The Legacy Of Muslim Spain

foreign [Music] from North Africa following the commands of his leader whose name was Musa who was the leader of the Muslims in North Africa at the time went across the Straits which is now known as Gibraltar he had stopped at a mountain so they called the mountain Jebel Tariq so Jebel torik is Gibraltar that's where it comes from he stopped at the mountain and they were actually responding to a cry that was being given by monotheistic people who were living in the Iberian Peninsula and when you study the history of the Iberian Peninsula and the gothic people and you study that the Catholic church and what was going on right around that time around 7 11 there was a king named Roderick and he was ruling the area in a feudalistic way and they called out to Musa bin nusir they're ready for somebody to take them out of this rule into a rule where they will live under Justice and so Musa Musa sent Tariq IBN Ziad and they went in 7-Eleven across and they met Roderick in a decisive battle and after this decisive battle which was won by the Muslims they continued to go north as they went North they found that the people were actually glad to see them and they found that there was almost no resistance and so by three years within three years and Musa actually later on caught up the Tariq and and joined the forces and within three years they had taken control of all of Spain except the North West corner of Spain the mountainous regions in the top that's the only part of Spain that was left for them and they controlled the whole area and it is interesting because there is a document which which was describing a treaty this was done between Abdul Aziz it was in 713. and it was between the busy goth Prince of mauricia theodimir and this was about the surrender of a particular City in the treaty it clearly states that the Christians and the Jews who were living in the city would maintain their their synagogues and churches that they would be allowed to have autonomy in the city that the princes and the rulers in mauricia would be able to maintain most of their belongings they did not have to surrender their belongings to the Muslims that just about all of the slaves in the city were immediately freed when this treaty came about the people were were joyous the taxes that were on them in roderick's time were lifted from them and so this type of um Justice when established in a practical way the news of this spread throughout Spain and this is really I believe the reason why the Muslims were successful in taking so much of the territory in such a short time because if if they were a terrible Force surely the people would have resisted and when you look at the numbers of the Muslims you will find that the number was very small some Reports say that when Tariq meta Roderick tarek's forces were only somewhere between 16 to 20 000 men roderick's forces were over a hundred thousand that's the type of odds that they were facing and so they were able to establish themselves in the Iberian Peninsula what developed out of that was what I would call a Multicultural Society where people were allowed to to be non-muslims and have their own houses of worship they were allowed to carry on with their Arts and Sciences they were also allowed to a certain extent to even judge themselves in small Mattis Jewish law or Christian law would apply to the people within their enclaves within their areas the general law of the land was the law of Islam also it was a common thing to find the person in what the Muslims called al-andalus it was a common thing to find a person who could speak Arabic and a dialect of Spanish and could read Latin so with this ability they were they were Prime uh sources of translation and so that kind of a society developed to such an extent that even uh in Jewish literature was one of the famous uh philosophers and and scientists of uh Jewish literature he uh existed during this time and it was considered to be during the Muslim one of the Golden Ages uh for the Jewish in terms of Arts uh and Sciences they called the country Al andalus this is an Arabic word and it means something to the effect of to become green at the end of summer and it was such a beautiful place and the way they describe the cities in andalus of Toledo and and Seville and cortaba Valencia and the areas the descriptions that come in the literature's beautiful descriptions of of people being able to live what I would call in a holistic fashion they were able to develop science in such a way that the science did not destroy the environment this is a very important accomplishment they meet it wasn't the size of their buildings but they were able to for instance take water and bring the water down from a mountain using aqueducts using canals and Canal it all through the cities so that every house had access to running water and they did that without destroying anything or damning anything up or blocking anything they did it in such a way they were using gravity this is a holistic way of approaching things and if you go to Granada today you will still see the Water Works are being used from the time of the Muslims the water is Flowing all over the place among the products that were introduced into the west through El andalus I'll name a few of these products to you cotton uh paper glass mirrors Street lamps salt colored glass silk satin pepper cinnamon handkerchiefs deodorant kerosene linen Firearms cotton balls paper money postage stamps book binding clocks ceramic tiles nitric acid soap astrolabs compasses for navigation slide rules rulers surgical instruments windmills spinning wheels rose water Maps Globes Citrus and and nectar fruits carpets eyeglasses curtains test tubes porcelain fine Furs velvet almanacs and encyclopedias so you you can see right away that that some of the contributions that they have made that's a legacy in itself and they made it in such a way that it was usable for Western society and it helped Europe to come out of the Dark Ages because again if you read in most of the history books after the fall of the Roman Empire then they say it's the Dark Ages right and the lights go out and it's usually a little chapter then the Renaissance the Renaissance is back in the lights are on and everything has got what happened between the year 700 okay to 1500. what happened in that time is it dark ages it was the Golden Age of Islam in the year 756 A.D a man by the name of Abdullah man the falcon who came from Damascus he was part of the umayyad dynasty he fled because of an internal war that was going on he fled to Andalusia and he established the people accepted him as their ruler and he established a very important dynasty of Umayyads who were living there and he was able to immediately establish his Capital he took Cordoba we would say kortaba he took it as his capital and he ruled from 756 to 788. for amongst his achievements he built the Great Mosque of our Cordoba he also used an aqueduct and he brought water uh into korzaba and he made bath bath houses Bridges castles he built universities and he made Cordoba in the 9th and 10th Century it would be what we would call like one of the wonders of the world Cordoba at that time would have been one of the wonders of the world at that time there were over 200 000 houses this is the ninth and the 10th Century the Dark Ages right so that there's no other major city functioning in Western Europe 200 000 houses 600 mosques 900 public baths 50 hospitals you could go in any direction and the streets were lit for 10 miles lighted streets this is when the capitals we know as London and Paris and the great cities in Europe were in darkness in many cases you have to go to Mud pave streets in Spain and so the the great leaders and intellectuals of Europe went down into Andalusia to Toledo and to Seville to the universities to study and then took it back to the different uh areas of Europe and they were able to develop the great universities that we know today and so we find um that abdrahmanasaka was able to establish a mighty Dynasty what is important for us is two things the first point is that many Muslims might ask and other people might ask why if they were so powerful why did they go down why after such Heights of civilization you find them losing strength when we look at the society itself and IBN khaldoon in his talks about the the cyclical nature of history that is a cycle when you have strong Dynamic Generations then you will find your civilization is powerful but when corruption sets in then weakness sets in and so you know they became weak because they started to look at each other as Nations and tribes Arab and non-arab African and Burba European and Turkish Persian then the rich separated from the poor and then the drinking of wine and then all types of of corruption set in and so they were they were conquered they were literally conquered and the forces of Ferdinand and Isabella made their way down from the north the northwest corner the mountainous areas they had not gone into this area and they moved from the mountainous areas down slowly taking back section by section they took backspain and so this is part of the Legacy um of Muslim Spain I mean Muslims were in Spain for 700 years I would also change that that title of the Dark Ages you know and really it is the bright ages it is the age of light because the light was all over the world at the time and so Darkness maybe was for some people but it was not for all people and I think that the only way we can really go forward as one human race is that we have to appreciate the histories and the struggling and the suffering of all people

Channel: Islamic Guidance

Views: 13,103

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Id: cALkbnVco0A

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 29 2022