 They taught mathematics, mathematical sciences. It was an important science. And of course, mathematics in those days was slightly different from the mathematics it is at the present time. Included are arithmetic, geometry, astronomy. All of these disciplines were included at the time. They taught the philosophical sciences. Remember, philosophy is not the same as science. We call it philosophical sciences. Science, as we understand it today, is empirical. It's based upon knowledge acquired through observation. It is bottoms up. It is based upon the injunctions of the Qur'an. That's what the Qur'an teaches us. The word of Allah, philosophy, is top-down. It is based upon axioms. And I'll elaborate a little bit upon that. But they taught the principles of philosophy specifically of Greek philosophy at the time. Because they had to come to terms with the thinking of the Greeks. There are so many people, especially from the Mediterranean. What is to the Syria and Egypt who had come into the fold of Islam and they brought with them their own method of looking at things, the transcendental things, as did the Persians and the Hindus, which is today's Indians and Pakistanis. So they taught philosophy. And they taught tasabuf. Tasabuf has always been with Islamic learning all the way going back to the time our Prophet Muhammad was born. We expand upon that too. They taught tasabuf. They taught elocution how to talk. If today, for instance, our sisters, our mothers and grandmothers, our fathers and grandfathers, if they're concerned about educating their children, please remember the following. The two basic disciplines a child must master are elocution that is language and mathematics. You teach a child language, you teach a child mathematics, that child, inshallah, will do well in life. So they taught elocution how to talk, how to engage in a dialectic, when you have two opposite positions, how to engage in a dialect, namely, go back and forth until a higher truth emerges from the dialectic. These were some of the subjects that were taught at the time. Now let's go back a little bit and then we'll go forward. If we go back to the time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was from the Noor of Allah s.a.w. Annoor-e-Muhammadi Laqad ja'akum Noor-e-Milallahi wa l-kitab-e-mugin. Behold, there has come to you the perspicuous light and a perspicuous book, the book being the Qur'an and the light being the light of Muhammad. And those who were trained by the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the likes of Abu Bakr, and Amr, Arufman, Ali, Badi Allah, all of them learned from the Prophet and the Prophet gave to each one of them according to the abilities that he saw in each individual. It's not as if he gave the same thing to all of the Sahaba. That's the reason you see, for instance, Siddiq is the truthful one. He is Siddiq. Hazrat Qumar al-Dilaban, one of the greatest human beings, stood for justice. Hazrat Usman was an embodiment of Hayyya, a word that cannot be translated in English language because Hayyya in modern language does not exist. It has disappeared in the modern world. And Hazrat Hayyya al-Dilaban, who he was embodiment of knowledge, the Prophet himself said, he is the doorway to my knowledge. Such was the luminaries. They reflected the light that was reflected from our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the light from Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to the Prophet, to the Sahaba. Then after the Sahaba, you see the Tabein and the Tabe Tabein. So, I mean very briefly the life of Umar bin Abdulaziz al-Dilaban. A great man he was, educated in Cairo, in opulence when he was a young man, gave all of them, became the Khalifa, imbibing the culture, the methodology of Umar ibn al-Khatab, tried to bring about reconciliation in the community, reaching out even to those who had walked away, he helped discussions even with the Harajis to bring the whole community together. Reduced the taxes on the people, unfair taxes. These days, governments imposed so many unfair taxes on people. Reduced the taxes on the Persians and the Egyptians. And it was during that time that the Iranians and the Egyptians became Muslims. If you plot the conversion rates in the Islamic world, it was not in the early period since the Egyptians and the Iranians became Muslims. Because at the time of Umar bin Abdulaziz, 19, 720, a man who encouraged education, such was the grandeur of the luminaries who learned from the Sahaba. And then comes the later period. So many luminaries, as if you have a light that gets diffused because of the scattering, you see, going out into the vacuum, going off like this. Then comes the period of Ta'ba Ta'been and people after that. Look at the life of Imam Abu Hanifa. What a wonderful man he was. Now, people call him the Al-Imam al-Azim. Alhamdulillah. He deserves the title. Not many youngsters know that he was at the same time a great scientist. He was the town planner. He was the founder who laid the foundation of Baghdad-e-Sharif, a city that now stands destroyed. He was the founder in year 760. He was the one who understood and established the principle of standards. You know, we have ASTM standards and this standard, the standard, you can't do anything. Who established Imam Abu Hanifa was the first one who established it. He was the one who established the principle of dialectics. People don't know that, for instance, the Hanafi Fiqh, which was the first Fiqh to come into existence, was not written down by Imam Abu Hanifa. Neither was the Fiqh after Imam Ali. Imam Shafi did have a journal from Damascus. He was the first one to start to document in any case. Coming back to Imam Abu Hanifa, he would divide his students into two groups, give them an issue that was brought before him. And it's about you take this position, you take the opposite position and until you through consensus come back to me, I'm not going to give you a judgment. It was 200 years later that all of this was written down. The man who invented the principle of dialectics which did not come to Europe until the 19th and the 20th century. And when they took it, they took it and they spoiled it, the Europeans. What I'm trying to communicate to you my brothers and sisters is that the education system in Islam which had this origin in the study of the Quran remember the following, there's so much to say when a hadith gets into it into the oceans it's impossible to stop. Remember the following, the Quran is the fountain and faith brings knowledge. Unfortunately what happens today is that people of faith they say, I believe belief is not faith. Faith brings knowledge. Or you believe in it, it's not scientific. Certainty of faith is knowledge. That's the foundation of knowledge. These people had the foundation their feet on the ground with the Sunnah on the Prophet and therefore they with authority with confidence to face the nations to the east and the west. I'm not talking military confrontation, I'm talking about ideal idea confrontations that took what was good from India that took what was good from Iran that took what was good from Egypt from Africa from Yunnan that's the Mediterranean area incorporated it amalgamated it and created civilization that was the marvel of the world for 500 years. Such was the extended education, the type of education. And how was it disseminated those days? It passed from a sheikh to a murid. Murid comes from the word murad, one who is seeking. Unfortunately each one of these words has become so corrupted these days when you talk to people you're a murid, oh my goodness whatever. But murid is a beautiful word. So a sheikh will sit in Halakha and you teach what he had learned either from the Prophet or if he was a Taba Tabeer, might have learned from the Tabaeem and such was the dissemination of knowledge. So now we come back to the year 1080 after that you see the beginning of structure in the dissemination of knowledge of the establishment of the university in Baghdad and of course Allah had already been established in the year 969 by the Fatimids it was already in existence and these two colleges competed each other. They competed in the teachings, they competed in the philosophy, they competed in their approach just for instance these days if you are a technical man Harvard and Stanford for instance sometimes compete or Caltech and MIT compete or other universities. There was competition in these universities then came the later periods you had the invasions from the west, the crusades and at the same time the invasions from the east which was the Mongols about the same time and that classical civilization is destroyed and out of the ashes of this destruction you find the abulience of spiritual energy of Islam. The spirituality that came down to us from the prophet finds his expression in the 13th and 14th century not only did he save the day he converted the Mongols so that they themselves who were the destroyers of Islamic civilization that the flag bearers of the Islamic civilization Barakah Khan in year 1252 goes to a seminary in Tashkent in Bahara learns there, becomes a Muslim he was not a Muslim the word Khan is not an Arabic word you all know that. It is a Mongol word it came to the subcontinent from the Tatars later the Tatars are not the same on the Mongols that's a different story you see the abulience of this spiritual energy expressing itself through such greats as of the father Jilani of Baghdad, Sheikh Shanduli of Cairo and later on in North Africa there are so many names that come to you at the same time in India and Pakistan later and in Indonesia so not only did the spirituality of Islam save the day it carried the message of Islam to where it had not reached before namely to the Indian subcontinent to the Malay Peninsula which includes Indonesia and Malaysia to Eastern China to some portions of Vietnam to Sub-Saharan Africa to Europe Eastern Europe was it had so much Islamic influence unfortunately last 200 years because of other reasons it preceded it carried the day then comes the period which was the year 1683 very seldom in human history do you find a single date when human civilization takes a turn from one to the other what happened in 1683 and I've shared this with you in the past three very important things happened that year number one, Newton published his laws that was the date when he published it number two, the Ottoman army having suffered the DTB after the Second Siege of Vienna receded, were never able to recover from it and the third thing was the promulgation of the Futu Haqi in India by Aurangzeem Alamgir Islamic civilization which was focused on the learning of the spirituality that they had inherited from the Prophet passed on to the Sahaba and the great Ulama took a turn towards outward observations what is the Futu Haqi what is the legal opinion legalistic Islam there's nothing right or wrong I'm trying to just bring to your attention what happened so this legalistic Islam was the one that came face to face with the mercantile thrust of the Europeans in the 17th to the 18th century and the tussle lost out in the process of both Asia and Africa became colonized then comes the period when the Muslims wake up finally and they say well we have to do something about it some of them said we have to learn through the west that's when you see the emergence of institutions such as the Aligarh University in India and some of the universities in the Middle East and then also the change in syllabus even in institutions such as Al-Azhar so you see education in Islam has gone through transformations and today in this day and age we have to ask ourselves how can we adopt ourselves to what is going on in the world in terms of technology because technology changes people cultures continents what does it mean to teach in an age when a teacher is not a teacher he's a robot what does it mean to teach a child in a day when people learn through digital technology not through books what does it mean to watch a tube and learn from it do you learn from it we have to come to terms with it my appeal to all of us in here is to be open and ask ourselves what modalities can be adopted so that we retain the core the teaching of the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet and I have emphasized again and again there is nothing else that you take back in this whole bus please study the Qur'an teach your children the Qur'an that's your basic that's your source it is all there you don't have to read books about the Qur'an you don't have to read books about history you don't have to read books about what other people did read the Qur'an read the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam adopt it in a way that would make it possible for you to retain the core to retain your Islamic faith based upon the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet stop in the technology so that you rise up and occupy your place deserve place among the nations of the world Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah It's a vast subject the acquisition of knowledge this mission of knowledge and there is no one single solution but we have to be open we have to look at the life of Omer Abdelhaid if he was alive in my opinion he would have adopted the best technology available in the world because look what he did he heard of the windmills he adopted the technology he heard of the documentation that Benton in the Persian Empire he adopted it not only that he hired Persian scribes many Arabs they were very good in Alapushan and verbal presentation but writing was not a discipline very common so he would have been open he would have adopted it similarly you have to look at the life secondly this is the month of Muharram Alhamdulillah most young people do not know who started the Islamic calendar it was Omer Abdelhaid he was the originator as the first month of the Islamic calendar was established with the prophet people used to be happy at the time the onset of the year fasting on the ninth day of the tenth day following the sunnah of the prophet it is the time to do those of you who can fast do fast and most importantly my brothers and sisters this is the time when we should address the issues also that divide us sometimes when I talk to my colleague the issue of well the Shias do this the Sunnis do this comes up remember Islam is the Quran and the sunnah of the prophet what came later is history it is okay to have difference in the opinion and history it is okay to discuss history isn't it time after 1500 years 1500 years isn't it time to bury the gap the device, the shia and the sunni a gap that is exploited by those who don't wish as well if you don't believe me look at the release look at what is happening in the world today isn't it time we got together on the basis of the Quran and the sunnah of the prophet I appeal to you this is a very august gathering highly educated very capable people whom Allah swt has blessed with knowledge and wealth and capability and security this is the place to start so inshallah we may start from this area let's recite Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim