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PSEUDO-RELIGION UNDER THE OMAYYADS AND ABBASIDS MURDER OF THE PROPHET’S GRANDSONSIt was the Omayyads again who displayed their hostility toward Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, and killed Hasan and Hüseyin, grandsons of the Prophet. According to the report of Masudi, it was Muaviye, finding a rival in Hasan, who had him poisoned. Muaviya, who made use of Hasan’s wife, was said to rejoice upon hearing of the death of Hasan who had abandoned the political scene and was living the life of a recluse. Also, Hüseyin, Hasan’s brother, also was killed Karbala by Yazid, Muaviya’s son at. It is reported in historical records that Yazid did not pay any respect to the dead body of Hüseyin and that he had planted the skull of his enemy at the end of a stick and dallied with it. Zaynab, sister of Hasan and Hüseyin, was sent into exile for fear that she might lead an insurrection. The Omayyads, murderers of the Prophet’s grandsons, were brazen enough in claiming that they had done this for the sake of Islam. It is not our intention here to indict the culprits and declare them guilty of evident treacheries. What we are trying to get across is to show how far one can trust these people, the source of iniquities, with regard to their having been the fountainhead of hadiths and sects. The hadith books of today are what have been inherited from them, with additions made during the reign of the Abbasids. These hadiths lay the foundations of Islam that the sects shaped.They transformed the caliphate into a sovereignty that passed from father to son. There was no end to the books of hadiths and sects that cropped up under the supervision of these caliphs. To what extent can these sects and hadiths, developed by caliphs, the murderers of the Prophet’s grandsons and the governors, be considered dependable? Yet, the majority of Sunni Islamists try to free the Omayyads from blame by pointing to the Sýffý battle as an error of ijtihad (canonical jurisprudence). In this way, they believe they can acquit the founders of their creeds, and, consequently, themselves. One can’t hide the truth, the evil practices of the Omayyads. Up until the reign of the Omayyads, there had been no institution of caliphate that had taken the shape of a sultanate, nor a source other than the Quran. The transformation of the simple lifestyle during the lifetime of the Prophet and the Four Caliphs into a pompous way of living, the conversion of religious leadership into material prosperity and political power and of the caliphate into a dynasty were the origins of the corruption that had begun in this era. There had been caliphs that had become notorious for their orgies and others that had made the pages of the Quran – on which they spotted verses going against their grain – targets for their arrows (see Masudi, Isfahani and Ibnul Athir). This is the period during which the hadiths appeared in black and white. However, the hadiths, the parables and commentaries were all mixed up. Although we know that the hadiths had begun to be copied under the Omayyads, there is no book of hadiths still existing from that period. The Kutub-i Sitte (the famous books of hadiths) were written afterward, during the rule of the Abbasids. If we consider the Omayyads to have been a bridge, a source for the hadiths (assuming that the fabrications of the Abbasids had never existed), we can readily see the predicament. Ali had made the following remark about the Omayyads: “They also wear the garb of religion, but with one difference; they put it on having turned it inside out.” The system of sects that claimed to be representative of the established religion has deceived the public and imposed itself as the religion. It is to be regretted that what was interpolated and added to Islam at that time is believed to be part of the religion. A lunatic has thrown a stone into a well; forty intelligent and sane persons do their utmost to get it from there, without success. The gist of the matter lies not in Islam as such, but in those that put it on as a garb turned inside out. Even the smartest suit will look awkward on someone if it is worn turned inside out. To tell all the suffering caused by the Omayyads would take volumes, but this is not our intention. CONCOCTIONS STARTED UNDER THE OMAYYADS CONTINUEDThe concoctions reached a peak under the Abbasids. However, both during the Omayyads and the Abbasids there had been objections to those engaged in creating a religious source other than the Quran. We know that there have been quite a number of people who espoused the theological school of Mutazila that opposed the copying of the hadiths and the misconceptions. However, the Sunni viewpoint that was to dominate the administrative corps came to be imposed on the public. In this way, before the Abbasids came to an end, the Sunni eliminated all opposition and established its sovereignty. The heritage of the Omayyads had been the most important source in the emerging system. Yet, concoctions never ended. The asceticism, sufism, mysticism, self-immolation introduced partly influenced by Indian mysticism had their parts to play in corrupting the mentality shaped by the Quran.The new converts from the widening geography of Islam had brought along their original creeds into the Islam they embraced. For instance, in the islamization of Turks, dervishes and sufis had played important roles. The shamanistic past of the Turks had made them subservient to their sheikhs. The religious orders and sufism that bore the traces of Indian mysticism and shamanistic culture occupied an important place in the formation of the mental outlook of the Turks. The path to salvation was therefore to find ways and means for the prevention of the continuation of the influence of these institutions and constant additions to religion which could be thwarted only by returning to the Quran. This movement that had begun by concocting and fabricating hadiths and the infiltration of foreign creeds and cultures continued with fatwas and ijtihads. For example, the fatwa that allowed the Ottoman sultans to murder the brothers of the heir apparent (which conflicted with the verses of the Quran) was issued by the sheikhulislam (dignitary responsible for all matters connected with canon law) in the name of religion. It was again a religious scholar who had issued a fatwa according to which the wearing of the hat (instead of the turban) during the reform movement was declared to be a sign of heathenism, the outcome of which being the hat wearers’ ending in the gallows. A BOOK WRITTEN UNDER THE OMAYYADS: IRCA (DEFERRAL)In the political medium of the Omayyads, the confrontation of Ali and Othman and indulging in arguments about Muaviya and Ali were daily occurrences. There was a group of people that remained indifferent toward people who occupied an administrative office in the political arena and preferred not to speak their minds as to who was faithful and who the heretic. “God knows who is what” had been their motto. As they had deferred the sentence to the Judgment Day, they were called Murcie (postponers).The relevant opinions had been expressed in the book entitled Irca (Deferral). It was written in the 60s AH, during the later period of the Omayyads, 150-200 years prior to the celebrated hadith books. The book stressed, at an early phase of Islam, that the source of religion was the Quran. This was a period during which additions to the Quran had started. The absolute dominion of the mentality that promoted the copying of hadiths came about toward the end of the Abbassids. In the said book, Hasan bin Muhammad describes the Quran with quotations from the Quran: This revelation is sent down with the knowledge of God (11 Hud, 14; 4 The Women 166), God perfected His revelations (22 The Pilgrimage, 52), the Quran is explained in detail (11 Hud, 1; 6 The Cattle, 55, 97, 98, 126; 7 The Purgatory, 52,174; 9 Repentance, 11), it is guarded (15 Al Hijr, 9, 17), God set the best examples in the Quran (14 Abraham, 45; 30 The Roman, 58), and the Quran is the distinguisher of true and false (25 The Distinguisher, 1; 8 The Spoils of War, 25)… According to Hasan bin Muhammad, God’s grace has been accomplished by the revelation of the Quran, and prayers took their final form. This is the end of all injunctions. The believers are to obey what have been prescribed for them in the Quran. It is the sound link that will never be broken. God made the Quran in the form of a book and commanded His servants to obey whatever is written in it. Humanity is obliged to learn it by heart and transmit it to future generations. Woe to those who break away from it. Hasan bin Muhammad, who admitted no salvation outside the Quran’s jurisdiction, had declared Sebeils as enemy because they claimed that man could be saved by a secret revelation (see Ýrca Deferral, and Türklerin Islamlaþma Sürecinde Mürcie ve Tesirleri). The fact that in the above considerations no place has been given to any hadith shows that the author of the book Deferral enjoyed the same cast of mind as ours. This book that gave tongue to the Deferrals, the opposition to the hadith transmitters of Kharidjis and the Mutazila’s rationalism that ousted the hadiths are examples of the opposition experienced by the political authorities before they succeeded in imposing the sectarian concepts as the official religion. |