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The Ottoman Empire

In the 16th century, most Arab countries were under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Sultan Salim, the 9th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, annexed Hijaz and Egypt, and thereafter Sultan Sulaiman Qanuni conquered the remaining Arab cities. During this period, three big Islamic states were established:

  1. The Ottoman State, being Constantinople as the capital.

  2. The Safavid State, with Tabriz as the capital.

  3. The Mamluk kingdom, whose capital was Cairo.

Shah Ismail Safawi was a Shi’a and Sultan Salim the Ottoman was a Sunni by faith. He obtained a fatwa from some pseudo-ulama that Shi’as were beyond the pale of Islam and should be killed necessarily. On this basis, he exterminated the Shi’as.1

It is written in the first part of Ayan ash-Shi’a: Sultan Salim killed forty to seventy thousand persons in Anaz ul-on account of their being Shi’a. Ibn Sabbagh Maliki writes in Fusul ul-Muhimma:

“Shaykh Nuh Hanafi gave a fatwa that Shi’as were infidels, and it was obligatory to kill them. In pursuance of this fatwa, thousands of Shi’as were killed in Aleppo and those who survived, fled. Consequently, not even a single Shi’a person was left in Aleppo, although since the commencement of Hamadani rule the Shi’a faith had been firmly rooted in Aleppo. Aleppo was at that time the seat of great scholars of jurisprudence like Abu Zahra, Aale Abi Jaradah and others whose names are recorded in the book entitled Amal ul-Amal.

During the Ottoman period the great Shi’a scholar, Muhammad Ibn Makki was martyred. He is more famous as the 'Second Martyr'. His books are still taught in the religious universities of Najaf and Qom.2 Jazzar, the Governor of Akka (near Jebel Amil) repeated the evils of Hajjaj. After killing Shaykh Nasif Nassar, the chief of the cities of Amil, he also arrested and put to death a number of ulama and chiefs including the great scholar Sayyid Hibatuddin Musa, Sayyid Muhammad Ale Shukr, Shaykh Muhammad Usayli, Shaykh Aale Khatun and other jurists and doctors.

It is mentioned in Ayan ash-Shi’a3 that Shaykh Khatun was a great scholar and was well-versed in the science of ancient medicine. Shaykh Khatun was a contemporary of Shaykh Nasif Nassar Waili, the head of the ulama of Jebel Amil. Ahmad Pasha arrested Shaykh Khatun along with the ulama and notables of Jebel Amil, imprisoned them in Akka, subjected him to severe torture, and killed him by pouring molten iron on his head.

Jazzar ransacked the libraries of Jebel Amil. There were five thousand books in the library of Aale Khatun, and for a whole week the public baths of Akka were heated by burning these books. Only those who fled could escape the tyranny of Jazzar. During Jazzar's time, many scholars of Jebel Amil fled away. One of them was a poet named Shaykh Ibrahim Yahya who took refuge in Damascus. He was always distressed on this account and narrated the atrocities of Jazzar. Since he had been an eyewitness to the incidents, he gave a graphic account of those hardships, and his elegies really infuriate those who hear them. One of those elegies, a lengthy one, begins as follows:

“The time that passes consists of joy and sorrow and when a brave man has to suffer loss, it is better for him to be patient. How distressing it is for us to see our city as a place chosen for the revelries of Fir’aun. They have no contact with the organization of justice and there is a large army in their house to commit oppression. Revolution of time intruded upon our affairs and destroyed all splendour of life contrary to expectations. Wherever you cast a glance you see the murdered, the fugitives, the plundered ones, and chained prisoners. Alas! We find so many scholars wounded in different cities by the vicissitudes of time, and the wounds sustained by them are incurable. These scholars have been imprisoned and subjected to great inconvenience and it is a very serious matter that a scholar is not respected. Alas! There are many respectable persons who when it was morning, the oppressors put chains around their necks.”

Talking about such tragic circumstances, Shibli Nomani has said:

Scholars of religion are being made to wear chains

These ornaments are from the inheritance of Sayyid Sajjad.4

“After witnessing this carnage, the wise became senseless. People became so confused that they lost their reason. Each of their wound is still bleeding. When I saw that oppression had been rampant and there were no prosperous people, I left the land where I was vexed, because it seldom happens that a person should live at a place and remain happy while his neighbour is like a serpent ready to bite. Rulership is for Allah only, but it has fallen into the hands of a criminal who does not distinguish between lawful acts from the unlawful ones. There is a criminal and adulterer, who says that he is a virtuous person. But it is to be regretted that it is not possible to deceive Allah, because He recognizes the criminals, and He is in ambush for such people.”

These verses are a historical proof of the crimes of Jazzar and are beyond any doubt or suspicion. They narrate things, which make one shiver.

The atrocities of the Ottomans were not limited to the Arab cities and to the Shi’as. They ousted Shi’as from all small and large government departments. They restrained the Shi’as from performing their special religious duties and did not allow them to perform their religious acts in Syria and the localities in which their number was small. These hardships continued for four hundred years (1516 -1918 A.D.)

  • 1. Khazri, Al-Bilad ul-Arabiya Wad-Dawlat ul-Uthmaniyah, Pg.400, 1960 Edition.
  • 2. The 'First Martyr' was killed in 786 A.H. during the period of Barquq, the first king of Jaraksah. Burhanuddin Maliki and Ibn Ubbad Ibn Jamaat Shafei had alleged that the Martyr considered lawful the things declared by religion to be unlawful (e.g. drinking of wine). So, he must be executed. He remained imprisoned in the fort of Damascus for a year and was then put to sword and thereafter his body was impaled and burned. (Author)
    The magnum opus of the First Martyr is Luma. The Second Martyr, Zainuddin Ibn Nooruddin has written a gloss on Luma called Sharh Luma, which is included the syllabi of all the Shi’a seminaries today.
    According to the author of Lau Lau, during the Ottoman rule, the Second Martyr was arrested right opposite the Great Mosque of Mecca, and he was kept as a prisoner in a house in Mecca for forty days. Then he was transferred to Constantinople and put to death. His body lied unburied for three days, and after that it was picked up and cast into the river.
    Qadi Noorullah Shushtari, who is known as the Third Martyr, was the chief justice of the kingdom during the Mughal period. Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (Mujadid Alf Thani) and other fanatical Sunni scholars issued a verdict against the Third Martyr. Among his writings, Majalis ul-Mu’minin and Ahqaq ul-Haqq have earned international renown. Due to his writing, the book of Ahqaq ul-Haqq, approximately forty Sunni ulama issued the fatwa that Qadi Noorullah should be given a hundred lashes, made to drink molten lead, his tongue should be pulled out from behind his head and then he should be beheaded. When he was lashed, he passed away only on the fifteenth strike, and the remaining lashes were delivered to his corpse. After that, a hole was drilled behind his head and his tongue was pulled out. Molten lead was poured on his head due to which the head was burnt, and the brain came out. Later his corpse was thrown on the garbage heap on the outskirts of Agra.
  • 3. Vol. 1, Pg. 4.
  • 4. Referring to Imam Zayn Al-’Abidin.