West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96' on August 20, 2007, 08:32:21 AM
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Sultan Abdul-Hameed The Last Great Kalifah
The Year Was 1909 When The Last Great Sultan/Kalifah Abdul-Hameed Was Removed From Power. Since then there has been no great world leader with the power or authority to defend the Islam globally.
It is no small wonder that such volatile regions as Iraq, Palestine (Israel), and the Balkans in Europe, were all administered to peacefully under Sultan Abdul-Hameed. So much so, that in Palestine, it was only necessary for him to have a mere 200 soldiers in Palestine to maintain the peace. Although ruled by an Islamic Kalifah, the rights of Christians and Jews were respected and they recieved visa's to visit their Holy places. Today, Palestine is ruled with tanks, bombs, checkpoints, and thousands of Jewish/Israeli soldiers.
The famous German statesmen known as Bismark, said of Abdul-Hameed, that; "If wisdom is 100 grams, Abdul-Hamid has 90 grams of it, I have 5 grams of it, and the rest of the leaders and politicians have the other 5%".
While other Sultans had sought to Westernize Ottoman life; Sultan Abdul-Hameed sought to islamize institutions they had imported from Europe. While movements in oppositiong to Abdul-Hameed, such as the Young Turk's, tried to pressure him giving preference to Turkish Muslims over Arab Muslims, Abdul-Hameed continued to repudiate any racist views, and gave Arabs from places such as Syria and Lebanon advancement into high positions in the government. He encouraged the assumption that, as Caliph, he had a right to protect Muslims living under British, French or Russian imperial rule; and he personally selected and approved religious dignitaries called to exercise spiritual authority in the Crimea and Cyprus, tributary Bulgaria and Egypt, and the Austrian-occupied western Balkans. It might be said that he harnessed, and effectively rode, the burning Pan-Islamic sentiment which spread through much of Asia and northern Africa in reaction to imperialism.
Abdul-Hamid's religiosity was strong. Unlike his recent predecessors, he emphasized the sincerity of his faith, scrupulously observing Muslim holy days and assigning money from his Privy Purse to restore mosques, spread Muslim schools and augment Ulema funds. His subjects treated him with awed respect, hardly distinguishable from reverence. Sir Charles Eliot , a third secretary at the British embassy from 1893 to 1898, described the prayers at the Yildiz mosque in the twenty-second year of Abdulhamid's reign:
"Long before midday on Friday soldiers, and spectators, among which are hundreds of Turkish women, occupy all the available space... Ultimately a trumpet sounds... a victoria with the hood up comes slowly down the steep road. An old man in uniform, Field Marshal Osman Pasha, the hero of Plevna, sitting with his back to the horses, speaks with deep respect to some one seen less distinctly under the hood. The carriage stops at a flight of steps leading to the private door of the mosque. The hood is lowered by a spring, and he who sat beneath it alights, mounts the steps, and in a moment of profound silence, turns and salutes the crowd. He has not come as the chief of a military race should come, on a prancing steed or with any dash or glory. There is no splendor in his dress or bearing, but for the moment that he stands there alone a solemnity falls over the scene...and we are face to face with the spirit of a great nation and a great religion incarnate in one man."
Abdul-Hameed was also a supporter of the arts. He wrote poetry in which he cried out for Allah's aide and mercy, and he also translated one of the first opera's ever to open in Turkey. He was an excellent carpenter and would sell what he had crafted publically, and distribute that money to the poor.
Under Abdul-Hameed, the Middle East, North Africa, and significant portions of Europe were united under the Ottoman Empire. Yet, shortly after he was removed from power the Empire entered into the devastation of the first World War, they were defeated and taken over by the victorious Western allies, and subsequently divided up into "a series of jealous principalities, petty states incapable of political cohesion" as was the stated and executed plan of British intelligence officer T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).
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Too bad you cant even get respect from your father, bryan :'(