This is a letter written by Salah El Din A Ayyubi when he started his Jihad against the crusaders more than 9 centuries ago:
"We hope in Allah most high, to whom be praise, who leads the hearts of Muslims to calm what torments them and ruins their prosperity.
"Where is the sense of honor of Muslims? The pride of Believers? The Zeal of the Faithful?
"We shall never cease to be amazed at how the disbelievers for their part have shown trusts, and it is the Muslims who have been lacking in zeal. Not one of them has responded to the call. Not one intervenes to straighten what is distorted; but observe how far the Franks have gone what unity they have achieved. What aims they pursue. What help they have given. What sums of money they have borrowed and spent. What wealth they have collected and distributed and divided amongst them. There is not a King left in their lands or islands, not a lord or a rich man who has not competed with his neighbors to produce more support and rival his peers in strenuous military efforts. In defense of their religion they consider it a small thing to spend life and soul; and they have kept their infidel brothers supplied with arms and champions of war; and all they have done and all their generosity has been purely out of zeal for him they worship in jealous defense of their faith.
"The Muslims on the other hand are weak and demoralized; they have become negligent and lazy, the victims of unproductive stupefaction and completely lacking in enthusiasm. If , Allah forbid, Islam should draw rein, obscure her splendor, blunt her sword, there would be no one, east or west, far or near who would blaze the zeal for Allah’s religion, or choose to come to the aid of truth against error.
"This is the moment to cast off laziness, to summon from far and near all those men who have blood in their veins; but we are confident (he speaks about himself and the small party of believers who began with him and then became a large party); but we are confident, thanks to Allah-Alhamdulillah-in the Help that will come from him and entrust ourselves to him in sincerity of purpose and deepest devotion.
“Insha Allah, the disbelievers shall perish and the faithful have a sure deliverance.”
There was in effect a state of war betwen Medina and Mecca. Mecca was known to be making preparations for an attack on Medina, as made clear in the letter written by the Quraish to Abdullah ibn Ubay when the Ansar gave shelter to the Prophet (pbuh).
The letter was an ultimatum to kill the Prophet (pbuh) or give him to the Quraish, or be atacked. Given that the Ansar decided to support the Prophet (pbuh), it was clear that a state of war existed between them and the Meccans at that point.
Armughal... the Muslims took the initiative and the first attempted attack in that war which was thrust upon them. Given that the war as inevitable, and that 313 men were all that they would be able to muster, it was indeed wise to take the initiative and the battle to the enemy to fight them on the Muslims' own terms rather than sit around and wait to be slaughtered at the enemy's convenience.
I was reading the history of Muslims in Spain. Which further attracted me to Nasim Hijazi's novel, "Yousuf Bin Tashfeen" and I was surprised to see that this novel scketches the state of Muslims during that time in quite an adequate way. Reader reads the story and the story is linked to the "real" events in an extreemly nice way......
More surprising was the reality that I discovered while reading that history that whatever happened then is not different from whatever is happening in Pakistan and with Muslim Ummah "NOW"..... At that time, Muslims had started thinking that Non-Muslims are their well wishers and their civilisation is good for them but this malaised thinking proved devastating for them" I found the history of "Fall of Dhaka" not very different from that of "Fall of Greneda" in 1492.......
It is sad for me to see that the Muslim youth these days likes to talk about things like "If sex before marriage OKAY" and "Methods to induce mences" and "Is contraception Okay" and "Secularism is the right way" and so on.
I really think that these kids have not been given the opportunity by their parents to study "their" history which is making them ignorant about what they should be and what they should be thinking about instead. Looks like the thoughts of their past, present and future have not been there in their minds.
What kind of deterioration is this that we feel proud of. It is really shamful for all of us as Muslims.....
AQ and MS, just wanted to make things clear and not sound as if Muslims marched to Makkah and attacked Quraysh, and that the armies met at a ground closer to Madinah than to Makkah, and that the battle wasn't really an "offensive" one from the Muslims....
The war itself was without doubt defensive - the Quraish clearly started it. But the point that I’m trying to make is that the Muslims did not make any effort to avoid battle - they did seize the opporunity to fight.
It was one of those Siraayas where Muslims were going to attack the Caravan of Abu Sufiyan who was a non-muslim then and coming after doing Business from Syria.
When 313 Muslims reached Badar, the news came in that 1000 Quresh were up arms on the other side… Rasoolulah:saw: said that Allah:swt: has promised victory for either one. Either go for the caravan and easily take over it and escape the big battle or just go for the Quresh which seemed more dangerous.
Victory with going for Caravan was apparent; Victory with going for big battle was not conceivable. The Imaan of the sahaaba won and Muslim launched the offensive attack against Quresh.
i read the book crusades through arab eyes, and subhanallah, the book is just a mirror image of what is going on today. same cities, same nationalities, same enemy, similar accounts of savagery and brutality as we see in the news today. not much has changed. even the numbers of dead are on a similar scale. we all need to read this book and realize the dire situation of muslim ummah and that only another united front can save us from this latest crusade.
Hijazi wrote fiction and not history. This is like saying the movie Gandhi accurately depicts the history of the subcontinent (that is the belief of many Bharatis).
Quote:
[This is like saying the movie Gandhi accurately depicts the history of the subcontinent (that is the belief of many Bharatis).]
Why bring Gandhi into the whole debate.
It is a pity that these people are looking with yearning eyes for things that are past. It is time that these guys looked at themselves and realised where their faults lie. Without the mod muslims all these guys would be under the Taliban style of rule and be happy about it.
who was a non-muslim then and coming after doing Business from Syria.
