Reform & Revival: The Maccabees
The destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians was irreversibly complete and final. The dispersed Jews lost their distinct identity as they merged with and vanished among the neighboring nations, especially the conquerors. In contrast, the Babylonian exile was only a harsh reminder from Almighty Allah (SWT) to the inhabitants of Judah.
Although the exiles were not subjected to blatant slavery, the impact of captivity was still soul crushing for them. They must have felt humiliated and anguished with the memory of their abject defeat and ongoing bondage, as depicted in the poetry composed during that period (see “Lamentations”’ in the Old Testament). In Babylonia, the Jews were made targets of contempt and derision; they were required to toil hard and pay tribute money in exchange for their existence. Those of noble origin were particularly treated with indignity, adding the pain of insult to their already injured souls.
All this must have melted their hearts and caused them to repent. There were a number of active reformers, both among the captives and among those who remained in Judah, preaching and exhorting everyone to fulfill their part of the Covenant. Most prominent among these voices of reform was that of Prophet Ezekiel, who had been brought to Babylonia during the first deportation in 597 B.C.. He called his people towards God, inspiring them to mend their ways and atone for their sins. He announced that God is going to give the Israelites another chance to repent, and that He will cause them to return to Jerusalem. The following statements are taken from the “Book of Ezekiel” in the Old Testament:
This word of the Lord came to me:
O man, when the Israelites were living on their own soil they defiled it with their ways and deeds; their ways were loathsome and unclean in my sight. I poured out my fury on them for the blood they had poured out on the land, and for the idols with which they had defiled it. I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed in many lands. I passed a sentence on them which their ways and deeds deserved.
(Ezekiel 36:16-19)
It is not for the sake of you Israelites that I am acting, but for the sake of my holy name...I shall take you from among the nations and gather you from every land, and bring you to your homeland. I shall sprinkle pure water over you, and you will be purified from everything that defiles you; I shall purify you from the taint of all your idols. I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I shall put my spirit within you and make you conform to my statutes; you will observe my laws faithfully. Then you will live in the land I gave to your forefathers; you will be my people, and I shall be your God.
(Ezekiel 36:22,24-28)
God’s mercy came in the shape of Cyrus, king of Persia, who, after conquering Media and Lydia, brought the Babylonian Empire to her knees in 539 B.C., thus laying down the foundations of the Great Persian Empire. The very next year, Cyrus authorized the Jews in Mesopotamia to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple at the expense of the royal treasury. He then appointed Sheshbazzar, probably the son of King Jehoiachin, to rule Judah as a semi-independent state. Sheshbazzar led the first group of Jews back to their homeland, followed by another expedition led by Zerubbabel in 522 B.C.. However, because of a number of reasons, the rebuilding of the Temple could not progress beyond the laying down of its foundations. Eighteen years latter, Zerubbabel became Judah’s governor who, supported by Prophets Haggai and Zechariah and the high-priest Jeshua, completed the second Temple in 515 B.C.
In 443 B.C., Persian king Artaxerxes I allowed Zehemiah, one of his Jew attendants, to supervise the building of the walls of Jerusalem, and later appointed him governor of Judah as a separate province. Prophet Uzair (AS) — otherwise known as Ezra — arrived in Jerusalem in 398 B.C., with the mission of reestablishing religious purity and obedience to the Mosaic Law. He persuaded all Jewish men to divorce their pagan wives and proscribed mixed marriages in the future. He also demanded strict adherence to Sabbath and the dietary laws. He took a pledge from his people that they would worship none other that God. A major achievement of Prophet Uzair (AS) was that he re-compiled the five Books of Moses, or the Torah, which were lost during the destruction of Jerusalem.
The process of Jewish revival suffered a set back with the rise of Greeks, and the defeat of the Persians by Alexander in 333 B.C.. After the death of Alexander, his kingdom was divided among his generals. Egypt came under the control of Ptolemy, whose descendants ruled Judah for the next hundred years. Seleucus had established his own dynasty over Babylonia and Syria, whereas Palestine was incorporated into this kingdom by Antiochus III in 198 B.C.
Earlier, Alexander had initiated a policy of implanting the Greek culture — Hellenism — in his conquered lands. As a result, during all these years of Greek rule, the Jews became divided into two groups. Those living in Egypt and other places outside Judah, called “Jews of the Dispersion,” started adopting Greek ideas, dress, language, and life-style. The sacred scriptures had to be translated in Greek as most of them could no longer comprehend their original language, Hebrew. Mixed marriages became common once again, and circumcision was increasingly ignored. A popular Hellensitic idea — that different nations simply worshipped the same God with different names — became acceptable among these “progressive” Jews. On the other hand, there were those orthodox ones — or “fundamentalists” in contemporary terminology — who persisted with the traditional Jewish beliefs and culture, as the spirit of revival infused by Prophet Uzair (AS) was still very active among them.
In 175 B.C., Antiochus IV came to the throne, and used Hellenization to wipe out both monotheism and the Mosaic Law. He promoted Greek customs and ideas with the help of his aristocratic Jewish collaborators. Pagan altars were set up, religious celebrations and services forbidden, circumcision outlawed, and possession of Torah declared a capital crime. This only sharpened the distinction between the progressive and orthodox Jews, and motivated the latter ones to rebel.
An elderly priest named Mathathias rejected the attempts to cultivate and encourage such outrageous disobedience of the Divine commands. He, along with his five sons, started a revolt in the form of guerrilla warfare. Soon, a group of zealous Jews joined them, who were known as “Hasideans,” or the pious ones. An army of devoted Israelites was formed which began a full-fledged revolutionary struggle against their Syrian oppressors, and this came to be called as the “Maccabee” uprising. A long series of battle followed, where these small, untrained, and ill-equipped group of men were able to defeat their much superior rivals. This ultimately led to the establishment of the “Great Maccabee Empire,” marking the second phase of rise and domination for the Israelites.
The religious fervor and sincerity among the Jews, however, started to subside with the passage of time. The love of God began to be gradually replaced by the craving for material comforts and wealth. The spirit of morality disappeared, leaving behind the empty form of rituals. Internal conflicts led to a split among the Jews, so much so that some of them invited the Roman general Pompey to come to Palestine. But once the Roman army had arrived, it would not leave.
The Second Era of Decline
In 63 B.C Pompey, after taking over the old Sleucid Empire of Syria, turned towards Jerusalem. Thousands of Jews were killed during the three month long siege of the Holy City, and by the time the Roman army broke through the walls of Jerusalem, they were killing each other in confusion.
The Romans abolished the Maccabean dynasty and appointed Antipater as their puppet ruler. But soon after Julius Caesar’s murder in 44 B.C, Antipater was poisoned and a civil war ensued in Palestine with different groups vying for dominance. To restore order, the Romans nominated a clever Jew named Herod as their viceroy to rule the Israelites. Herod reigned for the next 33 years by patronizing the Jewish religious hierarchy on the one hand, and propagating the Greco-Roman culture and showing his faithfulness to Caesar on the other hand. In order to demonstrate his loyalty to Judaism, he ordered a reconstruction of the second Temple. The result was the largest and most magnificent building complex of the ancient world. At the same time, the moral degeneration of the Jews continued and reached its lowest ebb during the reign of Herod.
After Herod’s death, his kingdom was divided among his three sons: (a) Archelaus became the ruler of Smaria, Judeae, and northern Edom, but was replaced in 6 C.E. by a Roman governor; (b) Antipas became the head of Galilee and Jordan in northern Palestine; whereas (c) Philip ruled the land between river Yermuk and Mt. Hermon
It is significant to note that during all those years of indirect Roman rule, the Jews had, in general, enjoyed full religious autonomy. The Romans would obviously intervene in matters of political or military nature, but the everyday administration of justice and local affairs — like the Sanhedrin court in Jerusalem — were left wholly to the Jewish officials responsible for applying the Mosaic Law.
It was this Jewish court, Sanhedrin, that convicted God’s last messenger to the Children of Israel —Jesus Christ or Prophet Isa (AS) — of blasphemy, and requested death sentence from the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The collective rejection of Prophet Isa (AS) by the Israelites was not a minor crime in the sight of Almighty Allah (SWT) — as he was Allah’s Rasool, or envoy. This time Divine punishment appeared in the form of Roman armies, and the Holy City was destroyed for the second time.
The Romans had appointed Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, to rule the territories that were once under Herod himself. Soon afterwards, a serious protest against the Romans led to an open Jewish revolt in 66 C.E., which neither King Agrippa II nor the Roman procurator was able to contain. The Romans retaliated with full military might, ultimately leading to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. by the armies of General Titus. The loss of life among the Jews was incredibly high, as 133 thousand are reported to have been killed in Jerusalem alone. Thousands were made slaves, starved to death, or killed in Roman amphitheaters. Herod’s Temple was burned and completely demolished.
Emperor Hadrian later built a new Roman colony, called Aelia Capitolina, over the desolate ruins of Jerusalem. However, the Jews were banished from their Holy City and were not allowed to re-enter for the next half a millennium.
As mentioned before, the advent of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in the 7th century C.E. constituted a golden opportunity for the Jews to escape from the wrath of God the Almighty. They, however, not only rejected the Prophethood of Muhammad (SAW) as a community, but also earned the unenviable reputation of being the worst enemy of Islam and Muslims. As a result, their second era of decline has continued till the present, and they remained, to this date, a condemned and disgraced people. We shall return to this topic after a while.
The rationale behind going through all these details of Jewish history is to be able to see our faces in their mirror. Both the Muslims and the Jews claim to be the followers of a holy messenger of Almighty Allah (SWT), and both were endowed with Divine Scriptures. This in itself constitutes a significant common factor, meaning that the two are essentially similar communities. According to a tradition that appears in Jame‘ Tirmidhi, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is reported to have said: “My Ummah will undergo and experience all those conditions which were experienced by the Children of Israel, just as a shoe resembles its pair.” The parallelism between the history of Muslims and that of Jews is indeed amazing. A comparative study of their past reveals that, like the Israelites, we Muslims have also undergone two phases of rise and two phases of decline, as alluded to by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in the above prediction.
What follows, therefore, is an outline of the history of Muslims vis-à-vis their rise and decline over the last fourteen centuries, and this will clearly demonstrate the points of resemblance between the Jews and Muslims.
The principal reason, however, for presenting this comprehensive yet brief chronological sketch of our past is two fold: First, as far as “rise” is concerned, we need to fully appreciate our past grandeur and glories, so that our younger generations can be motivated to recapture that lost greatness and to try and revive this half dead tiger that was once the Muslim Ummah. Second, with reference to “decline,” we need to clearly understand that Allah’s Justice is the same for everyone, and His laws are permanent and immutable. The manner in which He treated the previous Muslim Ummah — the Jews — was repeated in His dealings with us. When we indulged in the same sins and crimes as were committed by the Jews, we received the same punishment as was given to them.
To begin with, we need to have in our minds a rough idea of the geography of Muslim world. For the purpose of description, the Muslim world can be seen as consisting of three sections. That is, the center or the heart of Muslim world, which is made up of the Arabian peninsula in the south and Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor in the north; the right wing, which extends from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asian republics to Malaysia and Indonesia in the Far East; and finally the left wing, which includes the whole North Africa and, in the good old days, extended even upto Spain.
The Muslim Golden Age
Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was born in 571 C.E., in the predominantly pagan environment of Makkah, and started his mission around 610 C.E at the age of forty. After an exhausting and onerous struggle that spanned 23 years, the domination of Islam was established throughout the Arabian peninsula. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had started the process of expansion, or export, of the Islamic Revolution into the neighboring countries before his death in 632 C.E. This expansion continued unabated during the Caliphate of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman (RAA), when the Banu Isma‘el or the Ummiyeen gushed forth like a mighty flood, and in less than a quarter of a century Iran, Iraq, Syria Palestine Egypt, as well as a major part of North Africa came under their rule. These were the days of pure, authentic, and pristine Islam.
After a brief respite due to internal strife during the Caliphate of Ali (RAA), the process started again during the Umayyad era, and, within a short span of time, new lands were conquered that extended up to Turkestan, Afghanistan, and Sindh in the east, and included the entire North Africa and parts of Europe in the west. Spain was vanquished, and the Muslim armies reached even up to the heart of France. However, with the passage of time, the zeal of establishing the Just Social Order of Islam had started to diminish, and the element of Arab Imperialism began to dominate the Muslim conquests.
The supremacy of the Muslims reached its zenith during the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries C.E., when initially the Umayyads and then the Abbasids held the leadership of Islam as well as that of the Muslims. Strictly speaking, however, only the Umayyad era represents the true domination of pure Arab rule, as the Abbasids were generally infected and spoiled by Persian influences. Still, during this period, Banu Isma‘el were in ascendancy over a big chunk of land, and their culture, civilization, arts, sciences, and religion were dominant. The first three hundred years can therefore be described as the golden era of the Muslim history.
At this juncture, a point of contrast between the Muslims and the Jews becomes apparent. That is, while the first phase of rise for the Muslims began during the life time of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the corresponding period for the Jews could not start until about three hundred years after the death of Prophet Musa (AS). The reason for this difference is that the establishment of Islam as a politico-socio-economic system was achieved, at least within the boundaries of Arabian Peninsula, by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his devoted Companions (RAA). On the other hand the Israelites, by refusing to fight for the Promised Land, had brought the revolutionary process to a halt. Hence the delay of three hundred years.
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