Were Islamic Empires peaceful?
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Either you've not read my post in its entirety or you've not understood my post correctly. Re-read what I've wrote and I'm sure your question will be answered.
PEACE
This is what you said; "the quran was revealed to eradicate all religions and unite all people under peaceful(muslim) living".
I assume that you believe it's permissible to wage offensive wars to spread Islam. If not, then what did you mean?
Peace
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In my opinion from reading the quran 'muslim' is a descriptive term so no individual or group can claim righteousness through mere parrot talk but only through action. If a group or individual claims to be muslim(peaceful) and wages offensive war then according to the quran 'they' are not 'muslim'. I believe once people start taking the word 'muslim' as a proper noun then they are creating sects which is prohibited by The God. Every religion has done this and the quran was revealed to eradicate all religions and unite all people under peaceful(muslim) living.
PEACE
Do you see anywhere in the bold highlighted section in my post about offensive war being permissible?? Before jumping to assumptions wouldn't it have been more sensible for you to have asked me to clarify my position as it wasn't clear to you??
PEACE
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Do you see anywhere in the bold highlighted section in my post about offensive war being permissible?? Before jumping to assumptions wouldn't it have been more sensible for you to have asked me to clarify my position as it wasn't clear to you??
PEACE
I wasn't referring to the bold part. You said; "the quran was revealed to eradicate all religions and unite all people under peaceful(muslim) living".
Do you think it's permissible (in Islam) to wage offensive wars to spread Islam. If not, then what did you mean? Were the Ottomans trying to eradicate all religions and uniting people under peaceful (muslim) living? Why did they use force, if it's not permissible?
Peace
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I wasn't referring to the bold part. You said; "the quran was revealed to eradicate all religions and unite all people under peaceful(muslim) living".
Do you think it's permissible (in Islam) to wage offensive wars to spread Islam. If not, then what did you mean? Were the Ottomans trying to eradicate all religions and uniting people under peaceful (muslim) living? Why did they use force, if it's not permissible?
Peace
Well I was referring to the bold part because if you read all of it in its context we wouldn't be having this discussion but its cool.
Religions give power to the elite and keep people blinded to serve idols and also give authority to clerics etc. We obviously cannot wage war against these elite but we can educate those who are mentally and physically enslaved to religions. If human rights are being violated then we have to wage war to bring peace(islam).
Ottomans whether they did this or not is irrelevant as they will be judged by The God. And remember islam is not a religion so when I said the quran was revealed to eradicate all religions I didn't imply war which you assumed so. Eradicate does not equal war, so lets all eradicate false beliefs in our lives
PEACE
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Good question. In fact, Umayad, Abbasid and Ottoman empires were agressive.
Peace,
Edip -
I wasn't referring to the bold part. You said; "the quran was revealed to eradicate all religions and unite all people under peaceful(muslim) living".
Do you think it's permissible (in Islam) to wage offensive wars to spread Islam. If not, then what did you mean? Were the Ottomans trying to eradicate all religions and uniting people under peaceful (muslim) living? Why did they use force, if it's not permissible?
Peace
Maybe they didn't care that they were using force, and weren't following what the Qur'an says.
And why are Turks so proud of that? I think they're looking at it from a patriotic viewpoint as opposed to a Qur'anic one. -
Maybe they didn't care that they were using force, and weren't following what the Qur'an says.
And why are Turks so proud of that? I think they're looking at it from a patriotic viewpoint as opposed to a Qur'anic one.Salam,
True, but nationalism is forbidden in Islam. I think there are Qur'an verses warning those who take pride in their tribe and race. I have always been fiercely opposed to nationalism. Pride/arrogance ("kibir" in Arabic) is strongly discouraged in Islam.
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Salam,
True, but nationalism is forbidden in Islam. I think there are Qur'an verses warning those who take pride in their tribe and race. I have always been fiercely opposed to nationalism. Pride/arrogance ("kibir" in Arabic) is strongly discouraged in Islam.
Peace.
Very true. But if they're not following the Qur'anic teachings then why do they care what it says? And you know Turks have such strong nationalism.... yes, it's not right ... but it's there... -
I think there are a couple of problems here. Firstly, people are saying that the Qur'an forbids nationalism, but there seems no doubt to me that the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) sought to establish a 'nation' i.e. an organised hierarchical authority controlling the territory belonging to the Muslims and capable of waging wars and enforcing laws. The Qur'an uses the word 'nation' many, many times.
Secondly, the criticism of the Ottomans seems a little extremist. Every Islamic Caliphate was a nation-state and in the later period of Islamic history the Caliph was reduced to a figurehead in the eyes of the common people. Ottomans were no exception as the last Islamic Caliphate, so why single them out for criticism? People here are saying they were 'aggressive', but really aggression in their case was simple strength based on a superior political, social and military administration to any preceding Islamic Caliphate in history. Of course Islam was used as a pretext to justify the rule of the Caliphs and Sultans, but this happened in a much more benign way than under the Umayyads for example.
Who brought down the Ottoman Empire? It was a massive effort with many players involved. The Ottomans had an enemy in Britain, particularly, and found themselves on the losing side in WW1. Then they were brought down by a combined effort of Arab Wahhabi nutcases, organised by Laurence of Arabia the British agent as a part of a way for the European powers to change the 'balance of power' in Europe and Asia Minor. They had had their eye on the Ottomans for ages.
So, in conclusion I think the criticism of the Ottomans is quite unfair. Strength and a well-organised bureaucracy are the worst reasons to criticise a nation. Rather, they are praiseworthy and should be a source of pride for Turks and Muslims generally.
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TheIndian,
You completely missed the point I was trying to make. I'm saying offensive wars are "unIslamic", and yet the Ottomans attacked other countries for no good reason. I don't care how "strong" or great the Ottomans were. I only care about Quranic principles.
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I agree with you that starting offensive wars is fundamentally unIslamic and anti-Qur'anic. However the Umayyads especially seem to have been a nasty bunch, whereas the Ottomans (although they made many gross errors such as the sometimes disputed massacre of the Armenians) seem to have been admirable in some ways. If you look at Turkish society even today, because of the Ottoman Empire the people are officially Sunni but their actual beliefs tend towards Alevism, and this is a clear sign of the Turkomen heritage of Turkish Islam which gave its military strength to the Ottoman Empire. So, I think we're dealing with a different kind of Islamic Empire altogether when we're talking about the Ottomans. They were peculiar/unique in many ways.
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Good question. In fact, Umayad, Abbasid and Ottoman empires were agressive.
Peace,
EdipPeace,
Respectfully.Can you provide some references when and how were the Ottoman emprires agressive?
Need it for some research i'm working on.
Thanks a bunch.
God bless you,As salamu alaykum.
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The overwhelming majority of Muslims seem to think that Muslims never waged offensive wars. We know that according to the Qur'an we are allowed to defend ourselves, but we are not allowed to wage offensive wars. Honestly, I know very few Turks who admit that the Ottoman Empire was wrong when they attacked European countries..
What were the Ottomans doing at the gates of Vienna? Why did they wage many offensive wars and still consider themselves righteous? Why are we criticizing the Americans for invading Iraq when we did the same to other countries for centuries? This question has been bothering me for years...
Peace Recluse
Its probably why the Umma is in the state it is in, for years they have waged unneccesary wars in the hope of spreading deen (my opinion). Again in my opinion they did spread the deen but to what cost? Several sects, many different intepretations of the one deen (religion) and cultural infuences make their way into the religion which have no place. Its hard to say why they had so many wars as my history into it is not so good, but it would seem to extend an empire and benefit from spoils of war.
Peace
Hope
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If you look at Turkish society even today, because of the Ottoman Empire the people are officially Sunni but their actual beliefs tend towards Alevism
Actually, Alevis are a minority in Turkey, about 15 million. Most Turks are Sunni and adhere to traditional Islam.
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Peace,
Respectfully.Can you provide some references when and how were the Ottoman emprires agressive?
Need it for some research i'm working on.
Thanks a bunch.
God bless you,As salamu alaykum.
Peace Alen,
Why did the Ottomans attack Iran, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Hungary, Austria etc. ? The Ottomans attacked Iran (which is a Muslim country!), but failed to conquer the Persians. Were all these wars "defensive"? Not at all...
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Actually, Alevis are a minority in Turkey, about 15 million. Most Turks are Sunni and adhere to traditional Islam.
Yes, as I already stated, the Turks are officially Sunni (on the outside) but there is widespread borrowing from Alevism, in the people's private beliefs. In any case, Alevism is rooted in a more traditional form of Islam than the hadith-based Sunnism.
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Peace,
Recluse I understand your dilemma perfectly well, in fact its questions like these that led me to the type of thinking exemplified by numerous people on this forum.
Unfortunately there is no simple answer to your question. But I think a few things can be addressed.
- It is true that groups of people that identified as Muslims engaged in wars of aggression on a massive scale, however, everyone else at the time was doing the same as well. Of course that explanation does not excuse their behavior in the least, but there exists a maxim in the study of history which states "Do not judge the people of the past by the standards of the Present."
I didn't say YOU are responsible. But why do Muslims always claim that Islamic empires were peaceful when this is clearly not the case? Why criticize the West for attacking Muslim countries unprovoked, while our ancestors (I'm from Turkey) did the same for centuries. Do most Muslims know that we are NOT allowed to wage offensive wars?? I don't think so.
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Muslims today and for the last few hundred years have not engaged in any notable wars of expansion or aggression (for a variety of reasons). Furthermore, at our current moment in time, its primarily western powers that have been engaged in wars of conquest, aggression, and pillaging. Muslim identifying people had very little to do with WW2, Korea, Vietnam, all the debacles in Latin America, most of the wars in Africa, etc. In fact, today Muslims tend to be at the receiving end of the barrel. Thus, while its true that Muslims did engage in wars of expansion in the past, they aren't doing so today, while Western powers are. We have no control over what the people of the past did but we do have some control over what is going on today.
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All of the former "Islamic Powers" had laws and regulations that had absolutely nothing to do with Islam. In fact the Shari'a and the hadud as we know it today were created because the Abbasids and the Ummayads before them wanted to create a distinct form of law. If you were to go through the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Songhai, Mombasa, etc law codes you would be shocked at just how un-Islamic they were (and I don't just mean by the standards here at FM but by the of traditional Islam today).
In any case, in most parts of the world, Nationalism has come to replace Islam as the root of identification. Islam has merely been captured by nationalists to further certain nationalistic agendas (whether good or bad). Its this nationalism that teaches us that our former wars of expansion were "good" and "just." If we were to subscribe to a truly Islamic way of looking at the situation we would have to acknowledge that the taking of life for virtually any reason (except in true self defense) is abominable and unjustified.
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Ottomans had a secular code of law and system of courts dealing with a Kanun-type series of bureaucratic edicts that were made on the authority of the Sultan. This ran parallel to Islamic law which was administered in a separate system of law courts under the overall control of some important state officers. Regarding the comments made about Islamic law under the Ottoman administration, an important change by the Ottomans from preceding dynasties was a move to the adoption of a single maddhab as the basis for all sharia law in the Empire (for the sake of consistency), and the relegation of the ulema as a body to an organ under state control and sponsorship. You couldn't do better than the Ottomans in terms of law and organisation.
As for whether their system was properly 'Islamic', who knows.. Everyone is entitled to their view but the Ottomans had their Empire properly sorted out and organised, and their systems actually worked and in that sense were a great improvement on the chaos of the Abbasids.
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In any case, in most parts of the world, Nationalism has come to replace Islam as the root of identification. Islam has merely been captured by nationalists to further certain nationalistic agendas (whether good or bad). Its this nationalism that teaches us that our former wars of expansion were "good" and "just."
I agree with you. However in the case of the Ottomans, they had to face an increasing threat and competition in the form of various forms of nationalism that emerged in the early part of the 20th century. The Ottomans were on the side of 'Islam' (I appreciate that many may disagree, but that was the justification used for their rule) and the nationalists were on the other side clearly opposed to the Ottomans and their natural secularist enemy. Although Turks today are proud of the Ottoman Empire as well as their secular Republic, nationalism was in fact the enemy of Ottomans in the last days of the Empire. The type of nationalism that eventually won out in Turkey was Kamal Ataturk's, but there were other types of nationalists at the same time as him.
It was for a reason, that Ataturk decided to do everything in his power to de-Islamify Turkey (e.g. replacing the Arabic abjad with the Roman alphabet so the people couldn't read the Qur'an, making religious orders illegal, banning all religious dress codes etc). That reason was the Ottomans' creed and entire basis of their rule was Islam, as the last Sunni caliphate. Mr Ataturk was anti-Islam because he was a nationalist.
So where I'm going with this is it's true that modern Turks celebrate the Ottoman Empire for nationalistic reasons but the Ottomans themselves were Islamists on the other side of a struggle for power with Turkish nationalism.