The beginning of falsification of Arab heritage
On the day Salim I stole the Citadel of Aleppo
Theft is not permissible in Islam, but it is considered a legitimate matter in the Sharia of the Ottoman Empire, evidenced by the fact that these bad habits were inherited by the men of their army and their officials in all the places that they colonized in terms of land, thought and culture. The history pages are riddled with humiliating slaps in connection with Istanbul’s claim that it is an Islamic country that respects integrity and human values.
The Turkish used to steal Arab heritage and its unique exploits. For the Arabs, this is due to two reasons: The first is the fulfillment of the desire hidden in the minds of the Ottomans, those who are accustomed to mistreating the Arabs, as well as humiliating and insulting them and violating their intellectual rights. The second: that the Turkish state does not rely on a solid foundation of history and culture that qualifies it to produce timeless and unique outputs of its own that achieve the goal of its pride if it so desires. In addition to adopting the “Mamluk” system with the subjects of the states and societies subordinate to them. The people, money, culture, and land are a solution to the whims of the Istanbul regime as if it were theirs. This Turkish obsession appears by excluding everything that belongs to the Arabs in order to falsify it by forcibly adding it to the Turkish culture, or robbing it of its original cultural home and stripping the Arabs of it.
They robbed everything that belonged to the Arabs and forcibly added it to the Turkish culture.
The Ottomans were accustomed to mistreating Arabs and squandering their rights.
One of the evident stories of history is the story of the Egyptian Mawlid tent, in which the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday was held and the Ottoman Salim I (1520 AD) admired it. Considering that the Ottomans are Sufis, the Prophet’s birthday is a Sufi custom compatible with the Ottomans. All the revelers were astonished by the Egyptian tent, with its magnificent drawings, attractive inscriptions and bright colors. Ibn Iyas described it in his book “Badi` Al-Huzur” as one of the wonders of the world, as no such thing was ever made. Its cost was 30,000 dinars, which was an incredible amount at the time. Salim I underestimated the Egyptian Arab creativity by selling the tent to Moroccans for only four hundred dinars. This was in order to reduce its heritage and aesthetic value, so the Moroccans cut them into pieces and people bought these pieces, using them as curtains for their homes and as a cover for their tables. Salim’s behavior was nothing but malice and an understatement of Arab-Islamic culture. Evidence of history in the Ottomans’ attempt to degrade and reduce the creative Arab culture data are numerous, similar to what Ibrahim Pasha did in Egypt by robbing great money, antiques and rare pieces from which he gifted pieces of gold encrusted with great jewels to Sultan Murad.
The stories of Salim I stealing Arab heritage after his conquest of the Arabs are very sad, especially as he realizes the importance of Arab funds and Arab heritage, and its importance in supporting the Turks’ cultural deficiencies, especially since they do not have a firm identity. Among the things that clarify this when Aleppo fell into the hands of Salim I and seized the possessions of its famous castle; seeking to obliterate its cultural and civilizational identity, and to remove the elements of its history that links it to its ancient Arab and Islamic past. He ordered his soldiers to dismantle the marble of the Bisariya Hall and Dehaisheh, the Hall of the Sea, the Grand Palace and other sites in the castle, and he also ordered his soldiers to dismantle the porphyry columns that were in the Grand Iwan, to establish a school in his name in Istanbul, such as the School of Sultan Al-Ghuri. He could have established the school without demolishing and sabotaging the Al-Ghuri School and violating the intellectual rights and architectural values of that historical school that has brought forth generations with a goal of academic excellence and distinction.
The Egyptian Mawlid Tent cost 30,000 dinars and was sold for 400 dinars in favor of the Ottomans.
You can imagine the scene of the Ottomans, who carried out this destruction of the components of the school in Aleppo, brutally attacking the classrooms, taking the porphyry and colored marble from them, as they destroyed several halls of the Muslim endowments and the homes of the princes of that school. This scene reminds you of the Mongol attack on Baghdad, and the painful facts against the scientific and intellectual heritage, as well as crimes against human thought, which are described by the sources of history. This is probably because the Ottomans share a common malevolent gene with the Mongols, given that they have a genuine ethnic relationship. Just as the Mongols burned the libraries of the Abbasid capital and threw their books into the Tigris and Euphrates River until its water became blue, the Ottomans are no difference from them when they stole the precious books and the rare manuscripts from Al-Mahmudiyah school and Al-Mu’ydiyah school, and from all schools in Syria. This included in particular Aleppo, which prior to that date, produced hundreds of legal and linguistic books; It was led by students and disciples of knowledge from various parts of the Islamic world, and then they transferred them to Turkey after they controlled them. This is a failed attempt to transfer science centers and incubators to the Turkish sector to reinforce the Ottoman political centralization which has a weak historical reference, and to empty the Arab world of its scientific status.
This looting incident was not the last, but was followed by various incidents, although they differed in their locations and dates. The clear evidence of this is the museums that Turkey established with the thefts of its soldiers during the battles of its colonization of different countries of the heritage, especially the Arab one, which represents a historical competitive advantage for the Arabs over other peoples, including the Turks who came from Central Asia who only bear the idea of blood and death. History has allowed them to create a sprawling and torn country, and they found the truth about themselves after entering these countries that most of the world’s people have a heritage and value, and they only possess a culture of arms.
1. Boulos Massad, The Ottoman Empire in Lebanon and Syria (Beirut: 1916).
2. Abdel Moneim Al-Hashimi, Encyclopedia of History of the Arabs in the Modern Era (Beirut: Al-Hilal House and Library, 2006).
3. Muhammad Kurd Ali, Khotat Al-Sham, 3rd Edition (Damascus: Al-Nouri Library, 1983).