Abdullah Hakim Quick – Mamluks And Scholars Minarets And Thrones #10
AI: Summary ©
The history and current state of the Muslim world, including the decline of the military, rise of Islam, and loss of their respect by European and Asian powers, have led to struggles and chaos. The conflict caused the loss of religion and culture, leading to a collapse of Islam and the rise of Muslims in the region. The conflict also affected the region's economy and resources, leading to a drop in agricultural output and a rise in food inflation. The history and accomplishments of the culture of the Middle East during the Great War, including the rise of Islam, the spread of Islam in other countries, and the importance of religion in shaping the image of the world. The history and culture of the Muslim world, including the rise of Islam, the spread of Islam in other countries, and the migration of Muslims from Central Asia and other countries, have led to struggles and chaos.
AI: Summary ©
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين
وأوصلي وأوصلم على سيد الأولين والآخرين نبينا محمد
وعلى آله وصحبه وبارك وسلم All praise is
due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds and
peace and blessings be showered upon our beloved
Prophet Muhammad the Master of the First and
the Last his family, his companions and all
those who call to his way and establish
his sunnah to the Day of Judgment.
As to what follows, I begin with the
greeting words of the Righteous السلام عليكم ورحمة
الله Alhamdulillah, this is another opportunity for us
to look at minarets and thrones and not
just as minaret as part of a masjid
or a throne as part of a palace
but what is behind the minarets it stands
for scholarship it stands for the house of
Allah for the revelation and the throne stands
for the political power the economic power of
a society and we are looking at the
relationship between the scholars and the rulers we
understand that this relationship is critical and it
has impacted the Muslim world in severe ways
throughout history so in order to get a
practical look at what happened in the past
in order to understand what we are in
today we want to look at the different
shades of relationship between the scholars and the
rulers when we look at the Muslim world
today we see over 57 Muslim majority countries
strategic position some of the richest people on
the face of the planet earth drones, helicopters
all types of weapons mass communication everything needed
in a physical sense to be a world
power we also see that there is a
lot of youth in the Muslim world and
we have the richest people on earth our
royal families are actually richer than anybody on
the face of the planet earth and so
it was in the 13th century A.D.
that the Muslim world was divided into nation
states the Muslim world was divided into nation
states poverty was widespread there were no hajj
groups going from the capital of Islam at
the time Baghdad in Iraq nobody had time
to make hajj in other words the deen
the essence of the religion was not the
most important thing it was the dunya also
the scholars were humiliated they were not taking
a leading role in the Muslim world they
were not given the authority or the respect
that they deserve as people who are shielding
and interpreting the revelation and so it was
a hectic time in the Muslim world and
if you look at the map you will
see on the right side the empire of
the Khawarizmi so this was probably the largest
of the different emirates the different empires within
the Muslim world then you go north you
see the kingdom of Georgia which is now
Russia the Sultanate of Rome this is what
was left of the Seljuks because they called
that area Bilad of Rome but the Crusaders
had come now and times had changed from
the early days of the Seljuks Crusaders actually
controlled some of the states in the Mediterranean
coast but because of the strong activity and
the victories of Sultan Sulah ad-Din al
-Ayubi Rahimahullah a dynasty was formed a sultanate
called the Ayyubid Sultanate and it controlled the
Hejaz parts of North Africa the Levant right
up to Syria right up into Iraq and
that center part of the hot lands of
Islam and despite this power despite this respect
that the Muslim world had they lost their
humility and when you lose your humility and
your connection to the Creator you will do
things that are very similar to the kings
and the princes of the world and so
the Khwarizmi area which is Central Asia and
then going east was on the border of
a northeast country we now know as Mongolia
and in this area a leader named Temujin
had organized the Mongol people and they were
seeking to burst out of their country because
if you know the Mongolia itself it is
a very inhospitable climate very difficult to live
in it's got the Gobi Desert which is
one of the worst deserts on earth and
also extremely cold in the winter it does
not have tropics and so very difficult place
to live so the Mongols wanted to migrate
they wanted a reason to leave their country
and the emir of the Khwarizmi state became
arrogant and when a group of Mongols came
merchants into their land they were humiliated by
the Muslims this was a major mistake because
what happened in words is that it really
opened up the door and it unleashed Genghis
Khan and his hordes onto the Muslim world
and they burst forth with a vengeance and
Allah knows why they are inspired like this
it's almost like Shaitan himself actually came into
the people but they thought in their deluded
way that they would discourage a wrath of
Allah, of God on humanity and they felt
that the Muslims were corrupt Muslims had great
authority but they didn't deserve it and they
were oppressing people and so Genghis Khan with
this mentality this insanity unleashed his forces somewhere
between 90 to 200 thousand and they were
Calvary people they were strong they could ride
in the cold they could ride and fight
in the heat they could ride in the
tropics they could ride and fight in the
rain they were prepared to go to any
climate in any part in order to carry
out their intention of * and so Genghis
Khan organized his forces and he learned from
the different peoples who he ran into he
learned much of the organization from Chinese when
he came in touch with the Chinese he
also learned about certain aspects of culture from
India he had integrated Turkish tribes in his
army and the Turks many of the ancient
Turks, the Scythians many of the people from
Central Asia were highly organized and they were
great warriors and so he integrated them into
this mass organization of conquest and he destroyed
many of the cities in Central Asia Trans
-Oxiana he destroyed Bukhara the great place of
Bukhari Hadith he destroyed Samarkand he destroyed Jorjani
and he continued on wreaking havoc in every
place that he reached and when he reached
Baghdad which was the jewel of the Muslim
world and this is around 1258 his son
Hulagu was in charge of the forces coming
into this region this was the seat of
the Abbasid Khilafat this was the center of
the world of Islam this was the center
of knowledge for this part of the world
and Hulagu and his army surrounded Baghdad unfortunately
the Abbasids were only shadows of the leadership
that Islam demanded they had all the wealth
and the riches and the poetry but they
didn't have the strength the Izza they did
not have the respect and they did not
have the might that was needed to maintain
the world of Islam and so their Khalifa
al-Mustazim was just a shadow of the
Khulafa who came before and after a short
time his city was taken and he and
his family were put to death and so
this is the fall of Baghdad in 1258
and what the Mongols did it's unbelievable and
in certain areas that they ran into the
city of Umur it is reported that they
killed over a million three hundred thousand people
in Neshapur 1,747,000 people some historians
estimate that the Persian population went from 2
.5 million to 250,000 because of the
extermination and because of the disease that followed
so the center of Islam shifted from Iraq
it shifted from Baghdad to Cairo, to Egypt
and the Abbasids or those who were left
from them escaped and went to Cairo because
they did have the authority they were carrying
at least the oath of allegiance and they
settled in Cairo itself which was a stronghold
militarily and also a stronghold of the ulama,
of the scholars and at that time a
new dynasty was in the making this is
the dynasty we call Mamluk and they were
a group of freed mercenary soldiers now this
concept of mercenaries was introduced around the 9th
century into the Muslim world under the Abbasids
and it was being used in different parts
of the world and the people from Central
Asia made up one of the strong mercenary
groups being used in the hotlands of Islam
because of their tough nature and their military
prowess and so Mamluks were literally purchased so
the Mamluk itself, the name Mamluk actually means
somebody who is owned milk, Malik is the
owner so the Mamluk is owned he is
a slave but it is not slave in
the sense that you know a slave, helpless
and powerless and being beat and being destroyed,
no they were mercenary soldiers they were brought
in for their strength they were allowed to
buy their freedom sometimes just straight out they
accepted Islam and then they began to undergo
military training and they were mainly made up
of the Kipchak Turks from Central Asia the
group called Bahri Mamluks they were mainly Southern
Russia and the Burgi Mamluks were Circassians so
this is the area of the Caucasian mountains
you know now Dagestan and Chechnya where is
Khabib and Islam and Hamza and the MMA
fighters, UFC so this is the area of
strong military traditions and again they were not
slaves in the sense that we know somebody
who is in a state of slavery and
there are some reports that even said that
came out of Georgia this is now Russia
and the Caucasoid region that their relatives would
even visit Cairo and they would be showered
with gifts and they would send money back
to their area to help build defensive structures
and different houses of worship, even a church
they used their money to build, whatever the
point is that I wouldn't call them slaves
I would say bonded soldiers so these are
the Mamluks so this is now in our
formula the rulers because what happened in Egypt
is that the Ayyubids even though they began
strong with Sultan Salahuddin after a period of
time they became corrupted and they became so
weak that the Mamluks literally took power in
Egypt so they became the de facto leaders
of the Muslim world and because the Abbasids
who were there were mainly shadows of the
leadership the Mamluks were in effect the rulers
of the Muslim world they were the ones
who had the authority over the Muslims at
the time and they were also what could
be considered the greatest warriors of their age
some of the warriors of the world who
look at the past they still consider the
Mamluks, say a Mamluk sword they consider that
to be one of the greatest gifts that
you can give to a soldier is a
Mamluk sword because their abilities were next level
they were special forces, what you would call
today special forces and this picture here that
you see is an interesting one because it's
your Arabic writing so this is one of
their textbooks, and it's literally a textbook on
military codes, so you can see that there's
a soldier with a spear and in the
Arabic there and I quickly read the Arabic,
and it is literally saying that when you
are in a fight make sure you protect
and that you should strike at a certain
distance and guard yourself from being hit with
the spear of your enemy, keep your distance,
keep your morals it's literally a fighting code
that they had, so they had systemized their
fighting skills, they were even militarily involved in
the movement of their troops they used smoke
screens, they used fire, they would even use
psychological warfare when they would come onto the
battlefield, the different groups of Mamluks would be
dressed with similar colors their banner, their clothing
on their horses and they would move effortlessly
through the desert they also used drums and
they used the drums in a psychological sense
when they came on the drums were also
used to give position, so if certain drums
were there, it would say go to the
left, go to the right bring back the
center and so they were highly organized and
highly skilled, and so the dynasties began really
when the Ayyubids were falling apart, and it
was the Bahri Mamluks who took over and
this led to the leadership of Sultan Seyfuddin
Qutus, and he was probably one of the
most important of their leaders, not so well
known but he really was a critical person
in a pivotal point in history he was
from a Turkic background who came out of
Persia some say he was even connected to
the dynasty of the Khwarizmi Empire at the
time and he was captured and he saw
his parents were killed in front of him,
he was extremely angry person and even in
the Mongol language the word Qutus means like
an angry dog like when you look at
a bull terrier or even like a bulldog's
face, okay like an angry beast because he
was so angry he had experienced so much,
and he had gone through difficulties in his
life but at the same time he had
learned his din highly respectful highly organized and
so he took over the authority of Egypt,
and it was at a time the Mongols,
remember they had conquered Baghdad they were moving
through Syria they were now menacing and coming
down into the area of Egypt, and so
this was a very critical time and a
lot of intrigue was going on because the
rulers there many of the rulers in Damascus
they wanted to surrender to the Mongols but
the Mamluks coming from Central Asia understood the
Mongols very well and they were seasoned warriors
and knew that power and force only concedes
to force and so they strengthened themselves they
united, and Seyfeddin Qutus even though he wasn't
connected to the Bahrij directly, he united with
Babus who later became a sultan himself he
united with the other Mamluks, they came together
and then they started to unify with other
peoples, the Egyptian people, the society themselves the
great warriors coming out of the Sudan coming
out of North Africa, the great warriors who
were still there in the area of Palestine
and other areas it was amazing now this
map here shows you the movement of the
Mongols and so you can see Baghdad and
they are moving through Baghdad and then around
into Syria and then they came into Aleppo
into Homs, Damascus and now they're moving into
Jerusalem and they are now threatening Egypt and
their intention was to take Mecca and Medina
so this was a threat to the whole
Muslim world and they were arrogant and they
wrote an arrogant letter to the Mamluks and
Sayf ad-Din responded to them very seriously
he set any possibility or he put any
possibility for peace out the window because he
knew what Mongols needed and so he organized
the Muslims he disciplined himself so he took
from his own wealth and gave in Sadaqah
he disciplined his life, he went to the
scholars Al-Izz Abdus-Salam great scholar who
sided with him he went to the rich
people in Egypt they're extremely wealthy people and
he demanded from them that they give their
Zakat, that they give Sadaqah that they outfit
the army and they agreed and so an
army was set together and they moved out
towards Jordan so that the Mongols would not
enter into Egypt itself and by the will
of Allah they met them at a place
called Ain Jalut and Alhamdulillah it was a
vicious serious battle and surprisingly enough it actually
took place in the last 10 days in
the month of Ramadan so the Muslims were
fasting on a high level of Islam as
in the time of Prophet and they totally
annihilated the Mongols there and because of this
it was a pivotal point in history and
the Mongol invincibility was broken unity was restored
Mecca and Medina were saved and even Europe
itself was saved because the Mongols were about
to go on to Europe and take the
rest of the known world so these are
your rulers, this is just some background stage
to understand who the rulers were at that
time that we are looking back in the
13th century and they set up their rule
the Mamluks set it up that you have
the Sultan, your supreme leader the essential authority
and they set up military alliances and it
was their high ranking amirs amirs and administration
their governors were set up and because they
were basically military people it was in a
sense a military type of rule highly disciplined,
highly organized demanding loyalty from the people and
at the same time they were highly skilled
as well because they got a good education
so the Mamluks took over the trade of
Egypt and Egypt was the gift of the
Nile and it was one of the richest
countries in the Muslim world and even the
world at the time because it was the
crossroads for the major trade routes coming out
of North Africa, West Africa Sudan and then
going into Arabia and then Europe coming by
the boats, then Asia it's in a central
position also it's at the mouth of the
Nile and the Nile is constantly giving it
is constantly making fertile soil so Egypt had
extremely good agriculture and Egyptian cotton up until
today is sought after all around the world
and so the Mamluks excelled in the trade
in spices in textiles luxury goods so they
were a force to be reckoned with and
the amazing thing about the Mamluks you got
this power now you have political power and
you have economic power but the amazing thing
about the Mamluks that our leaders today need
to understand that just because you have political,
military power does not mean that you have
to become a pharaoh that you have to
become arrogant you should never forget your position
with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and this
happens many times when people come from humble
backgrounds and they are given authority as long
as they don't forget where they come from
they can actually be more effective and they
can be humble and they can be closer
to the Sunnah than somebody who comes from
a royal family or he comes from a
lineage he comes from an ethnic group or
he thinks his language is better than other
people's language and so one of the beautiful
qualities of the Mamluks is that they loved
knowledge and so from an early age in
their Islam they learned Arabic, they learned the
Quran and so they had a feel for
knowledge and they loved the scholars and so
the Mamluks actually supported scholarship and they supported
religious institutions so this is now your rulers
and your scholars and because of this you
now have that flowering that can come about
this is not fusion in the sense that
the leaders themselves are the scholars no, but
this is where the scholars are actually able
to fuse their knowledge with the leaders and
so the moral authority of the revelation is
connected to the military authority the military authority
is also connected to economic power and so
when you have that then you have a
strong Ummah you have strong foundations and so
they began to support not only individual scholars
but they supported institutions they developed schools, developed
universities and they helped the scholars of Ahlus
Sunnah wal Jamaah that they would set a
stage that Islam would be taught in the
authentic way that it was revealed even though
Egypt was originally a place of the Shia
remember it was the Fatimids who established a
dynasty there this is not Amr ibn As
and the Sahaba, it is well afterwards when
the Shiite dynasty took over but Salahuddin cleared
it re-established the Shafi'i Fiqh, the
Sunnah and the Mamluks came in and they
took it to another stage and so endowments
were made for institutions so what they did
was they organized the wealth and they established
what would be called today Wazarat al-Awqaf
so that is the ministry of religious endowments
or in some countries is Wazarat al-Shirun
al-Islamiyya it is the religious affairs department
and so they used their stability to stabilize
the Deen so that meant the building of
masjids the building of religious institutions memorization of
the Quran the Islamic studies the integration with
secular studies so you now have a holistic
education that is going on based on revelation
this is an amazing achievement that they did
so this is what you could call in
a sense the essence of like a golden
age actually develops and Cairo itself still has
the buildings and the institutions examples of the
institutions developed by the Mamluks the Sultan Hasan
Madrasa mosque complex Al Azhar University it flourished
under the Mamluks and so ulama were being
trained and being sent out to different parts
of the Muslim world also textbooks were being
written and so even though there were hundreds
and thousands of books destroyed by the Mongols
in Baghdad and it is said that the
Tigris and Euphrates River ran red with the
blood of the people who were exterminated and
then it ran black because the books were
being thrown into the river because the Mongols
had no need or no desire for scholarship
they only wanted conquest and so there were
a lot of the writings that had to
be revived so the Mamluks commissioned scholars to
copy texts to write original text to preserve
the writings and the teachings and also to
focus on the theology the jurisprudence fiqh and
history and the sciences they built special libraries
they stocked the libraries with manuscripts they got
into calligraphy and they supported people who were
into calligraphy and developed it as an art
form so this is a real golden age
and this is one of the most beautiful
one of the most productive coming together of
the rulers and scholars that we can find
and another interesting aspect of the Mamluks is
that even though Shafi'i fiqh one of
the four schools of thought the Madhhabs, Shafi
'i fiqh was the main Madhhab of Egypt
at the time they supported all schools of
thought so therefore there were scholars of the
Malik'i fiqh because Shafi'i was a
student of Malik there were also scholars of
Hanafi fiqh scholars of Hanbali fiqh so they
had what you could call an inclusive approach
to Islamic jurisprudence so they brought about harmony
intellectual exchange and they also enabled scholars to
flower now some of the scholars who actually
flowered during this time and what is amazing
about it is not only were these scholars
important in those days but we are actually
benefiting up until today by scholars from this
period so this is something amazing now because
we're talking about 1300s okay it's 2024 okay
so you're talking 700 years later what happens
to a book what happens to people's name
in 700 years in most societies it's totally
forgotten Ibn Kathir Ibn Kathir from 1301 to
1373 he was a prominent scholar under the
Mamluks and they supported him, they financed him,
they even protected him in the Umayyad Masjid
in Damascus Syria and he was able to
write a number of important works his Tafsir
Al-Quran Al-Azim Tafsir Ibn Kathir it
is probably one of the most widely used
Tafsirs in the world today Jalal al-Ain
is another important one but Tafsir Ibn Kathir
okay think about this it's the 1300s also
his history is an important one, so many
works that he wrote and he's reported to
have said the ruler who protects scholars and
aids them in the pursuit of knowledge is
a righteous guardian so he is Wali Salih
okay so Ibn Kathir part of the fruit
of this period of time Ibn Hajar al
-Asqalani great scholar of Hadith his work of
which is an explanation of Sahih al-Bukhari
is one of the excellent works there in
Hadith so Ibn Hajar he was the chief
Qadi or the chief justice of Egypt so
this allowed him to influence Islamic legal practice,
education he was given access to the royal
library and so he produced vast body of
scholarly work and is reported to have said
a nation rises through knowledge by supporting scholars
its stature is elevated okay so Ibn Hajar
al-Asqalani they were talking great scholars Imam
al-Nawawi Imam al-Nawawi he also was
during this period of time and his works
his Riyadh al-Saliheen is one of the
most widely spread books his 40 Hadith how
many people here have read the 40 Hadith
of Imam al-Nawawi this wasn't written last
year or 50 years ago okay it was
written way back during this time period and
so Imam al-Nawawi and his writings and
his teachings was supported by the Mamluks so
its not only Islamic studies as we know
religious studies but its also science was also
given impetus during this time and one of
the many scientists who was supported by them
is Ibn al-Nafis who was a famous
physician and a polymath and he is known
for his work on pulmonary circulation of the
blood he predated William Harvey's discovery by centuries
right and his work as Shamil Fitib was
widely studied and so they recognized his genius
and they appointed Ibn Nafis the chief physician
at al-Mansuri hospital in Cairo and so
ground breaking research was done and it was
said medical science is a gateway to the
elevation of the nation okay and this is
what some of the textbooks look like you
can see the Arabic and you can see
that they are working on so many different
things during this time period al-Maqrizi was
also a famous Egyptian historian who wrote many
history books known throughout the Muslim world the
Mamluk Sultan supported his historical research so they
provided him access to the archives and manuscripts
so they protected the archives they protected the
manuscripts they protected the scholars they empowered them
enabled them to copy texts and so this
is part of the legacy that we're benefiting
from today go around the Muslim world and
see who people are quoting and you will
see that these scholars if they didn't exactly
live here they were revived during this Mamluk
time and one of the sayings that was
said history is the mirror of nations and
with the support of kings its transmission is
done with honesty and fidelity and so another
major scholar Imam Suyuti okay this great Egyptian
scholar a prolific writer Hadith, Tafsir Arabic literature
he was supported also by Mamluk Sultans okay
and they enabled him to spread and his
Tafsir Jalalain that you know maybe one of
the most widespread Tafsirs in so many areas
Imam Suyuti was driving during this time period
and so what they did was they solidified
Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah remember all of the
different schismatic groups that had come up they
were Fatimids, they were Hashishiyin, they were all
these schismatic groups that were coming up in
the Muslim world Mamluks established the Sunnah they
established Islamic educational institutions in Cairo in Damascus
and other great cities and the scholars were
provided stipends, they were given respect, they were
given access to rare documentation and so when
this happens intellectual thought booms, it flowers and
it was said a nation builds its intellectual
monuments with scholars and the ruler is their
guardian and supporter look at that beautiful combination
so this is what we're talking about when
the rulers come together and support the scholars
and the scholars are authentic and they stand
up for the truth now you have a
flourishing and so we can say that the
support of the Mamluks led to a cultural
renaissance of the whole Muslim world where arts
sciences and literature flourished this period saw significant
advances in the areas of medicine, astronomy historiography
it is a golden age for Islamic knowledge
and we are benefiting from this up until
today this is the coming together of righteous
rulers intelligent rulers with bold well-read intelligent
scholars, that's what we're looking for today, that
those who have military power those who have
political power should not be using this to
oppress their own people, but they should use
it to call to the good and forbid
evil they should not suppress the scholars within
their country, but that their power should enable
the scholars and should bring forward the revelation
of Allah and so this is another beautiful
example of what we are in need of
today, and if this generation cannot do it
inshallah the next generation needs to bring forward
this beautiful golden age again so I want
to open up the floor for any questions
that anybody may have concerning the Mamluk age
you know there are many
different traditions some are authentic, some are not
authentic and I'm not sure, I cannot say
100% of the authenticity of this tradition
but two groups in particular were the people
of Al-Habasha that the Prophet ﷺ said
do not fight and attack these people unless
they attack and also the Turks that one
is a little the one with Al-Habasha
makes sense because of their relationship with Ethiopia
and East Africa, but with the Turks that
doesn't completely make sense because the knowledge of
Central Asia, what is called ma wara an
-naha, you know it was not so well
known by the Arabs really at that time
they were not trading to that distant land
of Central Asia at that time so that
hadith appears to be a weak one weak
tradition, there are many like this that come
and Allah knows best question yes,
when you look at Ibn Kathir's history this
has been translated what I'll do is I
will try to get for you some of
the actual books themselves about the Mamluks but
the general histories that are written and translated
into English, this will give you a good
base but I'll look for some titles for
you for the next period inshallah, so you
can get more detailed history about the Mamluks
themselves now, floor is open you have
to remember that Egypt is Africa and it
has in the northern part which is Cairo
so when did Egyptians become Muslim and Arab
and speak Arabic when in the time of
the companions of the prophet Amar ibn al
-Asr entered into Egypt he was the general
sent by Umar ibn al-Khattab into Egypt
remember that the Romans had attacked from the
north so the Byzantines controlled North Africa, including
Egypt and the Levant the Middle East and
they attacked the Muslims Muslims responded and they
started to take all of the Roman possessions
and so Amar ibn al-Asr the great
Sahabi entered into Egypt and it is reported
even in non-Muslim history books that the
Egyptian people welcomed them because they recognized the
Romans as a foreign force and they welcomed
the Muslims and Islam began to spread very
rapidly so this is during the time of
the Sahabi so you're talking the 7th century
Islam is entering into Egypt and going across
North Africa and it spreads rapidly in the
population and eventually it takes some time but
Arabic then becomes a dominant language there are
other languages that are being spoken there as
well, many different empires developed, but it's back
from the 7th, 8th century that you really
see Muslims spreading and then Arab tribes actually
moved Banu Hilal and many tribes from Arabia
because Arabia is still suffering with droughts so
they moved into Egypt because Egypt had the
Nile, so there were little Arab nations, some
from Yemen, some from Arabia, other parts of
Arabia who migrated into Egypt so it's a
matter of people accepting Islam and migration as
well so that's 7th, 8th, 9th century is
really when a big change came about so
this is a question maybe you weren't here
for the beginning of the class the Mamluks,
we're talking about them coming into prominence in
the 13th century, but Mamluks mercenary soldiers were
taken into the Muslim world from the 9th
century by the Abbasids Abbasid leaders, Khalifas and
they were mainly taken from Central Asia but
it's really around the 11th, 12th and then
13th century that they became prominent in Egypt
itself and eventually in the 13th century they
took over the leadership of Egypt and they
became the Sultans at the time so that's
around the 13th century that they take over
and they were mainly coming from Central Asia
the Kipchak Turks and some were coming from
Georgia, what is now Georgia in Russia and
also the Caucasus Mountains Circassians and what you
now know as Dagestanis and Chechens that you
know now, you see them in UFC you
know, whatever, that's fighting spirit you know, there
and they became leaders in the Muslim world
yes, so the scholars have to be independent
in the sense that they are the ones
dealing with the knowledge but what happens is
the authority on the ground they are the
emirs and so when the emirs patronized when
they supported the scholars and we looked last
week at the Seljuks and they supported the
scholars and we see the Nizamiya institutes Imam
al-Ghazali and so many greats now we
see the Mamluks you know, who are supporting
the scholars golden age of Islam so the
scholars have to be independent in the sense
that they don't submit to the rulers okay,
but at the same time without being supported
by the rulers then there is a lot
of difficulty because scholars are just regular people
they don't have military power unless the military
leader is a scholar that's fusion and that
happens on some occasions but it's not generally
what happens it's generally a coming together of
the two sides so this is an important
time and one of the deep thoughts that
come about, you know, with this is that
when you look at the Mamluks sometimes it
takes um that background of a person who
was once low right, once looked down upon
and then they rise to power and if
they don't forget where they came from they
can actually be a more balanced leader than
somebody who grew up from a special royal
family or with a special lineage who become
spoiled and greedy very easily and you see
this in the case of the Mamluks, they
have that humility along with strength and that's
the combination that we need in our real
Islamic leadership the Mamluks were a good example
of it it's a long history and of
course there were some Mamluks that were corrupted
as well they're all not perfect one of
their shortcomings maybe was they usually solve things
with the sword and sometimes things can be
solved with diplomacy as well, but generally speaking,
having strength is a positive quality, the Prophet
ﷺ said the Prophet ﷺ said the strong
believer is better and more beloved to Allah
than the weak believer, but there's good in
both so this is the case of strong
believers who made great achievements so we leave
you with these thoughts we pray that Allah
would bring up strong rulers who have sense
strong scholars who are empowered and take the
Muslim world from darkness into light, I leave
you with these thoughts