Transcript>Special Address (to Zaytuna College)

bismillah r-rahman

I'm doing that but the last panel to

understand it was not mr. Fuhrer who

when I would have let him ensure Orion

Ficino and say yeah yeah Medina I mean

yeah he laughs at our model a woman yoga

inferred I had the other hello MA

suddenly was said in my Odyssey in

Mohammed wine and he was happy was an

empty seaman kathira without how would I

run after water in every land ally

darling

hamdullah welcome everybody the the

topic I wanted to talk about today

revolves around what occurred in

Marrakesh and I think some of you are

aware of it but for those of you who

aren't shelepin baya who I think in many

ways represents a type of intelligence

that has been lacking in in our

community in a lot of different areas

he's somebody who doesn't study for

instance all sort of fill as a

historical artifact which a lot of

scholars today do they they study all

sorted fit as a historical artifact

trying to understand how the art

tradition emerged and evolved he studies

all sorted fit and I think he's he's

arguably one of the greatest if not the

greatest Sunni master of the of the the

tool of also in in modern times he

studies it as as an actual manual really

of operation operating manual that

enables us to use our religious

tradition in a way to make it compatible

with the circumstances that we find

ourselves in not compromising it but

recognizing that circumstances have

their realities he calls it fickle waka

the

the jurisprudence of reality that that

the reality of Dorrit the hakama ha like

the AHA say necessities have their own

categories their own rulings and and we

have many many examples of this

historically throughout history of the

Muslims dealing with their circumstances

I'll just give you an example in

historically when Muslims conquered

lands there were two types of ways that

they came into a land one was what was

called an unlit in' and that it was

sullen so uh newellton is where a people

refused they refused the the muslim

demands and so they fought it out and

then the muslims one that had a whole

set of rules that went with it and then

if they conquered them under a treaty

like a celeb then that also they were

able to stipulate things so one was like

a conditional surrender the other was

like an unconditional surrender and you

see this in earliest long one of the

things in unconditional situations that

they would that they would not allow

them to build new churches and so you

will find for instance that there are

periods where a ruler will come and

he'll actually order the churches to be

torn down that were built in the

previous administration so you'll find

that in our history books and these are

things that a lot of people that are

very anti-muslim are pulling out because

they're going into our sources and

looking at our history books and what's

interesting about their methodology is

that they will cherry-pick all the

things that blacken Islamic history and

and just they will look at them as

simply fact this is fact and anything

that puts the religion in a good light

they will say oh this is clearly a

contrived story it's a nice story told

by Muslims to make their religion look

nice and this is a very

and when you get into Orientalist

tradition it's a very common motif for

me it really bothers me a lot because

they don't challenge a lot of these

narratives that I personally would

challenge because the Prophet never

destroyed a place of worship and so if

and he prohibited destroying places of

worship so if I Muslim ruler destroys a

place of worship that was already built

even if it was built against certain

codes or legal restrictions if it's

being used by a religious community I

don't believe the Prophet would have

done that and so to say that this

somehow is normative Islam because a

ruler did it another aspect that we have

to remember as Muslims is that Islam was

a religious tradition that our prophet

told us would only have a polity for

thirty years and then after that he said

it wouldn't be Islam it would be

something else and so after 30 years and

it ends with Hassan vanadis Kedavra

which lasted for six months almost to

the date thirty years after the Prophet

SAW lied to them his death it aligned

with Empire and and Islam becomes now a

vehicle for Empire with all the the

aspects that that entails just like

Christianity in the fourth century

aligned with Empire

so the first 300 years the Christians

had a certain tradition but after that

when they aligned with Empire it became

very different

one of the fundamental debates in early

Christianity was about wealth this was

actually a more significant debate than

a lot of the theological debates that

that will enter into the religion later

on could a Christian be rich that that

was a major discussion many of the

Church Fathers really felt and the

Desert Fathers certainly felt that the

only way that you could truly express

your true Christian faith was in

to completely remove yourself from the

world and but once Christianity became

the religion of an empire it it changed

it transformed and is Lomb is the same

they can't you can't divorce the the the

scholars that worked with Empire and

their decisions and their reasoning from

the environments that they were in you

can't separate those two and then you

will find historically the vast majority

of the scholars that are honoured in our

tradition the vast majority not all of

them but the vast majority of them had

very tenuous relationships with Empire

many of them would not visit rulers they

simply would not go and sit with them if

the ruler wanted to see them they would

say he has to come and see me I'm not

going to him imam at a Posada who in his

early part of his life was was very much

aligned with Empire he worked with nizam

al-mulk he was in his coterie but when

he had his transformation he went on his

pilgrimage at the at the tomb of El

Halil he sworn oath that he would never

visit a ruler that's an oath another

that he actually swore he vowed that he

would never visit a ruler and when he

was called to the court of sun-ja he

went not believing it was breaking the

valley because he was forced to because

he was accused of he was accused you

know of religious heterodoxy and he had

to go defend himself but he did not

after that engage with rulers and so

there are many many examples of that

historically matica panis is a clear

example of somebody who and abu hanifa

and ahmed mohammed all of them if you

look at the four imams all of them were

simply not tied to Empire they would not

allow themselves to be compromised in

that way because they understood that

once you ally with Empire you

compromised yourself and one of the

interesting things about

our legal system is that judges

traditionally were independent so even

the the rulers could not control the

what we would call the judicial branch

in our separation of powers because we

separate legislative the judicial and

the executive branch is based on

Montesquieu's demarcations in in the in

the traditional Muslim world the

legislative was largely an independent

body the Faja and and you had the the

executive branch which would always also

legislate things very often against the

the foot bhai the independent

legislative branch so they would

legislate taxes that the folk considered

unacceptable or unjust so the

legislative branch in Islamic history

was actually an independent branch

generally but it was also co-opted by

Empire and so there was a tenuous

relationship between the Fulco ha what

they called the Ummah of soul bond and

the Ummah of Quran

right this is this so as you know as we

look at also landfill as a as a tool to

deal and grapple with the real

contingencies of time that's something

that I think chef abdullah takes very

seriously and this is why he has he's

come up with certain conclusions about

about things that and and they're very

troubling to some of the ummah which is

interesting also because one of the

things that he does is whenever he

whenever he comes up with something he

always writes his argument from a Sunni

perspective he puts it out there and

then it's like if you have criticisms

write them and then I'll address them

and this was our traditional edible PDF

like you put forward your argument

because one of the things Van Doren said

and and and I think it applies equally

to our tradition as it does to Western

civilization is

that inheriting a tradition is

inheriting a lawsuit so when you inherit

a tradition you're you're grappling with

different lawyers of the past making

arguments and just to give you one

example in the verse which is in Toba

where it says that they're supposed to

pay jizya at its value jizya tenanted

then home sovereign right so there's the

joomla Holly as a home saw her own that

they should pay this tribute in a

humbled manner for whom sahi room if you

read the books of fit you will you'll

see amazing things some of them said oh

we have to humiliate them and so this is

not from prophetic practice this is

their interpretations of a verse in the

Quran so they would say they should pay

it at 12 p.m. 12 noon the hottest part

of the day they should pay it without

their head cover they should always put

their hand offer the money like this so

the Muslim takes the money from above

because yet the earlier hey Romania the

sulla right and and the hand over is

better than the hand under meaning the

one giving is better than one taking so

in this case you know that to offer the

money like that instead of like that

that's one view and the Fuuka ha you'll

find that in the books and these are the

things that these Islamophobes pull out

of our books and say over there look at

this tolerant religion and then you have

people like I borrow bathing tapenade

one of the great folk AHA Islamic

tradition who argues that just paying

tribute is humbling enough so honor them

and treat them well and don't humiliate

them in paying their tribute so there's

another who comes up with a

completely different approach and so

what is it which one is it

they're both from the quote-unquote

tradition and this is the lawsuit that

we inherit and then we have to ask

ourselves what is closest to our

prophets behavior how was he with people

when the Christians of Ned

Ron came to Medina in in according to

one recension in the ninth year of hijra

how did he treat them according to our

books he let them pray in in the Masjid

when they debated with him about for

instance yeah after Harun they said

about Mary you've confused Mary the

sister of Moses with Mary the mother of

Jesus because in the Perron Mary the

Virgin is called

the sister of Haroon and the prophet

said wasn't she and erinite because the

arenites were the the shrine keepers and

Mary was from the offspring of Aaron the

brother of Moses so he was explaining

because the Arabs say yeah after doubt

oh boy yeah uh-huh now table when you're

from a people you call them the sister

of that people so she was an era night

so he was saying that's not a confusion

that's a thought that indicates her

lineage so he explained he didn't say

off with their heads how dare they

question the or on how dare they

question my prophecy no he treated them

with respect he debated with them and

and then when the debate was going

nowhere he he would he challenged them

to the mobile Allah which they decided

not to do after consulting with the Jews

in Medinah said will not do that and

they entered into an agreement with him

and they moved back and he sent an

arbiter with them so there's an example

so the point being is that you're going

to find this in our tradition you're

going to find all of these we've got

1400 years of tradition the same way the

Christians have 1400 years they have

2,000 years of tradition the Jews have

3,000 years it becomes cumbersome

tradition becomes cumbersome hence the

Protestant impulse let's just do away

with all this stuff let's go back to the

original sources and that's handset

a--they Dawa is so appealing to a lot of

people because it's just saying let's go

back to the book in the Sunnah forget

all this 1400 years of

bickering over the meanings of these

things the problem with that is that

there's a reason why the tradition is

there if you read a Gustin on Christian

doctrine he makes very similar arguments

to our scholars about the necessity of

mastering certain tools before you can

even interact with the tradition the

least of which being grammar and we have

very few people that have mastered the

grammar of the Courant we have people

giving commentary of the Quran that are

completely unqualified and in any other

previous time they would be in blocks

you know they used to have those blocks

they put people at their head and arm

they would be in blocks in our history

one of the intriguing aspects of our

tradition is there are actually very few

types years of Quran and if you look at

the men that made toughs here they were

literally the greatest scholars in the

history of Islam because nobody wanted

to touch the Quran it's like I'm not

going to say what I think God means by

that not me

and then when you read the tough seers

they become very tedious because they

just quote the previous tough seers it's

very interesting they all just quote

like you you'll read ten top seers and

they say the exact same thing because

they're all going back to poverty

because they just didn't want to mess

with the Quran move move near Labib I

even Hisham is one of the most important

books in our civilization is a book a

two-volume book just on the meanings of

the particles and prepositions in the

Quran in the Arabic language because

there are so many different types of fur

there's different types of lamb the

otaku who I do what in order for him to

take him as an enemy Moses Pharaoh took

him into the house to take him as an

enemy that lamb can beat a vegan but in

that case it's not because nobody in

their right mind would take somebody

into their house to be their enemy

so it's called lamellae Akiva it's the

Lamb of consequence in other words he

didn't know that was what was going to

happen but that's what he was doing

learning those nuances and then diction

and word choice takes years to master in

the Arabic language because these words

are very subtle and they have very

subtle meanings and there are words in

the Quran that you might think mean one

thing but then when you read the tafseer

you find out it's completely different

meaning from the one that you thought

and that's happened to me many many

times reading the photon where I thought

I clearly understood what it meant then

when I went into the tafseer I realized

my understanding was completely skewed

and so tradition we have to grapple with

tradition but we need the tools to

grapple with the tradition and that's

where we're in trouble because it's very

it takes many many years to master those

tools it takes an incredible amount of

intellectual gifts to master them and it

also demands a really type of divine

inspiration that that it's it's not

something you could just do on your own

there has to be a toe feel involved in

it and so that adds to the challenge but

Sheikh Abdullah has he mastered the

Arabic language

I mean he he is arguably one of the

great masters of the Arabic language in

this time and in fact I saw him in a

debate with one of the scholars from

from Pakistan who's a very very great

Hanafy jurist and he was arguing with

him about you know whom OMA to mademou

meaning and he said the man you know it

doesn't mean they're from the same OMA

it's saying he's with them and she

abdullah started arguing from the Quran

of the different meanings of mat in the

Arabic language and one of them is

formal Sahaba and a Mac I'm with you it

could also mean indeed Maya hamsa to

than an ear I have five denars with me

so there's different need but he was

saying it's a valid interpretation to

say that it's for Musa haba

to have that there there the OMA is one

the Jews and the Arabs in Medina were

one OMA anyway but the other thing that

he really has mastered is a solid fit

and he knows the great textbooks of our

tradition and so in trying to grapple

with what's happening and one of the

things because we're in such an

enlightened age and there's so many

brilliant commentators on the internet

that are always enlightening us with

their amazing insights and their

impeccable grammatically sound syntax

you know but one of the things that

people you know like why are you just

talking about the minorities what about

all the majorities right and part of

something that we have to understand as

our as Muslims is that when Muslims

fight amongst each other that's just

Muslims fighting amongst each other but

when they oppress minorities in the name

of Islam that's a blemish on the

religion when they're doing it in the

name of the religion and this is about

our religion which is not the property

of the Muslim community and we have a

type of tribalism there's a tribal

mentality you know what I call Benno

Islam this idea that this is my tribe

and the Sahaba were all converts lest

you forget right they were converts to

the religion so this idea is that this

is somehow the possession of the Arabs

or the possession of the Saudis or the

possession of Isis or the possession of

the Pakistani or the Turks or any other

ethnicity no this is a religion that has

an open invitation to humanity

from any chef and human who ever wants

to believe let him believe whoever wants

to disbelieve let him just believe but

it's an open invitation and there's very

clear verses in the Quran that if you

turn away from it God will bring other

people and they won't be like you like

if you're not going to live up to this

faith you'll be replaced with other

people because the human project is

predicated on worship of the Creator if

there's no sound worship there's no

reason for the project to go on and it

ends when when that stops the prophets

all I centum said the end of time will

not come until there's no one left on

the earth to say God so the Atheist win

right Dawkins and all these people

they'll be happy to know that in this

world they eventually they win and you

can see the way things are going it

would appear that that's that's the way

things are going because more and more

people are abandoning faith seeing it as

a problem instead of a solution seeing

it as a sickness instead of a healing

seeing it as an obstacle instead of the

remover of obstacles so he you know in

thinking about this revival of the

mattoon and sexual slavery concubinage

and these things that for instance

graham would in his article using

bernard heiko as a foundation argues

that these muslims that think that isis

isn't following their religion they just

have a distorted version of their

religion and this basically graham woods

argument in that Atlantic Monthly

article that what they were doing or

what they're doing in Syria in Iraq is

actually from Islam it's not an anomaly

they're just practicing things that

Wilson haven't been practicing for a

thousand years and

people like glenn beck has written a

book recently it's number three last

time i look number three bestseller on

the new york times bestseller it is

called the problem is islam argues that

there are many many good muslims but

they're not good because they're muslim

they're good because they're not

practicing islam right and so we're

getting large numbers of people being

indoctrinated into this idea somehow

that our religion is a death cult and

arguably a death cult has emerged within

our religion this whole idea you know

ashada to ohio tuna is slogan that

martyrdom is our goal that's that's not

the goal of muslims that's not that

that's not to go the Prophet said let's

at amend only Allah I do he said also

don't ask for death right and if there

was a better way to die than in the arms

of your wife in your bed then he would

have died that way that's where he died

he didn't die on the battlefield less

than 0.1% of Sahaba actually died in on

the battlefield it's a very small number

of the Sahaba actually died on the

battlefield so this kind of cult of

death that has emerged within the

religions actually very alien to the

Islamic tradition and we he asked about

who the martyr was and they said the

Mars the one who dies fee Sevilla and he

said then the martyrs of my Ummah would

be very few that's in a satya hadith but

he said the martyr is the one who dies

when a building collapses on him or when

he falls off his camel or when he gets

dysentery or when he drowns there's lots

of ways to be a martyr

so in grappling with this Sheikh

Abdullah came up with this idea of

reviving the constitution of Medina it's

sometimes it's referred to as the

constitution of Medina sake Fenton

Medina the cut the the constitution of

Medina for want of a better word was an

agreement

in which the profit when he came to

Medina he was invited by some of the

ålesund huzzah Raj but he was not in

full power he had very few followers at

that time there were several Jewish

tribes in Medina there were three major

ones which all of us know Benny upon

OFAC Benny Benny Nevada and Vinny

Florida and he entered into a treaty in

the first year of hijra with them a

Madonna in which they would all agree in

their own religious expressions to work

towards righteousness and to defend one

another and this was this was a pact but

what's interesting about the pact is it

had equal rights in terms of citizenship

and Imam Shafi said this is an agreement

of our community one of the most

intriguing aspects of this Constitution

is that even the most skeptical of

Orientalists actually believe that this

is an authentic legal document patricia

crone a who died a few years back you

know one of the Hagah rights accepted it

Fred doner somebody who's worked a lot

on the origins of Islam accepted it it

there's a few different recensions

that are found even his hop in his

sierra has a a copy we don't have any

original copy but we do know that it was

a valid document and what I spoke on in

Marrakesh I mean chef Abdullah did his

he gave his kid a methoxy Leah what he

calls top Syria which is giving it a

foundational basis in the tradition

where he goes he looks at all the

different texts he looks at he's got

enough ahim with that every studies

these concepts that are misunderstood

like jihad jizya Vilma

arguing that you know that these are

these are really misunderstood concepts

in our tradition and think about what's

important to remember about Chef

Abdullah is that he is not a modernist

by any stretch he is he is very much

embedded in tradition but he's a

creative traditionalist and one of the

things about twinbee arnold 20 the great

english historian who wrote a study in

history 9 volume study of history where

he studied 21 civilizations why they

rose how they maintained their power

why they began to decline and why they

collapsed and argues that out of those

21 civilizations that he studied only

there were only seven living

civilizations today but what he argues

in there is that civilizations are

confronted with challenges and if they

have creative minorities that can

grapple with these challenges they're

able to withstand the challenges and

sometimes overcome them surmount them

but when the challenges become

insurmountable due to a dearth of these

creative thinkers then the civilization

collapses and this is one of the real

trying aspects of our civilization right

now we have very few creative people

most of the people in power I don't

think could get middle managerial jobs

at corporations with their

qualifications a lot of them I've read

the SAT scores that they have on a lot

of these people in the Senate and

Congress and it's embarrassing I mean

they weren't even good in school like

Dan Quayle said if I knew I would have

got this far I would have studied harder

you know and that is a case against

democracy it's a case for monarchy

because at least they know they're going

to be in power so anyway I'll just go

through some of the things that I looked

at it is sanam with Sam at tolerant

Islam one of the verses in sort of that

hatch this was it's a very important

verse I mean everything is important but

but this loan a default locking Nessa

Oh Desiree in wash and NASA barber home

by baldon LaHood D'Amato hood image in

wash Suwannee oh whoa bein Maserati well

message it will charisma logic a tiara

well I am Sauron Allahu magnums

Auroville inna llaha policies had it not

been for God using some people to defend

other people you would have seen the

Suwannee the the churches the beyond the

temples of salah whathe tune so the

monastery is the the churches and the

synagogues and then the massage it were

in wearing god's name is often mentioned

and then the ummah differ does it go

back to massage it the the head of the

meal is a diadem massage it or is it I

doubt all of them you know I think it

makes more sense to say it goes back to

all of them because these are places

where the Abrahamic God of Abraham

certainly is being warship and Allah

says to attack enemies and SWAT invented

or vehicle you know this is a word we

share and one of these recent debates at

Wheaton College that courageous lady who

said that you know we worship the same

God and she's right but the concept of

the God differs the God is the lord of

the of the heavens and the earth the

creator and sustainer of the heavens and

the earth we can differ on how we

conceptualize that God but the God is

the same God in in the same way if you

look at I mean it's a poor analogy but

you have Republicans and Democrats both

of them believe in government but they

have very different concepts of how what

government should be right and and and

so people differ in their

conceptualization of ideas but the idea

of God is the same and one of the things

about our tradition like the Catholics

called the via negativa you know the

gating way which is the way of the

unknowable God and certainly if you read

Aquinas on God even Aquinas on the

Trinity it's very clear that the

Catholics believe in a God that cannot

temporal cannot be in place is not

complex is of simple reality I mean

these these these are these are

understandings that the Christian

theologians had centuries ago so the

idea and then obviously the logos and

the Incarnation those are all mysteries

in that tradition but the God which is

behind the personas what Meister Eckhart

calls the Godhead is the unknowable God

right the God of that with the you know

the in the Vedic tradition they called

the god of the near guna you know the

God who that's attribute list that we

the doubt that can be named is not the

eternal Dao you know so there's in our

tradition we believe that God is that

which is unlike anything in fact Joe as

Whitlock I show you how the law is

magette to call God a thing is only

magette it's it's because out of edit we

can't say he's no thing but he's not a

thing God is not a thing because the

word in Arabic poor thing is shape which

means willed into existence a shaitan

right the shay already is is in the

mushiya

so all these things that allah have

created they're already embedded in our

language is a metaphysic of creation but

we call God a thing out of Edom to say

that he's not no thing but there is no

thing like him they said committed he

Satan

there is no shape like God but at Buhari

has a chapter called the permissibility

of saying using thing to talk about God

so this is the God that we worship the

the unknowable God but he has revealed

himself to us through language and that

language is problematic because language

always

creates ambiguities it's not like

mathematics which is the language of

numbers it's the language of ideas and

concepts and and you can't pin them down

the more you pin down a concept the more

elusive it becomes and so allah is

ar-rahman ar-rahim but any number over

infinity has cancelled out so anything

you can think about God's mercy is

cancelled out but he's given us mercy in

the world to let us know something about

his mercy it's an approximation it's

tuck ribbon money it's to approximate

these meanings to our consciousness so

had it not been then they all these

religious places would be destroyed so

this permissibility for fighting which

came in sort of thought Hajj was in

defense of religious institutions so the

jihad right Athena in Ladino parted una

be on whom woolum oh these people have

been given permission to defend

themselves because they were oppressed

for their religion so the actual enla

you know the the legal rationale for

jihad initially was purely religious

persecution and obviously it extends to

any forms of oppression and so if you

look at the fatima kiya it's a period of

religious persecution so the prophet of

all people knew firsthand what it was

like to be persecuted for your religion

he tasted the pain of that reality and

and what's interesting and intriguing

about the the pagans in mecca is they

were worried about the economic impact

that monotheism would have on their

trade and commerce like they never

thought that people one day would come

from Indonesia or from California to go

to Mecca in those days it was just the

Arab tribes that were going but they

thought these tribes are coming because

they've got idols in the Kaaba if he if

he gets his way all these idols are

going to be destroyed who's going to

come

the Jews and the Christians aren't going

to come they have Jerusalem so we're

going to be stuck here without any

revenue and that was the mentality of

these people because they really didn't

have a problem with adding another God

but if you said only one God and let ela

ha there's no other God in the law that

troubled them and so the provençal isin

em during this persecution they first

went to the Najah she and one of the

things that I think Muslims forget is

that we have three Sunan from our

prophet the sunnah of powerlessness

which is the sunnah of mecca and this

son is not abrogated but the muslims act

as if it's been abrogated if you say

that it's abrogated that means his 13

years in mecca have no real meaning like

all that suffering he went through all

that patience sabudana ali acid in the

more ethical agenda all those things

don't really have any any meaning to us

anymore they're just a historical fact

so that Sunnah is it just has no meaning

to us that's basically what people are

saying when they say that the Meccan

period is over

Mecca period is never over if the

conditions in which the Meccan period

occurred returned then the same Sunnah

of Mecca returns and that's that even if

Antonia said that so the second Sunnah

is the Sunnah of because remember Sunnah

is his applaud his off I'll and his Iker

are odd you know it's what he deems

correct so the next one is how to live

in a non-muslim society that's not

persecuting you and that's the son of

ethiopia of Habashi they were allowed to

practice their faith and and and the

lesson is the sunnah of when you have

sovereignty when god has empowered you

again

and figuratively because all piled up

worth a lab is that when God puts you in

a position in which you're representing

his power because all power is God's so

in that type of situation how do you

behave and again the magnanimity that he

showed so that then he made his Hedorah

to Medina after 13 years of persecution

he makes this he general he attempted

you to go he was thinking about going to

Hajj up in Eastern Arabia he went to

different tribes asking them if they

would take him he was kind of Yahoo will

know about it he used to go and ask for

tribal protection none of them helped

him

and finally the house and the huzzah Raj

who were in a town called Yathrib and

these were two Yemeni tribes or Kalani

the Yemenis are divided into Hemi Aries

and Kalani's they were Kalani Yemenites

who left after the the famous dam broke

and many of the Yemenites went to syria

and different places they went to to

medina yesterday at the time and the

house and the Hazara zarba know allah

they were from the same ancestor so

they're actually one family but like the

Hatfields and the McCoys family's feud

and so they began to feud and and they

had allies from amongst the Jews so the

else had their allies in the huzzah Raj

had their allies and right before the

Prophet came they had a war called how

to bhagwath in which they fought each

other and and Pereda was involved and

Alberta was involved so the Jews used to

tell them you know there's a prophet

coming that's why we're here he's coming

to this city when he comes he's going to

get rid of all your idols and and they

used to hear this and one of the

intriguing aspects of the Arab in Medina

is that if

had a really sick child they would swear

an oath to God because they believed in

our laws the Supreme God it would swear

an oath that they'll raise it a Jew if

it lives and so there were there were

actually several Jewish Arab children in

Medina and that acara javi Dean was

revealed because some of them wanted to

force their children to be Muslim even

though they were Arabs who had raised

them as Jews because they had very high

regard for the Jews because they were

people of the book and they used to ask

them for things even though they didn't

convert to Judaism they would ask them

and so the the Piranha was revealed that

you can't compel them to convert to

Islam they they leave them in their

Judaism unless they want to convert to

Islam that's one of the as Bob that's

mentioned so there the the Jews in

Medinah

there were probably I mean these

estimates are hard but there were

probably around thirty thousand there

were more Jews and there were Arabs in

Medina and and the Jews had primarily

they were agriculturalists and they and

they controlled the soup and the no pay

no pot in particular had control over

the marketplace and so the Arab Jews and

the Jews who were farmers used to bring

their crops to the bend or pay no pot

and then they would they would buy them

and sell them in the marketplace to

Arabs that would come and then they were

also Goldsmith's and and money lenders

so these were the occupations so when

the first thing that the Prophet did was

he asked about the soup and they said

it's been your pay no class and he said

the Muslims should have their own soup

right so this is his economic foresight

and so he actually has set up a separate

market which obviously would have

angered Ben okay no Pat because they

would have seen that as breaking their

monopoly but that's what he did and his

soup was very interesting because it was

more like what we would call today a

flea market he did not allow anybody to

own a stall it was first-come

first-serve so you couldn't get like the

best play

and it was if you got there the earliest

you got the best place and so it was a

very egalitarian marketplace and so the

first thing he did was he built a soup

and he built the Masjid those were the

first two axud he did his first hota

which i will have been sanam the Jewish

rabbi heard he got everybody together in

Medina said yahan ass up shoo saddam

spread peace well up i am open and and

and feed food feed food well salud while

cielo are ham and maintain your kinship

bonds and that remember that's a deep

statement in relation to alison has

garage as well as the jews that were at

war with each other

maintain your kinship bonds don't fight

you're all related to each other

maintain those bonds well soluble a

Leigh Whannell Sunni young that's Hotel

generative is Salam and pray at some

portion of the night when people are

sleeping and you'll enter into paradise

with peace so it begins with peace and

it ends with peace as his first Hopa

begins with peace and it ends with peace

so in Medina he establishes the Masjid

and he in the marketplace and been open

open even though it entered into an

agreement begin to have talks with the

flourish and so this is the beginning of

the breakdown of of the sofa they have

and and they give them basically aid at

Badr and so they are expelled to he

allows them to take all of their wealth

and they went to to Hiva but it's

important to note at this time the

Prophet is very weak there's probably

less than 2,000 men that he has the Jews

were more powerful than he was and the

men okay nope I was expecting for a the

end of the earth to come to his aid and

they didn't which indicates that they

recognized that what they did was

breaking the treaty and the Jew many of

the Jews were very upright they were

they're honest people and they were

people of their word and the Prophet

mentioned that about especially mo Haiti

and others for afar and we know the

Arabs have a saying o famine Samoan more

trustworthy than Samoan more trustworthy

and Samuel who was the famous Jew that

would not give up the armor of

immigrants who left it as a trust with

him and actually lost his child because

of that and he's the famous poet jihad a

poet as well so these are the tribes the

Yehuda Ben Israel Benoit Marvin Jose de

Bono Duchamp been on a job bono Avenue

that inaba-san ABBA Majed it was from

that Abba in Philippi own this is a

Jewish tribe so Muslims only know the

the try and that should be sure play

about with a par Muslims only know the

the you know the three tribes but these

are all all Jews mentioned in the sofa

so there were many Jews in Medinah that

did not break their trust and you can

see the dominant tries Benny for a law

that should be a law not a ball and that

Bennett a nor back then in a beer and

and and then there was a this is later

right there were Medina was actually

protected by these lava tracks and

anybody who's ever seen the lava tracks

you cannot it's almost impossible to

walk on them they're they're quite

dangerous because they're very sharp you

can't take animals across and that's why

the trench was such a useful way of

protecting Medina because it Medina was

literally surrounded by in fact in

Arabic is called lava with a bow you

know it's like this Israeli lady

recently said you know Palestine doesn't

exist because the Arabs don't have a P

in their language

so they're not the V either they say so

lava is actually lava is the Arabic word

ball is fine so buffoon has a bead so

that'll work

so this is a very important event Imam

Shafi said l'm adam mo hadith and

Minetta in me the SIA and Norris ooh la

la la la anyway said I'm lemon Asura Ben

Medina T Radha and yahuda calf at and a

lady Jie Jie I know of no one from

amongst the people of prophetic

biography that differ that the Prophet

SAW lady sinem when he came to Medina he

entered into an alliance with all of the

Jews without jizya now at hazard or hood

beneath Alaba refused to go out because

they said it was sipped and the only one

that went out was mo Hajduk there were

two jews that fought at a hood and

mahalia was killed

mahalia there's a he laughs about

whether he became Muslim or not even his

Hawk says Aminah well I'm useless for

other valid ilayhi ill foodini

he believed in Allah but he didn't

become Muslim because he was just too

accustomed to his own religion but he he

told the Jews we made a promise to

defend the Prophet we should do it he

went out he fought he was actually

martyred and he left all of his property

with the Jews to give to the Prophet and

the first endowment in Islam came from

the wealth of Mahadev according to one

tradition and the Prophet said about him

o Haiti hyrulean he's the best of the

Jews and then you

graduated as absent a fifth year the the

Jews of high bar and high bar was a it's

right I think 60 kilometers from from

Medina around their high bar was an

agricultural Oasis where the Jews lived

and they worked and they had a lot of

date orchards there and they had they

they weren't United they had several

open and the open are these se hace

they're called in Iran these these

fortresses and bene no beer the

leadership of been out there who yebin

of Bob Keane Ana Nabi ribbon Michael

Pape they were in high bar stirring up

and convincing them that we need to get

the allied with the chorus with Fasano

with Papa fan and these Arab tribes in

the area of any flame and just deal with

this once and for all

so they actually amassed an alliance of

about 10,000 and they and and this is

what rasa in the fifth year and so they

march on Medina this really isn't a

battle it's a skirmish because they

never fight about ten people died all

together despite the fact they were

there for you know almost a month and

they begin to aim begins to sow

dissension amongst them but during that

time the the nobility leadership goes to

Benny Paraiba the leadership of any poor

Eva and initially the leadership of

being a parade that doesn't want to have

anything to do with it they actually

help dig the trench they didn't want to

be involved in treachery but they were

convinced by a even a knock pop that

we've got 10,000 people this is it they

the Muslims at the time only

three thousand men that's all and they

were not well armed and so they really

thought they could take care of it and

he could he was very convincing he was a

very powerful leader and he convinced

Cobb but I said a what ID to ally with

them and so this is the treasonous event

that occurs during the Battle of during

the skirmish of alasa and they really

wanted to annihilate the Muslims so this

was kind of a genocide 'el attempt at

ridding the peninsula of the Muslims and

so the Quraish leave about the fan

leaves all of the Arab tribes leave and

they're left with Benny parada are in

there open a handful of them actually

went out to fight now what happens after

that is very murky to me I've read

several accounts of it I went through

all the serie literature on it I read

for a comedy book I read kiss stars work

the Israeli historian which is a very

pretty serious piece of scholarship

arguing against Barca atmos book but I'm

still convinced that it's grossly

exaggerated the numbers and there's

nothing sound on that the only thing in

a body that started in more had said

that the mulatto should be killed and

that Eddie when lisa and surat al-ahzab

clearly says very contractor una FATA

what's your own effect I mean the Quran

is very clear that some people were

killed and some were taken captive that

did occur it's undeniable but the

numbers and if you look at the the event

it just doesn't smack it doesn't sound

all the prisoners were kept in the house

admit that hadith I asked a father who

knows all the houses of Medina inside

out because they were all very well very

well studied and I asked them how many

people could be held in a house like

that he said it's a small house maybe 10

and if you read also the idea of digging

a ditch in the middle of the marketplace

of Medina it just doesn't make sense

there's several things in that narrative

that I find really really problematic

but anyway it's there and I think I

don't think any numbers should be

mentioned because we just don't know and

Imam addict did not accept it miss hawk

as a Mahad myth he was not a mod he was

just student of Zoey

they actually chased him out of Medina

he's he's the source he did an

incredible service to his ammonite then

that goes undiminished but he was not a

solid source in hadith and the rigor of

mattock in particular is is

well-established Malik did not like to

use anything that smacked of a weakness

and so you know the numbers are

definitely problematic but what happens

then is that the Prophet goes and he

makes a salud idea and what's really

intriguing about this event is they go

to make Amara but they're not allowed to

make their own bra and they meet that

hudaibiya and and the the Quraish send

out a waft earth man goes in to speak

with them they send out a WA and they

have a they're going to debate about

what's going to happen so they they come

to some agreements but all of the points

the Prophet compromises literally every

single point

he's just compromised even muhammad

rasool allah they said we don't accept

that and he told the ally to erase it

and Adi said I can't do it that's the

the Sophia called that Maharaja to Dubya

it's like a

disobeying the Prophet out of a depth of

the Prophet like he just said I can't

erase it and so the Prophet said show me

where it is and he pointed to it and the

Prophet himself erased Rasool Allah and

just said this a agreement between

Muhammad and Abdullah and the Potters

because the core I said we don't accept

that so you said not a problem

get rid of it every single point the the

Sahaba were so distraught at this and

they said everybody wavered except elbow

buckle even OMA even a ha ha

he went to Abu Bakr and he said Ali

sorrow Salman

isn't he the Messenger of God what are

we doing why are we cut they all had

their weapons they were ready to fight

why are we compromising like this

Abu Bakr he grabbed him he said you know

he reminded him and just shook him to

his core the prophets eyes and went in

he asked him Sodom Oh what he should do

she said look cut your hair go out and

sacrifice just give them some sense of

closure on their pilgrimage so he did

that and then they saw that and they did

that and they felt better on the way

back enough attack netic of the ravine

that's what's revealed like this is a

big opening what's the opening

compromise in every situation the

opening was peace this is the first time

in the history of his message where he's

actually got peace because the Jews now

he goes to haibach and and he defeats

them at high bar and enters into a

treaty with them they promised that as

ab half the date harvest so he entered

into a treaty that they would take half

the date harvest or they could leave and

go to syria they choose they decided to

choose to stay so they entered into a

contract with them that there would be a

non-belligerent treaty treaty of

non-belligerent this the first time the

prophet has peace from here on from the

sixth year on all you see is people

becoming Muslim Zoe said that man Fuji -

Islam fatone Alberta who cannot out of

AMA men who know fact before this was

greater than this fact this is an

opening that was a peaceful opening

there was no fighting and it's called a

victory it was a non-violent victory and

this was the greatest

victory ii to the the opening of Mecca

which was also a non-violent victory so

the two greatest victories of the

Prophet were victories of non-violence

in the mechanical potato - s people

would fight every time they met phonemic

Eretz in whose honor when they finally

had peace what would be a third power

and they stopped fighting what a

Menendez ba-ba-boom ba-ba and people

felt safe from one another well tackle

Fatah Fowler though they meet and then

they'd start discussing fellow hadith

when Munez ER and debating felon

McCallum I hadn't been islami yakky

Bhushan in Halawa he so nobody that was

just talked to about Islam that had any

brains except that he would embrace

Islam after that what a defeat a nica's

entertain in those two years more people

became Muslim than in the previous 19

it's amazing so you know and then what

time is it okay I'm going to stop there

and maybe we'll finish this another day

yeah so I'll just leave some questions

because I have an interview that I have

to go to but if anybody has any

questions feel free to ask or comments

some may come relative item so at the

very beginning you mentioned that the

prophets of the laws are some told us

that Islam would only exist as a polity

for 30 years but and I'm wondering

whether that is a statement that you'd

recommend to us as like explaining to

people when they either look at things

in Islamic history or governments that

call themselves Islamic and are doing

things that are not following the Sunnah

of the Prophet awesome do you think that

that's something that non-muslims could

hear and understand and and give them a

little bit more wisdom as to how to

understand what's happening I mean I you

know I don't I don't know what people

are how people react there are so many

variables when you talk

to people background education I mean

the word in Arabic 450 laughs difference

of opinion is the word it's it's derived

from a word that has to do with

background califo what you leave behind

so he'll via is your background so he

laps come from different backgrounds you

know we're in you know Black History

Month I mean there's all these people in

America white people that say things

like you know why can't blacks just get

over it but they never define it like

500 years being stripped of your of your

heritage of your history of your name

being you know subjugated being treated

like animals they were actually

categorized as like livestock you know

and that went on until you know 1865 or

1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation

but it takes a hundred years to

legislate civil rights from that and

we're still not there we we don't have

an african-american as president there's

African Americans first lady if we have

a Kenyan American as president he's not

African American he's the East African

right from the Luo tribe to which in

Kenya he couldn't even get elected which

is pretty amazing right that's what

happened to his father his father went

back to Kenya he

there was no upward mobility because of

his tribal background that's part of the

problem in the in the Muslim world and

in Africa as well is that you know

families determined so much there's no

upward mobility there's no meritocracy I

mean the first thing a Syrian asks you

you know Bates mean which house are you

from and right when you tell them boom

you've been identified you know you're

either from a good family or from

another type of family and it doesn't

allow for upward mobility it doesn't

allow for meritocracy the Prophet tried

to eliminate all that stuff judge people

according to the content of their

character not according to their tribe

clan family wealth or lineage

that's how people should be judged so I

don't know you know I mean we have to

embrace the dark you know we have a

shadow in our religion there's every

religion you know dr. winter says that

the history of our religion is the

history of its ego and we tend to forget

that that there's there's a lot of

darkness in our history there's a lot of

beautiful things and in many ways in

terms of the pre-modern rug Muslims have

nothing to be ashamed of it's quite

stunning what they were able to

accomplish given the prevailing

attitudes in most parts of the world

many of the things that the Prophet

taught were the dreams of philosophers

and and they became common coin the

Muslims have always had racism but

they've never had a racism that

prevented somebody from eating with

another person they never had that type

of racism there's no history where they

would not put their hand in a plate that

had a white hand or a black hand in it I

mean they just didn't have that type of

racism so but we have a lot of dark

things in our history in our past and

and our religion our tradition has a lot

of horrible things that they're there

and they're in the books and I've read

them I've spent 30 years reading in our

tradition and I've seen stuff that

really bothered me but it's there and

and we have to deal with it but does it

represent the ethos or the spirit of

Islam or the spirit of the Prophet I

would argue that it doesn't and so it's

but then there's things that certainly

that happened at the time of the Prophet

that are very troubling for modern

people that's going to be undeniable

concubinage is something that modern

people cannot get their heads around at

all it's very very difficult for people

to grapple with that concept but that

was a prevailing concept not just

amongst Muslims but amongst most of the

civilizations of the of the pre-modern

world so and we certainly have types of

it now it's just criminal activity right

I mean there's probably more concrete

vintage today than at any other time in

human history

just it's not regulated it has no

there's no rights there's no so said I

work from shaken I think um when you

made mention of that mentality of those

that have this you know been to Islam

what maybe even in your opinion or an

approach that we can take now would be

to kind of change that well one of the

things is really interesting to me when

I read Arnold's book on the preaching of

Islam you know he he says that Muslims

were actively engaged in spreading their

religion until the end of the Khilafah

at late 19th century it just stopped

spreading it was very little done and I

just thought that was really interesting

that that Muslims always had

missionaries they were usually came out

of the Sufis I mean even even Tamiya

writes that the the mob today ah amongst

the Sufis did great service by spreading

Islam in places no one else wanted to go

to because they would go like to they

went to the Bogomils I mean Albania

became Muslim over centuries you know

the the Turks arrived there in the in

the 15th century but it took several

hundred years before they really and

there's still the Albania I don't know

they're so very nationalistic as a

people but but it took a long time Egypt

according to a hadith Blankenship who I

trust did not reach 50 percent for the

first 300 years it was mostly Christian

Syria did not reach 50 percent for the

first 500 years and the lúcia never

reached 50 percent there was always a

majority of Christians and so Muslims

have this fantasy that you know the

Muslims just showed up and everybody

said Allah Akbar la la la la it doesn't

work like that they they lived with

these people of different religions and

and they treated them sometimes well and

other times not so well and sometimes

better than other places treated

minorities and sometimes they did

horrible

so they're human and but overall you

know our our our tradition just I think

and the Prophet inculcated this in his

Sahaba he had an incredible tolerance

for for idiosyncrasies and bizarre

behavior and he really tolerated people

as they were and that's why he had some

crazy people around him that are clear

in the Sierra

he had jokesters like no Iman is a clear

jokester and the Prophet tolerated him

you know he went bottom all these gears

and brought him and then the man shows

up and he he said you know you owe me

some money to the Prophet he said why he

said no a man said that you were going

to pay for these yeah you know so and

and he allowed for different the one

thing that he really did not like was

religious extremism really bothered him

probably was very bothered by who do

even in a bat he did not like people to

do excessive better like too much

fasting too much he was very temperate

and moderate dhikr is another thing

doing a lot of Vicker but doing you know

the kind of he said Dada

Benny at FLE slam there's no monkey in

Islam so he was very wary of that he

didn't like extremism but you know when

we were at the conference in Marrakesh

and and the Imam at haramein was there

Abdul Fattah and he's one of the great

moonshee Dean of Morocco got up and sang

he sang and then and then Sam use of got

up and sang well one of the Christian

ladies from the Yvonne Jekyll tradition

she got up and she is burst into song

you know and I saw these Aruna in the

front were kind of like

yeah and I mentioned it later to Shahab

doll and he said honey honey any letter

saying he's just not uptight you know

it's just let people be who they are you

know as long as they're not like harming

or you know so anyway

Salam alaikum Sheikh Hamza can we hop

take one question from online yes here

in the back yeah and this is actually

related to something you just mentioned

but if you have any other remarks or

summary regarding the essence of what

took place in Marrakesh in terms of the

meeting but then he did the Declaration

which you know whereas the conditions in

various parts of the Muslim world have

deteriorated dangerously due to the use

of violence and armed struggle as a tool

for settling conflicts and imposing

one's point of view whereas this

situation has also weakened the

authority of legitimate governments and

enabled criminal groups to issue edicts

attributed to Islam but which in fact

alarmingly distort its fundamental

principles and goals in ways that have

seriously harmed the population as a

whole

whereas this marks the fourteen

hundredth anniversary of the charter of

Medina

a constitutional contract between the

prophet Mohamed Salah TM and the peoples

of Medina which guaranteed the religious

liberty of all regardless of faith

whereas hundreds of Muslim scholars and

intellectuals from over 120 countries

along with represent Islam Akande

international organizations as well as

leaders from diverse religious groups

and nationalities gathered in Marrakesh

on this date to reaffirm the principles

of the Charter and so we declare our

firm commitment to the principles

articulated in the charter of Medina

whose provisions contained a number of

principles of constitutional contractual

citizenship such as freedom of movement

property ownership mutual solidarity and

defense as well as principles of justice

and equality before the law and that the

objectives of the charter of Medina

provide a suitable framework for

national constitutions in countries with

Muslim majorities and the United Nations

Charter and

Special Address (to Zaytuna College)

Transcript Details

Transcript Text