My recent trip to Spain shocked me into a number of facts of history. Tariq ibn-Ziyad brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islam in a seven-year campaign. He also crossed the Pyrenees and occupied parts of southern France for 20 years stopping short only 200 hundred miles from Paris. The most intriguing part of this conquest was the people who undertook it, Tariq ibn Ziyad was not an Arab and had until the conquest of Spain never been to Hijaz. Under Umar ibn Khattab Northern Africa came under Islam and the Berbers who were considered wild bandits became Muslims and then carried Islam to the next lands, something even the US and Britain can never attest to achieving.
Under Islam Spain become a regional power, and a centre of learning second only to Abbasid Baghdad. Muslims and non-Muslims often came from abroad to study in the famous libraries and universities of al-Andalus after the reconquista of Toledo in 1085. The most noted of these was Michael Scot (c. 1175 to c. 1235), who took the works of Ibn Rushd ("Averroes") and Ibn Sina ("Avicenna") to Italy. This transmission was to have a significant impact on the formation of the European Renaissance.
In the 10th century, the city of Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries, the largest of which had up to 600,000 books. In comparison, the largest library in Christian Europe at the time had no more than 400 manuscripts, while the University of Paris library still had only 2,000 books later in the 14th century.
However my return from Spain made me concerned about one particular issue, that being the fact that Islamic Spain has all but been forgotten in the Minds of ummah. Today any discussion of the Muslims world is usually in reference to North Africa, the Middle East, the Asian Subcontinent and Indonesia and Malaysia. Lands such as Western China, Greece, Southern Italy, Hungary, Austria, Romania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Malta, Cyprus, Ukraine, the Canary Islands, parts of Iceland, the largest island of the Bristol waters in England – Lundy, Croatia, the island of Rhodes, Southern Russia as well as Portugal have all but been forgotten by many in Islamic history. All of these lands were once under Islam with some of them remaining for hundreds of years.
The destruction of the Khilafah led to the establishment of many nation states some of which are less then 60 years old. The unfortunate affect of this is where once Muslims from Spain to Indonesia viewed each other as one ummah today national boundaries define many. Islamic Spain was for nearly 800 years the intellectual centre of Europe, where Europe stood in awe at its marvels. The implementation of Islam saw the development of many fields and disciplines which Europe owes a great debt to.
Currently East Timor, Kashmir, Chechnya may be heading in the same direction.
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Jan Hamza
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This month I saw a documentary about al Andalus, in it was an interview with a Spanish muslim who said something like:'We are still here and our number is rising, but the world tried to forget us'. I visited the muslim parts of the Balkan and had similar thoughts as that Spanish brother, may Allah (swt) unite us under Khilafah so that we can carry out the dawa to all of mankind, insha Allah. |
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a99
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I am from Indonesia May God Bless Us Soon, As the prophet had said IIt's not only Spain but Also Rome will be under Islam protection Let's Fight with all our heart |
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umMujahid
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I too was in spain around the same time as this article was written. I couldn't help but marvel at remenants of the civilization left behind by the Muslims. The lessons of spain are many; it makes me wonder how we Muslims can be so comfortable living in the West knowing what happened to the Muslims in Spain where today you will be hard pressed to find a visiable Muslim walking down the streets. This despite an 800yr rule of Islam. |
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athman shariff
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the only bailout strategy for current economic meltdown is KHILAFA ! Under the caliphate ruling system, poverty eradication was achieved to 100%, and no other system has ever done even 50% of that! Dear Muslim brothers and sisters, answer to the call of Khilafa . |
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dian
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we've got to re-fresh our memory about the beauty of islamic history under the shade of caliphate..it's become the shade of the world for 13 centuries that's never happened that long in any civilization but only in islam...from madinah to konstantinopel (including spain,some parts of europe in the past)...and inshAllah if the khilafah returns,from somewhere(could be anywhere of this world as destined by Allah) to rome in the future ...and that future is near. without the caliphate,we're suffering from the global-capitalist/communist disasters like todays for the world's betterment,we need to struggle for the khilafah re-establishment together with the ummah |
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