Phenomenology of World
Religions ©
Chapter 13
Sword of Islam
ISLAMIC EMPIRE GROWS
Abu Bakr
was the father-in-law of Muhammad and his first successor. He was given the
command of the faithful as Khalifah (Caliph, meaning “deputy”). Several tribes refused to
accept his right to rule and a war broke out called Ridda, fought by Abu
Bakr and his general Khalid ibn al Walid. The success in that battle and
battles thereafter against Persia and Byzantine initiated a series of war of
conquest outside the Mohammed Arabian peninsula.
Their army had become formidable with dedicated followers of Islam, swordsmen
mounted on camels and able archers on horseback that came out of the desert and
struck the heart of Persia and Byzantine empires. The two empires were already
becoming weak and their army was not organized sufficiently to defeat the
Arabs. The Arabs soon conquered Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and Persia. The Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem in 640 and
guaranteed the preservation of the Christian holy places there.
After Caliph Ali was
murdered in 661, the Caliphate moved to Damascus under the reign of Mu'awiya,
who founded the Umayyad dynasty.
DIVISION – ISLAM IS DIVIDED BY SECTS
During the
course of its history, Islam developed into numerous schools of thought and
sects that had different views and philosophies that ranged from violent to
puritanical, such as the Wahhabi
of Saudi Arabia to the tolerant and spiritual Sufi.
RISE OF SHI'ISM
Caliph
Mu'awiya continued
the expansion of Islam, despite internal strife within Islam, throughout
Central and Eastern Asia, which included Afghanistan. He also launched the
first Muslim expeditions against the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, named
after the first Christian Roman emperor – but was unsuccessful. In 680 he died
and was succeeded by Caliph Yazid. During this period there was strife amongst the
Moslems of different factions, mostly concerning tribal warfare and internal
strife between families that has been historically the case over the centuries
on into today's modern world. Indeed, despite modernization of the Arab world,
it retains the medieval ideology within its theocracy that is considered
barbarism in the eyes of the civilized Western world, that is now threatened
with internal strife within its own nations, working its way through Western
civilizations via the abuse of the tolerance of free-thinking nations; and
whose immigrants who have refused to assimilate in their adopted states, but
instead insert Sharia Law with the goal of changing the state of which they
adopted and supposedly immigrated to in the name of “improving their lives”.
This will be addressed in the following chapter that reveals the dark side of
the religion of Islam and what it has become today.
Yazid was
challenged by Hussayn,
son of Ali, in 680 and Hussayn and his followers were massacred in the Battle of Karbala in Iraq. Despite that set back of
opposition by the Shi'ite faction, their ranks grew, especially among the newly
converted non-Arab Moslems called the Mawali, who demanded equal rights with
their fellow Arab Moslems. Out of this chaos came the Isma'ili, Carmathians (Qarmatians),
and The Fatimids;
all centrally believing that a special leaders was on the horizon, called the Mahdi, doctrine compared to the
equivalent within the Jewish and Christian faiths of a Messiah.
The major
Shi'a ritual is Ashura
– commemoration of the death of Husayn (Hussein ibn Ali)
. Other practices within the doctrine includes pilgrimages to shrines of Ali
and his relatives. The Druze,
Ismailis,
Alawi,
and Fatimid all
believe in the Shi'ism,
sharing beliefs of emanations of God, supernatural hierarchies, (angel lore)
and transmigration of souls.
ABBASIDS AND ARAB POWER
Those
elements within Shi'ites became disenfranchised and united under the leadership
of Abu Muslim Khorasani in Persia, flying their black flag
(used today by Islamic militants) of rebellion in Khurasan.
Social revolution was the key element of the Abbasid Caliphate
dynasty; adopted by
Arabs who had been displaced by Persians and other enemies, as well as the fact
that certain aristocracies were disappearing. However, the good part was that
the distinction between Arab Moslems and converted Moslems were wiped away,
which paved the way to an intellectual and tolerant Moslem society, leading to
the Golden Age of Islam. The Abbasid caliph, Al-Mansour,
built a capital city on an island between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where
a small Persian village once stood. He called the capital: Madinat as-Salam – the city of peace – but
history has kept its older Persian name: Baghdad.
GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAM
This period
in Islamic history began with Caliph Haroun al-Rashid,
who was part of the Abbasid power that expanded Islam from the Arabian
Peninsula to North Africa, Mesopotamia, and central Asia in a brief period of
history. Baghdad had become the cultural center of the known world, at a time
when Europe was overrun by superstition and tyrannical theocracy referred to as
the “Dark Age” in the early Middle Age period of human history. It is noted, in
highlight, that during the reign of Al-Ma'mun (819-833) there arose a spectacular
cultural revolution that included poetry, literature (1001 Arabian Nights)
explosion, as well as great works in the realm of science, mathematics, and
philosophy that was translated into other languages other than Arabic, which
preserved the ancient classics that had survived the fall of the Library of Alexandria. At the time, Baghdad was the
richest city in the world, for Rome had fallen from its loftiness of the days
of the empire to the seat of papal authority, home of the Vatican, and ruled by
despotism and feudal monarchy. Caliph Al-Ma'mun collected texts and employed
translators such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq,
and established an academy in Baghdad called Bayt al-Hikmah
(“House of Wisdom) that had a large library, observatory, and research center
where private citizens could enjoy science and the arts. It was a reincarnation
of the academies that once was located in Alexandria that supported learning
and intellectual study in ancient history of Roman and Greek philosophers and
scientists.
The contrast
between illiterate monarchs in Europe to the enlightened Arabic civilization
was astonishing, and saddened to think that Europe had once been a great
intellectual and learned place before the end of the Roman Empire. Of course,
religion still played an important part of society, but the study of science
and philosophy was taught and encouraged in universities that later transcended
to Europe through translators to different intellectual parts of Europe. This
cultural revolution preserved the ancient Greek and Roman works from the
Library of Alexandria as well as from the Far East through the trade routes.
Those works were later translated and brought to Spain in the 12th
century. Another innovation was the introduction of paper from China, as well
as the introduction or concept of the “zero” into mathematics from India; which
in turn was incorporated with the Arabic numerals, system of reckoning, as well
as the Arabic invention (discovery) of Algebra.
Along with
this cultural revolution the spread of Islam increased across the Sub-Saharan
Africa into South East Asia, and Indonesia. In Europe, Spain was
incorporated into the Islamic empire and the Arabs also began attacking Sicily, the
island state south of the foot of the Italian peninsula. Indeed a force of one
hundred ships sailed with Spanish Muslims to gain a foothold in Europe by
occupying Palermo
in 831. Moslem rule in Sicily and parts of southern Italy lasted until 1091,
after the First Crusade began. Spain was conquered after several waves of
Moslem invasions in the 8th century.
FALL OF ABBASIDS AND DECLINE OF ARABS
As the story
of many great civilizations, with different reasons but with same outcome, the
Arab empire began to disintegrate and a period of independent Caliphates and
chaotic invasions followed. The Fatimids established an independent Caliphate
in North Africa in 910, and conquered Egypt in 969, founding the city of Cairo.
The Fatimids based themselves in Egypt and briefly retook Jerusalem in 1055,
and their rule spread to Syria and Palestine. In these centuries, the Assassin
sect arose, based chiefly in Iran and Iraq that had derived from the Ismai'ili
faction. They were hired killers who offered their services to Moslem rulers.
It is believed that they used Hashish to achieve a state of ferocity, but this
has thus far just been a cultural tale. By the time the Crusaders arrived, the
Islamic empire was suffering from internal strife, despite the fact they were
wearing down the Byzantine Empire, who pleaded for aid from Rome) into a state
of submission.
THE CRUSADES
In this
period of conquest and the assault against the Christian eastern empire of
Byzantium, the ruler of Constantinople sent a plea for aid against the
encroaching horde of Islamic warriors. The First Crusade was about to be
enacted.
Pope Urban
II received the plea for help to save Byzantium through an ambassador sent by
Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I. Komenos asking for help from invading Seljuk Turks
who had already taken over Anatolia. The Christians were also wanting to
reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem where the Christian founder preached and
died. In March of 1095, the Council of Piacenza met with Pope Urban II, which
was attended by bishops from all over like Italy, Burgundy, and France, held in
the open air outside the city because there were too many to fit into the
council chambers. In that same year, in the month of November, the Council of
Clermont met and Pope Urban II gave a stirring sermon to convince the Christian
states to join together to free the Holy Land from the Moslems, as well as the
eastern churches, from the control of the Seljuk Turks. Attending were nobles
from many kingdoms and devout Christians interested in the Holy Land. In
letters to gain momentum and support in the effort, Pope Urban II wrote and in
speech:
I, or
rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and
to perse all people of whatever rank, foots soldiers and knights, poor and
rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race
from the lands of our friends. I say to those who are present, it is meant also
for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it. [i]
...this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded
by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it
abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough to its cultivators. …
Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars
cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road
to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked
race, and subject it yourselves … God has conferred upon you above all nations
great glory in arms. Accordingly, undertake this journey for the remission of
your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
… Most beloved brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the
Gospel, … Unless the Lord God had been present in your spirits, all of you
would not have uttered the same cry. … Therefore I say to you that God, who
implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be
your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an
armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the
soldiers of God: It is the will of God! …[ii]
Jerusalem
was captured in 1099 after many battles after the Crusaders landed in the
Middle East in 1096. The Islamic world reacted slowly at first, not expecting
such a large force of intruders to arrive, such as the Franks. Salah Ed-Din,
a Kurd, took control of Fatimid Egypt and declared an end to the Fatimid
dynasty in 1171. He reconquered Jerusalem in 1187 after defeating the Crusaders
at the Battle of Hattin. The Crusaders remained in Syria
and Palestine. The last Christian fortress to fall was at Acre, which fell in
1291. [See map]
MONGOL INVADERS
The Abbasid
still ruled as Caliphs until 1258, despite losing territory to the Buwaydids
and Seljuk Turks who conquered Baghdad, the capital of Arabian Islam. The
Caliphate ended when the Mongols arrived under the leadership of Hulagu who
sacked Baghdad. The Mongols swept across the Middle East and reached the
Mediterranean Sea leaving devastation in its wake. The advance of Hulagu
finally stopped at the Battle of Ayn Jalut near Nazareth in Palestine in 1260.
The Mongols eventually converted to Islam and integrated among the Moslem
domains. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the invasion of Timur
or Tamburlane the Great brought devastation to the Islamic world,
conquering Samarkand in central Asia and reaching Syria around 1401.
The Mamluke Turks were a slave caste of warriors who
took power around 1250 in Egypt and founded Salah Ed-Din and Cairo, Egypt.
They were the ones who defeated and drove out the Mongols at Ayn Jalut.
They quickly extended their rule into Palestine and Syria.
During all
the confusion left by the retreating Mongols of Tamerlane, the Safavid dynasty took
power in Persia in 1501 and established a strong independent state, but
eventually had to relinquish control of Baghdad and all of Iraq to the Ottoman Turks.
[See History of Modern Iran]
OTTOMAN TURKS
While
the Mameluks were controlling the southern part of the Middle East, the Ottoman
Turks were gathering strength in Asia Minor and into pasts of Europe. They were
well organized making them successful, using the newly invented firearms, which
others did not have. The Mameluks were once Turkish warrior slaves, as
mentioned above, and their soldier caste called Janissaries, which means “New
Troops”.
WAHHABI
A branch of Sunni Islam that was founded by theologian Muhammad ibn Abd
al-Wahhab (1703-1792) of Saudi Arabia to ensure that Islamic
fundamentalism remained the core of the religion, sources remaining with the Qur’an,
Hadith, and scholarly
consensus called Ijma. In the beginning it was
a peaceful movement and with the help of Uthman ibn Mu’ammar, the Najd
Amir, it became popular. Wahhab attacked the moral decline and political
weakness that had developed in the Arabian Peninsula, influenced
by foreign interference, and condemned the Christian church for its
idolatry of saints, shrines, and tombs.
The first people to oppose Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab were his father, an
Islamic scholar and his brother who was a qadi. In 1801 and 1802, the
Saudi Wahhabis under the leadership of Abdul Aziz
ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the holy Shia cities of
Karbala and Najaf in Iraq and destroyed the tombs of Husayn ibn Ali,
grandson of Muhammad, and son of Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad. In 1803 and
1804, the Saudi captured Makkah and Madinah and demolished venerated shrines,
monuments, and removed any possible evidence of polytheism as in the Shirk, like the shrine
built over the tomb of Fatimah,
daughter of Muhammad. In 1998, the Saudi bulldozed and allegedly poured
gasoline over the grave of Aminah bin Wahb,
the mother of Muhammad, causing resentment throughout the Islam.
[See Sunnis
vs. Shi’ites]
Wahhabism has found its way outside of the traditional Arab nations and
into the United States and built mosques there establishing
its fundamentalism there. Publications found coming from these mosques
stated that Muslims should always
oppose infidels in every way and for Allah’s sake hate them for their religion and that democracy is responsible for all the
horrible wars of the 20th century. It even went as far as
condemning Shia and certain
Sunni Muslims calling them
infidels.
Despite marked connection between Wahhabism
and Jihad Salafis, Natana De Long-Bas,
senior research assistant at Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian
Understanding at Georgetown University stated:
The militant
Islam of Osama bin Laden did not have its origins in
the teachings of Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab and was not representative of Wahhabi Islam
as it is practiced in contemporary Saudi Arabia, yet for the media it came to
define Wahhabi Islam during the later years of bin Laden's lifetime. However
"unrepresentative" bin Laden's global jihad was of
Islam in general and Wahhabi Islam in particular, its prominence in headline
news took Wahhabi Islam across the spectrum from revival and reform to global
jihad.
{SOURCE: Wahhabi
Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad, Natana J. Delong-Bas,
Oxford University Press, 2004; p. 279}
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
This organization was founded in Egypt in 1928, a religious social
movement, by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher, Hassan
al-Banna. At the end of World War II the organization had two million
members. The Muslim Brotherhood
began as a religious social organization, preaching Islam, teaching the
illiterate, setting up hospitals and launching commercial enterprises. As it
grew, it began to oppose British rule in Egypt in the 1930s. Today it extends
its radicalism supporting Hamas. Now Mohammed
Mursi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood is the president of Egypt and
introduced Sharia Law
overriding the former Egyptian law making the brotherhood an illegal
organization. It occurred by the Muslim
Brotherhood infiltrating Egypt’s parliament and eventually taking control of
the nation causing recent turmoil and fanaticism. [See also: Wahhabis
– Discover the Networks] In the United States, Wahhabism and other
hate-cult Islamic
fanaticism has infiltrated prisons. Saudi Wahhabi clerics have preached and
recruited violence
across the spectrum of the Arab world and Middle-Near East. The Muslim
Brotherhood and Wahhabi have jointly or separately funded Jihad
and terrorism. In the United States those organizations are falsely
painted as peaceful organizations and movement, using the religious
tolerance of the democratic nations to infiltrate a nation’s infrastructure turning
against governments that had allowed them to immigrate with intention of
assimilation – which was not the underlying reasons for immigration.
Violent Islamic organizations and movements have been intentionally and unintentionally
encouraged to continue its subversion and long-term goal of global domination
through tolerant programs and policies that support an intolerant religion.
President Obama bypassed Congress and provided
$1.5 billion to the Muslim Brotherhood and has supported their takeover of
Egypt and continued dominance in that region of the world. Beginning in the GW
Bush administration, Obama has furthered infiltration of Islamic subversion in
the United States with activists within
the Obama administration. It is also working on destroying
the efforts of the United States by first overthrowing Saddam Hussein and
affording the Iraqi people the opportunity for a democratic government by
circumventing and infiltrating the infrastructure there. Egyptian
lawyers testify that the Muslim Brotherhood has received billions of
dollars from Obama’s administration. In the United States, Americans are
concerned and outraged that Obama
approved sending arms and sophisticated weaponry as American fighter jets to
the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists for their efforts in the Middle
East and Arabian nations. Yet, continues
his policy to deny Americans certain firearms.
Islam is involved deeply with politics. Islam is a religion that is a theocracy consisting of
fundamentalists whose mindset is medieval, oppresses the people socially, and
desires global conquest. It is no different from the policies that started the Crusades, but now use
indirect approaches to fulfill its goals. Western nations have set up
governments that exercise separation of church and state for important reasons
at one level or another, and Muslims are working at changing that to Sharia Law like that which occurred in
Egypt and has also worked its way into the government of the Republic of
Turkey. As when discussing religion
of ancient Egypt, when there is discussion of Islam there is always the
underlying presence of politics included. Just as the pharaohs incorporated
directly into a religion, so it is with Islam with government. Ironically,
liberalism is considered a policy of infidels that are against the Qur’an and Hadji – yet, liberal political people support fundamentalism as
their right in the name of tolerance, siding with an intolerant religious
doctrine.
SUGGESTED
READING
Islamic
Jihad by
M.A. Khan
Islam’s
History of Oppression
by Dr. Sami Alrabaa
Understanding
Jihad –
Discover the Networks
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