The Camp of Evil which Supports Terrorism in the Middle-Ages (3): The Najd Region in Arabia

Published in April 6, 2019

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Introduction:

1- Woe to people whose countries have been invaded by a Bedouin power coming from the desert whose men specialize in massacring and looting under religious banners/mottoes, making their aggression and fighting a religious duty performed to allow them to enter into Paradise in the Hereafter! This is exactly the crime perpetrated by the Najd region against all other regions around it. In the past, the tribes of Najd launched raids against the caravans of pilgrims to rob them; these raids were 'secular'; i.e., without raising any religious banners/mottoes. These tribes formed a temporary theocracy at a certain time; they came to be known as the Qarmatians. The State of those Qarmatians expanded and they committed many massacres in the cities and villages of Iraq and the Levant and the Gulf (these are mostly the same regions which suffered destruction by the Wahabi ISIS terrorists in our modern era). In a later era, the Saudi State emerged in a village inside the Najd region; the Saudis raised the banners of Wahabism in order to expand their State by annexing stretches of land in the regions around Najd; they managed to invade the Hejaz region. Those Wahabi Saudis spread massacres and sabotage in the Levantine region and Iraq (these are mostly the same regions which suffered destruction by the Wahabi ISIS terrorists in our modern era). Of course, our modern era allowed for the ISIS terrorists to commit more heinous crimes compared to the crimes committed by those who founded the first Saudi State. Since Wahabism is still being propagated (as if it were Islam though it contradicts the Quran) all over the world, the Wahabi movements of religious terrorism will continue to pose a veritable threat worldwide as Wahabi terrorists massacre the innocent, peaceful civilians among the weak ones on the earth.     

2- The historical roots of Wahabism are discussed in our book titled "Hanbalism – the Mother of Wahabism – and the Destruction of Iraq in the Second Abbasid Era"; the savagery and brutality of Saudi Wahabi fighters are discussed in detail in our books titled "The Emergence of Wahabism in Najd and Its Spread in Egypt" (found in English on this link:   http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=140), "A Historical Overview of the Emergence and Development of the Earthly Religions of the Muhammadans" (found in English on this link:   http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=107), and "The Wahabi Opposition Movements in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Twentieth Century" (found in English on this link:   http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=85). 

3- The Sunnite Wahabi religion of Satan permits massacring all non-Wahabis, including non-Wahabi Sunnites; it even allows massacring Wahabis who differ politically from the enthroned Wahabi rulers! From 1745 to 1930 A.D., Wahabis killed about one million innocent people in Arabia, Iraq, and the Levant using swords, spears, and guns. The number of victims would have increased tenfold if Wahabis were armed with modern weaponry or WMDs. In fact, the whole world must feel extreme anxiety if WMDs reached the hand of the Wahabi ISIS terrorists and their likes!  

4- We will not repeat what we have written before; we only add an analysis, which is linked to our book about the New Zealand massacre at the two mosques, about the Najd region as the focal point of secular and religious terrorism in the Middle-Ages.

Firstly: between the Bedouins and desert Arabs of Najd and the Qorayish caliphs:

1- We have mentioned in our book titled "The Unspoken-of History of the Pre-Umayyad 'Righteous' Caliphs" (found in English on this link:   http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=83) that such caliphs rejected Islam (i.e., the Quran) within their devilish crimes known as the Arab conquests which contradict the Quranic teachings and laws; they also committed their crimes within such conquests in the name of Islam and they employed the Najd Bedouins as soldiers in the Arab military troops of such conquests. Later on, these Bedouins of Najd rebelled against these Qorayish caliphs and became Al-Khawarij group of fighters. There is a main difference between the Najd rebels and the Qorayish caliphs; these caliphs confined their massacres to non-Arab fighters and they enslaved the women and children of such fighters who defended their countries against the Arab invasion; they did not massacre peasants, craftsmen, and tax-collectors who served the Arab rulers. In contrast, the Najd Bedouins who formed the Al-Khawarij rebels massacred everyone indiscriminately. It is a historical fact that most of the Al-Khawarij came from the tribe of Rabeia, one of the main Najd tribes. The attacks and revolts of the Al-Khawarij caused much damage to the Umayyad caliphate and the Abbasid caliphate within the First Abbasid Era.       

2- Centers of civilization within the Arab empire remained in Egypt, Iraq, Persia, and North Africa; meanwhile, Najd remained in its Bedouin nature; yet, some Bedouin men from Najd served as soldiers within the Abbasid caliphate until the Abbasid caliph, Al-Motawakil, prevented the recruitment of Arabs in the military troops of the caliphate. This resulted in turning Arabs into marauders and raiders; the Bedouin Arabs of Najd are the ones who destroyed the Egyptian cities in Sinai and in the Mediterranean coast; of course, the negative influence of these raiding Arabs increased in Iraq and the Levant; this is because Najd is geographically situated south of Iraq and the Levant. Those marauding Arabs attacked the caravans of pilgrims in the routes in Arabia to rob all their possessions and money. This was the cause of the strife between the Abbasid caliphs of Qorayish and the Najd leaders. Their raids against the caravans of pilgrims were of two types: 'secular' raids (i.e., without religious banners/mottoes) and 'religious' raids (i.e., with religious banners/mottoes) of the Qarmatians. We provide some details in the points below.       

Secondly: raids of Bedouins without raising religious banners/mottoes:

 We never remove the blame which must fall on the irresponsible, negligent, corrupt, promiscuous Abbasid caliphs; they should have protected the caravan of pilgrims and ensured their security. we quote some facts about secular raids during the Second Abbasid Era from the details written in the book titled (Al-Muntazim) by the historian Ibn Al-Jawzy.

Raids which involved massacring pilgrims:

1- In the events of 361 A.H.: (... The Desert-Arabs of the Bani Hilal tribe attacked the caravans of pilgrims and killed many of them before robbing their possessions ...).

2- In the events of 478 A.H.: (... Some Desert-Arabs attacked a caravan of Egyptian pilgrims, killing many of them, and they stole their money and possessions, and the survivors did not reach Mecca to perform pilgrimage; they went back to their homelands ...).

3- In the events of 563 A.H.: (...The Desert-Arabs of the Bani Khafaja tribe attacked a caravan of Iraqi pilgrims, killing all of them before stealing their money, camels, and possessions ...).

4- In the events of 403 A.H.: (... A band of Desert-Arabs bandits removed all water from the wells located in the route of caravans of pilgrims; once the caravans emerged, it was ambushed and attacked by these bandits who took them a hostage and never offered water to them; the bandits demanded the ransom of 50000 dinars to set them free; they were about to die of thirst; they eventually agreed to let the bandits confiscate all camels and goods, possessions, and money; though they were released at last, at least 15 thousand pilgrims died as they passed the desert on foot without camels, money, food, or water; survivors were very few ...).

Raids of robbing pilgrims without massacring them:

1- In the events of 405 A.H.: (... The caravan of some Iraqi pilgrims left Basra and after three days on the desert route of pilgrims, it was attacked by some Bedouins; they surrendered without much resistance; the Bedouins stole all their goods, money, possessions, and food and spared their lives; the pilgrims had to return to Basra to avoid dying of hunger ...).

2- This was repeated in the events of the year 423 A.H.

Taking ransoms from pilgrims to guard their caravans:

1- Some Bedouins imposed on pilgrims a ransom in return for guarding them and instead of robbing them; one Najd Bedouin leader, in the events of 382 A.H., sieged some pilgrims and forced the Abbasids to pay a ransom so that he and his men would guard the caravan on its way to Mecca and to Iraq. This Najd leader at one time paid about one million dinars to two Quran-reciters because he admired their voices! The Abbasids deceived this leader by giving him counterfeit dinars; in order to take revenge, in 384 A.H., the same leader sieged a caravan of pilgrims and demanded that the Abbasids would pay him the ransom of two pilgrimage seasons; the Abbasids continued paying him the ransom until 403 A.H.

2- In the events of 379 A.H., a leader of a tribe from Najd led his men and attacked and sieged a caravan of pilgrims; negotiations resulted in a ransom of 300000 dirhams and fine garments from Egypt and Yemen to set the pilgrims free unharmed. 

3- In the events of 395 A.H., the same Najd leader demanded the double sum of the ransom!

Treachery after receiving the ransom:

 Sometimes, some Desert-Arabs and Bedouins who guarded the caravans of pilgrims in return for a ransom betrayed the pilgrims; let us exemplify this in the following points. 

1- In the events of 424 A.H., pilgrims from Basra paid a ransom to receive the protection of Bedouins; yet, instead of guarding them, these Bedouins sieged and robbed the pilgrims and kept them as hostages until more money was received from Basra to ransom them!

2- In the events of 457 A.H., the Bedouin guards robbed some Iraqi pilgrims instead of protecting them as agreed; the robbed pilgrims had to return to their homeland in Kufa, penniless and exhausted.

3- The historian Ibn Al-Jawzy died in 597 A.H.; the last lines in his book titled (Al-Muntazim) were about the events of 574 A.H.; he wrote that the Bedouins of Najd attacked the ships of some pilgrims and killed many of them and stole all their money and possessions. In the events of 553 A.H., Ibn Al-Jawzy wrote about his own pilgrimage experience; he wrote that the desert-guide had to make their caravan move through untrodden paths on the way to Mecca and to homeland to avoid raiders and marauders. 

The worst atrocities suffered by pilgrims:

 Ibn Al-Jawzy was a witness regarding his era; he wrote within the events of 545 A.H. that once some rich pilgrims reached Mecca, the prince of Mecca coveted their money and possessions and so did the Bedouins who waited for them outside Mecca to attack and rob them; when the prince of Mecca offered to protect and guard their caravan against raiders within its way back to their homeland in return for a large sum of money, they refused because they had their own armed guards; yet, the Bedouins attacked the caravan of these rich pilgrims, robbing all their camels, possessions, clothes, and money (hundreds of thousands of dinar) and killing some of them who resisted; those who survived being killed by Bedouin raiders were forced to strip naked and their clothes were confiscated; they had to walk back home in the nude and on foot through the desert; the women among them covered their genitals with mud; most of the survivors died of exhaustion, hunger, and thirst; very few of them reach their homeland.  

Our comment:

1- Those Arabs are supposed to know that Quranic laws prohibit causing any harm to pilgrims on their way to the Sacred Kaaba Mosque in Mecca; even sacrificial animals brought with pilgrims must never be harmed (see 5:2); murdering peaceful, innocent person is a grave sin in Islam (see 4:93); even soldiers in the battlefield who surrender and adhere to peace are never to be killed (see 4:94 and 9:6).

2- Yet, those Bedouins and Desert Arabs whose 'secular' raids aim for theft are better in comparison to the 'religious' raids of the Shiite Qarmatians who raised religious banners/mottoes to 'justify' their heinous crimes. Not only did the Qarmatians act as highwaymen who raided caravans of pilgrims but also they insisted on massacring as many pilgrims as possible and this was their bad habit even when they raided cities and villages of Iraq and the Levant, because they killed all people within their reach during such raids, while assuming that such massacres were a religious duty!  

A brief note on the Qarmatians:

1- Within the last years of his life, the historian Al-Tabari witnessed some of the atrocities of the Qarmatians and he registered their heinous crimes in the last volume, vol. 10, in his history, within the events of the years 286 to 302 A.H. Of course, the atrocities of the Qarmatians continued for almost two centuries after the death of Al-Tabari; the Qarmatians were defeated and annihilated by the Bedouins and Desert-Arabs of another tribe.   

2- The Qarmatians came originally from Najd; they were more savage and brutal in their raping and massacring; Al-Tabari as a historian and a witness mentions that the leader of the Qarmatians specified one of his adolescent servants to kill off all captured men. This leader at one point in time annihilated all the dwellers of Levantine cities such as Hama, Baalbek, Salamiyah, and Maarat Al-Numan; he killed off all men, women, and children; his soldiers spread bloodshed and destruction in the neighboring Levantine villages. As per Al-Nuweiry the historian, this extremism in murdering the innocent people was based on the Shiite 'religious' education received by the youths of the Qarmatians. Al-Tabari mentions a real story about a young man who converted to the religion of the Qarmatians and he deserted his mother and family members (after declaring them as 'infidels') and he embraced the notion of massacring as many infidels as possible as a religious duty (see history of Al-Tabari; the pages on the Qarmatians are nos. 10, 71, 77, 86, 94, 99, 107, 115, 116, 121, 128, 130, 135, and 148; see also history of Al-Nuweiry, pages nos. 25, 195, and 227).

The Qarmatians as per the historian Ibn Al-Jawzy in his book titled (Al-Muntazim):

More raids of the Qarmatians against the Levant and Iraq:

1- Attacking Al-Raqqa: it is the same city which was the temporary capital of ISIS terrorist. Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions in the events of 290 A.H. that the Qarmatian leader Yahya Ibn Zakraweih attacked Al-Raqqa and defeated the Abbasid troops (coming from Baghdad and Damascus) which defended the city. Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions in the events of 360 A.H. that the Qarmatians attacked Damascus, and alter on Mecca despite the very long distance between both cities, and killed off many of the inhabitants of both cities and stole all goods and possessions. 

2- Ibn Al-Jawzy does not mention many details about the victims of Damascus and Al-Raqqa within the raids of the Qarmatians there because his focus was on Iraq; he mentioned in the events of 311 A.H. that a group of 1700 Qarmatian men (led by their leader Abou Taher) attacked Basra; they put ladders on the wall of the city to ascend them to enter Basra at night and they killed off all guards at the city gates; they opened the gates and made heaps of sand and pebbles to prevent the closing of the gates while they massacred with their swords most of the dwellers of Basra, burning down the markets and the mosques; some people ran away but they drowned in the sea. The Qarmatians remained for 17 days in Basra and they loaded their camels with all possessions, money, goods, and enslaved women and children.  

3- In the events of 316 A.H., Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions that the Qarmatian leader Abou Taher led his men within raids against Al-Raqqa, Al-Rahba, andCircesium in Syria and he put most of the inhabitants of these cities to the sword. Besides, the Qarmatians killed off many Bedouins and Desert-Arabs whenever they found them; this made Bedouins flee whenever they heard that a group of Qarmatians was approaching them. When Abou Taher returned to his village in Najd, he used his ill-gotten money to build a mansion and he named it (Dar Al-Hijra); i.e., the House of Immigration, and he proclaimed himself as the awaited Mehdi; the number of his followers (who converted to the Shiite religion of the Qarmatians) increased; after their receiving military training, Abou Taher led them to raid Kufa, a major city in Iraq, and many of its people (and the guards appointed by the Abbasids) deserted their farms and fields and ran away from Kufa to avoid being killed by the Qarmatians who attacked many villages on their way, killing all men, raping and killing all women, and confiscating all precious possessions.      

The Qarmatians raided caravans of pilgrims: 

1- In the events of 294 A.H., Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions that the Qarmatians attacked a caravan of pilgrims near Mecca; they killed all men and enslaved all women; they confiscated all possessions of the caravan which worth 2000 dinars. In the next day, they attacked another heavily guarded caravan of pilgrims; fighting continued for two days, and it ended when the people of the caravan felt thirsty and ran out of water; they had to surrender; the Qarmatians killed them off and stole all the money and precious possessions on all camels; few men survived and ran away.

2- In the events of 311 A.H., Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions that Abou Taher, the leader of the Qarmatians, led his men (1000 soldiers on horseback and 1000 infantry soldiers) and attacked a caravan of Iraqi pilgrims; they killed off all men with their swords and confiscated all camels, money, and possessions and enslaved all women. Most of the few survivors who ran away died of hunger and thirst in the desert. In Baghdad and major Iraqi cities, funerals were so many; most people wept and remained in mourning and they did not perform prayers in mosques for several days.

3- In the events of 312 A.H., Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions that Abou Taher, the leader of the Qarmatians, led his men (800 soldiers on horseback and 800 infantry soldiers) to attack a caravan of many pilgrims; they killed those who resisted them and they confiscated all camels, precious possessions, and money (about one million dinars), and they enslaved all women and children and some men; they were led to the capital city of the Qarmatians in Najd; the rest of the pilgrims were left to die of hunger and thirst in the desert.

4- In the events of 323 A.H., Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions that Abou Taher, the leader of the Qarmatians, and his military troops defeated an Abbasid army which guarded a caravan of wealthy Iraqi pilgrims, killing most of the Abbasid soldiers and pilgrims and stealing camels and everything else in the caravan; the few survivors returned to Baghdad and no Iraqis went to pilgrimage in Mecca that year. 

The Qarmatians massacred pilgrims inside the Sacred Kaaba Mosque in 317 A.H:

1- Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions that a caravan of pilgrims, led by M. Mansour the chief of the tribe of the Daylamites, reached Mecca in safety; yet, Abou Taher and his Qarmatian soldiers attacked them inside Mecca and killed most of them inside the Sacred Kaaba Mosque which they circled the Kaaba and chased those who ran away in the streets of the Holy City; the Qarmatians confiscated the black stone, destroyed the dome above the Zamzam water-well, stole the black drapes and the golden door of the Kaaba, killed the prince of Mecca, and looted all money, goods, victuals, and precious possessions of all people. When Abou Taher made one of his men ascend the Kaaba to break and steal the golden pipe which remove rainwater, the man fell on his head on the ground and died. Many of the corpses of the dead men were thrown in the Zamzam water-well; the rest were buried in mass graves and no one performed the funeral prayers at all. Abou Taher and his men returned to their city in Najd while carrying the black stone; it remained for 20 years with them until they returned it to Mecca later on.  

2- Ibn Al-Jawzy mentions that a man who survived this massacre inside Mecca recounted that while he circled the Kaaba, he spotted a drunken Qarmatian man who entered into the sacred Kaaba Mosque on horseback; the horse urinated on the ground and the Qarmatian man brandished his sword and killed all men near him; this man saw that the Qarmatian murderer was laughing and screamed at those who ran away from him that how come they claimed that there is security and safety in Mecca to those who enter into the Sacred Kaaba Mosque since Fate allowed him to massacre them! This man requested from the Qarmatian man to leave because security here means that men should ensure security and safety for all those who enter into the Sacred Kaaba Mosque; this man expected that the Qarmatian murderer would kill him; this did not happen; speechless, the murderer moved away from the Sacred Kaaba Mosque in disdain. 

Our comment:

 The Lord God says the following in the Quran about the Sacred Kaaba Mosque located in Mecca, in the Arabian peninsula: "...Whoever enters it attains security. Pilgrimage to the House is a duty to God for all who can make the journey..." (3:97); "And We made the House a focal point for the people, and a secure sanctuary..." (2:125); hunting is absolutely prohibited inside the Sacred Kaaba Mosque: "O you who believe! do not kill game while you are pilgrims..." (5:95). In the Arabian peninsula, the Najd region is the axis of evil and the root of the Wahabi religion of Satan which is the cause of religious terrorism in our modern era. This is the topic of the very next article.