The Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hilali, was born in Egypt’s Suhag district in 1941. He graduated from Al-Azhar University and served as a preacher in Egypt, Libya, and Lebanon. In 1982 he came to Australia, and in 1988 he was appointed to his present position by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. Sheikh Al-Hilali claims that Afghan Muslims preceded Captain Cook in his discovery of Australia: "Australia is an old-new continent. The Europeans issued a false birth certificate for it when the British seafarer Captain James Cook reached it. However, Australia already had the most ancient race of men on the face of the earth - the Aborigine people... They continue to live their primitive lives to this very day. But when you become acquainted with their traditions among their tribes, you find that they have customs such as circumcision, marriage ceremonies, respect for tribal elders, and burial of the dead - all customs that show that they were connected to ancient Islamic culture before the Europeans set foot in Australia.
| "No other cultures on the face of the earth practice any of these things!" |
"That is, Islam had roots deep in the Australian soil and read the Quran and called to prayer before the bells of the churches rang in Australia. The best evidence of this is the hundreds of mosques in the center of Australia built by the Afghans. Some of them were destroyed, and others were turned into Australian archeological museums, and still others remained unharmed, and they bear a history that proves that Islam has roots and ancient connections to Australia. But because they did not have the proper conditions to continue to exist, such as schools, propagation of the religion, and connection to the Islamic world, the first generation of our Afghan ancestors dissolved...
"I visited the town of Alice Springs in central Australia, and found there a map [of Alice Springs] under the name Mecca. Alice Springs is surrounded by high black mountains, similar to the mountains of Mecca. Summer there lasts 10 months, and winter only two months. The temperature is above 50 degrees Celsius. There are several kinds of dates and palm trees there. We did not believe that dates could grow there. Now that we know the reason, we no longer wonder. We found that our ancestors the Afghans were among the first Muslims, and they settled this area and called it Mecca.
"The strange thing was that when our muezzin [who accompanied Sheikh Al-Hilali on his visit to Alice Springs] stood up to call for prayer, the old people of the town came out, and so did men and youths, and they looked different than the black Aborigines. They were a mixture of Afghan and Aborigine, as a result of marriages of Afghan men and Aborigine women. When the muezzin called ’Allahu Akbar,’ they said, ’We have heard this song from our ancestors...’ When they asked us ’What is this song you are singing?’ we told them that this was an announcement of prayer time. When we asked them their names, they answered John, or Steve, but their names ended with Saraj Al-Din, Abdallah, or Muhammad..." And you know what that means, once Islamic land, always Islamic land. I guess the mufti will be calling for the shaheeds to free the occupied Australian territories anyday now, if he isnt already. |