The
Advent of Nadir Khan in India
When Nadir Shah Irani landed on
Indian soil and the Indian king brought him to Delhi as a dear guest with peace
and friendship, someone in an intoxicated state at a bar said, "Ha! What a
magnificent work Mohammad Shah has done by bringing Qazalbash into the fort and
having him killed by female guards!" This mindless group with these words
let the heads of the Iranians in Delhi get chopped off. At last being compelled
Nadir Shah ordered a general massacre in Delhi and it was of such a magnitude
that Delhi had not seen the like of it until date. So, it is in the same vein
that someone has narrated the cause of Jafar Barmuk's death and said:
"Haroon Rasheed Abbasi had a
sister named Abbasah bint Mahdi. He loved her very much. Similarly Jafar bin
Yahya, the Prime Minister was also his companion and friend who always lived
with him. Haroon used to drink with Jafar and Abbasah. Just as he wanted his
sister to participate in drinking, similarly he wished his Prime Minister Jafar
to keep company with him. So, he had Abbasah married to Jafar so that their
meeting and seeing each other without a veil might be lawful. But Jafar and
Abbasah were sternly warned that they should not establish physical relations
with each other. But they failed to abide by it. When Haroon came to know of it
he had him murdered and thus ruined his entire family."
When the novelists and educated
ignorant of our times laid their hands on such nonsense, they polished it and
propagated this falsehood so much that he who reads these books reposes more
faith in it than Quranic verses and Hadith and does not like to hear anything
to the contrary.
This canard was authored hundred of
years after Jafar's death and Tabri has mentioned it in his book. As the
incident contains novelty and was uniquely narrated, wonder loving minds were
inclined to it and no one has missed recording this rumor since and we too
unfortunately have to refer to this unpleasant story. Tabri and other
historians have given other causes as well. But few of them have tried to use
wisdom and common sense by discriminating and selecting genuine incidents.
1. Haroon Rasheed is the fifth caliph
among the Abbasids. The Abbasids prided themselves on being superior to all
Arabs in respect of family honor and race. The entire Arab world recognized
their ancestral superiority. It was their family honor that propelled them to
rise against Banu Umayyah and they met with success. When they came into power
as ruler and caliph of the entire Islamic world, their pride of race increased
even more. Arab prejudice and the sense of respect were deeply ingrained in
them. In this case, how was it possible for a caliph like Haroon Rasheed to
have his sister married to a man that he regarded as a Zoroastrian slave's son
and grandson of a man of an unknown father? Admitted, he addressed Jafar as his
brother and his father as "respected father" because he was his
tutor. But at the time of marrying his sister, he could not overlook nation.
family and race. If he had turned liberal minded in respect of marriage like
the modern people, his relatives who had a single lineage and were in good
numbers, could not remain mute spectators at this familial dishonor. Similarly,
Abbasah too could not have tolerated such humiliation.
2. It is beyond comprehension that a
religious minded man like Haroon Rasheed who went on Hajj and Jihad every
alternate year and who was the chief and caliph of the Islamic world could have
held drinking parties. If a caliph in Banu Umayyah had taken date juice wine,
it created a stir in the whole world and historians have continued to mention
this evil act in particular until the present. However, Haroon Rasheed who
visited the meetings of the scholars and Allah-fearing devotees while alone and
sat on tattered mats and wept bitterly while listening to their sermons, how
could he have anything to do with wine an impure and dirty thing like urine?
Elders like Fudail bin Ayad, Ibn Sammak and Sufyan Thauri were his friends and
companions. A man who performs his Salat five times a day with great
regularity, with humility and piety especially the pre-dawn prayer which is
performed an hour and a half before sunrise, coupled with hundreds of
supererogatory prayers daily, how shameless and injustice it is to call such a
man drinker of wine. How can a man who attended a wine party in the night
participate in the pre-dawn prayer? How can humility and piety be found in the
prayer of a man who is in the habit of taking wine?
3. The scholars in Iraq had given a
fatwa about the legality of nabeedh, a mixture of dates and water, and some
wealthy people used it but it cannot be connected with the intoxication found
in wine. It has never been proved that Haroon Rasheed ever used date-juice or
held such a party as mentioned in these false narratives. Until Haroon
Rasheed's regime the simplicity and military life of the Arabs persisted which
did not include taking wine. The Arab nobility claimed by Haroon Rasheed always
condemned wine as an evil so much so that the nobles in the days of ignorance
(the period before Islam) never touched it nor did they consider it a proper
act of the nobility. That was why the Prophet, Abu Bakr and many others of the
nobility of the Arabs never touched it even during the days before Islam.
Haroon Rasheed could not accept this lowness and depravity in violation of the
Islamic instruction.
4. Even in the present irreligious
condition nobody, however mean and low and addicted to taking wine in public he
might be, would like his sister to drink with him. The drinkured people even
they would not like to start a drinking session with other men taking their
sisters with them. How could Haroon Rasheed Abbasi who had Tabiyyen, (those who
were with the companions of the Prophet) and Taba-Tabiyeen, (those who were
with the Tabiyyen,) at his court have committed such a shameless act without
dying of shame?
5. Those who are addicted to adultery,
theft and drinking, generally try to prevent their relatives from doing such
things. If Haroon Rasheed had been habituated to it, he could not have
persuaded his sister to follow suit. Probably his beloved wife Zubaidah, whom
he loved very much, would have been the first to partake it with him. But none
has indicated anything of this kind about her and her life is impeccable on
this matter. How surprising is it that there were regular and constant
recitations of the Qur'an at her palace while her dear husband was drowned in
wine?
6. The historians have written with
confidence that there was a Jewish doctor named Jibrail at Haroon Rasheed's
court. He partook a meal with the caliph and when he saw harmful things, he
stopped him from eating it. Once fish was served to the caliph and he wanted to
eat it but the doctor requested him not to and asked the cook to take it away.
By chance, one of the caliph's servants found Jibrail eating the same fish at
his residence. Then it was suggested that the doctor himself wanted to eat it
and so prevented the caliph from consuming it. The servant communicated this to
Haroon. It was a small incident and Haroon Rasheed could have said nothing to
him except laugh it off. When the doctor came to know that the caliph was
informed of the incident, he put three pieces of the fish into three separate
bowls. He put meat and other things eaten by the caliph into a bowl and mixed
them. He put ice water in the second bowl. He then poured wine in the third bowl.
Then he presented the three bowls before the caliph and said, "The first
two bowls contain what you have eaten and the third contains what I have
eaten." When he looked into them, he found that the contents had rotted
and were giving off a bad smell. However, the bowl that contained the wine and
fish had not rotted. The doctor saved himself from being put to shame and
explained to the caliph, "As I take wine, the fish was not harmful to me.
And as you do not take wine, I stopped you from eating it." This episode
bears proof that Haroon Rasheed abstained from wine.
7. Actually, Abbasah was married to
Mohammad bin Sulaiman. When he died and she became a widow, she was then
married to Ibrahim bin Saleh bin Ali who was Haroon Rasheed's close relative
and descendent from Abbas. To attribute such a falsehood to such a noble and
pious lady is a proof of the lowness of the liar. He who tries to prove
falsehood to be a fact is certainly a man of devilish nature. The strangest
point in this allegation is that Haroon took care of following the Islamic law
in finding a legal way to allow Jafar and Abbasah to look at each other but he
forgot the Islamic law concerning drinking.
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