 I pervaded out half-hour ago, I would like already a kitchen, as if he's almost a brother of mine. That's definitely the way I felt as I traveled over the last, I would say, 20 or 30 years to the Muslim world and to different parts of it. And one thing pervades, and I haven't commented on Pakistan, I lived there briefly. In 1993, 1994, I taught there at Punjab University in the city of Lahore. And as a journalist, I want to say quasi-academic, I did a fellowship at Oxford University where I studied the influence of Islamic architecture and I've written a lot about music as a journalist. And so my background is really someone who's curious about different areas and the way, in a sense, people and cultures connect. Even if at the higher level, people are saying, we are disconnected. So that's always been my, in a sense, my outlook is to look for ways that people are connected, even though governments and leaders may say we're not connected and we shouldn't be connected. So I did write the book, actually I'm writing a book now, but I wrote this book in 2008 called, All America Travels to America's Terrorism is on the Roots. And it was one of the first books, and I think it's still the only book that addresses the historic interconnectedness between the Arab and the Muslim world in the United States. Now, I wrote this book because I was frustrated at not seeing these connections articulated in the popular media. And when I say popular media, I mean, you know, television, and to a lesser extent, but to a similar extent, newspapers. Oh, thank you. Is this better? Yeah, it is better. Okay, so I'm not going to repeat what I said earlier. Did everyone hear me well enough? Yeah. Okay, good. So I'm not going to repeat what I said earlier, but I will just say that... So part of my background is that I'm a little bit distressedful of what politicians say about the Middle East. A little bit, if not more than a little bit. Or anything else. Or anything else, right. And so as journalists, I'm trained to sort of step back from events and to ask questions about, well, why is that? And why is not that? So Islam has the... Is that better? Yes. So... Okay, thank you. So in my research for my book, I found that the Islamic world, Islam has been with America from America's founding. And that was a surprise for me to find that out, especially in the wake of this, you know, tragic event. And this, of course, is 9-11. And you can see the Twin Tower buildings on fire about the collapse. So one of the things I found in my research is that, you know, the connection between the Muslim world and America is so profound and so deep that people aren't, in a sense, people aren't even aware of these connections, partly because of the media, I think. Partly because the media doesn't talk about these connections, partly because a lot of politicians say there are no connections, or they don't know themselves about these connections. And so in a sense what I found in my book is that these connections, I won't say have been white washed from history, but in a sense it's more of a nine neglect. They've been, you know, kind of chunked aside for other things. And so 9-11, though, you get, of course, a lot of extremism. And you get, you know, I mentioned the media, you get people posting at media sites like ABC News saying, you know, the Islamic way of life and their culture must be eradicated. And when I saw that, you know, in my research, I was personally offended. And of course we're offended by things like this, and of course we're offended by things like this after 9-11, some American taking it out on an immigrant Muslim family from Pakistan and Dallas. But I realized, you know, part of the reason that there's this culture of Muslim hatred is that it begins, in some sense, at the governmental level and in some sense at the educational and academic level. And I don't know how many of you know this book called The Clash of Civilizations that Remake in the World Order, but it's by Samuel P. Huntington. And he said in his book, a multicultural America isn't possible because a non-Western America is not American. Now one thing you should know about Samuel P. Huntington is that he was an advisor to the Bush administration and that they listened to him resolutely. Now I'm not saying that Samuel P. Huntington, you know, in a sense, led to this backlash against American Muslims, but we can't ignore people like Samuel P. Huntington when we look at the backlash. We can't say these are isolated incidents. We have to say these are connected in some ways to other things. And this is one other thing that I think was too often ignored after 9-11. And you know, of course I wrote this book when Barack Obama was trying to become US President. And at one point in 2008, he was, this was his political opponent, John McCain. At one point in 2008, somebody out of the McCain rally says, you know, Obama's era. And McCain says, oh no, ma'am, he's a decent family man. And some people said, oh look, he's defending. But no, actually in a sense to me, this is where in popular American culture, Arab and Muslim is a buzzword for he's, you know, fill in the blank. My mother might say he was sugar. But you know, you could fill in all sorts of names. He's a blank. So to me, no, that's, this was a bad sign of the culture for me. And of course, it extends into 2010 when you have Sarah Palin manufacturing, helping the manufactured partners around a moffs that was supposed to be built in Lower Manhattan. And then in 2000, actually no, this is right this year, we have Donald Trump. You know, somebody says we have one of his rows. We have a promised country. It's called Muslims in New York for President of Israel. And Donald Trump's reaction is right. He's mad. He doesn't say, well, no, first of all, what's your problem? You know, he doesn't say that. It's more like he's skating along with this right wing, excuse my language maybe, audience member. Then we have Dan Carson, thank you, would never support a Muslim candidate for president. So my book in a sense was to say, wait a minute. You know, let's put a stop to all this. Look at the history of Islam in America. That's what I wanted to do. And so I wanted to start by looking at the history of Islam. And I wanted to start it actually in Muslim Spain, because in a sense this is where Islam in America starts. We had, of course, you know, Muslim rule over Spain for about 700 years. And in the year 1492, after what was called, now called the Reconquista, you know, Muslim rule over lower parts of Spain ended. And so this is a depiction of the surrender of Spain in January 2nd, 1492. Now we all know in our history books that something else happened in 1492. Something very big. And that was this man, Christopher Columbus, landing in the Bahamas. Not to literal, I mean, now is the United States, but the Bahamas. And so that happened in 1492. And what the Reconquista was about, and what Columbus's journey was about, in a sense was about expanding empire. It was about expanding the Spanish empire. But it was also about getting rid of Muslims in Spain. And also, by the way, Jews, Jews in Spain, but that's another story. The Reconquista and Christopher Columbus' journey was about expanding Spain's power without Muslims. Spain, in fact, banned. They banned Muslims from going to what they called the New World. If you were a Muslim, you could not travel with Columbus. And you could not travel on any journeys to America unless you were a good-out Christian. Now, one of the ironies I found in my book is that Spain, of course, because of 700 years of Spanish rule, was essentially an Arabized country, was a Muslim country culturally. And so Columbus' title, the very title that he devoted himself to, was Al-Burante-Demar-Arash-Hoshiana. That's how he signed his name, Al-Burante. Now, Al-Burante derives from the Arabic word El-Amir, which means the commander. And it means the commander of the ocean, ocean sea. So, in a sense, Columbus himself was using Arabized Spanish, but to get to the New World, he also relied on Arabic knowledge, including decades and decades of these triangular-shaped sails that Arabs navigated for years before Spanish navigators adapted them. And without these sails, Columbus would not have made it to America as quickly. These are the older sails, the more square sails that they used. And of course, Columbus relied on Arabic knowledge in terms of astronomy. And Al-Fardani was a famous 9th century astronomer whose guidelines for how to navigate the world Columbus relied on. And here's one of the things I dug out in my research. And that is Fernando Columbus saying there are five reasons, top five reasons Columbus made it to America. Fifth was Al-Fardani, fifth with Al-Fardani. Now, Columbus, I found this in an obscure book. Columbus actually thanked, you know, there's this perception that Columbus and Spain were entirely against Muslims, which they sort of were actually. But it gets complicated. It gets complicated because here's Columbus saying in 1501 about a decade after, you know, it's good, good discovery in America. You know, ever since so far, a diversified sail life, conversed and exchanged ideas. With one of the men in the church in Aleman, Latin, Greek, Jewish, and Morse. Morse meaning Muslims. So here's Columbus flat out saying he's indebted to Muslims. Now, this is not very well known in any history book I read when I was a kid, nor afterwards. You know, frankly, until the time I found this in an obscure book. But what I found essentially was a whole history of Columbus relying on Muslim knowledge and Muslims personally to get to America. And so in a sense, America is indebted to Muslims. Is indebted to this interconnectedness that Columbus, you know, learned from in Spain. Now, this connection between America, Columbus, and Islam and Islam now is not very well known. And, you know, this is one of the things that I wanted my book to kind of, you know, elucidate to announce. But I didn't want to stop there. I did not want to stop there. I wanted to go back to Spain. And those of you who've been to Spain, you know about the Alhambra, this really incredible Spanish palace and mosque, essentially, in Granada. And architecturally, when you go to the Spain, you see this beautiful work above doorways. This is called in architectural terms, alf and alfines, A, L, F, I, Z. Now, you know, again, you find this everywhere. But I was surprised to find this Islamic architecture in the Alamo. Now, the Alamo is one of these iconic, you know, American buildings. American kids who grew up, you know, they always, they always learned the history of the Alamo because of what it represents. It represents the expansion of America, you know, over Mexican territory, right? And millions of people passed under that doorway. But what they don't realize is that, again, above that doorway is an alfine that takes its architectural dimensions from the Alhambra. And this is one of the ironic things. Spain, when they came to the New World, did not allow Muslims, but they did allow Muslim architecture. They wanted it. And in fact, the Alamo is part of a series of Spanish missions, Spanish missions that have Islamic architectural influence. And so when you go to the Alamo, no one is handing you out literature saying, welcome to the Islamic-inspired Alamo, Salam alaykum. They don't say that at all. And so I dubbed this out, again, through obscure research. I either find this out through obscure research, spending lots of late nights in libraries. But when I was in the Alamo, say, in Antonio, I went to one of the sister missions and it's called Mission San Jose. And this is it. Now, this is what it looked like when it was first built, you know, centuries ago. Now, I'm hearing some wows, and I think I know why. Because if you go back to Spain, and if you go to Cordoba, and you go to the Grand Mosque in Cordoba, that's the architectural style that you see. In a sense, it's a trademark of Islamic architecture for that time period in Spain, for that time period in Spain. So it goes back centuries, right? But again, when you go to San Antonio, Texas, you realize, wow, Spain brought over Islamic architecture, even though people don't know that. And this is the shame to me. All the examples I'm going to show you are examples of how Islam has been disconnected from American roots. And I'm trying to reconnect. My book is trying to reconnect those roots. But this, to me, was a stunning example. Stunning, yes. Did you put Spain there on purpose or why? Oh, yeah. That said, no, that's my bad. San Antonio, Texas. But I actually know you're right. Thank you. That's sort of like San Antonio's name better. Thank you. And so, anyone want to guess where this is? Thank you. Yeah, this is New Orleans. When I went to New Orleans for research for my book, this is 2007, I was really surprised to walk around New Orleans and realize, wow, I thought the famous New Orleans, this is the famous French court, right? Where's the French in this? And at this point, I had done a lot of research on Islam. I'm thinking, am I going nuts? Because I'm seeing Islamic aesthetics here. And in fact, I was surprised to learn that you see this on the streets of New Orleans that Spain ruled over New Orleans from 1762 to 1803. I did not know that. I did not know that. And it just so happens when they ruled over New Orleans, a lot of fires damaged a lot of buildings there. So a lot of the buildings in New Orleans are actually Spanish-style buildings, but they're really Spanish-Islamic style. And again, it goes back to the Alhambra. But the other thing that was shocking to me, this is another photo from New Orleans, is this. Now, why would this be shocking to me? Well, because it's a beautiful courtyard. This is what Spain did when they ruled over New Orleans. They said, we're going to put in these beautiful courtyard buildings. But of course, this is from the Alhambra. Now, but this is where we can't stop, because to me, like history is always telling you, reminding you, it's complicated. It's complicated. So we can't just go back to Spain, of course. We have to go back, that's another view of the courtyard. We have to go back to this building. Now, and if you want to guess what this building is. This is a depiction of what the original, an original mosque, this is Mohammed Mosque in Saudi Arabia, its courtyard. Its courtyard architecture. And this is what happens in history. So, Muslim rule over Spain, they get kicked out, but the people who are kicking in that said, we love your architecture and we're going to adopt it. And when we come to America, we're going to put it into New Orleans. Now, again, when you go to New Orleans, there's nothing that said, welcome to the Islam-inspired French Quarter of New Orleans. You don't get that. You don't get that at all. You have to guess in a sense. And again, it's another example of how things get disconnected. People think of it as the French Quarter. And then, oh, by the way, there's a sign that reminds you, you know, who was Spanish for 40 years, but there's no sign beyond that. So, by the way, they were inspired by Islamic aesthetics. That's what's missing. That's what's all missing. And so, this is a church in New Orleans, the Immaculate Conception Church. Now, you know, people who know Islamic architecture will say, of course, those are menarets. Those are menarets. Now, yeah, this church did adopt Islamic architectural, as it's kind of motif, menarets. By the way, I do want to say this, that menarets actually were adopted from Christianity, from according to my research in Syria. This was centuries ago. So, in a sense, it would be adopting. But, for example, how culture was, again, they borrowed from each other. It's all about giving taste. And so, well, let me pass on these. This is a map of Spain ruled over, just part of the United States. And I want to say, well, these are not aberrations. You can go back to any part of the world. West Africa, for example, people know, of course, about slavery how, you know, 60%, upwards of 60% of slaves in the United States were from West Africa. Now, of course, Islam was a long, had a long presence in West Africa. And yet, you know, a lot of Americans don't know about Muslim slaves and their presence in America, including, excuse me, Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, Prince of Slaves. He's perhaps the best known Muslim slave in America. He wrote a book. He met, at the time, he was really well known because he was emancipated. And so, he met in the White House with this man, John Quincy Adams. And John Quincy Adams said, you know, I'm going to help raise the money for you, which he did, to send you back to West Africa. Here's another well-known Muslim slave, Omar Ibn Said, who wrote his memoir in Arabic. He, a lot of Muslim scholars, of course, know him. I wrote an article on him for the magazine called the Aramco World, the Saudi Aramco World. He's a pretty incredible example of Muslim steadfastness in America. He was asked for years to give up his Muslim identity he refused, even though he seemed to convert. He seemed to convert, but he did not. And I'm not going to play it for you here, but there are a lot of Muslim scholars who say that even the call to prayer, he doesn't hear an example of someone, but that even the call to prayer helped influence American blues music. How was that? Because a lot of Muslim slaves when they came to this country were still, had still learned these kind of aesthetics, you could say, usable aesthetics. They brought them with them. And that when they were in this country, they would, you know, do something called field jobs, field polars, and they would use the same kind of intonations they'd get in the call to prayer. And then at the last, they call it melisma. Melisma, and that's the sort of wobbling you hear like in different notes, kind of different notes in the same thing. That melisma you can hear in early blues music. And here's an example of an English, this is a quote, an English, he's an economist who went to West Africa and he was saying, oh yeah, I would occasionally see, they would occasionally sing a melancholy song and they would earnest, you know, learn his prayer. And he saw that he thought this was music. He thought, so people outside of Islam who don't know at that year, in those years who didn't know anything about it, would confuse in a sense the call to prayer from music. So, but again, there are scholars who say that there is a connection. And they even say, for example, look at Billy Holiday, you can hear the echoes of Islam music and her music. So another example, this is another example of this kid, that's these, of the, and after he's apologized, of course, to study these connections, he gives this great quote called, Africa and the Blues, which goes into all sorts of details. But I want to get into this connection too. This is Iran, and this is, you can't see it last name, but this is a very famous, Ralph Alder Emerson, right? Very famous philosopher and academic. He's known these days for one of his famous quotes is, a foolish consistency is to have godland of little minds. That quote was actually directed at George Bush, I'm sorry to say. He was in office. I'm not trying to make this a Republican or Democrat lecture at all. But I'm disappointed. And here is Ralph Alder Emerson. He loved Persian poets. He loves Hafez and Saddi. And in fact, he wrote often about their poems. And here's an example. That's the second one. I was as a jet concealed me in my brain read. Emerson thought that was from the Quran, but it's actually not. It's from a different book, but it shows you to the extent to which that Emerson looked to the Quran, looked to Persian poetry, and looked to it for knowledge. In fact, this to me, this is a really good example because Emerson first got interested in Persian poetry, but then the Persian poetry got him interested in Islam. So, and again, a lot of people know this about Ralph Alder Emerson. But in a sense, he was in love with Persian poetry and by default, you could say Islam per visitors in the name of Saddi. And here's an example of a book it's called Bullistan. And when it was first released in the United States, Emerson wrote the introduction to it. Now, I'm going to get into some sillier examples, but I think it's easily profound. This is the guy on this pinky barnum. And he's famous for barnum daily surface and that's some General Tom Thumb. But he said he was he was America's first billionaire. He was America's richest man in the late 1800s. And I have him in here and I wrote about him because when he built this house, this was his house, and he built it in Bridgeport, Connecticut. You can't see it. You want to guess what he named this house? Oh, Alhazel. My brother's a good guess, but no. He named it Iranistan. Iranistan. Now, P.T. Barnum was a wealthy man. He could fly anywhere he wanted. And so he built this house after seeing this, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England. And because P.T. Barnum could essentially get anything he wanted, he said, I want this house. I want to live in this house. And so then he built this, Iranistan. Now, when he saw this house, he thought he was building, I don't know, I don't know what he thought he was building. I think he really thought he was building an Indian house in India. And in fact, he was sort of right because this, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England was inspired by the Taj Mahal. That's the fact. Now, the Taj Mahal, any of you who've been there and know about it, it's essentially a Muslim building, right? There's a mosque on the grounds. But it's him doing his law, in a sense, mixed together. But the Taj Mahal actually was inspired by, guess what? This building, the Imam mosque in Esfahan, Iran. Now, that's one example. That's one architectural example. This is another. So P.T. Barnum didn't know it, but he was actually right when he called this building, Iranistan. Because ultimately, the architecture goes back to this building. And again, this is the disconnect that people don't know about. Oh, yeah, the Taj Mahal, right in Pavilion, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. But no, actually, go farther. A little bit farther. That's when you'll find it. This is the source, right here. And if you go to Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Iranistan burned down, but you will find this. You will find that at Iranistan Avenue. But you'll find a mosque not far from Iranistan Avenue. And so even, this is one of the little ironies I found in my research that you go to where Iranistan was, you'll find there's now a small but growing Muslim community there. Small Muslim growing community. Just a few more slides, I think. My book gets into the language, the Arabic-influenced English language. Giraffe comes from, of course, the Arabic word Zarafa. And a lot of these words came through Spain, of course, Alcatraz, a very famous island, of course. When you go to Alcatraz, there's no one saying, welcome to the Arabic-inspired, you know, blah, blah, blah. No one says, As-salamu alaykum. No one says that. It comes from, and of course, there's a misspelling out of Alcatraz. It owes its origins to the Arabic word Ahathas, which, according to my research, originally meant the white-tailed sea eagle. So when Spain came across this island, they said a lot of words there. But again, you know, that's my example. Here, to me, is a really more profound example, though. The state of California, right? Now, the state of California, you know, any of you want to guess where that name came from? Yeah. You're definitely on the right track. There's a very... This is what California looked like on an early nap. They thought it was an island. Spaniards who came to this side of the country said, oh, this was a great island. And in fact, there was a very famous novel at the time of this discovery. Actually, essentially before... definitely. And it had... it was a novel about a mythical island full of bull and the island, you know, and by the way, it's in these history books. This is my son. He's now 14, but at the time he was, I think, around 7 or 8. And his book talks about, oh, by the way, you know, California comes... the word California comes from a Spanish novel that uses the name California, but they don't say that that novel bases California on the word caliph or caliph. And that in the novel, it's all about this island full of bull and an island full of this and that. But there's all sorts of references to caliph and Islam. And it's incredible. So when California is named, it really comes from Islam. We live in the state of Islam, basically. Now, you can take that anyway. Those of you who are Muslim will agree with that. Of course. But California, much to my surprise, also, here's a more profound... You can argue which one of these is more profound. A relatively profound one of these examples is. But again, to me, hey, mom, guess what? You live in the state of Islam. What do you mean by that? Well, California comes from the word ultimately derived from the word caliph or caliph. I didn't know that. Well, I didn't know that either until I researched this book. Yeah. That's the stuff. Now, I did know from my years of research in journalism that in the earlier centuries, 19th century, 18th century, the prophet Muhammad was referred to as Mahomet. And if you go to Mahomet, Illinois, and you ask people there, wow, this is the only city in America that's named after the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon you. They will say, what are you talking about? And that's what they told me. And I talked to someone who was from Mahomet, Illinois, who said how dare I refer to that city as something related to the prophet Muhammad. But this is a fact, actually. This is a fact. Now, I didn't research this well enough, but you can say to your friends and enemies, if you want, America has a city named after the prophet Muhammad. That's a fact. Now, I will say this is a fun fact. You can't say that the ice cream cone, this is a very well known story that the ice cream cone derives from the 1904 World's Fair, and it derives from Abe Dumar who was at the fair, who was from Syria, who ice cream was sold at the fair, and there's this Syrian flat, you could say, brad or whatever, called Salabiyah, and then he had the idea of kind of, you know, changing the shape and putting ice cream in there, and thus was born the ice cream cone. Now, Abe Dumar is a Christian-Syrian, right? And my book, you know, is about arrogance as well. And here's an example of how, the Dumar legacy lives on. And so, and made me think, wow, this is a silly example, but I think it's a good example, again, of this cultural interconnectedness, cultural interconnectedness. I'm sure some of you know the Shriners whose original name was each in Arabic order, the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. They're very much an Orientalist group, and, you know, my publisher decided to put it on the cover of my book for whatever reason. That's fine. But they had such an ingrained history that this guy was a member of the Shriners. And those of you who are older, like I am, they recognize him. Yeah, J. Edgar Hoover. He was a Shriner. So he worked as on his head. He was, by the way, J. Edgar Hoover wasn't a real fan of his law. I can say that much, for a fact. Especially Malcolm X. But that's a whole other chapter. It's a whole other chapter. But as another fun fact, Warren Harding was also the president around 1921. He was also a Shriner. And in my research, a bunch of Shriners went up to the White House. It's hard to believe now. They went up to the White House around 1920, when Harding was president, and they said, Salam alaykum. They said that in maths. And Harding said, what do you think he said in return? Yeah, alaykum salam. He didn't know what he was saying. But again, Arabic, Orientalist culture, whatever. It has a way of seeping into the culture. And it's hard to imagine that 100 years ago, they were speaking Arabic from the White House in this very, you could say, sort of silly way. It's a way, nevertheless. I'm going to go past this. Now, how many of you recognize, anyone recognize these guys? Yeah, the doors. I've loved the music of the doors. I interviewed Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist at the very bottom. And why would I interview him for this book? I wrote. Why would I interview him? Well, here's why, because when I hear songs like The End, and those of you who know the music will know The End, when I hear that, I hear Arabic musical influence. Now, I didn't know that, but at the time, and I'm sitting with my son, I say, you know, I have to find out. I'm going to write this guy. He's saying, hi, Mr. Manzarek. I'm writing a book on the connections between Arabic music and American, you know, 60s music. Can you talk to me? He said, yeah, absolutely, I will. And here's what he said, much to my surprise. He said, the Arabic minor harmonic sense is an endemic part of the door music. Now, he also said rock and roll and Arabic music, you know, they're great together and we have to get together with as long. Now, he told me that and I was bowled over by that, really bowled over by that. He passed away a couple of years ago, but it's a shame and those of you who really know the door music will know the song I'm blanking on the name, but I think when the music's over and it has a lyric in it that goes, Persian Night's Babe, you know, that's one of the lines, and Ray Manzarek says that's the over reference to Islam, over reference to Islam. So it's like, I mean, those of you who know how Jim Morrison died and just how he died tragically, it would be incredible to imagine Jim Morrison during his life to say from the concert, you know, we owe a debt of, you know, we're we're such a we owe so much to the Muslim world, you know, the song is devoted to Allah. It wouldn't be great if people like Ray, you know, Jim Morrison died in popular culture, but they don't, of course, and again, this is an example of how many people I have read my book know this, probably relatively few, and I think that more people knew about the connection between the doors, and it's not just the doors, it's Arabic music everywhere, and Robbie Kriger, he's a guitar player with a sarod, he loved Indian music and of course there's a connection between Indian music and Arabic music, sympathetic music, sympathetic strings and on the historical and he was very, Robbie Kriger was very into classical music, which of course is influenced by Arabic music, and of course, you know, those of you who know this pulp fiction will hear this song, I don't know how many, I can't play it for you, but the song called Mizrulu, and if you know that song by this guy, Dick Dale, so that's the song, now Dick Dale, here's a good example of how, again, disconnected, Dick Dale's real name is Richard Monsour, and he's one half coalition, one half Lebanese, right, and so Mizrulu means the Egyptian, it means the Egyptian, Masr means it's the Arabic word for Egypt, in my research, you know this guy, Elvis Presley, now this is how many of you have been to Graceland in Memphis? How many of you? Well, I mean, Elvis Presley loved Khalil Gibran as the prophet, he wanted to make a movie out of that, and he had the prophet on his night stand when he passed away, so again, a small example, but I can go well with an example of how even people in popular culture, like Elvis Presley loved Khalil Gibran on the past of this, and then, you know, of course I know a lot of you know the Eid stamp, which came out just before 9-11, and I interviewed, this is the Eid stamp, very famous, very famous, and I have to say he's a Muslim, he converted to Islam in his probably, I guess, 30s, and he the reason I bring him up right now is that he was also a tattooist when he was in his 20s, before he was Muslim, he was a tattooist, right, and so I asked him a lot of questions like, well, Muhammad, you know, how does tattooing relate to the Khalil Gibran? Of course there's great relation, in fact, you know, and he said, I even have tattoos on my body. I go, but Muhammad, it's against Islam, you know, you're supposed to get rid of those. And he goes, Jonathan, there's no use crying over spilled milk. That's my, I'm sorry. But the reason that comes up now is that, you know, here's an example of someone who, you know, adopted an Arabic on her right arm, and this, the Arabic she adopted was al-Azibah, and probably maybe I mispronounced it. It means strength of character, strength of will. You want to guess who has this or had this on her right arm? Yeah, until the end of the year, exactly. So, but, you find all sorts of examples in the culture like this guy, Akbar from Star Wars, Admiral Akbar, Admiral the Great, but I want to go back to something, because the first image I showed you was of twin powers, and these are the twin powers, and you can see how Minori Yamasaki, this very famous architect, created the twin towers, and at the base of the towers, you can see these spirals that he made. These are inspired by Islam. These were at the base of the World Trade Center towers that were destroyed on 9-11. Now, why would Minori Yamasaki do that? Because Minori Yamasaki was a fan of Islam's architecture, and if you go to Dabran, Saudi Arabia, this is a, you built this airport terminal in the 1950s in Saudi Arabia. You built the World Trade Center in the 1960s. And so you can see the connection between the Islamic spirals there and there. Now, and this, again, we saw this building earlier. This is the Shah's mosque, or the Imam mosque in Esfahan. This was Minori Yamasaki's favorite building. That's by the New York client. What's your favorite building in the world? This was his favorite building. You know, again, the World Trade Center destroyed on 9-11, ironically enough, was built with Islam at its base. And here's Minori Yamasaki. Now, I'm going to end this talk on personal note. When I did a fellowship at Oxford University in 2005 and 2006, and it was about Islam and architecture, and I went to this town, and if anyone guesses where this comes from, I will give you all sorts of stuff. Good honor? Good honor? Good honor, no. It's a town in France. Leon, that's a very good guess, though. It's about an hour or two from Leon, but... Go into this. Was that? No, that's a really good guess. That's another one. Okay, I don't have to give my whole life away. Thank you. I think Le Puy, on the other hand, is Le Puy. Now, why is this town important? Because in the 11th century, this is one of the towns where the Crusades dominated from. We had people in this town who said, you know, we're going to go to Jerusalem and we're going to get rid of the Muslims from the Holy Land. From this town, they said, we are going to be, you know, essentially the world of Islam. Now, why would I go to Le Puy for my research on Islam and architecture? If you go to the most famous building there, this is the Cathedral there. This is not a good image of it, but if you walk up the steps and you go to this huge doorway, you'll find Arabic writing there. Khufiq writing. And why is that writing there? Because in the 11th century, despite the Crusades, despite people at the highest level saying, we will not do business with stain and Muslims, at the more profound cultural level, of course there were business happy between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. Of course there was. Coins were minted, you know, they were sent back and forth. And so Arabic writing was ironically enough, or whatever, unironically enough, in the very cathedral from which the Crusades happened. This to me was a very profound experience for me because you realize, again, I said this at the very beginning, at the higher level we have people saying, we're at war with Philip de Blanc, we're at war with this, but really at the more profound one-to-one level, people are people and we mix with each other, we take back and forth, we go back and forth. And so that's why, this is not in my book, but that's why this was one of the many profound experiences of my life, that even during the Crusades, at the very human level, Islam is integrating in Crusader talent in France. And it's still there. The evidence is still there. And I will, I know, most of you know this. This is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one of the holiest buildings in Islam. It borrowed its architectural dimensions from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It's a time in all dimensions. We're taken from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and then it moved on. And again, this is an example of how cultures always go back and forth. Islam borrows from other cultures. Cultures borrow from Islam. It's a two-way street. And I will end my talk this way. Nizar Cavani, a great Syrian diplomat and writer, saying that any culture should be open to all other cultures. It should affect them and be affected by them continuously. Cultures should strive to bring the world together in the Unified Street. This to me is my mantra. This is one of my mantras. This is what I live for. Because I don't believe, when you believe, when you live in a world of absolute truth, you're saying, Islam is this and then we're not. Judaism is this and that's that. When in fact, you know, we're all mixing together architecturally, linguistically, musically, food-wise, you name it. You know, I told, I was saying, you know, to Professor earlier, I was raised Jewish. But in a sense, at this point, I feel as much connected to Islam as it do in Judaism. And I end with other cultures. I'm not just limited to one. I'm looking to other cultures for inspiration, for stories, for other things, just as the way other cultures have done forever. And will do forever. So that's my talk. Thank you. We'll open it up for questions for Jonathan. Right now, the individual will also ask Aliyah Tai and Imam Karakumar and I'll take the broader questions. Please. What's the name of your book? It's called All America Travels to America in Arabian and Latin Roots. And what's your last name? Coriel. Yeah. I'm sure you know about it. I don't know if you include it in your book, but many of the names we use for stars in the West are primarily given by the Arabic astronomers. No, absolutely. And that is, you know, that's... In the academic world of science, of course that's yet is acknowledged more readily than it is outside of that world. In science, yeah, there's a huge indebtedness there. And it's not going away. We'll never go away. Whereas, you know, in a sense, the culture I write about is more popular culture. Even though that does get, you know, that does kind of see a little bit in the popular culture. But yes. Yes, please. Yeah. Thank you for your research. It's very well documented, very well researched. There's one aspect that I feel missing and that is the impact of the Holy Qur'an on the constitution of the United States. Did you get a chance to do any research on that? You know, as if he's asking about the influence of the Holy Qur'an on the constitution. Yeah. Not as much as I wanted to. I think a lot of people know that Thomas Jefferson studied the Qur'an. And actually, a party of my research studied Arabic and learned to write a little bit of Arabic. But no, that was not a huge connection for me to research on the Qur'an. Even though I think it's an important connection to elaborate on. Absolutely elaborate on.