Cultish - Mohammed and the Origins of Islam, Pt. 2 @TheAlMaidahInitiative

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Jeff Durbin || Jesus Is The Promised Messiah, Pt. 3

00:03

Alright, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish. My name is Jeremiah Roberts one of the co -hosts here

00:08

I am joined by my trusty co -host and series sleuth of the show Andrew. That's good to have you back for part two

00:16

Thank you. It's good to be back Last episode was a blast with a brother here, and I can't wait to learn a little bit more awesome.

00:22

Hey real quickly Hey Gabe. I'm not seeing Andrew. I'm only seeing my mug

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Okay, I know I have a giant head but like missing on the big screen it's a bit is a bit overwhelming Anyways Yeah, here we go.

00:42

So anyways, let me start again All right. I'm joined by Andrew the super sleuth of the show. It's good to have you here with us in part two

00:50

Thank you. It's good to be back man. Last episode was a blast. I can't wait to go Dig into more some of Islamic history here, man.

00:57

It's gonna be good. Awesome We're back with James gonna have you back my friend good to be back real quick before we jump in I tell us the

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YouTube channel where people can find you if they want to find out more about you Yes, you can find us at the Almeida initiative That's a

01:10

L dash M a ID a H Or you can just kind of Google my name might be might be easier

01:17

James Raymond. RAY MENT Excellent. And so we in the first episode we were just kind of talking about some of the origins in the ancient world of how

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Islam sort of came to the forefront including, you know Muhammad and some of the political geopolitical events at the time and how that all came together

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We are going to be focusing in this episode kind of where? Islam went post

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Muhammad after he died And what the Islamic world looked like that really kind of could be a good catalyst towards the rest of the stuff

01:49

We're going to talk about so let me just jump off of this. So With Muhammad like did he die of natural causes?

01:56

I mean, I think of like Joseph Smith, for example, he had a very dramatic death. He like he went out in dramatic fashion, right?

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That's someone I'm doing I get a little bit of a parallel there Look, what what was it? What sort of like how did it work out for him?

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I'm just curious. This was dramatic as well. Oh and You know most Muslims, you know

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I've met don't necessarily like know this because it's not something they kind of focus on So I'm not trying to be salacious with any of these details here

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But if you don't believe anything I'm saying look this up this is in Sahih al -Bukhari

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This is in Sahih Muslim. Those are not sources that Shia believe Um But I'll get to the sort of Shia position in this as we go

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But essentially two years before his death Muhammad is fighting against a

02:48

Jewish fortress slash oasis called Kaibar and Muhammad defeats them you know kills most of the men in the battle and then takes the women and children as captives and As he's doing this after his victory.

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There's a Jewish woman named Zainab who? offers to host a kind of conciliatory feast and As they're sitting there

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She poisons his favorite part of the lamb, which is the shoulder and as As as Muhammad is eating the companion next to him falls down Dead and then he spits out what he's eating from his mouth and it says everyone stop eating isn't for me that is poisoned so he summons this

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Jewish woman into the room and says What possessed you to do this and she says

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You have killed my grandfathers and my father's and my brothers and my sons if You were a prophet you'd have known this was poisoned but if you were a king then

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I would rid the people of you hmm, and so he got a small dose of the poison, but according to the Islamic sources this

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Started a sickness and he was never the same after this and was basically kind of in constant pain And that's what he died of two years later

04:17

Some Shia believe that it was actually Aisha and Hafsa the his wives who poisoned him with a with the help of that with the help of their father

04:27

So they could gain power Not all Shias believe that but that's kind of a common theory that kind of goes around but according to the

04:33

Sunni sources it was poison he got from the Battle of Khyber hmm and again, it's like there's there's a lot of you know debates and ideas around this and I would encourage anybody to go read the sources themselves rather than you know immediately

04:51

Dismissing or believing what I have to say about it. Hmm. Um, yeah, so where's so after so after he passes away

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Most of the times historically in religious movements and at a whole there's usually a fight for power

05:04

There's there's sort of a vacuum that gets filled in Successorship you think about the difference between like Brigham Young, you know,

05:11

Emma Smith and you know The church is Christ Larry is saying so how that fragmented that's always the case So after so post

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Muhammad passing away after this sort of long extended thing, like what what was? Yeah, where did it go from there?

05:24

So Like we covered on the last episode His kind of best friend

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Abu Bakr I think of him as like the Brigham Young of Islam. Yeah He doesn't claim to be a prophet but everybody's kind of, you know morning and he kind of comes and he stands out in front of everyone and says

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If you worship Muhammad Then you should be sad because Muhammad is dead

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But if you worship Allah do not grief because Allah is very much alive and never dies and he kind of takes this sort of mantle of leader of the

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Muslim community this mantle of Caliph and Ali believes he should be the Caliph but initially when

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Abu Bakr claims power Ali is a team player and Joined in with that.

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So the fracture is is immediately Resolved but Mecca and Medina Stay Muslim, but then basically all the other parts of Arabia say, all right, we followed

06:27

Muhammad But we are not going to follow you. We don't want to pay your taxes anymore. We're going to appoint our own profits

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So that leads to a one -year war Known as the

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Ridder Wars or the apostate wars where Abu Bakr sends the Muslim armies all over Arabia and basically defeats these, you know, prophetic claimants and and and and kind of your reunifies everything and this is a significant time because We'll try to laugh too much here, but this ends in something called the

07:01

Battle of your mama And It's a significant battle because as we've established up to this point the

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Quran is not written down it's all memorized and 800 according to the

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Islamic sources 800 soldiers who'd memorized the Quran died in that battle so Omar and Abu Bakr decide if we don't do something we're in danger of losing the

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Quran If people keep dying So they then start writing it down and gathering

07:35

You know various pieces people have written down and they gather it all and give it to Hafsa Muhammad's widow

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Omar's daughter It has everything except for two of the chapters. So that's the first written gathering of the

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Quran. That's about two years after Muhammad's death Um, so Abu Bakr reestablishes political control and then the

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Muslims start fighting wars against both the Sassanid Persian Empire and the Byzantine Roman Empire and They're winning basically every battle they're in because you have these, you know

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One the Empires are kind of exhausted from fighting each other but also these you know desert

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Bedouins who have lived off the bare minimum of the land and Can you cross the deserts and have great supply lines in this battle ethic, which is like victory or martyrdom?

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you know just become this unstoppable force in the ancient world much like the Vikings were and They are basically winning victory after victory but Abu Bakr was an old man when he took the job and Abu Bakr Abu Bakr, you know died of natural causes and probably be the you know, the last

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Muslim leader in a while to do so and then Omar took over and Omar was hardcore

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Like, you know, he's like the ultimate micromanager. He lives kind of as an ascetic, right?

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He's the most powerful man in the world at this point and he can like, you know There's a very simple life and and he kind of insisted everyone else does as well.

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So, you know as the armies Conquered Jerusalem and as they start conquering, you know hit into him

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They conquer all the Sassanid empires, but he's like breathing down. Everyone's next being like, all right, you collected this much tax money.

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Where'd it go? Why are you wearing silk? That's not what a public official should be wearing You should be dressed simply right things like this so much so that his own son is caught publicly drunk and he gives him like you know 80 lashes with The whip and ends up killing his own son for being publicly drunk.

09:36

That's double the prescribed amount for that crime. Yeah, so The so so under him the

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Muslim Empire is very effective it takes over Egypt it takes over Jerusalem It takes over, you know, all of Persia and Iraq And it's just unstoppable

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But like towards the end of that Some people who resent him for destroying the Sassanid Empire will call them our

10:02

Sassanid assassins show up to The mosque when Omar is leading the prayers and they attack him with a poison sword

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They don't kill him right away, but the poison does its job and as he's dying he basically selects this, you know council of men who he thinks would be good candidates for the next leader and One of them he chooses is

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Ali Who the Shia believe should have been the successor in the beginning and another guy is a guy called

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Uthman who was basically the kind Mohammed's rich friend who like basically kind of Lives by the proverb money answers everything, right?

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and He's really good. Everyone loved this guy, right? And so, you know while Omar is Leading this sort of ascetic life

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Uthman is living in his palace eating sumptuously, you know every day and After 10 years of being like I think 12 years of being micromanaged by Omar people want to break so they

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You decide not to pick Ali they choose Uthman instead and Uthman significant because he is the one that finally collates the

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Quran Mostly as we know it today The the

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Quran has vowel pointing and Uthman's did not because there was no vowel pointing at the time But it has the same number of surahs and orders order of chapters in the

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Quran Surah is just the sort of word for chapter. Yeah. Um, I is the word for verse so Uthman collects all this

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Because the Muslim Empire is growing at this point before it was just in Arabia. Everybody kind of got it But then they're concerned as Islam spreads people might start to kind of like, you know

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Miss things and take things out of context or you know, make up parts So basically he gathers together all the manuscripts he makes one official state

12:02

Quran and burns Everything else so no one can come and say hey,

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I have the true Quran basically But through his

12:13

Generally through his governance, right? Uthman is the guy that can kind of fix any situation so much so there's a guy who is his brother -in -law who converted to Islam and moved to Medina with the

12:25

Muslims and he was He was a he was a scribe for Muhammad and then he decided that he wasn't

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Muslim anymore left Medina went to Mecca and said I believe in lots of gods again

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Hmm, and when Muhammad took over Mecca, he was one of the few people that he actually demanded this guy's execution yeah, so this guy goes to Uthman and Uthman brings him to Muhammad and Uthman is like I'll just say the

12:51

Pledge of Allegiance to Muhammad and he says the Pledge of Allegiance and Muhammad just Stands there staring at him saying nothing

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And again say the Pledge of Allegiance. He says it Muhammad doesn't acknowledge him and finally he's

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Says the Pledge of Allegiance the third time and Muhammad says, okay I accept your Pledge of Allegiance and then

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Uthman and his brother -in -law, you know leave and Then you know the

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Muhammad's like I didn't answer him twice why don't one of you cut his head off And it's like what we don't we can't read your mind

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Why don't you gesture or something and he's like it's not right for a prophet to have sort of deceptive eyes

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Right. So Muhammad spares him because of Uthman's advocacy for him Basically, even though didn't really want to so Uthman is like a great guy to know right?

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Yeah, if Muhammad demands your death Uthman is like the one guy that can get you off the hook yeah

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But That Guy who he got off the hook. He actually appoints him governor of Egypt and he basically appoints all of his relatives to governorships of different provinces and his cousin is the governor of Damascus in Syria and One day his cousin shows up to the mosque drunk and Uthman won't even fire the guy

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So this so unlike Omar right who punished his own son to the point of death Uthman won't even you know fire the guy from his job.

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Who's he's related to you. So he's too easygoing And that's why he will picked him because they're sick of being micromanaged.

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But at this point Aisha Muhammad's widow starts stirring up unrest against against Uthman and then

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Her half -brother Who is now Ali's adopted son and Abu Bakr the first caliph's biological son he

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Leads a rebellion against Uthman goes into his house and this results in Uthman's death so Uthman this generous well -connected guy is murdered in his own home by a mob of people and now

15:04

Then they got a figure out who's gonna be the leader now So Ali is kind of like the one competent guy left in Medina.

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So finally The guy that she is think should be in charge is actually put in charge.

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Mm -hmm. And so everybody You know likes Ali they have a different interpretation of his, you know role, right?

15:25

So so Ali is Ali is the caliph but Uthman's cousin a guy called

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Muawiya. Yeah wants justice for Uthman hmm, and the murderer the leader of the mob is

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Ali's adopted son. Mm -hmm and Basically, he says I want justice and Ali says if you find me the person who stuck the knife in I'll execute them but I'm gonna

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X I'm not going to execute 600 people. Mm -hmm. And so Aisha then is

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Frustrated with or even though she kind of started stirring up unrest against Uthman does not like how things went and She stirs up You know stirs up a rebellion against Ali yeah, and they may have some previous beef because at one point

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Aisha was accused of adultery and As Mohammed was trying to figure out what to do

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Ali was like, you know do what you want to do But there's lots of other women out there kind of thing. Yeah You know that may have not played into it at all they may be completely past that this might be something new

16:34

But there's definitely this sort of inter -family politics at play here. Yeah, and Ali and So Aisha actually starts a war with Ali and like, you know a woman in the you know 600s leads an army while riding on the back of an armored camel kind of like yelling out orders

16:53

So Ali engages the army and defeats her But you know spares her and she kind of fades into obscurity at that point

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But after all these forces are depleted Muawiyah Uthman's cousin comes and he starts

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Another war with Ali and they fight a battle called the Battle of Siffen Now Ali is kind of like, you know

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He's captain Islam. He's kind of unstoppable. He's you know, pious. He's the best possible, you know warrior he's like the ideal

17:24

Muslim in people's imagination, right and Ali is kind of unstoppable in the battlefield But Muawiyah is gifted in a different type of way and After a day of losing the next day

17:36

Muawiyah sends his frontline troops with verses of the Quran strapped to their chests and Ali's super pious troops will not strike the

17:45

Quran so they They lose, right? Wow So In Iran, let me ask this and now because this is the question

17:57

I was like you got me thinking is that so you've got all this tribal warfare going on really for succession

18:02

But you also have finally the Quran going from an oral tradition to being like written down So in the process of all this tribal warfare

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Was there even the unit that was their unilateral agreement on? What was actually like written down like it was that did they agree with like all the surahs work were correct?

18:23

You think about like Catholics and Protestants differ on like what the canon was? Uh -huh with the different sects who are fighting for power to they were they all sort of unilaterally decided?

18:32

Okay, this is canon, but we're just fighting over like who is the true successor Yes, and no, so all the sects that survive

18:45

Believe in the same Quran right there were groups like I was gonna call it Ibn Masud who is a prominent

18:51

Quran Translator who kind of resisted the collection of the Quran didn't like what they were doing.

18:57

There's a guy called obey Ibn Kaab Who had you know, a couple more surahs in there.

19:02

Ibn Masud had less. Yeah They disagreed but no, there's no like surviving factions there

19:09

So when the Quran was collated by Uthman Ali was part of the state, right?

19:15

So he so he was Uthman's advisor and you can go and kind of read the conversations they have About you know, are they kind of giving

19:22

Uthman advice in Al -Tabari? so Sunnis and Shias do not differ on the

19:28

Quran because While the seeds of the division are there we haven't gotten there yet.

19:36

Hmm This this is still we're at the point where this still could have been solvable.

19:41

Yeah But it does not get solved. Yeah, because Ali basically after this battle is they're kind of at a stalemate

19:49

So Ali basically agrees to kind of work with Muawiyah and sort of split the territory between them on the condition that Muawiyah Let the next caliph be decided by the council of elders

20:06

Rather than just appointing his son as the caliph. Yeah, and Muawiyah agrees to these terms But then some of Ali's own people called the

20:16

Qarajites Were so frustrated with Ali capitulating that they killed

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Ali So Ali was assassinated by his own men

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So again that helps for a minute there because it wasn't the other side that killed him right who is his own side and Then so then

20:41

Ali's sons come to an agreement with Muawiyah That okay. We'll just kind of honor our father's terms as long as You don't kill as long as you don't appoint your successor as your son then we're good.

20:57

Yeah, and he agrees to this and But you know, this is the two sons of Ali Hassan Hussain the grandsons of Muhammad Hassan mysteriously dies through poisoning and then

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Hussain lives and as Muawiyah is dying.

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He says my son shall be my successor, right which you know kicks the whole thing off again which frustrates a lot of people so his son

21:24

Yazeed becomes the caliph and what happens at that point is

21:32

Hussain is summoned to a place called Kufa in Iraq And he's told the people of the city with you we need to save the

21:39

Muslim community from this corrupt government We will we will follow you So Hussain goes to Kufa to kind of meet this army and it turns out to be like 70 people

21:52

It's not the army. He thought it was yeah, so so the forces of Yazeed are coming

21:57

He's getting ready to fight them. But at this point, it's not a battle. It's a massacre and Hussain and his son are you know, you know slaughtered at something called

22:08

Karbala Which is something the Shia remember every year where the the son of Ali and his grandson killed

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Karbala and this family the Prophet taken into Taken into You know captivity basically

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Mm -hmm So that there that incident there is the one that cements the rift between the

22:32

Sunni and Shia Factions there the Shia is believing that Ali and his descendants are the proper leaders of the

22:40

Muslim community and then the Sunnis believing that the community as a whole is rightly guided and we have to kind of basically do

22:48

Follow the sort of mind of the group rather than one specific family in that And so while the

22:56

Quran is the same basically everything that comes after is You're different not in not in the sense of like, you know, how you know, like what the what all the ethics are

23:09

But there are gonna be several differences And but their view on history is very different. Yeah, what's up?

23:14

Everybody? It's the super sleuth here Letting you know that you can go to shop cultish comm and get all of our exclusive cultish merch

23:21

There's the bad theology hurts people shirt Jerry wears it all the time I wear it all the time Sometimes we wear it at the same time without even trying to have that happen on the show and we're just like whoa

23:30

You're wearing the shirt. I'm wearing the shirt You could wear the shirt to go to shop cultish comm today and get your exclusive cultish merch.

23:38

Talk to you later guys Yeah, do you see a similarity Andrew and I'll let you jump in here the difference

23:43

I was just thinking me about that fragmentation between the Sunnis and Shias the Joseph Smith's death and the separation between Emma and Brigham Young and you saw

23:52

Somewhat adherence to the same revelation, but then there was a differentiation in between Succession.

23:58

I know what else did you recognize that what else is on your mind with everything? He's James has been saying this is so fascinating Yeah, it's it's extremely fascinating.

24:06

Yeah to back up a little bit. I do see that that similarity Jerry because I think the The underpinning is the same right?

24:12

There's a prophet prophet dies and then revelation can either continue or it can just stay where it is within Mormonism It's progressive revelation.

24:20

So they're assuming the mantle of a prophet to get revelation from God. Whereas Muhammad was this final prophet

24:26

But want to back up a little bit to Aisha. Is this the same one that Muhammad married at like six or nine years old?

24:32

Yeah, so according to all of the Sunni sources He was she was six when they

24:41

Arranged the marriage and nine when they consummated the marriage Wow, so so in terms of this inter family conflict that we were seeing here how in the midst of all of this

24:54

Conflict were they still able to conquest right? I feel like a nation if they were to see these things coming from the outside of like this is where they're the weakest

25:01

We need to attack them and we need to take control, but somehow even during through this Interrelational conflict they're having within themselves

25:08

They were still able to conquer more and more land because look looking things up It seems that the only other government that has like in this successful in conquest with speed and the extent of which they conquest

25:20

Had the conquest was Alexander the Great like so even during this time with all this conflict within themselves

25:27

They were still conquering great places of land Yeah, I mean what's crazy is how fast this is all happening,

25:35

I mean we're on you know, basically Civil War 3 and This is like less than 60 years after Mohammed's death, right?

25:45

Right, but I think basically what you what you really have is they're not usually happening at the exact same time there like the initial conquests

25:56

The initial massive conquests happen basically right away Before you have any major division, right?

26:04

So under Under the first four who the Muslims called the rightly guided caliphs

26:10

They're basically kind of one unstoppable force and most of that conquest happens in Omar's reign So Omar is the guy who's taking territory and organizing everything

26:19

Uthman is kind of making everything more wealthy and collecting the Quran and then you know

26:25

It's really by his death that the wars Really start which has given them, you know a solid, you know, ten years to kind of build and so you do have these kind of collapses and rebuildings

26:41

But You know, but all the way is he's like the Sassanid Empire is gone, right? So there's no

26:47

Sassanid threat so the only Viable opponent they have at this point are the Byzantines and they have their own sort of you know power struggles as well

26:56

So they just never are able to quite, you know get on their feet basically

27:02

But yeah, I mean it is crazy that People didn't take it more advantage of this. Hmm now that Yeah, that's crazy.

27:12

I mean, it's hard to I mean, this is just so there's so many different components going on so you then again you have the fragmentations of the

27:19

Sunnis and Shias and so now it's never still really the same Quran and But now it's just a matter of like who who's actually the utilizing catalyst to sort of utilize that to wield its power

27:32

Let me ask you this what me in the process of all these different wars and factions. Was it mainly?

27:39

Did they see the Quran as sort of like a catalyst to wield power or were they just sort of?

27:46

Trying to figure how to phrase this question correctly. Did they? Do they believe like the true causes that was to facilitate the move of light of just what

27:55

Islam was at that time Does that my question make sense? So I let me let me phrase that we think so there is a kind of question.

28:01

Are these people kind of like cynical manipulators or true believers Yeah, I mean maybe a little bit of both like, you know, you think about we're

28:09

Julie You know geopolitical movements and sometimes people are utilizing something there. They have an ulterior motive, right?

28:15

So you think about you know here like in the United States You'll have like a pastor, you know a politician who will show up at a church to sort of like say hey,

28:24

I'm I'm here I'm sort of like I'm a believer in and I'm a person of faith and it kind of they have like their segment of like The religious right they want to capture their vote, but they also want they got to capture all these other votes, right?

28:38

So like in this are they? Are they sort of adhering to Islam as a means of political power or are they true believers or is it sort of a

28:46

Mishmash of both. I think I think when you're looking at this sort of Especially say

28:52

Omar and Ali these men are 100 % true believers. Okay, right They really really really really believe in the cause

29:03

When it comes to Uthman Yeah But when it comes to Muawiyah, yeah, he's somebody who's much more like a sort of modern politician so Muawiyah is the guy that actually the first Muslim we have coins minted from and On his coins.

29:22

We actually have crosses on the coins Because Muawiyah is presenting himself as a benet as a

29:28

Muslim, but who's a benevolent governor and friend of Christians and Jews as well So Muawiyah is a very very competent leader

29:37

So he gets thrown under the bus in Islamic history because you know, he went to war with Ali But you know if you look at him

29:45

He was a very very effective leader in a lot of ways and a great administrator not so much of a conqueror but somebody who's it really able to you know, put a functioning state together and Probably it's his competence as a governor

30:00

That meant that the Islamic world is durable enough to handle some of these civil wars. Yeah later. Oh Okay.

30:07

Yeah, so where does it continue from here? Because you know, I still am seeing this progression the belief in the Quran And sort of seeing this involvement and these like warring factions and tribes

30:17

But now if you think of like Islam today you have all these subsets like you have the symbol of the maybe we'll probably get

30:23

Into it like the symbol of the crescent on top of a mosque and the call to prayer and praying, you know Praying to certain times per day and like all the things that come with what

30:33

Muslims traditionally practice Like how does that MIT? how's that what how does that work in along the sort of like timeline of all these different tribes sort of Saying we are the true successors.

30:45

Yeah. Well, you know, we're not there yet, right? We're a lot of these things haven't developed into their final forms at this point

30:54

So, you know from there right the first generation are kind of fading away they they all they all die off.

31:01

Yeah and You know again the the caliphate fractures

31:07

Into several parts. So you've got you've got you know, you've got one general in Iraq one guy called al -azhar in Medina and then you've got the carriage rights the faction that killed

31:18

Ali in Oman and they've basically been there till this day I'm on super chill now, but they have their own complete unique sector of Islam called the

31:27

Ibadi Muslims And and so basically what happens at this point is then there's a guy called

31:33

Abdul Malik who basically you know starts fighting It's all these different factions reunifies the territory and And basically cements the power of the sort of ruling family of the

31:46

Mayads. Yeah, right. That's the tribe. He's from the Mayad caliphate And they then start continuing the conquest and from the time of Muhammad's death you have exactly 100 years of unstoppable

32:02

Muslim conquests and there's basically There's two places where they're stopped.

32:09

The first is at Constantinople, so it's kind of like the last heart of the

32:14

Byzantines in Asia But they attack from like a lot with a land and sea army but the

32:20

Byzantines successfully defend with use of something called Greek fire and Then there's a guy called

32:26

Charles Martel in Europe who hears about the Muslims and starts getting ready Because at this point

32:31

Europe doesn't have any standing armies This isn't the day of the Romans armies are gathered by militias

32:37

Whereas the Muslims have a professional army at this point and so they just like cut through these things like a knife through butter

32:45

The other ensemble but Charles Martel anticipates this starts raising a professional force and right as the

32:52

Muslims Have conquered Spain and about to enter France. He then Defeats them at the

32:59

Battle of Tours and basically stops the Muslim conquest there Now around this time the

33:08

The Islam is starting to formulate itself more. There's a guy called Wassil Ibn Atta and he starts this school of thought called the

33:17

Muatazilites and The Muatazilites are actually a syncretistic school of Islam and so they basically believe that Yes, Allah has sent us the

33:30

Quran but now he's given us all these people and cultures we have access to so we've conquered You know parts of India.

33:36

We've conquered parts of the Greek world of you. We've conquered the library of Alexandria We've conquered

33:42

North Africa and Spain and we have all these different ideas, which are suddenly under the same political administration.

33:49

So They start, you know Being interested in all these different ideas that have come to the world and this your pursuit of knowledge

33:58

Is this kind of highest virtue and rationality? Meanwhile people from people who are from Mohammed's tribes the tribe of Abbas Growing Uncomfortable with the

34:13

Umayyad rule and start a revolt where they start taking territory from the

34:19

Umayyad ruling dynasty and then they basically invite all the Umayyad tribal leaders to Like a feast and have their own red wedding called the banquet of blood where all of them are killed except Someone in Spain so Spain stays under the

34:36

Umayyads and then everything else is under what's called Yeah, the Abbasids real quickly.

34:42

What cut was really blowing my mind here You think much is like like timelines or even like a time -lapse. I think about it's we're deep we're in we're in January 2020 2024 and You think about what was going on in 1924

34:56

Yeah, and all that's all that's happened. Just what I know about history from the 1920s till now

35:02

That's a lot that's happened and you have access to so much more information now and I think that this small period of just 100 years and the main the really focal point isn't is all

35:15

The subjugation of conquest by you know Not just one sort of movement as a whole but all these sort of different warring factions

35:22

I mean, that's really doing thinking about what happened between that timeline. It's fascinating. Yeah Yeah, it's crazy.

35:30

So I think we're now about we're about 150 years after Muhammad at this point Yeah, when you have the you know, when you have the

35:37

Abbasid revolt But this when the Abbasids take over they really don't expand as much anymore

35:45

And this is what's known as the Islamic Golden Age So this is a time where you know, the

35:53

Muslim world has you know massive advances you know

35:59

Baghdad at the time was built by this in this time period as the Abbasid capital and You know you had like lit up streets

36:07

It was for the most part clean You had the strongest armies the best education and you had something called the house of wisdom in Baghdad where all the literature the world

36:15

Was translated into Arabic and people would study these things and come up with these like new event inventions. Mm -hmm. So That's where you get things like, you know

36:24

Guitars you get a coffee really starts to become a thing. Mm -hmm ice cream becomes a thing algebra

36:33

And so, you know my Muslim friends will say, you know, why does everyone think we're terrorists? We invented algebra like dude, that's why yeah well

36:41

I do have to give I do have to get credit like I remember being and I had like a 24 -hour layover in Dubai in 20 in 2015 and man having some

36:49

Arabic coffee that will cure you if there's anything they'll cure jetlag That will take care of it. Like that's that's like Matt.

36:56

I'm a coffee person Like I I sort of received with caution. I tread light when it comes

37:01

Arabic coffee So I do have to give mad respect on that Let me ask you this too when you talk about the Islamic Golden Age the

37:06

I think I've heard in me I've been you or just sort of like look just reading up and watching some videos on it

37:12

There's isn't there a correlation between them getting the Library of Alexandria to the Islamic Golden Age?

37:17

I mean there's because I mean as our conquest and they're getting plethora of like wealth of knowledge of information from the inventors the philosophers that seems to be just sort of like part of Cons of conquest a consequence of conquest is that you can sort of you capture the wealth of information.

37:33

They've been accumulating Yeah, for sure for sure. That's part of it But like people wanted to a lot of people want to give the

37:40

Muslims no credit for this. Yeah, which isn't Correct because the Mongols captured a lot of libraries and left a lot of ruins behind them, right?

37:48

So just because you're conquering people with information doesn't mean you have the power to like Utilize the information you capture right so the attitude in the

37:56

Muslim world right now Or at that time allow them to make use of that information and you know, take humanity forward at that point

38:05

I mean so people will say yeah Well, a lot of these contributions come from Christians and Jews living in the time

38:10

Okay, sure, but you still have a Muslim leadership that's able to say Okay, the the things that Christians and Jews are able to contribute to our society are worth having right now, right?

38:21

So you've at least got to give them credit for something. Yeah in that time, and I think it's really really Important as Christians that we don't have like this cartoonish view of the

38:30

Muslim world, right? Muslims a Muslim living, you know 1 ,500 years ago and a

38:38

Muslim. No, wait, no Muslims living 1 ,500 years ago when it wasn't living a thousand years ago It wasn't living a thousand years ago and a

38:46

Muslim today is an image bearer of God and And a sinner right and so there's good things

38:53

Muslims have contributed to the world and good things Muslims have contributed to history and just because we disagree with You know theology and a concern about their eternity doesn't mean we can't you know

39:05

Celebrate the good parts of their culture as well in the contributions They've made to the world and I think that's really important for us to do.

39:10

Mm -hmm Yeah, I was looking to um an episode from theology podcast I don't if you ever heard of them

39:16

They did an episode on the Islamic Golden Age and they were just talking about how during this time there was of course the

39:22

Islamic Philosophers that would get together with the Christian philosophers the Jewish philosophers They'd like a very peaceful relationship within these academic circles and a lot of what we know or at least have a heavily influenced from was their

39:35

Interpreting of the works of Aristotle like brought about like a big awakening during that time for the world

39:42

It was a really interesting episode that I was like, wow, I would have never known Any of this stuff, but yeah,

39:48

I I totally agree We need to be able to give them credit where credit is due or specific that were happening during that time

39:53

So yeah, so after giving them credit where credit is due. We also have to give criticism where criticism is due, right?

39:59

Because While While this was a sort of tolerant time to you know to some extent because of this much

40:09

I was like philosophy It didn't solve all those problems that way

40:14

So if you were a Christian or a Jew disagreeing with the ruling school of philosophy You could have a free life if you were a

40:21

Muslim who disagreed with this theology straight to jail Hmm, so there's this guy called

40:28

Ibn Hanbal yeah, who is what would be known as a traditionalist Muslim much more akin to what you know, we see today in the world and Ibn Hanbal critiques this sort of leading

40:39

Martyrs like school of thought and because that school of thought is the official school of thought of the government

40:46

The guy called Caliph al -Mamun Imprisons Ibn Hanbal for his for his point of view

40:56

Which is a you know, and and this is so there's no there's not ultimately kind of freedom of speech in that sense

41:03

Because you can't you're not allowed to criticize the you know ruling system and the reason that's such a dangerous game to play is

41:10

Because what happens when the people who disagree with you get power and that's what happened You have a guy called al -mutawakkil who's considered the last great caliph of the

41:19

Islamic Golden Age And we're about you know, 200 and So now we're where are we when?

41:27

when sort of like 861

41:33

Yeah, 863 at this point Which is 200 years, you know after Muhammad Around that in that ballpark.

41:42

Anyway al -mutawakkil changes his mind and he Believes Ibn Hanbal releases him from jail and imprisons the

41:53

Mu'tazilites Because one thing you have always had in Islam is an absolute union between religious power and and government power

42:07

So, you know while you know, we as Christians want to see God honoring laws in where we live

42:13

That's not the same thing as wanting to have you know, Pastor Jeff be the president and supreme, you know religious leader

42:20

Right, is it we we understand the distinction in roles? which Islam has never had in such a you know clear -cut way so the caliph gets involved in these things and Starts suppressing this movement, which had really made the

42:35

Islamic world prosper and This begins the decline of the

42:40

Islamic Golden Age This guy called al -Ghazali who's a he writes a book called the incoherence of the philosophers who says look if a

42:50

Fire burns thread. It's not because fire naturally burns thread. It's because Allah wills for this thread to burn up.

42:57

So So there's these debates and what starts to formulate is a much more

43:05

Rigid Islam at this time so Ibn Ibn Hanbal has a student called

43:15

Imam Bukhari and Imam Bukhari starts to put together a book called sahih al -bukhari, which is basically finding all these stories about Muhammad everything he said and did and putting them together in Written form and so for the next you know hundred so basically this starts to happen about 225 years after Muhammad and then over the next 75 years

43:40

You know, they they start to correlate something that were known as the sitter Which is basically they assess all of the things that are floating around that Muhammad said and did and figure out

43:50

Okay, how far can we trace back this story according to generations? Okay, so this person heard it from this person who heard it from this person and we have another source saying this person heard

43:59

It from this person heard it from this person who heard it from Muhammad himself. Yeah, and they basically Coalate the

44:06

What's known as the sahih this the sitter hadith? Which you consider the reliable stories according to Sunni Islam of what you know, everything

44:15

Muhammad said and did categorized by what's Reliable and knowable by the average Muslim, right?

44:21

so at that point That's where you start to get things like the contents of the five daily prayers that's where you get the five pillars of Islam Cemented so that's from the hadith.

44:34

Muhammad says Islam is a house built on five pillars the Shahada, which is the confession that there's no

44:40

God, but God Muhammad is his messenger. You've got the five daily prayers. You've got there's a cop which is taxes kind of like Muslim Social Security the

44:50

Hajj the pilgrimage to Mecca and then Fasting during Ramadan Wow That mean that's that's so incredible in that meeting

45:01

You talk about like after the fact of like this of just a timeline of just all these different warring factions and you have this golden age of Islam and then

45:10

It's really sort of in the the closure of that period is where a lot of what we see

45:15

Like really today carried out amongst, you know different sects of Islam Whether it's you know,

45:20

Sunni Shia like those fundamental tenets that we see because yeah, I'm manager earlier You're like it.

45:25

We're not there yet. Well, so now we're there. Yeah, and it's something that really evolved really post You know post the

45:32

Golden Age of Islam where you see a lot of these things in play oh, yeah, just it's like it emerges during the decline of the

45:39

Golden Age and So so for example, and it's not to say that none of these ideas existed before then

45:45

It's just that that's when they kind of decide Okay, these the ones we believe in this is, you know, orthodoxy.

45:52

So so for example, it became canon. Yeah yeah, basically, but the the

45:57

One example of like a theological difference that kind of gets, you know cemented this time is the nature of the

46:04

Quran so the the traditional Sunni Muslims believe the

46:10

Quran has always existed and as it exists currently is an uncreated form in in Heaven with Allah and then it's only kind of like put into sort of you know spoken reveal at the time of Mohammed Yeah, the more tarsalites believed that that constituted shirk if the

46:28

Quran's co -eternal with God it would have to be God itself Therefore it has to be created And so they believe the

46:35

Quran is created as Allah reveals himself through the angel Gabriel to Mohammed so that's you know, one point of theological difference between these two factions and a lot of these

46:46

You just like over time a lot of these things get, you know cemented by tradition rather than you know history

46:56

Fun example of this right one thing everyone knows about Islam is

47:02

Which they know that it's not Isaac the Abraham was commanded to sacrifice but Ishmael.

47:08

Mm -hmm But if you read the scholars in the Islamic Golden Age like Al -Tawri he says that some hadith say that it's

47:18

Ishmael some hadith say that it's Isaac and It honestly makes most sense to me that it's

47:24

Isaac not Ishmael so a lot of the early Muslims believed it was Isaac and not

47:29

Ishmael who Abraham was come on to sacrifice and it's only really later that everybody knows it's

47:35

Ishmael It's definitely Ishmael, but that's not in the Quran. It's not in the early Islamic sources There's something that's kind of formulated later.

47:40

Yeah, and even like within their theology isn't there a fundamental like pre -supposition or reason why they choose

47:46

Ishmael and it has to deal with what they believe as far as a prophetic succession I mean succession

47:52

I mean kind of but I mean they don't not believe in Isaac as a prophet, right? Right, so they believe

47:58

Mohammed is descended from Ishmael. Mm -hmm, but you know The idea that Ishmael is a prophet is in the

48:04

Quran and Mohammed is descended from you know Ishmael is certainly in early Islam, but it doesn't necessitate

48:11

He's the one that sacrificed, right? so now we have sort of on the tail end like to the

48:17

Golden Age and now you see like the fundamental tenets like Historically leading up to like what we see now as far as what is practice out called a prayer, you know, the five pillars

48:28

Where the symbol of the Crescent like where does that fit in was that something that was evolved later on or what?

48:33

What does that actually represent? Yeah, that's way later way later. Yeah. Okay. Um, that's like we can hold off.

48:40

Yeah. Yeah, we'll hold off Yeah, that's way later. Yeah What was it's interesting too because like I see these things and there's this

48:47

There's this tendency to look at all those aspects and say, okay Well, this all started here not seeing as this evolving period of hundreds hundreds of years

48:57

That's it's interesting Yeah, yeah, you know it's it's like you're crazy how much development there is

49:04

Yeah, and all the while the Shia are developing their own sources and their own, you know beliefs about things, you know

49:10

Yeah in their own, you know corner of the world And they actually start as the as the

49:16

Abbasid Caliphate is declining. The Shias actually start their own Caliphate in North Africa And actually start and actually start, you know taking over all of you know,

49:27

North Africa as this is as this is happening Yeah And so what's so what's the next step after that after this?

49:34

So you have some of the fundamental periods happening mean the fundamental tenets of Islam as we know today But then historically, where does it go from there?

49:41

so One thing lots of people don't know is the thing that really bought an end to the sort of Islamic Golden Age is the

49:52

Mongols actually So Genghis Khan Well, that's what comes to mind

49:58

Yeah, and it's with the Hulhulu Khan who was the sort of successor of Genghis Khan in the region so this at this time also

50:08

You also that's when this sort of Crusaders and the Mongols are sort of, you know to Separate issues and they start, you know arising at the same time

50:17

So, you know in the so you've got the Crusaders, you know starting the Crusades kind of starting in the sort of you know

50:27

You know after the Great Schism in the sort of, you know 1100s sort of realm and what's happened there is they've always had a stream of Christian pilgrims going to Jerusalem from you know,

50:42

Europe and Asia and One of the caliphs You know cuts off those pilgrims and all this time there's always this military threat of Muslims taking over more of Europe at this point and trying to you know, wipe out the

50:58

Byzantines They're kind of constantly kind of in this cold war with each other Yeah, so the

51:03

Church of the East writes to the Church of the West and says Dear Catholics, we're kind of in bind right here and we're not allowed to go to Jerusalem anymore this interests both of us

51:17

Please help us recapture Jerusalem so at this point the

51:22

Crusaders come from Europe and managed to conquer Jerusalem and sort of successfully hold it for you know a thousand if not for like, you know for a

51:34

Pretty long time. Yeah until And and the at this time the Abbasid Caliphate has been losing heritage of the

51:41

Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa as well So it's fractured.

51:47

It's much less centralized now Because one thing that's been happening since the sort of as the

51:54

Islamic Golden Age declines is They lose more and more You know power and it takes more and more, you know, it takes more and more, you know local

52:05

Governors to make things happen, which means that they gain more and more power and they call those people Sultans one of these guys is a

52:13

Kurdish guy called Salahuddin and Salahuddin Manages to defeat but there's two things he manages to infiltrate the

52:22

Fatimid government overthrow it and bring back the North African territory to the

52:28

Muslims and He manages to defeat the Crusaders in Jerusalem and take back Jerusalem For the

52:35

Muslims as well and basically, you know reunifies the power of the Abbasid Caliphate briefly Is that the is that the guy that's depicting

52:43

Kingdom of Heaven? Yes, okay Yeah, I'm a visual now. Yeah, I am

52:49

NOT those men. Yeah, I'm Salahuddin. Yeah, my favorite just, you know My favorite line from that movie where Salahuddin says

52:57

I was like when about when Balin asked him He's like, what is Jerusalem to you? And he goes nothing. He turns around Everything Such a great line.

53:06

No people. I actually employ that when people ask me where I'm from. Yeah Because you know, I have a kind of a blended accent at this point

53:13

British people think I sound American Americans Think I sound British so people as a where are you from? I'm like nowhere everywhere

53:23

That's great Andrew what what what thoughts come to mind with this This this wild linear timeline that we're on.

53:29

Yeah, this is the time to talk about the Crusades, by the way Let's get into that now if we want to yeah

53:36

Andrea, that's what anything comes to mind historically with what he's talked about No, it's just it's a fascinating man.

53:44

It's a it's it's it's awesome. It's been captivating so far this last 55 minutes has been Great.

53:50

It's been great. I can't wait to get into the the Crusades I've learned a lot. So I'm just really appreciative of you and all the research that you have done man

53:56

Just praise God for that. I'm excited Yeah, well So what's interesting too?

54:02

Is that you know you what you're seeing so far is really internal tribal warfare

54:07

There's not necessarily like a lot of doesn't seem like a lot of like fighting Robinson It's nice from the one you said there is the one person who stopped the advancement

54:15

Prior to that like you said about right minutes ago motel, right? But it seems to me that this is more internal still internal like fighting triballing for who's the true?

54:25

Successor of Muhammad like that seems to be that along as as they're expanding the crusade when you think of the crusader

54:32

You're really looking at like European Anglo -saxon people like versus, you know Look the advanced the advancement of Muslims.

54:40

And so it seems to me like this is where where does it go? What's the starting point to where it kind of became like an internal tribal warfare thing to you know?

54:51

Anglo -saxon or whatever you want to call it versus Like Muslim because that's usually when I think of like crusades, that's what comes to mind yeah, well the the funny thing about the

55:00

Crusades is In the West we think of this as some sort of like massive

55:06

Civilization level war the Muslims at the time thought of them as a slight inconvenience Yeah, okay, yeah, so They don't even they don't even think of them as the way they describe them as the

55:23

Farang They just see these these like French barbarians who are kind of like temporarily, you know causing problems

55:30

But there's no like oh, no, we're about to lose everything kind of thing. And you know, this is an existential threat to us

55:37

Right. It's just like what an annoying headache It's almost like, you know You find rats in your basement or cockroaches or scorpions because we're in Arizona and you've got a you know

55:46

Cool pest control and get them out. Yeah, so it's like It's it's more it's more like they'd see it more akin to the

55:54

American War in Afghanistan Yeah, then like World War two or something. Hmm. Yeah, what's also interesting too?

56:00

Is that again my my it's such a fascinating thing because you're talking about how you know

56:05

There's relationships that you know Christians and Jews would have with Muslims right throughout, you know And and throughout their society even throughout, you know

56:12

The whole part of the time of this like this conquest and what's very interesting Want to get your thoughts in this in Kingdom of Heaven the what's the name of the king like who?

56:21

Had the leprosy when I lived till 30 and had the Edward Norton played in Kingdom of Heaven But then he died he had leprosy in his face.

56:28

And so we have like that I forgot his name. Yeah, I forgot his name I might have to look him up but in it like he had sort of like this friendship or relationship with Saladin Like and so you kind of had that like there

56:41

Yeah, so like in this way was the one Baldwin in Baldwin. Yeah So you kind of see you saw this sort of like interesting like friendship than association that people had

56:51

Like what was the starting point of like the Crusades like when it went into become like a notable thing

56:57

Was it kind of like who struck first? It was a risk but was that a response to something that happened at a particular place like World War two for like us getting into the

57:06

Pacific with Japan was obviously Pearl Harbor You think about you know There's always these things that happen like the

57:11

Mexican the American -Mexican war started with the Alamo, right? Like what what's what was the starting point for well,

57:17

I mean, I think the clear starting point is that the Muslims conquered a bunch of the

57:24

Byzantine territory and we're trying to conquer Europe as well, right like You know, it's it's like there's a lot of the time it's kind of you're frustrating talk to people about empires and colonialism and conquest because in General what

57:41

I can see is that with a lot of my Muslim friends Colonialism is a word that's you know bad when someone else does it but great when they do it, right?

57:51

So you talk about you know, Spanish colonialism of the new world, which again I also disagree with but When they talk about Muslims conquering

57:59

Spain, it's like when the Muslims liberated Spain from who the Spanish So you've got you've got all this and then again the trigger point is

58:09

The Muslim leader of Jerusalem Stops Christian pilgrims from being able to go to Jerusalem.

58:16

Mm -hmm, and then that's you know It's like to you or I that's not a big deal because we're Protestants that don't believe in pilgrimages

58:22

Yeah to people who believe in pilgrimages. It's kind of like the straw that breaks the camel's back basically

58:28

And that's kind of the you know Trigger event that makes them think okay time to push back now.

58:35

Mm -hmm Hmm okay yeah, and so then where so what what sort of like if you give it just a cliff notes summary of like what where do

58:44

The Crusades ultimately what was the long -lasting effect of the Crusades and that had on Islam? What did

58:50

Islam look like post post Crusades? Again, not really that different. Okay, because Again it'd be it'd be like if Like China came and it'd be like if North Korea came and like took over Seattle.

59:06

Mm -hmm Yeah, it's a bit of a headache nationally. It's a little embarrassing. Yeah, but like your day -to -day life isn't really gonna change all that much

59:15

Like you'd be like you'd care about it for like two months and it's like yeah That wasn't really like a huge deal to us.

59:21

Anyway, yeah We should probably got to get to that eventually So if you look at the you know, the the to -do list of you know

59:29

The caliph you think how many frontiers they have they have African tribes They have you know

59:34

Turkish tribes on the north and they have this this of Asian they have China on the other side and they have the

59:40

Asian steppes Which is this, you know current there's always sort of mystery and then they have a frontier with India as well

59:45

Yeah so they're dealing with all these different cultures and there's threat of war and there's wars between all of them at different times and Then this force of French people how is how they think of them come and just like bite off a chunk of their land

59:57

It's surprising. It's embarrassing, but it's not like oh There's some existential threat to us now, right so Islam itself doesn't change a ton there

01:00:08

At least not what we can observe. It's what comes next which changes Everything.

01:00:15

Hmm. And so why don't we do this? We'll leave people in the cliffhanger because I think we've gone about 50 minutes

01:00:20

I'm curious about what will be next. So we're gonna wrap up part two. This is

01:00:26

Dude, so fascinating. I mean, there's so many working pieces I think this will just be helpful for people because a lot of times we look

01:00:32

We look at history in very simplistic terms and just understanding This is an involvement of something like hundreds of years and like even the dialogues

01:00:41

So you've had with with Muslims who are in your area in Seattle like there This is their worldview is a culmination of all of this one way or the other

01:00:50

So I think like having that is so helpful is so helpful. I definitely would agree So let's go ahead and do this.

01:00:56

We're going to go and wrap up part two I'm curious we're gonna find out about this cliffhanger going into part three of this extended series on Islam So all that being said,

01:01:06

I thank you all for listening in and we'll talk to you next time on cultish Talk to you all soon Can't wait to get the next episode in the series then join the cultish all -access get early release of these series to quench those

01:01:17

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