guiding people

and things like that and leave them out

of the White House or any other place

really

I don't want to see the mullahs there I

want to see the mullahs more shedule

this Lissie a saint I mean I really

believe that because that's the role of

the scholar is to help guide the

political people and that's why the

prophets Allah I am in a hadith and

there's some weakness there but the

hadith repeated many many things that

pero el maraa al agua en una ma ma sha

Allah Allah o Mara I mean that's that's

a really important idea in Islam so

finally the West abandoned this project

of religion and made it a private affair

and adopted four things in order for

human beings to flourish politics

economics science and technology and the

human social sciences these were all

hallmarks of the Angelou Seon Society

they're all hallmarks of the end of C in

society and so our challenge as Muslims

is how we can once again be able to

revive the ability for Islam and for the

Muslims to work with the great

challenges of our time the great

transformations of our time using the

the past as our compass the past is our<