Why did All The Religions Come From The Middle East? - Tough Questions To Historian!@MrAdnanRashid
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Atheists say that Islam was spread by the sword, is that true? How do we know that the prophets didn’t come to Amazon Jungle Hold on a second. We never heard that or maybe you added this word. One word added to that sentence. it would be questioned, challenged immediately by these very people at that time. Who is Adnan Rashid? Bismillahirrahmanirrahim I'm Adnan Rasheed and I'm a historian. I studied in London for my degree. I did my master's in history and I'm pursuing higher studies at the moment. I'm a book collector. I preserve heritage such as manuscripts and numismatic evidence. Generally speaking, I'm a traveler and I'm also a writer.
Why did all the religions come from the Middle East? How do we know that the prophets didn't come to other people? My question would be, okay, we know there are prophets who came from the Middle East. Absolutely. But we believe that prophets were sent to all nations in different times and different places. How do we know that the prophets didn't come to Amazon jungle to those tribes? How do we know if the prophets never came to Zulu people? How do we know prophets never came to the people of Papua New Guinea living in the jungles? How do we know? The prophets never came to Aborigines in Australia and those prophets were followed and their teachings are forgotten.
So this is a very strange claim or question, you know, how do we know absence of evidence does not mean, you know, evidence for absence. So that's my answer to that question. We know, prophets or teachers was sent by God to all people in different places where prophets never came, where people never found prophets, and they found themselves to be misguidance. They will be judged by God on the day of judgment, according to the situations, according to the circumstances, whether they followed whatever principles they had inherited, naturally it is part of human fıtrah, nature. our innate disposition that certain things are wrong to harm others. To cause pain to others is wrong. We know that.
So there are certain things, part of our fıtrah. So Allah (swt) wil use our fıtrah to judge us on the day of judgment. For those who did not receive the message from a messenger of God. Atheists say that Islam was spread by the sword. Is that true? It depends what they mean by that. The territory of Islam was spread by the sword. Absolutely no doubt. Unashamedly, we accept that because the Muslims fought the Persians, the Romans, to take the territory from them, to bring justice to these people. We, the Muslims, believe that early Muslims, when they went out fighting the Romans and the Persians, they were fighting tyranny, they were fighting oppression.
And we know that from the people who invited the Muslims into these lands. We have so many testimonies that the Byzantine territory, such as Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, people were inviting the Muslims to come and remove the Romans, the Byzantines, because the Romans, the Byzantines were oppressing the masses of these people. But Islam as a religion was never forced upon people. And when it was forced upon people, the scholars of Islam were the first people to stand up against such actions. In chapter two of the Quran, verse 256, the Quran says (لا إِكراهَ فِي الدّينِ ۖ قَد تَبَيَّنَ الرُّشدُ مِنَ الغَيِّ ۚ) There is no compulsion in religion.
And this verse is specifically talking about non Muslims. It is absolutely haram, forbidden, prohibited in Islam to force non-Muslims to accept Islam because the Quran says the truth stands clear from falsehood when people want to accept willingly, let them accept. If they don't want to accept, then be kind to them. How do we know this in chapter 60 of the Quran Surah Al- Mumtahanah, verse 8 that a Allah does not forbid you from being kind to those non-Muslims who do not fight you for your faith.
So that's what the Quranic principle is when it comes to non-Muslims and pick up the history and see Muslims created a civilization whole the Muslim civilization which gave breathing space to the Jewish people, which gave breathing space to the Christian people. They coexisted. Three Abrahamic faiths coexisted for the first time in human history under the umbrella of Islam. So this is why Muslims took all that land. Buddha is said to be a prophet. Is that true? Buddha is said to be a prophet. Is that true? We don't know. We can never know. We don't even know much about Buddha. We don't have his tradition preserved. We don't have his teachings that reach us without any corruption.
So Buddha is whatever they attribute to him We don't know if it's true or not. Is the dead body in the British museum the pharaoh in the time of Moses? That's not a pharaoh, that's a body which was found preserved in the sand. And that body is nearly 5000 years old. It comes from 3000 B.C. He's just an unknown person who died and was preserved in sand. That's not an Egyptian body, to my knowledge. Is it true that early humans were primitive, like the stone age and the caveman? Okay. A lot of these stories are made up. These are fictional stories, these drawings made by Darwinists and national geography magazines.
You know when they show you a caveman hairy caveman looking like an ape He is half human and half ape. There is no evidence in the fossil record for this stuff. This is a very basic answer I can give you right now. These categorizations are made by scientists and historians to basically divide the historic development of humans. They're not necessarily absolute. We don't have to necessarily follow them. But we do know even Islamically speaking, that Adam a.s., the first humans were basically very simple. They had simple tools, they had simple life. They didn't have things we have today. It took us a very long time to get here.
So are we going to look down upon the people who were living in the 10th century, let's say, a thousand years ago? No, we're not. They were very intelligent people. So humans have always been intelligent. From the very time they emerged on the scene in this planet, they have been intelligent. God gave certain characteristics and abilities to humans to survive, to live their lives. They only got more sophisticated with the knowledge, with the experience they gained through life. Some deniers say about Islam as a copy of past beliefs like the Sumerians. How would you answer that as a historian?
As a historian, I would say that if Sumerians have documented a fact and that fact is repeated in the Quran, then it's a fact. It's history. But if they mean people who claim this, that Quran plagiarized blindly from the Bible, from the Sumerians, from the Egyptians, then they are plainly wrong. I'll give you one quick example. When we read the Bible in the Book of Genesis, we see that the King of Egypt is Pharaoh. At the time of Abraham and the time of Joseph and at the time of Moses, for Moses lived somewhere around the New Kingdom period. And Joseph and Abraham were around in the old kingdom during the Hyksos periods.
So when Hyksos people were ruling Egypt who were not pharaohs were not from the same background. They used the title Your Majesty king. In their language it was Humph! So at that time, the title Pharaoh or “Paraah” in the ancient Egyptian language was not used for the king as a title. It was there as a reference to the Great House, but as a title for the King. Strictly speaking, it was used repeatedly after the year 1500 B.C. during the New Kingdom. So amazingly, the Quran makes that distinction correctly in Chapter 12 of the Quran. Surah Yusuf when you read the story of Yusuf a.s., Yusuf a.s. when he talks about the king, he doesn't call him Pharaoh, called him Malik, simply Malik.
But when you come to Moses in the Quran ٱذْهَبْ إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ إِنَّهُۥ طَغَىٰ go to Pharaoh because he has transgressed. So this distinction is very clear in the Quran, but it is not clear in the Bible. So this is clearly a historic error in the text of the Bible, which the Quran did not copy. So the Quran is clearly not plagiarizing. How can you prove that the Quran has been preserved until today? The Quran was revealed in the seventh century upon the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Prophet Muhammad was 40 years old when the revelation came down upon him and the Quran was written in front of the prophet by his companions on different materials.
For example, they used skins of trees, they used leather, they used bones, and they used wooden, basically ploques to write the Quran on them. Every time the prophet would receive the Quran, he would start reading it and his companions would be sitting around him listening to the Quran writing it. So at the same time it was memorized through memory and later on it was transmitted to the future generations by the same companions, especially Uthman B. Affan r.a. During his time there was a standardization of the text, so the companions of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. They took every single word of the Quran, and they wrote it down.
They authenticated the language and the style and even the script, and then they transmitted it. So we have copies of the Quran written at the time of the Prophet s.a.w. and his companions that can be found in global libraries. For example, we have the Sana'a manuscripts. They were found in Yemen and those manuscripts have been carbon dated to that age. Basically, they have come from the time of Uthman r.a. And then there is Birmingham Parchment, which was carbon dated. The date was basically between 568 to 645 CE.
That particular parchment was prepared within the life Prophet s.a.w not necessarily the writing writing could be slightly later, but the animal was killed within that time when the prophet was alive s.a.w Do wee have all these pages of the Quran from that date or just some pages? We have almost all of the Quran from the first century. We put all the manuscripts together because there is one in Turkey in the Topkapi Museum and we have Saint Petersburg copy, we have Tashkent copy, we have Hosseini Mosque copy, some of these copies maybe later. They may be from the second century of hijri.
But if we collect all the copies we have in global libraries and global collections, we can basically have the entirety of the Quran. The entire text of the Quran can be collected from the copies from the first century. So the Quran is preserved. I mean, we can say with confidence that we have exactly the same Quran today, word by word that was read and written by the very disciples, the companions of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w, How do we know that the Hadiths have been preserved to the present day? Hadith basically is the prophetic tradition information attributed to the prophet, what he said, what he did or what he agreed to. This is what basically hadith means.
With regards for the hadiths, Do we have anything written from the first century or the second century? We have very little. What we do have we have the chains of Hadith that can actually give us confidence as to the authenticity of these basically reports. For example, when we pick up Sahih al-Bukhari which is one of the most authentic collections of hadith. So we have the prophetic tradition compiled in Sahih al-Bukhari by Imam Bukhari. Imam Bukhari died in the third century hijri, so some people may ask this question that how can Bukhari know what happened at the time of the Prophet 200 years later? That's a very good question.
We explained to them the collection of Bukhari or Bukhari himself did not put anything without authority, without authentication, without having confidence in the information. So how do you do that? He was following a chain of narration, for example. Bukhari, when he says قال رسول الله the prophet said Whatever he transmits to us, he says, I was told by my teacher who was told by his teacher and that teacher was told by his teacher and that teacher was taught by the prophet s.a.w. So there is a direct chain of narration going back to the Prophet. This information came to Bukhari through a chain. How can be sure that these are trustworthy people?
Because we have the history of each and every single individual. We know who Abdullah B. Yusuf is. Where he was born, where he taught, how many people was he teaching, what was his character? Was he a dubious character or was he a truthful character? Likewise, we have information on Malik B. Anas who was Malik B. Anas? Very famous, very public figure, teaching publicly to thousands of people. Than we have Nafe'a. who was similarly a very famous, a very well known person who taught publicly, this knowledge was not secretly transmitted. It was publicly transmitted. That's why we have the confidence and it wasn't transmitted to one person in secret in a dungeon.
Rather, this knowledge was taught, this tradition Hadith was transmitted in mosques to crowds of people. So that's why other people could authenticate it. They could recognize this knowledge, and if any false information was transmitted, it would be questioned, challenged immediately by these very people at that time. Hold on a second. We never heard that. Or maybe you added this word. Where did you get this word from? So there is a sentence from the prophet. Someone comes with an extra word. One word added to that sentence. They would question it immediately. They would say, no, this word was not found in the transmission I received from my teacher. So this word is questionable.
So this is how they preserved the tradition, the history, the life of the prophet saw What if one of the narrators turn out to be a untrustworthy person? If there's a chain and in that chain one of the individuals is questionable for whatever reason. For example, a scholar said that he's forgetful. He mixes information. So when he transmits a hadith about the prophet, he mixes men in chains, or he mixes words in the reports so that person would be basically questioned and his reports would be regarded as weak. Those reports are not trustworthy.
So when men are all solid, they are known for their memory, they're known for their integrity, they're known for their truthfulness, they're known for their characters. Then those reports are authentic and Bukhari Sahih al-Bukhari pretty much collected information from such people. Any dubious characters, any untrustworthy characters, any forgetful individuals. Their reports were simply put aside because this is a matter of religion So your religion has to come from absolutely authentic sources.
So anyone who is sincere, anyone who is serious in learning about this knowledge and this transmission would come to realize that this is one of the most powerfully preserved historic traditions in human history. No doubt about that. There have been successful and unsuccessful periods in the history of Islam. What was the common secret of success? I believe Muslims became great because of their principles. Principles came directly from the Quran. So I describe the success of the Muslims through a very simple formula. I call that formula the golden chain in the history of Islam. I'm talking about spiritual success that led to physical, temporal, technological success, if you like.
So first thing in Islam is to attain spiritual excellence. You as human beings, you as persons have to be morally upright. You have to be just your character has to be trustworthy. You have to be honest, you have to be merciful, you have to be compassionate, you have to be generous. If these values, these characteristics are missing from a muslim's character, then he is not following Islam. He's not following the Quran. So the first point in success, as far as the Muslims are concerned, is to become successful spiritually. You have to become better persons, better human beings. You have to be compassionate and merciful. That's the first thing.
Once you become compassionate, merciful, just and honest and upright then naturally a natural outcome is temporal material success. If you are clean as a person, mentally and physically, you will make the society clean. So that golden chain of events is basically the revelation of the Quran. Number one is the emergence, the revelation of the Quran. Number two, the concept of justice that originates from the Quran. Number three, that justice gave peace to the world. Then number four is progress that came from that peace. So going backwards, there can be no progress without peace. There can be no peace without justice.
There can be no justice without the Quran when it comes to the Muslim civilization. So the Muslim civilization is made of these four events, and this is why I call it the golden chain of events in the history of Islam. It is said that the West got civilization from Islam. Is that true? There is no doubt that the West has taken immense benefit from Muslims. In fact, a lot of this technology you found today in the West was acquired from Muslims, albeit in a more simpler form.
The basis the foundations were laid by the Muslims to a large extent, Muslims took a lot of knowledge from the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, and they put this knowledge together in Baghdad during the Abbasid period and translated this knowledge into the Arabic language from other languages. And then this knowledge became widely available throughout the Muslim civilization of al-Andalus to all the way to China. Muslims made this knowledge universal, available to students from all backgrounds Jewish, Christian, even Hindus later on. And Muslims are also taking benefit from this knowledge. Muslims produced immense libraries, immense works.
So Muslims compiled all these works, and then they started to write commentaries on them. They started to do their own independent researches. They had their own labs, they had their own observatories for Muslims, pioneered these works for nearly a thousand years. Which religion will write the history of the future? I believe all religion are dead. All religions are dead. Except Islam Okay? I believe all religions are dead. Christianity is dying. Europeans have completely left Christianity. Christianity is dying in America. Christianity is dying in South America. There is only one continent where Christianity is surviving due to a lot of humanitarian work.
With regards to education and medical support, that's Africa. Other than that, Christianity's on the decline. So other religions are also declining. If you want to talk about Hinduism is declining. Clearly, when you look at the situation in India, this new Hindu revolution under the guise of Hindutva is a big travesty. It's a big, unfortunate occurrence. So Islam is the only religion which is making huge progress. Hundreds of thousands of people are accepting Islam. Those people who find themselves in a spiritual dilemma, those people who have nothing to look forward to when they have empty lives, they wake up to the reality of Islam sometimes they're exposed to it and they accept Islam.
So Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. There are Swedish, German, British, French, even Spanish and Italian individuals who are accepting Islam in large numbers, in particular women. Same is happening in South America and North America. Same is happening in Africa. So Islam is the religion of the future. Islam will write the future, I believe. Brother Adnan Rashid thank you for sharing your experiences and wisdom and knowledge with us. Hope to meet you Insha’allah again. Inshallah. Thank you so much.
Why did all the religions come from the Middle East? How do we know that the prophets didn't come to other people? My question would be, okay, we know there are prophets who came from the Middle East. Absolutely. But we believe that prophets were sent to all nations in different times and different places. How do we know that the prophets didn't come to Amazon jungle to those tribes? How do we know if the prophets never came to Zulu people? How do we know prophets never came to the people of Papua New Guinea living in the jungles? How do we know? The prophets never came to Aborigines in Australia and those prophets were followed and their teachings are forgotten.
So this is a very strange claim or question, you know, how do we know absence of evidence does not mean, you know, evidence for absence. So that's my answer to that question. We know, prophets or teachers was sent by God to all people in different places where prophets never came, where people never found prophets, and they found themselves to be misguidance. They will be judged by God on the day of judgment, according to the situations, according to the circumstances, whether they followed whatever principles they had inherited, naturally it is part of human fıtrah, nature. our innate disposition that certain things are wrong to harm others. To cause pain to others is wrong. We know that.
So there are certain things, part of our fıtrah. So Allah (swt) wil use our fıtrah to judge us on the day of judgment. For those who did not receive the message from a messenger of God. Atheists say that Islam was spread by the sword. Is that true? It depends what they mean by that. The territory of Islam was spread by the sword. Absolutely no doubt. Unashamedly, we accept that because the Muslims fought the Persians, the Romans, to take the territory from them, to bring justice to these people. We, the Muslims, believe that early Muslims, when they went out fighting the Romans and the Persians, they were fighting tyranny, they were fighting oppression.
And we know that from the people who invited the Muslims into these lands. We have so many testimonies that the Byzantine territory, such as Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, people were inviting the Muslims to come and remove the Romans, the Byzantines, because the Romans, the Byzantines were oppressing the masses of these people. But Islam as a religion was never forced upon people. And when it was forced upon people, the scholars of Islam were the first people to stand up against such actions. In chapter two of the Quran, verse 256, the Quran says (لا إِكراهَ فِي الدّينِ ۖ قَد تَبَيَّنَ الرُّشدُ مِنَ الغَيِّ ۚ) There is no compulsion in religion.
And this verse is specifically talking about non Muslims. It is absolutely haram, forbidden, prohibited in Islam to force non-Muslims to accept Islam because the Quran says the truth stands clear from falsehood when people want to accept willingly, let them accept. If they don't want to accept, then be kind to them. How do we know this in chapter 60 of the Quran Surah Al- Mumtahanah, verse 8 that a Allah does not forbid you from being kind to those non-Muslims who do not fight you for your faith.
So that's what the Quranic principle is when it comes to non-Muslims and pick up the history and see Muslims created a civilization whole the Muslim civilization which gave breathing space to the Jewish people, which gave breathing space to the Christian people. They coexisted. Three Abrahamic faiths coexisted for the first time in human history under the umbrella of Islam. So this is why Muslims took all that land. Buddha is said to be a prophet. Is that true? Buddha is said to be a prophet. Is that true? We don't know. We can never know. We don't even know much about Buddha. We don't have his tradition preserved. We don't have his teachings that reach us without any corruption.
So Buddha is whatever they attribute to him We don't know if it's true or not. Is the dead body in the British museum the pharaoh in the time of Moses? That's not a pharaoh, that's a body which was found preserved in the sand. And that body is nearly 5000 years old. It comes from 3000 B.C. He's just an unknown person who died and was preserved in sand. That's not an Egyptian body, to my knowledge. Is it true that early humans were primitive, like the stone age and the caveman? Okay. A lot of these stories are made up. These are fictional stories, these drawings made by Darwinists and national geography magazines.
You know when they show you a caveman hairy caveman looking like an ape He is half human and half ape. There is no evidence in the fossil record for this stuff. This is a very basic answer I can give you right now. These categorizations are made by scientists and historians to basically divide the historic development of humans. They're not necessarily absolute. We don't have to necessarily follow them. But we do know even Islamically speaking, that Adam a.s., the first humans were basically very simple. They had simple tools, they had simple life. They didn't have things we have today. It took us a very long time to get here.
So are we going to look down upon the people who were living in the 10th century, let's say, a thousand years ago? No, we're not. They were very intelligent people. So humans have always been intelligent. From the very time they emerged on the scene in this planet, they have been intelligent. God gave certain characteristics and abilities to humans to survive, to live their lives. They only got more sophisticated with the knowledge, with the experience they gained through life. Some deniers say about Islam as a copy of past beliefs like the Sumerians. How would you answer that as a historian?
As a historian, I would say that if Sumerians have documented a fact and that fact is repeated in the Quran, then it's a fact. It's history. But if they mean people who claim this, that Quran plagiarized blindly from the Bible, from the Sumerians, from the Egyptians, then they are plainly wrong. I'll give you one quick example. When we read the Bible in the Book of Genesis, we see that the King of Egypt is Pharaoh. At the time of Abraham and the time of Joseph and at the time of Moses, for Moses lived somewhere around the New Kingdom period. And Joseph and Abraham were around in the old kingdom during the Hyksos periods.
So when Hyksos people were ruling Egypt who were not pharaohs were not from the same background. They used the title Your Majesty king. In their language it was Humph! So at that time, the title Pharaoh or “Paraah” in the ancient Egyptian language was not used for the king as a title. It was there as a reference to the Great House, but as a title for the King. Strictly speaking, it was used repeatedly after the year 1500 B.C. during the New Kingdom. So amazingly, the Quran makes that distinction correctly in Chapter 12 of the Quran. Surah Yusuf when you read the story of Yusuf a.s., Yusuf a.s. when he talks about the king, he doesn't call him Pharaoh, called him Malik, simply Malik.
But when you come to Moses in the Quran ٱذْهَبْ إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ إِنَّهُۥ طَغَىٰ go to Pharaoh because he has transgressed. So this distinction is very clear in the Quran, but it is not clear in the Bible. So this is clearly a historic error in the text of the Bible, which the Quran did not copy. So the Quran is clearly not plagiarizing. How can you prove that the Quran has been preserved until today? The Quran was revealed in the seventh century upon the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Prophet Muhammad was 40 years old when the revelation came down upon him and the Quran was written in front of the prophet by his companions on different materials.
For example, they used skins of trees, they used leather, they used bones, and they used wooden, basically ploques to write the Quran on them. Every time the prophet would receive the Quran, he would start reading it and his companions would be sitting around him listening to the Quran writing it. So at the same time it was memorized through memory and later on it was transmitted to the future generations by the same companions, especially Uthman B. Affan r.a. During his time there was a standardization of the text, so the companions of the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. They took every single word of the Quran, and they wrote it down.
They authenticated the language and the style and even the script, and then they transmitted it. So we have copies of the Quran written at the time of the Prophet s.a.w. and his companions that can be found in global libraries. For example, we have the Sana'a manuscripts. They were found in Yemen and those manuscripts have been carbon dated to that age. Basically, they have come from the time of Uthman r.a. And then there is Birmingham Parchment, which was carbon dated. The date was basically between 568 to 645 CE.
That particular parchment was prepared within the life Prophet s.a.w not necessarily the writing writing could be slightly later, but the animal was killed within that time when the prophet was alive s.a.w Do wee have all these pages of the Quran from that date or just some pages? We have almost all of the Quran from the first century. We put all the manuscripts together because there is one in Turkey in the Topkapi Museum and we have Saint Petersburg copy, we have Tashkent copy, we have Hosseini Mosque copy, some of these copies maybe later. They may be from the second century of hijri.
But if we collect all the copies we have in global libraries and global collections, we can basically have the entirety of the Quran. The entire text of the Quran can be collected from the copies from the first century. So the Quran is preserved. I mean, we can say with confidence that we have exactly the same Quran today, word by word that was read and written by the very disciples, the companions of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w, How do we know that the Hadiths have been preserved to the present day? Hadith basically is the prophetic tradition information attributed to the prophet, what he said, what he did or what he agreed to. This is what basically hadith means.
With regards for the hadiths, Do we have anything written from the first century or the second century? We have very little. What we do have we have the chains of Hadith that can actually give us confidence as to the authenticity of these basically reports. For example, when we pick up Sahih al-Bukhari which is one of the most authentic collections of hadith. So we have the prophetic tradition compiled in Sahih al-Bukhari by Imam Bukhari. Imam Bukhari died in the third century hijri, so some people may ask this question that how can Bukhari know what happened at the time of the Prophet 200 years later? That's a very good question.
We explained to them the collection of Bukhari or Bukhari himself did not put anything without authority, without authentication, without having confidence in the information. So how do you do that? He was following a chain of narration, for example. Bukhari, when he says قال رسول الله the prophet said Whatever he transmits to us, he says, I was told by my teacher who was told by his teacher and that teacher was told by his teacher and that teacher was taught by the prophet s.a.w. So there is a direct chain of narration going back to the Prophet. This information came to Bukhari through a chain. How can be sure that these are trustworthy people?
Because we have the history of each and every single individual. We know who Abdullah B. Yusuf is. Where he was born, where he taught, how many people was he teaching, what was his character? Was he a dubious character or was he a truthful character? Likewise, we have information on Malik B. Anas who was Malik B. Anas? Very famous, very public figure, teaching publicly to thousands of people. Than we have Nafe'a. who was similarly a very famous, a very well known person who taught publicly, this knowledge was not secretly transmitted. It was publicly transmitted. That's why we have the confidence and it wasn't transmitted to one person in secret in a dungeon.
Rather, this knowledge was taught, this tradition Hadith was transmitted in mosques to crowds of people. So that's why other people could authenticate it. They could recognize this knowledge, and if any false information was transmitted, it would be questioned, challenged immediately by these very people at that time. Hold on a second. We never heard that. Or maybe you added this word. Where did you get this word from? So there is a sentence from the prophet. Someone comes with an extra word. One word added to that sentence. They would question it immediately. They would say, no, this word was not found in the transmission I received from my teacher. So this word is questionable.
So this is how they preserved the tradition, the history, the life of the prophet saw What if one of the narrators turn out to be a untrustworthy person? If there's a chain and in that chain one of the individuals is questionable for whatever reason. For example, a scholar said that he's forgetful. He mixes information. So when he transmits a hadith about the prophet, he mixes men in chains, or he mixes words in the reports so that person would be basically questioned and his reports would be regarded as weak. Those reports are not trustworthy.
So when men are all solid, they are known for their memory, they're known for their integrity, they're known for their truthfulness, they're known for their characters. Then those reports are authentic and Bukhari Sahih al-Bukhari pretty much collected information from such people. Any dubious characters, any untrustworthy characters, any forgetful individuals. Their reports were simply put aside because this is a matter of religion So your religion has to come from absolutely authentic sources.
So anyone who is sincere, anyone who is serious in learning about this knowledge and this transmission would come to realize that this is one of the most powerfully preserved historic traditions in human history. No doubt about that. There have been successful and unsuccessful periods in the history of Islam. What was the common secret of success? I believe Muslims became great because of their principles. Principles came directly from the Quran. So I describe the success of the Muslims through a very simple formula. I call that formula the golden chain in the history of Islam. I'm talking about spiritual success that led to physical, temporal, technological success, if you like.
So first thing in Islam is to attain spiritual excellence. You as human beings, you as persons have to be morally upright. You have to be just your character has to be trustworthy. You have to be honest, you have to be merciful, you have to be compassionate, you have to be generous. If these values, these characteristics are missing from a muslim's character, then he is not following Islam. He's not following the Quran. So the first point in success, as far as the Muslims are concerned, is to become successful spiritually. You have to become better persons, better human beings. You have to be compassionate and merciful. That's the first thing.
Once you become compassionate, merciful, just and honest and upright then naturally a natural outcome is temporal material success. If you are clean as a person, mentally and physically, you will make the society clean. So that golden chain of events is basically the revelation of the Quran. Number one is the emergence, the revelation of the Quran. Number two, the concept of justice that originates from the Quran. Number three, that justice gave peace to the world. Then number four is progress that came from that peace. So going backwards, there can be no progress without peace. There can be no peace without justice.
There can be no justice without the Quran when it comes to the Muslim civilization. So the Muslim civilization is made of these four events, and this is why I call it the golden chain of events in the history of Islam. It is said that the West got civilization from Islam. Is that true? There is no doubt that the West has taken immense benefit from Muslims. In fact, a lot of this technology you found today in the West was acquired from Muslims, albeit in a more simpler form.
The basis the foundations were laid by the Muslims to a large extent, Muslims took a lot of knowledge from the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, and they put this knowledge together in Baghdad during the Abbasid period and translated this knowledge into the Arabic language from other languages. And then this knowledge became widely available throughout the Muslim civilization of al-Andalus to all the way to China. Muslims made this knowledge universal, available to students from all backgrounds Jewish, Christian, even Hindus later on. And Muslims are also taking benefit from this knowledge. Muslims produced immense libraries, immense works.
So Muslims compiled all these works, and then they started to write commentaries on them. They started to do their own independent researches. They had their own labs, they had their own observatories for Muslims, pioneered these works for nearly a thousand years. Which religion will write the history of the future? I believe all religion are dead. All religions are dead. Except Islam Okay? I believe all religions are dead. Christianity is dying. Europeans have completely left Christianity. Christianity is dying in America. Christianity is dying in South America. There is only one continent where Christianity is surviving due to a lot of humanitarian work.
With regards to education and medical support, that's Africa. Other than that, Christianity's on the decline. So other religions are also declining. If you want to talk about Hinduism is declining. Clearly, when you look at the situation in India, this new Hindu revolution under the guise of Hindutva is a big travesty. It's a big, unfortunate occurrence. So Islam is the only religion which is making huge progress. Hundreds of thousands of people are accepting Islam. Those people who find themselves in a spiritual dilemma, those people who have nothing to look forward to when they have empty lives, they wake up to the reality of Islam sometimes they're exposed to it and they accept Islam.
So Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. There are Swedish, German, British, French, even Spanish and Italian individuals who are accepting Islam in large numbers, in particular women. Same is happening in South America and North America. Same is happening in Africa. So Islam is the religion of the future. Islam will write the future, I believe. Brother Adnan Rashid thank you for sharing your experiences and wisdom and knowledge with us. Hope to meet you Insha’allah again. Inshallah. Thank you so much.