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Muhammad's sword

By Uri Avner

09/24/06

Since the days when Roman emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the emperors and the popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some emperors dismissed or expelled a pope, some popes dismissed or excommunicated an emperor. One of the emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when emperors and popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a worldwide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "clash of civilizations".

In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the Prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:


Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.


These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

When Manuel II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On 29 May 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul), fell to the Turks, putting an end to the empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

Is there any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, Verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant Verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith."

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the Prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: how did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favourites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

There no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics reconquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousands of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

Why? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

The story about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "global war on terror" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Uri Avnery is an Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, "Gush Shalom". http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en

nice articel but his jewish atheist! an oxymoron word!

From an article that was posted on this forum

"Over the centuries there have been sporadic purges, pogroms and forced conversions to Islam"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm



Slaves were obtained through conquest, tribute from vassal states ...The latter method provided the majority of slaves, and at the borders of the Islamic Empire vast number of new slaves were castrated ready for sale (Islamic law did not allow mutilation of slaves, so it was done before they crossed the border). The majority of these slaves came from Europe and Africa

Slave troops in Tunisia in the seventeenth century even included cavalry, and the Sultan of Morocco is recorded as having an army of 250,000 black slaves.


http://africanhistory.about.com/library ... 40201a.htm

valkyrie wrote:From an article that was posted on this forum

"Over the centuries there have been sporadic purges, pogroms and forced conversions to Islam"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm



Slaves were obtained through conquest, tribute from vassal states ...The latter method provided the majority of slaves, and at the borders of the Islamic Empire vast number of new slaves were castrated ready for sale (Islamic law did not allow mutilation of slaves, so it was done before they crossed the border). The majority of these slaves came from Europe and Africa

Slave troops in Tunisia in the seventeenth century even included cavalry, and the Sultan of Morocco is recorded as having an army of 250,000 black slaves.


http://africanhistory.about.com/library ... 40201a.htm

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), 570 - 632 AD, said "He will not enter paradise who behaveth ill to his slaves. The companions said, "O Apostle of God! Have you not told us, that there will be a great many slaves and orphans amongst your disciples?" He said, "Yes; then be kind to them as your own children, and give them to eat of what you eat yourselves. The slaves that say their prayers are your brothers." and "..yield obedience to my successor, although he may be an Abyssinian slave."

The first call to prayer at the Kaaba mosque built by Prophet Muhammad was given in 622 by Bilal - a black slave freed by the Prophet. On the contrary, The Supreme Court of the United States declared in 1857 that the slave Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was not a person, but property.

While the entire population of Africa was subjected to brutal killings and mass human transportation to Americas by sea, ten of millions were enslaved and millions were killed by the Christian Monarchs of the west.

Blacks were rounded up in the Americas and crucified, burned alive, murdered, starved, and carried for miles in cages like animals and forced to work without food for days in sugar plantations.

Blacks would be brutally murdered or burnt alive if they dared to cross in front of the Church and even take the name of Christ. Slaves sorted converting to Christianity seeking leverage of fair treatment but were not accepted as it violated the teaching of the church fathers.

Not so long ago horrifying images of black being dragged out their cars in the middle of the road and being beaten to death by the Mob in the Americas.

The way the Christianity spread across continents contributes to the imperialistic forces of the west engaged in global terrorism and looting. The discovery of America by Spain is an example of the brutal killing fields created by the Christian dominated west.

^^^what does that have to do with this thread, or are you just spamming?

Male slaves were employed as servants, soldiers, or laborers by their owners, while female slaves, mostly from Africa, were long traded to Middle Eastern countries and kingdoms by Arab, Indian, or Oriental traders, some as female servants, others as sexual slaves. Arab, Indian, and Oriental traders were involved in the capture and transport of slaves northward across the Sahara desert and the Indian Ocean region into Arabia and the Middle East, Persia, and the Indian subcontinent. As many African slaves may have crossed the Sahara Desert, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean as crossed the Atlantic, perhaps more. Some sources estimate that between 11 and 17 million slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900, compared to 11.6 million across the Atlantic from 1500 to the late 1860s. The Arab or Middle Eastern slave trade continued into the early 1900s[1].

The Arab trade in slaves continued into the 20th century. Written travelogues and other historical works are replete with references to slaves owned by wealthy traders, nobility and heads of state in the Arabian Peninsula well into the 1920s. T. E. Lawrence documented practices in which African Muslims performing the hajj would bring a son with them to Mecca and there sell him into slavery[3]. Slave owning and slave-like working conditions have been documented up to and including the present, in countries of the Middle East. Though the subject is considered taboo in the affected regions, a leading Saudi government cleric and author of the country's religious curriculum has called for the outright re-legalization of slavery[4][5].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_trad ... iddle_East



Edit: Maaad, your article mentions that Jews were protected as long as they payed their dhimmi taxes, but what were the consquences if they were unable to pay?

valkyrie wrote:Edit: Maaad, your article mentions that Jews were protected as long as they payed their dhimmi taxes, but what were the consquences if they were unable to pay?

what happens to u in a country when u dont pay ur taxes?

prosecuted? harrased? forced to leave and put in jail??

In Islam, the people are asked to leave. but generally speaking. they wud have to be crazy to not pay that tax because of the enormous benefits the got out from him. Including Justice! which was not present (and isnt now) in most places

valkyrie wrote:Edit: Maaad, your article mentions that Jews were protected as long as they payed their dhimmi taxes, but what were the consquences if they were unable to pay?

They actually were eligible for social aid from the Treasury if they were poor.

MaaaD wrote:

valkyrie wrote:Edit: Maaad, your article mentions that Jews were protected as long as they payed their dhimmi taxes, but what were the consquences if they were unable to pay?

They actually were eligible for social aid from the Treasury if they were poor.

Dhimmi communities were subjected to the payment of taxes in favor of Muslims — a requirement that was central to dhimma as a whole. Sura 9:29 stipulates that jizya be exacted from non-Muslims as a condition required for jihad to cease. Failure to pay the jizya could result in the pledge of protection of a dhimmi's life and property becoming void, with the dhimmi facing the alternatives of conversion, enslavement or death (or imprisonment, as advocated by Abu Yusuf, the chief qadi — religious judge — of Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid).[81]

on the treatmenst of non muslims in north africa

In the 12th century, rulers of the Almohad dynasty killed or forcibly converted Jews and Christians in Andalusia and the Maghreb (North Africa), putting an end to the existence of Christian communities in North Africa outside Egypt.[53][54] In an effort to survive under Almohads, most Jews resorted to practicing Islam outwardly, while remaining faithful to Judaism; they openly reverted to Judaism after Almohad persecutions passed.[55] During the Cordoba massacre of 1148, the Jewish philosopher, theologian, and physician Maimonides saved his own life only by converting to Islam; after Maimonides moved to Egypt, this conversion was ruled void by a Muslim judge who was a friend and patient of Maimonides.[56] As a result of Almohad persecutions and other forced conversions that took place in Morocco afterwards, several Muslim tribes in the Atlas Mountains, as well as many Muslim families in Fez, have Jewish origin.[54]


Friedmann also claims that some traditionalists compare marriage to enslavement and thus just like dhimmis are prohibited from having Muslim slaves, so dhimmi men are not allowed to have Muslim wives; conversely, Muslim men were allowed to marry women of the "People of the Book" because the enslavement of non-Muslims by Muslims is allowed.[136]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi#Tolerance


Maaad you don't actually believe that islam wasn't spread by the sword, do you? The only region that Im aware of Islam not spreading by the sword is Indonesia and Malaysia. I'm not arguing that Jews were treated better under Islamic rule than under Christendom. There are also other religious communities under Islamic rule than the Jews and Christians. What you and other muslims carelessly leave out is the treatment of Hindus, polythiests animists and pagans under Islamic rule. Your article is so replete with shit that you blithely ignored my previous posts.

First of all we should not just search articles from the net and paste it in this forum without knowing and understanding the background.

It is nice to see that Some Christians accept that Islam didn’t come to Indonesia and Malaysia by the sword but they still don’t leave the sword syndrome created and propagated by the Popes during the crusade.

Things to be seen here is:
1) The population of Muslims in Indonesia is the highest in the world even compared to the birth place of Islam. So can we say peace outperformed the sword?
2) For the Christian apologetics, can they bring even one continent or Country where Christianity spread peacefully and not by the swords of the crusade and the guns of the Christian imperialists.
3) If Muslims ever raised the sword against the pagans and Hindus and the idolatrous is because of defending their faith and putting an end to Female infanticide, widow burning, human sacrifices in Hindu temples, burning of witches etc.
4) Islaam still remains the fastest growing religion in term of conversions in the Christian west, who can out of hypocrisy deny that?

Let’s compare the Islamic Sword with the Christian Sword, for example 500 million Hindus still live in India, how many natives still live in America when it was discovered by Columbus. It is estimated that a 490 million humans were slaughtered over a 200 period if occupation. The time Christians landed on the beach of the new world the worst holocaust was put into place. Things would definitely be different and better if America was discovered by the Muslims, as in the case of India.

the sword of islam proptected the jews and christians in jeruslem for more than 800 years, and all the three abrhamic faiths lived peacefully but we all know whats happened when christ's sword struct in jerusalem and every city that fell in the hand of Christs crusade, horrible atrocities were committed against the muslims and even the christins and the jews were not spared?

In the past century 185 million people died in world wars how many were the victims of Islamic sword? were they not fought in christian dominated lands... by christinas, jews and darwinists?

Maaad
Great original post. Not sure why this thread is going so off topic, but thumbs up to you for such an informative post.

RVP.

valkyrie wrote:
Maaad you don't actually believe that islam wasn't spread by the sword, do you? The only region that Im aware of Islam not spreading by the sword is Indonesia and Malaysia. I'm not arguing that Jews were treated better under Islamic rule than under Christendom. There are also other religious communities under Islamic rule than the Jews and Christians. What you and other muslims carelessly leave out is the treatment of Hindus, polythiests animists and pagans under Islamic rule. Your article is so replete with shit that you blithely ignored my previous posts.

I ignored your original post because i refuse to argue with someone who's idea of argument is to paste articles from wikipedia which is by far the worst source of information on these kinds of things.

This is an interesting article, but I don't necessarily agree with all of it's analysis. What struck me is that the author does not seem to distinguish much between Christian groups. He bundles George W. Bush's fervent born-again Protestant Christian beliefs with Catholicsm. Mr. Avner should have pointed out that there is a big divide between the modern day Catholic Church and the Protestant churches; in beliefs, teachings, politics and culture.

George Bush's crusade is definitely not the same crusade of Pope Benedict XVI, it does not even close. GWB is still trying to control the world, he's creating common enemies to lay blame for a self-created threat, he's vilifying Islam, with Evangelism on his side; while Pope Benedict is trying to keep Catholics from going to Evangelical churches (which has become a phenomenon in many countries). And as to Islam - he might see this religion as a threat only because of the "conversion factor" - after all Islam is growing in members world wide, it's makng converts, it's one of the fastest growing religions in the US of all places.

MaaaD wrote:

valkyrie wrote:
Maaad you don't actually believe that islam wasn't spread by the sword, do you? The only region that Im aware of Islam not spreading by the sword is Indonesia and Malaysia. I'm not arguing that Jews were treated better under Islamic rule than under Christendom. There are also other religious communities under Islamic rule than the Jews and Christians. What you and other muslims carelessly leave out is the treatment of Hindus, polythiests animists and pagans under Islamic rule. Your article is so replete with shit that you blithely ignored my previous posts.

I ignored your original post because i refuse to argue with someone who's idea of argument is to paste articles from wikipedia which is by far the worst source of information on these kinds of things.

Actually the links from my first post wasn;t from wikipedia. By the way, what exactly is the credibility of your post? It's nothing more than the oped of someone who is pontificating on a topic that he doesn't have a degree in.

valkyrie wrote:
Actually the links from my first post wasn;t from wikipedia. By the way, what exactly is the credibility of your post? It's nothing more than the oped of someone who is pontificating on a topic that he doesn't have a degree in.

Where do you see me defending any of the points made in the article ? everyone is entitled to an opinion and thats his.

MaaaD wrote:

valkyrie wrote:
Actually the links from my first post wasn;t from wikipedia. By the way, what exactly is the credibility of your post? It's nothing more than the oped of someone who is pontificating on a topic that he doesn't have a degree in.

Where do you see me defending any of the points made in the article ? everyone is entitled to an opinion and thats his.

You posted the article, unless you give full discosure about your opinion on the article than i will assume you agreed with the bulk of what this guy has to say.

If I posted an article that stated whites are superior to other skin colors without giving any of my beliefs on the article, you and everyone else will naturally assume that I agreed with the authors assertion that whites are superior.