Al-Azhar University was founded in 970 or 972 by the Fatimid Caliphate, is the chief center of Arabic literature and Islamic learning worldwide. By the mid-19th century, al-Azhar was considered the capital of Sunni legal expertise, a main center of power in the Islamic world, and a rival to Damascus, Mekkah, and Baghdad. Below is a rare late-19th-century photo of Al Azhar University in Cairo, where students and teachers are seen engaged in study and discussion.

The colossal Makki Mosque of #Zahedan-#Iran. The style is different bcos it was built for the Sunni Iranians.

𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟲, 𝟭𝟱𝟲𝟲: 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘆𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝟭! On this day, Ottoman Caliph Suleyman, who had set out from Constantinople to command an expedition to Hungary, died before an Ottoman victory at the siege of Szigetvár in Hungary at the age of 71. Caliph Suleyman was known as Kanuni (lawgiver) in the East while West gave him the title of Magnificent. Suleyman was an extremely able administrator and military commander who conquered Tabriz, Belgrade, Rhodes, and Hungarian areas. He was very much respected and feared by contemporaries. 𝗟𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗵 𝗞𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗻𝗶 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘆𝗺𝗮𝗻 👇 "Suleyman was one of the greatest Ottoman rulers. He would define Ottoman Civilization, he brought the state to its territorial zenith, and presided over a great cultural flourishing and codification of laws which made Ottoman Civilization co-terminous with Sunni Islam. " Quote by: Professor Kenneth W Harl (Phd historian from Yale university USA 🇺🇸) 𝗨𝗦 𝗹𝗮𝘄𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗵 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘆𝗺𝗮𝗻 Below is the official portrait of Ottoman Sultan-Caliph Suleyman 1 which hangs inside the chamber of US Capitol (senate). Suleyman is one of the 23 historical figures upon whose reforms American 🇺🇸 laws have been based. Official link of US Capitol website: https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/suleiman-relief-portrait #kanuni #istanbul #usa #american #law #reformer #rhodes #hungary #tabriz

All of these world-renowned heroes were either Ash’aris or Maturidis (Sunnis) in Creed, Followed one of the four Madhabs (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali), and Adhered to a Sufi tariqah (order). Every single one of them. Among the Sufis who aided Islam with the sword as well as the pen were: “Such men as the Naqshbandi Shaykh Shamil al-Daghestani, who fought a prolonged war against the Russians in the Caucasus in the nineteenth century; Darqawi Faqir Al-Hajj Muhammad al-Ahrash, who fought the French in Egypt in 1799; Qadiri Shaykh ‘Uthman ibn Fodi, who led j*had in Northern Nigeria from 1804 to 1808 to establish Islamic rule; Imam Pangeran Diponegoro, The Javanese prince and one of Indonesia’s greatest National Heroes. He fought j*had against the Dutch from 1825 to 1830 and followed the Shattariya tariqah; Qadiri Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, who led the Algerians against the French from 1832 to 1847; Tijani Shaykh al-Hajj ‘Umar Tal, who led Islamic j*had in Guinea, Senegal, and Mali from 1852 to 1864; Muridiyyah Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba, who struggled against the French colonial rule of Senegal in the late 1800s; Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdullah al-Somali, a Shaykh of the Salihiyya order who led Muslims against the British and Italians in Somalia from 1899 to 1920; Qadiri Shaykh Ma’ al-‘Aynayn al-Qalqami, who helped marshal Muslim resistance to the French in northern Mauritania and southern Morocco from 1905 to 1909; Senussi Shaykh Omar al-Mukhtar who led the resistance against the Italian colonization of Libya from 1911 to 1931 and also fought against the French colonization of Chad and the British occupation of Egypt; Shadhili Shaykh Muhammad al-Hashimi who despite his old age joined the ranks against the French colonization of Syria in 1920. He fought alongside many other ‘ulema of Damascus amongst them one of his shaykhs, Shaykh Al-Sharif al-Yaqoubi, who commanded a division of 500 people.” - Reliance of the Traveller - Tasawwuf did not prevent them from serving Islam in any way they could.

In 1164AD, Salah ud Din Ayubi officially became a state employee of the Ismaili Fatimid Empire. He rose up the ranks owing to his charisma and military successes against Crusaders. Salah ud, as a Sunni Muslim began to undermine Fatimid regime by feigning loyalty. He managed to get the rank of a Vizer. After the death of Al-Adid in 1171AD, Salah ud Din Ayubi abolished the Cairo based Fatimid state and established Ayubbid Sultanate with himself as the First Sultan. This shows that Salah ud Din Ayubi was indeed a man who possessed cunningness and also employed deception to achieve his goal of realigning Egypt with the Sunni based Abbasid Caliphate. The force behind Sultan Salah ud Din Ayubi Hazretleri was Sayyidina Abdul Qadir Jillani (رحمه الله تعالی) the leader of all Awliyah, Imam of all Orthodox Sunnis, and the 13th direct descendant of the Fifth Rightly Guided Caliph Sayyidina Imam Hassan ibn Ali رضي الله عنهم. Source: "Saladin" Longman

Naqib al-ashraf ( نقيب الأشراف) was an important governmental post in various different Islamic states like Mamluk and Ottoman Sultanates. The holder of this post was a member of Sayyids or Ashraf class which denoted the rank of supervisor of descendants of Prince of all Prophets, Muhammad ﷺ . The descendants of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ were popularly known as Ashraf and throughout Islamic history. Both Shia and Sunni Sayyids in Ottoman state were accorded special privileges, including personal inviolability, certain tax exemptions and immunity from regular prosecution. In the event of a legal complaint against a member of the Ashraf, Naqib al-ashraf would prosecute and judge alleged offender. This was done to ensure their special place in Muslim society & thus maintain their socio-political privileges to honor them as they were considered a living link to the Noble Prophet ﷺ. Source: The Ottoman State and Descendants of the Prophet ﷺ in Anatolia and Balkans (1500-1700 AD) by the author Hülya Canbaka #prophetmuhammad #sayyid #Muhammad

The primary history sources mention that Mevlana Rumi-originally from Balkh region of Afghanistan-got settled in Konya city of Anatolia (modern Turkey) at the invitation of the Seljuk Sultan Keykubad 1. After his father's death, Rumi took charge of Medressa in Konya and also served as a Qazi or Chief Jurisconsult. He adhered to Orthodox Sunni Hanafi Fiqh and the Maturidi Creed which he had championed all his life. Rumi also gave maximum support to the Seljuk Sultans by commissioning their Jihad against Christian Byzantine state while he spearheaded the efforts for the Islamization of Anatolia by employing many Sufistic cultural traditions such as the Whirling Dervish, Sufi Shrines, Sama (Qawali) and Dawah through his religious followers. The reality is that far from being a mere secular mystic poet, Rumi was the architect of a brilliant Islamic Civilization. These facts are established by majority primary sources. Howcome then Mevlana Rumi be a secularist or anti-Jihad individual? We all must smash the propaganda against Mevlana Jelal ud din Rumi who was a true Muhammadan. Source: "Islamization of Asia Minor" lecture by Professor Kenneth (Phd historian Yale, 🇺🇸). #Rumi #Orientalist #mevlanarumi #Hanafi #Maturidi #Islam #seljuk #anatolia #Turkey #propaganda #Jihad #sejuk #osmanlı #turkish #konya #islamic #rumiquotes #Secularism #mevlana #mevlevi #mevlanacelaleddinrumi

Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadhi (1137 – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the title Salah ud Din ,was the founder of the Ayyubid Sultanate. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first Sultan of both Egypt and Syria. He is popularly known for liberating Al-Quds, the land of Jerusalem or the first Islamic Qiblah. Sultan Salah ud Din spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, Ayyubid territorial limit spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, the Maghreb, and Nubia. The Sultan was indeed Kurdish by race but far from being any ethno nationalist. He was an Orthodox Sunni Muslim and also a disciple of the Sultan ul Awliyah, Shaykh Sayyid Abdul Qadir Jillani (رحمه الله تعالی) the leader of Sunni Orthodoxy and 13th direct descendant of the Fifth Rightly Guided Caliph Sayyidina Imam Hassan ibn Ali رضي الله عنهم . So, Sultan Salah ud Din Ayubi Hazretleri has the honor of having this unique spiritual link which reaches to the King of all Prophets Sayyidna Muhammad ﷺ. [Source: Saladin, Pearson Longman. p. 48] Sultan Salah ud Din was famous for his kind, generous, and forgiving nature. Despite the horrendous slaughter of Muslims by Crusaders' when they originally conquered Jerusalem in 1099, Sultan granted amnesty to all common Catholics and even to the defeated Christian army, as long as they were able to pay the aforementioned ransom (the Greek Orthodox Christians were treated even better because they often opposed the western Crusaders). 20th-century French author Albert Champdor described Sultan Salah ud Din as "Le plus pur héros de l'Islam" (English: The purest Hero of Islam) through his book. As early as 1202/03, Walther von der Vogelweide urged the German King Philip of Swabia to be more generous like Salah ud Din, who believed that a king's hands should have holes to let the gold fall through. [Introduction to the History of the Muslim East, Historical Bibliography. University of California Press. p. 166.] In April 1191, a Frankish woman's three month old baby had been stolen from her camp and sold on the market. The Franks urged her to approach Salah ud Din herself with her grievance. According to Baha ad-Din, Sultan used his own money to buy the child back: He gave it to the mother and she took it; with tears streaming down her face, and hugged the baby to her chest. The people were watching her and weeping and I (Ibn Shaddad) was standing amongst them. She suckled it for some time and then Sultan ordered a horse to be fetched for her and she went back to camp. [Lyons, Malcolm Cameron; Jackson, D. E. P. (1982). Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War] Sultan Salah ud Din died of a fever on 4 March 1193 (27 Safar 589 AH) at Damascus, not long after King Richard's departure. In Sultan Salah ud Din's possession at the time of his death were one piece of gold and forty silver pieces. He had given away wealth to his poor subjects, leaving nothing to pay for his funeral. He was buried in a mausoleum in the garden outside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria. [Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad (2002). The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin] May the Nur of Jenab e Haqq Allah Azzawajal fill the grave of Sultan Salah ud Din. Amin 🤲 #islamicknowledge #tarih #Saladin #Egypt #kurdish #IslamicHistory #March #today #TodayInHistory #knowledge #historical

"The Byzantines tried their best to bribe Seljuk Turks or convince them to convert to Christian Faith but that conversion never came about. The Orthodox Sunni Islam, embraced by the Seljuk Turks in the 10th century, bonded all those Turks together and it was all important, it was the cement to Turkish identity and there is still a close identification of Orthodox Sunni Islam with the overall Turkish identity today. So it's a very very powerful bond that has survived for over a thousand years under Seljuk and Ottoman rule. This bond proved far stronger than the materialism, culturalism, images of imperial grandeur, and the exchanges with Byzantines. So, the Turks largely remain ever loyal to Orthodox Sunni Islam even today" ~Professor Kenneth W Harl (Phd historian from Yale university USA 🇺🇸 ). Taken from Lecture 15 titled "Sunni Islam and Ottoman Civilization". #Sunni #turkiye #turkey #Turkish #byzantine #osmanbey #sejuk #christian #christianity #islamic #islam #identity #cultural #bond #yale #usa #history #historylovers #historical

The primary history sources mention that Mevlana Rumi-originally from Balkh region of Afghanistan-got settled in Konya city of Anatolia (modern Turkey) at the invitation of the Seljuk Sultan Keykubad 1. After his father's death, Rumi took charge of Medressa in Konya and also served as a Qazi or Chief Jurisconsult. He adhered to Orthodox Sunni Hanafi Fiqh and the Maturidi Creed which he had championed all his life. Rumi also gave maximum support to the Seljuk Sultans by commissioning their Jihad against Christian Byzantine state while he spearheaded the efforts for the Islamization of Anatolia by employing many Sufistic cultural traditions such as the Whirling Dervish, Sufi Shrines, Sama (Qawali) and Dawah through his religious followers. The reality is that far from being a mere secular mystic poet, Rumi was the architect of a brilliant Islamic Civilization. These facts are established by majority primary sources. Howcome then Mevlana Rumi be a secularist or anti-Jihad individual? We all must smash the propaganda against Mevlana Jelal ud din Rumi who was a true Muhammadan. Source: "Islamization of Asia Minor" lecture by Professor Kenneth (Phd historian Yale, 🇺🇸). #Rumi #Orientalist #mevlanarumi #Hanafi #Maturidi #Islam #seljuk #anatolia #Turkey #propaganda #Jihad #sejuk #osmanlı #turkish #konya #islamic #rumiquotes #Secularism #mevlana #mevlevi #mevlanacelaleddinrumi