Stories from Islamic History (15 page)

He did not get to complete his speech. A
sharp rock hit him on the head, and soon it was a free for all
fight.

***

The Padri War lasted from 1236 AH to 1252 AH
(1821 CE to 1837 CE) and arose from a movement among the
Minangkabau people of the central western coast of Sumatra to both
purify Islamic practice and resist colonial rule.

Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahab’s
dawah
was
by no means confined to the Arabian deserts. The pilgrims who
visited Makkah and Madinah brought back ideas to “purify” the
faith. In the Malaya island, this purification involved eschewing
traditional synergetic folk beliefs, gambling, drinking and drug
taking. This movement soon came to be called the Padri movement,
named after Padir, the point of disembarkation of
hajj
pilgrims.

The Padris first focused on social evils such
as drinking and gambling, and as such gained mass acceptance in a
short span of time. Trouble started when they sought to end the
matrilineal traditions of the land. Though the Minangkabau people
were Muslim, the social structure was matrilineal and highly
decentralized. The
raja
held sway at Pagaruyung but it was
the panghulus, the village chiefs, who held real power based on the
social structure. As more and more people were attracted to the
movement, many of the panghulus, whose survival depended on
continuing with the traditional beliefs and systems, spearheaded
the opposition.

The Padris declared a
jihad
, and
surprisingly, met with remarkable success. The decisive encounter
took place in 1230 AH (1815 CE), not ending until most of the
members of the royalty was killed. The
raja
himself was put
to flight, barely escaping with his life.

The success of the Padris was however by no
means an accident.

During this time Napoleon Bonaparte was
causing a lot of European monarchs to loose sleep. The Dutch, who
held Indonesia under their sway, were too worried to lend a helping
hand to their ally – the
raja
, and this allowed the Padris a
level playing field. The Dutch soon gave Indonesia away to the
English, least Napoleon convert Holland itself into a province of
France and thereby extend his influence to Indonesia by
default.

For Sir Stamford Raffles, the head of British
interregnum in the ‘Dutch East Indies,’ the Padri War was godsend.
Things could not be better. The natives were killing each other
while he could enjoy his cup of evening tea, golf and late night
balls in serenity, all the while robbing the land dry of its
resources.

Following the battle of Waterloo, when
Napoleon was packed off to Elba, the Dutch returned to Indonesia in
1234 AH (1819 CE). No sooner had they settled down than they became
alarmed at the influence the Padris had acquired while they were
away. The fugitive
raja
, an old friend of the Dutch rubbed
his hand in glee and threw in his lot with them.

War broke out in 1236 AH (1821 CE). But what
man wills, Allah disposes. The Dutch huffed, puffed and cannoned,
but the Padris, under their leader Tuanku
Imam
Bonjol stood
firm. The ex-
raja
, by aligning with the Dutch against his
own people lost whatever little legitimacy that remained in the
eyes of the populace. In any case the Dutch refused point blank to
reinstate him in the places they controlled. They instead signed
the Massang treaty with the Padris in 1239 AH (1824 CE).

The Padris utilized the peace to spread their
dawah
. If each individual could change, the land, being a
sum of all individuals would change automatically after all. When
the Dutch found exactly this happening, they got even more alarmed.
In 1242 AH (1832 CE) they violated the treaty to attack Pandai
Sikat. Hostilities were resumed, and in the face of superior
firepower, this time
Imam
Bonjol was captured.

***

“Make sure the bugger does not escape” the
Dutch captain told the Adats who guarded
Imam
Bonjol’s
cage.

“Don’t worry. My men are taking turns to
guard round the clock. Even if by some miracle he manages to
overcome us, your troops are not too far off” the leader of the
Adats replied.

“Yes, but our men will have backs turned to
him. We have to be on the lookout for any attempts by his followers
to rescue him” the Dutch captain replied before walking off.

Imam
Bonjol was privy to this
conversation but his face showed no sign of tension or anxiety
about his fate.

It took some time, but
Imam
Bonjol
knew it would eventually come. One of the Adat guard came in,
untied his bonds and wept for forgiveness.

“Forgive me. It is our
imam
s. They
threaten to castigate our wives and mothers as witches and burn
them if we don’t support them. My heart is burdened for the thought
of standing guard for the enemy against a true believer. Shall we
fight our way out? I hope to atone for my sins through
martyrdom.”

Imam
Bonjol remained calm. He said:
“There is no need to fight. You go back to your post and somehow
distract the others.”

The guard went some distance, took a pipe,
went some distance further and gave a shrill sound. The guards, all
in half slumber, woke up and instinctively ran to the source of the
sound.

Imam
Bonjol calmly walked away, and
before the sun set the next day, he was back as the ruler of
Bonjol.

The guard who had helped
Imam
Bonjol
escape arrived his court.

“How did you skip the Dutch guards?” he
asked

“
Wa-itha qara ta alqur-anaja alna baynaka
wabayna allatheena layu minoona bil-akhirati hijaban mastoora
”
(Quran, Sura 17:45)

When Prophet Mohammed, may Allah bless him
and grant him peace was threatened by Abu Jahl’s wife, he recited
this
ayah
and became invisible. This
ayah
is a shield
for a believer in true Islamic monotheism against his enemy!

All the superior firepower and hostilities
notwithstanding, it took another ten years, in 1252 AH (1837 CE)
before the Dutch could gain enough strength to siege Bonjol.

The Dutch called
Imam
Bonjol for
negotiations, promising safe conduct. Bonjol was naïve enough to
accept it. No sooner had he entered the negotiation hall than he
was trapped, and it was even sooner he was exiled to Cianjur. The
city of Bonjol was razed to the ground.

Tuanku
Imam
Bonjol died in exile in
1280 AH (1864 CE). In the absence of a strong leader, political
resistance gradually frittered away.

Though political hegemony ended the back of
the tribal superstitions and control remained broken. The people
went overwhelmingly for Islamic monotheism, totally sidelining the
tribal leaders. Soon they themselves came forward to promulgate
"adat basandi syara', syara' basandi Kitabullah" (tradition founded
upon Islamic law, Islamic law founded upon the Quran)

Musa ibn Nusayr, the great Umayyad conqueror
set out from Cairo in 87 AH (706 CE) with the aim of bringing the
entire African lands bordering the Mediterranean under the
khilafat
. Having reached the African end of the Atlantic, he
drove up to the sea, and striking his sword said “Oh Allah, were I
not hindered by this great sea, I would have gone on and brought
the unknown lands of the west to follow thee.”

That was not the end of it. Many travelers
and traders since then made many expeditions to the “New World”
centuries before Columbus was born.

During the rule of Umayyad
kalifah
of
Spain Abdullah Ibn Mohammed (274-289 AH / 888 - 912 CE), the
navigator Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad of Cordoba sailed from
Delba (Palos), crossed the Atlantic into the “ocean of darkness and
fog,” reached an unknown territory (Ard Majhoola) and returned with
fabulous treasures from “a strange and curious land.” In
Al-Masudi's map of the world, drawn up during the same time a large
area in the ocean of darkness and fog (the Atlantic Ocean) is
referred to as the unknown territory (the Americas.)

Hisham II of Spain (365-399 AH / 976 -1009
CE), patronized Ibn Farrukh of Granada, who sailed from Kadesh into
the Atlantic. He landed in Gando (Great Canary Islands), met King
Guanariga and continued westward where he saw and named two
islands, Capraria and Pluitana. He arrived back in Spain in
Jumadhul Akhir 389 AH (May 999 CE.)

Even outside of Spain, contacts with the
Americas were frequent.

Sheikh
Zaynuddin Ali bin Fadhl
Al-Mazandarani started from Tarfay in Morocco during the reign of
the Marinid sultan Abu-Yacoub Sidi Youssef (685-706 AH / 1286-1307
CE). He reached the islands of the Caribbean Sea in 690 AH (1291
CE.)

Sultan Mansa Kankan Musa of Mali (712-737 AH
/ 1312-1337 CE), made his famous
hajj
in 724 AH (1324 CE);
famous for giving away so much gold that he depressed the market.
When he reached Cairo, the Mamlukes asked how he became sultan, for
according to their knowledge, his brother Abu Bakri I was the
sultan of Mali. It transpired that Abu Bakari I had undertaken two
expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean. When he did not return to
Timbuktu from the second voyage in 711 AH, Mansa Musa became
sultan.

It is not that the expeditions were just
that. Just like in South India and the South East Asian islands,
Muslims settled in these new lands, established communities and led
an active social life.

Following the “reconquisita” or the Christian
takeover of Spain and Portugal, Ferdinand and his successors also
took over the active interface Moors maintained with the Americas.
Very soon the likes of Columbus and Malegan replaced the likes of
Sheikh
Zainuddin and Abu Bakri.

Columbus was guided by two captains during
his first transatlantic voyage. Martin Alonso Pinzon was the
captain of the ship Pinta, and his brother Vicente Yanex Pinzon was
the captain of the ship Nina. The Pinzon’s were wealthy and expert
ship outfitters related to the sultan of Morocco Abuzayan Mohammed
III (764-768 AH / 1362-1366 CE), and had taken up Christian names
to escape the inquisition.

Columbus landed at Gomera (Canary Islands) in
Jumadhul Akhir 906 AH (November 1500 CE.) Gomera is an Arabic word
meaning ‘small firebrand.’ There he fell in love with Beatriz
Bobadilla, daughter of the General of the island. The Bobadilla
family was descent from the Abbadid dynasty of Seville (422-484 AH
/ 1031-1091 CE), having fled Spain earlier when the lost power.
Inquisition or not, they were not easy to ignore or slight due to
their clout. Another Bobadilla - Francisco, the royal commissioner
of the island put Columbus in chains and send him back to
Spain.

Columbus himself declares that the Caribbean
people are Muslims. He notes sighting a masjid on top of a mountain
while sailing near Gibara on the north-east coast of Cuba. Today,
ruins of masjids and minarets with inscriptions of Quranic verses
are still found in Cuba, Mexico, Texas and Nevada.

During Columbus’ second voyage, he was told
by the Haitians that Black people had already been to the island,
and presented Columbus with spears used by African Muslims. These
weapons were tipped with a yellow metal that the natives called
‘Guanine,’ a word of West African derivation meaning ‘gold alloy.’
Oddly enough, this word is related to the Arabic world ‘Ghinaa’
meaning ‘wealth.’ Columbus brought some Guanines back to Spain and
had them tested. The metal was eighteen parts gold, six parts
silver and eight parts copper, the same ratio as was produced in
the metal shops of African Guinea.

***

The Muslims who had come to the Americas for
married amongst the natives and led an active social and community
life. Columbus and co., had an entirely different set of objectives
altogether. Their aim was to plunder the resources of the land.
They preoccupied themselves with cultivating rice, picking tobacco
and combing through cotton – all for shipping to Spain.

The first strategy was to deploy natives for
the hard work. But such was the exploitation that they invariably
died within a few days. A priest by the name of Bartholomew De Las
Casas now had a brainwave. He convinced the authorities to import
Africans as they were strong and immune to diseases.

***

By the early 9th
hijri
century (15th
century CE,) the Mali Empire was in decline. Disputes over
succession weakened the crown and many principalities broke away.
Songhai was one such break-away state, with Gao their capital.

The most noteworthy king of Songhay was Askia
Mohammed. He provided Mali with a stable and efficient government,
and with the support of the scholars, religious leaders and traders
made Songhay a great trading empire and Timbuktu a fabled center of
Islamic scholarship and learning.

Leo Africanus, the famous traveler who
visited Timbuktu during this time writes: "In Timbuktu there are
numerous judges, doctors and clerics, all receiving good salaries
from the king. He pays great respect to men of learning. There is a
big demand for books in manuscript, imported from Barbary. More
profit is made from book trade than from any line of business."

However, nothing lasts forever, except the
face of Allah. The golden age of Timbuktu and the economic
prosperity of the West African Songhai Empire were also bound to
end one day.

Here civil war led to the decline, with the
Battle of Tondibi in 999 AH (1591 CE,) when the Songhai forces were
routed by the Moroccans triggering the fall. The Moroccans found
this huge West African territory spread over deserts too hard to
administer efficiently, and as such relinquished control of the
region, letting it splinter into dozens of small states that fought
among themselves. In times like this trade was the first causality,
intellectual activities the second and when these two fell off,
religion soon followed.