by Nayab Naseer
Imam Ahmed, exiled from Baghdad also reached Nishapur. The two great imams met here and Imam Bukhari gave his wholehearted support to imam Ahmed’s cause. This brought them to the wrong side of the amir of Nishapur, Khalid ibn Ahmad al-Dhuhali, and both Bukhari and Ahmed were exiled from the town.
After al-Wathiq’s death, his brother al-Mutawakkil became the kalifah. Unlike his predecessors, he had the utmost respect and admiration for the orthodox Sunni school. Promptly after assuming office, he sent orders throughout the khilafat to put an immediate end to all discussions regarding the Quran, released all prisoners of faith, dismissed the Mu’tazilite judges, and more significantly deported the chief instigator of the inquisition, Ahmad bin Abi Du'ad along with his family. He further ordered the Mu’tazilite judges responsible for the inquisition cursed by name, from the pulpits.
The Mu’tazilate advance ended here, and imam Ahmed's stature rose as the hero who stood up against the despot rulers.
Very soon, one Ibn Kullub sought to reconcile between traditionalists and rationalists by championing the traditionalist cause using rationalist weaponry. However, his efforts were rendered a failure since imam Ahmad issued a decree of boycott against him for practicing speculative theology. Such was also the case with some of the early ascetics like al Harith al Muhasibi, who used to have large gatherings of sermons. It only needed one statement from imam Ahmad to diminish al-Muhasibi’s status, which caused him to die in exile with only a few people to pray over his funeral. Such was the strength of the traditionalist movement and the insignificance of the rationalist movement.
Al-Mutawakkil showed his utmost reverence to the hero of the inquisition imam Ahmad, and wished to take care of all his affairs. Imam Ahmad, however, turned down the offers due to his general dislike of being close to the rulers. Al-Mutwakkil, knowing that imam Ahmad would refuse his offerings presented some gifts to his son, Salih bin Ahmad. When this came to imam Ahmed’s knowledge, he showed strong disapproval and refused to consume anything from his son’s wealth.
On Friday, the 12th Rabi' al-Awwal 241 AH, (31st July 855 CE) imam Ahmed breathed his last. The news of his death spread far and wide in the city and people flooded the streets to attend his funeral.
Imam Ahmad’s death proved the ineffectiveness of the kalifah’s role in defining Islam, and further unquestionably acknowledged that it were the scholars, rather than the kalifahs, who became the true ‘inheritors of the Prophets.’
Imam Ahmed, spent forty years of his life in the pursuit of knowledge, and only thereafter assumed the position of a mufti. Yet, he did not suffice himself with seeking knowledge. He also adorned it with actions by making jihad, performing the guard duty at the frontiers of the kalifah and making hajj five times, twice on foot. He was equally considered a leading example in material and spiritual asceticism, for he lived a very simple life, detached from worldly pleasures. He is often compared to Abu Bakr, the first kalifah, as a single-handed champion of orthodoxy.
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Imam Bukhari, exiled from Nishapur, traveled to Khartank, a village near Bukhara, at the request of its inhabitants. He settled there and died in 256 AH (870 CE), sixty years old. Like the funeral of imam Ahmed, the entire populace of the town and vicinity came out to pay their last homage to one of the greatest sons of Islam.
Imam Bukhari spend more than sixteen years traveling and meeting over eighty thousand people, retaining in his memory one million hadeeths from them. From this vast treasure house of knowledge he drew up his al-Jami' al-Sahih, a collection of oven seven thousand tested traditions, arranged in chapters so as to afford bases for a complete system of jurisprudence without the use of speculative law. This book is considered second only to the Quran in terms of authenticity. Bukhari also composed other books, including al-Adab al-Mufrad, a collection of hadeeths on ethics and manners, as well as two books containing biographies of hadeeth narrators.
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Ibn Kullub’s efforts did not go in vain either. After the death of imam Ahmed, there appeared Abul-Hasan al-Ash’ari who revived the attempt of reconciling between traditionalism and rationalism.
Abul-Hasan al-Ash’ari was brought up in a prominent Mu’tazilite household under the care of a hardcore Mu’tazilite theologian Abu ‘Ali al-Jubbai. For forty years he nourished on the Mu’tazilite version of Greek philosophy and theology, which were to have a lasting effect on his thought. As to why exactly al-Ash’ari left Mu’tazilism and made a sudden reversal remains obscure, but it is was probably because the Mu’tazilites were rapidly losing ground, and now royal patronage as well.
Al Ash’ari and the later Asharis held comprehension of unique nature and characteristics of God were beyond human capability and that while man had free will, he had no power to create anything. They believed Quran is eternal, but only when put into the Arabic language it became speech. In Arabic this “eternal speech” came to be known as the Quran, in Hebrew it had already became “Injeel” and “Torah.” Unlike Mu’tazilites, they believed in the sirat (bridge over hellfire) and eternity of hell-fire for die-hard sinners. Some later Asharis resorted to interpretation of some of the allegorical attributes in the Quran, initially in an effort to curb the waves of anthropomorphism that were raging in their time. They based these interpretations on the Arabic language and the contexts of the verses. Anything whose interpretation was not abundantly clear to them, such as the Vision of Allah for the believers in the Hereafter, they deferred to Allah.
After the demise of al-Ash’ari, only a few scholars adhered to the Ash’ari school, and were constantly attacked by the orthodox scholars, often cursed publicly for employing speculative theology. The famous creed authored by the Abbasid kalifah al-Qadir endorsed traditionalist beliefs and attacked the rationalist movement including the Mu’tazilites and the Asharites.
It was during the 5th hijri century (11th century CE), when Nidham al-Mulk, the Seljuk vizier who had the Abbasid kalifah in his grip established a network of colleges that became known after him as Nidhamiyya Colleges that the Asharis could rise to prominence. Nidham ul Mulk was an Asharite and filled the colleges with Asharis. He further made fiqh lessons exclusively from the teachings of imam Shafi. This sudden influx of power for the neo-rationalist movement caused many riots in Baghdad between the traditionalist and the rationalists, who now began calling themselves the “Shafis.”
Thanks to official patronage, most of the scholars that resulted from the Nidhamiyya colleges were influenced by Ashari beliefs, and three such luminaries are Al Ghazzali (d. 505 AH - 1111 CE), Fakhr al Din Razi (d. 606 AH – 1209 CE) and ibn Khalladun (d. 809 AH – 1406 CE).
Al Ghazzali, the Persian polymath advocated the use of speculative theology to quell doubts, not to establish dogmas. His work “The Incoherence of the Philosophers", is the most famous Ashari work. Through this, Ghazzali succeeded in laying the groundwork to "shut the door of ijtihad" in the subsequent centuries in all Sunni Muslim state. Fakhr al-Din Razi was a Persian mathematician, physicist, physician, philosopher and a master of speculative theology. Ibn Khalladun was the famous North African born Arab Muslim historian, pedagogue, philosopher particularly interested in history and sociology.
Thanks to such scholars, the ulema began to generate fiqh based on taqlid rather than on the ijtihad. The Ottoman kalifahs, who soon became the dominant force in Muslim lands found this a convenient tool to retain their power, and as such did their mite to promote it.
During this time, the traditionalists who clung on to the legacy of Ahmed ibn Hanbal came to be known as Hanbalis. The legacy of imam Ahmed was taken over first by Ibn Taymiyyah, and then by Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahab.
THE EYE OF GOLIATH
In the 7th hijri century (13th Century CE), the mostly Buddhist Mongols launched one of the largest assaults in history and met with remarkable success. For the first time since the seventh century CE there was no azan in the vast stretch of land stretching from China to Syria, all across Central Asia and the Fertile (now Desolate) crescen
t. The Muslims found themselves a repressed majority, their population decimated, their cities destroyed, their masjids turned into horse barns, their libraries and centers of culture burned, and everything of literature and culture torn to shreds.
On one occasion, a Mongol had entered a street in which there were one hundred men, he went on killing one by one, till he killed them all, and not even one raised his hand against the Mongol to harm him. On another occasion, a Mongol got hold of a man but could not find any weapon to kill him, so he told the man: “Put your head over this stone and do not move…” and so the man put his head over the stone and remained there till another Mongol came with a sword and killed him.
Such ineptness made Hulagu yearn for more and more. After the pillage of Baghdad, he retired to his capital near Lake Urmiah in North West Iran, and left the task of annihilating the Islamic state to his equally blood thirsty general Ketbuga.
Ketbuga immediately set out for Syria and Egypt – the last two Muslim states in the Islamic heartland. Though Salauddin Ayyubi had recovered Jerusalem for the Muslims, the Crusaders were still very much in Palestine, and they made common cause with the Mongols.
Sultan Jalaluddin of Syria opted for flight instead of fight. His army went into hiding in the surrounding areas, and later fled to Cairo, where they told their sad story to Sultan Qutuz, the Mamluke sultan of Egypt. Qutuz showed them favor, sympathized with them, and gave them much money.
Hulagu’s messengers arrived in Cairo sooner than anticipated. They read out what Hulagu had to say
“God the great has elevated Genghis Khan and his progeny and given us the realms of the face of the earth altogether. Everyone who has been recalcitrant in obeying us has been annihilated along with his women, children, kith and kin, towns, and servants, as has surely reached the hearing of all. The reputation of our innumerable army is as well known as the stories of Rustam and Iskandar. If you are in submission to our court, send tribute, come yourself, and request an audience; otherwise be prepared for battle."
The council of war was on.
Nasiruddin Qaymari, who had witnessed the Mongols first hand in Syria spoke out. “In addition to being Genghis Khan's grandson, Tolu Khan's son, and Mangu Khan's brother, Hulagu Khan has power and might beyond description. At present he holds the land from the gates of Egypt to the borders of China in his mighty grasp, and has been singled out for heavenly assistance. If we go before him under amnesty, it will not be blameworthy. However, to drink poison willingly and to go out to greet one's own death are far from paths of wisdom. A human being is not a grape vine that doesn't mind having its head cut off.
Hulagu does not keep his word, for with no warning he killed the Shah of Khwarizm, Kalifah Muta'sim, Husamuddin Akka, and the lord of Arbela after having made promises to them. If we go to him he will do the same to us."
"At the present time," said Qutuz, "everyone in Diyar Bekir, Diyar Rabi'a and Greater Syria is filled with lamentation. The land from Baghdad to Anatolia lies in ruins, devoid of farmers and seed. If we don't make a pre-emptive strike and try to repulse the Mongols, soon Egypt will also be destroyed.
Given the multitudes with which they are proceeding in our direction, one of three things must be done: we must make a truce, offer resistance, or go into exile. Exile is impossible, for there is nowhere we can go other than North Africa, and a bloodthirsty desert and vast distances lie between us and there."
"A truce is also imprudent," said Nasiruddin Qaymari, "for their word is not to be trusted."
The other commanders said, "We do not have the power to resist either. You must say what you think the best plan is."
Baybars, who had been attentively listening all this while, stood up.
"My opinion," said Baybars" is that we should kill the emissaries and ride as one to attack Ketbuga. Win or die, in either case we will not be blamed, and we will have people's gratitude."
A through soldier, Qutuz was of a different breed – the breed of the early Muslims, and his chief amir Baybars al-Banduqdari was even fiercer.
They had decided to receive all fugitives, the cowardly refugee chieftains included, not due to affection towards them, but because they needed the soldiers to fill up the numbers. But they still doubted whether it would be of much help.
The next morning, Cairo saw dead bodies of Mongol messengers hanging in four quarters of the city.
Open mouthed, the Syrians and Egyptians alike realized the Mongols would follow them even to the distant Atlantic and it was better off to face the inevitable, at least in manifestly brave company of Qutuz.
The few weak hearted chieftains were allowed to run off further westward while there was still time.
Amir Baidar, the leader of the Mongol advance troop, sent a man to Ketbuga to inform him of the situation. Ketbuga sent reply, "Stay where you are and wait for me."
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Qutuz, knowing the important role scholars play and their influence on the masses, had taken them as advisors, and asked them to supplicate for victory. The most renowned scholar who contributed to this cause was the renowned al-Izz bin Abdus-Salam, may Allah have mercy on him. Qutuz sought a fatwa authorizing additional taxes to equip the Muslim army. This honest scholar of Islam made it clear that the ruler cannot impose new taxes unless his own wealth, and that of his close-by's are all spent.
The needed money was obtained without forcing extra taxes on the people, who, witnessing the complete compliance and submission of their leaders to the laws of Allah, supported them wholeheartedly.
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Qutuz and Baybars moved fast, but when they reached the Egyptian borders, the refugees who had seen the Mongols before started to tremble with fear and refused to advance. Qutuz argued, persuaded, stormed and bullied, but to no effect. He then made a speech:
“Oh ummah of Prophet Mohammed, may Allah bless him, and grant him peace. It has been prophesied a day will come when nations will call other nations to share them against you as eaters call each other to eat from the food in front of them in a large wooden place. Your number will be great, but you will be rubbish like the rubbish of flood-water. And certainly Allah will remove from the hearts of your enemies the fear from you, and Allah will throw love for this world and hate for death in your hearts. Humiliation will not be removed until you return to your religion. As for me, I will go and fight the enemy single handedly, if necessary. If anyone wants to leave, he can go now.”
With his disciplined Mamluke army Qutuz marched forward. The Syrians and the other refugees, ashamed, followed him. Qutuz was soon in crusader land. At Gaza, he made it clear to them that he could smash them before he met the Mongols. Realizing the authenticity of this threat and seeing the zeal of Qutuz’ army, the crusaders found it prudent to stay neutral.
Qutuz advanced to Caesera, and then turned east through the valley of River Kishon, across the plains of Megido, over the water shed and entered the valley of Nehr Jalut, and settled east of Ayn Jalut, the head waters of Nehr Jalut.
Ayn Jalut literally means the “Eye of Goliath” - it was the very place where David, peace be upon him defeated Goliath in ancient times.
Before Ketbuga arrived, Qutuz attacked Amir Baidar and his Mongol advance regiment and drove him to the banks of the River Jordan.
Ketbuga his zeal stirred and confident in his own strength and might flared up like fire. He advanced from his base in Ba’labbak in Syria along the Jordan valley. But he was surprised as well, for it was the first time that someone was coming head on to meet him. It was customary for the enemy postpone until the last possible moment confrontation with the dreaded Mongols.
In the narrow valley, hedged in by Mount Gilboa in the south and Nehr Jalut on the north, the two armies met.
The Mamlukes under Qutuz were strong, disciplined, and immune to fear and panic, but they were only twelve thousand strong. To the overwhelming numerous Mongols, conquerors of a dozen empires, destroyers of all ancient cities that came across their path, supremely confident and t
ill now invincible, they seemed to be a bunch of mad suicides.
Since the dawn of history, the Mongols had been nomads, wandering and grazing their flocks over vast tablelands of Central Asia. They hated cities and urban civilization, which manifested itself in the widespread destruction they brought forth. Ghengis Khan molded them into simple and self-sufficient soldiers, having no physical barriers and requiring no administrative tails.
Their strategy was simple. Since no single route passed through entirely fertile lands that could sustain the enormous hordes, they spread out and reached their selected objective in many strong columns over widely separated axis. As the columns near the enemy, they start pouring arrows from afar using their long bows, they themselves staying away. With the enemy completely bewildered and disorganized, they would close in from all directions and complete the rout.
The key ingredient to the Mongol’s success was perfect horsemanship – no man who was not born to the saddle could ride, shoot and control his charging horse all at once. Intensive training over a few months, or even few years could not match these Mongols. Only another set of men, born arches and born horsemen could challenge them, and between the Sea of Japan and the Austrian borders, no such men could be found.
But Qutuz had such men.
The Mamlukes, like their eastern Mongol brethren were also born to the saddle and use of bows. But the Mamluke bow shot a smaller though stronger arrow at short range than the Mongol bow. This gave the Mongols an edge, but Qutuz and Baybars were neither foolhardy nor suicidal as Kitbuga thought.