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