In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
A summary of the book:
*Ramadan: Events and Lessons*.
The Conquest of the City of Amorium.
The date: the sixth of Ramadan,
in the year 223 AH.
The forces of evil never cease warring against goodness and its people,
inflicting upon them every manner of torment whenever an opportunity arises.
They possess no inner restraints to curb their diabolical impulses,
nor do they follow any sacred law that would halt their doctrine of harm and aggression.
Nothing turns them back from their tyranny except the strength of the people of truth,
their repelling of the aggressors' evil,
and their capacity to halt that oppressive power
through their means of deterrence and their disciplining of assailants.
When the Muslims held firmly to their religion,
adhered to the bastions of honor,
and took hold of the means of strength,
awe of them was cast into the hearts of their enemies,
preventing them from transgressing against them
or subjecting them to humiliation.
But when they began abandoning the religion of Allah
and clinging to the life of this world,
they fell back from the horizons of honor,
and the enemy did with them as they pleased.
This is the confirmation of what the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, foretold
in the hadith of Thawban, the freed slave of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him),
who said:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
"The nations are about to gather against you from every horizon,
just as diners gather around their dish."
He said:
We asked: "O Messenger of Allah,
will it be because of our small numbers on that day?"
He replied:
"No, on that day you will be many,
but you will be scum like the froth of a torrent.
Awe of you will be stripped from the hearts of your enemy,
and *wahn* (enervation) will be cast into your hearts."
He said:
We asked:
"And what is *wahn*?"
He said:
"Love of this worldly life and hatred of death."
In eras of glory, the Ummah was like a single body:
if any limb complained,
the rest of the body responded to it.
Whenever any Muslim was attacked by the disbelievers,
the Muslims exacted justice from that aggressor;
whoever cried out to them for rescue was answered,
and whoever sought their aid was delivered.
But today,
the body of the Ummah has been torn into scattered pieces;
one part no longer feels the pain of another,
nor does it come to its rescue in distress,
nor does it assist it in its need.
How many cries of those pleading for rescue have pounded upon our ears,
alongside the voices of the tortured!
How hoarse have grown the throats of those crying:
"O Islam!"
"O Muslims!"
"O brethren!"
Yet the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'tasim Billah,
along with the Muslims of his day,
were nothing like our state today.
The conquest of Amorium remains an honorable memory for them,
engraving their chivalry and protective honor across the brow of time,
enduring as a historic exploit recounted across generations with utmost pride and dignity.
The Conquest of Amorium and Its History
Amorium
was a city in the land of the Byzantines.
It was said
to be named after Amorium, daughter of ar-Rum,
son of Eliphaz, son of Shem, son of Noah, peace be upon him.
This city was situated in Phrygia in Asia Minor;
it was founded during the Hellenistic period,
flourished under the Byzantine Empire,
and was eventually abandoned following the campaign of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'tasim.
Its ruins lie near the village of Hisarköy
in the Afyon Province of Turkey.
Its conquest and the entry into it took place on the sixth of Ramadan
in the year 223 AH.
The Cause of the Conquest of Amorium
The reason for this great conquest
was that the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus, son of Michael,
marched forth with one hundred thousand troops
and reached Zibatra.
There, he slaughtered its men,
took the women and children captive,
utterly laid waste to the city,
raided the people of Malatya and other Muslim fortresses,
captured Muslim women,
mutilated those Muslims who fell into his hands,
gouged out their eyes,
and cut off their noses and ears.
Regarding this, Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi said:
"O protective jealousy for the sake of Allah, you have witnessed this, so take vengeance!
Women have been violated, though they committed no crime!
Granted, the men were slain for supposed misdeeds,
but what of their children, plundered and slaughtered?"
A dispatch then arrived by courier to al-Mu'tasim from the Byzantine frontier,
reporting that the Byzantine Emperor had encroached upon Islamic territories,
extended his aggression against several villages,
and captured a group of people from them,
among whom
was a Hashimite woman
who had cried out: "O Mu'tasim!"
The Caliph al-Mu'tasim's Stance Toward the Event
When this grave news reached al-Mu'tasim,
he took it with the utmost gravity and solemnity;
it grieved him deeply and consumed his thoughts.
He prepared for it with immense resolve through deeds,
not through mere words or telegrams of condemnation.
Historians have recorded
that the Byzantine Emperor had sent a letter to al-Mu'tasim threatening him,
whereupon al-Mu'tasim was enraged
and ordered a reply to be written.
A response was drafted for him,
but none of the several drafts prepared satisfied him.
So he tore up the letter that had arrived from the Emperor
and commanded that there be written on the back of a piece of it:
"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
The answer is what you will see, not what you will read.
'And the disbelievers will come to know who has the ultimate reward of the Home.'"
He immediately mobilized for war,
but astrologers attempted to dissuade him,
telling him that the ascendant star portended misfortune.
He said to them:
"It portends misfortune for them, not for us!"
He set out that very day, with armies following in succession.
As for the woman,
he answered her cry while still on his couch, saying:
"Here I am at your service! Here I am at your service!"
He sounded the general call to arms,
rose immediately and mounted his steed,
carrying along hobbling ropes and an iron peg inside his cloak.
He gathered the troops,
summoned the Chief Judge of Baghdad, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ishaq,
along with Ibn Sahl
and three hundred and thirty certified witnesses,
and had them bear witness to the endowment of his estates:
one third for his children,
one third for his freed slaves,
and one third for the sake of Allah.
The Course of the Battle and the Conquest of the City
When al-Mu'tasim reached the gates of the city,
he assigned its towers among his commanders,
apportioning a number of towers to each of them
according to the size of their respective forces,
so that each commander was allotted between two and twenty towers.
The inhabitants of Amorium fortified themselves inside.
Al-Mu'tasim encamped opposite a specific section that had been pointed out to him,
shown by a Muslim who had lived within the city,
having previously embraced Christianity among them and married one of their women.
But when he saw the Commander of the Faithful and the Muslims,
he returned to Islam,
went out to the Caliph, reaffirmed his faith,
and informed him of a vulnerable section in the wall
that had once been destroyed by a flood
and was rebuilt flimsily without solid foundations.
The Byzantine Emperor had previously written to the governor of Amorium
instructing him to fortify that section properly,
but they had been negligent in doing so,
which proved to be the gateway of triumph for the Muslims to enter Amorium.
Al-Mu'tasim positioned the mangonels all around Amorium,
and the very first breach made in its wall
was at that location pointed out by the former captive.
The defenders scrambled
and blocked it with large, closely lashed timbers,
but the mangonels pounded it incessantly.
They then placed pack-saddles over the breach
to cushion the impact of the stones,
but it availed them nothing,
and the wall collapsed and fractured on that side.
When al-Mu'tasim observed the depth of its moat and the height of its wall,
he directed the mangonels to batter the ramparts.
While the men were working on the filled causeway,
the mangonels brought down that defective section.
When the wall collapsed between two towers,
the people heard a tremendous crash,
which those who could not see it thought
to be a sudden Byzantine sally against the Muslims.
Al-Mu'tasim dispatched a herald to announce among the troops:
"It is merely the collapse of the wall!"
The Muslims rejoiced exceedingly at that.
However, the breach made
was not yet wide enough for cavalry and infantry to pour through,
so the siege intensified.
The Byzantines had placed each tower of the ramparts
under the command of an officer tasked with guarding it.
The officer whose section of the wall was breached grew too weak
to withstand the fierce assault of the siege,
so he went to Monatses, the Byzantine governor of Amorium,
requesting reinforcements,
but none of the Byzantines agreed to assist him,
saying: "We will not abandon the posts we have been charged to defend."
Al-Mu'tasim then ordered the Muslims to storm the city
through that breach left stripped of defenders.
The Muslims charged toward it,
The Romans began making gestures toward them,
unable to repel them,
but the Muslims paid them no heed.
Then the Muslims overwhelmed them and took the city by storm,
pouring into it in waves while proclaiming the takbir.
The Romans abandoned their positions and scattered,
so the Muslims began striking them down wherever they encountered them.
They had driven them into a massive church of theirs,
which the Muslims then breached by force,
killing those inside.
They set fire to the church doors,
causing it to burn,
and everyone inside was burned to the very last man.
Then al-Mu'tasim gave orders concerning Amorium,
and it was demolished and burned.
His initial encampment against it had begun on the sixth of Ramadan,
and he laid siege to it for fifty-five days.
He then distributed the captives among the commanders
and marched toward Tarsus.
The outcomes of the conquest of Amorium:
First, this decisive battle and manifest triumph
served as a direct, practical response to the arrogance of the Byzantines.
Justice was thus fully exacted on behalf of the Muslims and their cities,
as a fitting recompense for what those aggressors had done,
whom Abu Ishaq disciplined through his decisive actions—
an extraordinary chastisement immortalized throughout history.
Second,
a vast number of Byzantine combatants were killed,
an equal number were taken captive,
and immense spoils of war were seized.
Third,
the rescue of that woman who had called upon al-Mu'tasim for help, as is reported.
Ibn Kathir said:
"The Muslims seized incalculable and indescribable wealth from Amorium,
carrying away whatever they were able to transport,
while al-Mu'tasim ordered the remainder to be burned,
along with all the mangonels, siege engines, and instruments of war found there,
so that the Romans could never use them to reinforce themselves in any future war against the Muslims."
Lessons from the conquest of Amorium:
First:
Muslims will never remain secure and dignified
except through a strength of their own that repels the onslaught of aggressors.
Second:
The enemy understands only the language of force,
without which they will only spread corruption across the earth.
Third:
Allah may prepare for the Muslims circumstances originating from within the enemy's own ranks
through which their victory over them is achieved.
Fourth:
When the ruler is righteous, Allah rectifies the people and the lands through him,
the religion is strengthened by him,
and goodness prevails among the Muslims.
Fifth:
If a prominent Muslim leader falls into a sin or an innovation,
that does not mean forgetting a momentous deed of his
through which he benefited Islam and the Muslims.
Ramadan: Historic Events and Enduring Lessons.