http://www.historyofjihad.org/turkey.html
History of Jihad against the Turks (650 - 1050)
How the Turks shed their blood, fighting the Jihad for Four Hundred
years and finally gave up and embraced Islam, and later became the
tormentors themselves to carry the bloodied tradition of Jihad into
Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the Balkans up to Austria.
NEW Movie script on Mohammed PBUH* - the founder of Islam
This site is dedicated to a factual and realistic analysis of the Islamic Jihad
Here you will read about the history of the Islamic Jihad from its beginnings at
Mecca in 620 C.E. up to 9/11, and the lessons it has for us in today’s
challenging times. If we are to understand Islam, we need to understand the
temperament of its founder Mohammed PBUH*, the way victorious Muslims
have treated the subject people, and above all the reasons for the victory of
Islam.
Saturday, March 31, 2012 4:47:11 PM
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subjects of the Islam and the Jihad.
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How the Turks shed their blood, fighting the Jihad for Four Hundred years and
finally gave up and embraced Islam, and later became the tormentors themselves
to carry the bloodied tradition of Jihad into Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the
Balkans up to Austria.
The Turks in Pre-Islamic times
Today we read in history that the Ottoman Turks carried the Jihad into Europe.
The Turks besieged and sacked Constantinople. To many of us, the Turks
before Ataturk reformed Turkey into becoming the Muslim world's first secular
republic, were ruthless Jihadis, whose king was the Caliph till 1924, when
Ataturk abolished the Caliphate. But we know little of the bloodied struggle
that the Turks waged against Islam for 'four hundred years from 650 up to
1050. The first clash of the Turks with the Islamic Jihad took place when the
Muslims in their surge through Persia reached the borders of the Sassanid
Empire in Khorasan, near Central Asia. In those days the Turks ruled Central
Asia. They have been referred to as Turanians by the ancient Persians of
Zoroaster's time.
The Turks were so to say a multi-ethnic tribal cluster who were united with the
bonds of language. Since ancient times, apart from grazing cattle, the Turks
also used to attack settled people in Persia and live off the booty.
______________________________
Tengri is the god of the old Turkic, Mongolian and Altaic religion named
Tengriism. The Mongols called him Tengri, (depicted as Blue Sky) was the
highest God of Turks and Mongols. The name "Tengri" (Tana-Gra)
means "Ruler, Master of the Land"; there might be some connection with
the Sumerian word for god Dingir.
In the pre-islamic Turkish worship of celestial objects, lies the usage of
Turkish Muslims of the crescent Moon as their symbol. Incidentally, the
crescent moon, was borrowed by other non-Arab Muslims from the Turks.
We may note that the Arabs never use the crescent moon as their symbol.
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The Huns, Bulgars, Ughirs, Seljuks, Qarluqs were some of the different tribes
that made up the vast Turkish nation. Of these the Huns and the Bulgars
embraced Christianity and the rest of the Turkish clans embraced Islam. Before
embracing Islam or Christianity, in the 3rd and 4th centuries the Turks (Huns,
also called White Huns) had attacked the Roman empire, the Sassanid and
Achaemenian empires in Persia and had also invaded India. They were a
warlike race, who would not easily be subjugated and led a nomadic life. They
were hardy tribal race who had strains of Caucasoid and Mongoloid ancestry.
The pre-Islamic religion of the Turks was centered around their celestial
god named Tengri (or Tanri)
Tengri is the god of the old Turkic, Mongolian and Altaic religion named
Tengriism. The Mongols called him Tengri, (depicted as Blue Sky) was the
highest God of Turks and Mongols. The name "Tengri" -(Tana-Gra) means
"Ruler, Master of the Land"; there might be some connection with the
Sumerian word for god Dingir.
In the pre-islamic Turkish worship of celestial objects lies the usage of Turkish
Muslims of the crescent Moon as their symbol. Incidentally, the crescent moon,
was borrowed by other Muslims from the Turks. We may note that the Arabs
never use the crescent moon as their symbol.
The core beings in Tengriism are Sky-Father (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) and
Mother Earth (Eje/Gazar Eej). In history, Chinggis Khan (Gengis Khan), the
unifier of the Mongolian nation, based his power on a mandate from Tengri
himself, and began all his declarations with the words "by the will of Eternal
Blue Heaven."
The symbols of Tengri were a cross (betraying Christian influences), the skies
and the sun. It is often confused with a sun-worshipping religion, but the sun is
merely a symbol of Tengri.
Deep in history neither the Mongols nor the Turks were Muslims, but in
fact had waged a bloodied struggle against Islam. The Turks and Mongols
were neighbors and had mixed ancestry since antiquity. Both held Central
Asia between them when the Arab Muslim invaders appeared on the
scene, after over-running the Persian Sassanid Empire in the year 651.
Ironically the Turks had to struggle with Islam which came to them
through the medium of the Islamized Persians who had been newly
converted to Islam at the point of the sword by the Arabs.
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In modern Turkish, the word "Tanri" is used as the generic word for "god", and is also
often used today by practicing Muslims to refer to their God in Turkish as an
alternative to the word "Allah", the - originally Arabic - Islamic word for "God".
Khan is pre-Islamic title
Khan is a typical Turkish royal title and is, by default today, considered to be a
Muslim name. But Genghis Khan and Hulagu Khan were not Muslims, they
were in fact were inveterate enemies of the Muslims. They laid waste a large
swathe of the Islamic crescent in the 13th century, till their descendants were
ultimately defeated by the Muslims and were forced to convert to Islam. After
this conversion, till today we have come to believe that the name Khan is a
Muslim name and that the Turks and the Mughals (Mongols) have always been
Muslims.
Deep in history neither the Mongols nor the Turks were Muslims, and had
waged a bloodied struggle against Islam before their forcible conversion. The
Turks and Mongols were neighbors and had mixed ancestry since antiquity.
Both held Central Asia between them when the Arab Muslim invaders
appeared on the scene, after over-running the Persian Sassanid Empire in the
year 651.
The Defeat of Sassanid Persia, opened up the Turkish domains of Central
Asia to the Jihadis
After clearing these pockets of Persian resistance, the Arabs made the main
Persian town of Merv the target of attack. Merv was the capital of Khurasan
and here the last Sassanid king Yazdgard had sought refuge with his courtiers
who had being fleeing before the advancing Arab Muslims, since the Arab
invasion of Persia in 637 after the disastrous battle of Qadisiyyah. The Persian
army was now in tatters and in no position to put up any effective resistance to
the invading Arabs. On hearing of the Muslim advance, Yazdgard left for
Balkh. No resistance was offered at Merv, and the Muslims occupied the
capital of Khurasan without lifting their swords.
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When the Arabs first invaded Turkish lands, it was reported to the Arab
commander Ahnaf that the practice with the Turks was that the war
commenced at dawn and before the war could start three heralds blew
bugles and then the Turkish force marched to the battle. To subvert the
Turks, before the night of the war, Ahnaf hid himself in a safe place
outside the Turkish camp. As soon as the Turkish herald came out of the
Turkish camp to blow the bugle, Ahnaf overpowered him and killed the
Turk with his sword. When the second herald came he met the same fate.
The third herald also met the same fate. So on that day the bugles did not
blow for the Turkish army.
When the bugles did not blow the Khan of Farghana came out of the camp
to see what had happened to the heralds. When he saw that all of them
were dead he regarded this as a bad omen. At the spur of the moment he
decided that the Turks should not involve themselves with the Muslims.
He ordered his force to withdraw and march back to Farghana.
This is how the Arab Muslims deceived the Turks into retreating. The
Islamic Jihad had drawn the first Turkish blood thru subterfuge.
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The Arab commander Ahnaf stayed at Merv for some time to reorganize the
administration and to await further reinforcements from Kufa. In the meantime the
Persian forces gathered in considerable strength at Balkh. Yazdgard sought aid from
the neighboring Turkish state Farghana and the Khan of Farghana personally led a
Turkish contingent to Balkh.
Having received reinforcements, Ahnaf led the Muslim forces to Balkh. The
Muslims had experience of battling with the Persians but they had little
experience of war with the Turks. Ahnaf wanted to avoid war with the Turks,
and in this connection he thought of devious ways whereby the Turks should
abandon the cause of Yazdgard.
So when the Arab Muslims first invaded Turkish lands, the Muslims decided to
use subterfuge. It was reported to the Arab commander Ahnaf that the practice
with the Turks was that the war commenced at dawn and before the war could
start three heralds blew bugles and then the Turkish force marched to the battle.
To subvert the Turks, before the night of the war, Ahnaf hid himself in a safe
place outside the Turkish camp. As soon as the Turkish herald came out of the
Turkish camp to blow the bugle, Ahnaf overpowered him and killed the Turk
with his sword. When the second herald came he met the same fate. The third
herald also met the same fate. So on that day the bugles did not blow for the
Turkish army.
When the bugles did not blow the Khan of Farghana came out of the camp to
see what had happened to the heralds. When he saw that all of them were dead
he regarded this as a bad omen. At the spur of the moment he decided that the
Turks should not involve themselves with the Muslims. He ordered his force to
withdraw and march back to Farghana. This is how the Arab Muslims deceived
the Turks into retreating. The Islamic Jihad had drawn the first Turkish blood
thru subterfuge.
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In the space of 650-1050 AD a number of events of importance transpired
in Central Asia. These four hundred years were the fiercest in the Turkish
struggle against the Islamic Jihad. The next four hundred years were to
see the gradual transformation of the pagan Turks into Muslims. The
Turks shed their blood fighting the Jihad for four hundred years but
finally gave up and embraced Islam, to later become Jihadis themselves to
carry the bloodied tradition of aggression and forcible conversion into
Anatolia (modern Turkey) and through the Balkans up to Austria and
Poland.
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The next three hundred years witnessed the untold story of the Turkish resistance to
Islam. Ironically the Turks had to struggle with Islam which came to them through the
medium of the Muslim Persians who had been newly converted to Islam at the point
of the sword by the Arabs.
The Persian converts to Islam overthrow the Arab Umayyad Caliphs and
replace them with the Persianized Abbasid Caliphs
In the space of 650-1050 AD a numbers of events of importance transpired in
Central Asia. These four hundred years were the fiercest in the Turkish struggle
against the Jihad. The next four hundred years were to see the gradual
transformation of the pagan Turks into Muslims. The Turks shed their blood
fighting the Jihad for four hundred years and finally gave up and embraced
Islam, to later become the tormentors themselves to carry the bloodied tradition
of Jihad into Anatolia (modern Turkey) and Balkans up to Austria and Poland.
In the year 750, an important event that transformed Central Asia. This event
was the overthrow of the Umayyads Caliphate and its replacement by the
Abbasid Caliphate. While Umayyads of Damascus were Arabs who had
descended from Abu Sufyan the Chieftain of Mecca at the time of Mohammed.
The newly converted Zoroastrian Persians wanted to regain their pre-eminent
power in Persia. They organized themselves and marched against the Umayyad
army. The two armies met at a place called Zab. Here the Persian Abbasids
defeated the Arab Umayyads and established a new caliphate near Ctesiphon
the site of the ancient capital of the Sassanid Persians. They named this city
Baghdad which was to be the capital of the Abbasids from 750 up to its sack by
the Mongols in 1258.
A leading commander of the Abbasid army was a Zoroastrian convert to Islam
named Behzadan, who had assumed the name Abu Muslim. He played a
leading role in the war and deposed the Umayyad caliph, and placed the
Persianized Abbasids as Caliphs and as the head of the Muslim world. With
this revolution the leadership of the Muslim world had passed from Arab hands
into Persian hands, a leadership which they had lost a century earlier, when the
Arabs had destroyed the Sassanid Persian empire.
An important change now was that the Persians who as Zoroastrians a century
earlier were victims of Islam had now embraced Islam and had become the new
vanguard of the bloodied creed of Islam. Their victims were to be the Turks of
Central Asia.
Abu Muslim a Zoroastrian Persian convert to Islam, attacked and
Islamized the Turks
Shortly after victory at the battle of Zab, and the establishment of the Abbasid
Caliphate at Baghdad, Abu Muslim was commissioned to conduct a Jihad in
Central Asia to exterminate the Kaffirs once and for all. It was a great low
point for the Western branch of the Blue Turks. Their great Khan Su'lu who
was a bulwark against the Moslems and the Chinese in the wars of 720 and
723, was assassinated by the Arabs. The pagan Turkic rulers of Samarqand and
Bokhara came under a heavy assault from the ghazis after the fall of Su'lu
when the Arabs with 300 giant trebuchets stormed the cities and forcibly
imposed Islam with the destruction of the pagan places of worship.
Defeat of the Chinese at the Battle of the Talas River with the invading
Muslims sealed the fate of the Turkish resistance to Islam
Archaeological evidence shows that these Turkic cities were cosmopolitan with
Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and the Tengri cults of the Altaics were
the various creeds that were practiced. The Arabs under Abu Muslim savagely
crushed, the last attempt made by the populations of Samarqand and Bokhara
to rid themselves of the murderous Muslim Ghazis. Abu Muslim sent his
victorious commander of these wars, Ziyad ibn Salih, with a band of 40000
ghazis, to wage a Jihad on the Chinese. The Arab army marched from the south
towards Talas. The Chinese general Kao (of Korean origin), decided to resist
the Muslim invasion and marched towards Aulie-Ata on the Talas river with
100,000 Chinese troops in cavalry and infantry divisions.
In the Battle of the Talas river, the Betrayal of the Qarluq Turks led to the
defeat of the Chinese at Arab hands
On July 10th 751 AD the Arab and Chinese armies took to the field in AulieAta on the backs of the Talas river. The Chinese cavalry seemed to initially
overwhelm the Arab cavalry, but the Arabs had worked out a deal with one of
the many Turkish contingents of the Chinese army viz., the Qarluq Turks, by
promising them wealth and freedom in return for embracing Islam and
betraying their Chinese masters. The Qarluqs who held a grudge against the
Chinese for having reduced them to vassalage, viewed this as an opportunity to
throw off the Chinese yoke by using the Arabs, and had planned to later
throwing off the Arab yoke as well and regaining their freedom from both the
Chinese and the Arabs. The Qarluq Turks later played the main role in
converting other Turkish tribes notably the Seljuk Turks to Islam.
At the battle of the Talas river where the Arab and the Chinese armies clashed,
the Qarluqs who were a part of the Chinese army, opened a breach in their own
ranks and allowed the Arabs to ford the river and helped them to encircle a part
of the Chinese infantry butchering it to the last man.
______________________________
It was Mustapha Kemal Pasha (fondly called Ataturk ' father of the
Turks) who saw beyond Islam and wanted to build for the Turks a future
bereft of Islam. He based his vision on three precepts:
Modernization by abolishing the Caliphate
Westernizing by de-islamizing Turkey
Retuning to Turkish roots by taking on ethnic Turkish names in place of
Arabic Islamic names.
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The Qarluq archers then surrounded their paymaster the general of the Chinese army
Kao and treacherously shot him down. Now the Arabs followed their heinous practice
of sticking the severed head of an enemy and parading it before the enemy army. The
Chinese not being used to such grisly war tactics, fell into confusion and disarray, not
knowing who had betrayed them, and their General Kao. They broke ranks and fell
back into confusion, shaking the Chinese center, which was rapidly assaulted by the
Arab heavy cavalry and destroyed. Thus due to Muslim subterfuge and savagery the
infallible Chinese war machine gave way under combined assault of the Arabs and
the traitor Qarluqs, and they faced a heavy rout. From behind, the treacherous
Qarluqs fell upon the Chinese baggage trains and supplies carrying away all they
could and receded back into the steppe.
The Arabs rounded up tens of thousands of Chinese and their non-Qarluq Turk
allies and took them to Samarqand from where Abu Muslim sent them to
Baghdad and Damascus to be sold as slaves, each worth a dirham. One Chinese
survivor mentions being kept as cattle in the Arab prison camps. Abu Muslim
and Ziyad made huge financial gains out of this slave trade and used it to pay
their armies. More importantly the Arabs forced the Turk and Chinese
prisoners to teach them the art of making siege trains and catapult machines,
which the Islamized Turks were to use successfully in their attacks on the
Byzantine cities.
The Qarluq Turks aimed at playing the Chinese and the Muslims against
each other to gain their own independence
The Qarluq Turks wanted independence from the Chinese so they made a
pretence of embracing Islam to obtain Arab support to defeat the Chinese. The
Qarluqs had planned to later throw off the Arab yoke as well by repudiating
Islam and regaining their freedom from both the Chinese and the Arabs. But
little did the Qarluqs realize that in working out a deal with the Arabs, while
they would succeed in throwing off the Chinese yoke, they would have to bring
themselves into the fold of Islam, from which there was no escape! The
Qarluqs were forced to remain Muslim and whenever any of them reneged their
Islamic faith, they were put to death while the luckier among them were
enslaved by the Arabs and Persian Muslims.
The later history of the Qarluqs was as Muslims who resigned themselves to
remaining as satellites of the Arabs after having thrown off the Chinese yoke
and with it also the only possibility of liberating themselves from the grip of
Islam. It was this devious conversion of the Quarluqs that triggered the
conversion of the greater Turkish nation to Islam in the next three centuries
from 750 to 1050.
The Turks who had zealously retained their freedom from their neighbors the
Chinese, and the Zoroastrian Persians for more than a millennium, finally
began succumbing to Islam due to a tactical pretense of the Qarluqs of
embracing Islam, for securing Arabs support and throwing off Chinese
suzerainty. A deal that proved costly for Turkish independence that was now
permanently enslaved into the prison of Islam. The Turks henceforth would
remain satellites of the Arabs, a position they sought to reverse, by themselves
becoming more aggressive champions of Islam, and reducing their Arabs
masters to vassalage status when they established their Seljuk and later Uthman
(Ottoman) dynasties.
Turkish Resistance to Islam
But before they would finally resign to their fate to being Muslims the Turks
waged a bloodied war against the Muslim incursion of their homeland in
Central Asia. After the Battle of the Talas river, the Arabs captured many of the
non-Qarluq Turks who were allies of the Chinese and deported them as salves
to Baghdad. They are reported to have totaled up to seventy thousand. Not only
were these enslaved Turks were forced to become Muslims, but enslavement
was the tactic used by the Islamized Turks to convert the non-Muslim Turks to
Islam.
The Conversion of the Seljuk Turks to Islam
The next Turkish clan to be converted to Islam was the Seljuks. They were a
proud imperial clan among the Turks, and after the conversion of the Qarluqs
to Islam, it was the Seljuks who held the banner of Turkish resistance to Islam.
The Seljuks remained unsubdued for another century and half. But the Arabs,
Persian and Islamized Turks mounted many bloodied campaigns against them
and other non-Muslim Turks who were allied to the Seljuks. In this series of
battles the fortunes fluctuated from one side to the other, at times the Muslims
were victorious and at others the Turks emerged victorious.
Tactics used by the Muslims to convert the Turks to Islam
In this unwritten chapter of the Turkish resistance to Islam, the Muslims (who
in this case were mainly the Zoroastrian Persian converts to Islam), devised
new tactics and subterfuge to enslave a proud and fiercely independent people
which characterized the Turkish clan. In this battle the Turks did not lack in
bravery, as they were born warriors and spent a large part of their lives on
horseback. But whenever the non-Muslim Turks were victorious, they
destroyed the Muslim camps, slaughtered their armies, destroyed their cities,
and torched their fields, but it did not cross their minds, to enforce any religion
on the defeated Muslims. Those of the Muslims that the Turks set free, either
went back to the Muslim controlled cities, or stayed on in the Turkish areas and
attempted to spread Islam. A mindset that was totally absent among the nonMuslim Turks. (It was only when the Christians of Europe liberated Muslim
lands, did they attempt to re-convert the Muslims to Christianity.) But the preIslamic Turks knew of no such tactic and they made no attempt to roll back the
tide of Islam when they were victorious over the Muslims.
So while the Christians of Europe succeeded in turning back the tide of Islam
in the middle ages, the Turks failed to resist Islam. Herein lies an important
factor in defeating Islam, by forcing the reconversion of the defeated Muslims
out of Islam. If the defeated Muslims are allowed to retain their faith (which is
nothing but a cult of death and murder), the venom of Islam will become
powerful once again to overwhelm the non-Muslim victors to ultimately defeat
them. So whenever the Muslims are defeated and subjugated they need to be
made to give up Islam, at the pain of death if necessary. But Islam has to be
wiped out of peoples’ minds if the victory over Islam has to be consolidated
and made permanent. As long as a person remains a Muslim, he/she remains an
ever present danger to any non-Islamic (civilized) way of life. This is true as
much today as it was in the past, and shall remain as true, as long as Islam
infests this planet!
Muslims held Turkish princes as captives to be brought up as Muslims
In their struggle with the pre-Islamic Turks the tactic of the Muslims was to use
every victory to press Islam on the defeated Turks. At every negotiation with
the Turks, when the Turks faced a defeat, the Muslims would ask for custody
of the princes and princesses of the Turkish royal family on the excuse of
holding them as a guarantee that the Turks would keep their word given during
the negotiations. These royal captives would be brought up in the Islamic
tradition and their minds jaundiced in favor of Islam. In many cases when their
Muslim captors were satisfied that the royal captives had mentally accepted
Islam, the Shahada (declaration of the acceptance of Islam) was pronounced to
them, and they were released to return to their kingdoms, whenever they had to
ascend the throne in their clans and tribes.
______________________________
Most important of all, Ataturk visualized that in future there could be
folks like Abdullah Gul and Erdogan who might want to undo the
revolutionary secular reforms initiated by Ataturk and roll back Turkey
into the Islamic age. To prevent this, he made the Turkish military the
custodian of secular traditions. The Turkish military has intervened to
upset any Islamist take of Turkey on many occasions during the last ninety
years. It is quite possible the military will be called upon to take the reins
of power once again, especially with the impending partition of Iraq and
the coming of Kurdistan as an independent country with its destabilizing
effects on Turkey's Kurds and Erdogan taking advantage of this scenario
to sideline the military to seize more power for himself and his Islamist
party.
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With a Muslim at the helm in a non-Muslim Turkish clan, the conversion of the
rest of the clan to Islam was only a matter of time. This was one of the tactics
used by the Muslims to infiltrate Islam into the Turkish nation. By the middle
of the eleventh century, most of the Turks had embraced Islam, and thenceforth
it was they who became the vanguard of the Jihad to carry the bloodied trial of
Islam into Anatolia and the Balkans. It was these Islamized Seljuk Turks who
kept up a constant pressure on the Byzantine Empire inflicting on the
Byzantines a string of defeats starting from the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 in
Eastern Anantolia. It was these steady attacks and migration of the Seljuk
Turks into Anatolia which gave the present Turkish character to Anatolia
making it the Turkey of today.
The Seljuk (and later the Ottoman) Turks also carried with them the tradition of
taking child hostages and bringing them up as Muslims, a tactic of which they
had earlier been victims at the hands of the Arab and Persian Muslims. This led
to the institution of the Turkish Jannisaries The Jannisaries (Mercenaries from
Jan = Life and Nisar = given away. The Muslims will have you believe that
Janisarry comes from Yeni = new and Chery = soldier, but this is an eyewash
meant to hide Muslim atrocities on non-Muslims) were Christian children
taken captive by the Turks when they invaded Anatolia and the Balkans. The
Jannisaries is a practice derived by the Turks from the Arab and Persian
Muslims tactics used against them (the Turks) during their pre-Islamic days.
But the irony of history is that the Islamization of the Turks and the Mongols
also started their migration from the traditional homelands in the Steppes of
Central Asia into Anatolia and onwards in the Balkans. Today the word Turk is
not mainly identified with the Turkic peoples of Central Asia who make up the
Kazakh, Uzbek, Khirgiz and Tajik people (all of whom were called the
Turanians in ancient times). Today the word Turk implies an inhabitant of
Anatolia which is called Turkey. But in ancient times the inhabitants of
Anatolia were not the Turks, they were Hittites (and Indo-European people)
who later mingled with the Greek speaking inhabitants who built the
Hellenized kingdoms of Sardis and Troy.
Hulagu's invasion - The Turko-Mongol attack on Muslim Iran and Middle
East was similar to the Crusades, in that it was a Non-Muslim
Counterattack on Islam
Returning to pre-Islamic Central Asia, we need to bring attention to another
curious fact that today not many historians have pointed out that the subterfuge,
savage cruelty and other foul tactics which the Muslims used to convert the
Turks to Islam, had led to a gradual accumulation of bitterness and a desire for
revenge against the Muslims in the Turks and their related clans the Mongols.
Over the centuries many Persian Zoroastrians, the Persian Nestorian Christians,
the Turks, Chinese and the Mongols had nursed within themselves a grievance
against the Muslims expansion into Persia and Central Asia. It is this
accumulation of grievances that led to the burst of the Mongol attack on
Islamdom from 1200 that culminated in the sack and slaughter of Baghdad in
1258 under Hulagu Khan who was egged on to this path by his Nestorian
Persian Christian wife.
Historians have failed to interpret the attack of the Mongols on Muslim Persia,
and the Middle East as the Turko-Mongol counterattack on Islam; as were the
Crusades, a Christian counterattack against Islam in the 11th century, We shall
examine this in detail in the chapter on the Mongol resistance to Islam. Suffice
it to note here that Hulagu's attack on Islamdom was a collective expression
of resistance to Islam from the pre-Islamic Persians who had settled in China
and Mongolia, and the Turks who had been waging a struggle against Islam in
the 8th to the 10th centuries. It was a result of historical wrongs committed by
the Arab Muslims on the Zoroastrian Persians, and by the Arab Muslims along
with the Islamized Persians on the Turks, and in turn, by the Arabs with the
Islamized Persians and the Islamized Turks on non-Islamic Turks and Mongols
and Chinese.
Ataturk ' the Visionary
It Mustapha Kemal Pasha (fondly called Ataturk 'father of the Turks) who saw
beyond Islam and wanted to build for the Turks a future bereft of Islam. He
based his vision on three precepts:
Modernization of Turkey by abolishing the Caliphate
Westernizing by de-islamizing Turkey
Retuning to Turkish roots by taking on ethnic Turkish names in place of Arabic
Islamic names
Ataturk's first and revolutionary measure was to abolish the Caliphate. Thus
with one stroke he dealt two blows to Islamic orthodoxy. With the Caliphate
abolished by a Turkish nationalist military commander, Turkey was no longer
the focus of the Islamic world. He severed Turkey's most critical link with the
Islamic world. Atatirk supplemented this with the abolition of the Arabic script
and replaced it with the Latin script. He abolished the Chador (for ladies ) and
Fez for men (Islamic cap with a tuft), and replaced it with Western dress.
Women were to don Western skirts, while men were to be in Western three
piece suits.
Ataturk banned the growing of beards by men and the wearing of even scarves
by women. He outlawed the issuing of the Muezzins call for prayer and made
this a private affair, with even the Muslim prayer leaders, priests and preachers
having to be beardless and don Western dress!. He encouraged the next
generation of Turks to take on ethnic pre-Islamic Turkish names like Bulent
Ecevit, Turgut Ozal, Mesut Yilmaz, Necmettin Erbakan and Tansu Ciller, etc.
Most important of all, Ataturk visualized that in future there could be folks like
Abdullah Gul and Erdogan who might want to undo the revolutionary secular
reforms initiated by Ataturk and roll back Turkey into the Islamic age. To
prevent this, he made the Turkish military the custodian of secular traditions.
During the last ninety years the Turkish military has intervened to upset any
Islamist take of Turkey on many occasions. It is quite possible the military will
be called upon to take the reins of power once again, especially with the
impending partition of Iraq and the formation of Iraqi Kurdistan as an
independent country with its destabilizing effects on Turkey's Kurds and
Erdogan taking advantage of this scenario to sideline the military to seize more
power for himself and his Islamist party.