Coming Of Islam To America

capital g. we mean the creative spirit, beyond any of the physical attributes of any being on this earth. islam means going into a state of peace by submitting yourself to the will of the creator. and islam is a qualitative term meaning that the practitioner of islam has certain qualities. islam is not restricted to any particular race, any nation, or any language group. and in the pure definition of the term, it applies to all those prophets and special people who came to teach humanity, that they should not worship idols, that they should not worship each other, they should not base their faith or their life upon their race or their nationality, but they should unify their belief and worship one god. and so muslims are found throughout the face of the planet earth. right now, according to many of the census being taken in the world, muslims are 20% of the earth's population. there are over 60 million muslims in china, between 60-70 muslims in the former soviet states. it is the majority religion on the african continent.

the speech the coming of islam & muslims to north america sheikh abdullah hakim quick

as saalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh and for non-muslim guests and friends who are present, those are sincerely greetings of peace, and i pray that this evening be a source of peace for us and understanding. and surely in this world today there is a great need amongst the peoples of different nationalities and different religions to understand each other. one of our american sayings is that the best way to find out about a people is right from the horse's mouth. we want to deal straight on with the meaning of islam and i would like to give you some information about the coming of islam to the americas -- and i say "the americas" in a sense meaning north america, central america and south america because the entities that we know and are living in today were only formed in the last few hundred years. so, if you go before that, we have to look at it as a continent.

in europe, as we are painfully coming to find out, because of the conflict in bosniaherzegovina, muslims have also been in europe for hundreds of years. according to time magazine, they used to say that islam would be the second largest religion in the americas by the year 2010, but we have already surpassed that number, to become the second largest religion in this part of the world. we are taught that over 124,000 prophets and messengers came to every nation and every tribe. prophets came to china, prophets came to india, prophets came to africa, and prophets came to europe, to the americas. and even if you read the folk traditions of the cherokee nation and the iroquois nation, and many of the native people of this part of the world, you will find that many of the people believed in what they called the great spirit. so the concept of the belief in one god -- you will find this in the folk traditions of people all over the world. that, in the root definition for us, is islam. so, it is not a middle-eastern phenomena; actually the largest muslim country is indonesia in south east asia.

so, i want to try to give you something of a lifelong study that i have done, especially over the past 15 years. i have had the opportunity to live in saudi arabia. being an american from boston, massachusetts, i had the opportunity to live in saudi arabia for 7 years, to live with the bedouins and to learn the classical arabic and i was blessed to be able to read arabic script not only in arabia but also in the americas because there are arabic documents that were written by people in this part of the world. and i want to try to share some of this with you now.

what we have been facing, and i have been working very closely with the boards of education in metropolitan toronto and throughout canada to try to deal with stereotyping. stereotyping gives us a bad image of a certain type of people. and unfortunately, hollywood has made a lot of money off of stereotyping. when i was growing up, the bad guys were usually the japanese, the russians, the germans, and we know them because of the world conflicts. but that has changed now in hollywood, and now it becomes the spanish drug cartels, or jamaicans with their dread locks in their hair and then in a posse, but the most sinister character that you could bring to the screen would be an arab who would capture the people and say we are the princes for jihad or the new world islamic order and we have our prisoners and we will kill one every five minutes unless you release our comrades from the prison. this, for us, is propaganda. there are over a billion muslims in the world, and the overwhelming majority are people who are very much involved in family life, very much

it is important, however, that we begin by trying to define what it is that we are talking about when we say islam in the americas. the word islam is from the arabic language and it is a semitic language; it is a sister language of hebrew, amharic, which is one of the official languages of ethiopia, babylonian languages, the early syrian languages -- were all from this semitic language group. and probably the earliest form of writing, the cuneiform writing done in ancient iraq in the mesopotamian region was actually a semitic-based language as well. within that language group, the word "islam" means submission - finding peace through submission through the will of allah. and when we say allah we mean god with a

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involved in morality, and very much involved in making life a peaceful one for all races.

that you know that men have certain rights over women, but you should remember that women also, have certain rights over men. it's a two-way street. the relationship should be a complementary one instead of an adversarial one. he also taught that all mankind has come from adam and eve (hawa); he said that there is no preference of an arab over a non-arab, or a non-arab over an arab; there is no preference of black over white or the white over the black. the best amongst you is the most pious, the most god-fearing and the one who is best in character.

according to the root definition of islam, as you heard, we believe that the prophets were sent to every part of the world. some of our famous prophets, and i'm saying this to give you a pure definition of islam, with all respects to the other religions, -- we believe that monotheism is the form of judaism, christianity and islam, all come from the same root. and so we believe that adam, the first man, was actually a muslim, meaning that he submitted to the creator. also, from our prophets, there is the prophet noah (nuh), the prophet abraham (and we would say ibrahim); there is the prophet isaac (ishaaq), ishmael (isma'eel), also the prophet musa (or you would say moses). and it is a root belief of islam, that we believe that moses was being chased by one of the pharaohs, and he went to the red sea and he raised his staff and the waters parted, by the power of god, and moses and the children of israel escaped.

he also taught that there are no other apostles or messengers who would come after me, and i have left behind, for the muslims, for all of mankind, two things. if you follow them, you will never go astray: the book of allah, the last book of allah, the qur'an, and the sunnah, or the method and the lifestyle of the prophet, peace and blessings of allah be upon him. he told his companions to take this message to all those people on earth who have not witnessed it. i leave this unto you, i bear witness in front of god that i have given you this message and now it is your duty to take the message to all of the people. and so they went out all around the earth, not as warriors, not in armies, as the propaganda would say, but mainly as merchants, as teachers, as people who came to share their religious experience. and islam went all over the world. and you will be surprised to know that what is called the dark ages in europe was actually the golden age in islam. when i was growing up and studied history they taught us about the greek period, and the roman period, and then the lights went out. and after the lights went out for about 700 years, the light went back on in the renaissance. most of the history books give very little evidence as to what actually happened during that period; it's called the dark ages -- that was the golden age of islam.

also, from the family of moses, or we would say musa, alaihis salaam, came maryam (english = mary); and it is a fundamental belief of muslims that mary was a virgin woman and she used to pray and fast and the angel jibreel (gabriel) came to her and told her that she would have a son. she felt that that was a very strange thing, however, he told her that by the power of the creator, you will have a son. the qur'an, which is our book of scriptures, tells us that god said, "be" and it is, and he breathed his holy spirit into mary and she conceived jesus (esa) without a father. that is a root belief of islam. by that definition alone, that puts us smack dab in the middle of judeo-christian theology. probably the difference between us, and i want to say this so that you can become familiar, theologically, where we're coming from, before i go into the history -- is that when jesus spoke of a comforter in john, a comforter who would come, many of our theologians are looking back into other books translate that word "parakletos" in greek as being "the praised one". that is one of the definitions of this greek word. and the arabic word for "the praised one" is ahmed or muhammad. so we believe that the prophet, peace be upon him, was the fulfillment of the prophecy of jesus, peace be upon him, and moses and all of the messengers who came before him.

muslims living in different parts of the middle east, africa and in europe, living in spain and france and portugal for over 700 years, actually were able to take scientific achievements from ancient egypt, ancient india, ancient mesopotamia, china, -- different parts of the world and put it together with a qur'anic understanding; the understanding coming from the revelation and they revolutionized science and study and put it in such a way that the scholars of europe were able to benefit. and so the scholars from the sorbonne in paris, and what is now oxford university, and the great universities in austria, and other parts of europe, during the 12th to the 15th century studied with the muslims in spain. some of the scientific achievement made by muslims during this golden age period: -- you know the word "chemistry", that is actually alchemy [al kimiya] and that is an arabic word --and so muslims were the ones who developed the present chemistry that we know, and the scientific method of getting a theory and going out and gathering the information, making an analysis based upon the information in a methodical way. algebra is from al jibr and is also an arabic word.

amongst the teachings of the prophet muhammad, peace be upon him, was that you should not lie, you should not steal, cheat, commit adultery, you should not take intoxicants, you should not exploit -- it was the same basic moral principals brought by all of the messengers of allah. what i want to high- light here, especially for the muslims, is that in the root definition of islam is the basis of the revival of islam. it is the basis of the revival. because the prophet, peace be upon him, in his mount arafat sermon, a year before he died, told his followers -- from amongst the many things that he told them --is that you should know that the life and the property of every muslim is a sacred trust. and he told them that they should hurt nobody, so that nobody would hurt them. he told them that from this time, there should be no economic exploitation - do not take interest and usury from your neighbor, but cooperate with everybody. he also told them, in translation,

i'll will just name a few of these areas of science so as not to belabor the arabic, trigonometry, biology, botany, ecology, embryology, cardiology, geography, anesthesia,

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mineralogy, optics, pediatrics, modern medicine, psychiatry, psychology, public health, toxicology and veterinary medicine. actually the book "the canun at-tib" which translates "the law of medicine" written by ibn sina (in english avicenna) was being used by doctors in europe up until approximately the 16th century. some of the different products that were brought into europe by the muslims: glass mirrors, paper, soap, suits, street lamps, muslin, salt, spices, silk, satin, citrus fruits, surgical instruments, globes, eye glasses, test tubes, kerosene, cotton balls, paper money, postage stamps, book-binding, clocks, printing presses, astrolabes, fine furs, encyclopedias, ink and domes and the list of various scientific achievements goes on.

the isthmus of panama. on the map, in a libyan, what we call kufic arabic script, -- on the side it had islands and it said these are the "islands of wind", "juzr al hawa". hawa in arabic is the word for wind / breeze. so "juzr al hawa" becomes hawaii. according to the harvard study project done by barry fell, the muslims came in to the west coast of america to california and that region in the 8th century christian era and they found in benton, on the border of california and nevada huge inscription which said in kufic language, "ismu allah"; it says "the name of allah" -- written in kufic arabic script. they used to think that it was something that the indian people had scribbled on the stones. but those who knew the kufic writing and the libyan script, knew that this was actually authentic writing done by merchants and seafarers coming out of the arabian area into the indian ocean and the south china sea.

what is important for us is that science and civilization, you could say is like a torch. and different nations and different people have had the torch, they have developed it and benefited from it, and passed it on to other people. we did a study on some of the different words, and some of the root definitions of some of the words before the queen victoria age, if you get hold of a dictionary before that time, it gives you the roots going back to the semitic languages, to the african languages, the indian languages, the different other noneuropean roots. my portuguese students, especially, - although islam was in spain for so long, unfortunately have the least understanding of islam. you would be surprised to know that when the people of monotheism, the jewish people and other people of monotheism were suffering, they called to north africa (around the 8th century) and tariq ibn ziyad came across and defeated the vizigoths. and spain then became a muslim province. the place where he landed was the mountain of tariq, that is, jabal tariq, which is now known as gibraltar - see it as coming from a mispronunciation of the words "jabal tariq".

they also found the words, "muhammad, nabiyullah" or "muhammad rasulullah", meaning muhammad is the messenger of allah inscribed all over the southwest in a number of inscriptions. and they took it a step further, and the hohokum people, in nevada and in those cliff mountain areas -- there are certain areas in the southwest where there are cliff dwellings and they photographed the geometric cliff dwellings from above (aerial view) and they matched it to the people of north africa and it was exactly the same. the hohokum native people in early america had tattoos and had configurations in their clothing similar to the people of north africa. this is a startling find for us. and we find this in the languages, even in the northwest corner of the united states, somewhere around seattle, washington; on that coast there is a group of indians called makkah indians! and i found a picture of the mecca indians and he had on a hat similar to the desert bedouins of algeria or in libya or in niger and northern nigeria, and he had on what we would call a thobe or a robe and he had a sword on his side. he looked like somebody who had just come out of the sahara desert. barry fell's study opened up a lot of information concerning the western side of the united states and that research is still going on today. again, this occurred in the 9th century, long before christopher columbus.

when they came into spain they found it fair seeming for the planting of citrus fruits. the arabic word for orange is "burtuqaal" so they called it "ard-al burtuqaal" (land of the oranges) and "burtuqaal" becomes portugal. when they went to the north, in the russian area, they found the land that was so cold, you had to have a lot of patience to live there. in arabic, we say "sabr" - we have to be "saabir" - so "ardus sabr" or "as sabariya" becomes siberia. they went into the pacific, and the arab merchants used to travel along the red sea to the southern part of arabia to the east coast of africa, into the indian ocean, into the south china sea, and then into the pacific ocean.

the first thing that would come to many of our minds, and i was raised up learning that christopher columbus discovered america in 1492! that's how we were raised. but as a young man, i asked myself, i looked at the picture of columbus, and columbus is there and the native people are looking at columbus and he says to them in spanish, "i conquer you in the name of spain, and they probably gave him some water and try to cool him down, -but the question i asked myself, and all people of intelligence and scholarship have to ask themselves, and this is the way education is going in canada, and in many parts of the world: how can you discover a place when the people are standing there looking at you? and they had been living in the place for 2,000 years! so how can you discover the place? do you understand this terminology? so the terminologies are changing now, in terms of christopher columbus's encounter with the new world. actually, i would say christopher columbus was discovered in 1492, because he didn't know where he was going, he thought he was going to india, when he got there he didn't know where he was, and when

in a recent study, (a study done within the last 30 years) by a harvard university scholar, whose name is barry fell, which was later published as a book called "saga america", they found a number of inscriptions on the western side of the united states. now, he is a linguist; he is skilled in the semitic languages, in the celtic languages, the phoenician tongues and he was studying the different pictographs and the different inscriptions found on caves and found in different rock sites all throughout america. in the southwest, they found a number of startling finds. they found a map dated back to the 8th century christian era. on this map is shown hudson bay, north america, and it even came down and showed

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he got back to spain, he couldn't describe where he had been.

in another harvard university study by a man called leo winer, (his book is called "africa and the discovery of america" which is in the library in english) showed that these mandingo people came into the southwest of the united states in new mexico, arizona -they found pictographs and they had pictures and mandingo writing, it was interesting -they said (in the mandingo writings) that the desert was hot and there were a lot of birds. they said the elephants are tired. elephants! the elephants are tired and angry. these writings are found all the way up to the northeast corner of the united states.

so we need to rewrite the history books and put them in the proper perspective. i was shocked going into arabic textbooks and then tracing the steps of these explorers about the eastern side of the united states. i have found the following writings. the first is written by al-mas'oudi, who was a very famous geographer and his book "muruj al-bahr" which is in the major university libraries in the arabic language. al-mas'oudi wrote about the journey of a man named khash-khaas ibn saeed, who, according to him, in 889 left the shores of spain and went into the sea of darkness (what they used to call the atlantic) and he came back with goods and everybody in spain knew about the journey of khash-khaas. another writer called al-idrisi, in his famous geography book written in the 12th century which was known all over the world, and it's in the libraries in arabic script, talks about the journey of a group of people called "mughaariba", and these "mughaariba", probably merchants and seafarers from north africa, went into the atlantic for a period of time and they came across a deserted island. they left the island and went south where they found another set of islands, captured by the native people, taken to a third island blind-folded and the king spoke to them through a translator who could speak arabic, who told them, between us and you is a journey of about 2 months. i traced this.

this for us, is the exploratory period before christopher columbus. chris was actually fairly late - [according to] those who really know the history. he (c. columbus) is reported to have taken a journey to iceland and another journey into west africa before his encounter in 1492. what is interesting about this period is that, unfortunately, when ferdinand and isabella of spain recaptured the iberian peninsula, they had what is called the spanish inquisition. if you were not a catholic, they tortured you and eventually burned you at the stake. they put you on trial -- it was called the inquisition. the jewish people who did not want to expose their identity or they couldn't escape, said, " yes, i am a catholic". they hid their identity and they called them "morenos". they were hidden and they took portuguese names. the muslims, who were the majority population at the time, who hid their identity, were called "morescos". so these morenos and morescos came across with columbus and the early spanish and portuguese conquistadors who came into the caribbean, central america and the southwest of the united states. actually, rodrigo de triana, who sighted land before columbus, many historians say he was a moresco -- he was the first person to sight land.

in bermuda, when the british came there was nobody living on the island. from there you go down to the bahamas and you find a chain of islands down there. so we were trying to retrace these steps, but this information was known to the muslims long before columbus. one of the most interesting reports is by al-omari who wrote in his geography book about the journey of a west african muslim ruler. his name was mansa musa. mansa musa, from the islamic empire of mali in west africa made his pilgrimage to makkah, which is one of the duties of a muslim, -- to go to makkah, in arabia and to be with people from all over the world. he made his journey in 1324 and he carried with him 72,000 followers. they crossed the sahara desert. he carried so much gold with him that he changed the economy of every country he reached. when he came to egypt, the egyptians said, "how did you get so much power and authority?" and mansa musa, in this book that is still found in the libraries, said (around 1324), "i come from a line of kings, and my predecessor who came before me, abu bakr, went into the atlantic with 2,000 ships and he never returned." this is how the report ends. these people are called mandinka, or as we would say in our tongue in america, mandingo. the mandingo people were a very famous merchant group of west africans, crossed form the guinea coast of west africa (from what is now gambia and senegal) and it has been proven now you can take the currents from west africa takes you right into brazil or the higher current takes you right into the caribbean islands -specifically, the island of barbados. and so we traced this and a famous scholar, clyde ahmed wintis, at a conference on the mandingo people, showed that the findings -- they have found mandingo writing along the amazon, in panama, and all the way into the united states.

what i want to stress, which is a really interesting study, a research that is going on right now -- done by dr. n. brent kennedy, and he is being supported by the ford foundation and a number of important organizations. he is from a group of people called "malunjens". now the malunjen people, according to dr. kennedy, are a group of people who lived in the carolinas -- all along the southeast coast region of the united states. he came across this information because he was struck with a debilitating disease -- sarcoidosis, so he studied his roots and studied the disease and found out that the only people who have this disease are north african people, turkish people or people from the mediterranean region. and although he was classified as a white american, he knew that his mother and some of the early descendants were of a darker complexion, something that appeared mediterranean. he checked his roots and found some startling information and this research is being done right now. also the iiit, the international islamic institute of thought is helping him with this research along with the major foundations. what he found out was the following: * in 1566 santa elena was established in florida; this was before jamestown, because the spanish conquistadors were here before the british. so, santa elena had been established by the spanish in 1566 and around 1587 it fell to the british colonists coming in. the people who were living in that region, many of them were morescos and morenos -- the jewish and

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muslim descendants who had changed their names to portuguese names. they were driven into the mountains and they intermingled with the native indian population in the high mountain area in the southeast part of the us.

the history of the peoples of this world coming together is really about, you will find that we are not foreigners, that we have been living here actually with our neighbors from the inception of what we know as america and even before it.

* in 1586, sir francis drake captured a colony in brazil, and liberated from the portuguese about 400 people from this colony. these people were the moresco/moreno people. he went north; he wanted to stop in cuba, but a storm drove him to the coast of the united states. he stopped in virginia and he was forced by the british inhabitants, according to the study, to leave these people (morescos/morenos) on the coastline and take the british inhabitants back to england with him. the people went into the interior and, according to the study, they mixed with the other people who had escaped from santa elena, all in this inner region.

i want now, to switch to the slavery period, because of the little time remaining. in the slavery period, as we all know, people were taken from the west coast of africa, and amongst the slaves who came, it has been shown in a number of recent studies that 30% of the slaves living along the carolina coasts were actually muslims taken from the guinea coast of west africa. fulani, hausa, yoruba, many of the different groups that we know of in west africa actually came to this part of the world. in the pain of slavery, names were lost, religion was lost, and culture was lost. what we understand today, however, is that a lot of the names and a lot of the culture were kept by people, even up until today. and that is the reason why there are so many african americans who are embracing islam because of the fact that it is almost a natural way, like a root tradition for them, which can even be traced back to some of the grandparents of african americans. so, it is not a strange thing for african americans to accept islam.

so what is coming out of this study is a number of interesting points. 1) in 1654, english explorers learned from the southeastern indians of a colony of bearded people wearing european clothing, living in cabins, smelting silver and dropping to their knees many times daily, wherever they may be, a people who did not speak english, but they claimed to be (in the slang) portugay -- meaning portuguese - that was the identity. now, muslims know, when you say "drop to your knees" many times during the day -- that is our form of prayer we call salat.

also, a very interesting point i want to bring out, in the islands of the coast of south carolina, in the gullah islands, out in that region there, there was a muslim named saleh bilali, and this bilali muslim had 19 children. he used to pray and he used to wear a fez (similar to the turks), he fasted in the month of ramadan, he maintained his islam, and he passed it on to his children. historians now studying the region, recognize the fact that his name, bilali, was changed in the next generation to "baila", and "baila" became known as "bailey". so anybody coming from the carolina region who has the name bailey (i mean any african american) did not get that from a european american on a plantation, but the name was gotten through (because i know baileys in the area) -- and this man had 19 children --so his descendants are all in that region there. and you know what was interesting, they traced a man by the name of frederick augustus bailey, he changed his name to frederick augustus douglass. it is very possible that he was a muslim. also, there were slip of the tongues -- moor, the name given to muslims in spain, became moore; many of the names were started to be changed. we find that abu bakr becomes bubakr in senegal, and also some historians believe that it became booker.

2) in the mid 1600s, there were people living among the pohaten and related tribes of eastern virginia and north carolina who were described as being dark like the indians but were called "portugals". a similar people in south carolina called themselves "turks". the early 17th century pohaten description of heaven is nearly word for word similar to the description found in the qur'an. 3) and he says, "that you should know that the descendants of the malunjen people are everywhere". "i can assure you", he says, "that from many of our audience unknowingly you may share my heritage." that's what kennedy said in a recent conference. especially if you have ancestors from the south eastern united states of any race with the following surnames: adams, adkins, bell, bennet, berry, bowling, chavis, coleman, collins, gibson, goins, all, *jackson*, lopez, moore, mulins, nash, robinson, sexton and williams. and he said that there are 200 other names that could possibly be malunjen people. they have traced the word "malunjuen" to the turkish language - it means people who are cursed because they felt that they were under some kind of curse because they were thrown out of their homes in spain and thrown into a form of almost slavery.

now, this is not my theory, but dr. sulaiman nyang of washington, d.c. has a theory that booker t. washington also could have gotten his name from abu bakr -> bubakr -> booker. and if booker t. washington and frederick douglass were from muslim families, we're going to have to rewrite american history. we're going to have to rewrite the book. this is a serious thing that is going on new in historical circles.

4) what he also shows in his study --he said that there is increasing evidence that nancy hanks, the mother of abraham lincoln, was malunjuen. this is serious. this is serious.

what i would like to say, however, is that the descendants of these muslims who lost their identity in the slavery period -- many of them migrated to the north and they spearheaded

what i'm trying to tell you is that when we understand what islam is really about and what

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movements, coming into islam in new york city, in detroit, in chicago, all over the north east corner of the united states. but, unfortunately, as the early explorers, they were not able to maintain their identity. they couldn't pass it on to the next generation and so they melted down into the melting pot of the american society.

seen me pray -- and that's how we solved our problem. we went back to the source. *when we had a difference of opinion we went back to the source.* we put our opinion on the criteria of the qur'an and sunnah and then we were able to solve our problems because none of the imams came to block the qur'an or the sunnah. it is good to have a school of thought, but don 't let it block you from the authentic practices of the prophet muhammad, peace be upon him.

the next main wave of people, i call, the economic migration wave. muslims came from the ottoman empire, so we are talking about the 19th century, 20th century, they actually were a part of the settlers who opened up the mid-west and went out west. so the oldest mosques in america and canada are found in the mid-west. these people were albanians, turkish, lebanese, syrian, and they settled all over the southwest and california, and when i was living in los angeles we went south and we found a city called mecca, california. it had big beautiful dates, like the dates you find in madinah, saudi arabia; but the muslims were gone -- couldn't find any of them. they melted down in the society. we found arab descendants when we traveled into honduras, in nicaragua, in costa rica; we traveled to panama, we traveled into south america, and you will find 100,000 muslim arabs in caracas, venezuela. they're all over south america, but the problem that they face is that because they could not make islam relevant to the next generation, it was irrelevant -- they could not pass it on because they did not have the knowledge of islam -- it got watered down and the names began to change. mohammed became "mo", bilal became "billy", yahya became "johnny", and the names began to change. and this is what happened.

we have challenges in our community. one challenge i say openly. this has been heard in the non-muslim society, but i say it to muslims also. it is that women have to be involved as a key central part of the islamic movement. the first person to accept islam when the prophet mohammed got revelation was his wife, khadijah --a woman! she not only accepted islam, but she confirmed it. the first person to give their life for islam was sumaiyyah --a woman! one of the greatest scholars of islam was a woman named aiesha, the wife of the prophet, peace be upon him. she reported the second most hadith. women were involved in all parts of islamic society. and so it is part of the new revival of islam that the women should be involved directly in education. when islam came 1400 years ago it gave the woman the right to private property. imagine this 1400 years ago, when in most parts of the world women had no rights. it (islam) also says she had equal rights under the law. it also says that she doesn't have to take the name of her husband. she can keep her own name. she's not the property of her husband. she has the right to her own bank account.

in a later wave, people also came from the middle east and then from asia, and now there are waves coming into this part of the world from the horn of africa. in canada, toronto has been named the most cosmopolitan city on the face of the earth. and we are blessed to have the cultures of all the peoples throughout the world living in the city. we are working on what is called a "multi-cultural" society and that is where people live in peace, where people respect and understand each other's culture, where people share their values, they come together and they help to understand how can we live in peace, how can we order our society, and how can we let the good part of the cultures of the people of the world come out so we can all share this together and go into the 21st century holding hands together. that is what is going on and that is my message here tonight -- that we want to be able to hold hands, to come together as the people from different parts of the world with different understandings.

i know brothers who would say, "well, darling you have your wealth, so please put it in my bank account because we are in love..." she has the right to her own bank account. she has the right to her own private property. she has the right to education -- complete education. the achievements that muslim women have made throughout islamic history have changed the course of islam. another thing that i would like to say to the muslims, that young people today have to be given responsibility. and i think that goes for everybody, because many of us, muslim or non-muslim are getting cut off from the younger generation. they're developing their own understanding and we have to try to break down that generation gap. for us, we do that by respecting what the young people say. give them responsibility. for many muslims who have a very strong family tradition where the father is respected, the mother is respected and you say to your child, "now it is time to pray, you must pray", we have never heard the question being asked, "why?" "why" is not in some of our vocabulary. so when you say it's time to pray and the child says "why?" you have to have an answer and that, actually, is a blessing because we learn why we are praying. because we are not praying to god in a vacuum; we are praying to god from the actual realities we are living in. so the younger generation should be given responsibility and we should unite ourselves --

what i would like to say to the muslims, we are at a turning point in our history, (and please bear with me the people who are not muslims) and coming from different parts of the world and there are different ways that islam was established. the teachings of imam ash shafie, teachings of imam ahmed, abu hanifa, imam malik. and so the mosque that i was imam of for several years had people from all the schools of thought- all the different persuasions of islam -- all ahli sunnah wa jamaa'h. and when we had a problem, we wanted to pray -how do we solve a problem with all the different ways of practicing islam? the prophet mohammed, peace be upon him said, "saluu kamaa raitamuni usali" pray as you have

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muslims from all different walks of life, all different nationalities, and we should reach out as we are doing tonight to the non-muslim population and share the beautiful aspects of islam. and we can learn so much from the other societies also. that is the way muslims were throughout history.

ibn abdullah, peace be upon him. and i leave you with these words of peace: as salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. end of speech

some of the most important things for us, we may be a little bit different, is that we would like a society where the mother and the father and the children come home and they have dinner together. now, that might sound a little old-fashioned, but i really appreciated those days when i could sit down with my mother, see my father there, not the rat race now where everybody's running, busy and working. we could eat dinner together and have a solid united family. we want a society where people are not spending a lot of time drinking alcohol and taking drugs to feel good, to be strong enough to talk to somebody else. we are trying to get a society that is drug-free, a society where you don't have to be afraid of somebody stealing your things. i was really glad coming into this part of maryland, to see that it is a quiet place. toronto was quiet, but unfortunately it is changing now. it's a big city. the neighborhood i live in is very quiet. you can keep your door open, just about, and your car doesn't have to be locked. but that's changing also now, too.

1. q. when you say god, what is it that you mean? is it the same god of christianity?

questions and answers

a. ok, when i say god, i'm saying god with a capital g and i mean that to say not "god" like in gods (plural) or goddesses, masculine or feminine. when we say the word allah, we mean the creator of the heavens and the earth who is separate from creation; that creative force that was there before the inception of life as we know it. we cannot describe the creator in any physical form. and that is the same god as the god of israel, the same god of all of the prophets. so we mean the creator of the heavens and the earth, not a physical person or being. 2. q. exact question inaudible -- something about submitting to god. a. well, it is the belief in islam, as i said, that allah sent prophets to every nation and every tribe. and you don't have to be taught to believe in god. the prophet muhammad, peace be upon him said that every child is born in the natural way (fitra). so everybody has a yearning inside of himself to believe in a high power. that is a natural thing. and so islam is only that answering to the natural call within a person to believe in the creator.

when i was living in saudi arabia, even though the propaganda of the middle east says they're fighting wars, when i lived there in madina, it was a city of peace. people cooperated with each other. one day i left my door open and i went to the mosque. i realized what happened and said, "oh no, i left the door open." if it was chicago, when you came back home they would have taken everything but the dust on the wall. i came back home and people were walking down the street, looking & thinking, "well, i guess he's not home," and they kept walking. it happened that i dropped my wallet in the street. after about two blocks, i realized it and went back and it was lying where it had dropped. if it was in new york, they would get it before it hit the ground. that's the kind of life (in saudi arabia). that is the society that we are hoping and praying for.

our message is to give the message of the last prophet, muhammad, peace be upon him, which is the qur'an, which we are taught is the seal of the other books and we have four books: the torah of moses, the psalms of david (az-zabour), the gospels of jesus (injeel) and the last for us is the qur'an. all of these books, we believe, are revelations sent by the creator. so it is only our job to tell people about the last message. whether you accept it or not is a personal choice. the qur'an says, {la ikraha fid-deen, qad tubayan ar-rushdu minal gai} [baqarah:256], "there is no compulsion in religion; truth stands clear from falsehood". there is no compulsion; so our job is merely to share this last message. but we believe that it is the same message that came to all of the prophets that came before him.

thank you very much for your patience in this part of the program. i've given you a lot of food for thought -- that's a lot of information. i brought some tapes and videos so you could hear and even see some of the information and there are some books coming out soon as well. i want to end on this note that when i was coming in i saw the name hagerstown. i know mr. hager, in his home he had this special fountain coming from underneath his house and there's a history behind it. but to muslims, hager would be the english way of saying hajar, may allah be pleased with her. and hajar was the wife of the prophet ibrahim (abraham). we are taught that ibrahim had sarah, and his egyptian servant he took for a wife, hajar, and she and ibrahim and isma'iel went to a desolate valley and they built a house called the ka'aba in the city called bakkah. you can find that in your psalms. the name of the city was changed to makkah. and so it was a sanctuary for hajar and i pray and i hope that this town of hagerstown would also be a sanctuary for those people who are following the traditions coming from one of her grandchildren, the prophet mohammed

3. a question was asked about muslims attacking and conquering various countries in the early years of islam and the accusation that islam was "spread by the sword". a. this is a common misunderstanding. if you go back to the seventh century of the christian era, the leading empires of the time were the roman empire, called the byzantine roman empire, and on the eastern side of arabia was the persian dynasty, the sasanid dynasty. china was landlocked; they stayed within their own borders. but the two aggressive powers were the eastern romans who had conquered the mediterranean basin and the persian sasanid dynasty who had conquered afghanistan, iraq, and the southern part of arabia. these were the aggressive countries. the persians attacked the muslims; the

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romans attacked from the north. during the life of the prophet, peace be upon him, they attacked. so the muslims responded to the attacks. they responded and they found that the persian dynasty was a weak dynasty and it fell. the roman empire was also in a state of decay and it fell. and so the muslims took all of the holdings of the romans along the north african coast. o.k. so this was a response to an attack that was made. other than that, islam basically was spread all throughout africa, indonesia, india and other parts, by merchants and teachers who came to teach the message. it was not spread by the sword. this is a common misunderstanding.

where the bible, which is a biblioteque -- it is a library of revelations -- was put together when constantine, the roman emperor, accepted christianity and made it the state religion. it is in 325 ad that the codified version of christianity, and you can look this up in your encyclopedia and theological books, that that was really codified.

i think that where we really get caught up in history is what is called the crusades. now for those of you who really studied the crusades closely, the crusades was an economic war. when marco polo came back from india and china and he told the kings of europe what he had seen -- the spices and the riches --they then set out to conquer the middle east and to conquer india, get to china and open up a trade route. so the crusades was a strategic, economic war. it was not a religious war because people were not being stopped from going into the jerusalem area there. there were jewish people living there, christians were in and out and living there. they were not being stopped from coming into the region. as a matter of fact, the nastorian christians, which is one of the purest christian groups, thrived under the islamic leaders. so, it is a misunderstanding of history, which we hope that we can rewrite.

there are some theological points that might separate us, but for us it is important strict monotheism. the first commandment is that you should have no other partners but god and that for us is very, very important. we say {la ilah illa allah}.

what islam is, we believe, is going back to the root, to what was the original message that jesus was teaching or moses was teaching. and you can see by the morality and much of what you are hearing, that it is basically the same.

5. a question was asked about the "sabbath" and the lord resting on the seventh day. the seventh day, when you say sabbath, in arabic we say "sabt"; "yaumus sabt" actually means saturday. and so, what the qur'an tells us, and i say this with all respect, it says that allah created the heavens and the earth in six days, meaning six periods of time and he was not tired. he did not get tired. so we believe that god did not get tired, because the description of fatigue is an earthly, creation description by which the creator is not defined - he is not defined by descriptions of sleep, tiredness and fatigue. so the qur'an says that he created the heavens and the earth in six days {wa ma massahu alghuyoub} he was not tired after these days, so therefore, that "sabbath day" which was actually instituted for the children of israel, that on that day they should not work, they should not be involved in earthly activities; they should spend that day in prayer. we recognize that as the message given to the children of israel (bani isra'iel). so those who are following the law coming from moses, are following the actual teachings that came at that time.

4. if we believe that god did a miracle through the virgin mary in that she gave birth to jesus, peace and blessings be upon him, why is it incorrect to worship jesus? we have to go back to the actual source itself. i am saying this to you with all respect to the other religions, so you understand what our position is relative to jesus. what we are taught is that almighty god showed his power to creation in a number of ways. adam, the first man, was created with no father and no mother -- no father and no mother. but we don't worship adam. it shows the power of god ~{kun, fa yakun} ~ {be, and it is}. eve (hawa) coming out of adam -- that is a father, no mother. so what's left? mother and no father.

the prophet muhammad, peace be upon him, we are taught, was not sent for a particular group; that's the difference. even jesus, you will see, said that "i did not come to change the law of israel, but to fulfill it", to fulfill the law if israel. so the difference is that muhammad did not come for the arabs; he came for all humanity. our understanding is that in the last revelation that came, that the sabbath day has actually been canceled. that was for the people who came under the law of moses. but for all the international communities, that day has actually changed; the day that we have a special celebration is friday because we are taught that adam was created on a friday, and the day of judgment will begin on a friday. so that is another understanding in terms of the holy days or the last days of the week. if you get a job in saudi arabia or one of those countries, your friday night is really thursday night, because the holiday is friday. it's like a different rhythm they have in those countries.

so for us, when allah created jesus without a father, then the triangle is complete. it shows all different forms of creation by {kun, fa yakun} ~ be, and it is. and for us, that shows the power of the creator and further testifies to the oneness of god. in early christianity, if you go into your theological books, you will find in the year 200 christian era, 300 ce, the biggest theological question in christendom was the divinity of christ. that was the big burning question. the unitarian in north africa, the church of arius, held the position that jesus was a prophet. he was born without a father, but he was a prophet. the northern church took the position that he was the son of god. and it is the council of nicea in 325 ce where it was codified,

6. q. what is the islamic concept of forgiveness? and at what point is a muslim considered "fallen"?

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such imposing structures, they can't even figure out how they built them. of course, some historians will say that it was somebody from the planet mars came down, built the pyramids and flew back up to mars. but we know it was the egyptians who built them, the african people. but the point is that, for us today, we can benefit from the societies that came before, we can look and see what their traditions are, but in terms of a workable, religious life-style, islam still has the qur'an intact in its original form. so we can go to the original qur'an, the original authentic sayings of the prophet, peace be upon him, and find out the principals of islam and we can apply these principals to the country or place we are living in.

a. the qur'an tells us {inna allah yaghfir athanoub jame'an} "allah forgives all sins..." whenever we say, "in the name of allah" -- you heard speaker when he read qur'an say, {bismillahir rahmanir raheem} "in the name of allah, the most gracious or beneficent, the most merciful". rahmaan and raheem are two descriptions of mercy. and so the greatest quality, we believe, constantly said over and over again, is that of mercy. so we believe that we can do the sins of the world and allah will have forgiveness if we sincerely ask allah, the creator, for forgiveness. if there is harm or injustice done to people, then we also have to make up for the harm that was done. [there is one sin, however, that is not forgiven and that is to take partners in the worship of allah.]

9. q. inaudible -- something about how can you be certain in religion. 7. q. what is the point of having different messengers in succession? [second question inaudible]

a. like i said, there is no compulsion in religion. a person's belief in god is a personal thing. and each person has to search, you have to objectively listen to what everybody is saying, you have to reason with it, and you have to go to your heart. the prophet, peace upon him, used to say many times, "istaftih qalbik" (lit. ask your heart). if you're not sure, go to your heart.

a. as i said before, we are taught that prophets and messengers were sent to every nation and to every tribe. so for us (muslims), there was somebody in europe at one point in time, who was a messenger of god. there were people in africa who were messengers of god. in ancient egypt, we go into the tombs and we find akhnatun who was teaching the belief in one god. i can't say for sure it was, but there is a lot of proof that says it could have been monotheism.

what does your heart tell you? and so that's very important that a person's conscious and their heart has to be involved when they are doing objective study of different ways of life and different traditions. so certainty is something we believe that comes from the creator. it is something from within the person. it is wrong for me to impose my belief on another person. i can only let you know what my belief is and try to show you in the best way what my lifestyle is, but i can't impose my certainty on anybody.

none of the pharaohs before him taught this. in all of the cultures of the world, you will find monotheism. so for us, every nation, every people had a messenger at one point in time, but the difference between those messengers and muhammad, peace be upon him, is that he is only the seal of these messengers -- the finality and that his message came for all people, not only for the arabs in the arabian peninsula. amongst mohammed's followers were africans, persians, arabs, european type people, all types were following his message. 8. q. a question was asked about some african religions, like the yoruba in relationship to studying them versus studying islam.

10. q. did marco polo pass through islamic countries? a. yes, he passed through islamic countries. they were the present day russian states, tajikistan, uzbekistan, all of those states; it was called the silk trade route. when you are going through from eastern europe and you cross the black sea and you're going across into the different turkonman countries, they were basically muslim countries. some of the greatest scholars of islam were from that region: al-bukhari, muslim, ibn maajah, an nasa'ie, abu daoud, at-tirmithi -- they all came from that region there. so samarkand and bukhara and tajikistan and uzbekistan were actually some of the greatest cities of islam. so marco polo went through these areas and came across great islamic civilization on his way going through to the chinese empire.

a. one of the problems you face in african history as well as many other countries of the world, before the colonial period, is documentation. in order to trace some of the religions that came before, you have to go into oral tradition. and oral tradition is a valid way of tracing history, but it is just really coming into its own at this point in time. there are "griots" - people who keep the traditions in an oral, poetic type of way. but the problem in tracing many of the different religions is that when you go past a certain point in time, you do not have much documentation. so you have to make a lot of speculation or guessing as to what really happened. even the hieroglyphics in egypt itself are so deep that people, up unto this day, really don't know what these hieroglyphics are saying. they have an idea, but they don't really know the level the ancient egyptians reached because the pyramids are

11. q. you said that the muslims who were in a new society and that for the following

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generations, islam was not relevant for them. please?

would you elaborate on that a little bit

talk here, which is available on cassette tape. my husband and i listen to his talks while riding around makkah on the way to jeddah. i hope you enjoy it. the address was to a both muslim and non-muslim audience. you'll learn some things you didn't know before.

a. what i meant by that was islam gives us a set of principals, a lifestyle, but each generation has to take that lifestyle and apply it to the environment that they are living in. you can't take all the habits of an arabian person and take it and bring it to this part of the world. there is a certain part of the sunnah, which is the natural sunnah or the way of the prophet, peace be upon him, as an arab. but there is another sunnah tashri’iyah, the shari’ah - the part of the sunnah that gives us the law. those principals, we take them to our society. if i were to live like a desert dweller in canada, i would freeze to death. i can't live like that. but the principals of islam, i can take to canada and i can apply them to the frozen north (and it's not as cold as you think, either, by the way) -- i can apply that to the northern cities and i can live in a cold environment with the principals of islam.

omm rafiq, makkah

so what the challenge for muslims is today, is that we are in a technological age now, there's an information super highway, there are changes society has gone through, -- it's a matter for us now, with the islamic principals to be able to adjust ourselves to the societies that we are living in today. this is the challenge that muslims are facing which i believe is a very positive thing, not a negative thing. this is a challenging time that we live in.

about the author as salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh when we first came to saudi arabia twenty years ago, one of the families we met was sheikh abdullah hakim quick, his wife and children. he had just finished a ba at the islamic university in madinah was moving the family to riyadh where he would complete further studies in the arabic language. after that they traveled a bit and then went to live in canada where he completed his phd, masha allah alaihi. he was the imam of a masjid in toronto and has given many khutbahs and lectures. the following was a talk he gave at hagerstown, maryland a few years ago. i found it to be extremely interesting and would like to share it with the subscribers on this net. he has given me permission to retype his

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