Is there a connection between the Battle of Bayang in Lanao, Bangsa Moro in 1902 and the Battle of Karbala in Iraq in 680 CE? A distance of 7900 kilometers and a period of 1222 years separate them.
In May 1902, some 1,200 American soldiers attacked two Mranao cottas in the pangampong (state or principality) of Unayan.
The Americans brought with them an imam from Afghanistan as their translator. He spoke Arabic. The Bayang camp also had an Arabic-speaking imam. He came from South Arabia known as Felix Arabia or Yemen. The Americans gave their demands and the Mranaos rejected them.
There was fierce fighting. American newspapers at the time described the fight as “the fiercest battle of the entire Philippine insurrection.”1
But the failure of the neighboring datuships / sultanates to bring in reinforcement – thanks to the efforts of Capt. Pershing and his Mranao friends – the superior arms of the Americans finally prevailed. About 200 Moros were slain including the Sultan.
The Mranaos call it the battle of Padang Karbala, to recall the massacre and martyrdom of Hussayn, the Prophet Muhammad’s (p.b.u.h.)* grandson and his family against the enemies. It became the symbol of Mranao resistance against American rule. And for about a dozen years more, the Moro Rebellion continued.
According to stories by the elders, when the Americans finally entered Bayang, the town proper was empty. Then they saw an Arab sweeping the grounds of the mosque. The Americans immediately fired several rounds at him, but the bullets simply went past him. He was the same person who spoke with the Afghani interpreter before the battle.
That Arab was my great-grandfather, al faqih Sheikh Yahya ibn al faqih Sheikh Hadi of the Sultanate of Lahej in Yemen. He was popularly known as Shaykh sa Yaman.
WHY KARBALA?
According to my mother, her grandfather al faqih Sheikh Yahya ibn al faqih Sheikh Hadi was somehow connected to the Imamate in Yemen. In Islam, the Imam is the leader of a congregation or even a state. Among the Shi’a, the head of state Imam must come from the family of the Prophet through Fatima and Ali. My mother said that according to her father, they come from the family of the Prophet himself.
When I went to Saudi Arabia, my best friend and classmate asked me about my Arab ancestry. I told him that my grandfather’s name was Sheikh Ismail ibn Yahya from Yemen. He said, “Oh, you’re one of them.” I asked, “One of what?” He said, “Descendants of the great Imam Yahya!”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I remembered my mother talking about the Imamate in Yemen. I took it for granted that my grandfather’s family was connected with it.
I found out that the Hashemites (descendants of the Prophet) in Yemen ruled parts of Yemen as Imams. Imam Yahya a.k.a. Al-Hadi ila’l-Haqq Yahya was the first Zaydi imam who ruled portions of Yemen from 897 to 911. His descendants ruled Yemen intermittently until the North Yemen Civil War in 1962. But they were Shi’a. My great-grandfather was Sunni.
My classmate once pointed out to me a group of guys and said, “Look! Those are your cousins.” They were the Hamidadeens of the North Yemeni royal family. They were our schoolmates. I thought that there was a disconnect somewhere. They were Shi’a. I was Sunni. My grandfather and his father were Sunnis. My best friend and classmate was a Shi’a.
PADANG KARBALA
When I was a kid, my mother kept on talking about the Padang Karbala or Battle of Bayang. She even talked to Filipino directors about producing a film about Padang Karbala. She wanted to get Omar Sharif and Ricardo Montalban to star in it.
I thought that Padang meant a hill or a huge mound and that it was named Karbala. The battle between the Americans and my mother’s forebears took place there.
When my Shi’a classmate told me about the Battle of Karbala — the original Battle of Karbala — I was confused. Why would the people of Bayang call the first battle with the Americans as Padang Karbala? Their religious leader — an accredited faqih (jurist) from Yemen — was Sunni. I couldn’t put heads or tails as to why my great-grandfather would use a very Shi’a sacred event to connect with the Battle of Bayang. He was from the Sultanate of Lahej, which included Aden, in the Southern Yemen. The Shi’a Imamate was in Northern Yemen.
The people of Bayang could not have come up with the idea of calling the recently concluded battle Padang Karbala by themselves. Especially with the death of the sultan, all matters pertaining to religion must have been consulted with the imam or shaykh. And with a shaykh who was a faqih (jurist) and a pure-blooded Arab at that, his opinions must have weighed a lot.
I even considered the absurd idea that he could have been Shi’a; but when he came to Moroland, he realized that it was Sunni territory so he pretended to be Sunni. Of course it was absurd. Anyway, later on, we met our cousins in Brunei. They are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Sheikh Yahya’s son, Sheikh A’ish. He, too was a faqih in Yemen and was a Sunni.
by Abbas al-Musavi
HASHEMITES IN YEMEN
While researching for an essay I am writing, I think I finally connected the dots. There were 2 kinds of Hashemites in Yemen. Northern Yemen Hashemites has for their ancestor, Yahya ibn Al-Husain, a.k.a. al-hadi ila-l Haqq (The Guide to Truth). He came to Saada towards the end of the 3rd/9th century. They were the Zaydi imams.
The other group of Hashemites in Yemen came to Hadhramaut in Southern Yemen, and were known as “Al ba ’Alawi,” They claim that they are descendants of Al-Husain ibn Ali, and that their ancestor who came to Yemen at the beginning of the fourth century was Ahmed ibn Isa ibn Mohammad ibn Ali ibn Jaafar (As-Sadiq) ibn Mohammad (Al-Baqir) ibn Ali (Zain Al-Abidin) ibn Al-Husain ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib. They spread in Hadhramaut and abroad, and are Sunnis, following Imam Shafi’. There’s another Hashemite group in Hodeida in Southwest Yemen. They also claim descent from al-Husain ibn Ali.
So there are two groups of Hashemites in Yemen. The Northern Hashemites and the Southern Hashemites.
Accdg. to the Abaad Studies & Research Center, “the Hashemites of Hadhramaut (including Lahej, Aden and other southern governorates) and Hodeida were mainly devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. The Hashemites of Saada (Northern Yemen), on the other hand, followed a different trajectory, igniting many political conflicts in their pursuit of power. In some conflicts they were rulers.”2 The Northern Yemen Hashemites were more interested in political power; while the Southern Yemen Hashemites were more interested in knowledge and spreading Islam to South Asia, East Asia and parts of Africa.
Now, everything falls into place. My great-grandfather could be an Alawi Hashemite, thus belonging to the Prophet’s family but still belonging to the Sunni orthodoxy. My great-grandfather, like his father and later his son in Yemen, was a State-accredited faqih or jurist. They were more interested in acquiring and disseminating knowledge than acquiring political power. And they belonged to the Shafi’i School of Thought. And like many Hadramawts and Alawi Hashemites, my great-grandfather al faqih Sheikh Yahya ibn al faqih Sheikh Hadi al Lahji al Yamani preached Islam far and wide, even reaching Lanao in Moroland or Bangsa Moro.
So, I think my great-grandfather used the Battle of Karbala as the metaphor for the Battle of Bayang because it was important to him. If he were indeed an Alawi Hashemite, then he, after all, descended from Al- Husayn bin Ali. While the Southern Yemen Hashemites did not believe in the Imamate of Ali’s descendants, they still revere their ancestors.
It is quite amusing that the Mranaos, specifically the iBayangen (people of Bayang), who belong to the Sunni orthodoxy and Shafi’i School of Thought, would name their first and most memorable battle with the Americans after the most sacred battle for the Shi’a; a battle that happened in far-away Iraq, 1222 years earlier. This battle fortified Ali’s followers into a religious sect with its own rituals, tradition, collective memory, etc..
I doubt very much that any learned Sunni, esp. a faqih (jurist), would celebrate the Battle of Karbala in any way or form. Unless he is a Hashemite; i.e., a descendant of the Prophet, esp. of Husayn and Hassan ibn Ali ibn Abu Talib.
Al faqih Sheikh Yahya ibn Hadi must have thought that the comparative strengths of the Bayang and American camps were comparable to the lopsided strengths of the Ummayyad Caliphate’s army and Hussayn bin Ali’s band of followers. He must have thought that the Karbala metaphor was very dramatic and could impel the Mranaos to defend their native land better.
He took Bayang’s defeat to heart, probably as much as Hussayn’s followers did after the massacre at Karbala. Almost immediately, he packed up his things, told his 3 young sons that he would send for them, and traveled about 5000 miles to go back to his native land.
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* p.b.u.h. = peace be upon him. Muslims say this phrase in Arabic (salawat) after mentioning the Prophet’s name.
1. Le Roy, James (1914) The Americans in the Philippines, Boston, Houghton & Mifflin, 2 vols.
2. Mousi’d Fouad (2022) The Future of the Hashemites in Yemen, Special Issue: Strategy Analysis Unit, Sept 2022, Abaad Studies & Research Center retrieved from https://abaadstudies.org/news.php?id=59911 on 16 Sept 2023
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Postprandial Musings, 2.0 