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View Full Version : Egypt's Muslims act as human shield for Coptic Christians



Eric H
01-12-2011, 04:59 PM
Blessings and peace be with you all,

This is one amazing story, and it gives us hope for peace on Earth.

Muslims turned up in droves for the Coptic Christmas mass Thursday night, offering their bodies, and lives, as “shields” to Egypt’s threatened Christian community

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsCont...ss,-servi.aspx

In the spirit of praying for peace for all people

Eric
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Muezzin
01-12-2011, 06:40 PM
Mashallah.

Excellent news.
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Perseveranze
01-12-2011, 06:53 PM
Asalaamu Alaikum,

Nothing suprising for the practicing Muslim. In Palastine (before the Zionist rule), Jews/Christians/Muslims all lived in peace for many centuries.
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Eric H
01-12-2011, 07:42 PM
Greetings and peace be with you Perseveranze;

I think this story is far greater than just living in peace with your neighbour, it is about risking your life, for people who are different to yourself. This story should make the news headlines in all media, because it is truly remarkable.

I am pleased to say, I read this story on a Catholic Forum.

In the pirit of praying for justice for all people.

Eric
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GuestFellow
01-12-2011, 08:37 PM
:sl:

Good news! Hope it sets a good example.
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Tyrion
01-12-2011, 09:17 PM
Awesome. :) Hopefully some of our more angry members will take something from this. :p
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LauraS
01-12-2011, 11:52 PM
If only the whole world could pay attention. :)
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Amat Allah
01-13-2011, 06:12 AM
This is what Islam teaches us my respected brother...but anger and ignorance filled the hearts with hatred and had blind not the eyes but the hearts of many Muslims and took them a way from the path of Allah ; the path of truth real endless justice happiness and peace...alas!

peace be with you...
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smile
01-19-2011, 05:22 PM
he made u into nations and tribes so you can come to know one another
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Mike3449
01-23-2011, 10:51 AM
I just sent an Email thanking Mubarak for this... It is truly wonderful.
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aadil77
01-23-2011, 12:23 PM
Anyone living in a muslim country is guaranteed protection, if Egypt was an islamic state, none of these attacks against copts would have ever occurred
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glo
01-23-2011, 01:16 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Mike3449
I just sent an Email thanking Mubarak for this... It is truly wonderful.
How did you send an email, Mike, and who to?
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Cabdullahi
01-23-2011, 02:23 PM
ah this is not news worthy or thread worthy.....give us something that shows Muslims doing bad things
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Asiyah3
01-23-2011, 02:25 PM
Excellent news masha'Allah. Thank you for sharing Eric.
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glo
01-23-2011, 05:07 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Abdullahii
ah this is not news worthy or thread worthy.....give us something that shows Muslims doing bad things
So cynical for one so young!! :D

I think Eric was born to be the bringer of good news. :)
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Cabdullahi
01-23-2011, 05:26 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by glo
So cynical for one so young!! :D

I think Eric was born to be the bringer of good news. :)
Eric's a good guy....at least on the surface
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Argamemnon
01-24-2011, 02:20 PM
That's the duty of all Muslims. Let's hope our non-Muslim friends will do the same for the oppressed and massacred Muslims across the world.
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Argamemnon
01-24-2011, 02:24 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by LauraS
If only the whole world could pay attention. :)
They won't. Why? Because of the western and zionist media domination in the world.
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glo
01-24-2011, 06:25 PM
I am a little surprised and very humbled by the very positive responses in this thread, especially those who voice very strongly that a Muslim should offer protection to their non-Muslim neighbours. :)

I had expected at least some Muslims to feel that supporting/enabling non-Muslims to participate in their false religious practices would be haraam.
I am glad to find out that I was wrong.
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Cabdullahi
01-24-2011, 06:38 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by glo
I am a little surprised and very humbled by the very positive responses in this thread, especially those who voice very strongly that a Muslim should offer protection to their non-Muslim neighbours. :)

I had expected at least some Muslims to feel that supporting/enabling non-Muslims to participate in their false religious practices would be haraam.
I am glad to find out that I was wrong.
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Ramadhan
01-24-2011, 11:03 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by glo
I had expected at least some Muslims to feel that supporting/enabling non-Muslims to participate in their false religious practices would be haraam
What they did is they only protect the innocents.
And this is one of the teachings of Islam.
Even during the war, Rasulullah SAW forbade any destruction of houses of worships, and not to disturb anyone who seek protection inside houses of worship.
Contrast this to christian armies from the time of the crusades until afghanistan and iraq who screamed with joy whenever they destroyed masjids.
Or during rwanda massacre when anyone seeking protection inside churches were either killed by the priests or turned over by the priests to other people to kill.
Many rwandans reverted into Islam because many were protected by the muslims.

Even here in Indonesia, some muslim groups normally sent out their people to guard churches during christmas because there were some "rumors" that some churches were targeted for bombing. Suffice to say, the rumors must have been spread by people with sinister political and power interests.


format_quote Originally Posted by glo
I am glad to find out that I was wrong.
Isnt it amazing how much stuff you didnt know when you only read/watch media controlled by the west/zionist.
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LauraS
01-24-2011, 11:58 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar


Isnt it amazing how much stuff you didnt know when you only read/watch media controlled by the west/zionist.
Isn't it amazing how a thread praising the unity of Muslims and Christians can be spoiled by needless spiteful comments. Kind of contradicts the whole point of the article.
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Ramadhan
01-25-2011, 12:15 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by LauraS
Isn't it amazing how a thread praising the unity of Muslims and Christians can be spoiled by needless spiteful comments. Kind of contradicts the whole point of the article.

I agree.
Your spiteful post need to be removed.
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Zafran
01-25-2011, 12:30 AM
salaam

OK guys lets stick to the thread.


peace
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Tyrion
01-25-2011, 12:56 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by glo
I had expected at least some Muslims to feel that supporting/enabling non-Muslims to participate in their false religious practices would be haraam.
I am glad to find out that I was wrong.
You're not the only one... :p I never really know what to expect from this forum, but I was fairly pleased with amount of positive responses.

format_quote Originally Posted by LauraS
Isn't it amazing how a thread praising the unity of Muslims and Christians can be spoiled by needless spiteful comments. Kind of contradicts the whole point of the article.
+1

I'd rep you, but it won't let me :(

format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar
I agree.
Your spiteful post need to be removed.
Sorry, but I'm going to have to take Laura's side here. :p

Heres an interesting idea though... How about instead of going on the defensive, you try to actually listen to members who criticize your posts? The way you responded to Glo wasn't really necessary...
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Ramadhan
01-25-2011, 01:23 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Tyrion
Sorry, but I'm going to have to take Laura's side here.

Heres an interesting idea though... How about instead of going on the defensive, you try to actually listen members who criticize your posts? The way you responded to Glo wasn't really necessary...
Please point out where in my post that were not true.
Then I will rectify it.
So this is an example of me listening to you criticizing me.
And you mentioned "posts", while I see that I have made only one post in this thread, so I'm not sure which other posts?
Let me know, bro.

Isnt it interesting when a muslim makes a truthful statement, it is considered needless and spiteful?
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Amat Allah
01-25-2011, 04:55 AM
laa ilaha illa Allah...
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joedawun
01-25-2011, 06:14 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar
Please point out where in my post that were not true.
Then I will rectify it.
So this is an example of me listening to you criticizing me.
And you mentioned "posts", while I see that I have made only one post in this thread, so I'm not sure which other posts?
Let me know, bro.

Isnt it interesting when a muslim makes a truthful statement, it is considered needless and spiteful?
It might have been more useful to present more examples from the long history of Muslim tolerance and protection of religious minorities in Muslim lands...that's what the original story is about. Instead, after launching a caustic diatribe against Christians, you berate Glo as being ignorant for listening to western media. Her post did not deserve your negative response.
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Ramadhan
01-25-2011, 08:04 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by joedawun
It might have been more useful to present more examples from the long history of Muslim tolerance and protection of religious minorities in Muslim lands...that's what the original story is about.
I did actually present an example how muslims in Indonesia protected churches during christmas, I wonder why this is conveniently neglected.
And yes, I did also contrast that with various examples of christians hostilities because I was thrown off by glo's "surprise and expectation" which is kinda holier than thou.

format_quote Originally Posted by joedawun
Instead, after launching a caustic diatribe against Christians, you berate Glo as being ignorant for listening to western media. Her post did not deserve your negative response
Glo has been here since early 2006 and God knows how many Islamic forums she is a member of. If she didn't know by now that muslims can do such kindness, then she might have been reading/watching too much western media. Either that, or else.
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aamirsaab
01-25-2011, 09:30 AM
I sense a disturbance in the force....

That's jedi for get back on topic.
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Amat Allah
01-25-2011, 12:22 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by glo
I am a little surprised and very humbled by the very positive responses in this thread, especially those who voice very strongly that a Muslim should offer protection to their non-Muslim neighbours. :)

I had expected at least some Muslims to feel that supporting/enabling non-Muslims to participate in their false religious practices would be haraam.
I am glad to find out that I was wrong.
Won`t blame you for expecting that cause some ignorant Muslims would do that, while Allah says:" There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing. (256) " Surat Al Baqarah

Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and all of his companions never treated innocent people from other faiths badly, wallahi they never did, no but our Prophet used to visit his sick Jewish neighbor who was throwing dirt before Allah`s Messenger door (peace and blessing for Allah be upon him) and the Messenger of Allah was cleaning it everytime without saying a word and one of the companions (may Allah be pleased with them all) when he slaughtred an animal to feed his family , he asked his wife: Did you give our Jewish neighbor from the meat? she replied: not yet ,then he said: give him the best part of it...

and there are many amazing stories about that which you wil be so amazed reading them...

format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar
What they did is they only protect the innocents.
And this is one of the teachings of Islam.
Even during the war, Rasulullah SAW forbade any destruction of houses of worships, and not to disturb anyone who seek protection inside houses of worship.
Contrast this to christian armies from the time of the crusades until afghanistan and iraq who screamed with joy whenever they destroyed masjids.
Or during rwanda massacre when anyone seeking protection inside churches were either killed by the priests or turned over by the priests to other people to kill.
Many rwandans reverted into Islam because many were protected by the muslims.

Even here in Indonesia, some muslim groups normally sent out their people to guard churches during christmas because there were some "rumors" that some churches were targeted for bombing. Suffice to say, the rumors must have been spread by people with sinister political and power interests.

Isnt it amazing how much stuff you didnt know when you only read/watch media controlled by the west/zionist.
my respected brother, May Allah be pleased with you Ameeen I won`t say that you are wrong but sister glo has nothing to do with what you have said and I won`t blame her being surprised cause she read here a thing and out side she sees something else...

I won`t say it is only the fault of those who hate Islam and Muslims for spreading all of those wrong info misconceptions and nonsense about Islam and Muslims but it is also the fault of many Muslims : those who bumbing innocent people under the name of Islam and by Allah they do not deserve to be called Muslims by doing this cause this is not from Islam and not what Allah taught us at all and those who are lazy not teaching others the wrong from right and when hearing non Muslims talk wrongly about Islam they right away attack them instead of correcting their wrong thoughts and showing what Allah had taught us through His Book Qur`aan and through the Master of all Mankind and Jinn (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) in a good manner and according to Qur`aan and Sunnah...

this is why we sometimes fail to make others understand to make others open their eyes widely to see the truth and be guided... because we let rage and anger control us and blind us from seeing the way to Allah ourselves...May Allah guide us all and all Mankind and Jinn before being jugded in the court of Allah The Most Just...Ameeeeen

and please for Allah`s sake no more off topic posts cause the puropse of this thread was so noble and pure and I think we done enough up till now...May Allah lead your way to the path of the endless true happiness my respected brother Eric and all Mankind and Jinn Ameeeen

With all my respect:

Amat Allah
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Eric H
01-25-2011, 05:48 PM
Greetings and peace be with you all,

Our Jedi master aamirsaab has kindly asked us to get back on topic, and put our light sabres away.

Maybe we could just post links and storeys of the positive actions our faiths have done, whilst standing up for others. Here is one story …

The Rachel Corrie story, she stood in front of a bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes, she was crushed to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie

Thank you naidamar and Amat Allah for your storeys

In the spirit of praying for a greater interfaith understanding,

Eric
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glo
01-25-2011, 09:01 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar
Glo has been here since early 2006 and God knows how many Islamic forums she is a member of. If she didn't know by now that muslims can do such kindness, then she might have been reading/watching too much western media. Either that, or else.
With all due respect, naidamar, if you read my post carefully you will find that my surprise was not that 'Muslims can do such kindness' at all. I know many Muslims who blow me away with their kind-heartedness and caring attitude!

What I was surprised about was that nobody had thought it might be haraam to support non-Muslims in participating in their haraam practices.
Don't get me wrong, I am humbled and very glad to be surprised, and I have no problem in being proven wrong by my Muslim brothers and sisters here! :)

If I was expecting such negative voices, then it was not based on what I have heard or read in the media, but from comments and posts I have read here in this very forum over the past 4 years, some of which have been deeply scathing and hateful against religions other than Islam.
Please understand that I have gained most of my knowledge about Islam not from the media or from other forums - I have received almost my entire knowledge of Islam here in LI.

Now having said all this, perhaps the mods can tidy up this thread a little.
It is a shame to see Eric's positive thread being dragged into another argument ... :hmm:

:peace:
:peace:
:peace:
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Zafran
01-25-2011, 09:01 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Eric H
Greetings and peace be with you all,

Our Jedi master aamirsaab has kindly asked us to get back on topic, and put our light sabres away.

Maybe we could just post links and storeys of the positive actions our faiths have done, whilst standing up for others. Here is one story …

The Rachel Corrie story, she stood in front of a bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes, she was crushed to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie

Thank you naidamar and Amat Allah for your storeys

In the spirit of praying for a greater interfaith understanding,

Eric

Yeah theres a lot of tributes for her on Youtube.
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Eric H
01-25-2011, 09:24 PM
Greetings and peace be with you glo,

Don't get me wrong, I am humbled and very glad to be surprised, and I have no problem in being proven wrong by my Muslim brothers and sisters here! :)
Me too.

In the spirit of praying for a greater interfaith understanding.

Eric
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Ramadhan
01-26-2011, 07:09 AM
In the spirit of educating our non-muslim members about interfaith tolerance in Islam and to present the fine innumerable examples of Muslim tolerance as urged by other members in this thread, I'd like to post this lecture by Marmaduke Pickthall.


An Abridged Version of Pickthall's Lecture

In the eyes of history, religious toleration is the highest evidence of culture in a people. It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant, and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Before the coming of Islam, tolerance had never been preached as an essential part of religion.

If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension.

Innumerable monasteries, with a wealth of treasure of which the worth has been calculated at not less than a hundred millions sterling, enjoyed the benefit of the Holy Prophet's (Muhammad’s) Charter to the monks of Sinai and were religiously respected by the Muslims. The various sects of Christians were represented in the Council of the Empire by their patriarchs, on the provincial and district council by their bishops, in the village council by their priests, whose word was always taken without question on things which were the sole concern of their community.

The tolerance within the body of Islam was, and is, something without parallel in history; class and race and color ceasing altogether to be barriers.
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Ramadhan
01-26-2011, 07:10 AM
One of the commonest charges brought against Islam historically, and as a religion, by Western writers is that it is intolerant. This is turning the tables with a vengeance when one remembers various facts: One remembers that not a Muslim is left alive in Spain or Sicily or Apulia. One remembers that not a Muslim was left alive and not a mosque left standing in Greece after the great rebellion in l821. One remembers how the Muslims of the Balkan peninsula, once the majority, have been systematically reduced with the approval of the whole of Europe, how the Christian under Muslim rule have in recent times been urged on to rebel and massacre the Muslims, and how reprisals by the latter have been condemned as quite uncalled for.

In Spain under the Umayyads and in Baghdad under the Abbasid Khalifas, Christians and Jews, equally with Muslims, were admitted to the Schools and universities - not only that, but were boarded and lodged in hostels at the cost of the state. When the Moors were driven out of Spain, the Christian conquerors held a terrific persecution of the Jews. Those who were fortunate enough to escape fled, some of them to Morocco and many hundreds to the Turkish empire, where their descendants still live in separate communities, and still speak among themselves an antiquated form of Spanish. The Muslim empire was a refuge for all those who fled from persecution by the Inquisition.

The Western Christians, till the arrival of the Encyclopaedists in the eighteenth century, did not know and did not care to know, what the Muslim believed, nor did the Western Christian seek to know the views of Eastern Christians with regard to them. The Christian Church was already split in two, and in the end, it came to such a pass that the Eastern Christians, as Gibbon shows, preferred Muslim rule, which allowed them to practice their own form of religion and adhere to their peculiar dogmas, to the rule of fellow Christians who would have made them Roman Catholics or wiped them out.

The Western Christians called the Muslims pagans, paynims, even idolaters - there are plenty of books in which they are described as worshiping an idol called Mahomet or Mahound, and in the accounts of the conquest of Granada there are even descriptions of the monstrous idols which they were alleged to worship - whereas the Muslims knew what Christianity was, and in what respects it differed from Islam. If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension. I quote a learned French author:

“Every poet in Christendom considered a Mohammedan to be an infidel, and an idolater, and his gods to be three; mentioned in order, they were: Mahomet or Mahound or Mohammad, Opolane and the third Termogond. It was said that when in Spain the Christians overpowered the Mohammadans and drove them as far as the gates of the city of Saragossa, the Mohammadans went back and broke their idols.

“A Christian poet of the period says that Opolane the “god” of the Mohammadans, which was kept there in a den was awfully belabored and abused by the Mohammadans, who, binding it hand and foot, crucified it on a pillar, trampled it under their feet and broke it to pieces by beating it with sticks; that their second god Mahound they threw in a pit and caused to be torn to pieces by pigs and dogs, and that never were gods so ignominiously treated; but that afterwards the Mohammadans repented of their sins, and once more reinstated their gods for the accustomed worship, and that when the Emperor Charles entered the city of Saragossa he had every mosque in the city searched and had "Muhammad" and all their Gods broken with iron hammers.”

That was the kind of "history" on which the populace in Western Europe used to be fed. Those were the ideas which inspired the rank and file of the crusader in their attacks on the most civilized peoples of those days. Christendom regarded the outside world as ****ed eternally, and Islam did not. There were good and tender-hearted men in Christendom who thought it sad that any people should be ****ed eternally, and wished to save them by the only way they knew - conversion to the Christian faith.

It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant; and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Therefore the difference evident in that anecdote is not of manners only but of religion. Of old, tolerance had existed here and there in the world, among enlightened individuals; but those individuals had always been against the prevalent religion. Tolerance was regarded of un-religious, if not irreligious. Before the coming of Islam it had never been preached as an essential part of religion.

For the Muslims, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are but three forms of one religion, which, in its original purity, was the religion of Abraham: Al-Islam, that perfect Self-Surrender to the Will of God, which is the basis of Theocracy. The Jews, in their religion, after Moses, limited God's mercy to their chosen nation and thought of His kingdom as the dominion of their race.

Even Christ himself, as several of his sayings show, declared that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and seemed to regard his mission as to the Hebrews only; and it was only after a special vision vouchsafed to St. Peter that his followers in after days considered themselves authorized to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Christians limited God’s mercy to those who believed certain dogmas. Every one who failed to hold the dogmas was an outcast or a miscreant, to be persecuted for his or her soul’s good. In Islam only is manifest the real nature of the Kingdom of God.

The two verses (2:255-256) of the Qur’an are supplementary. Where there is that realization of the majesty and dominion of Allah (SWT), there is no compulsion in religion. Men choose their path - allegiance or opposition - and it is sufficient punishment for those who oppose that they draw further and further away from the light of truth.

What Muslims do not generally consider is that this law applies to our own community just as much as to the folk outside, the laws of Allah being universal; and that intolerance of Muslims for other men's opinions and beliefs is evidence that they themselves have, at the moment, forgotten the vision of the majesty and mercy of Allah (SWT) which the Qur’an presents to them.

In the Qur’an I find two meanings (of a Kafir), which become one the moment that we try to realize the divine standpoint. The Kafir in the first place, is not the follower of any religion. He is the opponent of Allah’s benevolent will and purpose for mankind - therefore the disbeliever in the truth of all religions, the disbeliever in all Scriptures as of divine revelation, the disbeliever to the point of active opposition in all the Prophets (pbut) whom the Muslims are bidden to regard, without distinction, as messengers of Allah.

The Qur’an repeatedly claims to be the confirmation of the truth of all religions. The former Scriptures had become obscure, the former Prophets appeared mythical, so extravagant were the legends which were told concerning them, so that people doubted whether there was any truth in the old Scriptures, whether such people as the Prophets had ever really existed. Here - says the Qur’an - is a Scripture whereof there is no doubt: here is a Prophet actually living among you and preaching to you. If it were not for this book and this Prophet, men might be excused for saying that Allah’s guidance to mankind was all a fable. This book and this Prophet, therefore, confirm the truth of all that was revealed before them, and those who disbelieve in them to the point of opposing the existence of a Prophet and a revelation are really opposed to the idea of Allah's guidance - which is the truth of all revealed religions. Our Holy Prophet (pbuh) himself said that the term Kafir was not to be applied to anyone who said “Salam” (peace) to the Muslims. The Kafirs, in the terms of the Qur’an, are the conscious evil-doers of any race of creed or community.

I have made a long digression but it seemed to me necessary, for I find much confusion of ideas even among Muslims on this subject, owing to defective study of the Qur’an and the Prophet's life. Many Muslims seem to forget that our Prophet had allies among the idolaters even after Islam had triumphed in Arabia, and that he “fulfilled his treaty with them perfectly until the term thereof.” The righteous conduct of the Muslims, not the sword, must be held responsible for the conversion of those idolaters, since they embraced Islam before the expiration of their treaty.

So much for the idolaters of Arabia, who had no real beliefs to oppose the teaching of Islam, but only superstition. They invoked their local deities for help in war and put their faith only in brute force. In this they were, to begin with, enormously superior to the Muslims. When the Muslims nevertheless won, they were dismayed; and all their arguments based on the superior power of their deities were for ever silenced. Their conversion followed naturally. It was only a question of time with the most obstinate of them.

It was otherwise with the people who had a respectable religion of their own - the People of the Scripture - as the Qur’an calls them - i.e, the people who had received the revelation of some former Prophet: the Jews, the Christians and the Zoroastrians were those with whom the Muslims came at once in contact. To these our Prophet's attitude was all of kindness. The Charter which he granted to the Christian monks of Sinai is extant. If you read it you will see that it breathes not only goodwill but actual love. He gave to the Jews of Medina, so long as they were faithful to him, precisely the same treatment as to the Muslims. He never was aggressive against any man or class of men; he never penalized any man, or made war on any people, on the ground of belief but only on the ground of conduct.

The story of his reception of Christian and Zoroastrian visitors is on record. There is not a trace of religious intolerance in all this. And it should be remembered - Muslims are rather apt to forget it, and it is of great importance to our outlook - that our Prophet did not ask the people of the Scripture to become his followers. He asked them only to accept the Kingdom of Allah, to abolish priesthood and restore their own religions to their original purity. The question which, in effect, he put to everyone was this: “Are you for the Kingdom of God which includes all of us, or are you for your own community against the rest of mankind?” The one is obviously the way of peace and human progress, the other the way of strife, oppression and calamity. But the rulers of the world, to whom he sent his message, most of them treated it as the message of either an insolent upstart or a mad fanatic. His envoys were insulted cruelly, and even slain. One cannot help wondering what reception that same embassy would meet with from the rulers of mankind today, when all the thinking portion of mankind accept the Prophet's premises, have thrown off the trammels of priestcraft, and harbor some idea of human brotherhood.

But though the Christians and Jews and Zoroastrians refused his message, and their rulers heaped most cruel insults on his envoys, our Prophet never lost his benevolent attitudes towards them as religious communities; as witness the Charter to the monks of Sinai already mentioned. And though the Muslims of later days have fallen far short of the Holy Prophet's tolerance, and have sometimes shown arrogance towards men of other faiths, they have always given special treatment to the Jews and Christians. Indeed the Laws for their special treatment form part of the Shari'ah.

In Egypt the Copts were on terms of closest friendship with the Muslims in the first centuries of the Muslim conquest, and they are on terms at closest friendship with the Muslims at the present day. In Syria the various Christian communities lived on terms of closest friendship with the Muslims in the first centuries of the Muslim conquest, and they are on terms of closest friendship with the Muslims at the present day, openly preferring Muslim domination to a foreign yoke....

From the expulsion of the Moriscos dates the degradation and decline of Spain. San Fernando was really wiser and more patriotic in his tolerance to conquered Seville, Murcia and Toledo than was the later king who, under the guise of Holy warfare, captured Grenada and let the Inquisition work its will upon the Muslims and the Jews. And the modern Balkan States and Greece are born under a curse. It may even prove that the degradation and decline of European civilization will be dated from the day when so-called civilized statesmen agreed to the inhuman policy of Czarist Russia and gave their sanction to the crude fanaticism of the Russian Church.

There is no doubt but that, in the eyes of history, religious toleration is the highest evidence of culture in a people. Let no Muslim, when looking on the ruin of the Muslim realm which was compassed through the agency of those very peoples whom the Muslims had tolerated and protected through the centuries when Western Europe thought it a religious duty to exterminate or forcibly convert all peoples of another faith than theirs - let no Muslim, seeing this, imagine that toleration is a weakness in Islam. It is the greatest strength of Islam because it is the attitude of truth.

Allah (SWT) is not the God of the Jews or the Christians or the Muslims only, any more than the sun shines or the rain falls for Jews or Christians or Muslims only.

From http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/to....html#lecture5
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glo
01-26-2011, 07:24 AM
Thank you for sharing, naidamar.
There is much we can and have to learn from the action of our forefathers.
May we adopt the good practices and learn to eradicate the bad ones.
format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar
Allah (SWT) is not the God of the Jews or the Christians or the Muslims only, any more than the sun shines or the rain falls for Jews or Christians or Muslims only.

From http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/to....html#lecture5
I love this sentiment.
Amen to that! :statisfie
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joedawun
01-26-2011, 05:38 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar
One of the commonest charges brought against Islam historically, and as a religion, by Western writers is that it is intolerant. This is turning the tables with a vengeance when one remembers various facts: One remembers that not a Muslim is left alive in Spain or Sicily or Apulia. One remembers that not a Muslim was left alive and not a mosque left standing in Greece after the great rebellion in l821. One remembers how the Muslims of the Balkan peninsula, once the majority, have been systematically reduced with the approval of the whole of Europe, how the Christian under Muslim rule have in recent times been urged on to rebel and massacre the Muslims, and how reprisals by the latter have been condemned as quite uncalled for.

In Spain under the Umayyads and in Baghdad under the Abbasid Khalifas, Christians and Jews, equally with Muslims, were admitted to the Schools and universities - not only that, but were boarded and lodged in hostels at the cost of the state. When the Moors were driven out of Spain, the Christian conquerors held a terrific persecution of the Jews. Those who were fortunate enough to escape fled, some of them to Morocco and many hundreds to the Turkish empire, where their descendants still live in separate communities, and still speak among themselves an antiquated form of Spanish. The Muslim empire was a refuge for all those who fled from persecution by the Inquisition.

The Western Christians, till the arrival of the Encyclopaedists in the eighteenth century, did not know and did not care to know, what the Muslim believed, nor did the Western Christian seek to know the views of Eastern Christians with regard to them. The Christian Church was already split in two, and in the end, it came to such a pass that the Eastern Christians, as Gibbon shows, preferred Muslim rule, which allowed them to practice their own form of religion and adhere to their peculiar dogmas, to the rule of fellow Christians who would have made them Roman Catholics or wiped them out.

The Western Christians called the Muslims pagans, paynims, even idolaters - there are plenty of books in which they are described as worshiping an idol called Mahomet or Mahound, and in the accounts of the conquest of Granada there are even descriptions of the monstrous idols which they were alleged to worship - whereas the Muslims knew what Christianity was, and in what respects it differed from Islam. If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension. I quote a learned French author:

“Every poet in Christendom considered a Mohammedan to be an infidel, and an idolater, and his gods to be three; mentioned in order, they were: Mahomet or Mahound or Mohammad, Opolane and the third Termogond. It was said that when in Spain the Christians overpowered the Mohammadans and drove them as far as the gates of the city of Saragossa, the Mohammadans went back and broke their idols.

“A Christian poet of the period says that Opolane the “god” of the Mohammadans, which was kept there in a den was awfully belabored and abused by the Mohammadans, who, binding it hand and foot, crucified it on a pillar, trampled it under their feet and broke it to pieces by beating it with sticks; that their second god Mahound they threw in a pit and caused to be torn to pieces by pigs and dogs, and that never were gods so ignominiously treated; but that afterwards the Mohammadans repented of their sins, and once more reinstated their gods for the accustomed worship, and that when the Emperor Charles entered the city of Saragossa he had every mosque in the city searched and had "Muhammad" and all their Gods broken with iron hammers.”

That was the kind of "history" on which the populace in Western Europe used to be fed. Those were the ideas which inspired the rank and file of the crusader in their attacks on the most civilized peoples of those days. Christendom regarded the outside world as ****ed eternally, and Islam did not. There were good and tender-hearted men in Christendom who thought it sad that any people should be ****ed eternally, and wished to save them by the only way they knew - conversion to the Christian faith.

It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant; and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Therefore the difference evident in that anecdote is not of manners only but of religion. Of old, tolerance had existed here and there in the world, among enlightened individuals; but those individuals had always been against the prevalent religion. Tolerance was regarded of un-religious, if not irreligious. Before the coming of Islam it had never been preached as an essential part of religion.

For the Muslims, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are but three forms of one religion, which, in its original purity, was the religion of Abraham: Al-Islam, that perfect Self-Surrender to the Will of God, which is the basis of Theocracy. The Jews, in their religion, after Moses, limited God's mercy to their chosen nation and thought of His kingdom as the dominion of their race.

Even Christ himself, as several of his sayings show, declared that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and seemed to regard his mission as to the Hebrews only; and it was only after a special vision vouchsafed to St. Peter that his followers in after days considered themselves authorized to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Christians limited God’s mercy to those who believed certain dogmas. Every one who failed to hold the dogmas was an outcast or a miscreant, to be persecuted for his or her soul’s good. In Islam only is manifest the real nature of the Kingdom of God.

The two verses (2:255-256) of the Qur’an are supplementary. Where there is that realization of the majesty and dominion of Allah (SWT), there is no compulsion in religion. Men choose their path - allegiance or opposition - and it is sufficient punishment for those who oppose that they draw further and further away from the light of truth.

What Muslims do not generally consider is that this law applies to our own community just as much as to the folk outside, the laws of Allah being universal; and that intolerance of Muslims for other men's opinions and beliefs is evidence that they themselves have, at the moment, forgotten the vision of the majesty and mercy of Allah (SWT) which the Qur’an presents to them.

In the Qur’an I find two meanings (of a Kafir), which become one the moment that we try to realize the divine standpoint. The Kafir in the first place, is not the follower of any religion. He is the opponent of Allah’s benevolent will and purpose for mankind - therefore the disbeliever in the truth of all religions, the disbeliever in all Scriptures as of divine revelation, the disbeliever to the point of active opposition in all the Prophets (pbut) whom the Muslims are bidden to regard, without distinction, as messengers of Allah.

The Qur’an repeatedly claims to be the confirmation of the truth of all religions. The former Scriptures had become obscure, the former Prophets appeared mythical, so extravagant were the legends which were told concerning them, so that people doubted whether there was any truth in the old Scriptures, whether such people as the Prophets had ever really existed. Here - says the Qur’an - is a Scripture whereof there is no doubt: here is a Prophet actually living among you and preaching to you. If it were not for this book and this Prophet, men might be excused for saying that Allah’s guidance to mankind was all a fable. This book and this Prophet, therefore, confirm the truth of all that was revealed before them, and those who disbelieve in them to the point of opposing the existence of a Prophet and a revelation are really opposed to the idea of Allah's guidance - which is the truth of all revealed religions. Our Holy Prophet (pbuh) himself said that the term Kafir was not to be applied to anyone who said “Salam” (peace) to the Muslims. The Kafirs, in the terms of the Qur’an, are the conscious evil-doers of any race of creed or community.

I have made a long digression but it seemed to me necessary, for I find much confusion of ideas even among Muslims on this subject, owing to defective study of the Qur’an and the Prophet's life. Many Muslims seem to forget that our Prophet had allies among the idolaters even after Islam had triumphed in Arabia, and that he “fulfilled his treaty with them perfectly until the term thereof.” The righteous conduct of the Muslims, not the sword, must be held responsible for the conversion of those idolaters, since they embraced Islam before the expiration of their treaty.

So much for the idolaters of Arabia, who had no real beliefs to oppose the teaching of Islam, but only superstition. They invoked their local deities for help in war and put their faith only in brute force. In this they were, to begin with, enormously superior to the Muslims. When the Muslims nevertheless won, they were dismayed; and all their arguments based on the superior power of their deities were for ever silenced. Their conversion followed naturally. It was only a question of time with the most obstinate of them.

It was otherwise with the people who had a respectable religion of their own - the People of the Scripture - as the Qur’an calls them - i.e, the people who had received the revelation of some former Prophet: the Jews, the Christians and the Zoroastrians were those with whom the Muslims came at once in contact. To these our Prophet's attitude was all of kindness. The Charter which he granted to the Christian monks of Sinai is extant. If you read it you will see that it breathes not only goodwill but actual love. He gave to the Jews of Medina, so long as they were faithful to him, precisely the same treatment as to the Muslims. He never was aggressive against any man or class of men; he never penalized any man, or made war on any people, on the ground of belief but only on the ground of conduct.

The story of his reception of Christian and Zoroastrian visitors is on record. There is not a trace of religious intolerance in all this. And it should be remembered - Muslims are rather apt to forget it, and it is of great importance to our outlook - that our Prophet did not ask the people of the Scripture to become his followers. He asked them only to accept the Kingdom of Allah, to abolish priesthood and restore their own religions to their original purity. The question which, in effect, he put to everyone was this: “Are you for the Kingdom of God which includes all of us, or are you for your own community against the rest of mankind?” The one is obviously the way of peace and human progress, the other the way of strife, oppression and calamity. But the rulers of the world, to whom he sent his message, most of them treated it as the message of either an insolent upstart or a mad fanatic. His envoys were insulted cruelly, and even slain. One cannot help wondering what reception that same embassy would meet with from the rulers of mankind today, when all the thinking portion of mankind accept the Prophet's premises, have thrown off the trammels of priestcraft, and harbor some idea of human brotherhood.

But though the Christians and Jews and Zoroastrians refused his message, and their rulers heaped most cruel insults on his envoys, our Prophet never lost his benevolent attitudes towards them as religious communities; as witness the Charter to the monks of Sinai already mentioned. And though the Muslims of later days have fallen far short of the Holy Prophet's tolerance, and have sometimes shown arrogance towards men of other faiths, they have always given special treatment to the Jews and Christians. Indeed the Laws for their special treatment form part of the Shari'ah.

In Egypt the Copts were on terms of closest friendship with the Muslims in the first centuries of the Muslim conquest, and they are on terms at closest friendship with the Muslims at the present day. In Syria the various Christian communities lived on terms of closest friendship with the Muslims in the first centuries of the Muslim conquest, and they are on terms of closest friendship with the Muslims at the present day, openly preferring Muslim domination to a foreign yoke....

From the expulsion of the Moriscos dates the degradation and decline of Spain. San Fernando was really wiser and more patriotic in his tolerance to conquered Seville, Murcia and Toledo than was the later king who, under the guise of Holy warfare, captured Grenada and let the Inquisition work its will upon the Muslims and the Jews. And the modern Balkan States and Greece are born under a curse. It may even prove that the degradation and decline of European civilization will be dated from the day when so-called civilized statesmen agreed to the inhuman policy of Czarist Russia and gave their sanction to the crude fanaticism of the Russian Church.

There is no doubt but that, in the eyes of history, religious toleration is the highest evidence of culture in a people. Let no Muslim, when looking on the ruin of the Muslim realm which was compassed through the agency of those very peoples whom the Muslims had tolerated and protected through the centuries when Western Europe thought it a religious duty to exterminate or forcibly convert all peoples of another faith than theirs - let no Muslim, seeing this, imagine that toleration is a weakness in Islam. It is the greatest strength of Islam because it is the attitude of truth.

Allah (SWT) is not the God of the Jews or the Christians or the Muslims only, any more than the sun shines or the rain falls for Jews or Christians or Muslims only.
Naidamar, this is exactly what we need to see more of...thank you for posting! Sorry for quoting all of it but it is ALL on point.
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Perseveranze
01-27-2011, 03:59 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by naidamar
In the spirit of educating our non-muslim members about interfaith tolerance in Islam and to present the fine innumerable examples of Muslim tolerance as urged by other members in this thread, I'd like to post this lecture by Marmaduke Pickthall.


An Abridged Version of Pickthall's Lecture

In the eyes of history, religious toleration is the highest evidence of culture in a people. It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant, and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Before the coming of Islam, tolerance had never been preached as an essential part of religion.

If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension.

Innumerable monasteries, with a wealth of treasure of which the worth has been calculated at not less than a hundred millions sterling, enjoyed the benefit of the Holy Prophet's (Muhammad’s) Charter to the monks of Sinai and were religiously respected by the Muslims. The various sects of Christians were represented in the Council of the Empire by their patriarchs, on the provincial and district council by their bishops, in the village council by their priests, whose word was always taken without question on things which were the sole concern of their community.

The tolerance within the body of Islam was, and is, something without parallel in history; class and race and color ceasing altogether to be barriers.
Asalaamu Alaikum,

Very true, in the whole of History, Muslims were the most tolerant rulers. Even Jews know this;

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. [Uri Avnery, A Jew]

There's still letters from Jewish Rabbi's telling their people to come to the land of the Arabs, because only there do they get protection/equal treatment. Even in the court of law they admitted equal treatment even against Muslim people.
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Grofica
01-28-2011, 05:17 AM
i am sure its a beautiful story but i tried the link and it didnt work :-( from what everyone has posted it sounds beautiful :-)
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