Human Rights, Amnesty and Sultan Salah-ud-Din Ayubi:
We are talking about 12th century C.E when the whole Europe was living their dark ages, small groups fighting and killing each other and savagery was the order of day. The middle world too was constantly (1/n)
warring: tribes with tribes, kingdoms with kingdoms and civilisations with civilisations. Before the pre-modern concept of “Human Rights”, Sultan Salahuddin laid the most luminous examples of dignity for human life, tolerance, kindness and justice that would put (2/n)
all current standards of ‘Rights’ to shame.
1. In the Battle of Hattin when his army laid siege of Al-Quds the Jewish envoy threatened that they would kill all the Muslims, loot their properties and burn all Muslim relics in case Ayubi’s army didn’t surrender. Ayubi sure (3/n)
of his own victory played cool and offered the frustrated envoys to pay a little ransom to Muslims and they could leave the city safely. This saved large number of Christian and Jewish lives.
2. During the first crusade there had been widespread killings of Muslims (4/n)
According to Tyreman in his book ‘God’s War: The slaughter continued for days; Muslims were indiscriminately killed, and Jews who had taken refuge in their synagogue died when it was burnt down by the Crusaders.” This had taken place merely 88 years before the Hattin. (5/n)
All non-Muslims feared if Salah-ud-Din would keep his promise for all the innocent Muslim blood they had on their hands. Salah-ud-Din was follower of Muhammad (S.A.A.W) whose promise was a word of destiny. Salah-ud-Din kept every singly word of his agreement and pardoned all. 6n
3. As per the agreement the Christian army had to pay a ransom of 30,000 dinars for the safe passage. The elite and the top soldiers paid it but the poor could not and were left at the mercy of Sultan. Rightly so.. He himself paid the ransom of hundreds of poor soldiers. (7/n)
4. After seeing the mercy of Salah-ud-din his brother freed 1000 Christian soldiers. According to Filippo Donvito in his research paper titled ‘Saladin’s Christian hostages and prisoners: Hangman or Gentleman?’ Around 20,000 poor Christians who had no money to pay (8/n)
the ransom were pardoned by the Sultan and were allowed to leave the city. Due to this act of generosity, thousands of Christians converted to Islam.
5. The agreement did not mention any protection to those who were leaving the city, but Sultan ordered his army to provide (9/n)
protection to the Christians going away from Jerusalem, till they reach a safe place.
6. Salah-ud-Din was advised by his close associates to destroy the Church of Sepulchre but he didn’t, setting forward an example of religious tolerance, even if it were against the enemies. 10
7. He allowed the Orthodox Christians and Syriacs to remain and to worship as they chose. The Copts, who were barred from entering Jerusalem by the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem as they were considered heretics and atheists, were allowed to enter the city without (11/n)
paying any fees and the Sultan treated them as his own subjects. The copts were given their holy places. The Abyssinian Christians were allowed to visit the holy places of Jerusalem without paying any fees.
6. The soldiers were strictly ordered to be respectful (12/n)
to women. They were allowed to leave the city with all dignity and honour. Crimes against women by anyone were not tolerated. The wives of captured Kings and lords e.g Sibylla were given full respect and dignity.
Ayubi is a great hero of Islam and humanity and rightly so.. n/n
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Omar Ibn Said of the Tukolor Fula ethnicity was born in 1765 in Futa Toro, West Africa, present-day Senegal. He had received eduction in Arabic and religious studies for 25 years. The region was raided by the imperialists (1n)
and he was taken a captive and sold as a slave in South Carolina to a cruel man called Johnson. To escape from his cruelty, Said ran away but was caught and jailed at Fayetteville, North Carolina. The pious man started writing in Arabic on the walls of the jail. (2/n)
He was eventually taken to the household of Jim Owen whose brother John, was the Governor of North Carolina. His “master” was fully convinced that Omar had converted to Christianity, Omar kept on practicing his faith clandestinely. Inside the Bible given to him by Jim, (3/n)
While flags usually represent solidarity of a people, the flag below represents disintegration of a Universal unity into “nation-ness” driven geographical fragments, designed and extended by Western imperial interests. The flag of Arab revolt against the Ottomans during WW1. (1/n
The flag had been designed by Mark Sykes. Flags inspired by it include those of Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait, Sudan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Somaliland, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Libya. The Sykes–Picot Agreement (2/n)
was a 1916 secret treaty between the UK and France, with assent from the Russia and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence in Muslim world. No doubt, the Ottoman empire was at its nadir, politically, religiously (3/n)
Hejaz Railway was an epidemic-avoiding (cholera), cheap conveyance for Hajis that ran from Damascus to Arabian Peninsula constructed from 1900-1908. Apart from its religious and political significance its importance lay in the fact that it marked Muslim solidarity. (1/n)
It was proposed by an Indian Muslim by the name of Muhammad InshaAllah in 1897 who was a teacher and journalist. It was commisioned by the Turk Abdulhamid II as a mark of pride and defiance to European colonisers. It was build purely from Muslim money which was (2/n)
was raised by Indian Muslims (living under British), Arabs (Colonised by British, French etc), Bosnians (living under Austrio-Hingarian rule) and those throughout the world, penny by penny. (3/n)
Indian Muslim soldiers in Singapore executed by the British after refusal to fight against Turkey, 1914-1915.
Context (Thread)
The Fifth Light Infantry regimen of British Indian Army from Madras was sent to replace Yorkshire infantry. They consisted of Muslims who were Pathans and Rajputs and were mainly from the Haryana and Punjab areas. The Ottomans had sided with their (1/n)
German allies against the British and its allies. Sultan Mehmet V, who was the Khalifa, i.e. the head of Caliphate system which began after the demise of Muhammad ﷺ, had urged Muslims all over the world to fight the British. After the arrival of the infantry in Singapore, (2/n)
The world’s first university was founded in 9th century C.E by a Muslim woman Fatima al-Fihri (also called “Umm-ul-Banayn). Established in the year 859, the University of al-Qarawiyyin was the first degree-granting educational institute in the world (as recognised by UNESCO (1/n)
and Guinness World Records). Fatima was born in Tunisia and later migrated to Morocco. Upon the death of her father she inherited a large fortune. She invested the money in funding a local mosque and educational institution which took shape of a huge university named after her (2
birthplace – Qayrawan – in Tunisia.
Al-Qarawiyyin University was the first university to grant a degree in medicine and the first scientific hub to grant academic degrees in various types of Islamic sciences, literature, mathematics and astronomy. (3/n)