In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
The Mawaddah Association presents:
"Events in Ramadan."
By Ra'd al-Rahman Ra'fat al-Basha.
The Demolition of the City of Ashkelon.
On the first of Ramadan in the year 587 AH.
There was a hero among the heroes of the Muslims,
gripping a large pickaxe with both of his strong hands,
and swinging it against the fortifications of a city belonging to his Ummah,
a precious pearl among the gems of his kingdom.
With him were his sons and his brothers,
his forces and his soldiers,
and vast throngs of his people.
In the hand of each of them was a pickaxe, striking at a side of the city.
As for the one holding the large pickaxe,
he was the great hero, Salah al-Din.
And as for the stricken city, it was Ashkelon.
Ashkelon was not, at that time, some remote village abandoned by its inhabitants,
left to the elements to demolish and ruin.
Nor was it a small, crumbling village
that one would find easy to abandon,
or easy to set one's hands to destroy.
Rather, it was one of the greatest cities of Palestine,
situated between Gaza and Bayt Jibrin,
resting on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea,
with towering heights and impregnable fortifications.
It stood like a giant in the middle of the road between Egypt and the Levant.
It watched like a vigilant sentry over the approaches of the sea.
Ashkelon combined majesty with beauty;
for in addition to its formidable fortifications
and its towering battlements, it possessed clear signs of splendor and grace,
such that historians called it the "Bride of the Levant."
It was a title they were stingy with, bestowing it only upon Ashkelon and Damascus.
The demolition of Ashkelon at the hands of Salah al-Din has a long, stirring story,
beginning in the era of the Rightly Guided Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him),
and continuing to this very day.
The Muslims conquered the city of Ashkelon during the era of al-Faruq (may Allah be pleased with him),
when he sent word to Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan,
commanding him to conquer Ashkelon and the neighboring coastal cities.
Mu'awiyah obeyed the command and conquered the fortified city,
and stationed guards there to protect it from the raids of the Byzantines.
Then, groups of the noble Companions and the great Tabi'un began to flock to Ashkelon,
until it became a center of knowledge and religion,
and a refuge for the memorizers of the Qur'an and scholars of hadith.
The fortified city of Ashkelon remained in the hands of the Muslims
for five centuries and a quarter of a century,
holding the reins of the road between Egypt and the Levant,
and blocking the sea routes against every aggression.
In the year 548 AH,
the Crusader invasion swept over it, along with other Muslim lands they had overrun.
Its fall, along with the fall of its sister city Acre, into the hands of the Franks,
was a thorn in the throats of the Muslims and a speck of dust in the eyes of the mujahidin.
This is because whoever possessed Acre and Ashkelon possessed Jerusalem,
and severed the route between Egypt and the Levant.
Ashkelon and Acre remained in the hands of the Crusaders for nearly thirty-five years,
until Allah decreed that they be conquered at the hands of the hero of Islam and the Muslims, Salah al-Din.
On the day Salah al-Din conquered the city of Ashkelon,
hopes blossomed in his heart,
and he was overcome with a joy he had not felt with any previous conquest.
It is no wonder, for Ashkelon would bring him closer to his greatest aspiration:
the aspiration of liberating Jerusalem.
Salah al-Din sent a message to his people in Egypt
following the conquest of Ashkelon,
in which he said, after praising Allah as He deserves:
"We descended upon Ashkelon,
the impregnable stronghold, the fortified fortress, and the towering mountain.
It possessed a strength that exceeded all expectations.
We conquered it fourteen days after we descended upon it,
and the banners of Tawhid were raised upon its walls,
its homes were inhabited by Muslims,
and the mu'adhdhins called the takbir in all its quarters.
Our resolve is set on heading toward Jerusalem;
if Allah grants victory, we shall then turn to the city of Tyre.
Peace be upon you."
After the conquest of Ashkelon, Salah al-Din realized
that a door of goodness had been opened for him,
and that he must enter it.
He used to repeat the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him):
"Whoever has a door of goodness opened for him, let him seize it,
for he does not know when it will be closed against him."
At that, he gathered his scattered troops,
consolidated his divided forces,
assembled the elite of his soldiers and the best of his commanders,
and set out for the great conquest.
On Sunday, the 15th of Rajab,
in the year 583 AH,
Salah al-Din descended upon the Crusaders in Jerusalem like the hand of fate.
On the 27th of that month,
the hero liberated the city from the hands of the Crusaders,
and brought down the Great Cross from atop the Noble Rock,
after it had remained in the grip of the Crusaders for over ninety years.
The fall of Jerusalem stirred the fury of Europe;
it rose up in an uproar.
This great event shook the throne of the Pope,
who began to warn of woe and destruction,
and called for a holy war.
Men rushed from every direction,
wealth flowed from every pocket,
and weapons poured in from every path.
The road to Jerusalem
was through Acre and Ashkelon.
The Crusaders attacked Acre with an assault the likes of which history had never witnessed,
and the Muslims defended it with a defense the likes of which history had never witnessed.
Salah al-Din stood alone against all of Europe,
and he and his army suffered such exhaustion
that they could no longer bear it.
He realized that he would inevitably be defeated
if a helping hand did not reach him from the Caliph of the Muslims.
So he sent a message from the fields of jihad
to the calm and tranquil Caliph in Baghdad,
in which he said:
"The long duration and the heavy expense
have taken their toll on us and our soldiers.
The disbelievers are being reinforced by the sea;
the sea brings them ships more numerous than its waves,
and soldiers more plentiful than its foam.
If the Muslims kill one of them on land,
the sea sends a thousand in his place,
and if one rank of them is wiped out, they bring twenty more."
Then he said:
"The King of the Germans has come out against us,
along with the kings of the Cross,
the masses from beyond the sea,
and the hordes of all the nations of disbelief.
Their Pope has forbidden them every comfort,
extracted every reserve from their treasuries,
clothed them in mourning garments,
and bound them to the plan of jihad,
so that they might seize from our hands the tomb of Christ
and rescue the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from us."
Then he continued:
"This requires us to exhaust the resolve of men
and deplete our financial treasuries.
It is incumbent upon the Caliph of the Muslims
to protect the qiblah of his subjects,
and to remove their affliction."
Then he said:
“He said: My Lord! I have control of none but myself and my brother, so distinguish between us and the wrong-doing folk.” (5:25)
"My brother has already joined your side,
and here are my children;
I have exposed their faces to your enemy,
and for your sake, I would not mind seeing them suffer harm."
Then he implored the Caliph, saying:
"O kin of Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him),
be his successor in his Ummah,
and fulfill your duty toward them.
Do not delay our aid,
for the benefit of relief is only found before it is too late."
Then he concluded his sorrowful letter, saying:
"Furthermore,
even if time has bitten us, we remain.
We pledge to Allah that we shall remain standing
until we are victorious or we have fulfilled our duty.
And that no one shall reach the descendants of Ahmad
as long as there remains one of the descendants of the Ayyubids to be remembered."
Salah al-Din's letter did not find a listening ear from the Caliph and his men,
nor did it find receptive hearts.
The Muslims continued to defend Acre
until it fell into the hands of the Crusaders,
after swords had become blunt, arms had grown weary, and resolve had faltered.
It was a day of great calamity for the Muslims.
The Crusaders did not miss the opportunity;
they directed their armies toward Ashkelon,
and beyond Ashkelon lay Jerusalem.
Salah al-Din found himself unable to repel the Crusaders from Ashkelon,
and realized he had to make a firm decision in a critical situation.
Making firm decisions in critical situations
is a matter that only the greatest of men can handle.
Umar ibn al-Khattab made a firm decision in a critical situation
the day he pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr at the Saqifah,
thereby ending evil and establishing order.
Abu Bakr made a firm decision in a critical situation
when he resolved to fight those who withheld zakat,
thereby protecting Islam and preserving the religion.
Salah al-Din made a firm decision in a critical situation,
and decided to demolish Ashkelon
and remove it from existence,
so that the enemy would not use it as a fortress, a residence, or a base.
It would have been difficult for Salah al-Din to make his decision
had he not been a leader who was fully empowered and obeyed.
And it would have been difficult for the Muslims to execute it
had they not been on the same level as their leader.
Salah al-Din said on the day he issued his decision:
"By Allah, to lose all my children
is dearer to me than to demolish a single stone of Ashkelon,
but there is a benefit for Islam and the Muslims in doing so."
In late Sha'ban,
Salah al-Din sent his army to hinder the Crusader advance toward Ashkelon.
On the first of Ramadan,
he raised his pickaxes to demolish the great, ancient city,
with vast throngs of Muslims alongside him.
Then time turned its cycle,
and the swords of the Muslims drove the remnants of the Crusaders into the sea.
The descendants of Salah al-Din rebuilt Ashkelon,
and settled their children and offspring there.
It remained in the hands of the Muslims until the Jews took it from them,
and gave it the name Ashdod.
The city, stricken by its new invaders,
awaits today the liberating leader and the saving hero.
So, congratulations to the one through whose hands salvation will come.