islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

The Arab–Islamic Imperialismconquered. This also came at the compromise of Islamic teachings, since these achievements were themanifestations of pre-Islamic jahiliyah heritage, canceled by Islam. Many of these endeavors are also overtlycondemned by Allah and Prophet Muhammad as discussed already. Islam was born not to nurture but todestroy them. Prophet Muhammad and the later Muslim invaders set out to accomplish this goal by launchingaggressive attacks on the existing non-Islamic civilizations one after another. Despite making significantinroads into obliterating those jahiliyah achievements in the early phase of Islamic conquests, they eventuallyfailed to realize their goal completely due to the resilience of those deeply-rooted cultures and civilizations—some thousands of years old. The ascension of the Godless Umayyads to power quite early in Islam (661)dramatically changed the political and ideological circumstances in many respects from the course that wasset forth by the Prophet.Although not within the scope of this book, it is worth discussing briefly that the majority of theUmayyad rulers had deep-seated disdain for Prophet Muhammad because of the sustained and bloody rivalrybetween Muhammad and Meccan leader Abu Sufyan, father of Mu'awiyah, the first Umayyad Caliph.Mu'awiyah himself was staunchly opposed to Islam. When Muhammad conquered Mecca in 630, Abu Sufyanhad to embrace Islam. A large number of Meccans accepted Islam on that day, but Mu'awiyah didn’t. Thenext year, when Allah revealed verse 9:1–5 to force the idolaters to convert to Islam at the pain of death, allMeccans had to embrace Islam but Mu'awiyah didn’t; he fled to Yemen. Only after Yemen and entire Arabiawas taken by Muslims, Mu'awiyah reluctantly embraced Islam.Therefore, Mu'awiyah and most Umayyad rulers had little respect for Islam and the Quran. In thebattle of Siffin in 657 against fourth Caliph Ali, Mu'awiyah, knowing the kind of reverence Muslims show tothe holy Quran, instructed his troops to stick its pages at the tip of their spears. 418 Seeing this, Ali’s troopsrefused to fight and technically lost the battle. Following their ascension to caliphal power, the Umayyadswere responsible for the death of many members of Ali’s family. In the reign of Mu'awiyah’s son Yazid I,Husayn, son of Ali and grandson of Muhammad, was killed in a cruel manner in the battle of Karbala (680).Husayn had revolted against Yazid’s authority and in the confrontation at Karbala, Husayn’s troops were cutoff from the source of drinking water to avenge the incidence of Badr—in which Muhammad had similarlycut off Abu Sufyan’s troops from water. The dismembered heads of the slain men, women and children werebrought to the governor of Basra, while the head of Husayn was sent to Caliph Yazid in Damascus fordisplaying publicly. Sahih Bikhari [5:91] records of the treatment of the decapitated head of Husayn that ‘Thehead of Al-Husain was brought to ‘Ubaidullah bin Ziyad and was put in a tray, and then Ibn Ziyad startedplaying with a stick at the nose and mouth of Al-Husain’s head and saying something about his handsomefeatures.’Mocking Allah’s promise in the Quran [14:9] to destroy the rebellious like the way ‘the people ofNoah, and Ad, and Thamud’ were destroyed previously, Caliph al-Walid II (d. 743) tore out that page of theQuran, stuck on a lance and shot it into pieces by an arrow and challenged: ‘Do you rebuke every opponent?Behold, I am that obstinate opponent! When you appear before your Lord on the day of resurrection; say thatWalid has torn you in this manner.’ 419 The irreverent Walid II was an ‘intensely cultivated man, surroundedwith poets, dancing girls, and musicians and lived a merry life of the libertine, with no interest in religion.’ 420During most of the ninety-year Umayyad rule (660–750), except a short period of relative orthodoxy(715–21), the Umayyad rulers did all kinds of sacrilegious acts to undermine Islam. The only thing theUmayyads had whole-heartedly embraced from the Islamic creed is the doctrine of its war for their conquest.Mu'awiyah—under whom the Islamic world achieved its greatest expansion yet—was a master Arab418. Some sources claim a copy of the Quran was raised as a sign of calling to resolve the dispute throughmediation.419. Walker, p. 237; also Ibn Warraq, p. 243420. Ibn Warraq, p. 243140