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All praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who knows what the hearts conceal and what the tongue shall not reveal in front of whom all kneel and then a day of judgment to whom all shall appeal.

The study of Andalus is a topic that intrigues every single one of us when we hear it or fascinated.

Why is that the case? Because generally speaking many people are not interested in history but for some reason Andalus strikes a chord.

The reason for this is that Andalus represents the most successful intermixing of East and West in the entire civilization before our time.

Andalus represents Islam as practiced in Europe. It is European and Western Islam and so especially for us here in America and all across the Western world.

Andalus represents a glorious past that gives us actually hope for the future.

If Islam survived, not just survived, thrived, not just thrived, reached its pinnacle and superseded everything in Europe when it was based in Europe, then surely there's hope for us here now.

As well Andalus represents for us a lesson in every facet of history, the conquest, the rise, the glory, the civilization, the knowledge and also the fall and the internal bickering and the civil wars and the backstabbing and the alliances with kafir regimes against other kafir regimes and we are stuck in the middle like a pawn.

Literally Andalus is like a microcosm of what we are facing right now. And that is why I feel very, very passionate about this topic.

It's one of the topics I really love immensely. I've taken at least half a dozen trips to Andalus and I take tours and inshallah I'll be going again this year I'm going to Morocco next year inshallah I'll be taking a tour to Andalus as usual.

Before COVID, I'll go almost every single year, especially for our youth. It really makes them understand what is the reality of Islam in the West and there's no dichotomy. You don't have to be East versus West.

No, you can be a Western Muslim and Andalus demonstrates this. Now what can we accomplish in one hour? What can we accomplish in one seminar, one session?

Not much, we're not going to go over the chronological order, but what did the point is to really make us start thinking and to incite within us a passion because the books are all there, the lectures are all there.

But we need a motivation to go read those books. We need a motivation to listen to five to twenty hours of lectures online.

So the goal of today's brief what forty-five minutes, then Quenin inshallah, is really to spark that curiosity and to give us the impetus, to give us the motivation that you know what I want to study this region and I want to benefit from the realities of the rise and fall of Western Islam.

And Subhanallah is not just Western Islam and Andalusia, overall the Quran, the Quran always preaches to us through history.

One third of the Quran is in fact nothing but Qusah's stories. One third of the Quran. One third is laws and one third is theology.

The entire Quran, one third is stories. Why?

There are lessons in the stories of the past. And Allah tells us, Khulsir, Khilardi, Fanduru, go travel in the land and look at what happened to the people before you.

Look at their remnants. Allah says in the Quran, go look at their remnants. Look at what they have left behind and take a lesson from that.

So Allah is telling us to explore. And that's why by the way, I'm a strong advocate of Islamic tourism. I'm a strong advocate.

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