History Of Ottoman Empire

An article by an Egyptian named Muhammad Qutb appeared in a Turkish religious magazine. The article, headlined “The Line of Deviation” was translated from Arabic. If the translation was done correctly, it immediately strikes the eye that its writer has not a say in the religion. See the derision his balderdash provokes:

“The victories which the Turks gained in battefields honoured Islam. Yet it is a reality as well that Islam lost much of its meaning in the Turks’ hands. In the hands of the Turks, Islam was frozen insubstantially and its improvement was stopped. The Ottomans froze and maltreated Islam in all the fields except in military. For example, they didn’t lay on knowledge as much stress as necessary. They stopped ijtihâd and the knowledge of fiqh became fixed.

“Eventually, Islam won its independence getting rid of the damning restriction of the Ottomans, and began to rush forward. This rushing is seen especially in Wahhabite movement in Hedjaz and in the movement of Mahdism led by Mahdi in Sudan. These two movements have been effective enough to make Islam recover its own power and its tendency towards improvement. Seeing this happy improvement in Islam, the imperialistic crusaders came into play.”

The service the Ottoman Turks rendered to Islam is a masterpiece, a monument. One has to be blind or a turkophobe not to see this gigantic monument that has been erected on the square of history. What was the source of this dynamism, this morals, this patience, this heroism, which led the Ottoman Turks from one victory to another, as this Egyptian writer has to acknowledge? Was it not Islam? One cannot honour Islam. One can be honoured with Islam. Hadrat Umar (radiy-Allâhu ’anh), the honourable Amir of Muslims, said, “We used to be contemptible, low people; Allâhu taala honoured us by making us Muslims.” The ignorant, who do not know that Islam is the source of every kind of virtue and honour, suppose that Islam is to be honoured.

The Islamic army advancing towards Vienna from Istanbul made a halt near a source of water in the neighborhood of Belgrade. The fountain was crowded with soldiers performing ablution and filling their containers with water. The priest of a church nearabouts made up and dressed beautiful girls. He gave them a bucket each and sent them to the fountain. The priest watched secretly from behind the window. As soon as the girls approached the soldiers moved aside. The girls filled their buckets easily and went back to the church. The priest, upon seeing this beautiful moral behavior, virtue, decency and mercy of the Islamic soldiers, sent a message to the crusaders’ commandant, saying, “This army will never be overcome. Don’t shed your blood in vain!” I wonder if this Egyptian writer makes a mistake by supposing that the Ottoman victories were barbarian invasions like those of the armies of Attilla? If he had read the British Lord Davenport’s book, he would know about the truth: “Islamic armies took with them justice, virtue and civilization whereever they went. They met the defeated enemy who would surrender always with forgivingness,” and he would be a little well-behaved in his writings. Those who made Islamic caliphs lead a dungeon life and who usurped their rights of caliphate from them after ’Abbâsids were shameless enough to call themselves “Sultân al-Haramain”[The Sultan of Mecca and Medina] in khutba. When Sultan Yavuz Selim Khan conquered Egypt and rescued the caliphate from slavery in 923 A.H. (1517), he silenced the orator who also called him “Sultân al-Haramain” in khutba customarily, and said, “For me, there cannot be a greater honour than being a slave of those blessed places. Call me Khâdim al Haramain!” [The slave of Mecca and Medina]. It is written in history books. It may be understood now whether the Egyptians or the Ottomans froze Islamic morals. During the reign of (the Ottoman empire) Sultan Abdulhamîd Khan II, a secretarial position in the royal palace was reserved to be awarded annually to the best of the graduates in Political Sciences. The Sultan had established this to encourage youngsters to work and study. Es’ad Bey, who was assigned as a clerk, says in his book Hâtirât-i Abdulhamîd Khân Thânî, “At a midnight I enciphered a message and took it to the Sultan’s room for his signature. I knocked at the door. It was not opened. I knocked once again. It was not opened this time, either. I was about to give it a third try, when the door was opened and there was the Sultan, drying his face with a towel. ‘My son,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for keeping you waiting! I was up with your first knocking. I knew you were here for an important signature, at this time of night. Yet I did not have an ablution. I have never signed a paper concerning my nation’s matters without an ablution. I am late because I was making an ablution. Now read it for me please.’ After I read it, he said the Basmala[Bism-illah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim. In the name of Allah, the most Merciful and the most Compassionate] and then signed it, adding, ‘Inshâ-Allah, let’s hope for the best.’ ” The Ottoman Sultans were that much attached and that much respectful to Islam. Eyyub Sabri Pasha says in his book Mir’ât al-Haramain, “Sultan Abdulmejid Khan, upon learning that Mustafa Reshid Pasha was a freemason and had chosen a path not compatible with Islam, became ill with anxiety and sorrow. He could not sit on the bed; he always lay. Only important papers were being read to him in order to take the imperial rescript. About a paper which had been awaiting its turn, he was said, ‘An application of the inhabitants of Medina will be read.’ ‘Hold on! Don’t read! Help me sit!’ he said. He was helped to sit putting a pillow behind him. He said, ‘They are Hadrat Muhammad (alaihis-salâm) neighbors. I would be ashamed to listen to their application lying down as I was. Do at once what they wish! But read so that my ears may be blessed!’ He passed away the following day.” Here are the morals, decency of the Ottoman Turkish Sultans and their reverence to Islam.

Can this reverence, this well-behavior of the Turks towards Islam be the same as the disrespectfulness, the indecency of the Wahhâbîs who lie down like carcasses in Masjid as-Sa’âda with their foul feet pointing towards the Qabr as-Sa’âda?

In the words, “Islam’s improvement came to a halt in the time of the Ottomans,” there smells the noxious scent of insidious hostility towards Islam. Fenârî, Molla Khusraw, al-Hayâlî, al-Galanbawî, Ibn Kamâl, Abussu’ûd, ’Allâma al-Birghiwî, Ibn ’Âbidîn, ’Abd al-Ghanî an-Nabulusî, Mawlânâ Khâlid al-Baghdâdî, as-Suwaidî, ’Abdulhakîm-i Arwasî and ’Allâma Mustafa Sabri, -who disgraced ’Abduh,- and many a scholar of fiqh and kalâm, and calligraphers, Mimar Sinan (architect), Sokullu and Köprülü: in which State were all these great men educated? Weren’t they educated by the Ottomans? Hundreds of thousands of books of knowledge written by the Ottoman scholars fill up the national libraries in every city. Their catalogues are in the open. Weren’t they the Ottoman Shaikh al-Islâms who gave fatwâ to the entire Muslim world for six hundred years and who solved every kind of problem and who were remedies for Muslims’ cares and who disgraced Christians and heretical groups by writing refutations to them? Al-Hayâlî’s commentaries of ’ilm al-kalâm books, Molla Khusraw’s ad-Durar, al-Halabî’s Multaqâ, Ibn ’Âbidîn’s Radd al-muhtâr,Abussu’ûd’s tafsîr and Shaikhzâda’s commentary to al-Baidâwî’s tafsîr shed lights upon the entire world today. Didn’t the Ottomans educate these exalted scholars and Awliyâ? Today also, those who want to learn their faith correctly should read these valuable books. The most valuable Qur’ân commentaries are those written by Shaikhzâda and Abussu’ûd. He who wants to be useful to Muslims should translate these books into Turkish. The Qur’ân commentaries of reformist writers are not so, because, with their short sights and inefficient knowledge, they have inserted into these books whatever occured to their minds under the name of tafsîr, thus adding rotten rings to the chain. He who relies on a chain with rotten rings and descends on the sea by holding on to it, will certainly err and drown. Therefore, one should not read the translations of such concocted books of tafsîr. The six-hundred-year-old guardians of Islam and the Sources of Islamic knowledge were always the Ottomans. Hundreds of fatwâ books like Bahjât al-fatâwâ, in which it is written that the printing-press should be founded, showed solutions according to the requirements of each century and opened ways to improvements. As for Mejelle, the masterpiece of the last century; it became a monument of laws, having no equal in the world. If the Ottoman morals, knowledge and culture survived today, no defeat would have been suffered against a handful of Jews, and the war plans of Muslims would not have been sold for a few thousand dollars by the people in charge to the Israelite spies in London; nor would the Arabic unity have been disgraced before the entire world.

The fearless, shameless aggression of the Egyptian writer Qutb to the Sahâbat al-kirâm and then to the true Muslim administrators of the Umayyads, Abbâsids and Ottomans, is not without its purpose. He himself explains its reason. The gypsy boasting of his courage tells of his theft. He lets out what he has hitherto kept back and says, “Wahhabism rescued Islam from slavery.” Yes, in order to praise the lâ-madhhabî, he speaks ill of Islamic Khalîfas and Islamic scholars. The plans and the policy of Mawdûdî, Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb and ’Abduh are based on this fundamental. They all attack the early Muslims. They slander the Ahl as-Sunna scholars. On the other hand, they misrepresent Ibn Taimiyya and the heretics like Jamâl ad-dîn al-Afghânî as saviors. What on earth could be so good about the lâ-madhhabî people that they praise them? That they attach no value to religious facts and scientific teachings ultimately becomes tangible in their immoralities well below zero, a fact which Sa’ûd, -dethroned in 1384 [A.D. 1964] and dead in 1388 [A.D. 1968]-, showed to the entire world by leading a debauched, dishonest and indecent life and spending millions of pounds for his pleasures and dissipations in Europe. We wonder if the Egyptian writer does not blush when he sees and hears that the adulteries, fornications, immoralities in Cairo and Riad palaces are broadcast over the world through radios? They are not ashamed to take bribes, which is hundreds of pounds, from each of the millions of hadjis coming from the Muslim world. They do not let their brothers-in-Islam perform their duty of hajj unless they give them hundreds of pounds. On the other hand, it is written in the Ottoman book Radd al-muhtâr that it is harâm to charge Christians who come to visit Jerusalem. Ottomans did not ask any money even from disbelievers. But these people demand it from Muslims. If they do not pay it, they prevent them from worshipping. Allâhu ta’âlâ declares in the one hundred and fourteenth âyat of the sûrat al-Baqara, “No one can be more cruel than he who prohibits to mention Mine Name in Mine mosques.”Hadrat ’Atâ is quoted in Tafsîr at-tibyân, “This âyat descended because, on the Day of Hudaibiya, the disbelievers of Mecca would not let Muslims into the Masjid al-Harâm and perform hajj. In the Qur’ân, unbelievers are called ‘the cruel’, too.” This âyat clearly describes those who do not let Muslims who cannot pay money into the Masjid al-Harâm and those who praise these heretics. There were the Ottoman Muslims, whom they blame, and here are the enemies of Ahl as-Sunna whom they praise!

Furthermore, his word “The Ottomans stopped ijtihâd,” is a lie. This word has become a loathsome gossip in the mouths of the enemies of Islam. The Ottomans did not close the way to ijtihâd. They prevented the ignorant like Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb and ’Abduh, who were the enemies of Islam, from inserting their dirty pens into Islam’s chastity. If the Ottoman Turks had not protected Islam against the aggression of ignorant people like these, Islam also, like Christianity, would have been an altogether mixed-up, impure religion. It is, however, a lamentable fact that Islam has been injured and made a plaything in the hands of the heretics in Mecca and Egypt. Today, true Islam, as Rasûlullâh (’alaihi ’s-salâm) left it, has remained in Turkish people with all its cleanliness and purity

Published on: Oct 13, 2018