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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Khadijatul Kubra Chapter 20: Khadija and Muslim Historians In their history books, the highest tribute that most of the Muslim historians have paid to Khadija, is that she strengthened Islam with her wealth. They pay this tribute and then they pass on to other matters. It is true that it was Khadija's wealth that made Islam viable; but it is only a partial truth.

There is little, if any, acknowledgement by the historians of what Khadija's support - material and moral - did for Islam and the Muslims.

Far from acknowledging her great services, many of them have either distorted truth or have strangled truth or have cooked up stories of their own, and have dished them out as historical "facts." Not all the history of the early days of Islam is factual; some of it is "synthetic." This synthetic history was written for or was dictated by special interest groups. Many fairy tales found their way into the history of Islam in this manner and Truth was quietly given a burial.

Spinning fairy tales, putting them into circulation and burying truth was a conspiracy in which the leaders of the prayer-congregations, orators of the pulpits in the mosques, teachers in schools, professors in colleges, doctors of law, judges of the courts, courtiers of the kings, sultans and caliphs; and the kings, sultans and caliphs themselves, all had a hand. The historian had little choice in the matter. Even if he was a man of integrity and principle, he dared not challenge the party line.

If he did, he could imperil his own life. If he wrote factual history, his wife could become a widow, and his children could become orphans. He, therefore, adopted the "pragmatic" course. He ditched the truth, and wrote spurious history. Maulana Shibli Numani, the dean of the Indian historians of Islam, writes in his Life of the Prophet, Volume I (Azamgarh, India, 1976), that during the reign of the caliph Muawiya (d. A.D.

680), and the later Umayyads, thousands and tens of thousands of Hadith (1) were churned out by hadithmanufacturing factories, and were put into circulation. "Historians" on the payroll of the government, strung together "fact" after "fact," and incorporated them in their history books. And for 90 years, the names of Ali ibn Abi Talib, and other members of the Bani Hashim were cursed from every pulpit in the Muslim world - from Sind in India to Spain in Europe.