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| Violence: Christianity &
Islam Dr. Ahmad Shafaat, 1983
Christians have often presented their
religion as a religion of love and peace while presented Islam as a
religion of war and sword. In the modern media Muslims and Islam have
often been covered in a way which reinforces this old perception. For
Muslims who have time to think about such things the Christian and Western
perceptions appear as a complete disregard of the most obvious facts. In
what follows I discuss this issue from the point of view of the teachings
of the two religions as well as the conduct of their adherents through
history. Christian Conduct For centuries now Christian nations have
been busy beating up one Muslim nation or another. In the Middle Ages they
came as crusaders. Then they colonized many Muslim countries and tried to
destroy their cultures and religion. During their struggle for
independence some Muslims had to suffer terrible violence. The French
killed about a million Muslims in Algeria because they wanted
independence. In a way this French war against Islam and Muslims is still
continuing through the support of the military dictatorship in Algeria
against the Muslim party that was set to win elections and persecutions in
France of Muslim men with beards and Muslim women with hijab. The USA and
Britain killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (with the approval of about
90% of their people) without letting the world see the blood, thus
practicing a lesson learned during the Vietnam war. Serbs have killed
hundreds of thousands of Muslims and raped thousands of women in Bosnia
and Kosovo. Although in these lands, a combination of rare circumstances
put the West (USA and Western Europe) on the side of the Muslims, this did
no good to them because the Western powers did not want to loose any of
their own soldiers. Had the West left the Muslim Bosnians and ethnic
Albanians to their fate without putting an arms embargo on them, their
suffering would not have been any greater. Israel has been for half a century
destroying the Palestinian people with the help of arms and financial and
moral support provided by the USA, the very sort of crimes that have been
committed by the Serbs against the people of Kosovo and which have been
condemned by the West, even though there were no cameras to record the
cries of the Palestinians and photograph the pictures of the massacred
people and burning homes. In Lebanon when Christians were in the majority
there was war, but now that the Muslims are in the majority there is peace
except in the south of the country where Christians have been helping a
foreign enemy against their own countrymen. When an American president
needs to divert his people's attention away from his sex scandal the
easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries -- Afghanistan, Sudan
and Iraq -- because he knows that this will be approved by a vast majority
of his people. And then there is the media which is ever busy in maligning
the Muslims while they do not at this point in time possess the resources
to speak up: for every word spoken/written by a Muslim and heard/read by
one person, a thousand words from a Christian are received by a thousand
persons in the world. At the international level the voices of the Muslims
are all but drowned by the Christian voices and those Christian voices are
for the most part condemnatory. If a cartoonist was to depict the
situation between the Western and Muslim civilizations, he or she will
draw a weaker person not able or inclined to stand up or to speak while
another stronger person is standing over him with a big stick, now and
then beating him, and all the while shouting to him in a loud voice: you
are a violent man. It is important for both Muslims and
Christians to ask: What will the Christian be if the tables were turned
and their lands were first colonized by Muslims and then bombed or
maligned or ethnically cleansed? If the past is any guide, the answer is
clear: There will be a vicious reaction and given the chance an attempt at
almost total destruction of the Muslims. For in
Spain Muslims lived for about 850 years as rulers. They lived with Jews
and Christians for the most part in a spirit of tolerance and cooperation
in promoting science and culture to the point that their work prepared for
the modern scientific revolution with all its benefits for mankind. But
the moment Muslims became weaker, the hate in the Catholic heart came out
with a vengeance. Muslims were either killed, converted, or forced to
leave Spain and their heritage was as fully destroyed as was humanly
possible. Before Palestine and Kosovo, there was Spain. Above, I have
mentioned only what the Christian nations have been doing or are doing to
the Muslims. But when we look at what they have done to each other or to
other people any validity in their claim of being people of love and peace
vanishes, at least as far as Western Protestant or Catholic Christians are
concerned. The horrible treatment of the heretics and witches in the
Middle Ages probably inspired the tyrants of later centuries. The native
peoples of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand bear a tragic witness
to what Christian nations can do to other nations and with the blessings
and assistance of Christian churches. In this century alone the Western
nations have fought two world wars with tens of millions dead and untold
misery for the living. For each victory in these two wars the church bells
rang in the victorious countries. The first nation to make a weapon of
mass destruction and the only one to use it is a Christian nation. Had not the toll of death mounted too high
for the Americans there can be little doubt that the fate of North Vietnam
would have been like that of Iraq: it would have been bombed to submission
no matter how many Vietnamese lives would have been lost. The
lesson learned in North Vietnam was not that there should be no more war
but that never again the American casualties would be allowed to mount so
high and never again the cameras would be allowed to get so near the
horrors of war that a backlash against the war would be created in the
public. Often Christian countries have some hand even in the
violent conflicts in non-Christian countries in Africa and Asia. The
colonial policy of divide and rule sowed seeds of conflicts that later
resulted in violence between the groups that the colonial powers turned
against one another. Palestinian-Jewish conflict and
the Kashmir issue are among the legacy of colonialism. After the
colonial period interference by the Western countries continued in the
internal affairs of African and Asian countries. More recently, Iran-Iraq
war was encouraged by the West so that the Islamic revolution in Iran may
not spread to the Arabian peninsula. The military government in Algeria
which cancelled the elections that Muslims were poised to win has the
support of France and this support is partly responsible for the violence
there, which, it seems, is mostly done by the military. In Rwanda the tribe that perpetuated a
holocaust of another tribe follows the Catholic religion. The most cruel
tyrant in history came from a Christian country and there has been no
shortage of other somewhat less ruthless dictators in Christian countries,
especially in South America and Africa. Even in terrorism, associated in the media
mostly with the Muslims, it is the Christians that hold the record when it
comes to the number of children and other innocent people killed. The
Oklahoma bombing, carried out by people professing to be Christians,
claimed more completely innocent victims than any other single act of
terrorism. Terrorism in Northern Ireland which is a direct result of a
sectarian conflict between Catholics and Protestants and is often
supported by the religious leaders, has probably killed more children and
innocent people than Middle East terrorism. Moreover, Muslim terrorism is
mostly linked to the sort of unjust treatment suffered by the Palestinians
whereas the Oklahoma bombing and, to a lesser degree, Irish terrorism is
difficult to link in such a way. Now and then there appear religious sects
whose beliefs lead them to violence. David Koreish armed his followers to
teeth and led them to their violent death. There seem to exist several
Millennium groups who are planning to engage in violence around the year
2000. Several doctors have been murdered by anti-abortionists and some
Catholic leaders have not categorically condemned these killings. In some
cases the violent impulses in Christian groups turn against the groups
themselves. Jim Jones led hundreds of his followers to commit suicide. Then there is racial
violence, by no means dissociated from Christianity. Black churches
have been burned in America and recently some Americans tied a black man
with a rope and dragged him by their truck until he died. Such acts are
often carried out by members of groups who also carry crosses. And
in South Africa the inhuman system of apartheid was maintained by the
church-going white community with the blessing of the churches and indeed
the apartheid was practiced by the churches themselves. At an individual level, too, most horrible
examples of violence are seen in the Western Christian nations. In some
American and British cities a car driver may take out his gun and shoot
senselessly whoever happens to be passing by. There are many cases of
church-going and Christmas-celebrating serial killers who are privately
busy sexually attacking young men or women, killing them in the most
horrible way, and then burying them in their backyards. Also, prior to the
media focus on churches cases of gross sexual and other abuse of orphans
by the Catholic priests and brothers were not infrequent. And there are
even larger number of examples of church-going parents who torture their
children to death or to destroy them mentally by incestuous relations. In
one such case, an American father recently killed his son by injecting him
with the Aids virus. One may object that we are
concentrating only on the negative, not providing any background analysis,
and are not making necessary distinctions between various brands of
Christianity and between secular and religious tendencies in the Christian
world. But this is precisely what the Christians do to Muslims. They
mostly talk and ask about acts of violence taking place in the vast Muslim
world without making any distinctions, or analyzing them properly, or
balancing them with the positive. The Bible In the New Testament there are of course
teachings that stress love and mercy. Thus Jesus is reported to have
commanded Christians to love their enemies and to turn the other cheek
when stricken on one. Also, he is reported to reduce the whole of the Law
to loving God and to loving one's neighbor. He also reduces in the fourth
gospel his commandments to the single commandment of loving one another.
But all this was not able to save the natives of the Americas, Australia
or New Zealand, or the Iraqis or Vietnamese or the Bosnians or Albanians,
the millions massacred in Rwanda and earlier killed in the world wars or
the sad little children who are tortured by their parents or the prisoners
suffering tortures at the hands of the dictators. Why? The talk of love
and peace in the New Testament, often repeated from the pulpits, is
ineffective partly because of human weaknesses and partly because this is
only one side of the Biblical message. The other side is seen in Biblical
passages such as the following: When my angel goes in front of you, and brings you to the Amorites ... you shall not bow down to their gods ... but utterly demolish them and break their pillars in pieces. ... Little by little I will drive them out
from before you, until you have increased and possess the land (Ex
23:23-33; see also Ex 32:25-29, where the sin of making the golden calf by
the Israelites leads to the command: "Each of you kill your brother,
your friend, and your neighbor"). But as for the towns of these peoples that
the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let
anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them - the
Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites ... - just as the Lord your God
has commanded (Deut 20:16-17; see also Deut 7:2-16). And at the seventh time, when the priests
had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, "Shout! For the
Lord has given you the city [Jericho]. The city and all that is in it
shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction. ... Then they devoted to
destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women,
young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys (Joshua 6:16-21; cf. Heb 11:30-33,
where a New Testament writer condones such passages in the Old Testament). Thus says the Lord of hosts, "... Now
go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare
them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel
and donkey" (1 Sam 15:2-3). (Saul did not carry this command fully in
that he spared some cattle as booty. For this action God rejected Saul as
king of Israel (verses 8-9, 13-15, 26), and gave the kingdom to David,
although even David killed only men and women in the conquered lands of
other nations and spared the cattle, 1 Sam 27:8-9, cf. 2 Sam 8:2). They did battle against Midian, as the Lord
had commanded Moses, and killed every male (Num 31:7). These passages relate to the situation when the Israelites had power over some nations. But there are passages which were written about nations against whom they had no power. In these passages annihilation of other nations is of course not commanded but hoped for: O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Such hopes can at times get associated with
the messianic times: For the nation and kingdom that will not
serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste Related with the above teachings of the Bible is the well-known belief of the Israelites in their being chosen children of God while the other nations are like dogs. Another related belief is that the salvation and revelation almost exclusively belong to the Israelites. All this creates certain insensitivity to other peoples, the goyim. The Old Testament is not devoid of any
reference to love and peace (see Ex 22:21, 34:6-7). But nationalism and
exclusivism dominates it and this cannot be conducive to love and peace,
as the passages quoted above show. Christians may say that this is the
attitude only of the Old Testament. There is, they will point out, growth
and evolution in revelation from the Pentateuch to the psalms, then to the
prophets, and finally to the gospels. With the coming of the gospels
earlier teachings were replaced by the law of love. There is some truth to
this view. Thus in the Pentateuch the possibility is not admitted that
people from other nations may become worshippers of Yahweh. The division
among people is strictly on national or ethnic lines and Yahweh is a
national god who expects to be served by only his people. It is because of
this that he commands the annihilation of other peoples and the towns
inhabited by them are given only the choice of either submitting to forced
labor or annihilation. The third choice of submitting to the worship of
Yahweh is not even admitted. Later, in prophets like Isaiah there is an
improvement of this conception. Yahweh is seen as the universal god and
the possibility is admitted that other nations such as Egyptians and
Assyrians may join with Israel in the worship of the God of Israel (Isa
19:18-25), although even then Israel is expected to rule other nations
(Isa 60:12). But this idea of evolution does not justify the violence to
other nations described in the Pentateuch. For there can be no stage in
the evolution of divine revelation when killing "everything that
breathes" including infants can be justified. Moreover, the idea that
the nation of Israel is a chosen nation to which salvation and revelation
exclusively belongs and which is destined to destroy or rule other nations
with a rod of iron goes through the Bible, from the Pentateuch to the New
Testament, like a thread. The passages quoted above from the Old Testament
are from different parts of the Jewish scriptures, including from prophets
like Isaiah. The New Testament also expresses similar sentiments. Thus some stories in the gospels present
the Gentiles as dogs, as compared to the Jews who are the children of God
(Mark 7:24-30 and par). The exclusivism of the Jewish religion is also
inherited by the gospels. The fourth gospel says that the salvation is of
the Jews (4:22) and according to Paul the church is formed by grafting
Gentiles who are like a wild olive on to the remnant of the Israelites who
are like the root which sustains the grafted branches (Rom 11:17-18).
Indeed, throughout the New Testament it is assumed that the savior had to
come from the Jews because salvation is of the Jews. From this it follows
that without this Jewish savior Jesus salvation is not possible. Hence the
fourth gospel makes Jesus say that no one goes to the Father but through
Jesus who is the way, the life and the truth (John 14:6). According to
Paul even a different type of Christianity is not to be tolerated: As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be cursed! (Galatians 1:9). If in the New Testament Jesus sometimes appears like a lamb, this is so only during his first coming when he had no power. During his second advent when he will come with power and glory he will be like a lion (Rev 5:5, cf. Micah 5:8). The Old Testament hope of the restored kingdom of Israel, destroying or ruling other nations is transferred in the New Testament to Christians and Christ: when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who
do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord
Jesus But as for these enemies of mine who did
not want me to reign over them -- bring them here and slaughter them in my
presence only hold fast to what you have until I
come. To everyone who conquers (temptation to apostasy) and continues to
do my works to the end, I will give authority over the nations; to rule
them with an iron rod, as when clay pots are shattered -- even as I also
received authority from my Father And she gave birth to a son, a male child,
who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron (Rev 12:5). It is true that in Christianity the nationalism of the Old Testament and the exclusivism and violence connected with it is considerably toned down but because the New Testament largely affirms the Jewish nationalism, exclusivism, and the messianic hopes and because the Christians accept the Old Testament as word of God and therefore as sacred they are to some degree influenced by it. Indeed, it seems that the Christian nations often subconsciously put themselves in the position of the chosen Israelites while putting other nations in the place of the Amelikes, Hittites, Canaanites etc and feel justified in partially or totally destroying them with "a rod of iron" like a potter's vessel. Thus what the Catholics and other Western nations did to the natives in Americas, Australia and New Zealand etc or the way they treated the colonized lands as markets to be exploited with the accompanying attempt at the destruction of their cultures and languages or what they in this century assisted the Jews to do to the Palestinian people or what the Serbs almost did to people of Kosovo or what the Catholics did to the Muslims of Spain is very similar to what the Bible commands the Israelites to do to the Amelikes etc or prophesies that they will do to the other nations in messianic times. Even the Nazi holocaust is not too un-Biblical, for in the holocaust probably the Nazis simply turned the tables around: they put the Jews themselves in the position of the Amelikes while they became the New Israel. Thus the seeds of hatred and intolerance sown like weeds along with the wheat of divine revelation by the editors of the Bible came to bear their poisonous fruit that the Jews themselves were made to eat. For Christians to act violently and
aggressively against other nations under the influence of the Bible it is
not required that they should have often read such passages as talk about
the killing of men, women and children of nations like Amelikes. Such
passages are simply a gross manifestation of nationalism, exclusivism, and
a very negative view of other nations that is reflected everywhere in the
Bible, which no one exposed to the Bible, either by direct reading or
through the sermons of the priests and ministers, could possibly miss. The best attitude that the Bible can show
to other nations is that it allows them the benefits of revelation and
salvation, of which they are otherwise deprived, through the Jews or a
Jewish Messiah, although even that concession was fiercely opposed by some
Jews and early Christians. In recent times the church is more willing to
recognize truth and salvation in other traditions. But it is most
revealing that many Christians still believe that any truth and salvation
found in other traditions is the result of Christ acting anonymously in
those traditions. This shows how difficult it is for the readers of the
Bible, whether Jewish or Christian, to imagine that God might be loving,
guiding and saving remnants of other nations independently of Jews or a
Jewish Messiah. Christians also point out that among them
there have always been people who have renounced and denounced violence
and spoken against the actions of their fellow Christians when they engage
in war and violence. This is true. But such voices are almost always too
few and too late. They have not been enough to prevent some of the
Christian nations and individuals from becoming the most violent and
aggressive in whole of human history. Also, they gain strength only after
the destruction of other nations reaches a point of no return, that is,
the interests of the Christian nations have been completely served or can
no longer be served. Thus, far from opposing the colonial powers, an
overwhelming majority of churchmen used colonialism to try to convert the
people of the occupied countries. Some voices for the natives of North
America, Australia and New Zealand are now heard, but the destruction of
these natives is more or less complete now. Palestinians are sometimes
supported by the Christians but they have already lost their country and
are now in the process of loosing their nationhood. A positive recent development. In the past
thirty to fifty years there has been an unprecedented movement in the
Western nations in the direction of a genuine tolerance, and even respect,
for other groups and nations and hence towards love and peace. This
movement cannot be attributed to the Bible or to Christianity, for it is
inconceivable that the Bible and Christianity have started to do now what
they could not do for the past two thousand years. The roots of this
positive development lie in the interest in science and philosophy kindled
in Europe by the Muslims through Spain and other areas of contact between
the two civilizations. This interest eventually led to the creation of the
institution of the University which provided a challenge and a check to
the Church. It needed several centuries for the University to gain the
sort of influence that could be compared to the influence of the Church.
And in recent decades the University has reached a level of influence
where it can make some fundamental changes in the thinking of the Western
nations. In particular, there is a considerable rejection of exclusivism
and nationalism, for the rational thought moves man towards genuine
universalism. The terrible experience of the two world wars has also
contributed to reduce nationalism in the West. Finally, increasing global
trade and international business ties are helping to create a world
culture with universal values. These developments are even forcing the
Churches to revise their beliefs and practices. Very little credit, if
any, is due to the Bible or to Christianity for the apologies that the
popes have made in recent decades for the horrible acts of violence that
the Catholic Church has committed since the days of Constantine when it
gained power. For the Church is now bowing to the new trends whose source
is primarily the University. Christian ideal In the above observations we have used the
term "Christian" in a loose sense without making any distinction
between good or bad Christians. This is partly because of the difficulty
of deciding who is good or bad Christian and partly because the fruits of
a religion should be visible in the nations, groups, and/or civilizations
that it builds or influences despite the fact that every group, nation or
civilization is bound to include both good or bad elements. We can do some
justice to the distinction between good and bad Christians by looking at
not only the conduct of the Christian nations generally but also what
Christians often present to be their ideal. In view of the teaching of love in the
Bible, especially the New Testament, this ideal seems to be a renunciation
of almost all use of force. This ideal has inspired many individuals and
some groups to devote their lives to helping the needy and to denounce and
renounce violence. Saint Francis of Assisi, who was greatly influenced by
the Muslim mystics (Sufis), the order he founded in 1209 and Jehovah's
Witnesses provide examples. But such individuals and groups do not possess
any political power and when you are not in a position to use force, it is
easy to be non-violent, although violent men do not need much power to
show their violence. In one passage, the Qur'an says that God has ordained
love and compassion in the hearts of those who follow Jesus but that
"most of them are rebellious transgressors" (57:27), a statement
which takes into account both the existence of individuals and groups
practicing charity and non-violence and the historical fact of the most
horrible acts of violence committed by the Christian nations, as also the
Christians' holding on to some doctrines in the face of clearest evidence
that these doctrines depart from the teaching of Jesus. The Qur'an Muslims believe that God has sent his
revelation to all nations and during all ages which men have corrupted
with their own desires and ignorance and the Qur'anic revelation given
through the Prophet Muhammad -- which is preserved without any tampering
in its original form -- corrects, perfects and completes all earlier
revelations. This is manifested in the balance that characterizes the
Qur'anic revelation. For men can come up with all kinds of very good ideas
but they cannot keep them in their proper place. Among the main causes of violence are
nationalism and exclusivism. We have seen above that the New Testament
tones down the nationalism and exclusivism of the Old Testament but does
not completely break free from it. The Qur'an takes this crucial step of
breaking free from nationalism and exclusivism. It states clearly that
there is no one nation through which revelation and salvation has been
made available. Revelation took place among all nations: And verily We have raised in every nation a messenger, (proclaiming): Serve God and shun at-taghut (evil, rebellious powers, false gods) (16:36; see also, 10:47) Salvation is based on some universal principles. Anyone who follows those principles can be saved regardless of national or religious affiliation: And God does not forgive the ascribing of a partner in His Godhead. He forgives other than that (sin) to whom He will (4:48; 4:116). Lo! those who believe (in Muhammad), and
those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabeans - whoever, believes in God
and the last day and does good - they have their reward with their Lord
and there shall no fear come unto them neither shall they grieve (2:62;
5:69). The Qur'an rejects explicitly the Jewish and Christian belief that the salvation is of the Jews and that somehow, deliberately or "anonymously," man needs to go through Judeo-Christian tradition to be saved: And they (i.e., the Jews and Christians) say, "None shall enter paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian. These are their vain desires. Say, "Produce your proof (from reason or authentic revelation) if you are truthful!" Nay, - whoever surrenders his whole self to God and he is a doer of good, -he shall have his reward with his Lord; they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve (2:112-113). No nation or race has any superiority. Only individuals can be superior and the criterion for individual superiority is righteousness: O humankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other. Verily, the most honored among you in the sight of God is the most righteous among you. Verily, God is knowing, well-acquainted (with who each one of you really is) (49:13). Like the Bible the Qur'an talks of love and also sanctions some use of force but strikes, I believe, a perfect balance between the two. The use of force proceeds from love and takes place with the possibility of love and reconciliation left open. The Qur'an talks of "loving"
one's enemy as follows: The good deed and the evil deed are not alike. Repel (O man) the evil deed with one which is best, then lo! he, between whom and you there was enmity, becomes as though he was a bosom friend. But none is granted (to practice such forgiveness) save those who are self-restrained and patient, and none is granted it save those who are very fortunate (41:34-35). This verse differs from the New Testament
commandment to love one's enemy in three ways: The Qur'an views the coming of the Prophet
and the revelation sent down to him as an expression of divine love and
grace (rahmah). We [=God] have indeed brought them a Book which We have expounded with knowledge as guidance and mercy for those who believe (7:52). O humankind! There has come unto you (in the form of the Qur'an) an exhortation from your Lord and Sustainer, a healing for the (diseases) in the hearts, a guidance and mercy for believers (10:57). We have sent down to you (O Muhammad) the
Book as an exposition of all things and as guidance, mercy and good
tidings for those who surrender to God (16:89). Lo! this Qur'an narrates unto the children
of Israel most of that concerning which they differ. And lo! it is
guidance and mercy for those who believe (27:76-77). These are revelations of the Book with
wisdom, guidance and mercy for those who do good, those who establish
regular prayers and practice regular charity and have firm faith in the
hereafter (31:2-4) Unlike the Messiah or Christ of the Bible who comes with destruction for the nations, the Prophet is said in the Qur'an to come as a mercy and love for all the nations: And We have not sent you (O Muhammad) except as love and mercy to all the nations (lit. worlds) (21:107). Consequently, nowhere the Arabs are presented as a chosen people who will rule other nations. The essential division between humankind is between those who have faith in God and do good and those who do not believe in God and do not do good, in contrast to the Bible where along with this division another very important and essential division is between the children of Israel and the other nations, a very racial and nationalistic division. As is well known, the Prophet Muhammad
engaged in warfare, often defensive, but sometimes also offensive. This
use of force, however, proceeds from love. Before the Prophet, Arabia was
inhabited by tribes who were not under any system of law enforced by a
legitimate authority. There was no mechanism to settle disputes which
often led to feuds that continued for many generations. The Prophet
Muhammad united these tribes into a single brotherhood so that there may
not be any violence. The Qur'an itself refers to this: And remember the favor of God on you: how you were enemies and He reconciled your hearts so that you became as brothers by the grace of God; and how you were at the brink of an abyss of fire and He saved you from it (3:103). This unification, however, could not have taken place without resistance which made some warfare necessary. During all the battles that the Prophet
fought only a few hundred people were killed. And after victory all those
who for years fought the Prophet were forgiven. There was nothing like the
treatment of the subjugated people that we see in the Bible. When the city
of Makkah was conquered, the Qur'an did not tell the Prophet to kill
everything that breathes but rather said the following: When the help of God came along with victory, you (O Prophet) saw the people enter the religion of God in large groups. So glorify God and seek His forgiveness (110). Warfare requires some consolidation of one's troops and in Sura 60 the Qur'an brings its followers on a war footing. But in the middle of preparing the Muslims for war, the possibility of love and reconciliation with the enemies is held out: It may be that God will generate love between you and those of them with whom you are now at enmity. God is capable (of all things); God is forgiving and merciful (60:7). No religious tradition can exist for long without some love just as no tradition can exist without some use of force in disciplining its own adherents and dealing with external enemies. What differentiates various traditions is the way the two are mixed. When the Bible talks of love it forgets the very real need for the use of force in human societies and when it talks of the use of force it forgets about love. The Prophet Muhammad shows how to combine the two. Some Christians, not too informed about
either Islam or Christianity, often contrast Jesus and Muhammad by saying
that Jesus was a man of love and peace while Muhammad was a man of war.
But Jesus' career was cut short by his departure. Had he succeeded in his
first coming to complete his mission there can be no doubt that his career
would have involved some use of force. As we have seen, the New Testament
says that during his second coming when his mission will be completed he
will come with a rod of iron. And there is evidence that even during his
first coming, in a lowly and weak position, he was not totally against the
use of force. Some gospel traditions suggest that his disciples carried
arms which one of them used (Mark 14:47) and he himself initiated the
arming of the disciples (Luke 22:35-38), although the gospel writers in
various contradictory ways try to minimize the implications of these
traditions. He reportedly said that he did not come with peace but with
sword (Matt 10:34-39 = Luke 12:51-53, 14:26-27. He turned the tables of
traders in the Jerusalem temple (Mark 11:15-19 = Matt 21:12-17 = Luke
19:45-48 = John 2:13-22), an act of physical force. (Some scholars even
suggest that Jesus and his disciples were well-armed and they came to
Jerusalem to free Palestine from the Romans, but this is highly
improbable.) Had Jesus' mission come to some type of
completion during his ministry he would have looked very similar to the
Prophet Muhammad. On the other hand, had the Prophet Muhammad been killed
during his flight from Makkah, he would have appeared like Jesus. The
prophets and messengers of God are all essentially of the same spirit. Any
differences among them are due to the scope of their work and the
circumstances in which they operate. Muslim Conduct In every religious group individuals have
to grow to achieve the level of development that the religion requires.
One would therefore find individuals in each religious group at different
level of development and behaving accordingly. Some will doubtless perform
some reprehensible acts. Thanks to the Western media I need not rehearse
acts of violence done by the Muslims. But put all the acts of individual
and group violence done by Christians and Muslims on the two sides of a
balance and no one with the necessary factual information can doubt that
the Christian acts of violence far outweigh those by Muslims in their
scope, in their senselessness and in their cold-bloodedness and evil. When
Muslims were in a dominating position their treatment of non-Muslim
minorities and nations under their control, especially Christians and
Jews, have been far more kinder than the other way around. In recent
decades there have been deplorably some acts of violence against Christian
minorities in such Muslim countries as Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia. This
is probably partly due to a reaction of the news of American, British and
Serbian violence against Muslim peoples combined with some very local
reasons. Even so, they are nothing compared to what Muslims have suffered
and are suffering at the hands of Christians. Muslim Ideal The Muslim ideal is not to renounce all use of force and retire to a monastic life or to stay away from politics and thus leave the running of the world to those who do not fear God. Rather the Muslim ideal is the proper use of force, a use which is exercised with fear of God and love of fellow human beings and even other creatures. One of the heroes of Muslim history is 'Umar, the second Khalifah. At one point he ruled a great part of the then known world. But he sew his own garments. It is reported that at night he used to roam around in disguise to see if someone is suffering from hunger or injustice because he believed that he will be asked about it on the day of judgment. When he conquered Jerusalem he is said to ride his camel with a servant. For half the journey he was on the camel and for the other half his servant was on the camel. Another hero is the fourth
Khalifah, 'Ali. It is said that he overpowered a combatant in a battle and
was about to kill him when the combatant spit on him. 'Ali withdrew his
sword. The combatant asked why he let him go. 'Ali replied, I was fighting
in the way of God, but when you spit at me I was no longer sure that my
killing you would have been purely in the way of God. In Islam, one does not give to God what is
God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's. In Islam what is Caesar's must be
what is God's. Islam aims to have Caesars like 'Umar and 'Ali who fear God
and are moved by compassion, wisdom and justice. Proper use of force can usually take place
within a system of law which is enforced by a legitimate authority. Wars
and violence are often the result of a lack of existence of such a system
of law and a legitimate authority to enforce it. This was the case in the
Arabian Peninsula where different tribes lived without any well-defined
system of law and without any recognized authority to enforce it. The
world as a whole has also been in a similar situation so far. There are
often wars because there is no well-established system of law and no
legitimate authority to enforce it. After the world war II such a system
is slowly evolving. But this process will not succeed without the
principles of faith in God and the hereafter and of the
brotherhood/sisterhood of all human beings. It is one of the missions of
Islam to establish these principles in the world and to thereby lead it to
peace and stability. That is, what the Prophet achieved during his life in
Arabia in terms of reconciling the hearts of the various Arab tribes,
Islam wants to achieve in the world as a whole by reconciling different
nations and groups and to bring them under a single brotherhood/sisterhood
serving the one true transcendent God. Conclusion In comparing any two great
civilizations one should not focus on one land or one decade or century,
but rather glance over many centuries and over many lands. If we do that,
then it becomes clear that whether one looks at the teachings of the two
religions or the conduct of their followers there is no basis in fact in
the claim that Christianity is more of a religion of love and peace than
Islam. Christians have no doubt talked about love and peace more, but
Muslims have practiced these values more. As a final word, I would say that before
preaching love and peace to other nations, Christians
will do well to pay heed to the following well-attested words of Jesus: To myself and other Muslims
I would say that forever keep reflecting the meaning of the following
words of God: Source: |