 Save 10% with my coat, Bobby Tan. Just kidding guys, today's offer is much greater than a saving of 10%. I teamed up with my Muslim brothers and we created pure passage. Imaging sending the reward of Umrah, this Ramadan, to someone you really loved but had already departed from this dunya. For they're really sick and they cannot perform Umrah at all. Imaging the feeling of honoring his or her memory and expressing your love and devotion while still ensuring that they receive this gift, the reward of performing Umrah. As a new revert I just learned about this, but you know better than me that performing Umrah is a profound spiritual journey that most Muslims aspire to undertake and you understand the rewards of it. However, for some this journey can be challenging especially when their loved ones are sick or have already passed away. At pure passage we understand how important it is to fulfill this obligation for your loved ones. That's why we offer our professional and reliable service to perform Umrah on behalf of your sick or deceased parents, spouse or any other relatives. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to fulfill the sacred act even if they are unable to do so themselves. And equally understand that the physical and financial challenges of performing Umrah yourself on behalf of your loved ones can be overwhelming. That's where pure passage comes in. We take care of everything and make sure that your loved ones Umrah is performed with the utmost care and attention to detail. So let us help you earn this immense reward for your loved ones by performing Umrah on their behalf. Contact us today and let's make it happen with Mila. Alright guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new Manu's Bobby, guys, I have to admit today's video is absolutely self-motivated. Yes, egocentrical Bobby here. I used to live in Portugal and in Portugal, roughly three years ago, I opened up the Quran for the very first time. However, I found myself in a Christian environment. I didn't meet one Muslim during my stay in Portugal. There were however plenty of churches around, no matter where I would go, no matter which city you always had churches, cathedrals and whatnot. But no sign of a mosque and no sign of Muslims. This is why we are reacting today to the video, the expulsion of Muslims from Portugal by the channel Muslim Convert Stories. So given this lengthy introduction, you can of course understand that I'm very excited for today's video. Guys, just do me the favor. If you like my videos, leave me a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. With no further ado, let's have a look. Imagine you're John Sosa campus, a renowned architect who has designated the task to renovate and remodel the Convento de Graça into a fine hotel. You and your team stumble upon a Moorish city, cobbled streets and more than a dozen foundation of homes from Arab Portugal for more than 700 years ago. The Muslim rule over Portugal is a part of Portuguese history that is often not spoken of. I didn't hear. Assalamu alaikum. Muslims from North Africa sailed across the seas in the 8th century and took control of Portugal and Spain, the Iberian Peninsula to expand the Umayyad dynasty. This region was known as Al-Andalus and prospered under the Umayyads. The Islamic influence on Portugal is hard to overlook. The Muslims reinvigorated agriculture and irrigation. I totally overlooked it because I had no idea of Muslim architecture at that time. So everything that I saw looked Portuguese to me. Farmlands thrive. Unfortunately, the craving for power and control forced many splits among the Muslim leadership of the Iberian Peninsula. The strength of the Muslim rule began to dwindle, coinciding with the growth and spread of the Christian crusaders who were slowly but surely taking over territories under their control. The Catholic kings of Spain supported the crusaders and by the mid-13th century, the Muslim rule in Portugal ended with the capture of the southern provinces. Most of the Muslims fled, save a few who were permitted to stay in segregated Muslim neighborhoods across various cities. The religious tolerance heightened at the end of the 15th century when Portuguese King Manuel I enacted harsh and drastic measures on the Muslims and Jews. That's quite interesting as well, right? Because it's always bad, bad Islam and the scary, scary caliphate. However, if you look into the caliphate and its rulings, you will see, of course, that Jews and Christians are not at all forced to convert. Quite the opposite. They can freely practice their religion. However, in a Christian empire here, you see that everybody is forced to convert. And this is what has happened over the millennia, be it in South America or be it in Africa. The kingdom or face the death penalty. That being said, the Christian monarchs were ruthless in their conquests and portrayed the real intent. And it's amazing as well that the Islamophobes will tell you that this here is not true Christianity, right? Those are just vicious rulers. This is political. This is not true Christianity. But if you see one atrocity committed by Muslim political leaders, then it is bad Islam endeavors to establish Portugal in Spain as the sole Christian nations. Muslim communities in Portugal were well integrated into the society and were not viewed as a threat by the monarch. It was more a question of national identity and the construction of the Muslims as the other population in Europe. Some historians believe that the Moorish Muslim rulers in Portugal are no more foreign than the Christian kings who ruled Portugal from Northern Europe. They say it is an absolute injustice of history to deny the existence and influence of the Muslims on Portuguese history, as they say Muslims are not foreigners. They're a part of our history and identity. In recent years, there's been a renewal in Portugal's Arab legacy. Portuguese scholars and public authorities have made a general move to reassess the influence of Arab rule. In Portuguese history textbooks, the Moors are portrayed as the enemy, the other. This was a direct result of the national dictatorial leadership that ruled over Portugal until 1974. However, since the late 90s, there has been an effort to change this perception and show the Islamic heritage as something positive. Portugal's best known example of Islamic architecture is in the small southeastern town of Mirtola, where the slender columns and the outline of a Mirabeau in the parish church recall the elegant white building was once a mosque. Although the physical remains are few. This absolutely mind blowing to me personally yet again because I come from an Orthodox Christian background and for us it was always the evil Muslims that took our churches and transformed them into mosques. If you look at Hagia Sophia, for example, this is very prominent, of course, and the Orthodox Christians are grieving to this very day that being said, this is the very first time that I see it the other way around. The intangible influence of those centuries of Moorish rule is evident. The Arabs had marked their identity in the region with Moorish architecture, cuisine, agriculture and even language. Axala, pronounced Oshala, a commonly used term, is a direct descendant of a term we Muslims commonly use, inshallah, means God willing. An expert in the field at Alberto Alves once opined, if by magic we were able to wipe out our Arab legacy from Portugal today, our ethnic, cultural, physical and human landscape would be completely different. We would be blondes instead of dark heads. Would stop speaking the Arabized Latin, we call Portuguese. We'd lose thousands of words from our dictionary. And what would we call our villages and towns? He says, the influence of the Muslims on Portugal ranges from poetry and language to music, carpet weaving and pastries to minaret-shaped chimneys. The Spanish and the Portuguese were great. That makes total sense, man. Now it clicks in my mind and yet again, guys, I know this truly self-motivated because I lived for over a year in Portugal. We used to have those Portuguese carpets in our flat and back then I said as well to my wife, they look very Arabic, don't you think? And voyagers, but what they have been able to, in fact, conquer lands without Arab influence, the Christian monarchs funded and sponsored the voyages, but it is widely believed and acknowledged that the Portuguese empire depended on the navigational sciences developed by the Arabs. Vasco de Gama, one of the most celebrated Portuguese explorers is believed to have relied on a Muslim pilot to reach India. But Europe is yet to recognize the cultural and intellectual legacy inherited from Islam and the Muslims as Muslims have been written out of European history. Completely. Now, in present-day Portugal, they're always disguising it in the media as if Islam is a new threat to Europe out of a sudden as if Islam has never stepped foot in Europe and out of a sudden you have Islamic terrorism, you have mass immigration and what not. They're really acting as if there is no history whatsoever with Islam in Europe. Glems are just around 40,000 out of a population of 11 million, mainly Roman Catholics of a lot and Muslims have been written out of European history. Now, in present-day Portugal, Muslims are just around 40,000 population of 11 million. I didn't mean one, not one. Many are Portuguese citizens of Indian origin from the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau who moved to Lisbon after the colonies gained independence from Portuguese rule. These are newer migrants seeking economic opportunities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Morocco. The Sunni presence is more dominant than the Shia in Lisbon. The central mosque of Lisbon is the main mosque of the Portuguese Muslim community. Yeah, well, no wonder, man. I lived in Lisbon as well. And if you look at this mosque, look how small it is. Even the building in the background is taller than the mosque. Of course, I would have bypassed it without noticing. The Muslim community in Portugal is gradually expanding with the COVID pandemic easing and Portugal expecting more tourists. The food industry has diversified into accommodating more halal food options. Around five years ago, it was in common, expensive and difficult to find halal food. There was one kebab joint where I lived and it was run by a Chinese man. Now Muslims are often certified halal products in stores and restaurants nationwide. Importers have started importing halal meat to cater to the growing population of Arabs and Muslims that visit Portugal as tourists or to cater to those who call it home. Many migrants seeking asylum in European nations in the modern world are pleasantly surprised by the Arabized versions of the Portuguese vocabulary, which is a source of comfort and proves that Muslim and Islamic influence on the country is much more than the eye perceives. In the 21st century, Portugal passed a law offering citizenship to Jews expelled during the Crusades. Muslim and the Islamic scholars opine that the same law is applied to Muslims, but has not been enforced yet. They're men. One would wonder why that is Muslims in northern Africa. That's all we can say here. They have roots in Al Andalus, Portugal being a part of it. They have stories passed on from generation to generation of their ancestors in roots. But to their disadvantage, they do not possess any documentary evidence to prove their Portuguese ancestry. The Muslim Iberian families quickly assimilated with the Muslims of the nations they fled to and they believe that much documentary proof would be lost with wars and takeovers. Experts, though, believe that the move to grant citizenship to the Jewish progeny of those expelled and not to Muslim is a clear sign of Islamophobia and double standards by the Portuguese government. It's always the countries that have the least contact with foreigners that end up to be the most racist. When I talk to the Portuguese people, of course, not all guys, I want to tell you that I had very, very positive experiences in Portugal. However, I met many so-called national socialists and they said that it's all the foreigners fault, all the blacks fault, all the Arabs fault and whatnot. Meanwhile, you had very little foreigners living there in the first place. It seems that the ignorance builds up when you don't have foreigners around you. You see them as the other and moreover, most of those national socialists are not interested whatsoever in their DNA, in their genetic blueprint, in their own history. They based upon an arbitrary moment in time where a certain culture has been established just as you saw. There was a time when the dominant culture, the nationalistic culture became Pro-Christian Catholic and now they're taking this team, they're picking and choosing here, of course, and they say we are Christians, we always have been Christians. You see the same thing on the Balkan, people that are so Pro-Christianity without knowing anything about the Trinity and the theology would be the same people that would be Propaganism when the Christians arrived on the Balkan, don't you understand? This is politics, wake up and understand who you truly are. Community leaders also say they've been marginalized since the 9-11 attacks in the US. A cardinal in Lisbon warned Portuguese girls to think twice before marrying a Muslim and falling into a heap of trouble. A point to note though, is that most of the Portugal Muslims dressing modestly and worshiping one God are well integrated. Sounds like a lot of trouble to me. Native Portuguese speakers, which means they aren't migrants and thereby Portugal has avoided the usual tension present in other nations that see a large influx of migrant workers from Islamic countries. Although it is clear that Muslims and Arabs have significantly impacted the Portuguese way of life. It is a situation under which the Muslims were expelled that there aren't many Portuguese Muslims today. They moved on to nations where they are better able to practice their religion and live a discrimination free life. After all, who would want first world benefits if you cannot be recognized as a first class citizen? Your guess is as good as mine. Let's deep. All right, this is it for today's video. As I said in the beginning, this was truly self-motivated and I have to admit this video really delivered. I learned a lot here and it opened my eyes to the fact that there is a huge Arabic influence on Portugal because now, reminiscently, looking back, I realize, yes, of course, there were arabically influenced carpets, arabically influenced tiles on the buildings. However, I simply thought naively, this is Portuguese. You just take it at face value. We as people, we wake up in a certain time. We are born and we have to accept and cope, of course, with everything that is around us. We have to accept it as reality. Otherwise, we cannot function. However, there is a danger in that as well, because like that, you automatically commit to the current zeitgeist. You take everything around you as normal. But how do you know that it is truly normal? If you look into American politics, for example, you will see that liberals and conservatives disagree because their worldly outlook is based upon a different time frame if you will. The conservative claims, oh, let's go back to the good old days, 20, 30 years ago, and the liberal is more progressive and projects into the future, assesses that everything that is novel is by default good. It is progress. Hey, let's bring drag queens into kindergarten. We haven't done this before. So therefore, it is progress. Yay. And this is why you see the strong identification. Of course, people are born into a certain time frame. They are told what nationality they are, even though even nations are very new concept, then they are told which religion they have to believe, have to belong to, and they of course have to obey a certain political construct. This is normal. Listen to this music. Eat this food. Otherwise, you are weird. And this is why for me coming from the Balkans, I always thought I am ethnically Macedonian. If you look into the Macedonian nation, you will find out that it has been founded 1990. It is so recent before that there was no Macedonian nation. And I of course always accepted that I am Orthodox Christian. I'm born as an Orthodox Christian. Therefore, this is right. And Islam is the bad guy and they are the enemy. They are wrong done deal. You always take this preconceived notions that have been fed to you by your society and by your family. But if we look into the Quran and then it is said to them come to what Allah has revealed and to the messenger, they say sufficient for us is that upon which we found our fathers, even though their fathers knew nothing nor where they guided. And this verse beautifully displays the amnesia that we are finding ourselves in and not reflecting upon where we came from, simply living into the day accepting everything as is my challenge to you is open up the Quran and see for yourself. All right, 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. As always, may God bless you all much love and peace.