10. The Wars with the Turks

This is not particularly talking about the people living in Anatolia or Turkey. The people of Turkey immigrated from Turkaman; it’s an extension of tribes and people that go all the way to China. They have distinctive features. In a hadith by Bukhari, RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Turks. People with small eyes, round, red faces and flat noses. Their faces will look like shields coated with leather. The Hour will not be established until you fight with people whose shoes are made of hair.” This is the description of the people of Mangolia, and the people of Tataristan. Their clothes were made out of wool and their shoes as well; this is the description of them.

SubhanAllah, the Muslims fought people with the exact description RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam gave. The battles with them started early on. Then the Mongolians, who are considered to be part of these people, swept through the Muslim world and destroyed it. They were under the leadership of Genghis Khan and Taymur Lang. These leaders just destroyed the world. They even went into Eastern Europe and Russia. They were a very strong and forceful people. They destroyed Baghdad. They killed 2 million Muslims. They would take the skulls of Muslims and build pyramids out of it. They used the books of the libraries of Baghdad and made bridges in the rivers. This was the works of thousands of Muslim minds; there weren’t printers. These were original manuscripts. They took everything in the biggest library of the world at that time (in Baghdad). It was said that the rivers were black from the ink of the books.

RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam says, “You’re going to fight with the Turks… [then he gave the description]. You will find that some of the best people in this religion are people who were the worst enemies of this religion, until they enter Islam. And the best of you in the time of Jahiliyyah are the best in Islam, if you learn.”

These Mongolians, if though they were victorious and the rulers, they adopted Islam. You will never find this in history – the rulers adopting the religion of the losers. The losing people follow the religion of the winners. People who are in defeat try to imitate the strong and victorious. The Maghuls were different. They ended up becoming Muslim, even though it took them a long time to change.

In the time of Ibn Taymiyyah, the Tatars that were fighting the Muslims were already Muslim, but they were still destroying the Muslim world. It took them awhile to get into the religion and understand the religion.

Who are the Ottomans? Turkish people who emigrated from the Central Asian Area into the land of Turkey, which was the Byzantine Empire at the time. It was the eastern, Roman, Byzantine Empire. This small tribe of Turks went and lived in Anatolia. Even though it was a small tribe, they began fighting with the Romans around them. Slowly, slowly they expanded their territory, until they completely destroyed the Byzantine Empire. It started with one tribe, but they took down the Byzantine Empire. They ruled all over the Muslim world. RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam described them in the hadith.

’Umar ibn AlKhattaab, for example, was an enemy of Islam in the beginning, but he became one of the best Sahabah.