058 | Politics Is What Went Wong With Islam's Golden Age | Abdul Karim

Where there's politics, there's always evils, as leaders wants more territories and more slave people to work for them to make them more rich and more powerful. We see that today and through out the centuries. How do you know for sure that the people involved in evil behaviors as Islam spread were Muslims? How do we know that Islam was not hijacked by some that have other motives and that also became Muslims so they can benefit from this religion and gain more power over the people. During the golden age, Islam spread to many places. Islam was not spread by the sword, it was spread by Muslim traders that went to many places where they continued their faith, and others joined them in their faith, in places in China and Indonesia. You mentioned the Mongols that converted to Islam. How do we know that they didn't have other intentions, and how do we know that they were actually Mongols (maybe others had infiltrated the Mongols and were just using them for their own benefits. Today Muslims are all over the world, and many went to those places by ships, foot, plane etc...and in those same places Islam continued to grow, and it's certainly NOT BY THE SWORD AND THUS SPREAD BY PEOPLE WITH TAQWA. AND THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT - ISLAM IN THESE PLACES WERE SPREAD BY PEACE AND NOT BY THE SWORD, AND TODAY WE SEE THAT ISLAM CONTINUES TO BE THE FASTEST GROWING RELIGION EVERYWHERE ON THIS EARTH. WASN'T IT THE SAME BACK IN THE GOLDEN AGE FOR THE MOST PART OF IT? SO WE SHOULD ALSO SPEAK ABOUT THE GOOD THINGS, AND NOT ONLY WHAT SEEMS TO BE BAD THINGS.

Dr. Zaid began with Adam falling into sin, and says that Allah created good and bad. My understanding is, Allah created Humans and instructed humans to stay on the straight path, else if we drift from the straight path, we will fall into doing evil things. Allah provided us with guidance, and we are the ones that chose evil or were brought into evil. Allah did not create evil. We have free will, so we chose to do bad things. We are the ones that creates evils and chose to do bad things. We chose not to follow the guidance to stay on the straight path. Adam was the one that chose to do bad things based on being misled - Allah did not create that evil, Adam did that by himself. Allah created us with emotions such as love, anger, jealousy etc...we all have a choice. Even if we are angry we do not have to chose evil, but many do for riches and fame. Many chose material things to showoff to their friends and families etc...

Around time 32 minutes, Dr. Zaid spoke about the language of the Quran and what's spoken today. The way I look at this is, for example the Latin language still exits, but what's spoken is Italian which I believe is about 95% Latin, Spanish about 80% Latin, Portuguese a bit less Latin than Spanish etc...Each of the language I just mentioned has words from other languages mixed in. The Quranic Arabic which was spoken back in the days of Prophet Muhammad (saw) is not spoken today. The common language across the Arabic speaking countries which is used in Literature and the media is called Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) which is close to Quranic Arabic but has many new words and new pronunciations on some of the Quranic words. MSA is not spoken in the street because the languages spoken in streets have influences from other language. For example, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan speaks Levantine Arabic, which I heard is about 40 or 50% Quranic Arabic mixed in with Syriac and Aramic, and even some or many of the words of the Quranic Arabic is pronounced differently. If you go to Morocco, their Arabic have more Spanish and probably French and words from African languages. So a person from one end of the Arabic speaking world to the other end may have problems understanding each other. Therefore, I would say that many of these people do not understand Quranic Arabic except for the Quranic words in used in their country. However, although they speak their own dialects, they can understand each other through MSA. Now when it comes to, let's say children that grew up in Canada and only knows Levantine Arabic through their parents, they do not really understand Quranic Arabic. How many of us speaks Shakespearean English? Not many but we speak a modern version of English. I'm also sure that back in the days of the Prophet, if you travel 300 miles, there are other words from other places that were in those people's Arabic, and as you move further away, words from other languages would be in their Arabic etc...therefore it's not hard to understand why people within a hundred years, 200 years later etc... began to not understand the Quranic words, because they all spoke their own street Arabic. But of course when it comes to politics, and divide and rule, they would also influence the translation for their own purposes and benefits. Isn't it always been about divide and rule.