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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at

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

North Star but also using the present

recognizing we're in the present and on

a journey into the future so we want the

assala of the past the the principles of

the past and the strength of the past to

derive from that but we also have to

reconcile the fact that we are modern

people and we can do that

may Allah give us benefit and finally

Allah subhana WA Ta'ala says about

people that abandon his way come tocome

in debt not my urine was roaring while

my famine shed him how many greats

gardens did they leave behind and

Springs and fountains was Errol and mama

Hymon

one Nick Martin can ophea have a keen

and all these blessings that they were

in it deriving these blessings from

Kidada kaorun aha oh man ah Kareem this

is the Sunnah of a logically I knew that

Widow have been an ass we are here in

the West we should partake in this

extraordinary civilization by becoming

productive members of it and also I

believe becoming leaders inshallah

and we can do that in the spirit of

Andalusia which is akamalik aromas are

American