‘Predestination’ has been the bane of the Islamic societies since inception!
The fall of Baghdad to Mongols invaders led by Hulagu Khan! Hulagu Khan (ca. 1216-1265) was a Mongol conqueror and the founder of the dynasty of the Il-Khans of Iran.
He also suppressed the Ismaili sect (hashshishayooon or the word Assassins originated from this sect) and defeated the last Abbasid caliph. ”Caliph was locked in his treasury and was brought gold rather than food. When the Caliph protested that he could not eat gold, Hulagu asked why he hadn’t spent his treasury on providing for his army and defense to which the Caliph cried “That was the will of Allah”. In response Hulagu replied, “What will happen to you is the will of Allah, also,” leaving him among the treasure to starve. ”
Though some historians differ and think that the story, familiar from the pages of Marco Polo and Longfellow’s Kambalu, of the Caliph’s being left to starve in a tower full of gold and silver is apocryphal; he was probably rolled in a carpet and beaten or trampled to death in order not to shed royal blood, such being the Mongols’ custom in the execution of their own princes.
The last history states that Hulagu, fearful of spilling the sacred blood, wrapped the Caliph in carpets and had horses gallop on him. Unlike Karbala where Yazid sprinkled the bluest of the blood that of grandson of the prophet mercilessly on the desert plains at least Mongol were polite enough not to let the pedigreed blood from the lineage of Banu Abbas to be spilled. They made sure to avoid the possible wrath of God as their counsels advised that holiest of the blood be soaked in the thick silk forms of the Caliphs flamboyant carpets.
The traumatic scar of the deeds perpetuated toward the capital and the sovereign of Islam persist to such an extent that in a book on Arab cultural identity, published in the nineteen fifties, a Syrian government official is quoted as saying that had the Mongols not destroyed the libraries of Baghdad, Arab science would have produced the atom bomb long before the West.
The lessons from history: Why one should not leave everything on the ‘Will of Allah?’
With the will of Allah sufficing to explain everything risk no longer mattered and Muslim commerce began to dramatically suffer. Thus the civilization of Islam began to falter as ‘Destiny’ persevered over ‘reason and logic’-and lenient ecclesiastical and priestly control once again tightened over the ‘free will’ of Muslim people.
The banking and finance capitals that could have emerged in the coastal cities and regions of Alexandria, the Yemen and Sumatra, as rivals to Europe were stemmed in their infancy.
Muslims who could not take out insurance because of ‘destiny and fate,’ Mashiat -e-ezdi or ‘iradutul-allah’ ruined incentive and enterprenership; it was considered ‘Haram!’ Risk management was believed to be intrusion in the ‘Will of God, ‘until today Insurance remain haram. This led ot the decline of trade and commerce. Where lack of risk management aborted an infant financial industry that could have provided commercial support to trade and sea-faring voyages were instead confined to the Mediterranean, a Muslim lake, instead of venturing out like Christopher Columbus. In Salamanca universities and insurance supported the voyages into unknown dark of the Oceans. In Islam disasters were considered as ‘Will of Allah.’
Any belief that employs “guardians of truth” on shaping of landscape of intellect will implode. It is said that ‘Crutches of faith are introduced when reason sink exhausted.’ It is an paradox that when curtain of dogma was descending within the Islamic lands killing free thinking it was slowly and steadily rising in Italy and northern Europe. The Islamic world was being eclipsed because of the internal philosophical challenges of orthodoxy and dogma was gaining.
( Hulagu left Mongolia in the autumn of 1253 at the head of a large army. Traveling slowly along a carefully prepared route, from which all natural obstacles had been removed, he did not cross the Oxus, then the frontier between the Chaghatai Khanate and Persia, until the beginning of 1256.
By the end of that year the greater part of the Ismaili castles had been captured, and the Grand Master himself was a prisoner in Mongol hands. He was sent to Mongolia, where he was executed by the order of the Great Khan, and with the wholesale massacre of the Ismailis that followed, the sect was all but wiped out. The summer of 1257 was spent in diplomatic exchanges with the caliph al-Mustasim from Hulagu’s headquarters in the Hamadan area. The Caliph refused to accede to Mongol demands for submission, and in the autumn Hulagu’s forces began to converge on Baghdad. On Jan. 17, 1258, the Caliph’s army was defeated in battle; on the 22nd Hulagu appeared in person before the walls of Baghdad; the city surrendered on February 10, and 10 days later al-Mustasim was put to death.
With his death the Islamic institution of the caliphate came to an end, although it was artificially preserved by the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and the title was afterward assumed by the Ottoman sultans. After Baghdad, in 1260, Mongol forces combined with those of their Christian vassals in the region, such as the army of Cilician Armenia under Hetoum I, and the Franks of Bohemond VI of Antioch. This force then conquered Muslim Syria, domain of the Ayyubid dynasty.
They took together the city of Aleppo, and on March 1, 1260, under the Christian general Kitbuqa, they also took Damascus. After Baghdad, in 1260, Mongol forces combined with those of their Christian vassals in the region, such as the army of Cilician Armenia under Hetoum I, and the Franks of Bohemond VI of Antioch. This force then conquered Muslim Syria, domain of the Ayyubid dynasty. They took together the city of Aleppo, and on March 1, 1260, under the Christian general Kitbuqa, they also took Damascus. The Mamluks took advantage of the weakened state of Kitbuqa’s forces.
The Crusaders, though traditional enemies of the Mamluks, also regarded the Mongols as the greater threat. Discussions took place between the Muslims and the Christians, with debate about whether or not to join forces against the Mongols, but the Muslims were not in agreement with this action. So instead, the Crusaders allowed the Egyptian forces to come north through Crusader territory, and resupply near the Crusaders’ powerbase of Acre.
The Mamluks then engaged the remnants of the Mongol army in Galilee, at the Battle of Ayn Jalut. The Mamluks achieved a decisive victory, Kitbuqa was executed, and the location established a highwater mark for the Mongol conquest. In previous defeats, the Mongols had always returned later to re-take the territory, but they were never able to avenge the loss at Ayn Jalut. For the rest of the century, the Mongols would attempt other invasions of Syria, but never be able to hold territory for more than a few months. The border of the Mongol Ilkhanate remained at the Tigris River for the duration of Hulagu’s dynasty.) Source Wikipedia
