Muhammad a Prophet For all Humanity
15. The Qur’an—The Prophet’s Miracle
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During the reign of the caliph Mutawakkil (A.H.
207-247), large numbers of ‘Ajamis—especially
Iranians and Turks—entered Arab territory. In 656
the Mongolian warrior Hulaku Khan sacked
Baghdad. Later the Islamic empire received a
further setback when, in 898, Andalusia fell to the
Christians. The Fatimid dynasty, which had held
sway in Egypt and Syria, did not last long either: in
923 they were replaced by the Ottoman Turks in
large stretches of Arab territory. Now the centre of
Islamic government moved from Cairo to
Constantinople; the official language became
Turkish instead of Arabic, which continued to
assimilate a number of foreign words and phrases.
The Arab world spent five hundred and fifty years
under the banner of Ajami (non Arab) kings. Persian,
Turkish and Mughal rulers even made attempts to
erase all traces of the Arabic language. Arabic
libraries were burnt, schools destroyed; scholars of
the language found themselves in disgrace. The
Ottoman emperors launched an anti-Arabic
campaign, fittingly called
“Tatrik al-’Arab”
(Turkisation of Arabs) by the well-known reformer
Jamaluddin Afghani (1838-97). But no effort was
