 All right guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new, my name is Bobby. Fascinating video today guys, we're gonna react to I met the indigenous Muslims of Poland by the channel Dr. William Barrillo. Recently we've seen the Polish government being in their headlines for being Islamophobic. And not even one Muslim illegal migrant will come to Poland ever. I personally grew up in Germany which is bordering to Poland and I met many Polish people. I Polish friends myself. Not once did I hear that Islam has anything to do with Poland. When we're thinking about Poland, we're thinking about Catholicism and the Pope. So I have never met a Polish Muslim. This is why it's important to shed a light on this particular subject. With no further ado guys, let's have a look. Although Poland hosts one of the tiniest Muslim minorities in the whole world, you have Muslim families who have been settled in Poland since the 14th century. So it is at the same time one of the oldest Muslim minorities in Europe. Hello and welcome. My name is William. And today I wanted to share with you about Muslims in my parents' country, Poland. When I embraced Islam in 2008, my parents would still go to Poland visit family. I needed to figure out where I'm gonna pray, where I'm gonna find a mosque or halal meat. Then I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page and I thought to myself, I didn't know that. And I want to tell the world about this. I decided back then to produce my very first documentary which you can find for free on YouTube called Polish Muslims and Unexpected Meeting. Then the main right-wing narrative was that Muslims are not welcome in Europe because they were never part of it. They do not belong to Europe. The fact that you have Muslims... Absolutely correct. This is the exact impression that we get in Europe. Europe has always been Christian. If you go up into the West, there are Catholics or Protestants. If you go down into the East, they are majority Orthodox Christians. And the only contact with Islam was war. This is the narrative against the Ottomans or against the Arabs in Spain and Portugal. So the right-wing narrative is, as he said correctly here, that Europe always defended itself from Islam. Both in Poland since the 14th century was a magnificent counter-argument. When I went to meet Muslims in Poland, I went to three different areas. I went of course to the capital city, Warsaw, then I went to Katowice, which is in Silesia, which was a very industrial region of Poland and the birthplace of my dad. Eventually I went to Białystok in the north-eastern part of the country. Muslims in Poland are made of, I would say, three main demographics. First, the largest population is made of all different kinds of people who arrived in Poland in the 20th century. So people from North Africa, the Middle East and later on West Africa, Turkey, South Asia. And also lots of Muslims coming from the Caucasus, Dagestan, Chechnya and so on. And thanks to them, Poland has become the first and largest exporter of halal meat across Europe. Second are the numerous Poles who embraced Islam at some point in their lives. Third are the Tatars. That's very interesting. We have many Polish girls in Germany reverting to Islam due to their boyfriends coming from a Muslim family. So this is the oldest Muslim community in Poland. Tatars are Turkic people who originated from Crimea and came to Poland in the 14th century to offer their military services to the Duke of Poland, Lithuania, at the time. So to thank them for their services. I know about this story and it's not quite correct. First they came as refugees, they've been shunned from their lands and then after that they offered their help. Duke of Poland, Lithuania, Prince Vitold offered the Tatars land and the right to practice their religion. Since then you will find... More over back then the Duke even built mosques for them. Different parts of Poland, so around the city of Białystok, mosques and cemeteries which are 300-400 years old and have very distinct look. The highlight of my trip was meeting with the Tatars obviously because the first thing is when you look at the mosques the way they are built is very similar to the way people used to build churches. The rituals might differ a little bit from what they used to see. I believe it was Timothy Winter also known as Sheikh Abdul Murat who talked about this phenomenon that Islam is like water. It is always pure, it is always crystal clear, it is always the same water. However when you take this water and you pour it into a cup, as Bruce Lee said It becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Over if you pour it into a red vessel, it appears red. If you pour it into a green vessel, it appears green. And this is something that we can observe with Islam when it was spreading organically back in the day. If you look at Indonesia for example, Islam has this particular Indonesian flavor. The same applies in Thailand here of course, it has the Thai flavor or Chinese Islam, Turkish Islam etc. But when I grew up in Germany I saw certain Turkish organizations simply building mosques in a Turkish style and moreover even the Khutbah was in Turkish. So therefore Islam did not make it into Germany, did not immerse itself into Germany. You would expect gothic type of mosques in Germany for example. It has to blend into the architecture of Germany of course. Why should it be a foreign entity? If you think about Islam as a foreign entity always, then it always will stay a foreign entity and the Germans will never accept Islam because they will see it as a threat. They won't see it as their own. And there speaks absolutely nothing against the beautiful traits of people as long as it goes hand in hand with Islam. Therefore to take that craftsmanship, that architectural wisdom of the indigenous people and to fuse it with Islam is the most beautiful thing you can observe in my personal opinion. In Western Europe for example is the concept of Sadoga. I went to Poland for Ramadan and I spent Eid in Poland and at the time after the Eid Khutbah people would leave sweets on the minbar on the mosque and this is called Sadoga which comes from the word Sadaka you may have guessed. And because of communism many Tatars had to hide their religiosity to the point where people even adopted Christian sounding names to hide. For example Ali would become Alexander. And like many Muslims you would find in Central Asia part of the ex-communist bloc countries for many people. My parents are from Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic. They were under communism of course and therefore I growing up as an Orthodox Christian was actually baptized in our flat because religion was persecuted. Islam has now become nothing more than a cultural heritage so you will see people who are proud to be Muslim but people who are also happy to drink some vodka. And there was a point because of communism where these historic mosques would open only 14 times a year twice for Eid and 12 times for because there was one Duma per month. And thanks to the influx of migrants from the Middle East and other parts of the world now the younger generations are starting to reconnect with their faith and traditions so you would see the younger Tatars who were the hijab for example while it was not the case for their parents generation. When it comes to other groups of Muslims and because there is very few mosques in Poland what was heartwarming is unlike some western European countries in the mosque you would find a huge diversity of people. People from very different cultures, ethnicities, social, economic backgrounds people speaking all sorts of languages and the Chodba would be in Polish. Sadly you will have some political divisions when it comes to the representation of Muslims in Poland specifically between the Muslim League which is made of people who mainly arrived in Poland in the 20th century so the majority group of Muslims and between the Tatars who claim a right for representation because they are the oldest demographic of Muslims in Poland. Also the Tatars are an officially recognized minority by the government and every year there is a commemoration of their military services to the country. And since I've made my documentary in 2012-2013 things have changed in Poland and the far right has taken over with a very strong anti-Muslim narrative and shortly after I left I read the news and so the mosques being burned people being attacked on the streets so life has become slightly more difficult for Muslims in Poland. And a striking example of how people try to go low profile now is this kiosk this small kebab shop in the center of Warsaw which was called Salam Aleykum Kebab and I thought back in the days that was really a bold idea to call your kebab shop Salam Aleykum Kebab in the middle of Warsaw and then so I've returned to Warsaw last year and in the center of the city and now Salam Aleykum Kebab has become Hello Kebab so if you want to know more about Muslims in Poland you've got to have a look at this which is a very interesting example here as well because you see the display of westernization here from Salam Aleykum it becomes Hello Kebab but what does Hello mean? Hello Hello it's so extremely empty it doesn't mean anything meanwhile Salam Aleykum means peace be on to you Hello Kebab so if you want to know more about Muslims in Poland I invite you to have a look at this documentary I produced now 10 years ago which is freely available on YouTube Polish Muslims documentary just type it on YouTube it will appear in the meantime thank you for watching and take care of each other alright this is it for today's video very well put together I'm sure there was a lot of information in here that is new for many people especially new for many Polish people as well because I personally never had in dialogue with a Pole that knew anything about Islam within Poland and of course to be fair here the Tata community is a very very small minority therefore it doesn't have a huge impact on Polish life but nevertheless it is part of history it is part of an alliance between Christians and Muslims and depending on the government it is easily forgotten of course due to the propaganda that is being pushed listen guys I'm not blue-pilled over here I don't have any illusions I know that immigration especially mass immigration can pose certain risks and threats towards a country I'm not for open borders whatsoever every country has to maintain their sovereignty has to protect itself and do what's best for their own people absolutely but that being said the right-wing propaganda often times conflates immigration issues with Islam criminality with Islam this obviously couldn't be further from the truth I'll make the bold claim if you will that any country would truly benefit from an immigration of Muslims truly practicing Muslims I'm not talking about people that are Muslim by label no I'm talking about truly practicing Muslims people that get married people that create children people that don't drink alcohol are not involved with any kinds of degeneracy there is always a net positive for the country alright guys but this is it for today's video if you liked it leave a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed already guys please do so and if you want to support this channel by Patreon for example all the links are in the description box below thank you so much for your ongoing support guys and as always may God bless you all much love and peace