>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Uri Avnery
>> >
>> > 23.9.06
>> >
>> > Muhammad's Sword
>> >
>> > 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
>> > world-wide 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, the 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. In 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 favorites 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 IS 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
>> > re-conquered 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 thousand 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 Terrorism" -
>> > 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?
>>
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