عن النعمان بن بشير رضي الله عنه قال: قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: « مثل المؤمنين في توادهم وتراحمهم وتعاطفهم مثل الجسد إذا اشتكى منه  عضو تداعى له سائر الجسد بالسهر والحمى »

 ʾan-Nuʿmān bin Bashīr رضى الله عنه  narrated that Allāh’s Messenger (صلى الله عليه و سلم  ) said:

The example of the believers in regards their mutual love, mercy and affection, is that of the body. When a limb of the body suffers, the rest of the body responds with sleeplessness and fever. [Muslim]

Contemporary Muslims are unfortunately losing sleep only when the western media prompts us, whatever their agenda might be. Thus we know of Palestine for example. Then, with some exceptions, current sporting events grip our imagination more avidly than the ongoing torture of Ghazzah. A few fund-raising events may have been held for the Rohingyas after the western media reminded that they are our brethren, but thereafter? It would be interesting if a statistician could draw a graph correlating Muslim attention span with western media reports, (and how it goes down when a sports event is held). For sadly, these seems to be the criteria more than the guidance of Allāh’s Messenger (صلى الله عليه و سلم  ) as quoted above.

This is not limited to current events. Our collective amnesia extends to our history as well. Thus there are those who remember that Palestine and Iberia are limbs which have been amputated from the body of Islām, but many other lost limbs are not sensational enough for us to lose sleep over. They are several, but I shall discuss one, Circassia, in this post.

Brief Overview: The First Millennium of Islam

Some tend to romanticise the history of Muslim peoples and there are in some quarters a pretense that entire nations flocked to Islām from day one at the hands of the Companions themselves. The remnants of our Circassian brothers and sisters are now majority Muslim, but the process was slow, and they were probably not a Muslim majority people for the first millennium of Islām.

I recall my teacher ʾash-Shaykh Ṭāhā Karān (Allāh’s mercy be upon him) asking me during my student days where Circassia is. I replied, “Somewhere in the Caucasus. Why?” “The Abbasids were obsessed with Circassian concubines. I wondered where it was,” he remarked.

That kind of mention in the Arabic texts indicates both that the Circassians were a non-Muslim nation at the time, but also that at a bare minimum, there was a Muslim presence by way of the captives and their descendants.  

These Circassian captives became famous by their Arabic name, Mamelukes. The Mamelukes would rule Egypt, Syria, Makkah and al-Madinah for three centuries until 1517. No mean feat for a people whom the rest of the ʾUmmah have forgotten. Even if we knew nothing else, this fact alone tells us about the impact of the Circassians on the course of Islām’s history.  

I am not going to go into the pros and cons of their rule, but I shall definitely mention that Allāh used the Circassians to save Islām when they defeated the Mongol hordes at the Battle of ʿAyn Jālūt in 1260. This should earn them a place in our memories, but we have unfortunately not given it to them.

Islām & Russia

The Circassians were blessed with the greatest bounty and also severely tested in the most horrendous manner at roughly the same time. Islām finally entered the hearts of the majority three centuries ago, which is also about the period when the murderous Russians turned their blood-thirsty gaze to the Caucasus in 1714, resulting in over a century of wars, massacres and deportations.

 The Russians did not satisfy themselves with killing humans, but destroyed crops and animals to destroy the population. By 1840 one and a half million Circassians were estimated to have been killed, not including further hundreds of thousands who died during deportations.

The Great Deportation

The Russians decided to deport the entire population from 1860 onward. Yes, the Palestinians are not our first brethren to get this treatment. The Circassians established a parliament in their capital, Sashe, in 1861 and their leader, Haji Qerandiqo Berzedj, begged for international support against the deportation. NOT ONE COUNTRY RESPONDED.

In May 1864, a final battle took place between the Circassian army of 20,000 Circassian horsemen and a fully equipped Russian army of 100,000 men. Circassian warriors tried to break through the line, but most were shot down by Russian artillery and infantry. All 20,000 Circassian horsemen died in that Battle of Krasnaya Polyana, or thereafter.

The deportation was facilitated by the massacre of thousands. The Russians burnt villages, destroyed fields to make it impossible to return, cut trees down and drove the people towards the Black Sea coast. Russian soldiers used various methods such as tearing the belly of pregnant women and removing the baby inside to entertain themselves. Some Russian generals, such as Grigory Zass, argued that the killing of the Circassians and their use in scientific experiments should be allowed.

Ivan Drozdov, a Russian officer who witnessed the scene at Qbaada in May 1864 as the other Russians were celebrating their victory remarked:

“On the road, our eyes were met with a staggering image: corpses of women, children, elderly persons, torn to pieces and half-eaten by dogs; deportees emaciated by hunger and disease, almost too weak to move their legs, collapsing from exhaustion and becoming prey to dogs while still alive.”

— Drozdov, Ivan. “Posledniaia Bor’ba s Gortsami na Zapadnom Kavkaze”. Pages 456-457.

Circassia was a small independent nation on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea. For no reason other than ethnic hatred, over the course of hundreds of raids the Russians drove the Circassians from their homeland and deported them to the Ottoman Empire. At least 600,000 people lost their lives to massacre, starvation, and the elements while hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homeland. By 1864, three-fourths of the population was annihilated, and the Circassians had become one of the first stateless peoples in modern history.

Walter Richmond

Our Priorities

Today the entertainment-driven Muslims only remember Sashe by the Russian name of Sochi, and then also only because of the 2014 Olympics. I do not say that sporting events are forbidden, but I make no bones about my utter disgust at Muslims showing more fanatical zeal at men kicking and batting balls over the state of Islām; more so when these Muslims are scholars, even more so when those scholars have leadership positions over the ʾUmmah and brim with love for Liverpool.  

My Palestinian brothers and sisters! Do not be surprised at the Satanists of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi throwing you under the bus. Even the sincere amongst your brethren have other priorities. Our amnesia over so many other limbs of the ʾUmmah is reminder enough that your Protector, the only one on whom you can on is Allāh, Allāh and nobody else.   

سليمان الكندي

@Sulayman_Kindi