The Victors Write the History
The history in the ancient and medieval ages was written under the sponsorship and supervision of the rulers. A historian was granted a respectable position in the royal court and was provided with all the financial assistance needed, just as the access to all required sources was made possible. He was bound to present the script to the king from time to time as it passed through the process of compilation. The king ordered an amendment or alteration here and there as fitted with his mindset, okayed the draft and advised to continue the job further. It is very easy to believe that no history book is going to reveal to you fully, or in their true light, those crucial episodes that would expose the ulterior motives harbored or the exploitative policies pursued by the despotic rulers. You often come to know of those realities much later when your research makes you scan through comparative secondary and external sources or when looking at it from expanded scholarly parameters.
Muslim history has also passed through an identical situation. The original Islamic benevolent regime was soon overthrown by Islam’s arch enemies, the ancestral chieftains of Makkah, and it re-emerged as an autocratic tyrannical kingdom of the traditional, pagan Arab Elite of Umayyad clan. By whose hands that counter-revolution was unleashed, and how those culprits re-gathered so much strength and political clout, has remained steeped in mystery until the present times. That hidden part of the history has now revealed itself through the following episode surfaced recently.
We all know that Makkah was the abode of the arch enemies of Islam and Mohammad, and the centre of all conspiracies and confrontations the Islamic movement had to encounter. This enemy headquarters was finally captured in the 8th year of Al-Hegira calendar coinciding with 629 AD.
Let us recollect here a hitherto silent chapter from the history of the Rise of Islam. With reference to page 470 of Al-Munjid Arabic Lexicon which fully defines the term At-Tulaqaa (a close derivative of TLQ; Tallaaq), it so happened that on the eve of the victory of Makkah, Abu Sufyan the arch enemy of Islam, his son Muawiyah, and the 2000 strong force of their supporters who had only accepted Islam as an obligatory consequence of their final defeat, were singled out as imposters, and were classified as “At-Tulaqaa." At-Tulaqaa, as per the reference from Al-Munjid, denoted a “separated category” of those who had only accepted Islam under compulsion or compromise, not with their hearts’ desire.
The above definition of this term by Al-Munjid, and the aforementioned historical episode are both now recollected and corroborated by the recent video statements of the outspoken contemporary Saudi Scholar of Quran, Sheikh Hassan Farhaan Al-Maliki, available on Youtube. He eloquently confirms the above episode from the early Muslim history and openly brings into light the Big Arab Scam initiated and employed by Umayyad rulers who consisted of the same imposter AT-TULAQAA group and their posterity.
The compromised group of At-Tulaqaa soon intermingled with the elite class of Muslims who were in need of seasoned generals and administrators. While they waited for their opportunities to regain power, they easily made their way up the ladder of the ruling circle, commandeering armies and acting as regional chiefs and territorial governors in due course of time. Among them was the most prominent Ameer Muawiya, son of the old Arab Chieftain Abu Sufyan, who acquired the powerful position of the Governor of Syria through his successful statesmanship. This man ultimately proved to be the angel of doom for the Muslims and the last nail in the coffin of the real and true Islam. It goes without saying that deterioration of the Quranic values and ideals had started taking place in the reign of the third Pious Caliph Uthman, resulting in a marked instability in the inner circles of the government. On the crucial theme, the famous controversial writing by a well known traditional Muslim Scholar, Syed Abul A’la Modudi, entitled “Khilafat aur Malookiat” (Caliphate verses Monarchy) is a great eye-opener.
This part of history has also been explained in some detail in this writer’s book on Hajj, and is reproduced from there as follows:
“Islam presently in practice worldwide is a fictitious Islam and its entire doctrine as preached, followed and exhibited worldwide is a counterfeit one and hence, a delusion. The Truth of the Quran has been radically altered, twisted, manipulated and its divine message grossly misrepresented. The said fictitious Islam was invented or fabricated by Arab despotic rulers of Umayyad dynasty who succeeded in usurping the power and authority of the once divine kingdom of Islam from the control of the fourth legitimate Pious Caliph, Ali Ibn-e-Abi Taalib, exploiting the chaotic situation planned and created on the occasion of the tragic assassination of third Pious Caliph, Uthman bin Affaan in 35 AH (655 AD).
According to authentic historical testimony, the Caliphate’s Umayyad Governor of Syria, Ameer Mu’aviyah, based in Damascus, was the flag bearer and founder of the first ever dictatorial monarchic regime in Islam that was to replace the divine government of the Pious Caliphate. Mu’aviyah was one of the sons of the all-time arch-enemy of Islam, the Quraishite chieftain Abu Sufyan bin Harab. Both father and son had remained pagans until the Historical victory of Makkah by Prophet Muhammad pbuh in the last years of his life. They had converted to Islam only in compromise with the unquestionable and burgeoning domination of Islam. Mu’aviyah was a matured statesman of 26 years of age, always staying by the side of his father, until that crucial moment of time.
On the pretext of demanding blood vendetta of Uthman, who perchance happened to be a fellow Umayyad, Mu’aviyah refused to surrender his loyalties to the fourth Pious Caliph Ali, who had succeeded Uthman through due process of consultation and consensus among the council of elders. Thus, Mu’aviyah was soon to rip apart the unity of the Muslim society by raising hell across the Islamic State, taking advantage of the issue of Uthman’s assassination. By calling for revenge of Uthman’s assassination and demanding from Ali the retrieval of his murderers, he was to declare his autonomy in Damascus. As a provincial governor under Uthman, he ruled a vast region that spread over four present day states viz., Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine, as well as some area now included in Turkey, and that position had strengthened his military might to a much higher extent than that of the Islamic central Government of Medina. He blamed Ali for allowing the mutineers in the capital city of Medina to succeed in their mission of Uthman’s assassination.
After a protracted political maneuvering, which included armed combat against the forces of Caliph Ali, he succeeded in establishing the autocratic rule of Umayyad dynasty in almost the entire territories of the then Muslim empire. Since the kingdom of God was established by the holy Messenger of Islam under the strict guidelines of those tenets of the Quran which could never have approved of, or concurred with, a dictatorial and despotic dynastic kingship, Muaviyah is believed to have to unleash a fierce campaign of diverting the true teaching of the Quran away from its original path by replacing it with a counterfeit doctrine based on fabricated stories called Islamic tradition, claiming to have directly come out of the mouth of the holy Messenger. The aim of that big diversion from Quran’s righteous path was to produce a wishful new religious version of Islam which may support, justify and compromise with his despotic monarchy where kings ruled by decree and kept people under the threat of sword. The collection of those stories (tradition or rivayaat) is called Books of Ahadith.
As these Ahadith, and their fabrication by the hired corrupt scholars of the time, were sponsored by Umayyad Government, this fictitious material was facilitated on government level to spread far and wide across the land with the public being forced to believe in the veracity and authenticity of its content . With the passage of time the subdued and suppressed Muslim masses were fully driven away from the true Quranic injunctions and led to recite, preach and follow the ahadith stuff exclusively. A trend was allowed to develop throughout the land where every student of religion strived to achieve the status of Imam or Scholar of Hadith, a category of attainment usually awarded the highest status in Royal Court and, as a result thereof, in society. Big collections of these Ahadith were finally authored in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AH, while their fabrication had started before the middle of the 1st century AH under the sponsorship of Umayyad regime. Another misleading process of writing Quranic “interpretations or exegeses” was also introduced and established with the start of Umayyad period where the Quran was maliciously re-explained in the light of not its own text, but according to what was narrated by the traditional “sayings” in explanation of Quranic verses; and what the writer of exegesis “personally” understood from that stuff.
Hence, resulting from these corrupt practices, Muslims have inherited:
1) A real and true Islam which languishes hidden behind the text of Quran, the original uncorrupted word of God; still waiting to be genuinely and most academically translated into other languages and circulated worldwide; and
2) A fictitious Islam which consists of, and adopts, a false doctrine from the “sayings” fabricated under the despotic policies of the tyrant Umayyad, and later, Abbaside rulers, and falsely ascribed to the holy Messenger of Islam. And that is the stuff preached through the most controversial, bogus, literalist, superfluous interpretations/exegeses of the Quran which stand wholly influenced by a mixture of baseless stories narrated in the texts of Ahadith.
Needless to mention that the holy Messenger had not left behind his “sayings” for Muslims to follow but, on the contrary, categorically forbade the writing down of anything other than the Quran coming out of his mouth. He left only the Quran as his sole legacy and its postulates the only source and fountainhead of Islamic Ideology. He had declared, in Quranic words (Chapter Al-Maaidah, Verse 3), the ideology of Islam as “completely delivered” in all respects, before his demise. Therefore, no scope was allowed for any man made pretentious doctrines that would surface decades after the Holy Messenger’s departure. And from here it clearly transpires that the Islam presently practiced by Muslims is a “great Arab Scam."
It is hoped that the above lines would provide the required background information to the English Readers and assist them in sharing this presentation with the writer in an adequate manner.