Continued... Abolition of Ottoman Caliphate

The critical thing your glossing over is how corrupt, decadent and unislamic the Ottoman Empire was towards the end

Not really, we know corruption existed, still doesn't justify abolishing what Muhammad (pbuh) commanded us to maintain.

Defending the caliph was not an act of defending the ummah

I didn't state they should've defended the Caliph. He was a tool of the British also and should've been deposed and replaced with a capable ruler who wanted to implement Islam. Not a secularist nationalist.

Attaturk I believe actually saw Islam as a major way of correcting the decadence in the Empire

He saw Islam as something ancient and backwards hence his "reforms" all of which aimed at abolishing Islamic aspects of the society and replacing them with secular ideals. He was a europhile, nobody can deny this, and he wanted to Eurofy Turkey. You can't see he corrected anyhting within the empire, as his first order of business was to abolish the empire...

I think the Safavids would disagree

Good for the Safawieen.

If the Caliph was not (and he wasn't) ruling by what Allah has revealed, should he be overthrown?

Yes the ruling for this situation, where a Khalifah begins to rule by Kufr is for him to be deposed and replaced with a capable Khalifah.

So, lets create a situation

Let me create another situation for you. Kemal was a man committed to his deen who sought to save the Caliphate, so instead of working to remove it, he assumed position of Sultan himself and restored it. Then began working to bring the lost lands back under the rule of the Caliphate, when they realised the British weren't going to fulfil their promises... and we all live happily ever after.

Ok, let us dish some of the blame to others, and I've done that, I've identified Hussein Bin Ali as one of the main problems between Arab-Turko relations, not Mustafa Kemal as you claim.

They were fighting against the corrupt caliph

This is where you are wrong. He fought against the very institution of the Caliphate, not against a single corrupt individual Caliph. Corrupted Khulafa existed for centuries, even in the Abbasid and Umayyad times, but people removed them or suffered under them, they didn't fight the very insititution of Caliphate, as they knew that it is absolute necessary under Islam.

You can't blame ataturk for overthrowing an organisation that was ruling as you put it by Kufr for what? A century or more?

I never claimed it was ruling by kufr for a century, these are your words Omar.

The 33 years of Sultan Abdul Hamid II's rule for instance was marked by extremely good Islamic activity. And his rule only ended about 10 years prior to WWI.

If you want to make excuses for those who worked to abolish Islam for the pleasure of the kuffar, go ahead, but don't claim you have an Islamic position to do so. Islam is clear on this issue. We must have Khulafa one after the other.

That is not besides the point. Stay right there a minute or two because it is a pertinent point. Who signed the Treaty of Sevres?

Edited by Bulldog - 07-Nov-2006 at 10:09

Guys, can u please for the sake of clarity when mentioning caliphs, say which one by name. It gets awfully confusing otherwise.

Omar,

I agree that there is no justification for a Caliph in the Quran

Well the Sahabah (ra) of the Prophet (saw) unanimously agreed there was. That's why they even delayed the burial of the Prophet (pbuh) in order to choose a Khalifah, knowing full well that the fitnah which could befall the Ummah without correct leadership was far more important even than the burial of the best of creation, Muhammad (pbuh).

Also note the tafsir of Imam al-Qurturbi (rh) above, one of the most renowned mufasireen. He clearly states that the mention of the term Khaleefah in the Qur'an refers to the appointment of man by Allah to rule by his ahkam (shari'ah rulings).

Also we must realise that even if the term itself were not mentioned explicitly it doesn't matter. Allah (swt) commanded that we rule by his system, call it what you like but it refers to a rulership which implements shari'ah (ie. a Khilafah anyway, as no other system effectively implements all of shari'ah), so now we'd just come down to mincing semantics. It clearly states the one who doesn't rule by Allah's revelations is a kafir.

In fact IIRC clergymen are usually not spoken well of

The post of Khalifah is not that of a clergyman, it is that purely of a statesman, so this part of your post has no meaning for this discussion anyway.

1) Following Hadieses is always voluntary

Just a question do you believe the 5 times a day Salat is voluntary?

2) The books of Hadieses were not compiled for hundreds of years after the prophets death

This is a completely false statement. Compilations of ahadith existed in the time of Sahabah (ra). Amir al-Mum'ineen Omar Bin al-Khattab (ra) was the first to order a compilation of a collection of Hadith, and this was most certainly not hundreds of years after the Prophet's (pbuh) death. Please do a little research on this one.

By the way Qutuz, if you could pick anyone to be Caliph now, who would you choose and why?

There are thousands of very knowledgeable people amongst our Ummah, but what we need is someone who is both knowledgeable about Islam and committed to its sincere establishment, who is also politically astute and aware of the realities of the global situation.

In addition Muhammed never appointed a Caliph to follow him, which in my mind speaks volumes

This speak volumes abuot the example he set for us. ie. That a Khalifah should not appoint his successor, but should leave the community to appoint him after the death of the Khalifah.

In their case establishment of a leader (ie Caliph) was essential to maintaining unity in the Ummah, however in the 1920's a turkish caliph could never had united the ummah

I think they were acting more on the command of Allah (swt) and the Prophet (pbuh) than they were on their evaluation of what the times demanded. Also every successive generation from their time until 1924, the Muslim community WITHOUT FAIL made sure they had a Khilafah established, knowing full well that if they fell outside of the rule of Allah's laws then they would be on the verge of kufr, as was stated in the quote above by Imam al-Ghazali (rh).

How does Allah appoint a man?

By creating him and commanding him. do you not know the verse: "Wa ith qala rubbuka lil-malaaika inni ja3alun fil ardhi khaleefah"? This was his appointment, and other verses I've mentioned above are his command to man to rule by his laws, not from their own whims and desires.

The only part I disagree with here is the brackets. A khalifah has failed on numerous occasions to effectively implement shari'ah

The term itself didn't fail, and that's what you're effectively arguing. Yes we're human beings, and sometimes we fall short of expectations and commands. The difference as I'm sure you can recognise here is between people calling for Allah's system of Khilafah (or Imamah or Sultanah or whatever you wanna call it) and people calling to Kemal's system of man made laws which contradict and in many cases obstruct and nullifiy Allah's laws. You can either be with those who call to shari'ah or those call to man-made laws, not both.

it is quite possible to construct a system other than the traditional monarchic style Khalifah that implements shari'ah laws

Monarchy is not the Islamic Khilafah system. Please note that hereditery succession is NOT monarchy. Monarchy is a system of government whereby the monarch is the all powerful ruler and legislator who is able to decide from his own whims and desires what's allowed and what's not. Even though the Khilafah did slip unfortunately a lot of the time into hereditery succession this is not permissable in Islam, and those who enforced such things were misapplying the Islamic laws. I know you're now going to claim they committed kufr according to my beliefs now, but that isn't the case either.

I'd like to point out the Shariah law of the Ottoman Empire, and the Shariah law of the Arab Empire, are not identical

What do you call the Arab empire? Was it the Rashideen? The Umawieen? The Abbasieen? The Mamaleek? or Ayyubieen? Please define exactly what you mean by "The Arab empire" so i can debunk another myth you've forwarded here.

In addition much of what is called Shariah under the Arab system are in fact laws drawn from the Sassanid or Byzantine Empires that are not in Quranic shariah

Did you read this in wikipedia? Or do you actually have some Islamic historical evidence for this?

That's not Hadies, its Quran

Can you show me one verse from the Qur'an that mentions 5 daily prayers? I only know of 1 verse which mentions 3 prayers, none that mention 5. Also do you pray 2 rakaat, then 4, then 4. then 3, then 4 (respectively for the 5 daily prayers)? If so, why? Where in the Qur'an did you get this from? When you pray do you read Surah al-Fatihah, and then a another surah in the first 2 rakaat only? If so why? Where in the Qur'an did you get this from? And the list goes on. Perhaps 80% or more of what we practise and believe in Islam comes from the Sunnah, to deny it, or even to demote it to the status of being "only voluntary" negates the vast majority of what is agreed to be part of Islam.

But to the meaning of your question, yes there is sunnah that I consider essential, but if another muslim thinks differently and doesn't follow it, this is entirely his choice

So if someone prays only two prayers a day, or even doesn't believe in prayer at all, or he prays 6 rakaat for fajr, 10 for zuhr, 11 for asr, 1 for mughreb and 9 for isha, you still consider him to be a Muslim? Would you pray behind him? Would you pray your prayers like that with him?

Please reconsider the meaning of what you're so easily saying, without thinking it through.

Out of our two most reliable compliations Imam Bukhari's was started in about 212 AH and Muslim's is a student of Bukhari's.

How about al-Muwatta of Imam Malik? How about the collection of Abu Bakr Ibn Hazm? Imam Malik's Muwatta is considered by all of the other 3 great Imams to be the most sound book after the Qur'an. And it was compiled by a man who learnt hadith from the Tabi'een (ie. the students of the Sahabah). Also add to this the concept of Mutawatir, and your attacks against the authenticity of the hadith mean very little. Do you even know anything about the science of hadith collection and authentication? Or are you just commenting from your own nafs without concrete knowledge?

I'm also under the impression that there is a hadies that states the prophet didn't allow hadieses to be compiled during his lifetime

And there's also hadith which state he commanded people to write them down and that he even wrote some down himself. This topic has been dealt with by the Ulema of hadith well over 1000 years ago, why we as an Ummah are still debating such frivolities I really don't know.

I don't think any of the first four Caliphs allowed any Hadieses compilations to be made.

Actually Abu Bakr (ra) was known to have kept a collection of Hadith as were other Sahabah. Also hadith were usually transmitted orally, so that explains why there was a lack of textual hadith collections in the early days of Islam. But as Sahabah began dying, it became clear that their knowledge had to be codified and preserved for later generations.

As was mentioned above, if you didn't have these collections of hadith, you wouldn't even know how to pray.

I think it means that the position is not that important.

Do you know how important In Islam it is to bury the dead? If it wasn't that important, why did Abu Bakr (ra) and other Sahabah (ra) delay the burial of the prophet (pbuh) for it? Explain this if you can.

Bulldog,

I'm sorry to break your romanticsm regarding the matter but yes most Arab tribes in the region did join the Brittish and French. The Tribal leaders had joined them meaning their subjects also had to join, its the way tribal society works

There's 2 points to make here.

1) The people of the cities didn't rebel, and they were generally pro-Ottoman, especially in Palestine and Syria (The lands which Kemal abandoned and fled from, instead of staying to fight). Hejaz had already been lost by the time he entered ash-Sham I think, was it not? So really all he was facing were ill equipped desert nomads, they could've easily been defeated, but Kemal did not even give it a serious try.

2) What I'm more concerned about is the impact on the Ummah today and the direction of the Ummah today. What's gone is gone, we can't change it (this goes for me as well as you). And even though the Arabs were the first to become traitors, they are also the first today to abandon their false nationalistic/secularist leaders, whilst so many Turks still cling to theirs. Although the older generations of Arabs still have blinded ties to people like Jamal Abdul Nasser, the younger generations have completely disowned him and his ideals and are returning to Islam and the concept of the unified Ummah which the Prophet (pbuh) spoke about: "My Ummah is a unique ummah, her lands are one, her wars are one and her peace is one"

So Turks had the moral high ground during WWI and the Arabs were the traitors (even though this is a vast generalisation) but today the Turks are lost to their nationalist-secularism, whilst alhamdulilah the Arabs are waking up.

There may have been some loyal Arabs to the Ummah in the Sham region but they were a minority

I don't think this is correct. I have somewhere some details of the population statistics of the Sanjuk of Dimashq and of al-Quds, so I will try to find it. I think most of the population of this area were city dwellers and supported the Ottomans.

What is ironic is that you try to protect them and put all blame on Mustafa Kemal Pasha who let me remind you was only a general

I don't put all blame on Kemal, this is nonsense. Please re-read my posts. I've clearly stated Bin Ali was one of the worst to blame, and he's the one who actually begun this treacherous work, but Kemal is the one who carried out the main tasks of dismantling the state internally. Both are rotten traitors who any sincere Muslim would despise and curse daily in his dua'a after his namaz.

Why would defending Sham be viable for Arabs? their leaders had made deals with the Brittish and French from their perspective at the time it seemed great.

The only leader who made a deal with the British was Hussein Bin Ali, and he was the ruler of Hejaz not of Sham. I think you're just attacking all Arabs as representing the betrayal of Bin Ali and the tribes of the peninsula  who supported him.

Not much difference? you make the decision

So you would've been rid of the Kurds, and wouldn't have had to suffer all these years of resistance fighting from them. Armenia would've been a little bigger, so they'd probably have been more content and not accused you of genocide. And you would've slowly gotten rid of the Italians and French, like Syria, Lebanon & Libya did... no big deal. And you might've had some extra tourism from the Greeks

My point was that to a Muslim who feels the Ottoman state was his state, what Kemal sold out was almost the same as what was sold out at Sevres.

If you compare the land mass of the Ottoman state with the post Sevres land mass, or the land mass of the Ottoman State with the post Lausanne land mass, the difference is rather small. In other words, you're more worried about a little bit of land loss in Anatolia than you are at losing all of your brothers from all around the Muslim world (forget for a moment the treachery of some bedouin tribes).

Oh really, well let's take a look into what Curzon really said and wrote

What I gave you was a publically available direct quote from Curzon HIMSELF in front of the House of Commons.. what you replied with was someones comments about Curzon and the British Cabinet, and you say "Let's look at what Curzon really said"??? You didn't even quote Curzon, you quoted Phillip Mansell's feelings about Curzon's beliefs.

And even your quote of Mansell, if it is correct, does not detract at all from the one I provided. I have no doubt at all the British coveted Qustantaniya (btw, this was it's name through all of the Ottoman period, not Istanbul), and would've taken it if not for the shrewdness of Kemal. As I stated he was a statesman on a level different to that of Hussein Bin Ali. But his traitorship is the same.

The Brittish wanted a puppet Caliphate to control the hundreds of millions of muslims in the Brittish Empire

This statement only confirms what I've stated, that Kemal was working in collusion with the British and to advance their aims against Islam (you're right he didn't help them to the detriment of Turkey, but he did help them to demolish Islam and the Caliphate). Kemal himself was the one who for a few brief years setup a puppet Caliphate. He first offered this to Muhammad Wahid'ud-Deen, who rejected, and was subsequentally exiled, then he put Abdul Majid as puppet Caliph for a few years, then decided even that was just ridiculous and so he abolished the Caliphate altogether.

How has Islam been removed from Turkish people's lives?

When I say removed from people's lives, what i mean is that Islam is no longer the system which governs their lives. A large % of the laws in Islam involve societal interaction, trade, social transactions, crminal laws and punishments etc. When the Caliphate was abolished and replaced with a secular state Islam as a system was ripped from the people. Islam is not a spiritual movement like Christianity, that has nothing to do with the society and government. Islam is a system of society and government. When you strip those things away, you're not really left with much Islam. Do you think is just 5 pillars?

have you ever been to Turkey?

I have not, but I truly hope to some day. One day I will stopover when I am in the Middle East, insha'allah, and get a chance to see the great Islamic architectures. I especially want to visit Topkapi Palace, which is a museum now I believe? And Aya Sofia, which unfortunately has been turned from a Masjid into a Museum also (something which would never happen if Islam were still in Anatolia).

go and see if Islam has been removed, you'll be quite suprised, it never was and never has, even nationalist slogans go as "Bayrak inmez, Ezan Dinmez, Vatan Bolunmez", The flag shall never fall, the EZAN shall never stop and the country will never be divided

Turkish Azan you mean? Or is it allowed in Arabic now?

Anyway, just hearing the Azan 5 times aday doesn't mean Islam is there. This is a very shallow understanding of what Islam is, if you think just hearing someone recite something is Islam.

Islam has a place in the Turkish identity and was never forceblly "removed" as you put it.

Islam is not something you can just "fit" into your identity as it suits you. Islam is something you mould yourself to fit into. If anything all you did was confirm my statement of how Islam has been removed from people's lives in Turkey (and all the world for that matter).

And a large proportion of Turkish muslims are "Alevi" which are close to Shi'a, they won't agree with being ruled by Sunni Caliphate

This is the most pathetic reason you've come up with so far to avoid returning to the Islamic way of life.

They were ruled by Sunni Caliphate for about 700 years (perhaps more), did you forget this???

Our people's religion and language are two great virtues, nobody has the power to take these from our hearts nobdy has and ever will be able to do so

This just confirms his secular ideals of locking religion in people's hearts and not letting it rule society. This is what secularism means!!!

Islam is needed, athiest nations do not survive for long. Religion is between Allah and the believer (mumin)

Again, another secular ideal, religion is between you and God, don't let it run the affairs of the society. This is the essence of secularism.

This view is totally incorrect, they want to keep muslims backwards so that Kaffir's can control and rule us

This is rich coming from the man who handed over half of the Islamic lands to the Kuffar so he could keep Anatolia.

Also many of the things which are often criticised about Turkey like the Head-scarf issue were only created in the 50's,late 40's after AtaTurk's death by Ismet Inonu

We've already mentioned the Language, how about the holidays? How about the forced Azan in Turkish etc? Or the banning of Islamic political parties??? The banning of Islamic Hats??? (This is just crazy, but even crazier is the infamous hat riots of the late 1920's and the 3 month prison term just for wearing one) Were these all post Kemal? (btw, I don't know the answer, I'm asking you).

Also, as far as I'm aware the anti-Fez law also included the anti-Hijab law also, are you sure it wasn't banned until the 1950's???

Btw, are Turks allowed to wear Fezzes today?? (assuming they wanted to)?

Omar,

Why isn't hereditery succession permissable?

Selection of a Khalifah is open to the Muslim Ummah to decide, not for one person to force his son upon the Ummah. Also, there's conditions for a Khaleefah to assume office, so if the previous Khaleefah's son did not fulfil those conditions, then how could he be thrust upon the Ummah?

Lastly, it's not the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh) nor was it the Sunnah of Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman or Ali (ra). Although Ali's son Hassan (ra) was appointed Khaleefah after him, this wasn't a hereditery succession. And who better do we have as examples than these 5 human beings?

Redirecting you to two of Seko's posts

I read through the first of Seko's posts you quoted, but I couldn't see any mention of 5 prayers. Note the number 5 here, I don't doubt prayer itself is mentioned clearly in the Qur'an, but the number of 5 comes especially from a certain hadith, and is not mentioned in the Qur'an.

I am not reducing it to voluntary. Until you said that I had assumed it was a universally accepted opinion

The only universally accepted opinion I know of is that the Sunnah must be accepted (except the Shi'a who have their own Hadith collectinos). This was the opinion of almost every single classical scholar i've heard of from the time of the Sahabah (ra) until the last 50 or so years, when deviant groups began to spring up claiming the sunnah shouldn't be followed. For 1400 years our Ummah almost unanimously agreed upon this.

I will point out that it is impossible to follow all strong hadieses literally, as some contradict

You seem so certain about this... Do you have an example?

Whats this about the Azan in Turkish?

Yes it was banned in Arabic, and it was forced to be read in Turkish. I also read somewhere that Kemal wanted to install rows of seats in all mosques, as sitting on the floor was "uncivilised", and also to replace the Azan altogether by a piano player, perhaps like the Christians have an organ player? But he cancelled these ideas when someone advised him he was going too far and the Muslims might revolt. But I'm not sure how true these stories are.