Volume 8 Surah 9 - Enjoy Islam

Al-Tawbah (The Repentance) | RELATIONS WITH OTHER RELIGIONSstatements. They also paved the way to the victory of the Tartars and their conquestof Baghdad and the fall of the Islamic Caliphate.In modern history, the Jews have been behind every calamity that has befallen theMuslim communities everywhere. They give active support to every attempt to crushthe modern Islamic revival and extend their protection to every regime thatsuppresses such a revival.History Tells its TaleThe other people of earlier revelations, the Christians, have been no less hostile.Enmity between the Byzantines and the Persians went back for centuries.Nevertheless, as soon as the Church felt that Islam, the new faith, represented athreat to its concocted version of Christianity, which was no more than a collection ofancient pagan legends, misguided inventions and a handful of statements from theProphet Jesus, both camps buried all their past enmity and age-old hatred to confrontthe new faith together.The Byzantines, and their puppet Arab regime of Ghassān, started to raise forcesto fight the new faith. They killed the Prophet’s messenger, when messengers weretraditionally given full protection. When the Prophet sent a force of 3,000 men to stopthe provocation, they were confronted by an army that included, according tohistorical reports, 100,000 of the Byzantines and a similar force of Christian Arabsunder their rule. This was the Battle of Mu’tah, which took place in year 8 H,corresponding to 630 CE, and in which three Muslim commanders, Zayd ibnĤārithah, Ja`far ibn Abī Ţālib and `Abdullāh ibn Rawāĥah, fell as martyrs.Then the expedition to Tabūk, which is the major subject of discussion in thissūrah, took place, followed by the march of the army commanded by Usāmah ibnZayd. This was prepared by the Prophet and dispatched by his successor, Abū Bakr,in a demonstration of power to confront the Byzantine forces being mobilized tosuppress the voice of Islam. Then the Muslims achieved a great victory in the Battleof Yarmūk against the Byzantines. This ushered in the liberation of wide areas ofSyria, Egypt, North Africa and the Mediterranean from Byzantine colonialism, andthe consolidation of an Islamic base in Andalusia. From then on the hostility of theCrusaders to Islam was in full swing.Everybody has heard of the campaigns known as the Crusades, but these were notthe only ones launched by the Church against Islam. Indeed there were much earliercampaigns, which started when the Byzantines patched up their long hostility withthe Persians to lend them a helping hand against Islam in the southern areas ofArabia. The Battle of Mu’tah was another early confrontation, but there were morebattles to come after the great victory achieved by the Muslims in Yarmūk. This92