 First work in Silicon Valley. Algorithms. Everyone writes a computer program. So I wrote this algorithm. Everyone writes it. Where does the word algorithm come from? What is it? A man in the 9th century, he was the one who invented algebra and he wrote these algorithms which are used not only in computer programs but in all of the scientific endeavors. An algorithm is an equation but it's much more to it than that. Who invented it? The Muslims did it. Algorithm. Algorithm. Any time somebody says the word algorithm, he's paying tribute to this genius. Algorithm. Who lived in Persia in the 9th century, responsible for the invention of algorithms. He also worked in the Baitul Hikmah in Baghdad for a while. Chemistry. Chemian. The Muslims were interested in curing diseases. They were also interested in transferring one type of metal into another type of metal. So they invented the science of chemistry. The two axes gimbal. What is the two axes gimbal? See in space hardware, when you want to look in one direction in another direction, you need some way of articulating it. And this was done in the 13th century at the time of the Mongol invasions by Nasser al-Tusi. Nasser al-Tusi was a great mathematician. He was also the one who invented the concept of infinity. There's so much to say. But see basically the concept of zero was invented by other civilizations. The Mayans and the Indians invented the concept of zero. But the concept of infinity was invented by the Muslims, the Arabs. Nasser al-Tusi, he was the one responsible for the invention of the concept. As also the two axes gimbal, which is used in space hardware. As well as in little small maps. Provide a globe to a child, rotates in two dimensions, two directions. Muslim invention. They did optics. I wear glasses. And so many of us wear glasses. How many of us know that optics was invented by a Muslim physicist? That's human height. This was in the 9th and the 10th century. He advanced the theory that light propagated in straight lines up until the time people thought that light emanated from the eyes. When you look at some of the stuff, life would come from our eyes. It was he who pointed out that light doesn't come from your eyes, light comes from outside into your eyes. And he invented the pinhole camera. He took a box, put a pinhole in it, and had light rays coming from the outside. Some say first he discovered it when he was in jail. But that's another story. In any case, he discovered the pinhole camera. And after the pinhole camera he did a lot of experimentation on optics using glasses. So anytime we use glasses, we take homage to this great man. Optics invented by them. Disinfected. Anytime we have a little cut, we use a disinfected. Where does the idea of disinfection come from? Again, an Arab invention, a Muslim invention. That was Abu Ali Sina. He used mercury chloride as a disinfected invention. He discovered it. He was a great man. And one can talk about him in two different sessions if you wanted to. Then we have the grafting of trees. You know, we eat all these beautiful fruit. Spain in particular was highly advanced in the grafting of trees that brought in these fruit from North Africa, Middle East, India, because the Islamic Empire extended all the way from Southern France to the borders of India. That is, India extended up to the borders of China and the North, and the Sahara desert in a huge mass. So the Muslims of Spain, it was a very highly advanced civilization that brought in these fruits. They experimented with different kinds of grafts. Grafting of trees, grew different crops, and introduced these crops into Europe. Again, a gift of Islamic civilization. In general, the so-called scientific method, the empirical method. See, the Western civilization is great at taking credit. They say, we invented science. How many times have you heard that? It's a very broad subject. It requires great many discussions to communicate to our young people what it was that was communicated about, was not communicated, the limitations of the process of science, and so on. But the empirical method, this is a very important point. The empirical method was a gift of the Muslims to the world. Up until that time, it was the philosophical method. Philosophy is an enemy of science. And I'll come back to it. One of the reasons the Muslims fell behind was because they took on the philosophy of Europe, and using the philosophy of the Greeks, they tried to explain some of the things that they believed in. The approach of the Qur'an is not philosophical. It is empirical. Allah SWT has created the universe as science. There are signs for Allah SWT in every atom, in every leaf, in every galaxy, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon. There are signs within us. These are all signs. And these have to be looked at, measured, understood, and then you build the models. Philosophy must be a servant of science. Science must not be a servant of philosophy. The empirical method, the method of measurement, and using measurements to build theories, and using theories then to understand the world of Allah SWT, that was the contribution of the Muslims to human civilization, not Europe. Europe did not discover the empirical method. Laminated wood. Many of you are in construction. Any time you take laminated wood, press it, who invented it? Laminated wood was invented by Al-Jazeir in the 12th, 13th century, only part of 13th century. Graphite epoxy, advanced composites that are used in space sciences, it was invented by Al-Jazeir. Laminated wood. Any time you build a house, any time you have a construction, pay attention to, or at least remember, or pay homage to this great man, Al-Jazeir, who took pieces of wood, laminated it together, built something that was much stronger than every piece attached to it. Should I stop? Is it working? It's working. It's fine. Let's keep going then. Shall we keep going? Yes, please. Robotics. You see, the world is now moving in the direction of robotics. These are... Robotics is the way of the future, it's the technology of the future. The wars in the future will not be fought by people, will not be fought by robots. We already have these drones. See what the drones can do. We already have robots that do so much work in the workshop. When you get manufactured, you go to a Japanese workshop, a Japanese place of manufacture, you hardly find people in there. A person here, a person there, all the work flows from one robot to the other. Robotics is the way of the future. Who invented robotics? It was, again, Al-Jazeir. Great, great man. I would humbly recommend that every young person, your son, your daughter, your grandson, your grandson, must know something about Al-Jazeir. One of the greatest engineers who ever lived. He invented so many different machines. The cam gear, the ability to convert rotary motion into a reciprocated motion, which was the basis for the building of railroads. Gear, the not hittical gears, but spur gears. The horizontal spindle machines. A clock that opened up a certain hours that you have seen in Disneyland. Robotics that served you water. He even had a machine that, in the beginning, as soon as you came to the wash basin, gave you soap. And then, after you washed your soaps, another window would open. It would be another machine. It would give you a towel to dry your hands. And then that window was closed. And there would be a third window. It would open and give you another mannequin. It would come in and give you another piece of towel to wipe your face. Great man. Al-Jazeir. Such was the height. These were the achievements of the people. Then let's keep going on. Economics. We have experts here in the World Bank and so on. Who invented the bank? See, when you look at the description of economics in the Quran. Where Allah SWT, for instance, is in the Bahra, He asks us to document when we loan some money to other people. Or when we borrow money. It has to be documented. And obviously, without riba, that is forbidden in Islam. The principles of banking are there in the Quran. The Muslims apply the principles of banking so that in the process of their training, which extended all the way to Spain to China, they were able to negotiate instruments from one part of the Islamic world to the other. Very often the trade wasn't barter, but sometimes it was also through these instruments of trade. Banking, in a rudimentary sense, was invented by the Muslims. Multiple war gods. Now we come to the post-Mangol period. We do not believe anyone who says that the Islamic period came to an end with the Mongolian invaders. It did not. Yes, we suffered a major blow, as we'll see later. But the process of invention, educational reform, continued well into the mobile era, into the Ottoman era. The multiple war gods, Akbar and his son, Jahanir, they invented a seven-bore gun and had pictures of it so that you could sit down, a soldier could sit down and fire seven shots, one after the other, seven more guns invented by the Mongols. The hukka. You know, people, it's not recommended, but just mentioning it. The hukka. Nikotin. Tobacco was inserted and brought in from the new world into the old world and it spread all over and people were getting sick. So the Mongols invented the hukka. Basically, it's like taking the exhaustion, the burning of tobacco, passing it through water so the nicotine would dissolve in water and you would be less susceptible to nicotine and lung cancer from it. It was invented at the time of the Mobile Emperor Akbar in the year 1605. The hukka invented by the Muslims. Now, observatory. Even now, if you go to Delhi, there is an observatory. It's called Jantar Mantar. It was built in the decaying period of the Mobile Empire. These observatories were built by emperors all the way from Central Asia, Iran, not so much in the Arab part of the world, but certainly in Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, India. These observatories were used for the observation of the heavens and also to calculate the time of prayer. Many observatories were built. Supernal geometry, the Taj Mahal. Can you construct, can you imagine any other civilization built in the Taj Mahal? I cannot. I'll give you a reason why. Because people do not know that the Taj Mahal is not construction. It is not architecture. The real inventor, the real conceiver of the Taj Mahal was Ibn al-Arabi, who passed away in the 13th century. Ibn al-Arabi had a manuscript. See, this will go into a digression, but allow me to share some thoughts about him. He was a great mystic. I'm not just an ornate, a great, great, great mystic. He had on a piece of paper, conceived of what the the Rosa Mahshab, the day of gathering, would be like. And he said, if the throne of Qusban al-Adala is here, then the gatherings of people will be here, and this would be the arrangement. This manuscript was in the processional conversion of Shah Jahan. And he used that manuscript as the basis for the design of the Taj Mahal by Lahori. He was from Lahore from Pakistan, the designer of the Taj Mahal. So the real architect of the Taj Mahal was Ibn al-Arabi. And people say, there is love in Islam. Any other civilization? Can it build the Taj Mahal? Where is love? If Taj Mahal is not love, what is it? Supernal geometry. Functional geometry was there since the time of the Greeks. But the Muslims did was to say, there is functional geometry, but there is supernal geometry. Meaning geometry that conveys the inner meaning of the structure of the universe. Arabesque. The calligraphy is the same way. Persian rugs are the same way. Taj Mahal is the same way. The Arabesque. The ability to project functional geometry into its inner meaning so that it elicits from this spirit a guidance towards the presence of Pulasma and Ota'a. That's the purpose of calligraphy. That's the purpose of a Persian rug. That's the purpose of the Taj Mahal. Supernal geometry. Geometry at different levels. And lastly, a couple of observations. Music unfortunately elicits a very negative response in our circles. But music can be looked upon in two different ways. Music can be looked upon as a branch of mathematics or it can be looked upon as a branch of, as applied to the Sharia. I'm not going to talk about the Sharia. I'm not going to talk about its application in religion. But as a branch of mathematics, music is fundamental because it relates to the behavior of electromagnetic waves. It relates to the behavior of earthquakes. The analysis of harmonics is fundamental to the behavior of physical objects. They're always there. The Muslim physicians, the physicists, analyzed music from a mathematical perspective. I emphasize it. Look at it from a mathematical perspective. You'll stay out of trouble. If you mention music as a part of religion, you'll be in trouble. As a discipline in mathematics, they analyzed it. They cataloged it. And they built many instruments. Sitar, saroh, lay, guitar. All of these came from Muslim musicians. They designed them. Not to somehow make themselves happy, as do some people who engage in music, but to understand how it is that the creation of Allah SWT enables us to think about Him and to rise up to the presence of His name. Lastly, coffee. Everyone drinks coffee. And this was one contribution, that was the continuation of the Sufis. The true story. In Yemen, this happened in the 13th, 14th, 15th century in the Khan Haas of Yemen. The story goes one day. These people were taking a walk through the meadows and they saw these goats. They heard the story. And they looked so happy. They came back and said, okay, let's try it. And soon enough, they discovered, yes, indeed. This is a good thing for us. Whatever it was. And from there, there was one great Sufi Sheikh, Baba Boudin. He brought some coffee beans from Yemen to the western coast of India. And he planted them there. And there is a mountain named after him in the mountain of Baba Boudin. And so much so, that by the time the British arrived in India, that whole area was full of coffee. The British took over, of course. They were the rulers. And they brought the coffee to other parts of the world, to Africa. And then later on, now, of course, it's all over the world. So anytime you drink coffee, my brothers and sisters, take credit for it. Say what? Whether or not you like it, enjoy it. But at least remember, it came from our people. Take credit for it. At least take credit for it. Because they had a cup of coffee. Our forefathers made it. So now, that is the introduction to some of the great, great inventions and discoveries that our forefathers had. To somehow recap some of the names. And we rapidly read some of the names, so that we have them for the record. We have Javed Ibn Hayyim, who was the inventor of chemistry. Al-Hindi credited with inventing the empirical method, the scientific method. Al-Khwarizmi credited with the invention of algebra and algorithms. We're all in Silicon Valley. Every time you write an algorithm, you take credit for it. So it's a weak meeting. Why not? Al-Hindi Risi, the geographer. The geographer who in the 11th century mapped out most of the old world that had not been done up until that time. Al-Masudi, historian, the empirical method in history was an invention of the Muslim. See, people talked about Herodotus. Herodotus is a storyteller. Storytelling is not history. History is the look of the patterns in human behavior. So that you learn something from it and apply them so that you understand the works of Allah SWT. How does Allah teach us as a society, as a civilization, so that if we violate justice, for instance, we destroy ourselves. How does Allah teach us that if we follow justice, if we are just, if we follow the mizan, then we make progress. That is history, the interpretation and understanding of the events to make some sense so that we use them for the advancement of civilization. That was a Muslim contribution. Not a Greek contribution. Not a Greek contribution. Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, you know his name, the greatest position of the Middle Ages. Al-Hazim, the father of modern optics. We talked about the glasses. I had my glasses changed yesterday. That was a good thing. Al-Hazim, thanks to Al-Hazim. Al-Baroni, of one, one of the greatest. I pay honors to my good friend here, he's my elder brother. Ammanistan has produced many great personalities. Unfortunately, he's in bad shape today. All the way from Imam Abu Hanifa to Al-Baroni and others. Very great thinkers. And of course, Mullah Barumi of Ammanistan. Al-Tusi, the inventor of the two-axis gimbal, the conceiver of the Tusi couple, and the conceiver of the idea of infinity. Ibn Rush the rational philosopher, the greatest rational philosopher after Aristotle. Ibn Haldu, the father of history, the father of historiography, the father of modern economics, the person who correctly analyzed the impact of taxation upon society. Ibn Haldu, back in 1414. Maumar Sinan, if you go to Turkey, do visit some of the great constructions of this great man. Maumar means the engineer. Maumar Sinan, he knew about earthquakes. He not only took what we had inherited from the earlier civilizations, added so much to it, so much so that his contributions now adorn that region of Anatolia, the European part of Turkey, and in Europe as well. Great man. Then we have Ustad Lahori, the architect of the Taj Mahal. In the last 400 years, humankind has not produced another structure like the Taj Mahal. You can build a Taj Mahal, but you cannot build a Taj Mahal. It does not have the love in it. It does not have that supernal geometry in it. Supernal geometry because that comes from the spirit. It does not come from the mind. You can be a great mathematician. You can be a great architect. You can be a great engineer and still not be able to produce something like the Taj Mahal because it comes from the spirit. It comes from love. It comes from that inner drive. That is the contribution of Islam. So, with that introduction, let's ask ourselves I will go on to the next phase of the presentation. What are the elements what enables a civilization to be meant to discover, to make a contribution whether it be in the area of natural sciences, philosophical sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, whatever, or even in the spiritual context. First, there must be peace and as we go through our historical presentation we will point out why it was that we got to where we are today. There must be peace. If you don't have peace how are you going to be meant? If you are concerned about the safety and security of your family tomorrow morning you get up and your family is gone as it happened in Syria today or it happened in Iraq or it happened in Libya or it happened in Afghanistan or it's happened in many parts of Pakistan how can you invent peace is a prerequisite to scientific endeavor and peace could be internal and external. In other words, internal peace is a prerequisite to get together of a society and external peace freedom from invasion has happened in the case of the Mongols and we will go into that. Peace is essential. Consolidation political and economic consolidation because investments are necessary and when I later on describe to you the history of the Mubarak the Spaniards and the Portuguese I will illustrate to you how it was that the Mubarak that is Morocco and Algeria did not go through the revolution that the Spaniards and the Portuguese did. Consolidation is necessary you need investment, you need money and that investment comes about either through, you have to have either an empire a king who gives you money a kingdom which supports science a political structure that supports science similarly economic consolidation I will point out later as we go how it was in the 18th century the giant stock company was one of the major inventions of humankind that accounted for the advancement of Europe from where it was to the domination of the world consolidation so that you have the resources without the resources you cannot be invented then we come to what Allah SWT teaches us we should have started with it but I wanted to give this as an introduction Allah SWT teaches Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim well asked no one needs saying word beyond that it's all there everything that we want to know is there everything that anyone wants to know about history what makes a civilization possible what destroys a civilization is all there inshallah we'll go into it but Allah SWT here takes an oath Allah SWT is taking an oath Allah SWT is taking an oath but what the passage of time time is a mystery I'll go into it because that will take me two hours to discuss it he takes an oath on the passage of time and that he emphasizes it twice more inna that's an emphasis that's second time inshallah that's another emphasis two emphasis and one oath how much more can divine voice communicate with what intensity can it communicate to the human soul to the humankind listens he says I will take an oath and I'll emphasize it twice because indeed humankind is at a loss no matter what you do it doesn't matter what you do unless you do the following inshallah first hate good deeds beautiful deeds each one of them is a subject matter one can discuss them for ages and ages inshallah tawassabilha tawassab very powerful word working together talk about it the muslims work together we'll talk about it put three muslims in a room you'll come back with four parties tawassabilha inshallah in the next qudba been asked to give the qudba the next time I'll just discuss the meaning of ha such a beautiful truth justice rights responsibilities reality all of those things are in there so those who work together for what truth justice rights and responsibilities with patience and perseverance they are the people who are not in a loss that's the discipline without faith there is no civilization no iman no inshallah there is no other way to put it if you don't have it in the heart it does not work you can do whatever you want it does not work the civilization will come to an end if at all had a good civilization when I said good civilization mighty civilization so did the persians why did they come apart why did so many muslim dynasties come apart it's all there so faith is essential for scientific invention legitimizing of rule once again I'll come to that let me talk about the library in one of the later sessions I'll point out to you precisely how it was the issue of legitimizing of rule was responsible for the decay of the kingdoms of the mubarak in the 11th and the 12th century and the destruction of muslim spain later in the 13th, 14th, 15th ultimately in 1492 legitimizing of rule whoever is the imam whoever is the leader the president the king whatever doesn't matter people must feel he is legitimate even in a small organization the person who leads must have the faith of the people so that they feel this map is legitimate this lady is legitimate otherwise it does not work legitimacy of rule structures political, social and other structures economic structures whatever the structures there are do they support innovation they don't support innovation how many innovations have come out of this in the last one year can we count them? it's all there again it's all there it's not a mystery structures then the scientific outlook the freedom one of the things that has happened to the muslim world we do not have the freedom to think what has happened is that we have taken a religion that was given to us by Allah that extended from heaven to heaven the prophet came in the full place of history he gave us a faith that extended from one horizon to the other embraced all of the qaynah and then we gradually started to constrict it little by little little by little until that day that used to embrace the totality of Allah's creation became like a one dimensional one you move to one side it is haram the third side is bidah and third is the fourth side what has happened to us you must have the freedom to think even in the creation of iblis and this is a philosophical statement i ought not to make it but i have in the company of people who are thinkers even in the creation of iblis there is wisdom if it was not for iblis there would not be any man Allah swt's wisdom encompasses all of creation Allah swt created iblis so that iblis would try to mislead human beings but Allah swt gave insan that ru which is animated by the spirit of Allah swt the guidance that comes to us from our prophets and we overcome the temptations of iblis it is a very powerful statement so that we must have the freedom to sa'ala to ask see people say sa'ala to ask and we have scholars in here in arab my good friend brother Abdul Latif i consulted him all the time sa'ala is to ask but the more important the correct meaning of sa'ala is to seek you must be seekers you must ask Allah swt you must ask if you don't ask what are you going to get you must ask every atom in the universe every galaxy every planet the sun the moon every cell in our body ask sa'ala to be alive otherwise we will be dead the universe every moment ask the human sa'ala to be alive kula yawmin yawmin is not a day yawmin could be a a second yawmin could be a day yawmin is just a word it's a measure of time there are certain meanings in there what it means is that sa'ala not only gives he gives it to sha'ala with majesty not only does he give he gives it with majesty so we don't ask why we are afraid there must be freedom from fear pain must be free from fear religion must be free from fear be afraid of Allah be afraid of the day of judgment be not afraid of somebody else no that's not what it is because Allah has given us the guidance the book is there, the Quran is there the sunnah the prophet is there Allah has completed the faith of Islam and yet our forefathers who took what was given to them by the Quran and the sunnah of the prophet applied it and I've got only some of the great achievements that they had unlike them we're afraid we're afraid to ask we're afraid to boop we're not afraid of Allah if we're afraid of Allah we would not be doing some of the things that we do no we're afraid of Allah they're afraid of Allah they're afraid of the structures they're afraid of the rulers they're afraid of whatever money and I'll stop here for a few seconds by relating to a true story this is the story of Ibn al-A'ala Ibn al-A'ala did one time he was a great great chef I'm not going to use the word Ibn al-A'ala great chef one day he was in Damascus and he stood in a spot and he was tumping his feet on the ground and he said to the people around what you worship is under my feet he said that in the bazaar and people were so so upset about that what do you mean he says what you worship is under my feet so according to some chronicles they got better from whatever they did to him but it was not a happy ending for him 400 years later when Suleyman Hanuni the Ottoman Empire see the Ottoman Empire captured the Mamluk Empire in the year 1517 and then Suleyman Hanuni was the second one after the first one who became the Khalifat he asked people where did Ibn al-A'ala understand when he made the statement and people 400 years later sat there and he said to his soldiers deep so they dug and dug and they found money gold in it so you see what he was saying was that what worship does in the worshiping gold is under my feet this is what has happened what I'll do is take a little small break for about 5 minutes and inshallah we'll get started the introduction to Islamic history we'll go as long as we possibly can go but I'd like to have about 15 minutes to half hour of interaction so that we get the input from all of our scholars in here because the idea is to learn this is not a lecture this is a soviet worship some of us know a little bit more than some other people we need to learn from each other that's the whole idea of it so 5 minute break and then another 15-20 minutes of presentation then a discussion then we'll prepare inshallah what I'll do is to condense history because if we go into the details of historical exposition there are many many different sessions that's not best if you would so what we'll try to do is to focus on those events in Islamic history that I had a bearing on the intellectual landscape of Islam we are familiar with the history we are also familiar with the history of the Sahaba especially the al-Fayah of Ashidun the first war hadifas and we are familiar with the civil wars that broke out on the question of succession to the Prophet we are familiar with all of that so let's advance to the year 700 approximately 68 years after the passing away by this time the Islamic domains have extended from the northern shores of moraco to what is today the southern portions of Pakistan that's from the Indus river to the borders of Spain Spain became a part of the Islamic world in the year 707 78, 710 and southern Pakistan became a part of the Islamic world soon thereafter 711, 712 713, 714 that timeframe so what they did was to bring different philosophies together within the world of Islam and there arose the need the great olama to answer the questions that people brought with them there were two broad centers of dirty around the year 700 one was based around Madinah al-Munabra and the other was based around Kufa which is in southern Iraq the one centered around Madinah al-Munabra was in the womb of Islam which is the heart of Islam and the people of Madinah as we all know they knew the traditions of the prophet their four fathers their grandfathers had grown up with the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam so that the methodology that evolved the group in Madinah was very for lack of a better word conservative, very strict in conformance with the verified traditions of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the ijma of all of the sahabah hence the Maliki school of fiqh and I'm not going to go into development of fiqh of schools each of the schools of fiqh have their own assumptions have their own hudud and their own historical guidance that is responsible for their accounts for the small differences that they find on the emphasis on such things like the collective ijma or the ijma of some of the sahabah or the principle of khiyas and istah san I'm not going to go into that so around the year 700 you also have kufa kufa was in a different situation because kufa was close to the newly conquered territories of Persia and the territories were in the process of being conquered in southern Pakistan which is India so the questions that arose in kufa in southern Iraq were of a different character because here we had an amalgam a melting pot of the Zoroastrians who were gradually being converted and the Hindus from India were also in the process of conversion the Arabs did not force their religion upon the conquered people if you plot the rate of conversion specifically in Persia that is Iran and Egypt you'll find the following there was very little conversion up until the year 717 719 up until the time of Amarabilaziz the Arabs left him alone they established cantonments they paid jizya and left him alone it was Amarabilaziz who reduced the taxes engaged in a dialectic with the Persians and the Egyptians the Zoroastrians and the Christians of Syria and Egypt gradually the people of Egypt and Iran accepted Islam as a result of the broad based policies of Amarabilaziz in year 717, 718, 719 now concurrently this you'll have philosophical questions so the ulama of southern Iraq have to answer the questions posed to them by the Persians, the Hindus and increasingly the Turks who were coming in from Central Asia these questions required additional latitude in terms of interpretation of the Sunnah of the Prophet so that the people who were listening to the answers absorb them understood them and inculcated them and hence the Hanafi school of Fiqh the Hanafi school of Fiqh has greater latitude in terms of the application of Usul of Fiqh as compared to the Maliki school of Fiqh which was based upon most of the rulings that took place at the time of Amarabilaziz and were given the house of Ali Ali but that's the basis Hanafi Fiqh on the other hand tends to be much more broad based because it accepts the principle of Isdehsad and also accepts the Ijma at least some of the Sahaba does not insist on the Ijma of all of the Sahaba and it also accepts the principle of Isdehsad those were internal matters namely matters that related to the governance of the Islamic world in terms of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet the real challenge came from the outside the Muslims came into contact with Greek philosophy and the thinking of the Zoroastrians and the Vedas of the Hindus and the mathematics of the Hindus so there arose a need to come to terms with the knowledge base that has been accumulated from Yunan which is the Greeks China in terms of technology the Zoroastrians in terms of their administrative capabilities the Hindus in terms of the mathematics they were highly advanced so in the year 760 very rapidly they go through the Stalin period the Umayyad period ended the Abbasid Revolution where 751 had taken place now the Abbasids are in power in Baghdad and the Abbasids decide to establish a new capital city in Baghdad up until the time Damascus was the capital Khalifar Mansour decides to establish a new capital and that is the modern city blessed city of Baghdad unfortunately has been destroyed and I'll tell you a few stories I'll come to answer the question that was raised earlier in terms of the intellectual landscape Khalifar Mansour said I want to establish a capital city and I want to find the most renowned architect in the world anywhere from Spain to Pakistan find me that most renowned architect and people looked around all over the place and they said you have him right here in the city of Baghdad close to the city of Baghdad in Kufa and that was Imam Abu Hanifa Imam of Hanifa was not only Imam al-Azam kind of the greatest he was also a great architect a town plan the Khalifa asked him a new capital I want you to come up with a layout obviously we did not have computers those days we did not have CAD they did not even have paper how is the great Imam going to come up with a layout for a capital for an empire that was the largest empire of that time in Islamic history so Imam Abu Hanifa thought about how he missed the Khalifa but the layout he said with your permission I will collect all the cotton seeds in around Baghdad in the realm of Iraq let everyone bring the cotton seeds to me he dried the cotton seeds he conceived of the layout of the capital city and he put the delineating the various important structures and locations that were needed for the capital using these cotton seeds for instance he said this is where the jama'a wasjeet the grand wasjeet is going to be he laid it out cotton seeds all around this is where the army of Iraq slowly laid it out the cotton seeds this is where the main the Shahra will be he laid it out the cotton seeds this is where the people will live and he asked the people to build a big tower a tall tower and on the moonless night he asked the Khalifa to come up with me on to the tower and he ordered that the cotton seeds be set fire to and the cotton seeds were set fire to and the cotton seeds burned they have a small amount of phosphorus in them and they give out blue light and the Khalifa was able to see the outline of the entire capital city in the darkness of the night that was his cat computer aided design great balance why am I telling you this because the people who emerged after the whole fire of Arshadeem were not just religious in the narrow sense that we defined them but they were also well versed in the sciences of nature of course they knew the Qur'an by heart of course they knew the sunnah of the Prophet but they were also well versed in all of these other disciplines compare them and I'll make comments as I go with the way we look at the so-called all about these days we use the all in for someone who goes to a little small school and studies something it comes out as an all in the different comparison Abu Hanifa also was a man who was a mathematician and a scientist to build a capital you need bricks and these bricks were not high temperature fire bricks but bricks that were sunburned and you have to have some kind of standardization times were no different those days he built a new capital today there will be so many contractors you build an airplane you have 15 contractors we had so many different contractors going people to the moon so all the people got into the business of making bricks because there's money to be made you need standardization how are you going to make the standardization Abu Hanifa said I want all these contractors to bring these bricks and make the you know arrange them a number I forget but there's 50 or 100 this way 50 that way and 10 this way so that by the volume of the bricks for so many bricks you can tell whether or not these bricks are uniform size he imposed standardization on brick manufacture you know you have a standardization agency in Washington DC that does the same thing all around the globe do the same thing he was a man architect standardization he was a very successful merchant he had inherited from his grandfather a silk business his grandfather had migrated from Afghanistan those days he was the silk route from China all the way going to what is today Cairo and the Roman what was the meaning of the Roman Empire and so on he was a very rich merchant very rich so much so today he would be a big billionaire in Silicon Valley and I'll give an example he used to he used to loan out money to people of course without interest at one time he was related that he had loaned some money to a person and it was a hot day it is very hot in Iraq so he was walking around and he saw a big building a tall building and he wanted to sort of relax to stand in the shade to catch his breath so he stood in the shade and then after he took his breath he asked people whose house is this and people said this house belongs to that man who took a loan from him and he bought my money for his topic to shade what? it looks like I've taken a leave off of a little something extra and there is a man and I'm taking advantage of his building so he forgave the loan such was the fear that those people were they were afraid of Allah are we afraid of Allah? such was the piety the tahbah that they had the people of tahbah are we people of tahbah? in any case these ideas coming in from the Khalifah Mansour established the house of this and vital Hikmah I said I'm going to establish in Baghdad a house Hikmah is a very important word the function of knowledge is not knowledge itself it is Hikmah knowledge is a gift from Allah SWT it doesn't come from anywhere except to whom he pleases sometimes you see rose gardens blooming out of garbage dumps sometimes you see thorns growing out a very fertile soil Allah gives knowledge to whom he pleases it is not something that can be inherited you cannot write a chapter cast it onto your son otherwise the son of Noah he did not listen to him now what he might say no I'm going to go up on a mountain top and I'm going to save myself did he save himself? no so you see knowledge is a gift from Allah and wisdom is the essence of knowledge the essence of the Qur'an is wisdom wisdom and the criteria wisdom, Hikmah and the criteria Allah SWT gives us Hikmah and He gives us the criteria and provides us all in any case the Khalifa said I'll establish in Baghdad a house of wisdom that was the beginning of it and in there he brought in the Greeks the Indians the Persians the Chinese the Arabs the non-Arabs and such was the confidence of that civilization a civilization that is confident absorbs knowledge from everybody you learn from where when knowledge comes from that is the meaning of the prophet is saying to seek knowledge if you have to go to China go there so Khalifa Al-Munsur brought in the best scholars of the age to translate words from Greece Greek Sanskrit from Sanskrit the works of Paria Partha one of the greatest of the mathematicians who lived in the 4th, 5th century in northern India the Sintanta that was translated astronomy, mathematics from India Greek philosophy the making of paper and pottery as we saw in China administrative techniques from Paria all of these were amalgamated and translated and out of it the Islamic Empire created something much more than some of the parts because the integrated whole is always greater than the Sanskrit the totality of knowledge is greater than its parts you know, if you are a systems engineering you know this what you create in the systems engineer is always greater than the subsystems they created a civilization that was the marvel of the world that lasted 500 years 600 years by Tulikman the ideas of India were rather easy to accommodate because they involved mathematics and astronomy so the Arabs took the Indian numerals adopted them added the Asharia which is the decimal system and built up the mathematics and later in the generation or two you have the invention of algebra and al-Hawadis may also work in Bhagavitman for a while but the ideas of Greece presented a special problem and this is the answer to your question sir Greek philosophy is philosophical Plato highly advanced civilization and the challenge of the Greek ideas was such that the Muslims had to come to terms with them the Greek approach is inductive as opposed to is deductive as opposed to inductive deductive meaning you start with a premise and you draw conclusions from it inductive is you observe use an experiment measure and then you build your clear knowledge bottoms up bottoms up versus top down in the top down approach you start with a premise now instead of going into the very subtle details of it one of the problems in philosophy is time itself time is the culprit time has been a culprit for so many different civilizations when they try to understand and expand upon philosophical thoughts let me spend a little time on what time is and is not there is clock time there is relative time there is perceived time if you are in a hot room time stretches out if you are in a comfortable room time collapses all of these have the foundation in the Quran Allah SWT says the matter ascends to him in a day the measure we are offering you is 50,000 years like that then you have time as time is something we do not understand but get better even in modern physics with all of our advanced understanding of the multidimensional nature of the universe 10 dimensions, 11 dimensions that we talk about we do not know what time is and that causes trouble this is just an explanation it is a gift from Allah so that in time we have the ability to know him as certain and worship the time that is given to us these are the days of Allah why us at no time till the time of judgment moment of judgment will there be another person like you that is how you need you are that is how beautiful you are for us there never will be another human being like you if I brought you a diamond and I said this diamond is such that there never was a diamond like this any time there never will be a diamond so how much is it worth that is how beautiful each one of us is and Allah gives us time so that in this time we can get to know him servant and worshiper there is no other purpose for the creation of human beings except that there be the word has two meanings one is to serve the other one is to worship serve as a slave that slave is not an acceptable word in this language these days so we say serve to serve him and worship and there is the adisa I was an unknown treasure and a meal that I did not therefore create so the known servant and worship time is something that we do not understand it is not real the philosophy philosophy is predicated upon an understanding of time specifically what happened in the Islamic period was the following people used to ask them questions for instance the nature of God the nature of the Quran nature of God the nature of man now these scholars not understanding the true meaning of time or the limitations of time and I am making a very important point in here the difficulty with science the difficulty with philosophy the difficulty with people of faith is that they do not know their limitations the limits if people knew the limits of science if they knew the limits of philosophy if they knew the limits of what they are talking about they would be very humble they do not know the limits and hence therefore they make such mess of themselves and of civilizations so these people they said people asked them Quran was the Quran created or not created that you face Allah SWT is beyond time Allah SWT Allah SWT cannot therefore in this philosophical content they are discussing they said where are we going to put the Quran if we say that the Quran was uncreated it puts the Quran on the same plane as that of the inner essence of Allah SWT that is unacceptable to us and therefore what we are going to say so did this so-called metazolites these were the people who were applying the Greek methodology to Islamic word metazolites the metazolites were in the year 716 to 846 they said to accommodate this difficulty what we are going to do is to put the Quran in created space they said the Quran was created in time oh my goodness you can imagine what happened the whole world started to come down the usuli holemah led by Imam Hanali rose up their arms Imam Habu was flogged many times in jail because they said this is unacceptable this kind of a position taken by the Quran saying the Quran was created in time is unacceptable see what happened was they don't understand the meaning of time they are applying something without understanding the limitations of time to something that they should not be that they should not apply to the same thing with science so many scientists apply science to matters saying or assuming that is the truth where science is like a skyscraper on wheels that's the best analogy I can give you it moves it is a relational truth it is not absolute truth it is a relational truth it takes me off on a side so what happened there in Islam civilization when they came up with this position the usuli were all about the people of Qalaab they rose up their arms they said it is unacceptable the hambali fiqh came about as a fiqh of protest unlike the other three fiqh which evolved in Madinah and Kufa and Damascus the hambali fiqh arose as a result of the interaction of Islamic civilization with the Mutasulites so they put up resistance against this kind of an absurd position because the Quran is not created you cannot apply you cannot measure the temperature on the sun with the ruler it is impossible one must know the limits of knowledge this is the problem when you engage in a discourse with people even learned people they have not asked those questions hence when you say something you run into trouble there is a famous saying to Imam Hazan Ali with the law and of course other Sahab also have said Ali and the other one at one time said I got two kinds of knowledge from the Prophets of Allah one kind of knowledge is something that I share with everybody the other kind of knowledge if I were to reveal to people and see the problem with knowledge is that people do not understand the basis of the knowledge the assumptions of the knowledge you can get a PhD from any school but if you go to a grade school the professor will ask you, make you understand not just the mechanics, the process of doing something the limits of what you did what are the assumptions what are the assumptions of science what are the assumptions of philosophy philosophy is based upon the assumption that time is linear there is before and after there is no before and after Allah SWT knows what is in between you and what is behind you he knows the present you don't don't listen to anybody to leave me alone I know what I'm doing, no he does not by the time he knows it's too late you don't know what you're doing all you know is the intent in your heart that's the inner meaning Allah SWT will judge you because the outcome of an action is to Allah SWT you don't know the best intention on the highway you get into an accident and you kill somebody are you responsible in the sense of being guilty you're responsible in a sense but in a deeper sense but if your intent was to harm the other person you're definitely responsible so time is the culprit philosophy is predicated on the assumption that time is linear there is before and after whereas that is an assumption it is a useful assumption it helps us to understand the relational aspects of the universe because we ourselves are relational we are born we grow to manhood we become old and we die we are also relational it gives us power so that we can discharge the responsibilities that is the usefulness the utility of time but it's not the meaning of time so people of the arms and the matazalites who are the darling of the Abbasid empire for 86 years from the year 760 to 846 they were discredited but I'll share something in here also the matazalites were in power that is when they were forcing their way of thinking upon everybody Mahmood, Amin other people associated with them all of these folks they allowed the matazalites to impose their thinking on other people and those polemans were opposed to them like like him they were flogged, they were jailed they were mistreated and people who did not agree with them they were mistreated similarly in the year 846 when the matazalites were pushed out of the court the anti-matazalites they in turn turned on the matazalites and they persecuted them they burned the books, put them in jail etc this is what's happening in Islamic history they had the ability to absorb different ideas integrate them understand the inner meaning of it the limitations of it and to grow with it it has not been demonstrated in passing I'll mention since I mentioned matazalites matazalites had two other on two other occasions in Islamic history they had the ability to impose the flow of history one was in the Tawla dynasty of India in the year 1320 to 1340 that was 20 years before Ibn Battuta went to India the matazalites were in power Muhammad bin Tawla was a matazalite emperor rationalist they did the same thing they persecuted people who did not agree with them in the Mughal in the 11th and 12th century the Allahid empire they did the same thing they were opposed to the matazalite ideas and they burned the matazalite books the ability to accommodate different ideas has not been shown primarily because lack of understanding of time and even to this day engage in discussions of people this is this, this is this this is this people don't understand see, only Allah and His creation that His name is beyond time He knows He is beyond time don't apply time to Allah don't ask questions because which is what you are time and space you know even today there are 11 dimensions that much we know that much in physics we know there are 11 dimensions in string there are other universes in the other dimensions so that from the from my shoulder to the tip of my finger there may be why you are thinking to the person of Allah because He is beyond time that's the message this is why people fall science is relational science is not absolute it is like building a structure on wheels it is good, you build a lighthouse you are in the ocean and you want a lighthouse you build a lighthouse in the old days you built an Alexandria you built a lighthouse on rock but if you use science as a lighthouse to find out the truth then you have a lighthouse on wheels it moves, it shifts every time you have a new discovery it shifts Galileo was made to renounce because he said he was dealing with you know Earth center coordinates and inertial coordinates that's all it was the church said you must talk in terms of Earth center coordinates Galileo said no it's not the sun that goes on there it's there that goes on we are going to teach you a lesson so you see my brothers and sisters knowledge is a gift from Allah it is an ocean the depths of the ocean are not known to anyone hence there are people who have intuitive knowledge and these days we are even afraid of talking about intuitive knowledge because we have lost touch with it these are oceans and these oceans are limitless in our point of call called Kauffar we can talk about it for ages Kauffar from the root vertical here people interpret it in different ways Alhamdulillah that's correct too Allah has given us something that is boundless knowledge is boundless do not try to bound it but when you approach faith it is boundless all we can do is to use all the knowledge as signs nature is a sign history is a sign what we learn from here is a sign what we learn in school is a sign learn from it every occasion is a sign the house is a sign the galaxy is a sign these are all signs that point to his presence that is all it is that is all it is and had western science understood that there would not be the fix that they are today they said we cannot reconcile trinity with logic and therefore we can dissociate them and hence we ended up with a secular science Islamic science need not be secular and the attempt has to be to put science back within the fold of the sharia sharia includes nature sharia includes history it must embrace it as did Imam al-wanifa that's the answer to your question I will stop in here I will take in feedback and inshallah next time when we get together we will continue the process of understanding how it was that we arrived to where we are today is this a good time to stop inshallah so let me hear from you learn from you