Some Meccan Wahhâbîs went to ’Abd al-’Azîz, the ruler
in Dar’iyya, and told him that the representatives could not refute the Meccan
’ulamâ’ and that a declaration stating that their system of beliefs was
hostility against Islam was sent to every country. ’Abd al-’Azîz ibn Muhammad
ibn Sa’ûd and his followers bitterly resented the Ahl as-Sunna and attacked
Mecca in 1215. The Amîr of Mecca, Sharîf Ghâlib ibn Musâ’id ibn Sa’îd Effendi,
resisted them. Much blood was shed on both sides. Sharîf Ghâlib Effendi did not
allow them to enter Mecca, but the Arab tribes around Mecca accepted Wahhâbism.
Between the two ’îds of the same year, Sa’ûd sent an army to the town of Tâ’if.
They oppressed and massacred Tâ’ifian Muslim women and children.[1]
The torture of the inhabitants of Tâ’if, including
women and children, was committed by the order of an enemy of Islam, a
ferocious brigand named ’Uthmân al-Mudâyiqî. This man and Muhsin had been sent
by Sharîf Ghâlib Effendi to Dar’iyya. They were supposed to negotiate about the
renewal of the earlier treaty in order to prevent the Wahhâbîs from besieging
Medina and oppressing Muslims. But this hypocrite was a spy near Sharîf Ghâlib
Effendi. He deceived his companion, Muhsin, on their way to Dar’iyya by
promising him many advantages. The two disclosed their thoughts to Sa’ûd ibn
’Abd al-’Azîz in Dar’iyya. Sa’ûd, seeing that they were his faithful slaves,
put his looters under their
[1] For the details of this oppression and massacre which is unbearable to the heart, see Ahmad ibn Zainî Dahlân’s Khulâsat al-kalâm (reprint, Istanbul, 1395/1975) and Ayyûb Sabri Pasha’s Târîkh-i Wahhâbiyyân, Istanbul, 1296 A.H. (1879).
command. They went to a place named Abîla near Tâ’if
and sent a letter to Sharîf Ghâlib Effendi writing that Sa’ûd and they, the two
traitors, disregarded the validity of the former treaty and that Sa’ûd was
preparing to besiege Mecca. Sharîf Ghâlib Effendi wrote answers advising them
with soft words, but ’Uthmân the ferocious, who was an enemy of Islam, tore up
the letters. He attacked the Muslims sent by the Amîr and defeated them. Sharîf
Ghâlib Effendi retreated into the Tâ’if fortress and took measures for defence.
This ferocious Wahhâbî encamped his army at Malîs near Tâ’if at the end of
Shawwâl in
Led by Sharîf Ghâlib Effendi (rahmat-Allâhi ’alaih),
the people of Tâ’if bravely attacked the brigands at Malîs. He put fifteen
hundred looters of Sâlim ibn Shakbân to the sword. Sâlim and those with him
fled Malîs. But they rallied together again and raided Malîs. They looted the
town. Sharîf Ghâlib Effendi went to Jidda to obtain military help. Most
Tâ’ifians fled and secretly escaped with their household. Although those
Tâ’ifians who took refuge in the fortress defeated the packs of Wahhâbîs coming
one after the other, they hoisted the white flag of truce, because the enemy continually
received aid. They agreed to surrender under the condition that their lives and
chastity would be safe. Though the enemy, too, had become weak for many of them
had died or fled, the Tâ’ifian messenger, who was a base villain, though he saw
the Wahhâbîs flee, shouted after them, “Sharîf Ghâlib fled from fear! And the
Tâ’ifians do not have the power to resist you! They sent me to communicate that
they will surrender the fortress, and they ask you to forgive them. I like the
Wahhâbîs. Come back! You have shed much blood! It is not right to go back
without capturing Tâ’if. I swear that the Tâ’ifians will immediately surrender
the fortress. They will accept whatever you want.” It was Sharîf Ghâlib
Effendi’s fault that Tâ’if was lost in vain. If he had stayed in Tâ’if, Muslims
would not have suffered that doom. Since “Traitors are cowards,”
the Wahhâbîs did not believe that the Tâ’ifians would surrender readily. But,
seeing the flag of truce on the fortress, they sent an envoy to the fortress to
investigate the situation. The Tâ’ifians, pulled the envoy up to the fortress
with a rope. “Gather all your goods here and surrender
if you want to save your lives,” said the envoy. All
their possessions were gathered with the effort of a Muslim named Ibrâhîm.
“This is not enough!” said the envoy, “We cannot forgive you for this much. You
should bring more!” He gave them a notebook and said, “List the names of those
who do not give! The men are free to go wherever they wish. The women and
children will be put in chains.” Although they begged him to be a little bit
softer, he increased his aggression and harshness. Ibrâhîm, unable to be
patient any more, hit him on the chest with a stone and killed him. During this
confusion, the Wahhâbîs attacked the fortress, thus they escaped from being hit
by cannon balls and bullets. They broke the gates and entered the fortress.
They killed every woman, man and child they saw, cutting even the babies in
cradles. The streets turned into floods of blood. They raided the houses and
plundered everywhere, attacking outrageously and madly till sunset. They could
not capture the stone houses in the eastern part of the fortress, so they
besieged and put those houses under a shower of bullets. A Wahhâbite scoundrel
shouted: “We forgive you! You may go wherever you want with your wives and
children,” but they did not yield. Meanwhile, the Wahhâbîs gathered the people,
who had set out to migrate, on a hill and encircled those pure Muslim families,
who had grown up amid fondling and affection and most of whom were women and
children, and held them to die of hunger and thirst for twelve days, and
tortured them by slandering, stoning and cudgelling. The Wahhâbîs called them
one by one and beat them and said, “Tell us where you hid your possessions!”
and howled, “Your day of death is coming!” to those who begged for mercy.
Ibn Shakbân, after pressing the stone houses violently
for twelve days and being unable to make them yield, promised that those who
would come out of the houses and give up arms would be forgiven. Muslims
believed him and came out, but, with their hands tied behind their backs, they
were drawn by Ibn Shakbân to the hill where the other Muslims were encircled.
Three hundred and sixty-seven men, together with women and children, were put
to the sword on the hill (rahmat-Allâhi ’alaihim ajma’în). They made animals
trample on the bodies of the martyrs and left them unburied to be eaten by
beasts and birds of prey for sixteen days. They plundered Muslims’ houses and
gathered all they took into a big heap in front of the gateway of the fortress
and sent one fifth of the goods and the money they collected to Sa’ûd, sharing
the remainder among themselves. The traitors and
torrential rains swept away uncountable money and invaluable
goods, and there remained little, only forty thousand gold rials, in the hands
of Ahl as-Sunna; ten thousand rials were distributed to the women and children,
and the goods were sold very cheaply.
The Wahhâbîs tore up the copies of the Qur’ân al-karîm and books of tafsîr, hadîth and other Islamic books
they took from libraries, masjids and houses, and threw them down on the
ground. They made sandals from the gold-gilded leather covers of the Qur’ân
copies and other books and wore them on their filthy feet. There were âyats and
other sacred writings on those leather covers. The leaves of those valuable
books thrown around were so numerous that there was no space to step in the
streets of Tâ’if. Although Ibn Shakbân had ordered the looters not to tear up
the copies of the Qur’ân
al-karîm, the Wahhâbite bandits, who were
gathered from the deserts for looting and who did not know the Qur’ân al-karîm, tore up all the copies they found and stamped on
them. Only three copies of the Qur’ân
al-karîm and one copy of the Sahîh of al-Bukhârî were saved from plunder in the big town of Tâ’if.
A mu’jiza: The weather was calm during the plunder of Tâ’if.
There was no wind. A storm broke out after the bandits went away, and the wind
lifted up all the leaves of the Qur’ân al-karîm and Islamic
books and swept them away. Soon there was no piece of paper left on the ground.
Nobody knew where they were taken.
Under the hot sun, the corpses of the martyrs decayed
on the hill in sixteen days. The atmospere became fetid. Muslims begged, wept
and lamented in front of Ibn Shakbân to permit them to bury their dead
relatives. At last he agreed, and they dug two big hollows, put all the decayed
corpses of their fathers, grandfathers, relatives and children into the hollows
and covered them with soil. There was no corpse that could be recognized; some
of them were only one half or one fourth of a body, for other parts were
scattered around by birds and beasts of prey. They were permitted to collect
and bury these pieces of flesh because the bad smell bothered the Wahhâbîs,
too. Muslims searched all around and collected and buried them, too, in the two
hollows.
It was also for the purpose of insulting and taking
revenge on the dead Muslims that the bandits kept the martyrs unburied until
they decayed. But, as said in a couplet.
‘It will bring ascent, do not grieve that
you have fallen,
A building is not restored before it turns
to a ruin.’
The status of martyrs (rahmat-Allâhi ’alaihim ajma’în)
in Allah’s esteem increases when their corpses are left unburied to decay and
to be prey for birds and beasts.
The bandits completely ruined the shrines of
as-Sahâbat al-kirâm, awliyâ’ and ’ulamâ’ after putting the Muslims of Tâ’if to
the sword and dividing up the loot and the money. When they attempted to dig a
grave with a view to take out and burn the corpse of Hadrat ’Abdullâh ibn
’Abbâs, who was one of our Prophet’s most beloved companions, they were frightened by
the pleasant scent that came out when the first pickaxe hit the ground. They
said, “There is a great satan in this grave. We should blow it up with dynamite
instead of losing time by digging.” Although they put much powder and tried
hard, the powder misfired and they went away in astonishment. The grave was
left level with the ground for a few years. Later, Sayyid Yasîn Effendi put a
very nice sarcophagus on it and protected that blessed grave from being
forgotten.
The bandits also tried to dig up the graves of Sayyid
’Abd al-Hadî Effendi and many other awliyâ’, but they were prevented by a
karâma at each grave. Facing extraordinary difficulties in carrying out this
vile intention of theirs, they gave it up.
’Uthmân al-Mudâyiqî and Ibn Shakbân also ordered that the mosques and madrasas should be demolished together with the shrines. Yasîn Effendi, a great scholar of Ahl as-Sunna, said, “Why do you want to demolish mosques, which are built for the purpose of performing salât in congregation? If you want to ruin this mosque because the grave of ’Abdullâh ibn ’Abbâs (radî-Allâhu ’anhumâ) is here, I tell you, his grave is in the shrine outside the big mosque. Therefore, it is not necessary to demolish the mosque.” ’Uthmân al-Mudâyiqî and Ibn Shakbân could not make any rejoinder. But, Matû, a zindîq among them, made a ridiculous statement: “Anything doubtful should be annihilated.” Then, Yasîn Effendi asked, “Is there anything doubtful about mosques?” and the demagogue was silent. After a long silence, ’Uthmân al-Budâyiqî said, “I do not agree with either of you,” and ordered, “Do not touch the mosque, demolish the shrine!”