They Ask you about the Umayyad Caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan

Published in December 28, 2019

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

 We have received some questions from a certain website about the Umayyad caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan. We sent the answers right away but they have not been published online yet within that website whose journalists sent us the questions. Typically in such cases, we publish what we have written to any journalists on our own website (www.ahl-alquan.com) and on our space within the leftist Modern Discussion website (http://www.ahewar.org/m.asp?i=627), whether the journalists would publish on their website the answers we have sent them later or not. In the points below, we quote our answers while omitting the questions.

1- There are those caliphs who undertook the mission of founding the State (or caliphate) and those other caliphs who established its strong and stable pillars. The first type of caliphs includes Abou Bakr the founder of caliphate in Yathreb, Mu'aweiya the founder of the Umayyad caliphate, Abou Al-Abbas Al-Saffah the founder of the Abbasid caliphate, Abdul-Rahman Ibn Mu'aweiya (or the Falcon of Qorayish) the founder of the new Umayyad caliphate in Andalusia, Ezz-Eddine Aybak and Queen Shagaret Al-Dor the founders of the Mameluke sultanate in Egypt, and Othman Ibn Ertugrul the founder of the Ottoman caliphate. The second type of caliphs includes, respectively, Omar Ibn Al-Khattab in Yathreb, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan of the Umayyads, Abou Jaffer Al-Mansour of the Abbasids, Abdul-Rahman Al-Nasser in Andalusia, Al-Dhahir Beibars the Mameluke sultan of Egypt, and Orhan I and his son and successor Murad I of the Ottomans. In modern history, the first Saudi kingdom was established by M. Ibn Saud within an alliance made with the Hanbali preacher M. Ibn Abdul-Wahab (the founder of Wahabism), but the king who established its strong and stable pillars was Abdul-Aziz Ibn M. Ibn Al-Saud. The third, current Saudi kingdom was established by Abdul-Aziz Ibn Abdul-Rahman Al-Feisal and he named it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 to indicate the fact that the royal family of Al-Saud owns it; the king who established its strong and stable pillars was his son: king Feisal Ibn Abdul-Aziz.       

2- The rulers who established strong and stable pillars of the State were mighty, firm, and strong; they never hesitated to do anything for the sake of consolidating their State/caliphate, including any dishonest and evil means such as committing bloodshed, breaching treaties, and distortion and manipulation of religion. The Umayyad caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan is no exception to this rule; he is a main figure to which this rule in history applies.

3- For some years, before becoming a caliph, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan lived in Yathreb which had its prominent fiqh scholars and authors of hadiths lie Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab, Ibn Omar, Ibn Amr, and Ibn Abbas. Before being engaged in politics, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan tried to become a religious scholar himself. No one did so among the Umayyad dynasty; the only scholar/scientist among them was the chemist Khaled Ibn Yazeed Ibn Mu'aweiya who was never a religious scholar. Of course, during the Umayyad Era, knowledge of any type of erudite men was primitive and oral and not written down; i.e., meetings or councils were held to orally spread hadiths, narratives of history, ponderings on the Quranic verses, poetry,...etc. The Abbasid Era witnessed the writing down of so many books on many branches of knowledge within depth and variety.     

4- Soon enough, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan stopped the pretense of being interested in being taught religious knowledge; he forsook his tutor and sheikh, Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab, and he felt hostility and animosity towards Yathreb and its dwellers. This is when he ascended the throne of the Umayyad caliphate in Damascus. He decided to relentlessly establish strong and stable pillars of the caliphate, sparing no means, schemes, or tools, as the Umayyad caliphate was on the verge of an imminent collapse at the time despite the efforts to prevent so by the previous caliph Marwan Ibn Al-Hakam who was killed in his sleep by his wife the mother of the chemist. Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan succeeded his dead father; he unified the Umayyad empire once more after he defeated the rebel and self-proclaimed 'caliph' Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubayr who controlled at the time Egypt, the Hejaz region (where Mecca is situated), Iraq, the western region of Persia, and the southern region of the Levant. Likewise,Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan managed to crush and defeat the rebellious movements of Shiites (led by Al-Mukhtar Ibn Obayda) and Al-Khawarij, plus the revolt of fiqh scholars (led by Al-Ashaas), as he relied on his fearsome, loyal, and powerful governor and military leader Al-Hajaj Ibn Youssef who was the governor of Iraq appointed by the Umayyads. In fact, Al-Hajaj Ibn Youssef killed thousands of people including captives (or POWs) and at the battle of Deir Al-Jamajim (House of Skulls), he built huge pyramidal piles by the skulls of slain captives and soldiers/rebels.

5- Before his becoming caliph, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan betrayed Yathreb where he lived for years along with some family members among the Umayyads; this betrayal occurred during the caliphate of Yazeed Ibn Mu'aweiya; after the assassination of Hussein (the grandson of Muhammad; the son of Fatima and Ali) in Iraq by the Umayyad troops, the dwellers of Yathreb revolted against the Umayyads; in 64 A.H., to nip such rebellion in the bud, the caliph Yazeed Ibn Mu'aweiya sent military troops to Yathreb led by Moslem Ibn Oqba with a mission to destroy, pillage, burn down, and rob all houses of Yathreb (stealing all food, money, and arms), to rape its women. and to kill anyone who would resist. This went on nonstop for three consecutive days to punish the dwellers of Yathreb who decided not to submit to the authority of the Umayyad caliph.  

6- Before such a heinous crime took place, the dwellers of Yathreb received the news about the Umayyad military troops which drew near their city; they rushed to siege the Umayyads who lived inside Yathreb in a house owned by Marwan Ibn Al-Hakam; the armed men who sieged the house negotiated with Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan, and the other Umayyad men with him, the safe exit of such Umayyad men out of Yathreb after they were threatened to be beheaded; an agreement was pledged within binding oaths: this safe exit of the Umayyad men was in return for not to help the Umayyad troops with any information about weak points inside Yathreb and not to fight along with the unjust Yazeed Ibn Mu'aweiya against the Yathreb dwellers.  

7- These Umayyad men were allowed to leave Yathreb, with their luggage and possessions, in peace and security; yet, when they met with the Umayyad troops in a distant valley in Arabia, the leader Moslem Ibn Oqba demanded from the Umayyad Amr Ibn Othman Ibn Affan to inform him of the weak points in Yathreb and of how its dwellers are mobilized...etc. When Amr Ibn Othman Ibn Affan told him he could not tell him anything because of the binding oath and the pledge about never to ally themselves to the troops and never to betray the Yathreb dwellers, the military leader was so furious that he was about to kill Amr Ibn Othman Ibn Affan, but he restrained himself so as not to kill an Umayyad man and a relative of the caliph; he sent a letter to the caliph and he granted him permission to kill anyone (even the Umayyad men who left Yathreb to fall into the hands of Moslem Ibn Oqba!) who would not help in crushing the revolt. This permission frightened the Umayyad men who left Yathreb; Marwan Ibn Al-Hakam advised his son, Abdul-Malik, to talk frankly with Moslem Ibn Oqba and to give him the information he needed. Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan did so and advised the military leader about the best plan and the best timing to attack the Yathreb dwellers and to avoid the sun rays blinding his soldiers; the military leader rejoiced very much as he admired the plan and implemented it. The Umayyad troops emerged victorious in Yathreb in this battle of Al-Harrah as they followed the plan and pieces of advice offered by Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan. The Umayyad soldiers robbed, stole, killed, raped, pillaged...etc. inside Yathreb for three consecutive days; some historians claim that 1000 virgin young women were raped and impregnated as a result.     

8- Thus, before his caliphate, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan betrayed Yathreb where he lived for years; after his becoming caliph, he betrayed his tutor and friend Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab (the prominent scholar and the symbol of Yathreb whose family enjoyed stature and wealth among the Qorayish tribesmen); he ordered his being beaten and humiliated in public. Thus, because of his stature and influence, Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab was the suitable target for power-seeking men who competed and struggled against one another. This means Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab must be forced to swear fealty to any ruler so that the dwellers of Yathreb would follow the footsteps of their favorite scholar. In case Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab refused, he was punished severely to terrorize the Yathreb dwellers so that they submit to rulers. When the rebel Ibn Al-Zubayr made himself caliph in Mecca, after he controlled Hejaz, he made his governor in Yathreb demand from Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab to swear fealty to the new caliph. Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab refused to do so unless the people Hejaz, Egypt, Iraq, and the Levant (controlled by Ibn Al-Zubayr) would swear fealty first. This means Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab never desired to be a pawn in the conflict between Ibn Al-Zubayr and the Umayyads. This situation posed a danger; the dwellers of Yathreb and Hejaz in general might rebel as a result against Ibn Al-Zubayr, and hence, the governor appointed by Ibn Al-Zubayr flogged Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab 60 lashes in public to punish him for his disobedience. Years later, the Umayyads defeated and killed Ibn Al-Zubayr. Once he ascended to the throne, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan reached Yathreb to deliver a sermon to its dwellers in 75 A.H., emphasizing to them the fact that he was not as weak as the assassinated caliph Othman and was not as diplomatic as the caliph Mu'aweiya; he told them he relied on military might all the time in all affairs; he threatened to behead anyone of them who would dare to tell him to fear the Lord God within piety. This threat was especially directed at fiqh scholars in Yathreb, including Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab, who saw that their mission included to advise caliphs and rulers. Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan demanded from his appointed governor of Yathreb, Hisham Ibn Ismael, the son of the paternal uncle of Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab, to make the Yathreb dwellers swear fealty to him as the new caliph and to his successors Al-Waleed and Suleiman. Many people swore fealty because they feared being beheaded in case they refused. Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab refused as was expected; the governor (his relative!) flogged him 60 lashes in public, and then, he seated him in a humiliating manner on a donkey to roam the streets of Yathreb; after such public humiliation, Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab was put in prison for a while. Later on, he was released but people were prevented from talking to him inside mosques and inside his house. When the Umayyads received the news (or rumor) that Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab intended to perform pilgrimage to Mecca in order to invoke the Lord God's wrath against the Umayyads in his supplications and prayers, the Umayyads prevented him by force from leaving Yathreb during the pilgrimage season. When Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab refused to meet with the caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan when he entered in to the Yathreb mosque, the caliph sent an envoy to inform Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab that he should meet with the caliph immediately; the envoy received orders to talk gently and kindly to Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab. Again, Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab refused to meet with the caliph for a friendly chat; the envoy would have killed him on the spot if it had not been for the orders of the caliph to treat him gently and kindly. The furious caliph decided not to punish Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab this time. This means Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab courageously decided not to be engaged in the political life and he remained steady in this stance. When Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan died and was succeeded by his son, Al-Waleed, Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab refused to swear fealty to him; when this young caliph visited the Yathreb mosque and found that admirers of Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab learn fiqh from him, he summoned Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab who refused to go to the mansion of the caliph in Yathreb; the caliph Al-Waleed was so furious that he was about to command the beheading of Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab; yet, some courtiers advised Al-Waleed to think twice because Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab, the popular sheikh and an old man at the time, was a Qorayish tribesman and a former friend of the late caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan; the dwellers of Yathreb would revolt if their favorite fiqh scholar got killed; thus, Al-Waleed was forced to spare the life of Saeed Ibn Al-Musayyab.      

9- Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan had a similar situation with M. Ibn Ali Ibn Abou Talib (a.k.a. as M. Ibn Al-Hanafiyya). Ibn Al-Hanafiyya advised his half-brother, Hussein, against leading troops of rebels heading to Iraq. After the assassination of Hussein within the kabala massacre, Ibn Al-Zubayr proclaimed himself as caliph inside Mecca and his troops readily conquered and controlled Egypt, Hejaz, Iraq, parts of the Levant, and a part of Persia. Ibn Al-Hanafiyya refused to swear fealty to Ibn Al-Zubayr. Furious, Ibn Al-Zubayr was about to burn alive the Hashemites in Mecca (including Ibn Abbas and Ibn Al-Hanafiyya) inside their houses; yet, some of the troops of Al-Mukhtar Ibn Obayda which controlled Iraq in the name of Ibn Al-Hanafiyya reached Mecca in time to save the Hashemites from being burned alive. Such troops were about to kill Ibn Al-Zubayr; they could not do so because he sought refuge/sanctuary inside the Sacred Kaaba Mosque! Ibn Al-Hanafiyya never swore featly to Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan; Ibn Al-Hanafiyya was protected by his own troops; Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan tried to bribe Ibn Al-Hanafiyya, but in vain; he invited him to settle in the Levant, but in vain. Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan feared that the influence and stature of Ibn Al-Hanafiyya would encourage the people of Arabia to rebel against him; he commanded Ibn Al-Hanafiyya face-to-face to swear fealty to him; he refused unless all people in all regions would agree first to swear fealty to this Umayyad caliph. Yet, after the murder of Ibn Al-Zubayr later on, Ibn Al-Hanafiyya lost his troops, and out of fear, he had to swear fealty to Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan.

10- When Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan heard any rumor or piece of news, typically he would run an investigation himself. At one time, he heard that the people of Iraq sent letters to Hassan Ibn Hassan Ibn Ali Ibn Abou Talib to encourage him to lead them (as a new caliph) in a revolt against the Umayyads; when the caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan sent for Hassan to interrogate him, he denied all accusations and asserted he never received any letters from the people of Iraq. When Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan was not convinced with words of Hassan, uttered in the presence of Khaled Ibn Yazeed Ibn Mu'aweiya, Khaled beseeched and then reproached the caliph for not being convinced by words of an innocent man who never sought to rebel; he advised the caliph not to listen to rumors since there were no proofs about the plans of a revolt.

11- At one time, the caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan put to death his paternal uncle's son, Amr Ibn Saeed Ibn Al-As, in 69 A.H., though he was one of the loyal helpers of the late caliph Marwan Ibn Al-Hakam. In fact, Amr was killed because he was sworn fealty as a third successor (after Khaled the chemist and Marwan Ibn Al-Hakam) during the Al-Gabia agreement. Once enthroned as caliph, Marwan Ibn Al-Hakam removed Khaled the chemist from being named as successor to appoint his two sons instead; the first successor was Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan and the second successor Abdul-Aziz Ibn Marwan (i.e., the father of the just, pious caliph Omar Ibn Abdul-Aziz). Amr Ibn Saeed was furious to lose his rightful position as a third successor to the throne; yet, he had to conceal his feelings of resentment. When Amr led the Umayyad troops to crush rebels inCircesium (a fortress city located between Iraq and the Levant) along with the caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan, Amr managed to bribe two leaders of the Kalb tribe to withdraw their troops suddenly and to return to Damascus so that Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan would be defeated and killed. Thus, half of the troops of the Kalb tribe remained loyal to Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan and the other half betrayed him; he had to withdraw with his troops and to return to Damascus hastily to defend the throne against Amr. His troops sieged Amr in Damascus for a while; the specter of a civil war loomed in the horizon. Out of fear that the Kalb tribe and the Umayyads would be annihilated in such civil strife if it would take place, peace agreements were finally signed by Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan and Amr; the caliph declared pardoning Amr for trying to usurp the crown; the caliph retrieved Damascus and entered his palace; when Amr was summoned to meet with the caliph inside the palace, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan violated the agreement of peace and killed Amr with his own hands. More details about this can be found in our book titled (The Second Major Arab Civil War 61 - 73 A.H.: A Black Page in the History of the 'Good' Ancestors).

12- The caliph Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan never hesitated to manipulate religion to serve his own purposes and interests. When Ibn Al-Zubayr (who controlled Mecca) manipulated pilgrimage in his anti-Umayyads propaganda, Abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan feared that Levantine people who went to perform pilgrimage might lose faith in him and rebel against him upon their return home if they would be influenced by sermons delivered by Ibn Al-Zubayr to undermine, vilify, slander, and ridicule the Umayyads. The devilish plan of building the so-called Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem so that the Levantine people would perform pilgrimage (within certain parallel rituals!) to it instead of going to Mecca! For more details about building such edifice and the 'dome of the rock' mosque and spreading myths/hadiths about them as per the historian Ibn Katheer, see this article of ours in English found on this link: (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=17787). In this article, we write details about why and how the Umayyad caliph invented such myth of performing pilgrimage to Jerusalem and how Ibn Al-Zubayr fabricated hadiths (and attributed to Muhammad!) about cursing the Umayyads and how he (within his anti-Umayyads propaganda sermons) accused the Umayyads (who were, to him, as tyrannical as Persian emperors) of making a mockery of Islamic pilgrimage rituals by performing them in Jerusalem instead of Mecca.

13- We have declared in 1997, in Cairo, Egypt, that the so-called Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam and that the real, genuine Farthest Mosque mentioned in the Quranic verse 17:1 is Mount Al-Tur, in Sinai, Egypt. This declaration has been made by our person as we headed and managed the Cairo-based Ibn-Khaldoun Center's weekly forum that went on Tuesdays from Jan. the 1^st, 1996, to June 30^th, 2000; i.e., until the Ibn Khaldoun Center closed down by the Mubarak regime. As expected by, many newspapers at the time included articles attacking, slandering, and verbally abusing our person, written by journalists bribed by the Saudi embassy in Cairo. Among these newspapers is the state-owned newspaper "Aqidaty" (literally in Arabic, my faith), whose journalists were agents of Wahabism and they (in the issue of Aqidaty dated Tuesday, 17^th of Shawwal, 1417 A.H., Feb. the 25^th, 1997 A.D.) leveled the following accusations against our person: being an agent of Israel, an enemy who betrayed Egypt, and an agent who sought to undermine Islam. These headlines of this Aqidaty article (written by the journalists Moussa Hal and Tariq Abdullah) about attacking our person implicitly urge and incite Wahabi terrorists inside Egypt at the time to assassinate us: (Casting Doubt on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem Serves the Purposes of Who?!/ A Suspicious Center Holds A Forum Headed by A Former Professor Fired from Al-Azhar University to Serve Israel and Zionism/ Dr. Saad Zallam: These Agents Are Devils to Be Rejected/ Dr. Ahmad Shalaby: Jerusalem Is An Arab City And Al-Aqsa Mosque Was Built by Early Muslims/ Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League: Casting Doubt on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem Is Deemed High Treason/ Ambassador M. Subeih: No Reasonable Person Would Announce Such Myths and Illusions). This is an extract from this article: (A fifth column is lurking inside Egypt and working diligently day and night to undermine religious and historical fundamental notions of our Arab and Muslim nation, and such agents are paid and bribed by the foreign powers to negatively influence political stances of the State and to undermine Islam itself. At this time in particular, when the Egyptian State fully supports the rights of Palestinians to have their own state with Jerusalem as its capital and stands against the Judaization/Judaification of Jerusalem by its Israeli occupiers, a suspicious center in Cairo, the Ibn Khaldoun Center, has held a forum headed by a suspicious ex-professor who was fired years ago from Al-Azhar University, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, to justify the Israeli practices in Jerusalem and to claim that the Farthest Mosque is Mount Al-Tur of Sinai and not the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem). In fact, before such an article was published, the journalist Moussa Hal contacted our person, and we told him about the Quranic proofs, quoted during the forum in the Ibn Khaldoun Center, about the fact that the true Farthest Mosque, mentioned in 17:1, is located in Mount Al-Tur in Sinai, Egypt. We told this journalist that when the caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab conquered the Levant and entered Jerusalem, the so-called Aqsa mosque was not there at all. Sadly, this journalist in his article never mentioned our words we told him to answer his questions; he quoted only the words of our foes whose names are found in the headlines. More details about this topic can be found in our two books, in English, titled "The Night-Journey Is The Night of Decree" & "The Falsehood of Al-Aqsa Mosque of Jerusalem" published within our website on the following links respectively:

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=112

http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=115