 I want to talk tonight about Islam and the cultural imperative and I wrote an article on that as the brother mentioned by the same title and then I wrote another one called Living Islam with Purpose and that's pretty long so nobody reads it but towards the end of it it goes through this again and if you compare you'll see that we add things there that were not in the original. So if you want to follow up go to those articles and let's try to keep our pictures up there what happened and I'm going to show you pictures but I think you're going to have to wait a while to see them because first I want to talk a little bit because one of the most important things is to understand that the topic we're talking about tonight is a fundamental undisputable part of Islamic law so it's not just something that people thought they would do because it sounded good you know that Islam must be compatible with the good cultures of all the people that we live among and this is required in Islamic law it's not impermissible it's required okay so we're not aliens anywhere and if we were to say to you that understanding Islam today is difficult for Jews Christians and others would you agree would you agree no would you agree to shake your head this is a Muslim audience here sit there yeah yeah yeah okay so we don't show expression it's like they really hated that speech and it's like they were listening but the fact is that understanding Islam today is ironically also difficult for us and we so often misunderstand Islam today and not only do we misunderstand it but often we believe that our misunderstanding is the correct position so this is something that has to be corrected and it's not necessarily easy to correct people have to have ears to hear they have to be able to receive your message a lot of our understandings of Islam today among non-Muslims and among Muslims as you know are from bloggers and journalists of course the media and all its different approaches are modernists post-modernist politicians politicians often with purposes right with goals and ambitions television announcers and so on and they confront us every day with different and conflicting visions and that's why you've got to know where we stand you've got to know what is what what is right a lot of the rhetoric in our community is culturally predatory and that's the word that I got from my beloved doctor on the back of Jackson really culturally predatory and a lot of our contemporary activists and I don't want to blame anybody I don't want to call any names we don't want we want to be friends we don't want to be enemies but a lot of them fall very short of Islam's ancient cultural wisdom and I hope you see that tonight because you may be shocked by some of the things you see and the thing is you may say really to get back with that's Islamic law in practice by very intelligent people and often some of our ideologues are completely unmitigatedly culturally predatory predatory you know the Islam stuff nothing to do with anybody's culture put on that black idea and put on that life so we can get those hymns up between your you know ankle and your your knee and even that's not even that's not even the son of the prophet son of the prophet son of the son is very similar to the way that we dress men in hafiz in the shalom today rarely ever wore sewn garments or the kind of thing I'm wearing right now sometimes the prophet was given garments like that but as a rule he didn't wear that and a lot of these rhetorics and ideologies in our community have been deeply influenced by Western revolutionary dialectic often anti-colonial often postcolonial and can you blame them for that I wouldn't blame them for that they were trying to liberate us but the thing is is they took over ideas terrorism is one of them that's not part of our legacy at all and terrorism in Islamic law is called here on that and it is the biggest crime of all with the biggest punishment of all and again Dr. Jackson has written about that but where you get terrorism from the anti-colonial and postcolonial movements they use that in the 19th century and the 20th century a lot of times our ideologues are very selective in the way they read the Quran and the hadith everything that agrees with them they give you and they interpret it their way which might not be correct and everything that doesn't agree with them will we leave that unmentioned and often this ideological dislocation in the Muslim world is the result of the fact that we ourselves in many of our countries and sometimes here and in Canada are culturally dysfunctional when we didn't used to be like that but today we often are and as you know even many of our nation states aren't dysfunctional so that affects us deeply so we want to talk today about the fifth maxim of Islamic law we have five maxims we call them that are absolute consensus right what is number one things are judged by their purposes and I want to elaborate if you want elaboration go to living Islam where we talk about maxims in the last part of the paper things are judged by their purposes most of the law has purposes so are you fulfilling that purpose certainty is not removed by doubt and again you may have an idea of what that means and you may not it really means explanation but we'll leave that tonight if you if you want maybe if you have questions you might think what does that mean Al-Bala Luzal harm will be removed no toleration for harm no toleration whatever that harm is and if you say well is that harm really great or little we will consider every little harm to be great that's the way the law works if we always err on the side of referring to victim that doesn't happen in many of our communities does it and Al-Mashafqat we tell you that unnecessary difficulty brings facilitation we don't want unnecessary difficulty you've got enough difficulty in life as it is you have to pray five times a day you have to fast Ramadan you have to study you have to take care of your family you've got a thousand things to do that's difficult that's good but we don't want unnecessary difficulty and then number five which we want to talk about tonight and this is consensus of all the scholars and Adam al-Adha muhaqama the cultural convention has the power of law of course as you see we don't mean every cultural convention we mean the good ones the good ones and we'll give you some examples tonight so any good cultural convention of the people we live among we will honor and adopt and in doing that we're following the Sunnah of the Prophet in the Quran so we're not innovating because as Islam spreads through the world we have to know the people we live with and we have to accept from them the things that are good and don't get uptight you know don't get worried about that we're not going to destroy your beautiful culture that you have already and you're the culture maker you do what you like the thing is is that you've got to have a culture ultimately that is compatible with the people around you we don't give up Islam but that welcomes them into Islam and it's something they can recognize and you'll see lots of examples of that in the slides and historically our great scholars would say many things about this and one of them is that Islam is like a crystal clear river its water has no color like this water right here okay but in this cup it's the same water but it looks green doesn't it it looks green but it's not it's not even a little bit of green but it's the same water as here so Islam is like a crystal clear river but it takes on the color of the bedrock that's what they say so if the water flows over black rocks it looks black even though it's clear if it flows over jade it looks green if it flows over sand it looks sandy and what they mean by that and you'll see this and you probably know this already Islam in China looks Chinese and Islam has been there for over 1400 years and they are Hanafis like most of you and they are strict Hanafis but they fit into China beautifully okay so you know in Indonesia Islam looks like the culture of the center it looks Indonesian it looks Malay of course when the British came in and the Dutch came in they said would you build real mosques your mosques have the domes they have to look like Moroccan and a lot of us did that didn't we you'll see that in Malaysia you'll see that in other countries and then we have to pay most of the budget just to get the algae off the dome whereas you know in the old traditional Malay and Indonesian mosques you don't have any problem with that it's cool it ventilates and it's sacred in the eyes of the people of Nusantara Nusantara are the island people of Malaysia of Singapore of Indonesia of Brunei and of the Philippines okay these are great people great people and in Africa Islam looks African wherever it goes it takes on the local color but the water remains clear okay the water remains life-giving okay delicious not green after all okay but this is the way that Islam is supposed to be so Muslims were not culturally predatory and today who's going to believe you when you say that because today most of us are really culturally predatory but we didn't used to be like that and I want to give you an example this is from Muslim this is a beautiful hadith and I learned this from one of my great teachers Sheikh Khaldun al-Ahdab one of the greatest muhadiths of this time and he's the one who brought this to my attention and he said understand this hadith so this hadith is about the room where the Byzantines the Romans they're the biggest enemy we've ever had to this day because of the Americans you know the Europeans they're also room and they you they are difficult they're difficult even to this day they are and you talk about Islam they have the door don't want to do anything about it and of course that's gotten worse since 911 but it's always been bad it's never been good the room constituted our most formidable enemy and I'm not even going to ask God to be pleased with him as you know he's one of the great commanders who defeated the room he was a great commander he's a great commander and then al-Mustawrad al-Qurashi was another companion he came to Amr he said you know at the end of time the room will be most of mankind and Amr says what are you saying like that's my enemy thanks a lot like so they're going to win so what are you saying is Amr the prophet say that he said in the end of time the room will be most of the people now we won't go into the interpretation of that but a lot of us actually follow the room in the way we grass and so forth so their culture is the dominant world culture whatever it means we'll leave that for the time being so what did I want to do he thought about that and this is what my teacher about Sheikh Khaldun said this is what the prophet taught him to do so he thought about that and he said if what you have related is honest no that they have four excellent qualities wow and others well why would that be because they have some excellent qualities that make them different from a lot of other people okay see how he's thinking and again my teacher said he was trained this way by the prophet this is the cultural heritage because you've got to know your people even if they're your enemies you've got to know them so they have four excellent qualities they are the most for bearing of people and times of discord they don't lose their heads many of us do don't we but they don't they are calm even in world war and their cities are being bombed to bits so they are the most for bearing of people and times of discord this is Amr in the house they are the quickest of people to recover from calamity again look at the Germans after world war two whole country is blown to smithereens and then 20 years don't pass and it's the economic miracle and it wasn't just them others did that too didn't they the Russians the English and others so they recover quickly and they are the most likely of people to renew an attack after retreat so they will retreat but be careful they're coming back they're coming back and then he said and they are the best of people toward the poor and the orphan and the weak wow these are your enemies these are deadly enemies and you know that when we fight each other we dehumanize our enemies that's what we did to the Germans in world war one and world war two they were hounds that's what we did to the Japanese they're monkeys we didn't say no they have excellent zen qualities we didn't say anything like that but see this is what he does they have good qualities and this is the way we should be and these people have good qualities all of these people whether they're black whether they're white whether Hispanic whatever they may be and of course they've got some qualities that need to be helped but you have to know them and then Amr thought about Samoa and he said they have a fifth attribute there is a beautiful and excellent they are the best of people in checking the oppression of kings wow doesn't it give you a good response? it gives you a good response this is why you will conquer them because you know them and you respect them this is why Salahuddin would do that later because he knew them very well he knew their psychology and this is the quality of culture imperative you've got to know your people you've got to know these people now again when we say we follow the cultures of other people we need the good culture doesn't mean we're going to start kissing each other and dancing and drinking wine no we don't do that but you do obey the traffic laws right? well probably not but you should and it's actually better for you okay and so of course one of the things that people often ask is how does this relate to the Prophet's statement that whoever imitates a people is among them what our scholars say is that so and I know it's probably difficult for you to hear the difference if you're not Arabs but there are two different words so that's the one he uses in the hadith and that's when you imitate people because you are not proud of yourself that's when you imitate people because you want to be accepted by them that's when you imitate people because you're ashamed to be a Pakistani or an Indian or an Arab or whatever that's very bad and that's very psychologically unhappy on the outside but to Shabu that we are similar that's not the same so you wear clothes I wear clothes I wear a hat maybe you don't wear a hat you know there's similarities but it's not to Shabu I'm not imitating you because I'm ashamed of myself this is my favorite dress by the way I love it my shave gave this to me you know years and years ago but you think I dress like this all the time no because it wouldn't be appropriate would it here I love it because you don't mind maybe you even like it I like it but if I go to the University of Chicago I don't dress like this they would say welcome but why is he wearing a turban why is he wearing a turban right and they don't listen to a word you say like it's a crazy and if I become Muslim I have to put on a turban I'm out of here right so you know you can dress in different ways and you have to dress appropriately in any case I want to give you another example from the Blessed Prophet and this is what we call the sons of Arfida Benu Arfida and Benu Arfida this is the language of the Prophet he knew so much he knew everything so Benu Arfida the children or the sons of Arfida is the most respectable way that you can refer to in Ethiopia he can call them the Ahbash Habashiyun he could call them other things but he called them Benu Arfida and what was the occasion and the occasion was that when Ja'far at Tayyab God be pleased with him came to Medina from Ethiopia he made his hijra now to Medina you know he made the hijra to Ethiopia during the Meccan period and he doesn't come along he brings with him a whole contingent of Ethiopian converts among the first Africans to come into Islam Bilal of course was also an Abyssinian and do you think they love the Prophet they can't control themselves they love him so much and they fast the whole month of Ramadan and they're in heaven and so would you be right and then on the day of Eid they just do an Ethiopian thing they get out their swords they get out their spears their drums they begin to beat their drums and dance sword dances and spear dances in the mosque not outside in the mosque and Amr al-Fawoob he was a big tough person you don't mess with him very big, very tall, very strong he didn't like that he was like what are you doing and so he said stop it and then the Prophet in Eid he said take it easy Amr take it easy, don't frighten them and they said play your games Benu al-Fida play your games Benu al-Fida so that the Jews and Christians know that we have ampulness in our religion that our religion is not rigid and also so that they know that Ethiopians can be Ethiopians you don't have to become Arabs you'll be Ethiopian and you dance and you have drums and you have swords and so forth okay so this is an incredible hadith and then they continued to dance they were still a little bit frightened by Amr but the Prophet said no just take it easy and then he lifted Aisha up over his shoulders and she put her cheek next to his and she watched and watched and watched until she got tired and they said okay I want to get down and they just went on and on and on they were delighted and a lot of people are like that aren't they a lot of Africans dance that's what they do, drums and dance go to a wedding and maybe you won't like it but they dance okay and this is part of their culture and of course you want the dance to be good you don't want it to be sexually beyond the limits okay and they don't do that in fact the women dance with the women and then the men dance with the men but they dance okay so this is very beautiful and the Quran says in the heights it says except from the people what comes naturally for them this is my translation you know command what is customarily good and turn away from the ignorant without responding in kind okay this is 7.199 and this is the way that Fouqaha understands that verse except from the people خوض العف وَأَمُونْ بِالْأَوْف وَأَعْلِبْ عَنِ الْجَرْهِ okay so it's like except from the people what is customarily good command them I'm sorry عف which is what comes natural for them that's what the Fouqaha said command what is customarily good and turn away from the ignorant that is without responding in kind Muhammad Assad translated that make due allowance for man's nature and enjoined the doing of what is right and leave alone all those who choose to remain ignorant Ibn al-Diyyad was one of the great commentators of Muslim Spain he said about this verse that it upholds the sanctity of indigenous culture it upholds the sanctity of indigenous culture and grants sweeping validity to everything the human heart regards as sound and beneficial as long as it is not clearly repudiated in the Sharia okay so we're not going to drink wine and we're not going to do crazy things okay but nevertheless we are going to adopt the things that are beneficial and this verse is often cited by our great jurist as one of the main proof texts for Al-A'id al-Mahattima the good cultural convention has the power of law Abu Yusuf the great Halafi jurist he said that much of what became the Prophet Sunnah was made up of acceptable pre-Islamic era of cultural norms the Aqeeqah is one example and you know that you don't have to think very much to see that so much of the law was simply they do that this is okay we'll keep it even they would eat these dog lizards and Khalid brought one to the Prophet Sunnah said I don't like to eat it but you can because this is your culture I don't like to eat lizards but you can okay so he accepts that culture and therefore the principle of tolerating and accommodating such practices among Arabs and non-Arabs alike in all their diversity Abu Yusuf said is a supreme overriding prophetic Sunnah it's Sunnah Abu Yusuf understood that the recognition of good local cultural norms fell under the rubric of the Sunnah let's look at Al-Saraqsi who is one of our great Hanat-e-Sulis Al-Saraqsi said really in the vein of Abu Yusuf he said whatever is established whatever people do by sound custom is equally well established by sound local proof you understand that don't you so you're following the Quran you're following the Hadith you're following the Sunnah when you respect the good things of the people around you whether they're black or white whether they're Latino and of course you do what you want to do from the Arab world from the subcontinent you're proud of that that's also part of your culture that'll be part of your subculture I would recommend but you're not going to give up your identity you love who you are you love your past you have every right to do that but we also want to not be alien in this land and you're not this place is not alien at all in my eyes very beautiful you've done a great job okay so let's look at a few more and then we'll go to the slides Judge Abdul Wahab el-Bardadi one of the great, great judges of Islam he says to reject good cultural usage good customs has no meaning at all don't think you're following the Sunnah you're violence to follow a sound custom is an obligation okay and when you see these pictures you'll see we knew that we did that it wasn't just that we thought this would be cool Ashad Bibi who is one of our great legal theorists of Granada is unquestionably one of the most brilliant legal minds in Islamic history he cautioned us that juristic incompetence the incompetence of the Mufti of the Fappi or of the Mujtahil could never impose a difficulty upon the people harsher than to require them to repudiate, to give up and to reject their sound local customs and conventional usage leave the Ethiopians alone let them be Ethiopians let the Chinese be Chinese they don't have to become Arabs we don't even want them although if you go there today you'll see groups that like get rid of these Chinese mosques we're going to have a mosque like we have in our country change those clothes you're going to look like us that's culturally predatory and you're destroying their whole culture and that also puts them in danger in the eyes of the Chinese because they become alien by contrast Ashad Bibi insisted that the art of handing down fatwas must be in harmony with the good aspects of local culture and that this fulfills one of the basic Islamic legal obligations of buttressing society's masaleh your well-being why do we have traffic lights so we don't die in car accidents every day, right? so you know that's good we never know that's not true there's no practice about that you follow the good cultural conventions of the people and let's take one more this is another jurist called Tesuli he teaches judges how to be judges and he said allowing the people to follow their good customs their good usages and general aspirations in life is obligatory you don't tell African-American Muslims that you've got to become Arabs though you be African-Americans you be proud of your past and you build on that past and that's the way we work wherever we went I believe that Muslims came to this land long before Columbus and I would love to give you a presentation on that to show you that we've got strong evidence for it if they did they would have blended in with any of the first nations of Cherokee they were in the Cherokee we've been told by Cherokee women of the Wolf Clan we're the shamans because we have Robert Crane whose name is brother Farooq Abdul Haq he's a quarter Cherokee and each of his grandmothers became Muslims we always had Muslims in the Wolf Clan but we didn't tell the white man we kept that secret the Iroquois were probably like that the Apache were like that but this is also because we don't clash with their culture we're not going to tell the Aborigines of Australia you've got to give up all this treasure you've got no, we may not like everything they do but we can live with them respectfully and we have to so he says that allowing people to follow their good customs and usages and general aspirations in life is obligatory not permissible obligatory to hand down rulings in opposition to this is gross deviation and tyranny chaur that's serious isn't it this is a judge talking and he doesn't play around see so this is very important now what we'd like to do is to conclude by taking a little trip around the Muslim world so let's look at I can't see my side to the plant here do you mind kindly moving this plant a little bit so we're going to begin in Moscow in Moscow we're going to see something that I don't think anybody here has ever seen before and even the children probably have seen so let's look next one stop stop stop no go go okay isn't that funky doesn't it look like a Moscow doesn't it? kind of like Disneyland right but what is that that is St. Basil's Basilica built by Ivan the terrible who crushed the golden horde who were Muslims the Volga river the Volga river was controlled by the Muslims for hundreds of years and the Russian Empire only begins by knocking out the Volga tatters and he's Ivan the terrible he deserved his name so he's going to force you to be a Christian he will tear down your moths but then he came to Kazan which is one of the great tatter cities in Moscow I've had the honor to be there and he said this mosque is just too beautiful so he had tatter architects take it apart block by block tile by tile they shifted by ox cart to Moscow and then he had tatter architects rebuilt it but not as a mosque as a basilica but here you get an idea of what the mosque looked like there's only one thing in that which is not from the mosque who knows what it is cross can you speak loudly Chris cross on the top okay but what's under it, the golden dome okay so that cross in the golden dome that is orthodox nothing else is orthodox nothing else so all those tatter mosques were destroyed right? that makes me sad but that's what happened they were destroyed but you see their cultural imperative that they created mosques that speak to the Russian soul they created mosques that spoke to the Russian soul and that's why this is the logo of Russia isn't it the logo of Russia so it means we were doing what we're supposed to do I went to Kazan I met the imam of the mosque now they have a big mosque there in that place and he was killed by extremist Muslims later he was a beautiful young man and I asked him it is true isn't it that St. Basil's is made from the bricks and the tiles of your old mosque he said we don't like to talk about that and then I said tell me more because I do like to talk about that and he said the Russians can have the tiles and the bricks we want their souls we want them to come into Islam so that they don't die of alcoholism or of drug overdose and so forth so we'll let them keep that we won't say a word is that smart? I wish I could learn that lesson because if you know our history we've got lots of tragedies don't think that Palestine is the first tragedy don't think that Syria is the first tragedy we lost maybe 20 million Muslims in China in the 19th century massacred this is sad stories but how are we going to talk about that we have to be careful because do we want revenge? no because the people who did that we're not around anymore are they? so let's go to the next one next line and you know what that is Parthenon Athens Greece what in the world does that have to do with Islam and the culture in Paris? the Ottoman Turks God bless them the Ottoman Turks were great don't ever believe anyone who says the contrary and they wanted the signs of God of buttressing this deem before the day of judgment the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid is fit into al-Ahlas the Prophet told us about that not good not good at all Sultan Abdul Hamid was a great man he was a great man and he cared about us and he cared about the Rohingya he cared about the Palestinians so that was a big loss but the Ottomans ruled Greece for centuries and while they ruled Greece Greece was 50% percent the base of the Ottoman Empire was where? where was their demographic base? and my wife is now here I'm happy to see her back there she always says why do you ask questions that nobody knows the answer to but you but the base of the empire was Bulgaria not what is today Turkey Bulgaria was 80% what is today Turkey and Anatolia was 50% and Anatolia was basically just like Greece that all kinds of Greeks speaking Christians there they spoke a slightly different type of Greek than the Greeks of Athens but they were Greeks ancient Greeks and you had Armenian Christians as well and Hungary was 30% Muslim you know you can go on and on when the Ottomans come into Athens first of all they adopt the Byzantine church they protect the Byzantine church they cleaned up the Byzantine church and the Byzantines loved I'm sorry you know the Greek Orthodox church and the Greek Orthodox church loved them don't believe anything to the contrary because that's not true they won the love of the Orthodox church and the Orthodox church stood by them faithfully until the end and of course now you see that's not the case with Serbia and so forth but those are all later on that's nationalism later on but when they come into Greece they took the Parthenon do you think that offended the Greek Orthodox church no because the Greek Orthodox church had an attitude towards the pagan Greek past that made them not interested in that at all so they adopt their churches they adopt them so the Ottomans said we will take it and during the whole Ottoman period the Parthenon was completely intact it was blown up by Greek nationalists in the war of independence in the 19th century so you see it now in ruins but during the Ottoman period it was like that if you go there you can even see the Arabic calligraphy and so forth now what do you think about that was that an intelligent cultural statement it was like are you saying to the Greeks that we really admire you that you know Toimbi says the most beautiful building in the earth is this one the Parthenon and the Blue Mosque so it's like we will honor the Parthenon we didn't break any statues we covered them sometimes we plastered over them so you wouldn't see anything offensive there but that was our Salat al-Jawar and that's the cultural imperative let's go on now we go to China and probably we have to move a little bit more quickly a lot of you have been there now this is these are ancient Chinese mosques they are beautiful and those of you who have been there I think that you are like me that when you go into them you don't want to come down you pray there and you say I don't want to leave and you go through gardens and you get there which are Zen gardens to empty your heart so your anxieties are gone when you go to the mosque you don't think about anything but your creator and this is very Chinese and they did it also by the explicit permission of the emperor because Islam when it came into China which is in the days of the Raikul-Ghadir Palace probably some say the prophets they were an official Chinese religion from the beginning and we brought and the emperor asked for armies he said send me your Muslim armies and I want them to defend me against the Mongols against the Tibetans and I will honor them and he did and so we stood by the Chinese emperor okay Muslims today is like what we did and in fact he said bring the soldiers but don't bring any women so what's he got in mind I'm going to marry you to Chinese women beautiful Chinese women and then we'll do it again and again so after a while you basically become Chinese you could still be Muslims but I don't want you to bring your Persian or Arab women come and I'll marry you you can bring soldiers that are not married okay that's what you did Chinese are smart they're very smart let's keep going okay that's a minaret again this is what we call north eastern China you've got different cultural zones in China north eastern north western they're different and then southern they're very different but they're all beautiful okay and that's their minaret because Chinese don't like tall buildings so they don't want you to have a big big minaret that's in the northeast keep going okay keep going keep going keep going okay stop stop stop go back please okay so Chinese you know it's difficult for the Chinese to say some things we say you know like Islam they say Yixilan okay so and then you say Yixilan of course you write it like fragrance orchids or something and they read it Yixilan so that's nice not Donald Duck but they use these different ideographs and they read Yixilan but that means to the Chinese you're not Chinese because I don't understand what Yixilan is so is that good and you have to think about this brother and sisters because Islam terrifies most of the white people out there except for the really cool ones right but a lot of them it's like you're a Muslim oh my god you know but have a heart attack sisters wearing this terrorists look at all of them you know that's what they are aren't they a lot of them are that way and you've experienced that I know my wife has a lot of others have so maybe we also could use Islam because we love it but we could also find another way to refer to it you know and that's what the Chinese do so they said it is Islam if you could pronounce it fantastic but it's also Qing, Zhen, Chao the religion of Qing which is pure and Zhen which is real the religion of the pure and the real like you really one big time because then the Chinese is like oh really like that sounds a lot like ancient Chinese religion sounds a lot like Confucius and Lao Tzu really tell me more see that's smart and they did that in all kinds of things so for example you say the unseen for Raibid you can't say that in Chinese so they say the color world and the no color world because that's what Chinese understand the unseen means there's no colors they're kind of smart actually Chinese are kind of smart okay so let's go so that's in Qing, Zhen, Chao then now we come down into the south this mosque is incredible this mosque is in Shanghai and this mosque is now here in the south the colors are different the woodwork is different it's red all though all of it is by order of the emperor and you want to know how you can tell that go to the next slide you see that well you can't see it very well but on that wall there is of course a black roof or black little roofing right that's actually the dragon and if you go there you can see that clearly it's a dragon or you put a dragon on the mosque what do you think? because that means this belongs to the emperor of China you steal anything from this mosque you break any window oh my god you've got to deal with emperor and you'll cut your head off because he basically got one punishment cut their head off see so like you try to do anything in this mosque but you've got to go for the black dragon and that is the emperor so it's guarded by the black dragon let's keep going and you know this the Chinese Arabic calligraphy which they developed over 1400 years and you know it's Arabic but it does fit in with Chinese doesn't it? Bismillahirrahmanirrahim keep going see and then you see they developed this incredible Chinese Arabic calligraphy but and you've probably seen the calligraphers do that because they come to visit us sometimes right and they do it usually two strokes right and then they put Chinese calligraphy classical Chinese calligraphy that tells you a story about what this means and then he puts his Chinese authorization and it's Muslim authorization Islam and the cultural heritage because the Chinese love calligraphy and so do the mean see that's beautiful and now you're speaking to them you want them also to be able to read and up into China and take in Chinese guides who are non-Muslims they've never been in a mosque and they're just reading everything primordial religion from the foundation of heaven it's four idioms primordial religion from the foundation of heaven well, good dog isn't it? isn't it? it is let's keep going okay, what are those? looks like Chinese don't they? but it's Arabic upside down and it's the Islam Christian or of man or of human medical it's the seven is that allowed? yeah really don't worry about it but see it's the Chinese like that they like that, let's keep going okay, now we want to come to Nusantara which is Indonesia Malaysia, Singapore let's keep going okay, now this is a typical traditional Nusantara mosque this is actually I believe from Indonesia okay, now that is called a sacred mountain in their traditions and this was sacred to them before Islam came so you're going to have three tiers four tiers, five tiers and you know it's very good for the rain it's very good for the heat and the humidity and also then it's sacred in the eyes of the people let's keep going here's another one I think they're beautiful here's another one, sacred mountains cosmic mountains actually is called the next one another cosmic mountain don't you think that's beautiful and if you go inside of them they are so fantastic you think there's a big carpet on the floor? no, it's marble because again it's human there carpets like this they're not nice after a while so they want to have it marble and then people bring in prayer mats and things like that another one, keep going okay now that is a big what? drum outside the mosque cultural convention what's it about? calling to prayer how wrong, isn't it? you think they don't call me again? yes they do but they have jungle they have thick forests and sound doesn't carry well the sound of the human voice doesn't carry well in the jungle but drums do so they have drum language boom boom and then they have certain beats that say come and gather other ones say there's danger other ones say there's time for prayer they speak the language of drums many people do that in Africa especially drum language and so they put up these huge drums in Nusantara tradition and we adopt it because that is the call for imperative this is something good it suits the situation in those lands okay and it's we're not going to stop calling via them we do that too but we also do this as well okay now here if you look closely you'll see that going into the mosque then you've got your way through the pool of water what's that bidah all about? how long right? didn't the Prophet do that? again why are they doing it? well because they are a rice civilization they work in rice paddies and rice paddies can be dry much of the year but in the beginning the rice paddy is muddy very muddy and you've got to go barefoot and then you've got this peasant coming to the mosque with mud all over his feet so you're going to bidah and say wash your feet, wash your feet no, so he's got to go make uddu usually he probably doesn't have it so he's got to walk through a pool of water like that to go make uddu and of course what he makes uddu is he going to wash his feet and then he's got to walk through it coming out and then he's got to walk through it coming into the mosque on a track and you're going to have to take off your shoes too because unless you can jump really well you're going to have to walk in the water okay? now there's a big problem with that and that is that the water is filled with all kinds of organic things and you get yucky larvae and mosquitoes so what are you going to do? culturally, put fish in there you see, beautiful fish they can eat those but they call them koi or whatever beautiful fish and you know what, if you're hungry you're going to have to eat that fish see, so this is also cultural parenting is there anything wrong with it? no, this is right this needs to be respected okay, let's keep going okay, now we're talking about the nine saints and we're especially talking about Kali Jaga whom I love and I know one of his great, great, great descendants her name is Shakti and she lives in Jakarta and Kali Jaga was, my goodness, you can't believe his story we won't go into it in great detail but he was a great saint he was like a Robin Hood and then he became a great saint and then he takes Islam to the Japanese a very high family but he takes Islam to the peasants, the rice peasants and he teaches them Islam through shadow puppets those are shadow puppets and those are his puppets you see how skinny they are how long their noses are that's because there was another saint named Sunan Geery I think and Sunan Geery says Haram to make these puppets traditional ones so he goes back to the drawing board and he makes these and he says Sunan Geery do you think these could live? I don't think so so this is Kali Jaga and they're very beautiful and then they all tell stories they'll tell stories about the great encounter that you've read about between Hamzan and Krishna or Vishnu or between Yusuf and one of the other heroes or gods of course all made up but that's the way they talk to the people and then they teach Islamic ethics they teach Islamic teachings they teach Islamic beliefs and also they're very smart because you had mostly people there in Indonesia were Shiite Hindus they were some Shiite or they were Buddhists so they knew what the Shiites like and what they didn't like they knew where the Shiites getting static and so they play to that and they knew that there are things the Shiites do that we don't like so they left that alone they didn't attack it will give you something beautiful and so they bring the Shiites and the Buddhists into Islam through what they know in the house didn't he know the Romans pretty well well they knew their people very well and we have to know our people very well whether they're black or white or Latino or First Nations or whatever they might be let's keep going more of his shadow puppets more of his shadow puppets keep going ok now here we're going to look at Thailand Thailand has a lot of Muslims and we'll go through it quickly but this is a little Thai village on one of the islands and again you know they're a little bit poor their mosque is very old made from bamboo but again it fits in very beautiful this is their imam or brother Mansoor a lot of you know him and he was there on this honey he went to Thailand with his wife and they go to this island they're all Muslims they didn't know that of course the Muslims were really good to them so let's keep going keep going ok now the oldest mosques in India looked somewhat like this this is a model where are these mosques to be found? Kerala in western India and Islam comes to western India really early in the days of the successors so these are mosques that were built by the successors the Tabiyain and again they're based on cosmic mountains a little bit different but it's still a cosmic mountain and I've seen about 13 of them and they're really really beautiful and again they don't jar with the local culture they don't make a statement against the local culture and these are the Salish who did that this is the Taj Mahal this is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and a lot of this has been told by the ideologues that this is terrible this was a waste of money they're not really wrong but the thing is this is politics and this is culture because the locals and I'm not saying that what they did is beyond any criticism but they built something that is so beautiful that it enables them to rule the Hindus and the Jains easier that's very important that's very important and again what is the logo of India if it's not the Taj Mahal so again, we had cultural genius maybe we didn't have to spend that much money on it and then maybe we could have made a mosque instead of a mausoleum where a beloved wife died we'll leave that for God I would like to leave that you could do whatever you want but still cultural genius and if you look at the mobiles of India everything they did was that way you look at the Muslims of Pakistan India genius is brilliant brilliant this is the mosque now we're going to Sri Lanka we have any Sri Lankans here I will embarrass you by asking but this is one of my favorite mosques the pomegranate mosque okay and this was built by a man who was a saint he wasn't an architect he wasn't a builder but they had to build a really beautiful mosque in downtown Colombo and they had very limited space so he said, ah, coffee is a pomegranate because the pomegranate gets lots of seeds in one place doesn't it? and then also what's the cultural aspect well the pomegranate for Sri Lankan Muslims is as simple as Islam because the people who spread Islam to Sri Lanka they came from countries where they have pomegranates they don't have any Sri Lanka so they associate the pomegranate with Islam so it's a pomegranate mosque and I just think it's fantastic and I wish we could go there and pray there and look at it, keep going look at that that's a pomegranate okay, let's go to the next picture now we're going to go to Turkey okay Islamic architecture we believe that architecture is the supreme art I believe that architecture and our Islamic art it really begins with prayer with the mehrab with the voice the writing of Quran dress we like to have nice clothes so that you can make wudu and you can bow, they're not too tight so also clothes are art for us they always work we like to look nice and in fact when people don't look nice it means they don't have self respect they don't have self respect and we believe in honor and therefore we dress of course I'm not criticizing anyone we live in a culture that doesn't care much about honor so we dress it anyway we wouldn't have done that in the past we wouldn't have done that in the past so we like to dress nicely we like to dress nicely now go back okay so our architecture was tectonic and does anybody know what that difficult word means? tectonic if your architecture probably do but tectonic means it fits the earth it fits the earth and look at that isn't that incredible you see it's built to accentuate the mountain because God created the mountain and you can go through the Muslim world and see this everywhere in Turkey and Spain we are tectonic we want to fit the earth and we go to Rosales this beautiful place in Spain and there's a Moorish house there that goes back to the Muslims of Spain I believe it was a commander's house because you had a lot of army people in that place and he built his house on a hill and he didn't dig out any of the hill he built his house over the hill and he took you there and showed it to you perfectly tectonic because God created the hill so I'm going to make my house fit the hill and you've never been in anything like it it is so beautiful the air flow is natural the light flow is incredible and it's just you want to be there you want to stay there so we were tectonic Alhamra tectonic modern architecture tends to be anti tectonic don't want to fit the earth and modern buildings many of which are very beautiful is that any question but they usually say look at me look at me even if I'm ugly look at me whereas our building said look at the heavens look at the earth, look at the mountains it's different isn't it it's different, let's keep going okay so this is of course Colonia now this is not there's a lot of Ottoman architecture here but the main part that turquoise a pillar in the middle of course you know it's Islamic don't you but what are they copying let's go to the next picture do you see any similarity that is an Armenian church and so this is Seljuk the Seljuks were before the Ottomans they imitate the Armenian church in their mosques their mosques are not Armenian churches but they build on that in such a way that they honor the Armenians because the Armenians were the most faithful of all the midlands for centuries and centuries until the 19th century with the horror of nationalism so they wanted to become Armenians of course but we want to show them we respect you we defend your church that's what we did always and we will also build a mosque that makes you think of how beautiful your churches are but you know what ours are more beautiful ours than they are keep going now we come to the Ottoman Turks okay keep going okay so that is okay you know what that is right I have Sofia the first great church of Christianity built by Constantine the great in the 4th century and of course we inherited it because we conquered the city of Constantinople and actually there are very few Christians left in the city when we conquered it so we bought it we didn't take it, we bought it and then we turned it into a mosque very respectfully now it's a museum, you can see the frescoes down below but we covered the frescoes with a type of white wash we didn't destroy them because we never do that we just cover them because we don't really want to see them but we don't destroy them either that's always what we do respect the past respect your people now the Hagia Sophia will become the conscious model of the Ottoman mosque every Ottoman mosque has a take off on Hagia Sophia and you can say the Greek Orthodox church again just like with the Armenians we now rule you and the Orthodox loved us believe me they did we cleaned up the church got rid of nepotism and corruption the Sultan adopted the church I will protect you and he always did, he protected the Jews the Jews loved him nobody else will protect you you come to me, I'll take care of you okay, so is Steve fine? okay, so should we stop and pray the shah? okay, let's do that and now we go quickly to West Africa okay, so these are the great mosques of Mali in Timbuktu and El-Smar and there of course you have desert you don't have rocks you don't have trees you have to take them, bring them from far away so this is how they built their mosque clay and in fact we're told that one of the great kings of Mali I think it's Mansa Khan Khan Musa he went to pilgrimage in about 1325 and Mali was so rich in gold that he caused inflation in Cairo for 15 years but he also they say an Andalusian architect to come back with him to build mosques but they told him we don't want a Spanish mosque we don't want an Andalusian mosque we want an African mosque so in any case however the case may be whatever the true story is this is one of the great mosques of Mali let's take a next picture here you get another picture of another mosque I mean they're really beautiful aren't they and they fit in perfectly with the landscape they're perfectly tectonic and not only are they tectonic in terms of fitting the earth but also the color so they blend in beautifully okay now we're really about to finish so Islam in Canada so this prayer rug is made by one of our sisters and she's a professional weaver and she learned how to weave from a traditional weavers and so she made this prayer rug now I don't know if you like it or not you know you might not think well I don't really like the colors but this was made to fit first nations symbolism and color so to the first nations of Canada where she lives this means the change of the seasons see so again it's honoring them and that's good for us and it would be good for us also to learn why does it mean the change of the symbols other seasons what does the blue mean what does the brown mean what does the tree in the middle mean let's go to the next one also in Canada you have a number of really beautiful mosques and again this is a very modern mosque but then look at the inside so they're doing incredible woodwork and this woodwork also is Native American and the carpenters are from the first nations in fact a lot of them even became Muslims in doing the work so again honor the people around you and I think it's very important for us to honor the people who are not privileged and who have been impressed you know the blacks the first nations and others let's keep going okay now we're just about ready to end this is our wonderful brother Azim Ibrahim some of you know him he's Scottish I don't think I said that right but very Scottish and so what are they wearing you know that's of course a tartan Scottish tartan but which clan is that that's not McGregor that's not McGregor that's not true let's try to take some other clans what clan is that and this was authorized by Scottish parliament as an official Muslim tartan I think that's really cool I think it's really cool let's go to the next one see so maybe you can go up just a little bit that's the pattern so it's got green, white, black go back so I can read the words beneath so you can see it okay it says blue represents the Scottish flag green represents Islam read it for me please the five pillars the white lines okay and the gold lines are the the pillars of faith isn't that beautiful and then what does it say the black screen represents the carbon see so that's really that is living by the cultural purity and that is telling Scotland that we love you and Muslims should because Scotland's been really good to us and usually the Stats and the Welsh and the Irish they're a little bit better than their cousins they're much more tolerant Scots especially really good and the Muslims of Scotland are among the healthiest and they're also among the most dynamic so I think now we've finished and let's just open up for questions and I'll take too long that sort of depends on you and what you want to ask and then I think we might want to go home before it gets too late at least I might want to do that but you know I'm happy to stay here with you as long as you have questions so I can ask the question thank you very much for coming and sharing this beautiful interview could you please also talk about cultural holidays you know there's a lot of debate among them some community Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, Christmas so have you had a question about holidays I think I prefer not to talk about that and I'll tell you why because we say that hard cases make for bad law and those of you who studied law you know what that means hard cases make for bad law so you're asking an extremely important question but the thing is what I want to do is keep it simple because the principles are very clear now when we come to Halloween and things like that that's actually not so easy see so hard cases make for bad law when you study law you want to get the basics you don't want to go straight to the hard cases because you'll never understand anything so what you've asked about in my opinion are hard cases and therefore I would prefer just to leave that because the main idea is clear and adopting the good cultures of other people you know out of respect for them that shouldn't be an issue now how do we relate to their holidays I could talk about that and talk about some of the things that it maintained me up but I prefer not to go there if you'll permit me yes I'm trying okay I'll just speak loud hopefully people can hear people behind me may have trouble you were talking about the presence of Muslims talking about the presence of Muslims in America before Columbus usually when people get lost we don't celebrate them but somehow that managed us to celebrate it there's hard evidence of the African presence in America you probably know the book but maybe other people don't they came before Columbus about various people came from different parts of Africa different kinds of mystery and there's a lot of evidence especially in Mexico but I want to mention something that I never heard of until I was speaking on a program in Los Angeles and I got a call from someone and they said do you know there are these old buildings in abandoned villages in Panama in the jungle area near Columbia and there's Arabic writing on them and I said it may be Arabic letters but I suspect it's actually West African languages because if you see pictures of how West Africans decorate their homes it's the same kind of look and we know that and then living in New Mexico for a number of years about an hour's drive west of Albuquerque and there are about only 12 peblos left Native American villages and I absolutely could have fallen over because when you showed the West African the most you there, they're in Gen A and they're in Tip Up 2 and several other places they look like a doggie with a stick and they walk up and do the repair in this Native American village the church walls are I forgot how many feet thick of a dove and then next to the church and this is from the colonial period when the Spanish were here next to the church is a cemetery and the walls have the exact same look the way they're designed as you see on the walls around and we don't realize how Muslims discovered America, let's just tell the truth people don't know it and I think on Columbus Day we need to say we need a Muslim discovered America today and the people carry it in any case thank you very much that's very beneficial and I believe the way you say it's true and I do have lectures on this and I have also presentations on this to prove that Muslims who are in America before Columbus is much easier than to prove that Columbus was in America much easier and there's also a book if you want to read about this called How America Discovered Columbus it's very good because Columbus did come over the ocean but we discovered him and made him into a myth because he was actually criminal and I studied Columbus a little bit and in the University of Chicago Library I got a book which is The Litigation Against Columbus the Spanish Litigation it's this big this big this man was always in court and he wasn't a good man at all and he's very self promoting but we know that we know this from Arab history that in about 1315 the kingdom of Mali under the Mansas Mansa Khan Khan Abu Bakr Mansa Khan Khan Musa were brothers they put together a fleet of 2,400 boats filled them with warriors and dried meat and water and gold and salt and they left the Gambia River right into the equatorial current which goes to America so even if you're not paddling or you don't have a sail you'll get there in about 50 days well they are warriors so they paddle and they use sails and in fact they can come back but they don't come back through the equatorial current they'd have to go to the north or the south so Mansa Khan Khan Musa he told us basically I could show you this in the management that you can cross the ocean ok so this raises another question because if you look at the oldest people who have been discovered in America and I don't know if I'm going to have a presentation like that in these days but I have roots I don't, I'm sorry but I love this and if you look at the oldest skeletons of human beings in the Americas which goes back roughly to about maybe 13,000 BC and a little bit vague on the memory where do you think you find them well you know they all came over from the Arctic right they came by the Bering Strait and no doubt some did ok but where do you find them the first Brazil Brazil maybe down in the south and southern Mexico that's a long way from Alaska that's a long way and when you take their skeletons and you put their faces back together by forensic technique they are Africans they are Africans how did they get here the equatorial current did they want to come or did they come by mistake but they came here what is the oldest known civilization in America anybody know the sisters Olmec and you go look at the Olmec heads there's about 19 of them they're made of balsight they weigh about 30 tons each and you tell me who they are Africans and I would say Mandinka warriors in any case they were Mandinka they were humans ok and of course the Africans and these are kings and everyone has a distinctive face look at them some are laughing some are smiling these are warriors and kings what were they doing in America well again they got into the equatorial current did they intend to do that or not what I believe is they intended to do that why you know and this is one of the things you know that we're told is that historians if you look at the gold that was in the kingdom of Mali no one on earth had gold like that and some historians say they couldn't have gotten this from West Africa you know and I could tell you that in detail because the people who had the gold mines they hid them even from the king of Mali and they were Muslims but they were hiding the gold mines because they don't want anybody using those gold mines but now we pretty much know where the gold is and like this couldn't provide the kind of gold that were told about to Mali they were always bringing it from over the water that's what I believe even Mansa Khan Khan Abu Bakr he goes with the ships why gold now Mansa Khan Khan Musa comes to Egypt in 1325 he's very generous he causes inflation for 15 years and he tells us they we didn't see them after that okay well you know they maybe didn't come back yet but did they come back when they came home we don't know we don't know they may have come back I wouldn't be surprised but so this is extremely important and as our sister pointed out we know from sound, terracotta there's evidence that they were here and you have I could show you I'd love to show you up there where you can see it but we have for example many African faces in the terracotta record of Mexico and elsewhere as our sister said you have one who is a very black Mandinka very black and he's got compound earrings and he's got a special dress because they said he's a hunter because they know what a hunter is and the hunter some of you might be hunters but their hunters know where the snakes are they know where the lion is and they know how to go so if you're coming into the jungles of America you've got to have a donso because they know the snakes even though that snake is new to them but they will say go this way don't go that way go by the water, don't go by the land don't go by the water and so he's going to be big and he is and again we have Austrian archaeologists Alexander von or von Wutenau he's written about this and Ivan Sertimen von Sertimen our sister referred to he also refers to Wutenau Wutenau is the first great archaeologist and in fact he found these terracottas in the basement of the National Museum of Mexico well what's that all about because we don't want to be descended from black people that's what that's about these are noble black people these are better people than you and Wutenau would show this black statue you know to his students graduate students and they would say it looks like an African but it cannot be there were no Africans in America before Columbus okay so is that stupid no but that's cognitive frames see if you don't have the cognitive frame that enables you to imagine authentically that Muslims could cross the ocean then you can imagine it and we know in New Mexico that the and maybe Arizona the Apaches the Spanish believed the Apaches were doing jihad you can read in their books it's well known and they believe that the Apaches had mosques in their camps and were praying and of course that's absurd isn't it and that's what historians will say let's say this is absurd no it's not absurd it's just you don't know anything about us and you don't know that we can cross the Atlantic better than you can and also that if we came here we would have blended in with the first nations by the cultural imperative we would not have destroyed their cultures and we would have lived among the Apaches as Apaches but maybe some of the things they do we wouldn't do maybe some of the things we wouldn't do and again we have a brother called Fadouf Abdul Haq Robert Crane he was an advisor of Nixon before Kissinger he's a good man he's a Republican he's a Cherokee he's a quarter Cherokee and when he became Muslim he told his grandmother I'm a Muslim she's from the Wolf Clan which is the Shamans they're the ones who tell you in the Wolf Clan but we didn't tell the white man we had a sister go there to the Cherokees some of you would know her I mentioned her name but I won't do that not polite she's a Palestinian she went down to North Carolina and met the Cherokees a lot of other white girls with her and they said where are you from she's wearing a scarf she said it's a long story they said where are you from she said Palestine so you think Cherokees don't know about Palestine and then they took her and they loved her by the way and they said you're not like the others you're not like the others and I could tell you why because one of the chiefs for example was talking to you like I am and he began to choke and the white girls got died and they go oh, oh, oh and what did she do she got a glass of water and so he said you're not like the others very different and they took her into this room she told me herself and they said tell us if you recognize anything she walked in she said there's the hand of Fatima and they said we have much more in common than you can imagine and you look at Sequoia the great Cherokee chieftain and see what he's wearing on his head always a turban, isn't it and his clothes look almost like Kurdish Muslim clothes and when the Spanish came here when Cortez goes into Mexico City around 1537 he conquers Tenochtitlan what does he say? he said we found Moutes Mefkites and Teocaris and Casascantes we found many mosques and indigenous temples and big houses well you know that's not true is it? he had something wrong with his brain and I also had the honor to meet the Duchess of Medina, Sedonia in Spain her family is a royal family and they are in charge of the archives of the Spanish Armada which means that they got all the records of Seville in the 1300s 1400s, 1500s because after they conquered Seville then the Armada will be based in Seville so she can't go back before that but she has written a book in Spanish called Afrika versus America Afrika against America the force of the paradigm and she shows using her documents that Muslims were bringing goods into Seville in the 1300s not Muslims but Spanish they were coming from America so she says the Andalusians were in America too and they were there at least 200 years before Columbus I believe that and the conquistadores everywhere they go they report finding Muslims sometimes they find Muslims that look like Andalusians so there were Africans without any question and Africans are probably the first people to come to this continent and there are a lot of things so we've got to study we've got to study brothers and sisters but thank you very much thank you very much yes sister, we don't have a microphone that's okay I'll just speak loudly and if other people can't hear me well if I could hear you they can so I just was wondering about your thoughts about names because either when we as converts come to this being many people will change their name also when we're naming our children I saw an interesting post the other day and what somebody was speculating what would it be like if more of our youth had names that were more similar to what people that maybe were doing Dawa would feel comfortable with was bothered thank you and in the case you're not required to change your name if you convert you're not and only would that be required if your name were something not good like Brandi I know actually I have a cousin whose name is Brandi so like if you can listen we might want to make it like that's not the coolest name but you know there are a lot of beautiful names have you ever heard of a Muslim named Jadid have you ever heard of a Muslim named Noshiid or Shireen or let's keep going the Persian names so how come the Persian names are okay and the Arab names are okay but hope is not good and you could call a girl hope couldn't you you could call a person increase which is fine and you don't have to do that but it's actually we don't want to be aliens in this land we do also want to be recognized as Muslims you know I'm happy with my name but I'm very happy with my name but the thing is you don't have to change your name when I became a Muslim I got a good name you can't be Larry Larry means you wear the crown of victory it's not a bad name Lawrence so we don't have to change the name of course a lot of times brothers and sisters will keep their names which is okay but also maybe you can have a Muslim name as well and in fact a lot of the African Americans in this country and the Moriscos in Spain had and I don't know why they called it this but they had basket names and if you go to the Giche islands off the coast of South Carolina you'll find a lot of basket names like Khedija Khedija too Christian and so forth so they had a Muslim name but then they had a Christian name which they were known by so she might be married but she's actually Khedija too that's her basket name and the Moriscos who were the Spanish Muslims that were forcefully converted to Islam they often did that so they had a sovereign race so you're free there to use your Khedija and don't make your family angry and also remember the culture is not easy to change so the cultural convention is second nature you can't just change it overnight people will notice have to go slowly slowly yes brother can you talk a lot about China one of the things I've been reading a lot about recently is how there's the different ethnic groups where one is typically refused to try to separate from the Han Chinese and the Hubei Muslim then you have a leader who over history has always tried to separate from the Han Chinese so this is a very good question so in China you have two major groups the biggest one are Chinese Muslims and they're called actually Wei they're called Wei Wei and so the Wei Wei or the Wei they're the Chinese Muslims and they're everywhere in China they're everywhere and they will always speak the local Chinese language and they cultivate architecture and so forth and then you have the Uyghurs the Uyghurs are not Chinese they are Turks they're Turks and they live in the northwest which is called Xinjiang big huge part of China you'll also find them throughout China running restaurants and things like that the Uyghurs today are really in trouble really in trouble and the Chinese government is coming down on them really really really unforgiving there's reasons for this one of them is that there were secessionist extremist groups among the Uyghurs I was in Jeddah I taught there for 16 years it happened that my best department head was a Uyghur he was a Uyghur from Mecca they had come to Mecca in the 1930s and 1930s but he still spoke Uyghur as well and I liked him and so these Uyghurs came to see us they were young Uyghur extremists and he wanted me to come so I did and we talked to them and we told them you don't rebel against the Chinese state do you realize what you're going to do you bring death and destruction upon your head and that's not permissible in this life you are not able to do jihad against the Chinese they will crush you this is the laws of jihad you have no right to do it first of all you don't represent anything you're not a state of course they knew that we're just cellos and then they go back and they begin to blow things up and they do other things so this brings hell down upon them now I'm not going to say that that justifies what has happened I'm not going to say that that continues because there's also a lot of prejudice and in China this is something like where is our political representation and we have some great countries in the world that if they would just come together Egypt Turkey, Pakistan if we get their houses in order and if they were allied with each other as they ought to be Egypt should never be alienated from Turkey Turkey needs Egypt whether you like what's happened there or not you need them politically so if you had these three countries Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan working together they could pull us out of the mud they could and I'm not trying to denigrate any Muslim country so please if you're from other countries don't feel that I think little of a country but I'm just talking about geopolitically these countries are extremely strategic and of course Pakistan does have a really good relationship with Turkey they always have but we've got to have some kind of political force in the Muslim world and these are really intelligent people and they could do that in my opinion and of course what are we able to do about it and that's just ideas but somebody's got to stand up for us and the Chinese are always doing business with us and the Chinese are doing a lot of business with Pakistan okay so we should say like you know like we don't accept that you treat the Uyghurs this way right and I hope and pray that someday you'll do that like you know that Pakistan has really good reasons for working with China because China is also a rival of India and India is the big problem for Pakistan and Indians do a lot of dirty politics whether you know it or not they do they dammed up the rivers of the Himalayas that go into Punjab against international law does anybody take them to court no you can't because Israel's there on their side and so they make the rivers in Punjab dry up go and look for yourself and then when it's the rainy season they open up the dams and flood the people they do all kinds of things like that okay so Allah enable us to find leaders in the Muslim world that will at least stand up for the Rohingya you know like you can't do this but we have no voice do we no voice whatsoever and I hope and pray that someday we will yes so my question actually very closely relates to what you were talking about so and I apologize if this relates to maybe not keeping it simple but since culture across the world especially globally now exists on a spectrum and isn't binary good or bad how would you talk about accepting or going about finding the resources to better figure out what's more somically acceptable when it comes to accepting or taking upon the gray areas of culture that comes in politically or ideologically with bisms I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that okay so that's a good question sister I hope I understood you correctly what I'm going to say is that one of the biggest problems in the world today is the destruction of culture especially what we call the global monoculture which is leveling all culture and that's a real big problem and if we don't stop it it will leave us with nothing I went to China the first time in 2002 we had an incredible trip it gets worse every time by the way the first time they're really nice to us times after that they're not so nice to us I've been there three times and so the second time I went was 2010 and I left Chicago in the Chicago airport I saw some boy there wearing a silly t-shirt like do it or something like that and he had the jeans that are poor pants jeans he pays a fortune for them but he wants to show that he's actually poor you know you can maybe go on those jeans I don't want to offend you but isn't that strange that you buy something that's ready for the garbage to show that even though you are which you're really not because no poor person could buy that they want to have jeans that work right and then I came into Beijing and there was a Chinese boy with the same pants and the same shirt so that's global monoculture and it's a great leveler so what do we do about that you know I say this is the greatest opportunity we've ever had because we create culture and like here in my country and your country you know I know we could create cultures that are so beautiful you wouldn't believe it taking from the African Americans and the Africans taking from the First Nations you know taking from the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Arabs taking from the whites and the Latinos right going back into history you can do whatever you want because basically the culture is either going or gone okay but you want to have something that resonates with the people and this is also very important have you ever looked at shaker architecture do you know who the shakers were if you read my book the Muslim in Victor in America you'll learn about all this because Webb lived in the age of the shakers they were the biggest religious movement of the 19th century and look at shaker architecture you know it's really simple because that's their principle it's absolute simplicity and I think you'll find it is beautiful really beautiful now that doesn't mean that everybody wants a shaker staircase which winds by the way and you'll have two they have one for women and one for men because they didn't mix them in women but the shakers they mix things and again for them always simplicity so if we were to do something that were shaker like most white Americans wouldn't know it was shaker but they will be affected by it because it's in no DNA and that's really really important you see like for example this turban okay you know why did certain people put on turbans when they went to Afghanistan they were never wearing them before and I actually know what they used to wear they would never be content with this because this meant Sufi but when they go into Afghanistan they put on their turbans and that's because the turban means something to you whether you know it or not and what does it mean justice and again it's like you know maybe you don't feel that but this is deep in our Muslim culture because we are people who did not care so much about liberty which is a difficult concept but we care about justice and who were the people who defended justice they were the great sheikhs and the great alams like sheikh Hamas of Hindi who dressed somewhat like this so deep in our DNA in the Muslim world we identify the turban as the head of a man we think to be a mojahed or a good person with justice especially the common people they do that's what they wanted but what I just want to point out is that you see you have cultural responses that you don't know why you have that response but it's in your DNA and it's in your broad cultural background as a Pakistani or an Indian or an Arab whatever maybe African American ok so the thing is we have to be cultural creators and like wow could you ask for a better thing to do you know like get the best architects get the best artists you know and we have tailors in this country we have a tailor in Chicago you know who is first rate no question about it you know and you know Masha'Allah what I saw our beloved brother Usama Kanan al-Fatiha I saw brother Usama not long before I came to Southern California he was wearing the most beautiful blue suit you wouldn't believe it and you know it's identifying with us and with them the fabric was spectacular and this is our brother who is a first rate tailor and he imitates bird colors and he does other things he's smart ok he's creative and so that's what we want to do you know make beautiful clothes you know that are really respectable clothes and your clothes are beautiful they are respectable but we can always do better you see and especially if you can get something that fits in that rings a bell you know my mother would go to church in the 1950s you know I'd go back a long way veiled did you know that and all the other women in church were veiled did you know that and they wear these big beautiful hats and they have a white veil over their face in a funeral you wear a black veil that's what they did now I'm not going to I'm not saying you should wear that but the thing is that you might wear a hat even it is possible and I'm not telling you to take off what you've got but sometimes hats are really cool and sometimes you can wear an underskirt but you know it's like you can innovate you can look for something and for us brothers this is a big problem and I like your hat I wear a hat like that too but I'd like to have a really beautiful hat that looks really cool that can be identified as us you know but then also fits in so I actually asked this tailor can you help us and he's working on it architects say there's no problem you can't solve you know so we need tailors and anyway God bless you all and please forgive me I know you've got lots of questions but I would like your permission to go get some sleep if you don't mind okay Do you know Do you know one of the main things in the United States usually young Muslims to go join something like ISIS identity it's identity, religion I'm going to be somebody I'm going to wear these clothes and you know the president of the United States would be afraid of me and these people sometimes they would never anything a lot of them you know were just on the street doing drugs I know of three Bangladeshis from England who went to join them and they were just selling garments in a you know women's clothing store in England really cheap and no big deal and like you don't get much respect out of that you probably don't even respect yourself and so they went off to join them because they can be somebody if that's identity, religion and identity, religion is a big problem and identity, religion is related to culture because your culture has to give you your identity you see your religion is not going to give you your identity but your religious culture will can you make that distinction that's very important and this is also one of the effects of globalism so if you talk about terrorism today in our world or in the Jewish world or the Hindu or the Buddhist you've got to talk about globalism and you've got to talk about cultural crisis and identity crisis just wanted to point that out because a lot of people think well they just need to be taught they're not actually they don't study anything you know one of these people who carried out the horrible bombings that were in Paris and in Belgium his French lawyer said about him he has the brains of an empty ashtray and he said about him too he never read the program ever and he can't read in Arabic anyway he reads French translations on the internet and he said he's not politically motivated he doesn't know anything about politics or Palestine or some big issues right but identity I'm going to be somebody now wear those cool clothes and I'll be with the brothers and women do the same thing we call it identity religion and it's very dangerous and that's what you have to know that don't you and of course there are differences and variations that we need to teach the truth but the thing is that we've got to give people identity and you do that through culture a lot of us forgive me for saying this are cultural zombies cultural zombies because you know maybe our families came here from the beautiful homeland but like why did you come if it was so beautiful why didn't you stay and you came here but like you basically want your children to stay back there and so often we do certain things when we teach them so that we alienate them from the culture around them these are sinful people they do all kinds of horrible things they drink wine they eat pork and then we talk about how great the homeland is and then you create a cultural zombie because he or she no longer belongs in Pakistan or more around them or any place else and when they go back even though they speak Urdu it's not the Urdu that the other people speak it's got an accent we have all these Turks in Germany but when they go to Turkey they speak with a German accent to me it sounds like perfect Turkish so they know that he's not a Turk they know and so he doesn't really belong and then also does he belong in Belgium we have these brothers in Belgium that speak Flemish that's one of the languages in Belgium he speaks French he can do hip hop he can do break dancing he wears a baseball cap turned backwards but do you think that anybody cares anything about him in Belgium maybe 20% but 80% of the population they wouldn't give him the time of day they wouldn't give him the time of day so he also doesn't belong there this is really harmful and you know I know a brother that he's actually the son of an English convert his name is Mohammed beautiful brother and he recently went to Germany I think to Berlin and what a shock you know they see him and it's almost like us you know he's a little bit darker he's got some Greek blood you know and then they see his name is Mohammed nothing different for you I mean it took him so long just to get an apartment that affects us doesn't it that affects us so we ask Allah to bless us enable us to use the situation that we have in the last way and you know you're so important you know because you are a generation of Muslims who know how to take care of business and a lot of you you can understand this you can do it and you know you are in a country that you know how much of an effect it has on the world for better or for worse but you're right in favor of us and you can take this message to the people in a way that might be really good for this country and it might be good for our democracy by the way because I know when I became a Muslim one of the amazing things was that I immediately became a citizen of the world and if you look at China for example you know Mashallah China to me was interesting but that's a long way away they're very different people so I could never identify with Chinese and forgive me the Chinese that are here but that's the way it was and it's hard for me actually to identify it with people that are not of my background that's just the way it was I'm sorry but when I became a Muslim it's like now I belong to the world and I could go anywhere I could go to China and stay home in China so Islam has the power to do that I think you know that and look at us how many different colors are here how many different ethnic groups and we get along pretty good and don't take that for granted don't take that for granted that's really amazing so we ask God to bless us and protect us so thank you Mashallah you came for a long time you sat there so politely thank you and thank you so thank you Mashallah you came for a long time Mashallah you sat there so politely thank you and it's really beautiful to see really beautiful Mashallah we'll see you again Mashallah we'll see you again