Most Muslims, even so called ‘traditional’ Muslims, carry a wide gap of knowledge when dealing with their tradition. That gap is history.

Indeed, the history of Muslim nations may not be relevant to ones personal faith. Faith is faith, and nation is nation. Yet, Islam is a faith that, as espoused by most Muslims, contains answers for matters of public utility and the foundation and details of creating a just, moral nation. Hence, various political organizations have come into being, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb Tahrir, and numerous so-called ‘Islamists’ groups. Most educated Muslims are familiar with them and their efforts in attempting to inject Islam piece-meal into the political landscape.

Unfortunately, the pieces these groups try to inject are usually in the wrong order, if not the wrong pieces all together.

The efforts of these organizations are usually of some interest to Muslims in their active regions. They work on educating many Muslims towards a ‘proper’ understanding of their faith (as understood through the lens of their own political machinations). Generally their explanation of Islam is completely ahistorical, and that is because a historical view of the practice of the faith is actually completely contrary to their rigid interpretation of the religion.

The history of Islamic nations is only as useful to Muslims in as much as it can be used to bolster their self-confidence. When we speak of Muslims contribution to mathematics, the sciences of optics, and medicine, we feel satisfaction that Islam brought progress to humanity. Yet, we are so easily able to forget and dismiss the leadership which created the environment which allowed people of different faiths to come together, a society which carried and defended Islam in the first place. Instead, many Muslims have bought into a fake historical tale which was put together by the combining the gossip and imaginations of the enemies of Islam.

Let us put analysis of successes aside, as most modern Muslims may tend to avoid that subject to concentrate on the ever-important ‘present’. These are the ones who would say, “Why should I care about what happened so long ago?” Often the verse of the Quran is quoted to further cement that disconnection:

BismillahirRahmanirRaheem

Those are a people who have passed away; theirs is that which they earned and yours that which ye earn. And ye will not be asked of what they used to do. (2:141)

However, it is an odd contradiction that these same people will clamor over learning and understanding classical Arabic so they can spend time reading fiqh and aqeedah works from centuries past, whether it be Imam Ghazali or Ibn Tayimiyya. For some reason, these ancient people and texts are extremely important and relevant. How can it be then, that the lifestyle, texts and manners of a living, thriving, Muslim society of not only 100 years ago is completely irrelevant?

One might say that the aforementioned figures were giants in their field, and that is what gives them the right to be studied today. Yet, they too have passed away, and their teachings are not being carried by any nation. Unlike the nations gone astray mentioned in the Quranic Ayat, the Ottomans were and are Muslims, and Muslims are not a nation that has passed. We are not a people to forget the legacy of our greatest leaders and teachers.

Let us put aside that the direct spiritual inheritors of the Ottoman example live today, the Sultans were also giants in their field, which was Islamic leadership and with strength and tolerance. The awliya of the time were also giants, and yet we learn very little of their lives and how they practiced Islam as a reality. Put that aside, we are so disconnected that we learn very little how even the average Muslim lived their lives.

This present-centric Muslim will, focusing on the news of the day, speak of the problems and depravities of the various modern day states. “Lashing a woman for being raped? Bombings in Palestine? Heads rolling in Iraq? That is not part of Islam!”

Yes, you are right it is not part of Islam, but other people seem to think otherwise, so who should we choose from to represent Islam? The Saudi’s are doing the lashing. The bombings continue by Palestinian groups. And the heads are still rolling in Iraq by those proclaiming “AllahuAkbar!”.

So is it only a purely theoretical, personal Islam that we have to present as a proof of a different understanding of Islam to the world and to our own selves? Are Muslims and Islam becoming like college students wearing dark rimmed glasses professing communism: an ideal which never reaches any practicable form? Or are we only somewhat controllable and palatable as a faith and as a nation when we are living within the boundaries of a westernized host-state?

Why don’t we count on the simple reality that not only a hundred years ago, the Islamic world was much more compassionate, considerate, and just?

The relationship between our generation and the Ottomans should be very tight indeed. Yet, often Muslims know more about the Abbasids or the times of Andalus (if even that), than they know of the Ottoman Sultan prophesized by the hadith:

“Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will her
leader be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!” -Hadith (related: Ahmed, Bukhari)

Not only was the Ottoman empire ended not yet a hundred years ago from our time period, it ruled for over 600 years leading Muslims into an environment of modern day diplomacy, economics, and approaching globalization. Frankly, it is the circumstances of the Ottoman Empire which closely match the challenges that Muslims of today have faced, and it is in their example that we may find numerous answers towards dealing with the modern world.

For traditional Muslims this is even more of an important connection. The reality is that when Wahabis and Salafis speak of ‘returning’ to the Quran and Sunnah, it is largely the Ottomans which they wish to forget. It is the Ottomans they took up arms against. In fact, it is the Ottomans that carried what is commonly understood as “traditional” Islam in its spiritual and political form together as a reality. It was in Ottoman times that the Sultans that came to sit at the feet of the Sheykhs of the true Sufi orders.

Modern day Muslims are usually pleasantly surprised to learn only a sample of the true facts of the Ottoman Empire. Through those facts, the last great Islamic empire becomes understood as highly educated, sober and scrupulous about Islam’s edicts, charitible, and scientific. As a consequence, the false history written largely by combining the medieval gossip and conjecture of the enemies of Muslims becomes obliterated.

However, Muslims may say, “The Ottoman Sultans ultimately failed.” Or, even more disturbing (and slightly obscene when compared to the facts ), they will attempt portray the Ottoman Sultans as corrupt (and hence why they lost their power). On the other hand, high scholars such as Mufti Taqi Usmani and Sheykh Abdul Hakim Murad have written about the departure of power from the Sultans in a completely different light:

This was the beginning of the Uthmaani or Muslim reign over Istanbul and Turkey which lasted for five centuries. The Uthmaani Sultans reigned over it with great splendour and it ended in the beginning of the twentieth century through the treachery of Kamal Ata Turk, and the secular state which came into being. – Mufti Taqi Usmani

Shaikh Abdul Hakim Murad’s work on the Ottomans is a testament to his study on the matter, and his fluency in the Ottoman tongue gives him unique access to the records relevant to coming to appropriate conclusions. What was his take on the downfall of the Ottomans?

Much of the recent history of the Umma can be understood as the simple consequence of ghafla – of heedlessness of Allah ta‘ala. The Ottoman empire, for instance, is a good example. By Allah’s decree and permission, this state continued for an astonishing six hundred years or more, from 1280 until 1924. In fact, the Ottoman sultans were the longest-reigning of any significant dynasty in world history. No family, in China, India, Europe or anywhere else, ruled for so long. And the achievement is the more remarkable when we look at the size and the diversity of the empire. Many races, religions and languages were present; there was no obvious unifying criterion for all the sultan’s subjects; and yet the empire endured.

It is not difficult to see why Allah should have given the Ottoman state such success. The sultans always respected the ulema and the shuyukh: Sultan Mehmed, who liberated Constantinople from the Byzantine oppression, was the disciple of Ak Shamsuddin, himself of the lineage of Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, radiya’Llahu anhu. With such men to pray for them, the early sultans could hardly be defeated in battle. Another factor in Ottoman success was the insistence of the Ottoman ulema on tolerating differences of opinions among Muslims. All classical writers on Muslim political theory have taken to heart Imam al-Ghazali’s insistence that the Muslims are never served by attempts to impose one narrow definition of the faith on everyone else. That kind of totalitarian approach results only in hatred and civil war, bringing misery and weakness to the Muslim community.

The Ottoman demise resulted not from the adoption of a narrow definition of Islam that set Muslim against Muslim, but from a thoughtless Westernisation among the ruling classes. Adopting the materialism of Western Europe, the Ottoman nobility and middle classes began to abandon the Sunna. The turban began to disappear, followed by the remainder of Muslim dress. Houses began to be designed to bring the sexes together, rather than to separate them. The mosques in rich sections of town emptied, except on Fridays. And the high men of the state, with some exceptions, were increasingly reluctant to ask the great ulema for their prayers.

The Ottoman empire ended, effectively, with the First World War. Sultan Abd al-Hamid had been overthrown by a Westernising clique which then decided to bring the empire into the war which ended in its dismemberment. If the Ottomans had remained loyal to the Sunna, and hence avoided injustice, bribery, and weakness on the field of battle, the Ottoman state would in all probability be in existence today, and its model of an Islam which tolerates diversity would still prevail, instead of the nervous, intolerant little groups which fill the Islamic scene today.

The Sultan may have been removed by ‘the people’, but it was not the Sultans who suffered as a result of people choosing unbelief over belief. They lived fairly simple lives before and after the removal of power, Sultan Abdul Hamid died continuing his love for carpentry. It is us, the people, who have suffered.

In any event, this is not a call to a new political party or some other form of obtuse power play. The spiritual inheritors to the Ottomans are making subtle preparations awaiting Imam Mahdi (AS) rather than making bold power moves. Rather this is a small reminder that when understanding things about our tradition, the Ottomans should not be forgotten. And it is a history which should be learned at the feet of one of those spiritual inheritors.

It is there we dropped the flag, and it will be from there that Muslims will pick it up.