Part of Ramadan events and lessons (series completed)
· Lesson 21 of 31
Ramadan events and lessons | Episode (21) | Opening the city of Amoria
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Transcript
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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
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A summary of the book:
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*Ramadan: Events and Lessons*.
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The Conquest of the City of Amorium.
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The date: the sixth of Ramadan,
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in the year 223 AH.
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The forces of evil never cease warring against goodness and its people,
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inflicting upon them every manner of torment whenever an opportunity arises.
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They possess no inner restraints to curb their diabolical impulses,
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nor do they follow any sacred law that would halt their doctrine of harm and aggression.
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Nothing turns them back from their tyranny except the strength of the people of truth,
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their repelling of the aggressors' evil,
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and their capacity to halt that oppressive power
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through their means of deterrence and their disciplining of assailants.
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When the Muslims held firmly to their religion,
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adhered to the bastions of honor,
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and took hold of the means of strength,
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awe of them was cast into the hearts of their enemies,
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preventing them from transgressing against them
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or subjecting them to humiliation.
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But when they began abandoning the religion of Allah
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and clinging to the life of this world,
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they fell back from the horizons of honor,
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and the enemy did with them as they pleased.
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This is the confirmation of what the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, foretold
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in the hadith of Thawban, the freed slave of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him),
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who said:
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The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
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"The nations are about to gather against you from every horizon,
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just as diners gather around their dish."
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He said:
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We asked: "O Messenger of Allah,
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will it be because of our small numbers on that day?"
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He replied:
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"No, on that day you will be many,
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but you will be scum like the froth of a torrent.
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Awe of you will be stripped from the hearts of your enemy,
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and *wahn* (enervation) will be cast into your hearts."
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He said:
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We asked:
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"And what is *wahn*?"
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He said:
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"Love of this worldly life and hatred of death."
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In eras of glory, the Ummah was like a single body:
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if any limb complained,
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the rest of the body responded to it.
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Whenever any Muslim was attacked by the disbelievers,
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the Muslims exacted justice from that aggressor;
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whoever cried out to them for rescue was answered,
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and whoever sought their aid was delivered.
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But today,
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the body of the Ummah has been torn into scattered pieces;
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one part no longer feels the pain of another,
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nor does it come to its rescue in distress,
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nor does it assist it in its need.
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How many cries of those pleading for rescue have pounded upon our ears,
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alongside the voices of the tortured!
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How hoarse have grown the throats of those crying:
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"O Islam!"
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"O Muslims!"
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"O brethren!"
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Yet the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'tasim Billah,
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along with the Muslims of his day,
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were nothing like our state today.
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The conquest of Amorium remains an honorable memory for them,
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engraving their chivalry and protective honor across the brow of time,
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enduring as a historic exploit recounted across generations with utmost pride and dignity.
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The Conquest of Amorium and Its History
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Amorium
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was a city in the land of the Byzantines.
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It was said
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to be named after Amorium, daughter of ar-Rum,
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son of Eliphaz, son of Shem, son of Noah, peace be upon him.
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This city was situated in Phrygia in Asia Minor;
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it was founded during the Hellenistic period,
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flourished under the Byzantine Empire,
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and was eventually abandoned following the campaign of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu'tasim.
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Its ruins lie near the village of Hisarköy
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in the Afyon Province of Turkey.
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Its conquest and the entry into it took place on the sixth of Ramadan
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in the year 223 AH.
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The Cause of the Conquest of Amorium
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The reason for this great conquest
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was that the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus, son of Michael,
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marched forth with one hundred thousand troops
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and reached Zibatra.
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There, he slaughtered its men,
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took the women and children captive,
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utterly laid waste to the city,
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raided the people of Malatya and other Muslim fortresses,
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captured Muslim women,
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mutilated those Muslims who fell into his hands,
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gouged out their eyes,
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and cut off their noses and ears.
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Regarding this, Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi said:
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"O protective jealousy for the sake of Allah, you have witnessed this, so take vengeance!
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Women have been violated, though they committed no crime!
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Granted, the men were slain for supposed misdeeds,
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but what of their children, plundered and slaughtered?"
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A dispatch then arrived by courier to al-Mu'tasim from the Byzantine frontier,
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reporting that the Byzantine Emperor had encroached upon Islamic territories,
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extended his aggression against several villages,
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and captured a group of people from them,
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among whom
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was a Hashimite woman
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who had cried out: "O Mu'tasim!"
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The Caliph al-Mu'tasim's Stance Toward the Event
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When this grave news reached al-Mu'tasim,
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he took it with the utmost gravity and solemnity;
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it grieved him deeply and consumed his thoughts.
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He prepared for it with immense resolve through deeds,
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not through mere words or telegrams of condemnation.
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Historians have recorded
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that the Byzantine Emperor had sent a letter to al-Mu'tasim threatening him,
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whereupon al-Mu'tasim was enraged
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and ordered a reply to be written.
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A response was drafted for him,
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but none of the several drafts prepared satisfied him.
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So he tore up the letter that had arrived from the Emperor
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and commanded that there be written on the back of a piece of it:
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"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
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The answer is what you will see, not what you will read.
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'And the disbelievers will come to know who has the ultimate reward of the Home.'"
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He immediately mobilized for war,
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but astrologers attempted to dissuade him,
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telling him that the ascendant star portended misfortune.
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He said to them:
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"It portends misfortune for them, not for us!"
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He set out that very day, with armies following in succession.
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As for the woman,
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he answered her cry while still on his couch, saying:
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"Here I am at your service! Here I am at your service!"
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He sounded the general call to arms,
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rose immediately and mounted his steed,
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carrying along hobbling ropes and an iron peg inside his cloak.
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He gathered the troops,
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summoned the Chief Judge of Baghdad, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ishaq,
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along with Ibn Sahl
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and three hundred and thirty certified witnesses,
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and had them bear witness to the endowment of his estates:
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one third for his children,
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one third for his freed slaves,
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and one third for the sake of Allah.
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The Course of the Battle and the Conquest of the City
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When al-Mu'tasim reached the gates of the city,
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he assigned its towers among his commanders,
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apportioning a number of towers to each of them
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according to the size of their respective forces,
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so that each commander was allotted between two and twenty towers.
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The inhabitants of Amorium fortified themselves inside.
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Al-Mu'tasim encamped opposite a specific section that had been pointed out to him,
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shown by a Muslim who had lived within the city,
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having previously embraced Christianity among them and married one of their women.
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But when he saw the Commander of the Faithful and the Muslims,
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he returned to Islam,
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went out to the Caliph, reaffirmed his faith,
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and informed him of a vulnerable section in the wall
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that had once been destroyed by a flood
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and was rebuilt flimsily without solid foundations.
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The Byzantine Emperor had previously written to the governor of Amorium
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instructing him to fortify that section properly,
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but they had been negligent in doing so,
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which proved to be the gateway of triumph for the Muslims to enter Amorium.
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Al-Mu'tasim positioned the mangonels all around Amorium,
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and the very first breach made in its wall
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was at that location pointed out by the former captive.
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The defenders scrambled
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and blocked it with large, closely lashed timbers,
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but the mangonels pounded it incessantly.
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They then placed pack-saddles over the breach
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to cushion the impact of the stones,
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but it availed them nothing,
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and the wall collapsed and fractured on that side.
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When al-Mu'tasim observed the depth of its moat and the height of its wall,
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he directed the mangonels to batter the ramparts.
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While the men were working on the filled causeway,
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the mangonels brought down that defective section.
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When the wall collapsed between two towers,
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the people heard a tremendous crash,
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which those who could not see it thought
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to be a sudden Byzantine sally against the Muslims.
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Al-Mu'tasim dispatched a herald to announce among the troops:
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"It is merely the collapse of the wall!"
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The Muslims rejoiced exceedingly at that.
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However, the breach made
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was not yet wide enough for cavalry and infantry to pour through,
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so the siege intensified.
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The Byzantines had placed each tower of the ramparts
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under the command of an officer tasked with guarding it.
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The officer whose section of the wall was breached grew too weak
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to withstand the fierce assault of the siege,
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so he went to Monatses, the Byzantine governor of Amorium,
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requesting reinforcements,
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but none of the Byzantines agreed to assist him,
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saying: "We will not abandon the posts we have been charged to defend."
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Al-Mu'tasim then ordered the Muslims to storm the city
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through that breach left stripped of defenders.
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The Muslims charged toward it,
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The Romans began making gestures toward them,
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unable to repel them,
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but the Muslims paid them no heed.
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Then the Muslims overwhelmed them and took the city by storm,
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pouring into it in waves while proclaiming the takbir.
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The Romans abandoned their positions and scattered,
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so the Muslims began striking them down wherever they encountered them.
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They had driven them into a massive church of theirs,
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which the Muslims then breached by force,
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killing those inside.
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They set fire to the church doors,
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causing it to burn,
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and everyone inside was burned to the very last man.
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Then al-Mu'tasim gave orders concerning Amorium,
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and it was demolished and burned.
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His initial encampment against it had begun on the sixth of Ramadan,
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and he laid siege to it for fifty-five days.
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He then distributed the captives among the commanders
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and marched toward Tarsus.
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The outcomes of the conquest of Amorium:
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First, this decisive battle and manifest triumph
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served as a direct, practical response to the arrogance of the Byzantines.
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Justice was thus fully exacted on behalf of the Muslims and their cities,
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as a fitting recompense for what those aggressors had done,
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whom Abu Ishaq disciplined through his decisive actions—
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an extraordinary chastisement immortalized throughout history.
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Second,
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a vast number of Byzantine combatants were killed,
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an equal number were taken captive,
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and immense spoils of war were seized.
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Third,
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the rescue of that woman who had called upon al-Mu'tasim for help, as is reported.
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Ibn Kathir said:
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"The Muslims seized incalculable and indescribable wealth from Amorium,
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carrying away whatever they were able to transport,
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while al-Mu'tasim ordered the remainder to be burned,
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along with all the mangonels, siege engines, and instruments of war found there,
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so that the Romans could never use them to reinforce themselves in any future war against the Muslims."
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Lessons from the conquest of Amorium:
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First:
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Muslims will never remain secure and dignified
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except through a strength of their own that repels the onslaught of aggressors.
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Second:
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The enemy understands only the language of force,
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without which they will only spread corruption across the earth.
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Third:
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Allah may prepare for the Muslims circumstances originating from within the enemy's own ranks
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through which their victory over them is achieved.
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Fourth:
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When the ruler is righteous, Allah rectifies the people and the lands through him,
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the religion is strengthened by him,
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and goodness prevails among the Muslims.
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Fifth:
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If a prominent Muslim leader falls into a sin or an innovation,
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that does not mean forgetting a momentous deed of his
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through which he benefited Islam and the Muslims.
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Ramadan: Historic Events and Enduring Lessons.