Deviated ideas of Muhammad Qutb

62 - An article by an Egyptian named Muhammad Qutb appeared in a Turkish religious magazine. The article, headlined "The Line of Deviation" was translated from Arabic. If the translation was done correctly, it immediately strikes the eye that its writer has not a say in the religion. See what nonsense he talks:

"The victories which the Turks gained in battlefields honored Islam. Yet it is a reality as well that Islam lost much of its meaning in the Turks' hands. In the hands of the Turks, Islam was frozen insubstantially and its improvement was stopped. The Ottomans froze and maltreated Islam in all the fields except in military. For example, they didn't lay on knowledge as much stress as necessary. They stopped ijtihad and the knowledge of fiqh got fixed.

"Eventually, Islam won its independence getting rid of the damning restriction of the Ottomans, and began to rush forward. This rushing is seen especially in Wahhabite movement in Hedjaz and in the movement of Mahdism led by Mahdi in Sudan. These two movements have been of as much quality as to make Islam recover its own power and its tendency towards improvement. Seeing this happy improvement in Islam, the imperialistic crusaders came into play."

The service the Ottoman Turks rendered to Islam is a masterpiece, a monument. One has to be blind or a turkophobe not to see this gigantic monument that has been erected on the square of history. From which source were this dynamism, this morals, this patience, this heroism, which led the Ottoman Turks from one victory to another, as this Egyptian writer has to admit of it? Weren't they from the Islamic source? One cannot honor Islam. One can be honored by Islam. Hadrat 'Umar (radi-Allahu 'anh), the honorable Amir of Muslims, said, "We used to be contemptible, low persons; Allahu ta'ala honored us by making us Muslims." The ignorant, who do not know that Islam is the source of every kind of virtue and honor, suppose that Islam is to be honored.

The Islamic army going towards Vienna from Istanbul rested near a source of water in the neighborhood of Belgrade. The fountain was crowded with soldiers performing ablution and filling their containers with water. The priest of a church nearabouts made up and dressed beautiful girls. He gave them a bucket each and sent them to the fountain. The priest watched secretly from behind the window. As soon as the girls approached the soldiers moved aside. The girls filled their buckets easily and went back to the church. The priest, upon seeing this beautiful moral behavior, virtue, decency and mercy of the Islamic soldiers, sent a message to the crusaders' commandant, saying, "This army will never be overcome. Don't shed your blood in vain!" I wonder if this Egyptian writer makes a mistake by supposing that the Ottoman victories were barbarian invasions like those of the armies of Attilla? If he had read the British Lord Davenport's book, he would know about the truth: "Islamic armies took with them justice, virtue and civilization wherever they went. They met the defeated enemy who would surrender always with forgivingness," and he would be a little well-behaved in his writings. Those who made Islamic caliphs lead a dungeon life and who usurped their rights of caliphate from them after 'Abbasids were not ashamed of calling themselves "Sultan al-Haramain" in khutba. When Sultan Yavuz Salim Khan conquered Egypt and rescued the caliphate from slavery in 923 A.H. (1517), he silenced the orator who also called him "Sultan al-Haramain" in khutba customarily, and said, "For me, there cannot be a greater honor than being a slave of those blessed places. Call me Khadim al-Haramain!" It is written in the history books. It may be understood now whether the Egyptians or the Ottomans have frozen Islamic morals. Sultan AbdulHamid Khan It took every year a person, who finished the Faculty of Political Science with the first prize, into the palace as a clerk. Thus, he encouraged youngsters to work and study. Asad Bey who was assigned as a clerk, says in his book Hatirat-i AbdulHamid Khan Thani, "I wrote a cipher on a midnight. I knocked at the door of the Sultan's Bedroom for his signature. It was not opened. I knocked once more. It still was not open. I was about to knock for the third time, the door opened. The Sultan, who met me, was drying his face with the towel. 'Sonny! I kept you waiting. I beg your excuse! I got up yet at the first knock. I understood that you came for an urgent signature at midnight. I was without ablution. I had never signed any paper of this nation without ablution (wudu). I was late in order to perform the ablution. Let me hear,' he said. I read. He signed it pronouncing the Basmala, and he said, 'Let's hope for the best, Insha-Allah,' " The Ottoman Sultans were that much attached and that much respectful to Islam. Ayyub Sabri Pasha says in his book Mirat al-Haram-Ain, "Sultan Abdulmajid Khan, upon finding out that Mustafa Rashid Pasha was a Mason and had chosen a path not compatible with Islam, got sick of his anxiety and sorrow. He could not sit on the bed, he always lay. Only important papers were being read to him in order to take the imperial rescript. About a paper which had been waiting for its turn, he was said, 'An application of the inhabitants of Medina will be read.' 'Hold over! Don't read! Help me sit!' he said. He was helped to sit putting a pillow behind him. He said, 'They are our Master Rasulullah's (Sall Allahu alaihi wa Aalihi wa Sallim) neighbors. I would be ashamed of listening to their application lying down as I was. Do at once what they want! But read so that my ears may be blessed!' He passed away the following day." Here are the morals, decency of the Ottoman Turkish Sultans and their reverence to Islam.

Can this reverence, this well-behavior of the Turks towards Islam be the same as the disrespectfulness, the indecency of the rascals who lie down like carcasses in Masjid as-Saada with their foul feet pointing towards the Qabr as-Saada?

In the words, "Islam's improvement was stopped in the Ottomans," there smells the noxious scent of insidious hostility towards Islam. Fenari, Molla Khusraw, al-Hayali, al-Galanbawi, Ibn Kamal, Abussuud, 'Allama al-Birghiwi, Ibn 'Abidin, 'Abd al-Ghani an-Nabulusi, Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi, as-Suwaidi, 'Abdulhakim-i Arwasi and 'Allama Mustafa Sabri, who disgraced 'Abduh, and many a scholar of fiqh and kalam, and calligraphers, Mimar Sinan (architect), Sokullu and Koprulu; in which State were all these great men educated? Weren't they educated in the Ottomans? Hundred thousands of books of knowledge written by the Ottoman scholars have filled up the national libraries in every city. Their catalogues are evident. Weren't they the Ottoman Shaikh al-Islams who gave fatwa to the whole Muslim world for six hundred years and who solved every kind of problem and who were remedies for Muslims' cares and who disgraced Christians and heretical groups by writing refutations to them? Al-Hayali's commentaries of 'ilm al-kalam books, Molla Khursraw's Ad-durar, al-Halabi's Multaqa, Ibn 'Abidin's Radd al-mukhtar, Abussuud's tafsir and Shaikhzada's commentary to al-Baidawi's tafsir shed light upon the whole world today. Didn't the Ottomans educate these exalted scholars and awliya? Today also, those who want to learn their faith correctly should read these valuable books. The most valuable Qur'an commentaries are those written by Shaikhzada and Abussuud. He who wants to be useful to Muslims should translate these books into Turkish. The Qur'an commentaries of reformist writers are not so, because, with their short sight and inefficient knowledge, they have mixed with these books whatever occurred to their minds under the name of tafsir, thus adding rotten rings to the chain. He who relies on a chain with rotten rings and descends on the sea by clasping it, will certainly be mistaken and drown. Therefore, one should not read the translations of such made-up books of tafsir. The six-hundred-year-old guardians of Islam and the Sources of Islamic knowledge were always the Ottomans. Hundreds of fatwa books like Bahjat al-fatawa, in which it is written that the printing-press should be founded, showed solutions according to the requirements of each century and opened ways to improvements. As for Majalla, the masterpiece of the last century, it became a monument of laws, having no equal in the world. If the Ottoman morals, knowledge and culture survived today, no defeat would have been suffered against a handful of Jews, and the war plans of Muslims would not have been sold for a few thousand dollars by the responsible persons to the Israelite spies in London; nor would the Arabic unity have been disgraced in front of the whole world.

The fearless, shameless aggression of the Egyptian writer Kutb to the Sahabat al-kiram and then to the real Muslim administrators of the Umayyads. Abbasid and Ottomans, is not without its purpose. He himself explains its reason. The gypsy reveals his theft while boasting of his qualities. He lets out what he has hitherto kept back and says, "Wahhabism rescued Islam from slavery." Yes, in order to praise the la-madhhabi, he speaks ill of Islamic caliphs and Islamic scholars. The plans and the policy of Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb and 'Abduh are based on this fundamental. They all attack the early Muslims. They slander the Ahl as-Sunnat scholars. On the other hand, they misrepresent Ibn Taymiyya and the heretics like Jamal ad-din al-Afghani as rescuers. Why do they praise the la-madhhabi? As their values pertaining to religion and knowledge are zero, so their immoralities are under zero; Sa'ud showed it to the whole world by his dissipated, dishonest and immoral behaviors and by spending millions of dollars for his pleasure and sensuality in Europe. We wonder if the Egyptian writer does not blush seeing and hearing that the adulteries, fornications, immoralities in Cairo and Riad palaces are broadcast over the world through radios? They are not ashamed to take bribes, which is hundreds of liras, from each of the millions of hajis coming from the Muslim world. They do not let their brothers-in-Islam perform their duty of hajj unless they give them hundreds of liras. Whereas, it is written in the Ottoman book Radd al-mukhtar that it is haram to levy any toll on Christians who come to visit Jerusalem. Ottomans did not ask any money even from disbelievers. But these people demand it from Muslims. If they do not pay it, they prevent them from worshiping. Allahu ta'ala declares in the one hundred and fourteenth ayat of the surat al-Baqara, "No one can be more cruel than he who prohibits to mention Mine Name in Mine mosques." Hadrat 'Ata is quoted in Tafsir at-tibyan, "This ayat descended because, on the Day of Hudaibiya, the disbelievers of Mecca would not let Muslims into the Masjid al-Haram and perform hajj. In the Qur'an, unbelievers are called 'the cruel', too." This ayat clearly describes those who do not let Muslims who cannot pay money into the Masjid al-Haram and those who praise these heretics. There were the Ottoman Muslims, whom they blame, and here are the enemies of Ahl as-Sunnat whom they praise! Also, his word "The Ottomans stopped ijtihad," is a lie. This word has become a loathsome gossip in the mouths of the enemies of Islam. The Ottomans did not close the way to ijtihad. They prevented the ignorant like Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb and 'Abduh, who were the enemies of Islam, from inserting their dirty pens to Islam's chastity. If the Ottoman Turks had not protected Islam against the aggression of ignorant people like these, Islam also, like Christianity, would have been an altogether mixed-up, impure religion. As a matter of fact, it is seen with pain that Islam has been injured and made a toy in the hands of the heretics in Mecca and Egypt. Today, real Islam, as Rasulullah (Sall Allahu alaihi wa Aalihi wa Sallim) had left it, has remained in Turkish people with all its cleanliness and purity. [For those who want to learn the real aspects of Ibn Taimiyya, the leader of the anti-madhhabite, and of those who are excessive in anti-madhhabism in detail. Indian scholar Muhammad Hamd-Allah ad-Dajwi's Arabic work Al-basa'ir li-munkiri't-tawassuli bi-ahl al maqabir and Muhammad Hasan Jan al-Faruqi al-Mujaddidi as-Sirhindi's Persian work Al-usul al-arba'a fi tardid al-Wahhabiyya (both were first printed in India then reproduced in Istanbul, 1375/1975) are advisable.]