Do not leave the Remembrance
Posted by: ibn ayyub on: July 15, 2009
Ibn ‘Ataa’ Illaah (rahimahullaah) wrote in his hikam:
Do not leave the remembrance because of your lack of presence of heart with Allah therein, because your heedlessness of the remembrance of Allah is more harmful than your heedlessness during the remembrance of Allah. It may well be that He take you from remembrance in which there is heedlessness (ghaflah) to remembrance in which there is consciousness (yaqadhah); and from remembrance in which there is consciousness to remembrance in which there is presence of heart (hudoor); and from remembrance in which there is presence of heart to remembrance in which there is obliviousness to all but the One Remembered, “And that is not difficult for Allah.”
يقول سيدي ابن عطاء الله السكندري : لا تترك الذكر لعدم حضورك مع الله فيه فغفلتك عن وجود ذكره أشد من غفلتك مع وجود ذكره . فعسى أن ينقلك من ذكر مع وجود غفلة إلى ذكر مع وجود يقظة ومن ذكر مع وجود يقظة إلى ذكر مع وجود حضور ومن ذكر مع وجود حضور إلى ذكر مع غيبة عما سوى المذكور وما ذلك على الله بعزيز
Countless Blessings
Posted by: ibn ayyub on: July 16, 2009
If you do not know the blessings you have when you have them, then Allah will teach you about them by taking them away from you.
–Ibn ‘Ataillah
Gifts for the Seeker, Being some Answered Questions
Posted by: ibn ayyub on: June 16, 2009
- In: Fiqh| Hadith| Islam| Quran| Religion| Seeking knowledge| Tasawwuf
- 2 Comments
Prologue
In the Name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate
No power is there, and no strength, but by God, the High, the Great!
Transcendent are You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us. You are indeed the Knowing, the Wise! [ 2:32]
ALL PRAISE BELONGS TO GOD, Who never disappoints those who hope in Him, never refuses those who ask of Him, never ignores those who quest for Him, never underpays those who act for Him, never deprives those who thank Him, never fails those who battle for Him, never allows those whose comfort is in His remembrance to be estranged, never surrenders to those who surrender to His might, never abandons to others those who depend on Him, and never forsakes those who trust and commit themselves to Him. Those who firmly hold to His Book shall never err, and those who take refuge in His Presence shall never find disgrace.
I praise Him for all that He has inspired and taught, and thank Him for all His grace and bounties. His help I request to fulfil His immense right [upon us], and I seek refuge in the light of His noble Countenance against the loss of His favours and the onslaught of affliction. It is God I ask whelm with His blessings and peace His most noble Prophet, most eminent Messenger and greatest Beloved, who is our master and patron Muhammad, and his Family and Companions, who are the essence and generosity, the very fountainhead of knowledge and wisdom. And may these blessings and peace endure for as long as pens write and banners are unfurled!
To proceed. The righteous shaykh of integrity and intelligent understanding, `Abd al-Rahman ibn `Abdullah `Abbad, has requested me to answer a number of questions which he committed to writing and presented to me in the town of Shibam after my visit to the great gnostic shaykh Sa`id ibn `Isa al-`Amudi, and to to other people of virtue, both living and dead, in those regions. I perceived in him signs of eagerness for the truth, combined with the fragrance of sincerity, and therefore promised him a response. The time has now come to fulfil that promise–by God’s ability and power–and to welcome the arrival of his pertinent questions with the hospitable offer of clear replies.
I feel it is appropriate to precede these answers with a prologue which will give insight and reassurance both to the questioner, and to all other intelligent people of similar tendency.
Therefore I seek God’s help, relying on Him, committing myself to Him, and asking Him (Transcendent is He!) to guide me to that which is correct in His sight, for He guides whom he will to a straight path [10:25]; the path of God to Whom belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. Indeed, to God do all things return. [42:53]
I say: Know that to put a question whenever a need or problem arises and to seek further knowledge and insight it is the wont and custom of the elite of every time and place. It is deemed obligatory where obligatory knowledge is concerned, and a virtue in the case of supererogatory knowledge. For questions are the keys to the sciences and secrets of the Unseen which some people carry in their hearts and breasts. Just as valuables and goods kept within locked houses can be reached only by using keys fashioned of iron or wood, so too are these sciences and gnoses, borne by scholars and gnostics, to be reached only by questions fashioned out by the wish to profit, and accompanied by sincerity, enthusiasm, and courteous manners. Questioning is encouraged and enjoined by the Shari`ah, for God the Exalted has said: Ask those who recite the Book before you, [10:94] and Ask the people of remembrance if you do not know; with clear signs and the Scriptures. [16:43-4] And the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: ‘A good question is [already] half of knowledge.’ The intention of every leading scholar or Imam who has ever informed others of the breadth of His knowledge was that this should be known about him so that people might ask and seek it from him. This was related in the case of `Ali, `Umar, Abu Hurayra, and others among the [early] predecessors and those who came later, may God be pleased with them all. And there were other scholars, such as `Urwa ibn al-Zubayr, al-Hasan al-Basri and Qatada, who likewise encourged people to put questions to them. Sufyan al-Thawri immediately left any town he entered when none of its people asked him for knowledge, saying: ‘This is a town where knowledge dies’. Whenever al-Shibli, may God have mercy on him, sat in his [teaching] circle and no questions were put forth to him, he would recite: ‘And the word shall fall upon them because of their wrongdoing; they do not speak.’ [27:85]
A scholar may sometimes question his companions to asses their knowledge and so be able to benefit them. It has been related in a sound hadith that the Messenger of God, may peace and blessings be upon him, once asked a group of his Companions about a tree of leaves which did not fall and which resembled the believer. None of those present answered, so he informed them, may blessings and peace be upon him, that it was the date-palm. Ibn `Umar was there, and had recognised it, but kept his silence; subsequently he informed his father the latter blamed him for his silence. `Umar, may God be pleased with him, often questioned his companions, and whenever one of them replied, ‘God knows best,’ he would become angry and declare: ‘ I did not ask you about God’s knowledge, but about yours: either say “I know” or “I know not”!’
A scholar may question one of his companions about something which he already knows, so that others present may benefit. Such, for example, were the questions put to the Messenger of God, may peace and blessings be upon him, by Gabriel, peace be upon him, concerning Islam, Iman and Ihsan.
A lesser man may for subtle reasons be in possesion of a particular item of knowledge unknown to a superior one, and the latter may thus need to ask about it. An example of this is `Umar’s questioning of Hudhayfa, may God be pleased with them, about [future] tribulations, and about the hypocrites.
A scholar may ask his equal, or one who is nearly so, about the way he has understood certain things in God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may blessings and peace be upon him, to see whether they share the same opinion, which will serve to confirm or strengthen it. This again resembles the practice of `Umar, may God be pleased with him, who asked a group of Companions about a particular interpretation of the verse When support comes from God, and victory, [110:1] and only Ibn `Abbas agreed with him–may God be pleased with them both. Many such things occured with great men, in both the early and later [generations]. As for `Umar’s question to `Ali , may God be pleased with them both, the purpose behind it was to learn from him, since `Ali was granted a privilege share by no other Companion, which was to be the Gate to the City of knowledge’–the city being the Messenger himself, may blessings and peace be upon him. As for the order given by the Messenger of God to his Companions not to ask him too many questions, this prohibition, although stated in general terms was particularly directed at questions concerning legal judgements, retaliatory punishments [qisas] or hudud and public affairs. This was out of compassion for the Nation, and out of the merciful wish that they should not be charged with something they would unable to implement. The evidence to support this is His saying, O you who believe! Inquire not after things which, if they were discovered to you, would vex you, yet if you question concerning them when the Qur’an is being sent down, they will be discovered to you. God has effaced those things, for God is Forgiving, Forbearing. A people before you questioned concerning them, then disbelieved in them. [5:101-2] And there is also the saying of the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him: ‘God has made certain obligations incumbent upon you; so neglect them not. And He had drawn limits; therefore violate them not. He has prohibited certain things, therefore commit them not. And He has remained silent concerning certain things–out of mercy for you, not out of forgetfulness–therefore do not inquire about them.’ And in another hadith: ‘Those who came before you were destroyed by their great inquisitiveness and their arguments about [what was brought to them by] their Prophets.’ A man once asked the Messenger of God, upon whom be blessings and peace, whether the Pilgrimage [hajj] was a yearly obligation, and the Prophet kept his silence. When he repeated his question, he replied: ‘Once in a lifetime; and had I said “Yes!” it would have become obligatory for you, and you would have been unable to comply.’ Underlying this anecdote is a noble secret which is that it is not possible to disclose in writing but you can search for it within the context of His saying (Exalted is He!): Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed God, [4:80] and Those who pledge their allegiance to you do but pledge their allegiance to God. [48:10]
A disciple who asks his shaykh a question, or a student who asks his teacher, should have no other aim but to benefit, and should beware of wanting to test him, for that may lead to his deprivation and failure. When a disciple or student asks a shaykh or a scholar about something the knowledge of which may be harmful or beyond his understanding, then the latter should stop and ponder; they are to inform the questioner of his lack of qualification only if their assesment of him is that [such a response] will not break his heart, and be religiously damaging to him, or that no aversion will arise in his soul which would deflect him from his quest; otherwise they should stoop in their answer to his level of knowledge and understanding.
Should they divert the answer from the strict implication of the question they are not to say, as one of the people of realization once said:
It is my duty to carve rhymes from the bedrock of words; It is not my concern if cattle do not comprehend.
For such an utterance is peculiar to a certain spiritualal state and situation.
A shaykh or a scholar is like a compassionate father and a gentle tutor; he speaks in such a manner as to be of benefit and profit. Gnostics, however, are subject to overpowering and absorbing spiritual states in which they become unable to keep in mind what we have just mentioned; their states should be conceding acknowledged, for they are too high in rank to be objected to or accused of ignorance or negligence. This is not the place, moreover, to elaborate a justification of such authoritative writers for divulging in their books and treatises the secrets of Lordship and the realities of the Unseen.
It may be permissible for a man to question another with the intention of testing him in two situations. The first is when a scholar, compassionate and of good counsel, sees a man so deeply under the sway of self-admiration that he is prevented from seeking knowledge, or from adding to the knowledge which he already has, or from acknowledging the merits of the virtuous; he may then question him–preferably in private–to test and try him, so that this man may know his real worth, this being a form of counsel to him. The second is when one sees a hypocrite speaking assertively and threatening to confuse weak believers by introducing into religion things which do not belong to it, he may then question him in their presence to test him and demonstrate to them his failings and his ignorance. While doing so, his intention should be to counsel and warn him about his faults, in the hope that he will return to a fairer judgement and submit to the truth. It is this that has drawn the scholars, may God be pleased with them, into debates with those who innovate, deviate, or falsify the truth.
The scholars of the present time must not keep their knowledge to themselves and wait for someone to come along and ask, for most people today are complacent about religion, uninterested in knowledge and in anything else that will benefit then in the hereafter, to the extent that a man’s beard may grow white and he still knows nothing of the obligatory parts of the ritual ablution and prayer, or what is mandatory for him to know by way of belief in God, His Angels, Books, Messengers and the Last Day. The very states of such people mutely proclaim their ignorance; and for scholars endowed with understanding, that is sufficient to be a question.
A seeker travelling to God, whose sole aim is to acquire knowledge of Him, and whose wish is to rid himself of anything that may distract him from going to Him, should never ask for knowledge unless it is necessary in his [own particular] state and time. However, in this blessed time of ours, such a seeker is stranger than the Phoenix and rarer than the philosopher’s stone. So let each man be prolific in his questioning after knowledge, so as to profit and grow, for a believer is never sated with good things. In a hadith it is said: ‘Two [kinds of] people can never get enough: those who are avid for knowledge, and those who are avid for money.’ The proof for what we have just said about the seeker is what is related about Dawud al-Ta’i, may God’s mercy be upon him. When he decided to devote himself to God began by sitting with the scholars: he thus kept the company of Imam Abu Hanifa, may God’s mercy be upon him, for nearly a year. Sometimes when a question arose [in his mind] which he was , in his own words: ‘more eager to know than a thirsting man is eager for cool water,’ he refrained from asking about it, the reason being, as we said earlier, that a seeker is only to ask about that which is a necessity for him.
There are many proofs for the correctness of the topics discussed in this brief introduction; and it would lead us away from our intended brevity if we were to delve into every one of them. The indications that we have given will, however be sufficient.
Success is from God, also help and confirmation. We trust in Him, upon Him do we rely. He is our sufficiency, and He is Best of Custodians.
It is now time to begin fulfilling our purpose. God speaks the truth, and He guides the way. [33:4]
Gifts for the Seeker, Imam `Abdallah ibn`Alawi al-Haddad (translated from the Arabic by Mostafa al-Badawi)
Democracy
Posted by: ibn ayyub on: May 18, 2009
Democracy is a form of government in which number of people is important and not their understanding.
–Iqbal
Belief in God
Posted by: ibn ayyub on: May 18, 2009
It is mistakenly imagined by some that belief in a Supreme Being as the Creator and Controller of the universe is a mere emotional aspiration, a superstition of ancient times, irrational and illogical, and exploded by modern science. It is believed that scientists (physicists, biologists and others) have erected some theory which both refutes and replaces the traditional belief in God. Such ideas have only a very superficial grounding, and are the result of ignorance or an indifference to both the fundamentals of religious faith and the scope of the physical sciences. It is a significant fact in the history of world thought that very few people have ever made it their business to refute the existence of God. The views of the universe which are considered to be anti-religious are almost all agnostic, not atheistic, that is to say, they attempt to ignore the existence of God instead of denying it. This is true of certain views of modern science as well as of the ancient non-religious theories. The universe in which we live comprises an evident system of causes and effects, of phenomena and their results, and it is possible to discuss them indefinitely and construct theories about them, giving a superficial appearance of completeness. This is done, however, only at the expense of ignoring fundamentals or claiming that they cannot be known. If one were to search for a convincing statement based on firm principles that the existence of a Supreme Being is impossible, one would not be able to find it.
The reason for this state of affairs is that belief in God is at once instinctive, rational, evidential and intuitional, and it is only by deliberately neglecting to consider it that the non-religious attitude is maintained. It is instinctive in that man has an innate feeling of his own inadequacy and helplessness, which accompanies him from the cradle to the grave, a feeling accompanied by the complementary desire to seek refuge and support with a being who controls all those forces before which he feels himself inadequate. We put this feeling forward as instinctive, although it will immediately be perceived that it is also evidential. The weakness of man before all the uncountable influences over which he has no control is a fact so obvious as to require no discussion.
What is less well grasped by some who have claims to intelligence is that belief in God is fully supported by reason and logic, the principles on which all human intelligence stands. For instance, it is a basic requirement of reason that an effect cannot exist without a cause. However hard we press our mental faculties, we cannot conceive rationally of a causeless effect, and if we wish to postulate one we can only do so by temporarily putting our reason on the shelf. Reason leads us to the conclusion that just as the elements which compose the universe are effects of certain causes, the universe itself must be the effect of a cause, a cause which is itself mightier than and outside the universe. Non-religious thinkers have to ignore the origin of the universe and postulate something existing in the beginning without any known cause. This postulate is essentially non-rational and therefore unscientific, but it is a necessity for those thinkers who have unconsciously or deliberately decided not to consider fundamentals. Of these there are even some who openly proclaim their refusal to discuss or admit any metaphysical concept. This kind of attitude, however, can only be upheld by abandoning reason. Reason itself guides us inexorably to the conclusion that there is an ultimate cause, the Cause of causes, beyond this universe of time, space and change; in fact, a Supreme Being.
Another of the basic demands of reason is that diversity cannot exist without a fundamental unity. Whenever the human mind is confronted with diversity, it immediately sets to work to synthesise it into unities, then to synthesise these unities into higher unities and so on until it can go no further. The ultimate result of a rational consideration of diversity is to arrive at a unity of unities, a Supreme Unity, the producer of all diversities, but itself essentially One. Whichever fundamental of reason we select, if we follow its path we are led inevitably to the same goal – belief in God, the Supreme Being.
Besides the conclusion arrived at by purely rational processes, man is led to the belief in God by observation and experience. One of the principal reasons for man’s refusal to recognize the existence of God is the intellectual arrogance produced by his appreciation of his own powers of analysis and synthesis, of harnessing physical forces by his ingenuity, and of constructing complex machines to do his work for him. But pride is caused by concentrating too much attention on one’s own virtues and blinding oneself to one’s defects. What are the best of man’s mechanical inventions but a poor and crude imitation of what already exists in an infinitely finer form in nature? By copying in an elementary fashion some of the functions of the human eye, he has been able to evolve the camera; but what comparison has this machine, made out of lifeless materials, to the living stuff of the eye, and to the refinement, brightness, clarity, flexibility and stability of its vision, its immediate connection with the mind which sifts and appreciates all it sees, all without a complicated system and controls, and directly under the command of the human will? Take any organ of the body and study it – the heart, the brain – and it will immediately be obvious that it is quite outside the scope of man’s ability to conceive and fashion such an instrument. The petty imitations of man are attributed to his great cunning, artistry and intelligence. Is it then reasonable, logical or scientific to attribute the infinitely finer and more perfect instruments of nature to such vague and blind energies called by names such as the ‘life force’, or ‘matter in evolution’, and leave them undescribed and unexplained? If logic has any validity (and if it has not we had better stop thinking altogether and become animals), the intelligence which conceived and wrought myriads of such delicate and astonishing devices must be infinitely superior to the human intelligence (even the human intelligence is one of its products), and have control of all the materials and workings of the universe. Such an intelligence can only be possessed by a Supreme Being, the Creator, Fashioner and Sustainer of all things.
If we ponder our own place in the world, we find that we (as well as all other beings) are kept in being by a most intimate combination of forces and conditions, which is so delicate that even a small dislocation would cause our total destruction. We live, so to speak, continually on the brink of annihilation, and yet are enabled to carry on our complex existences in comparative immunity. We cannot live, for instance, without daily rest; both the human body and the human mind are constructed to need it. This fact is not in itself surprising, but what is surprising is that the solar system collaborates with us in our human frailty and provides us with a day and a night exactly suited to our needs. Man cannot claim to have compelled or persuaded the solar system to do so; nor can the solar system claim to have modelled human physical and mental energy to conform to its own movements. Both man and the solar system are evidently linked in a total organisation in which man is the beneficiary; the organiser of these inexplicable concordances can only be a Supreme Controller of the universe and mankind. Sweet water is a necessary condition of human existence; it is equally necessary for those plants which produce man’s staple foods, which themselves depend on each other. If sea water were to invade our rivers and wells or rain down from the sky, is there any doubt that we should all die of hunger and thirst in a few days and the whole world become an empty desert? Yet sea water is only held back by an invisible barrier over which we have no control, and the sun and the clouds co-operate in order to desalinate our water for us and so give us life. This linkage of interdependence and concurrence could be extended indefinitely by taking examples from the physical world, and to describe it as ‘fortuitous’ is only begging the question; moreover it is a contradiction in terms. Fortuity is the name for something which does not come within any known system or regulation, an apparently meaningless and haphazard occurrence. To call a system which is a balanced and cohesive organization fortuitous is obviously self-contradictory and fallacious. A ‘fortuitous system’ is, simply, an absurdity. If we observe carefully we can see that the whole of the universe is interdependent and interlinked and therefore not fortuitous but planned. Belief in God means, precisely, belief in a Planner of the universe.
A basic element in human consciousness – a suprarational element – is a sense of value and purpose in respect to life. Even the worst of men is prevented from becoming completely bestial by this feeling, and in the best of them it dominates their whole existence. The senses of good and evil, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, fitness and unfitness, truth and falsehood are such that however attacked by the missiles of constructive analysis, they remain intact within their intuitional fortress. In all ages and conditions, man has not been able to divest himself of the idea that behind its external effect, every action possesses a quality by which it may be judged and graded in the scale of final values. In addition to the consciousness of the existence of these values, there is the feeling that it is the purpose of man’s life to attain those qualities which reflect the highest of them, that not only are they excellent in themselves and worthy of being acquired, but that they must be acquired, and that he has been created to acquire them. The natural sense of qualitative purpose, if allowed to develop freely without the cramps of agnostic prejudice, leads him to the conception of an absolute good and an absolute truth as the ultimate standard of human existence, and from there (for a quality cannot exist except in a being who is qualified by it) to a being who is the possessor and author of these qualities, the Supreme Purposer.
The decisive vindication of the existence of God is evidential. At various junctures in world history and in widely distant places, certain men have arisen and proclaimed that they have been inspired by God to give His message to mankind. These men were not mad; we have historical records of several of them, including all or part of the message they insisted that they were called to deliver, and it is obvious that they were men who were intellectually and morally highly impressive. They did not come all at once so that we could attribute them to a sort of historical fashion. They came spaced throughout history usually at a time of great moral degeneration. If we examine their message, we find that apart from differences of expression, attributable to the milieu in which they lived, they not only bear remarkable similarities but are basically identical. They have stated that God had conversed with them in some inspirational manner, and had ordered them to proclaim His Existence as the Creator, Maintainer, Controller and eventual Destroyer of the world, to describe His Mercy and Justice, and to warn mankind that it is only by remembering and worshipping Him and following the moral and practical principles that He has laid down for them that they can achieve success and happiness here and hereafter.
The last of these prophets was Muhammad of Mecca, who stated that there would be no prophet after him, and it is a demonstrable historical fact that no-one has been able to establish a claim to prophethood since. Now those who discuss or refuse to discuss the existence of God almost invariably rely on rational or anti-rational arguments and rarely, if ever, consider the evidential factor. The two basic elements in human knowledge are, firstly, our own observations and conclusions, and secondly, the evidence of others. Among the branches of knowledge the whole of history, for example, and most of the average man’s acquaintance with science, are only known from the evidence of others, unless he himself is a specialist in the subject. When specialists in a certain branch of knowledge continuously assert that a certain thing is a fact, it becomes a necessity for the rest of mankind, who are unable to acquire this knowledge directly, to accept it as such. In the field of direct inspiration from God, and knowledge of His qualities and works, we have the repeated evidence of people in history who have affirmed their apprehension of Him and that they have been charged with conveying His message; not only that, the realities of the divine and spiritual realism as described by these prophets have in various degrees been corroborated and confirmed by the spiritual experiences of an uncounted number of their followers right up to the present day. These corroborators have been the saints and mystics of their various communities. This continuous and widespread evidence of the existence of God, the central and original evidence of prophets, and the derivative and confirmatory evidence of their followers, all based on modes of direct and intuitional perception of His Being, cannot with any reasonability be denied or ignored. To deny or ignore them is patently illogical and unscientific, and against the basic principles of the acquirement and dissemination of human knowledge. In addition to being instinctive, intuitional, and logical, belief in God has irrefutable evidence to prove its verity.
(Inner Aspects of Faith, Shah ShahiduLlah Faridi)
Muslim Demographics: We’re Taking Over the World?
Posted by: ibn ayyub on: May 3, 2009
By the middle of this century the Muslim population will be such that it will dominate the world. This video discusses the demographics that will lead to this change.
Obviously, Christians and Europeans are very worried about this fact and if we look in history we will se that they maybe justified because their birth rate is so low that at no stage ever has a nation turned around such a small rate. It has only lead to their total decline and ultimate destruction.
Very interesting video and the good news is that the Muslims, by simply doing what we are doing, will soon be the most dominant force in the world, inshallah.
Note that this video is made by Christians to scare the Christians about the Muslims and to get them call Muslims to the Gospels. It is obviously a tool to increase the hatred between our two faiths – like we need anything else to do that!
From: Hamza Jennings
Subjugation of ‘Ulama and Madaaris by Imperialist British .
Posted by: ibn ayyub on: May 1, 2009
The Campaign of 1857 and English Terror
Two fronts were opened against the British in 1857 – one to the north of Amritsar commanded by Hadrat Jafar Than-Siri (ra), and the second just to the south commanded by Haji ImdadUllah Muhajir Makki (ra). Together with Hadrat ImdadUllah (ra) stood noted scholars and warriors of the time such as Hadrat Rashid Ahmed Gangohi (ra), Hadrat Qasim Nanotwi (ra), and Hafiz Damin Shaheed (ra).
The Muslims suffered a crushing defeat in the War of 1857, and scores of noted scholars including Hadrat Hafiz Damin Shaheed (ra) met with martyrdom. The British then decided to tighten their rope and began a horrendous ‘Reign of Terror’ to crush any resistance in the subcontinent.
Over a thousand religious schools (madaaris) were burnt to the ground, and the rest shut down automatically as finances throughout the country were seized. Hadrat Shah WaliUllah Muhaddith Dehlvi (ra)’s Madrasa Rahimia was leveled by a bulldozer. In the following year, over a thousand Muslim scholars were hanged and their bodies were left hanging throughout the country to instill terror in the populace. Still more scholars were chained to cannons and ripped apart as the cannons were fired to salute the British victory.
Infinite Treachery
Despite this mass slaughter to crush all resistance, the British were still anxious to find a solution to these rebellions. They launched a three year survey headed by William Moore to determine a way to permanently keep this resistance from [resurfacing]. After three years Moore submitted a proposal to the Viceroy that Britain would need to implement three measures to free itself from these frequent uprisings.
Moore’s first suggestion was that the Muslims’ strong link to the Holy Quran needs to be severed; his second suggestion was that the British would have to find a means to root out the intense passion for Jihad from the hearts of Muslims. The third and last thing he stated was that the British had to sever any ties that the common Muslims had with their scholars, and thus their knowledge base. Moore said that Britain would have total control only when these three measures were implemented and seen through to their completion.
The Viceroy of Britain issued orders to act on Moore’s recommendations. More than four hundred thousand copies of the Holy Quran were burned over a three-year period from 1861 to 1864. The second step in this diabolical plan was to kill the passion of Jihad amongst the Muslims, and for this the British recruited various false scholars and hypocrites who issued fake and unlawful rulings that Jihad against the British was prohibited (haraam). This served to confuse and divide the Muslims and played right into the foreigners’ plans.
Trials and Tribulations of the Scholars
The culmination of this effort to completely subjugate the Muslims was to kill their scholars, which the British carried out mercilessly in the years 1864 to 1867. [Acting as upholders of the law], the British rulers in India staged mock trials in which scholars were falsely accused of killing Englishmen, and handed down death sentences within an hour of the trial. Fourteen thousand scholars were martyred in this three-year period. This inquisition was so widespread that the British historian Thompson writes that the noble bodies of the Muslim scholars were hanging from every tree on the road between Lahore and Peshawar.
Thompson further writes in his autobiography that he was visiting Delhi when he stopped at one of the tents along the way set up as rest stops for travelers. He noticed a foul stench coming from behind his tent, so he stepped out to investigate. He describes a scene in which forty scholars were stripped and thrown onto beds of coals, being taunted by British soldiers to admit their part in the War of 1857. The flesh and fat was melting and oozing out of their charred bodies and actually extinguishing the ambers. Thompson says that the bodies of these forty scholars stiffened and turned cold in front of him, only to be replaced by forty more who were thrust onto the burning coals.
Still other scholars were imprisoned and tortured in jail, not allowed food or rest in order to break them mentally. Maulana Jafar Than-Siri (ra) writes in his biography that he was in the Khot Laqpat jail when the order came to transport them to Multan. They were put into large cages that had metallic spikes fixed into them to maximize suffering, and in this way they reached Multan in three months. They would be denied food for days at a time to intensify their anguish, and be forced to relieve themselves in their cages. The spikes would stab and wound them at every turn, and thus also rob them of any sleep. Needless to say many died on the way because of these horrific conditions.
The surviving few who reached the Multan jail were further subjected to more torture, until it was ordered that all the scholars remaining in Multan be hanged. Hearing this, the scholars were very pleased and relieved, for they would be free of this life and attain martyrdom. Therefore, regardless of their past suffering, their faces were illuminated on the day their death sentences were to be carried out, something which surprised their captors. When asked why they appeared so peaceful and content on such a day that they were to be hanged, one of them said that they would at last be free and Allah (SWT) would give them the status of martyrdom. The British warden hence conferred with his officers and decided that the scholars should not be given the satisfaction of death, so they were instead sentenced to a further fourteen year sentence during which the British would intensify their torture.
Tears of Innocence
Maulana Than-Siri (ra) further says that his wife and child were brought before him as he and the rest of the scholars were being led away. Seeing him in shackles they both began crying, while his eight year old son said, “When are you coming back to us O Father, and why have these people tied you up like this?” To this Maulana Than-Siri (ra) had no reply, but said to his wife and child, “Be strong, and perhaps I will see you again in this life. If I do not then we will surely meet at the stream of Kauthar [a river in Jannah].”
Extracted from The Scholars of Deoband by Hazrat Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad (db), Tasawwuf.org
From: at-Talib
