Question:
Please explain the Hadith in Sahih Bukhari (2928) where the Prophetﷺﷺ mentions about fighting the Turks before Qiyamah -Last day.
Answer:
The Hadith mentions fighting the Turks, a people with small eyes, red faces, and flat noses. “Turk” here refers to the Mongol people, not the modern nation of Turkey, which was established in 1923. The Mongols are an ethnic group with the described physical features. This Hadith was a prophecy of the invasion of the Mongols that occurred around 600 years after the Prophetﷺﷺ’s time.
The Mongol leader Genghis Khan and his successors invaded and conquered vast Muslim lands, including Baghdad, ending the Abbasid Caliphate. Scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah have interpreted this Hadith as referring to the Mongols.
Then, as soon as they said “Turk,” now these people in this era have emerged forming groups, claiming that Dajjal has arrived, that this has happened, and that has happened. A group has arisen, and one must ask: what is to be done with them? When they say “Turk,” we see a scene that can be interpreted as a conflict within the country of Turkey. However, a country called Turkey did not exist during the time of Prophetﷺﷺ. When Prophetﷺﷺ said “Turk,” it would refer to Turkey only if the country of Turkey had existed at that time, but “Turk” was not the name of any country during Rasulullah’s era.
The word “Turk” actually refers to the Mongols—that community, their name is the word “Turk.” It should not be interpreted as the country of Turkey. If you ask who the Turkish ethnicity refers to, it is not the people currently living in Turkey. If you ask who the Turks are, they are the Mongols. When a country called Turkey came into existence, it was only in 1923 that a nation named Turkey was established. As far as we know, only about a hundred years ago, a country named Turkey itself was formed.
Before that, the region that included the Ottoman Empire was not called the country of Turkey; it was called the Ottoman Empire. The current Turkey is a part of that Ottoman Empire, but they did not name the country Turkey—it did not exist as a nation-state. It was the Ottoman Empire.
What did Kemal Atatürk do? After World War I, when the Ottoman Caliphate collapsed, he revolted in the region of present-day Turkey and captured that area. Mustafa Kemal is called Atatürk—the father of the Turks. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is the one who founded Turkey. “Ata” means father. Among us Muslims, Hanafis and others use the word “Ata”—that is Turkish for father. So Mustafa Kemal came and became Atatürk, the father of the Turks. He is an enemy of Islam; that is a different matter. In the name of revoLut (AS)ion and many other things, he destroyed Islamic foundations—a bad ruler. Nevertheless, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established Turkey, captured it separately, founded a country called Turkey, and started with Istanbul (Constantinople) as its capital.
Before 1923, for 1,300 years, from the time of the Prophetﷺ (SAW), there was no country called Turkey. It did not exist during Rasulullah’s time, nor during the time of the Companions, nor in the second century, nor the third, nor the fourth. So, when they say “Turk,” if there is a war with the country of Turkey—there was no country of Turkey. They would fight only if a country existed.
If you ask who the Turks are according to the Prophetﷺic description, they are described as having flat noses and small eyes—those Mongols have that appearance. They have flat noses, small eyes, reddish complexions, and broad, wide faces with slanted eyes. Saying you will fight against such a Turk—at that time, “Turk” referred to the Mongol ethnicity, a distinct race. The Mongols, as you can see in China and Japan, have a different kind of face, not like our face. That type of ethnic group is the Mongol race. So, the prophecy said you will fight against the Mongol race, not a war with the country of Turkey.
What did these Mongols do? They came and conquered. They captured Nishapur, Samarkand, Bukhara, and Baghdad. At that time, there was a Caliph named Al-Musta’sim Billah, and they killed him as well. However, the Mongols did not come with religious motives; they were not religious zealots. They did not aim to destroy Islam. They had a specific issue—the Muslims had killed their envoy. When such a problem arose, these Mongols raised an army against the Islamic ruler, against Caliph Al-Musta’sim Billah, and they won, capturing everything, all the territories from the Muslims.
This conquest was under the leadership of Genghis Khan. He looks like a Muslim, but he is not a Muslim; he is a Mongol. He has no connection to Islam. He neither hated Islam nor was he a Muslim. However, he caused great harm to Muslims—not because they were Muslims, but due to some dispute over governance, because they had defied him, or for revenge. He raised an army, and the war that took place under Genghis Khan’s leadership is recorded in history as a war with the Turkic race. From what Prophetﷺﷺ said, if any war occurred with those Mongols, it was Genghis Khan’s war.
After Genghis Khan captured everything, even though he waged war, he did not hate Islam as a religion. He said, “You Christians, Muslims, or any religion—follow your religion as you wish.” Unlike some who impose religion, he captured the country because the rulers had done something to him. He did not show bitterness in religious matters; he was not a king who showed animosity.
Then Genghis Khan’s grandson, whose name is Berke Khan, embraced Islam. After they gained power, he interacted with Muslims. He saw mosques and saw prayers. He liked their piety and worship methods. After embracing Islam, Islam spread tremendously in Russia, Kazakhstan—wherever he ruled, Islam spread.
Similarly, in Persia, the Mongols divided Persia into two and ruled. The ruler in Persia, a man named Ghazan Muhammad, a Mongol king, embraced Islam, changed his name to Ghazan Muhammad, and under his leadership, people accepted Islam. That is how Islam came to Iran. What brought Islam to Iran? The Mongols. The Mongols accepted Islam because they had no hatred for Islam.
Similarly, the spread of Islam in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan—historians mention this as a miracle. Those who came to destroy a race later became the means of spreading that religion. The Mongols did not come to destroy Muslims because they were Muslims; they came to destroy rulers to capture lands for some purpose. After that, without interfering in religious matters, with an investigative mindset, by the time of Genghis Khan’s grandsons, they became lovers of Islam, embraced Islam in their respective regions, and spread it.
This happened 600 years after Rasulullah’s time. What did Ibn Taymiyyah do? In his book Al-Jawab al-Sahih, he explains that these Turks refer to the war Muslims fought when Genghis Khan revolted. Prophetﷺﷺ did not say that Muslims would win in the great war against Genghis Khan’s army and these Turks; nor did they win. In some places, prophecies say you will fight—they only said you will fight, not that you will achieve victory. In the hadith, it says that as long as you keep fighting, the Hour will not come—and they fought.
What was the outcome of the war? Against Genghis Khan, the Islamic states of that time completely lost everything. They were defeated. Many Muslims were killed as warriors. Genghis Khan did not systematically hunt and kill Muslims like others did. In the battlefield, great damage was inflicted upon many Muslims. Prophetﷺﷺ prophesied these 600 years earlier, mentioning this hadith as evidence, and Ibn Taymiyyah cites it in his book *Al-Jawab al-Sahih*. He further says that there are many pages of evidence indicating that this refers to them.
Therefore, the war with the Turks—if anyone mentions “Turk” in a hadith—should not be interpreted as the country of Turkey, because before 1923, there was no country called Turkey. “Turkey” as a country did not exist. “Turk” was the name of an ethnicity with flat noses, broad faces, reddish complexions, and slanted eyes. When they later named the country Turkey, they changed the meaning. After 1923, if “Turkey” is mentioned, it means the country of Turkey. But in the hadiths, when “Turk” is mentioned, it does not mean the country of Turkey; there was no country called Turk.
The people at that time understood that they would fight against such people. The Companions said that Prophetﷺﷺ prophesied that Muslims would fight against those Mongols. They understood that since there was no country called Turk, it referred to the Turkic ethnicity. They would have seen many Mongols, and the description given by Prophetﷺﷺ matched them, so they understood that there would be a war with this ethnicity. It was a prophecy, not necessarily a victorious war—it was a devastating defeat, a complete loss of Islamic rule, a situation where Islamic governance disappeared. Nevertheless, many Islamic countries were established by those very Mongols. They embraced Islam and spread Islam in the regions under their rule—that is the relevant point.
So, it is not a prophecy about the modern Republic of Turkey but about the historic Mongol invasions.