The Prophetic Advice to Desist from Ethiopia

دَعُوا الْحَبَشَةَ مَا وَدَعُوكُم، وَاتْرُكُوا التّرْكَ مَا تَرَكُوكُم
“Leave the Ethiopians so long as they leave you, and desist from the Turkic nations, so long as they desist from you.”
[Abû Dâwud's Sunan, an-Nasâ'î's Sunan, and others]

Failure to follow the aforementioned advice of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) has had devestating consequences in Islamic history. If one observes the map of largely Muslim North Africa, one can’t help but notice that in a solid belt of Muslim nations one finds the Christian nation of Ethiopia sticking out like a sore thumb. This is because the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula remembered well the advice of their resident and Prophet who had shown great tolerance and respect for the Christians of Ethiopia, then called Abyssinia or “Habasha” in Arabic.

Little know facts from al-Dhahabî’s Sîyar

Sîyar A`lâm an-Nubalâ’ penned by al-Dhahabî is a magnum opus of biographical works. One will find many details about great notables in Islamic history that are hardly known.

Ibn `Arabi’s Classifications of Tawhîd

It is interesting to note that Ibn Taymîyyah’s explanation of Tawhîd (Islamic monotheism) by designating 3 categories is not exclusive to him. Below are excerpts from Muhyî ad-Dîn ibn `Arabî’s work of Sufi enlightenment entitled al-Futûhât al-Makkîyyah.

Bernard Lewis’ “Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Inquiry”

Below are some excerpts from Bernard Lewis’ Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Inquiry which give some interesting perspectives on slavery in Islam. Bear in mind Bernard Lewis is a notorious historian and scholar of modern Western Orientalism and he is far from being an Islamophile.

`Abdul Qâdir al-Jîlânî’s Censure of Theological Dialectics

Shaykh `Abdul Qâdir al-Jîlânî has for centuries been iconic of Sufism and considered its most exemplary standard of Sufi saints. In our times Sufism has become nearly synonymous with Ash`arism, however, what many do not know is that this is a purely modern phenomenon which resulted from the political alliances made between the Ash`arîs and successive Muslim Empires. This culminated with the Ottomans who aggressively routed out their rivals, the Hanbalîs, from many parts of Iraq, Syria and Egypt where they had been a formidable force of scholarship for hundreds of years. `Abdul Qâdir, endearingly called “Ghawth al-A`zam“, was one such monolithic scholar in the Hanbalite tradition. The greatest irony is that he stood diametrically opposed to everything most of his modern day followers espouse. He was a bitter opponent of Ash`arism and the Ash`arî practice of `Ilm al-Kalâm, or Theological Dialectics.