Ibadhism, The Cinderella of Islam (Chapter4)

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