The Martyrs of Cordoba: A Precedent in Provocation | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi | EPIC Masjid

Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillah, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi, wa man wala humma ba'd.

Dear Muslims, to the best of my knowledge, in all of Islamic history, never once have Muslims come and agitated the religious sentiments, mocked the icons of another religion. And if you find such an example, we will categorically state, this is against Islam, against the Qur'an. Allah says in the Qur'an, do not curse the idols, do not make fun of the idols, even though we can debate whether they're real or not. We're expected to give da'wah in an academic manner. But Allah says:

Don't sab-shatim, don't curse the false gods. What are you gonna gain? They're just gonna reply back and they're gonna curse Allah for no reason. In our religion, it is haram to ridicule for the sake of denigration. Yes, we have debates, no question. We have academic debates, but there's a difference. And what is gonna happen on Saturday is meant to be provocative.

This is not the first time. There's a number of incidents. And today we wanna discuss one very interesting incident that has the same philosophy. And we will inshaAllah derive benefits from it.

The Historical Context: Muslim Rule in Andalus

Let us go back 1,350 years. When the Muslims entered Andalus. When Tariq ibn Ziyad in the year 711, when he conquered the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula. And it became under the Muslim rule. And the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty took place. And the Umayyad dynasty made its capital in the city of Qurtuba.

In the year 756, Abdurrahman from the Umayyad dynasty established the Umayyad emirate. And Qurtuba went from a lazy small town to become the most significant city in the world, rivaling only Baghdad. Qurtuba became the magnificent city.

And in the course of the next century, the culture and the language and the religion of the people began to spread. Because the Muslims were in rule, even the Christians began speaking Arabic. The Christians began sending their children to the madrasas because that's where you had the higher education. The Christians of Andalus began dressing like the Muslims, absorbing the culture of the Muslims, marrying the Muslims. And then obviously of course, converting to Islam.

Organically, there was never any forced conversion. Organically, the Muslims went from being 0.01% to eventually becoming 30-40%. By the way, Muslims were never a majority of Andalus, subhanAllah. This is because Islam was never forced. Muslims were never a majority. Just organically people converted. And in particular, in the 800s, the 9th century, there was a mass wave of conversion organically. People began converting.

The Phenomenon of the "Martyrs of Córdoba"

And this resulted in a very interesting phenomenon that is known as the phenomenon of the so-called martyrs of Qurtuba. The martyrs of Qurtuba. This is a phenomenon in which the Christians of Qurtuba divided into two factions.

The majority, the bulk of them appreciated the Muslim rule because the Muslim rule gave them better perks than what their ancestors had. They had more freedoms because the sect that they followed was not the mainstream sect. And so they had more freedoms. The Catholic Church persecuted them. And they were, you know, tyrannical rule. The Muslims gave them more freedoms. I'm not saying it was a liberal democracy. Please don't. I'm not quoting at that picture. It was a different world. And without a doubt, Muslims had the upper hand politically. But Christians were not persecuted for being Christian. They could freely practice their faith. They could have their churches. Yes, they paid jizya. But there was freedom.

The Leaders of the Movement

But a smaller group began to feel that their identity is gonna be lost. What to do? How are you gonna rile up the masses when the Muslims are so powerful? What is the tactic? Two people began a movement. We can call it the beginnings of the far right. This is the colonels.

Two people began a movement. And that movement was primarily directed to other Christians. But of course, who's gonna become the guinea pig, the target? The Muslims. But the reality is this is a debate between the Christian population of Andalus. What to do when we are losing our people? When people are converting? When our culture, and according to their eyes, is being eroded? When the Muslims have the superior civilization and dominance?

And two key figures. One of them was a priest, a monk by the name of Eulogius. Eulogius. And the other was an intellectual, was a community leader by the name of Paul Alvarez. They were friends, they were together. They formulated a plan.

The both of them began riling up the masses against the Muslims. The both of them began writing treatises. We still have some of these treatises. They began claiming that Islam was attacking Christianity. It was, astaghfirullah, the religion of the devil. They started making fun of the Prophet ﷺ. And they told the Christians, you need to preserve your identity.

The Doctrine of Provocation

And Eulogius developed a tactic. He said, we have to die for the sake of Christ. We have to kill ourselves. This was not something that Christianity was accustomed to, the notion of becoming a martyr willingly. For no reason you're trying to kill yourself. Eulogius invented this doctrine. And he began justifying that killing yourself is holy and necessary. We have to preserve our identity by any cost. Because Muslims, he said, are the enemies of Christ. And if we don't do something, we will be gone from our civilization and culture.

And the other guy, Paul Alvarez, also wrote a book called Indiculus Luminis. It's been a long time since I verbalized Latin. Excuse me if I make a mistake here. And this translates as the enlightened treatise. Indiculus Luminis is the Risala Al Muniriya, it's the enlightened treatise. We still have these treatises. And these treatises are very interesting to read.

And he says in it that, O Christians, you are losing your religion. You are adopting Arabic language. You are wearing the clothes of the Muslims. You are dressing and eating like the Muslims. You are sending your children to the Muslim schools. He says, your children are more fluent in Arabic than in Latin. The whole world is changing. And the Christians of Andalus are speaking fluent Arabic. Many of them are converting. Even those that don't convert, they speak Arabic better than they speak their original language.

So he says, you're losing your entire identity. And he criticized the Christians who are employed by the government. The Christians who are ignoring their own identity. And he says that, our people prefer Muslim poetry over the Christian scripture. They can quote you an qasida and shi'r. Why? Because when you go to Muslim school, you'll be memorizing shi'r of the Muslims. They can quote Muslim shi'r.

By the way, today the conversation has flipped. We criticize our children for what? Oh, you speak English better than our native tongue. You can quote this and that better than you can quote this and that. It's exact. It's just a matter of dominant culture, right?

And then he said, that what we need to do is to bring attention to our cause by sacrificing ourselves for the sake of Christ. How so? What are these two people saying?

The Islamic Legal Context

So the law at the time, which is standard normative Islamic law, is public blasphemy, cannot be tolerated. You are allowed to worship in your churches and synagogues. You're allowed to pass your religion down. You cannot go on the street and say something about Allah and His Messenger. This is public disorder. And this is standard mainstream law. This is normative. What you worship in your synagogues and churches, that is completely exempt. You may worship and say, Jesus is the son of God, whatever. You come on the street and you curse the Prophet ﷺ. That is not allowed in Islamic land. There's public order that needs to be maintained.

The both of them began fomenting that we need to be provocative. We need to bring attention to our cause by intentionally blaspheming. Do you see the parallels? The parallels is that they wanna bring attention. That's the parallel. Not the verdict guys. So the far right is gonna come and say, Oh, the verdict, no. The parallel is the mentality. We're losing. How are we gonna bring attention to ourselves? Do something melodramatic. Do something that is gonna draw the world's attention to us. Our people need to see that this is a cause that we have to die for.

The Campaign of Provocation

And so they began publicly doing shatim and sabb of Allah and His Messenger. Astaghfirullah. One of them went out after the khutbah, the Masjid al-Qurtuba, everybody's coming out and he stands in the town center and he starts screaming obscenities. I mean, this is not something that we are going to tolerate in an Islamic land.

The Historical Record and Its Bias

And one by one, the first of them, his name was Perfectus in 850. And now the problem comes, I have to get a bit academic at times as well. The problem comes, the details of this whole episode are only preserved from the same person who began it, Eulogius. The same person who began it, he was the one chronicling. The Muslim chroniclers just have one paragraph that and we're gonna get to what they said. All of these details we get from the biased guy who began it. And he presents a very skewed image which cannot be factually correct.

According to him, the Muslim set up Perfectus and he said that Jesus is, you know, God and the son of God and the executor for this. This is without a doubt not true because Islamic law allows you to speak your religion and to propagate your religion in your church. But something happened and he did some type of sabb and shatim. We don't know exactly because the guy that's chronicling doesn't preserve in public.

And he is brought in front of the judge and the judge asked him, Are you saying can you recant? And he refuses to recant, says, No, I will say this about the Prophet ﷺ. I will say it publicly and I don't want to quote what he said, but you get my point here. Very vulgar. Things are happening here Saturday as well, right? Very vulgar. The judge says to him, You understand the penalty? He goes, Yes, I understand the penalty. Okay, what do you want me to do? And that's like the reality is you are provoking it. So indeed the execution was set up and this sparked a whole series of blasphemers coming out.

The Statistics and Pattern

In the next nine years from 850 to 859, a grand total of around 50 people. Nine years and all of them in Qurtuba. This was like a phenomenon that was local, just Qurtuba. And it was amongst the Christian, you know, a community of Qurtuba, not the rest of Andalus. You know, a fad, you know, this is the riling up that happens, the far right riles up. It was just a temporary fad.

And the next nine years, 50, 48 to 50, we don't know exactly, around nine of them were female nuns. Around 25 were monks and clergy, and the rest were the leaders of the community. So you have more than half were monks and clergy and nuns, more than half. So the primary force are the, you know, the hardcore, the ones that are seeing their religion go, and then maybe 10, 15 of the community leaders.

And each one is basically publicly blaspheming, going out, doing something. Each one is asked by the judge, look, just recant, just get it over with. Are you sane? Are you okay? Just don't say this in public. And they insist to say blasphemy against Allah and His Messenger in order to make that point done. And so this is called the incident of the martyrs of Qurtuba.

The End of the Movement

And according to the Christian side, obviously, the same guy who's chronicling it, by the way, the same person who chronicled it, and that is the Eulogius, the same person who chronicled it, eventually he becomes the last person to be executed. In other words, he began it, and with his execution it ended. It was one person, one guy who began it all. You know, his friend wrote also the books, he was also executed eventually.

Then finally when the guy who began it also joined the crowd, and in 859, he also publicly blaspheme. And when he was executed, guess what, it fizzles out. It was a movement that was began by one crazed lone man who wants to bring attention to this cause, and it simply fizzled out after 859.

Now, the Christian side, obviously, the same person who's recording it, by the way, he was put in jail. He records in jail. We still have a copy of that manuscript somewhere. It was translated into English as well. And so this is the main account with the details.