In the past, throughout our history, the masājid have represented the beauty and spirituality of Islam. They also represent the unity of the Muslims, because for men, the place to pray—whenever it is possible—is the house of Allah (SWT). Many virtues were given in the Qur’an and hadith about the masjid. Whenever people started undermining the importance of the house of Allah—and in fact, this applies to most of Allah (SWT)’s blessings—Allah (SWT) takes it away, whatever it is.
Allah (SWT) took everything away from the people of Banī Isrā’īl: their wealth, their masjid, and their prophets. They were not just asked to leave; they were also attacked. Before, the masājid were highly populated, but when the actions of the Muslims declined, Allah (SWT) imposed such people on them that had no mercy.
After that time, there was the reign of a man by the name of Genghis Khan. He started from the Mongolian steppes and made his way conquering tribes, and his power and influence began to spread. Suddenly, he developed a vision of conquering the whole world. He did conquer a large portion of it in his lifetime, but not the entire world—so his progeny carried out his work.
His people had their own way and were different from everyone else; they did not have an organised religion and believed in spirits. Some narrations mention that they would turn towards the sun once a day as their form of worship, but they were savages when it came to going to other lands and taking what they wanted.
At one point, one of the grandsons of Genghis Khan—Hulagu Khan—sent some traders and merchants to conduct trade with the Muslim state that was nearby, offering for trade very expensive horses and fine products. It was an offering of conducting trade, to enter into a trade agreement. What the ruler of that area did was that he had all of the merchants killed—which was really a senseless thing to do—and he took all of their wares.
Hulagu Khan said, “I need this to be addressed. I need retribution for those who are guilty, and there need to be consequences. I also need the wares that were stolen to be returned.”
The Muslim governor said, “I am not taking any action, and we are not giving your wares back.”
This really did not make sense from a worldly or religious perspective. It drove Hulagu Khan into a blind rage. The people of the Khans were already savages when it came to conquering land, but this was on a whole different level. Some narrations mention that he went to the top of a hill and took an oath:
“I will not stop shedding the blood of the Muslims until their blood flows through the streets in rivers until it reaches the back of my horse.”
He launched his assault and began with a few areas—all of which are in modern-day Kazakhstan or Tajikistan. What he would do very often was attack right before Jumuʿah salah, when he knew that most of the Muslims would be congregated in the masjid and were most vulnerable. He would rush in, surround the mosque, have the doors barred, and then butcher everyone inside the closed masjid.
Then, he would sit on the minbar and say:
“O Muslims, your Lord has imposed me over you because of your own actions.”
Those same masājid had such an intricate educational system, with long desks made from a single massive tree, hundreds of feet long, and hundreds of students would use that single desk—all of this and the like were destroyed. They turned those masājid into one of two things: either stables for their horses or granaries to store grain. Those masājid that once had the echo of the adhān and the teachings of the prophets were laid completely to waste.
Like this, the army of Hulagu Khan spread across the land like a plague, and all of this reached its climax many years later at Baghdad, when it was completely sacked.
Their attack on Baghdad was not an ordinary thing, and history had not seen anything like it. They first killed all of the nobility and scholars by tricking them into coming into a tent under the guise of a talk, and then they killed the masses. So many lives were lost—some have counted them in the millions—and there was no one to clean up the mess. The bodies lay in the streets for weeks, so much so that disease started spreading from those bodies. Disease and plague spread through the winds all the way into Syria, because of the bacteria and waste that was building up at such levels. Hundreds of miles away, disease was spreading.
What happened to all the knowledge and institutes? They were destroyed. All of the books in Baghdad were destroyed. At the time, Baghdad was the leader of the world in science—including Islamic sciences, medical science, philosophy, poetry, astronomy, and many more. All of this was taken and thrown into the rivers. So many books written by hand were thrown that the water in the rivers turned black. At that time, mankind lost hundreds of thousands of rare books.
This happens when we lose our purpose, and when we stop paying attention to what Allah (SWT) has given us, and when we have no value for it. Allah (SWT) takes it away, and the punishment is very harsh.
In the Qur’an, Allah (SWT) says:
“If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favour]; but if you deny, indeed, My punishment is severe.”
— Surah Ibrahim (14:7)
This has happened to every nation in history—including us—whenever we undermine the importance of dīn.
Some historians have written, including Ibn Kathīr:
“I am shedding tears as I am writing this. My eyes cannot stop watering and my heart is thumping. I wish I had never been born so that I would not see this day. The wretchedness, doom, destruction, and widespread catastrophe that destroyed everything that had been built over centuries was overwhelming.”
All history repeats itself, and this is a lesson for us so that we may build a foundation for ourselves and the coming generations, so that this may never happen again in our lives—and not after us as well. These are points and moments in history that we must reflect on and take lessons from.
May Allah (SWT) give us tawfīq.
