Khayzuran A Story Of Love, Power & Betrayal | Strength In Stories | Mufti Abu Layth

right moving on to today's story you know what let's begin with uh a story of let me bring this up hey rosa this is a story

of of tragedy ruins clamor glory love and betrayal allah wow let me introduce you to a personality of the past jerusalem

a girl who finds her life thrown into peril and then rises to unfathomable strength and power and then has to grapple with her own demons and leaves bequeaths behind a a a legacy i guess and a story for those who come after allah

her origins seem to be somewhat clouded in mystery some people feel that she was she may have been of persian origin others feel she may have been a barber from northwestern you know north west africa others feel maybe from from yemen nevertheless she is somebody who is in the early era of islam so and this ties in with the story we were looking at last week when we looked at we covered

the end of the the umayyad dynasty and the rise of banla abbas and we looked at personalities like abu jafar al-mansoor and we looked at marwan muhammad or marwan al-himar and we spoke a bit about him and we looked at others as well last week but you will see some some kind of overlap and connect with this story so she's a young girl incredibly pretty and charming very confident talented has you know the gift of the god

she according to different versions of the stories in whether she comes from northwest africa or south arabia or the middle east but she finds herself at a young age just as a teenager getting kidnapped and as you can imagine her world closes before her she is kidnapped and sold off into slavery it is the era we're looking at is just past the kind of 100s

uh it's gone into maybe it's you know it's maybe it's something like the early 120s or maybe it's 1 30 but it's that kind of era the time where it is still the era of the tabe and bonnie omaya has been kind of shaken and and they have come to their demise and we covered that in the previous session and bernal abbas have taken over so they've taken over and they're in control and you had people like abu labasa safam we've spoken about him who's in charge

coming back to her she is going through one of the worst tragedies that could befall anyone she's kidnapped sold off into the markets finds herself a slave being sold into some remote foreign land now because of her kind of enchanting beauty and apparent skills of language and expression because she seemed to be she seemed to have the gift of the garb and very articulate

uh so the person who who kind of ends up with her thinks that i you know maybe this you know she seems to be very precious as a let's say you know i i'm sure i could get a lot of money for a slave like this and in this time the abbasids have already taken over they've taken over and um you know they've kind of established themselves and you've had abu labasa and um as he's and then as

some years pass he dies and you've got uh we've spoken about mansour and we covered that in the previous session he's in control so around this time the person who owns hairosan he brings her to baghdad and abu jafar al-mansoor yeah he brings her to baghdad and takes her and asks to kind of bring it to the palace says look i've got something that you know maybe this may interest the caliph you know something phenomenal

gift special special gift you know so the people say well you know she did she was they say she was incredibly beautiful they say she was somebody that had a you know just these features about her and uh a very kind of um things that they describe about is that she had a way that was that you know sometimes some people have they can have a pride in their own kind of fashion so this is how she seemed like somebody who

seems to do her own thing like she would do her hair in her own kind of style do her not necessarily so kind of almost stands out but not that she's doing it she's just being herself an originality to her and they say that she was brown skinned and very kind of had this kind of glow to her and very articulate and um had this kind of mystique about her so anyway they bring her to the palace and say so the the owner says look you know i know i could offer it to the caliph maybe i'll get something so he takes her there for mansoor kind

of sees her and thinks well hmm you know life of kings huh the kind of the kind of work they have to do they have to decide shall we admit this slave girl or not so anyway he says why not why not so so he kind of here takes the he presses the like button [Laughter] like thumbs up or thumbs down he goes yeah you know lucky you caught me on a good mood so he kind of goes thumbs up and thumbs up so

he's admitted into the royal palace the person gets a handsome payout he's gone what's fascinating is in the royal palace because she seems to be somebody that doesn't need other people's validation and a lot of authors write this about her that she seems to do her own thing like like i mentioned they may seem small these things like you know you do your own kind of hairstyle you do she had her own style of walking her own kind of a style to the dress the way she carried herself now these

things may seem small but in a world where in a day and age where people don't really carry that much originality these things stand out so here she is she's in the royal palace and she's with the rest of the the kind of slaves and she does stuff and here she catches the attention of the prince man the prince she catches the attention of the prince al-mahdi who is abuja from mansur's son so he has a bunch of sons but she catches

his attention but this is a mahdi of his own the rightly guided so his heart gets rightly guided to her hair so no sooner does he see her that he is smitten sweated low he becomes infatuated by it and you gotta remember that you know for princes and for kings and people of they used to always people kind of you know never having to win over someone i guess

because people are always dying to throw themselves at these people but seems to have this kind of self uh i don't know this kind of uh this high level of self-worth that she doesn't do that she obviously catches his attention uh right so she catches his attention but it's you know she's not like throwing herself at him so you've so it's like a cha hard to get so so now there's this kind of

you know push and pull going on in the royal palace mahdi and the more you have to strive to get something the more besotted and passionate you become about it mahdi before he knows it is head over heels madly in love with her son and time goes by some time goes by that he the kheruzan he he asks abu jafar al-mansoor if he can just have her can this one just be mine man this one

this one you're too good you know so abu mansoor is like cool with it so he frees her she's a slave he he gives her freedom she's a freed slave and he marries her like this is already like a what on earth is this guy doing he marries her and when he marries her he's already married to he's got like another wife or two already but he marries and he's like so this becomes a known thing he's so besotted by her and

people can notice this in the royal courtyard as well before you know it what happens is abu jafar al-mansour his time has come and like every insane kullun sin so a time comes where he he passes and the next in line is is who it is going to be is almighty so al-mahdi becomes king he becomes caliph

and he's got a few wives remember he's not just there's a bunch of them including the the daughter of safa that was his his wife as well which i'd introduced safar before so that's like his you know it's like his kind of uncle so so he's got other people who are from the abbasid household they are actual arab abbasid women but is so dear to him that he makes her what would be the equivalent of the first lady the main queen so the kind of head queen

of the palace is always just one and the others are like the caliph's wives so he makes hair his queen no sooner does she become queen that she starts to kind of she starts to um wield command in the royal palace and you have to remember that the mahdi that the caliph who's mati he has to go out on expeditions he has to for example go off to that city and he won't come back till six months and go off to this city and he won't be back till two months and go off on a military

expedition and so is very outspoken she's in the palace when he's gone she's uh you know she's wielding command she's telling people she's telling the wuzara i need this done you better get this done you better get that and because how close she was to the mahdi to the caliph people were just obeying her commands and before you know it she's got this pattern in place that now people first they're doing it because she's you know if they don't listen to her they're worried they're going to get in trouble but now she's assumed that authority

so she's kind of got the control okay so um so she'll tell people i want this done i want that done can you get these can you get that so amidst all of these what she does is she also ensures she has some kid they've already had some kids she is the mother of the famous haruna rasheed who the cali from the thousand and one nights haruna rasheed has an older brother called musa al-hadi or he's just known as alhadi often

she ensures that her her children because remember the caliph has children from other wives as well and some of them her being the queen so she ensures that the her children their names so haruna rasheed and older than him is musa al hadi these two are next as ears to the throne so she kind of has this in line and and one day she says to mahdi when he's kind of doing something

look we should make this official that these two like people should know that they're going to be calif and i want you know it shouldn't just be like a putative but people should kind of really some kind of formal recognition to it so you can imagine this is really infuriating the other wives as well because they've got kids who want their kids to be next in line and mahdi as well starts at some point to get a bit irritated by her control she's like

this one too much control freak man it's like there's control but she's like she might as well be the caliph she's running the show more than he is and so they say that on some occasions they say that maddie started to kind of get a bit you know like he started to feel a bit claustrophobic as well because you gotta remember now it's been years the love has obviously worn off he's like oh yeah

it's like some people say that maybe he even was considering to you know relegate her to a lower kind of ranking or something but i guess it's fate allah and life vicissitudes of life

in kunta blame it or don't love it or loathe it it is destiny even if you get it wrong destiny will still get it right [Laughter] or fate will still get it right and and what happened some people say that he was about to reign in the control of uh jerusalem

and maybe even relegate her and and bring forward a different wife as the queen but he dies so mahdi has a reasonably early death and some people have raised some question marks around his death and they've even speculated did he have something to do with it and why and that's because what's yet to come

so this is the kind of intro you're seeing the rise of khairozan now is in before you fully fledged in all her splendor because the husband is now dead and when the husband is dead the caliph is who now it is al hadi and hadi is putter he is the son and unlike the husband the mother will always have a much greater grip on the sun so maybe on the husband

you know she had some control but on the sun she's got full she's got it on lock she first thing she does is she makes sure everybody gives their baya to hadi and any people that were any kind of potential dissidents she had them crushed very brutal then when hardy's in control because now you have to remember she's the mother she's not the wife she's like the the

queen mother if you like so she was very clear that hardy would sometimes come to do something and she would say that wait a minute just be quiet for a moment and she would dictate the terms and had he found this very offensive obviously as you can imagine he's he's a grown man a young man but he still is he's the is the caliph but this is his mom and you have to remember she's been a dominant personality since ever since even with her husband she was a dominant kind of personality but i suppose the husband still was the

husband and now this is the son so that's his mom and obviously hardy the son had his his kind of imperial duties he did stuff he would have to go as the caylee if you'd have to get things sorted he'd have to kind of do all of that but what happens on a few occasions jerusalem overrules him and oversteps so he on an occasion even says to her that look um the he says that women shouldn't interfere

in the affairs of men you sit back down you know you this one a child you know baby maybe she says to him she of she clearly has zero regard for for any kind of you know prohibitions because at the end of the day she was in control way before him and you have to remember that all these senior guards

the senior ministers have been subservient to her for years because right from when she first married mahdi and mahdi became caliph she would from that time years ago be dictating that do this do this do this and when the caliph would be away she would be telling them people have grown old to that they are accustomed to it so and this and her these to them is this young new caliph but he's like

you know people old habits die hard so and he doesn't want to as well be you know it's difficult because he as well doesn't know what do i do because i can't exactly just you know say mother i can't exactly do that so so this kind of what happens is a bit of a tit-for-tat kind of scenario starts there's some you can feel some tension occasionally that's that's rising and um and clearly has her her way

so at some point clearly disregards the caliph and instructs something whilst he's away she says it doesn't matter i'm telling you you do it this way he finds out he's had enough so hardy is so fed up with her that he comes to her and he gets into this altercation and doesn't know what to do so some people say somebody gave him an idea some people say he thought of himself he thought you know what

yeah there's only one way he thought to get to give a send-off to my old mother and that is you know i might as well lay her to rest now you've done enough work you might as well uh you might as well taste it as well [Laughter] so what he does is he has this special dish made for her and he puts poison in it

see how the hearts turn allah so what happens is he feeds her this dish has this special dessert dish created she when he gives her the dish she thinks sudden certain

compassion for your mother has sudden compassion where this goodness coming from so she goes it looks like something's up so she feeds it to her dog dog dies [Laughter] the dog's dead so dog dies she turns up to to see a son son looks at her and says ah he says uh did you have the food she says yeah it was really tasty

so and he makes a comment like well hmm clearly not tasty enough huh and he makes this kind of comment that she she as well knows that hmm okay so it's got onto this so the gloves are off it's like that like this now huh so what happens is she she now tells haruna rasheed the other son who's a few years younger than hadi she tells him that look you know can you believe he tried to poison me

now obviously you have to remember people are all confused the brothers loyalties as well because he's obviously he can see that the mother does have this kind of overstepping personality but you know on the same hand he's thinking what the hell did he poison our mom but then he's thinking did somebody else put the poison in there did you know i don't like what's going on so hardy can see that haruna rasheed and the mom are

seen quite close these days and he thinks to himself you know what i can't hmm he thinks haruna rasheed is you know what he is my brother [Laughter] he's my brother but don't you think high power power they say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely so he thinks you know after me after the elder brother it's meant to be the other brother harun rasheed who's

next in line he thinks that what if i change it to make it my son so he has he has children they all have children he has children his son i i think his name was jafar he thinks what if i change it because i'm right now in charge if i change it and put my son in charge next as the ear as opposed to my brother now now he hasn't changed it yet but this news because he discusses it with someone because he thinks do you think i

could pull it off now as they say the walls have ears huh so this news starts to travel people say haruna rasheed hears of it as well and hears about it she realizes look the dad as in her son hadi he clearly doesn't like her hair his son is definitely going to hate her because he's a step removed this is her own son try to poison her

so what do you think about the grandson so he's definitely gonna have zero regard and he's gonna strip her of all her powers as hadi has been trying so hardy at one point as well he has this palace made somewhere and he tries to relocate the mother hair he says look why don't you go there and have an easy life and chill and she's thinking

it's okay man i'm gonna own my own story don't worry about it so this is going on what happens whilst all of this is taking place alhadi falls ill so he gets some kind of a fever and he has to and he has to he's bedridden for a good few days and that's common like to get some kind of a fever and so but in his in in his weakness because he's bedridden

seizes the opportunity dare i say and according to many historians what she does is she gets she bribes or gets on her side several of the concubines that are hardies the the caleb's concubines but she gets them on board and that night she says that as he as you give him medicine tonight and you kind of lull him to sleep and he falls asleep i want you to smother him

till death and that's exactly what they do and describes it in his writing as she tells them to to sit on his face i mean it's a bit of an imaginative imagination right there that ibn is is writing away with but they smothered till death and he's found dead in his bed in the morning and that leads on to the rise

of haruna rasheed as the next caliph and within a few years uh heideuzan has her natural death i mean she's lives in uh a relatively long life but she she has a natural death and dies naturally this story what it leaves in its trail is a figure a woman who comes out of nowhere in islamic history in a time where caliphs were powerful still you see this is early islamic history

this is not like after that after the 200s the caliph start to just be people by name this is still early islam and when the taba in are alive when imam abu hanifa is live when imam malik is alive this is that kind of time calips are still powerful she rises out of the blue as a slave rises in the ranks in the palace influences people with her sense of fashion has women folk copying her hairstyles

captivates the heart of the prince not only is freed and makes her marry her but makes him select her as the main as the queen to the caliph and nominate her children as the ear she then goes on to dominate whilst the caliph reigns and after his death eclipses the caliphate of her son alhadi to the extent that when her dominion is

jeopardized and questioned she kills her own blood to keep control of the power she once heard allah what a figure wow such honestly just a uh just unbelievable

so many you know all striking power striking kind of ingredients brought together in a single element in jerusalem and they say about her by the way she she was she was very learned she was a student of imam mozar she would learn from imam azer she learned from sofiana thori these are contemporaries of people like imam abu hanifa this is who she was she was actually very intelligent wasn't just someone that was uh

very articulate she in in its narrated that on one occasion her husband was going to marry again so he already had other wives but then he had her then there was the love story he loved and for a while he was derailed from

right so she was at one stage he was going to murray again and she says to him it's not halal for you to take another wife and he says allah says you know what and then he says i've got three i think he had three he says i could take a fourth so she says that i'll she says no she says bring a scholar and i'll prove it to you so he actually brings sofiana thori and she speaks to sophiana thori now i don't know whether it was her

personality that weighed in on sofiana thori or sofiana thori just happened to side with her but in that sitting he sides with her and he tells the caliph the caliph reads that verse to him sophia and authority that allah says marry two three in twos threes or fours and then sufyana thought he says to him but finish the ayah complete it and then he completes it because the rest of the verse says foreign but if you fear that you won't do

justice for then just one and sophia natholi says to the caliph mahdi that you won't be able to do justice so just the one so it's it's interesting that how she has um such influence and i'll tell you those of you that remember from last week we spoke of uh marwan

now there's an incident in when she is in the palace one day and she's in full control things are in full swing that somebody comes to her and says there's a woman at the door like at the royal court and she wishes to speak to you and they say who is she and they say well she seems to be in very disheveled kind of uh attire and clothing like absolutely disheveled but she seems like she's incredibly beautiful and she seems incredibly

eloquent so she seems to be someone who maybe is of a some stature but apparently she looks like as though she's some homeless woman but she's very eloquent so jerusalem says call her written so she comes in and and they described that she is this really pretty beautiful lady standing there that she speaks to them and she says that i've come to you asking you uh for some help and they say well what's your story and she says that i am musna her name is musna

they say who's that who are you she says i'm the wife of marwan muhammad she says and the caliph of the umayya bani umayya and those of you that remember that story that i i mentioned about muslim and that whole battle and the abbasid taking over and she says that you know we were in great opulence and great prosperity and and then tragedy fellas

and i'm now in this disheveled state and i stand here before you at your mercy so when she says this there is there is a there's other people present and there's this lady zainab who is the knees of ibrahim al-imam which we also spoke of last time who appoints abu muslim and he's in the prison and he dies in the prison he's the one of the founding fathers of the

abbasid movement so zainab speaks up and she says to her well may allah ruin you further and everybody looks at her like oh what's wrong with you and she says that don't you remember that i came to you many years ago she got several not many but several years back i came to you in your palace asking you to release the corpse of my uncle ibrahim al-imam and you had me removed from your palace

do you not remember that and mozana says she says she says that we are today as in herself we are today where we are because of how we behaved she says don't bring the same consequences upon jerusalem like you came to me and i wronged you and i'm meeting my consequence today

don't be in the same position where you do that to yourself and they say kheruzan said that she's right and she called her in and she said that don't worry and she kind of sent her with some of the slave girl and said that look take take care of her so they say later that day some people say it was the husband mahdi was still alive at that point he came home or he comes to the palace and he sees

like kind of in a very you know in deep thought and he asked someone hey what's up with her and what happened today and they say well musna came and they say he says who's muslim and they say you know the wife of marwan al-himar and he says okay and he says what happened and they tell him the story that she came and she said these things that you know she said uh i was uh she says i you know was uh

was in this prosperity and i was in this palace before and we were in it and so on and so forth and look at me today and and all of these things and i'm at your mercy and she was very eloquent and she was incredibly um you know remorseful so he says okay and he says and what did they do they and so the slaves tell him that well took her in so he says okay and he says where she's staying and they say she's staying in this with this servant in this quarter whatever so he has that servant brought and he asks him he says

he says how is she and the servant says she's fine you know he says did she say anything have you heard her muttering speaking he says she's just mainly in that room he says i approach he says i was listening outside and i heard her reciting a verse of the quran and he says what verse says i heard her reciting

that she was reciting that allah gives the example of a settlement whose are safe in prosperity and bliss and their risk comes to them from every corner of that they were ungrateful and then allah allowed them to face their consequences they say this hit mahdi so much that he

he called musna and he said to her that you know he said if it wasn't for the fact that i don't want your people to ever have a say in this affair as in this kingship of ours he said i would have married you today for that he says but i what i do will tell you he says is that you will forever can stay in the palace amongst us

as a member of our family like you can live here amongst he says my sisters my wives my women he says you will you know as long as you live you can live here and she did muslim remained in the abbasid in the palace till she died these you know just so you know you learn about these incidents and these characters they come to life just the the kind of tragedies their encounters the successes the glory the

the love the betrayal the islamic element to it it all just really springs alive in front of you this is why i i love sharing these stories with you guys because it's something which you know it's it's it's important it really brings it's more than just a story it connects to a heritage and this is why i really encourage you all to learn i hope that's been of some

uh benefit will move on inshaallah all right so somebody said is that a woman of of quite some mystery um

all right what's this question see that's an interesting personality not the questioner but the name is the he is the third abdul rahman of the uh of this of the spanish bani omega the most powerful muslim ruler and the most powerful ruler in his time in the world he declared

he declared the cortoba caliphate a global caliphate as in what that means is and he said i'm the number one guy in the world and people whether they accepted it or not but he was the most powerful in his time maybe someday we can speak about him the third