CHAPTER
4
The Abbasid Period
Abu Abbas Abdullah bin Muhammad 132-136 (750 – 756 CE)
After the Umayyad rulers were driven
out, Abdullah Abu Abbas took over as the leader of the Abbas family and as the
“Khalifa” and moved his capital from Damascus to Kufa in Iraq. The
Abbasids derive their family name from Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib, the uncle of
the Holy Prophet, and the father of Abdullah bin Abbas, the Sahaba from whom
the lbadhis collected many of the Prophet’s traditions. Abu Abbas brother,
Ibrahim, had been killed by the Umayyad ruler, Marwan ІІ.
The beginning of the Abbasid era did
not augur well for Muslims in general, for Abu Abbas after accession called
himself Assaffah meaning a shedder of blood or killer. Imagine, a ruler of a
Muslim state calling himself by such a title!! Professor Masud reports the
following tragedy:-
“Assaffah
appointed his uncle Abdullah as the Governor of Syria. Abdullah invited all the
Umayyad princes in Damascus about eighty in numbers to a banquet. At a given
signal, a band of executioners entered the banquet hall and clubbed all the Umayyad
princes to death. Abdul Rahman a grandson of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham was the
only Umayyad prince to escape from this massacre. He fled to Morocco, and the
Abbasids broke open the graves of some of the Umayyad Caliphs and burnt their
corpses”.
Naturally the Khawarij were among the
first people to revolt against such savage and brutal conduct of those who
usurped Islamic leadership.
Professor Masud continues:-
“At the
outset of their rule, the Abbasids had to face revolts in various parts of the
country. These revolts were sponsored by the partisans of the Umayyads, by the partisans
of the Shias, and by the Kharijites”.
When
Assaffah died after a rule of four years, he was succeeded by his brother Al
Mansur in 754 CE. Al Mansur founded the city of Baghdad and moved his capital
there. But like his brother, his rule was characterized by treachery and
atrocities. He had Abu Muslim assassinated; Abu Muslim was the Governor of
Khurasan who had made great contribution to the building of the Abbasid Empire.
There was a struggle for power between Al
Mansur and Muhammad, a great grandson of Imam Hassan over the office of
Caliphate. Imam Muhammad was backed by the Shias. In the struggle for power
Muhammad fled to Medina where the people offered him allegiance. What is
interesting is that Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik, the prominent jurists at
the time supported him. Al Mansur sent a force to Medina, and in the battle
that ensued Muhammad and his supporters were killed, and Medina was restored to
Abbasid rule. Those who supported Muhammad and his brother Ibrahim were
subjected to torture. In Medina Imam Malik was flogged, and in Baghdad Imam Abu
Hanifa was arrested and put in jail until he died.
There again the Khawarij have been
proved right in dissociating themselves from the Caliphate and establishing
their own independent Imamate. But the Umayyads, Abbasids and their sectarian
fanatics are not yet convinced even today!! They believe that the Khawarij
seceded from Islam and if we go by their logic, so did Imam Malik and Imam Abu
Hanifa who refused to support Al Mansur as the Khalifa.
Harun Arrasheed (170 – 193 H) (786 – 809 CE)
Harun Arrasheed is the grandson of
A1-Mansur; he was famous for his lavish style and splendour; he was the fifth Abbasid
Caliph who ruled for 23 years. His wife Zubeida is a legend of the Arabian
Nights (ألف ليلة وليلة)
and is associated with the construction of a canal that supplied water to
Makkah.
Among the notable events of his rule was
that he ordered the arrest of Imam Shafee accused of Shiite leanings while
teaching in Yemen in the year 805 CE. He was taken prisoner before Harun
Arrasheed in Iraq but was soon released after extricating himself from the
allegations (see Abu Ameena Bilal Philips pp.80-81). Before the Khalifa died,
he willed that after his death his eldest son Al Amin should succeed him, and
then his next son Al Ma’amun and after him his other son Mu’tasim.
When Al Amin took over after the
death of his father Harun, he wanted to change the line of succession in favour
of his son instead of his brother Al Ma’amun who was then the govemor of
Khurasan in Persia. And so fighting broke out between the two brothers, but the
fighting turned out into a racial conflict because Al-Amin’s mother Zubeida was
an Arab while Ma’amun’s mother was a Persian and so the whole of Persia rose in
support of Al Ma’amun. Al Amin was defeated, captured and beheaded. So Al Ma’amun
succeeded to the throne (813 – 833 CE) but the most significant thing that
happened with him was that he adopted the doctrine of then Mu’tazila (مذهب
المعتزلة)
as the official madh’hab. The doctrine was founded by Waasil bin Ataa and was
based on rationalism. Abu Ameena Bilal Philips in his book, The Evolution of
Fiqh has briefly explained it (p.150) as Follows:-
“Among
its more notable principles were the belief that Allah was everywhere, the
belief that the Qur’an was created and only its meanings were divine, that
Allah would not be seen by the people of paradise, that man has free will without
divine interference, and that one who commits a major sin enters a state
between belief and disbelief”.
Abu
Ameena has also explained it as a philosophical school of thought commonly
called ‘rationalism’.
The Ibadhis have adopted some of its principles
and we shall discuss them in greater detail later in this book. But Imam
Ahmed b. Hanbal rejected them and for this reason he was imprisoned by the
order of Al Maamun. Whether the Mutazalite doctrine was right or wrong, it was
wrong of Al Maamun to force others to accept a religious doctrine against their
will, and to imprison them if they did not. The Mutazalites continued to have
the support of his brother Al Mu’tasim when he succeeded him and of his nephew
Al Wathiq (842-847 CE). But when his other nephew Al Mutawakkil succeeded to
the throne (847-86l CE) he banned the Mutazalite doctrine and fundamentalism
was restored. Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal and other fundamentalist scholars were
released from prison. The Mutazalites in turn were put in prison and their
properties confiscated.
But Mutawakkil did not live long. He
only ruled for four years before he was murdered by his own disinherited
son (Muntasir) and successor who in turn was murdered by poisoning six months
later by a physician on bribery by Turkish generals. Al Mutawakkil pursued
anti-Shia policies and destroyed the mausoleum of Imam Hussein at Kerbala. All
these series of murders were not committed by the Khawarij who are often
accused of terrorism but by the Abbasids themselves.
Al Qahir who ruled for only two years
from 933 – 934 CE was a cruel Abbasid monarch. His end has been
described by Prof. Masud as follows:-
“The army
was won over by the conspirators. A detachment of the army assaulted the palace
of the Caliph. With sword in hand Al Qahir defied the army. He was overpowered, and
asked to abdicate.
He
refused to abdicate. Thereupon he was blinded and deposed. All his property was
confiscated. He was lodged in prison for some years and then released. Deprived
of all sources of income he was reduced to begging in the streets of Baghdad.
It was a most pathetic sight, a peculiar revenge of nature for the depravities
committed by him during the period of his Caliphate. Al Qahir’s rule lasted hardly
two years... .. After his deposition, Al Qahir lived for sixteen years... He was the first Abbasid ruler to be blinded
and reduced to beggary”.
The
Khawarij whom Prof. Masud often refers to as terrorists had nothing to do
with this savagely. It was all the work of those Muslims who called themselves
the righteous people ((أهل الحق.
Six years later in 940 CE, another
Abbasid ruler Al Muttaqi succeeded the throne. In the ensuing
period of coups and counter coups among Turkish generals, differences arose
between Al Muttaqi and the Turkish General Tuzun whom he had appointed as
Amir-ul-Umaraa. After some fighting, Al Muttaqi sought shelter elsewhere. After
some negotiations with Tuzun, he assured Al Muttaqi of his loyalty and asked
him to return to Baghdad. On his return, Prof. Masud describes the following
painful episode:-
“The Caliph was received with all
respect, and then escorted to the camp. In the camp, Tuzun went back on
his promises. Al Muttaqi was placed under arrest and deposed. His eyes were
seared (i.e. scorched) with a hot iron, and he was blinded. Al Muttaqi was led
to an island in the Tigris where he remained in prison for twenty five years
until he died”.
This is
an unbelievable barbarity committed by Muslim Generals against Muslim
rulers. But the sectarian fanatics continue to sing their national anthem
that the Khawarij were the first to shed the blood of Muslims. Under the
circumstances of Al Muttaqi it would have been better if his blood had been
shed instead of going through those terrible tortures.
Al Muttaqi was succeeded by Al Mustakfi
in 944 CE whose father al Muktafi had ruled for five years (902 –
907 CE). As was the case with rulers of this period, all the power were in the
hands of army Generals who assumed the title of Amir-ul-Umaraa. This time the
General was Ahmad Buwayh who belonged to the Shia faith. According to Prof.
Masud, the General reduced the privileges of the Khalifa and allowed him only a
small subsistence allowance and so the relation between them was bitter. One
day Mustakfi was arrested, blinded and deposed and then put in prison. This is the
third ruler to be blinded but this time by the order of a Shia General. It is said
that Mustakfi adopted the Shia faith to please his master, but that did not help
him in any way.
Al-Musta’sim was the last Abbasid ruler
whose reign lasted 14 years (1242-1256 CE). Prof. Masud gives the following
account of his rule (p.307):-
“At the
outset of his reign, the country came to be rocked by Hanafi-Hanbali and
Shia-Sunni riots and disturbances. In these the Shias who were in a minority suffered most. Many Shias were killed and their quarter Karkh, a suburb of Baghdad, was
destroyed. The Minister of Musta’sim, Muwayyid ud-Din Muhammad bin Al Kami was
a Shia. He turned out to be a traitor, and entered into a secret correspondence
with the Mongols inviting them to invade Baghdad”.
The
Mongol forces under General Hulaku besieged the city of Baghdad but the
Baghdad forces were weak and so surrendered. Prof. Masud continues:-
“The population
of Baghdad was gathered on a plain outside the city. The Shias were spared and
the rest of the population running into several Lakhs were mercilessly
massacred. Hulaku (the General) had the Caliph Al-Musta’sim put in a sack, and then
trampled under the hooves of the Mongol horses. The city of Baghdad was subjected
to plunder, and thereafter put to flames. The fire raged for several days and
nights and the city of Baghdad, once the glory of the civilized world was no
more. With the fall of Baghdad, and the tragic end of Musta’sim, the Abbasid
rule was extinguished and they disappeared from political history after having
ruled for over five hundred years from 750 to 1258 CE, one of the longest rule
of any dynasty in history”.
The lesson to be learnt from this
tragic episode is that it is a repetition of the tragedy of Seyyidna
Ali, the battle of Nahrawan and the Khawarij. As a Khariji Abdul Rahman
Muljam murdered Seyyidna Ali in revenge for several thousand innocent
Khawarij killed in the battle of Nahrawan, so Al-Musta’sim was brutally murdered in
revenge for many Shias killed during the Shia-Sunni riots. The atrocious
massacres of the Sunni population and the brutal murder of Al-Musta’sim
were carried out by the Mongols on the invitation from his Shia
Minister, Muawayyid-ud-Din Muhammad Al Kami.
The list
of Abbasid rulers who were murdered by their fellow Muslims (excluding
thc Khawarij):-
1) Al-Amin
|
- 809 – 813 CE
|
2) A1-Mutawakkil
|
- 847 – 861 CE
|
3) Al-Muntasir
|
- 861 – 862 CE
|
4) Al-Mu’tazz
|
- 866 – 869 CE
|
5) Al-Muhtadi
|
- 869 – 870 CE
|
6) Al-Raashid
|
- 1134 –1135 CE
|
7) A1-Musta’sim
|
- l242 – 1258 CE
|
The following Abbasid rulers were
tortured and made blind by their fellow Muslim (excluding the Khawarij):-
1) Al-Qahir
|
- 933 – 934 CE
|
2) Al-Muttaqi
|
- 940 – 944 CE
|
3) Al-Mustakfi
|
- 944 – 945 CE
|
Thus the Abbasid era, extended over a period of 500 years, was ruled by
37 monarchs. It was a period of revolts and counter-revolts, characterized by
anarchy, lawlessness and instability. In the end the rulers became puppets of
their military Generals. Those who were subservient to them survived longer on
the throne. Seven of those rulers were brutally assassinated and three others
were tortured and blinded. The saddest thing is that these inhuman treatments
were carried out by their fellow Muslims, sometimes in retaliation for similar
treatments received from the Umayyad and Abbasid regimes. The Khawarij
justifiably dissociated themselves from the Umayyad and Abbasid regimes and so
they were not involved in any way in those barbaric activities. But for the
sectarian fanatics, the only Islamic history they want to know and to tell
their people about is that the Khawarij criticized Seyyidna Uthman and killed
Seyyidna Ali.
>>>>>>
(To be Continued)
Reference:
Ibadhism, The Cinderella of Islam, by
Soud H. Al Ma'awaly, pg: 42-48
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