If you climb the mount of
Kahlenberg, where the Ottomans established their military headquarters during
the siege of Vienna in 1095 [1683 C.E.] because it offered an ideal observation
of the city from favourable elevation, you will see a monument with a sign on
it that says, “May God protect us against the evils of plague and Turks.” Right
beneath the sign is a concocted lithograph illustrating Turks slaughtering
Christian women and children. At that time Christians represented the Turks as
the most savage, the most cruel, and the most barbarous people of the world.
They said that the Turks would not be cruel or barbarous if they were
Christian. Those who alleged that Islam was a religion of savagery were the
Christian priests, who were the cruel and tyrannical dictators of that time.
This falsification always occupied a major part of the religious lessons given
in schools, and thereby the Christian children were brainwashed with the
inculcation that Islam was a religion of savagery. This aweful vilification was
carried on throughout centuries, preserving its vehemence till our time. Is-haq
Efendi of Harput ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’, in his book, makes the following
quotation from a booklet which a priest wrote for the purpose of traducing
Islam in 1860:
“Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’
always treated people with affection, kindness, compassion and helpfulness in
communicating his religion. It is for this reason that five hundred people
became Christians within the first few years of Christianity. In contrast,
Islam, a religion of savagery, was imposed on people with force and under
threat of death. Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ tried to spread Islam by means of
force, threat, fighting and holy war. Consequently, thirteen years after his
claim to prophethood the number of people who accepted Islam as a result of
mere communication was around one hundred and eighty. This would be enough to
demonstrate the difference between Christianity, a true and humanitarian
religion, and Islam, which is a religion of savagery. Christianity is a perfect
and humanitarian religion which penetrates the human heart, inspires mercy and
compassion, and never uses force or compulsion. One indication of the fact that
Christianity is the only true religion is that the advent of Christianity
invalidated Judaism, which was the unitarian religion previous to it. When Allâhu ta’âlâ sends a new Prophet, the religions
previous to him must be invalidated. Because Jewry refused Christianity,
various disasters befell on them, and they suffered humiliation and
degradation. For the advent of a new Prophet signifies the fact that the previous religions have been spoilt.
On the other hand, the advent of Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ did not abrogate
Christianity, nor did various disasters befall on Christians, which had
been the case with Jews, but, on the contrary, Christianity spread
all the wider. Despite all the Muslims’ efforts, massacres and
church-destructions, (for instance, four thousand churches were destroyed in
the time of caliph ’Umar,) Christians are daily increasing in number and
improving in welfare, whereas Muslims are suffering indignities, becoming
poorer and poorer, and losing their value and importance world-wide.”
Is-haq Efendi ‘rahmatullâhi ’aleyh’
gives the following answer to the priest’s denigrations:
First of all, the information and the
numerical figures provided by the priest run counter to facts. Qur’ân al-kerîm, Islam’s
Holy Book, contains the injunction, “There is no compulsion in the religion.”
Although Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ never had recourse to
compulsion or threat as he communicated the Islamic religion, the number of
people who embraced Islam willingly and of their own accord increased in a
short time. The statements made by SALE, a Christian historian and a translator
of the Qur’ân al-kerîm, corroborate our
argument. [George Sale died in 1149 [1736 C.E.]. He was a British priest. He
translated the Qur’ân al-kerîm into English in
1734. He gave detailed information about Islam in the introduction of his
work.] He states as follows in his Translation of the Koran,
which was printed in 1266 [1850 C.E.]: “The Hegira had not taken place yet when
Medina already did not contain a house without Muslim residents.” That means to
say that urban people who had not even seen the face of a sword accepted Islam
willingly only owing to the greatness and trueness of this religion and the
nonpareil literary perfection of the Qur’ân al-kerîm.
The following numerical figures are an indication of Islam’s rapid spread. By
the time Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ passed away, the number of
Muslims was one hundred and twenty-four thousand (124,000). Four years after
the passing away of the Messenger of Allah ‘sall-Allâhu
ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’, ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’ sent a
forty-thousand-strong Muslim army, and that army conquered Iran, Syria, a part
of Anatolia up to Konya, and Egypt. ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu
ta’âlâ ’anh’ never had recourse to tyranny. He never displayed cruelty
to those Christians and fire-worshippers living in the countries that he
captured from cruel dictators. His justice is acknowledged by the entire world,
friend and foe alike. Most of the people living in these countries saw the
justice and the ethical perfection inherent in the Islamic religion and became
Muslims willingly. Very few of them remained in their former religions, such as
Christianity, Judaism and Magi. Thus, as historians unanimously acknowledge,
the number of Muslims living in Muslim countries reached twenty or thirty
million in ten years, which is a comparatively short period in the context of
its time. ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’, let alone destroying four thousand
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churches,
gave an harsh answer to the people who asked him what church he was going to
convert into a mosque, when he entered Jerusalem, and performed his first namâz
outside of the church.
Three hundred years after Îsâ
‘alaihis-salâm’ was raised up to heaven, (alive as he was,) Constantine I
accepted Christianity. With his support and compulsive methods, the number of
Christians reached only three million. Any Jew who refused Christianity would
be subjected to chastisements dictated by Constantine such as mutilation of
ears and pelting with stones.
As for the allegation that when Christianity
appeared Judaism was abrogated and Jews suffered sundry disasters; it shows
that the priest has not studied history well enough and therefore is not aware
of the facts. For it was a fairly long time before the rise of Christianity that
Judaism was contaminated, Jerusalem was destroyed first by the Assyrian king
Buhtunnassar (Abuchednezzar) [604-561 B.C.], and later by the Romans. After
these destructions, Jewry suffered utter social disruptions from which they
never recovered. Because all these events took place before the advent of
Christianity, they have nothing to do with Christianity. Today, as we are to
enter the twenty-first century, we see a Jewish state before us. Obviously,
therefore, Judaism survives despite Christianity. As a matter of fact, before
the establishment of today’s Israel, Jews occupied the leading positions in the
European monetary sources, banks, institutions of press and heavy industry, and
Jewish lawyers enjoy universal popularity. The Jewish population in Britain
produced the Empire’s wealthiest lord, Lord Disraeli.[1] Rothschild[2], another Jew, was the
world’s richest person. Even today, European and American bourses and most of
the companies are in the possession of Jews. That means to say that the priest
is completely wrong in his assertion that as soon as Christianity appeared
Judaism disappeared and various disasters befell on Jews, which is no more than
a hallucination that was conjured up in his mind.
Christian priests announce that
Christianity is based on essentials such as affection, compassion, mercy, and
mutual help. We had a Christian neighbor, a priest. We asked him about a
passage that we had read on the hundred and sixty-ninth page of the Turkish
version of the Holy Bible which was printed in Istanbul in 1303 [1886 C.E.].
The passage, the tenth through eighteenth verses of the twentieth
---------------------------------
[1] Benjamin Disraeli, (1804-1881), English Premier in 1868, and again in 1874, until 1880.
[2] Meyer Arschel Rothschild, (1743-1812), German banker and the founder of the international banking firm, House of Rothschild; and also his son. Nathan Meyer Rothschild, (1777-1836), British banker.
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chapter of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, reads as follows in
the Authorized (King James) version:
“When thou comest nigh unto a
city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.” “And it shall be, if it
make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the
people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall
serve thee.” “And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against
thee, then thou shalt besiege it:” “And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it
into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the
sword:” “But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in
the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou
shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.”
“Thus thou shalt do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which
are not of the cities of these nations.” “But of the cities of these people,
which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive
nothing that breatheth:” “But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the
Hittites, and the Am’or-ites, the Canaanites, and the Per’iz-zites, the
Hi’vites, and the Jeb’u-sites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:” “That
they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done
unto their Gods; so should ye sin against the LORD thy God.” (Deut: 20-10 to
18)
We said to our Christian
neighbour, “Your Holy Bible enjoins utterly cruel behaviour towards weak
people. This commandment, which exists in your Holy Bible, has no proximity to
the so-called Christian compassion and mercy which you repeat so frequently.
Where is your mercy and compassion? This passage in the Holy Bible is a
commandment of terrible savagery and cruelty. In contrast, our Holy Book, the Qur’ân al-kerîm, does not contain a
single word encouraging such horrible behaviour towards the enemy. So your
religion incites you to cruelty. On the contrary, the Qur’ân al-kerîm abounds with
expressions of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, and prohibiting cruelty.
Then, how can Christian priests dare to allege that Islam commands savagery and
Christianity is a religion of compassion? Here is a passage from your sacred
book, the Holy Bible! This means to say that, contrary to your claim, the Holy
Bible commands savagery, barbarism, and cruelty. How will you explain this?”
The priest first had recourse to
prevarication, saying that he did not know of the passage. When we had the
aforesaid Turkish version of the Holy Bible fetched and showed him the hundred
and sixty-ninth page, he said, “Well, this passage has nothing to do with Îsâ
‘alaihis-salâm’. The passage is a quotation from the Torah, which
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belongs
to Moses. The commandment you criticize is the one which Allâhu ta’âlâ gave the Mosaic people so that they
should revenge for their expulsion from Egypt. The Egyptians refused the time’s
true religion and even attempted to kill Moses (Műsâ) ‘alaihis-salâm’. Upon
this Allâhu ta’âlâ commanded the Jews to revenge
on them by annihilating the so-called nations of disbelievers. That is the
meaning of this passage, which was added to the Holy Bible. It has nothing to
do with Christianity.” Upon this we said to him: “Every religion has a holy
book. Believers of a religion have to believe in its holy book in its entirety.
Where its passages were taken from, or how they were organized, is not a matter
of question. A holy book is believed as a Book of Allah and the passages it
contains as the commandments of Allah. The holy book of Christians is the Holy Bible,
i.e. the Torah and the Bible. Therefore, you have to recognize all the passages
in the Holy Bible as the commandments of Allah. You cannot divide your Holy
Bible by categorizing its passages with respect to their authenticities, for
instance by stigmatizing one passage as obsolete, another as concerning Jewry,
and another as Mosaic or non-Christian. You cannot believe in one part and
reject another. You have to believe in it as a whole. If this passage from the
Biblical book Deuteronomy has nothing to do with
Christianity, your ecumenical councils should have excised it from the Holy
Bible or at least announced all over the world that it was a superstition
inserted into the Bible afterwards. Since they did not do so, you should be
believing in this passage as a commandment of Allah. Accordingly, you have to
acknowledge that Christianity is an extremely savage, cruel, ruthless and
death-dealing religion.”
The Christian priest was consternated.
Because he had never read the Holy Bible completely, and had not even taken a
look at the Old Testament and therefore it was the first time that he had ever
seen it, he was agape with astonishment. Finally, he said to us, “You have
embarrassed not only me but the entire Christendom. I am not a theologian, and
I must confess that I am not very pious. I thought the Holy Bible contained
only compassion, mercy and forgiveness. This terrible passage of savagery has
had a disastrous effect on me. I am ashamed also that I am a priest. When I go
back home, I shall tell some learned theologians about this. I shall apply to
the authorities for the excision of this passage from the Holy Bible. This
passage is certainly a superstition. For Allah would not give such a horrendous
command. This passage must be a Jewish fabrication.” We consoled him. We gave
him one of our publications in English, namely Islam and Christianity.
We said, “If you read this book you will see that the Holy Bible contains many
other errors. In fact, these errors are about twenty thousand according to a
report!” The previous section,
‘The Qur’ân al-kerîm and Today’s Copies of the Torah andthe Bible’,
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contains a comparison of the Bible and the Qur’ân al-kerîm. Please review that
section!
The Holy Bible, which Christians believe in as a heavenly book revealed by Allâhu ta’âlâ, contains a high number of
passages commanding cruelty and savagery. We will quote an insignificant number
of them only as a lesson to the so-called innocent and compassionate Christians
who call Muslims barbarians and Islam a religion of barbars.
The twenty-third and
twenty-fourth verses of the twenty-third chapter of Exodus read as follows:
“For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Am’or-ites,
and the Hittites, and the Per’iz-zites, and the Canaanites, ...: and I will cut
them off.” “... but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down
their images.” (Ex: 23-23, 24)
In the beginning of the
thirty-first chapter of Numbers “the LORD” commands Moses to “Avenge the
children of Israel of the Mid’i-an-ites: ...” (Num: 31-2) And the seventh and
later verses read as follows: “And they warred against the Mid’i-an-ites, as
the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.” (ibid: 7) “And the
children of Israel took all the women of Mid’i-an captives, and their little
ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all
their goods.” “And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all
their goodly castles, with fire.” (ibid: 9, 10) It is written in the later
verses that Műsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ was angry with his officers because they had
left the women alive, and that he commanded the slaughter of the male children
of all the women. (ibid: 14, 15, 16, 17) A later verse, on the other hand,
(verse 35) states that the number of girls unkilled was thirty-two thousand.
Just imagine the number of the people slaughtered!
The initial verses of the seventh chapter of
Deuteronomy read as follows: “When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the
land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before
thee, the Hittites, and the Gir’ga-shites, ... and the Am’or-ites, and the
Canaanites, and the Per’iz-zites, seven nations greater and mightier than
thou;” “And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt
smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor
shew mercy unto them:” (Deut: 7-1, 2)
The twenty-seventh verse of the
thirty-second chapter of Exodus reads as follows: “And he said unto them, Thus
saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in
and out from gate to gate throughhout the camp, and slay every man his brother,
and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.” (Ex: 32-27)
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It is written in the eighth and
later verses of the twenty-seventh chapter of I Samuel that Dâwűd (David)
‘alaihis-salâm’ and his soldiers “invaded the Gesh’u-rites, and the Gez’rites,
and the Am’a-lek-ites” and “left neither man nor woman alive.” (I Sam: 27-8, 9)
It is written in the eighth
chapter of II Samuel that Dâwűd ‘alaihis-salâm’ “slew of the Syrians two and
twenty thousand men,” (II Sam: 8-5) and that later he slew “eighteen thousand
men.” (ibid: 13) It is stated in the final part of the tenth chapter that he
“slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand
horsemen,” (10-18) while the twelfth chapter reports that he killed the
inhabitants of the cities that he had captured “under saws, and under harrows
of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln.”
(12-31)
It is written in the Old
Testament that after Műsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, Yűshâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ had millions
of people slaughtered. (Josh: 8, and also later chapters)
The thirty-fourth verse of the
tenth chapter of Matthew quotes Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ as having said, “Think not
that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
(Matt: 10-34)
It is written in the fifty-first
verse of the twelfth chapter ofLuke that Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ said, “Suppose ye
that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:”
(Luke: 12-51)
Again, the thirty-sixth verse of
the twenty-second chapter ofLuke quotes Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ as having said,
“... But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip:
and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” (Luke:
22-36)
A reasonable person who reads the Holy Bible
will see that it abounds in scenes of savagery and cruelty, and that all those
scenes are ascribed to Prophets and to Allâhu ta’âlâ’s
beloved slaves.
Following the commandments of
that book, which they believed to be the Word of Allâhu
ta’âlâ, Christians persecuted both one another and Muslims
and Jews, perpetrating massacres that were written with blood in history. It is
stated as follows on the twenty-seventh page of the book Kasf-ul âsâr wa fî qisâs-i-Enbiyâ, which was originally written in English by Alex Keith and
translated into Persian by a priest named Merik: “Constantine the Great
commanded the mutilation of all the Jews in his country by cutting their ears
and exiled them to various places.” A book written by priests and entitled Siyar ul-mutaqaddimîn contains the following information: “In 372 C.E., the Roman
emperor Gratianus, after a consultation with his commanders, commanded the
Christianization of all the Jews in the country and the killing of those who
would resist.”
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It is written in a book that was
written by priests and which was printed in Beirut in 1265 [1849 C.E.] that two
hundred and thirty thousand Protestants were slaughtered by Catholics on the
grounds that they would not accept the Pope. It is written on the forty-first
and forty-second pages of a book that was translated from English into Urdu by
a Catholic priest named Thomas and which was printed with the title Mir’ât
us-sidq in 1267 [1851 C.E.] that the Protestants appropriated six hundred and
forty-five (645) monasteries, ninety (90) schools, twenty-three hundred and
seventy-six (2367) churches and one hundred and ten (110) hospitals from the
Catholics and sold them for nothing. With the command of Queen Elizabeth,
numbers of Catholic priests were boarded on ships and hurled into the sea.
Volumes of books were written to tell about these cruelties and disasters in
detail. These books written by priests prove that the real barbars are the
Christians who stigmatize Muslims as barbars.
Christian priests cannot find a single word
in the Qur’ân al-kerîm to corroborate their
allegation that Islam is a religion of barbarity. On the other hand, the
passage above which we have quoted from the Old Testament shows that Christianity,
instead of Islam, is a religion of utter barbarity. How can the Christian
priests ever have the face to call Islam a religion of barbarity with such
commandments of barbarity in their Holy Bible? Let them first examine their own
holy book, read about the savageries perpetrated in the name of Christianity,
and feel shame, at least a little.
The so-called innocent,
civilized and compassionate Christians organized Crusading Expeditions in order to save the sacred homeland of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and
Jerusalem from the hands of Muslims, whom they call barbars. The Christians of
that time were leading a semi-wild life, whereas the Muslims had reached the
zenith of civilization and were guiding the entire world in knowledge, in
science, in arts, in agriculture, and in medicine. Wealth and welfare that they
had been enjoying were the natural fruits of the high civilization they had
reached. That high degree of welfare was dazzling the eyes of the half-naked
Christian peoples, and they were covetous of the blessings the Muslims had been
enjoying. All their thoughts were fixed on how to plunder the rich Muslim
countries. A pretext was finally found. It was necessary to recapture the
sacred lands belonging to Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ from the Muslims.
A money-and-blood-thirsty and sadistical
priest named Pierra L’Ermite came up with the claim that he had had a dreamin
which Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ had appeared to him and wailed for help, saying,
“Rescue me from the hands of Muslims!” He launched a military campaign for the
rescue of Jerusalem, continuously provoking and encouraging people. It was an
opportunity looters were looking
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forward
to. Dreaming that they would obtain valuable goods in the places they would go
to, they joined the first crusading expedition mounted by Pierre L’Ermite.
Their commanders were the lunatic priest L’Ermite and the poor knight Gauntier.
Consisting of mere looters, the first crusaders had not left their countries
yet when they began looting. They pillaged some cities in Germany. When they
entered Istanbul, they pillaged the affluent Byzantine city with complete
unaffectedness despite the cries of the owners of the goods they were stealing.
Completely on the loose, the crusaders were making their way through towns and
villages, attacking people and places at random, when they were stopped and
annihilated by the Seljuki Turks before reaching Jerusalem. Then other
crusaders appeared. Gradually, crusading became a matter of honour, and eminent
kings joined the expeditions, which meant tremendous armies. According to a
report, a one-million-strong, [or at least 600,000,] set forth to attack. The
crusading expeditions continued for a hundred and seventy-four years, from 489
[1096 C.E.] to 669 [1270 C.E.], in eight waves. Later, crusaders were organized
against the Turks. The Ottoman Turks made holy wars against the crusading
armies and routed them in Nighbolu and Varna. Some fanatical Christians include
even the Balkan War, which took place in 1330 [1912/13 C.E.], in those
expeditions, and consider that war, which they fought against the Turks, as a
crusading expedition.
The German emperor Friedrich
Barbarossa, Friedrich II, Conrad III, Heinrich VII, the British king Richard
the Lion-hearted (Couer de Lion), the French kings Philip Auguste and Saint
Louis, the Hungarian king Andreas II were among the many kings and princes who
joined the crusades. Perpetrating all sorts of savagery on the way and, as we
have already stated, burning, destroying and plundering Istanbul, which
belonged to their co-religionists, the Byzantines, they arrived in Jerusalem.
The following is a passage paraphrased from a five-volumed book about the
crusading expeditions, by Michaud:
“In 492 [1099 C.E.], the
crusaders were able to force their way into Jerusalem. When they entered the
city they slaughtered seventy-thousand of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants.
The streets were flooded in blood. Heaps of corpses blocked the roads. The
crusaders were so barbarous that they slaughtered ten thousand Jews that they
met on the banks of the Rhine in Germany.” The Muslim Turks, on the other hand,
did not slay a single woman or child in Vienna. The lithograph on the mount is
imaginary. The crusaders’ savageries in Jerusalem, however, are blatant facts.
Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, ‘rahima-hullâhu
ta’âlâ’ states as follows in his book Qisâs-i-Enbiyâ:
“The crusading army invaded
Jerusalem in 492 [1099 C.E.]. They
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put all its inhabitants to the sword. They slaughtered more than
seventy thousand Muslims who had sheltered in the Masjîd-i-aqsâ. A considerable
number of those Muslims were imâms (religious leaders), scholars, zâhids
(extremely pious Muslims), and people too old to use a gun. The Christian
barbars plundered the innumerable gold and silver candle-sticks and invaluable
historical items in the treasury near the valuable stone called Sahratullah. Most of the Syrian cities came into the possession of the
crusaders, and consequently a Kingdom of Jerusalem came into being. For many long years hundreds of battles were
fought between that kingdom and the Muslims. Eventually, Salâhaddîn-i-Eyyűbî
‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ [d. 589 (1193 C.E.)], won a victory, called Hattin,
after various battles, and entered Jerusalem on a Friday which coincided with
the twentieth day of the blessed month of Rajab, in 583 [1186 C.E.]. Within the
following few years he purged many cities from the crusaders and rescued
hundreds of thousands of Muslims from captivity. The patriarch of Jerusalem,
the bishops and priests put on their mourning garments and made tours in Europe
to propagate vengeance. The pope died of grief when he received the news of
defeat. A new pan-European army of crusaders was established. The German
emperor Friedrich, the king of France Philip, and the king of England Richard,
wearing crosses up to their chests, came with their armies. Yet their efforts
to recapture Jerusalem ended in failure. In 690 [1290 C.E.], the Egyptian
Sultan Melik Eshref ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ conquered Akkâ, which was the
center of the crusaders, as well as the other cities, thus putting an end to
the crusades.”
Remaining in the possession of
Christians for eighty-eight years, i.e. from 1099 to 1187, Jerusalem was
eventually rescued by Salâhaddîn-i-Eyyűbî, in the latter date mentioned. That
blessed commander captured Richard the Lion-heart. However, instead of treating
him as a prisoner of war, he showed him the same extremely kind and mild
hospitality as he would have shown to the king of a neighbouring country paying
him a courtesy visit. That was a prime example to show the difference between
the ‘wild Islam’ and the ‘affectionate Christianity’!
It is true that Muslims converted some
churches into mosques. Yet no churches were destroyed. On the contrary, many of
them were reconstructed. When Sultân Muhammad Khân ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’
conquered Istanbul, he converted Saint Sophia, which was a church, into a mosque.
It was one of the conditions stipulated during the negotiations for peace. It
was not only a religious event but also a monument representing the Turks’
greatest victory. Our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’ had foretold
the conquest of Istanbul and had said, “How lucky for them ...,”
about the would-be conqueror and his army. Fâtih Sultân Muhammad Khân, who
ushered
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a
new era by conquering Istanbul, had to announce the event to the entire world
by converting Saint Sophia, which had been a symbol of Christianity, into a
mosque, a symbol of Islam. Fâtih Sultân Muhammad Khân never destroyed Saint
Sophia. On the contrary, he had it repaired. The Qur’ân
al-kerîm does not contain a commandment concerning the demolition of
churches. As we shall see later ahead, Muslim governments have always protected
churches and other temples against transgression.
Now we shall tell you about the
conversion of a mosque into a church accomplished by Christians, who consider
themselves as affectionate, innocent, and compassionate. The following passage
is a paraphrased translation from Spaneien=Spain, prepared in cooperation by Prince Salvatore, Prof. Graus, theologian
Kirchberger, Baron von Bibra, and Ms. Threlfall, and published in the Würzburg
city of Germany in 1312 [1894 C.E.]:
“Cordoba (Qurtuba in the Arabic
literature) is one of the most important cities of Spain. It was the capital of
the Arab Andalusian state in Spain. When Muslims under the command of Târiq bin
Ziyâd ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ (crossed the Gibraltar and) landed in Spain in 95
[711 C.E.], they made the city their capital. The Arabs brought civilization to
the city and developed it from a semi-wild habitation into the cultural hub of
Spain. They built a grand palace [Al-Qasr], in addition to hospitals and
madrasas (Islamic universities). Besides these, they established a Jâmi’a
[grand university], which was at the same time the first university established
in Europe. Up until that time the Europeans had been far behind civilization in
knowledge, in science, in medicine, in agriculture, and in the humanities.
Muslims brought them knowledge, science, and culture, and tutored them.
“Abd-ur-Rahmân bin Muâwiya bin Hishâm bin
Abd-ul-Melik I ‘rahima-humullâhu ta’âlâ’ [d. 172 (788 C.E.)], the founder of
the Islamic state of Andalusia, intended to have a grand mosque built in
Qurtuba (Cordoba). He wanted the mosque to be larger, lovelier and more gorgeous
than the mosques in Baghdâd. He found a plot that he thought would be most
suitable for the mosque. The plot belonged to a Christian. The money he
demanded for his plot was very high. Being an extremely just ruler,
Abd-ur-Rahmân I did not have recourse to compulsion for the expropriation of
the plot, which he could have done quite easily. He paid the owner of the plot
the money he demanded. The Christians used the money to build a small church
for themselves. The Muslims began to build the mosque in 169 [785 C.E.]. During the construction,
Abd-ur-Rahmân worked for a few hours with the other workers every day.
Materials necessary for the construction were brought from diverse places of
the orient. The lumber necessary for the wooden parts was transported from
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Lebanon,
famous for its valuable trees, huge lumps of coloured marble were brought from
various parts of the east, and precious stones, pearls, emeralds and ivory were
imported from Iraq and Syria, and all these materials formed large heaps on the
plot. Everything was extremely beautiful and plentiful. Gradually, the walls of
the mosque began to reach the heights to offer the first glimpses of a
magnificent building. Abd-ur-Rahmân I did not live long enough to see the
completion of the mosque. He passed away in 172 [788 C.E.]. Owing to the great
efforts of Hishâm, his son, and Hakem I, his grandson, “rahima-humallâhu ta’âlâ’ who succeeded him, respectively, the
mosque was completed in ten years. However, with the annexes added in the
course of years, it was not before 380 [990 C.E.], which means two hundred and
five years later, that the mosque attained its consummate perfection. In 366
[976 C.E.] Hakem II[1] had
a minber built of gold for the mosque. It cost all those long years of hard
work to bring the mosque to the perfection of a stupendous, resplendent and
extremely pulchritudinous masterpiece. The mosque was in a rectangular shape,
with dimensions 120x135 metres. Two parallel arms, each 135 metres, extended
from the main body to make up an open yard adjacent to the mosque. There were
one thousand, four hundred and nineteen (1419) pillars, each ten metres tall,
in the mosque. These pillars were made from the world’s best quality marble.
The arches on the pillars were made from pieces of marble cut from variegated
marble. When you entered the mosque your eyes were lost in the exquisite
scenery offered by that forest of pillars.
“The marble captions of the
pillars commanded so strong admiration from the spectators that as soon as a
visitor entered the mosque he would be infatuated with their beauty. It was
such beauty as the world had not seen until that time.
“There were twenty entrances
into the mosque. Before each entrance was a special orange-garden, whereby the
mosque was surrounded with a verdant strip. Around the mosque were other sorts
of gardens, ponds with water jets, and fountains. A number of shadirwâns
(reservoirs with faucets at the sides) were built so that Muslims could make
ablution. The floor of the mosque was of the most valuable marble ornamented
with rare wood. The valuable Lebanese wood used for the construction of the
ceiling provided the mosque with exceptional beauty and grandeur. There were
carvings, engravings, reliefs, and beautiful writings on the walls and on the ceiling.
If you entered the mosque and took a look around, you would feel as if there
were not an end of that sumptuous jungle of pillars. At night the interior of
the mosque became a dreamland with coloured lights gushing from the thousands
of candles.
---------------------------------
[1] Hakem II passed away in 366 [976 C.E.].
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“It is written in a book
entitled Naf-ut-tîb min-ghasnî Andulus-ir-ratîb, by the renowned historian Ahmad al-Maqqarî [d. 1041 (1632 C.E.), in Egypt],
that the number of the lamps and candles illuminating the mosque was seven
thousand four hundred and twenty-five (7425), that half of that number was used
to illuminate the nights of the average days of the year, that all of them were
lit in the nights of Ramadân and ’Iyd as well as during the other sacred
nights, that twenty-four thousand (24000) oqqas (67200 lb.) of olive oil was
used to light the lamps and candles, and that 120 oqqas (236 lb.) of ambergris
and aloewood was burned to perfume the mosque.
“The minarets were crowned with
captions in the shape of a pomegranate. The captions were ornamented with
precious jewels, pearls and emeralds, and the spaces between the stones were
covered with pieces of gold. Munjid, a lexicon
written by Christian priests in Lebanon, contains two exquisite pictures of the
mosque of Qurtuba.
“When Christians annihilated the Andalusian
state and invaded Qurtuba in 897 [1492 C.E.], the first thing they did was to
attack the mosque. They rode their horses into the extremely beautiful and
magnificent mosque, and ruthlessly slaughtered the Muslims who had sheltered in
the mosque, so much so that blood flowed out through the doors of the mosque.
Then they broke the gold minber and shared the pieces among themselves. Also,
they shared the ivory rahlas (low desks used for reading). There was a splendid
copy of the Qur’ân al-kerîm hidden in a secret
drawer on the minber. Embroidered with pearls and emeralds, it was an exact
copy of the Qur’ân al-kerîm handwritten by
’Uthmân ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’. They found that beautiful book and trampled it
under their feet. Thus the two peerless and exquisite masterpieces, the minber
and the copy of the Qur’ân al-kerîm, were
destroyed completely. The ferocious Spaniards Christianized all the Muslims and
the Jews by force of the sword. Those Jews who managed to escape their talons
took refuge with the Ottoman Empire. The Jews living in Turkey today are the
grandchildren of those people. On the other hand, Muslims, the earlier
conquerors of the country, had never disturbed the Christians or Jews living
there, nor had they prevented them from practicing their religious acts of
worship.
“After annihilating the Muslims and Jews
with unprecedented acts of barbarism, the Christian Spaniards began to demolish
the masterpiece, the mosque. First they got down the pomegranate-shaped,
gold-and-emerald-ornamented captions on the minarets and looted them. They
substituted them with ugly captions made from ordinary stones, which so to
speak, represented angels. They tore down the wooden ornaments on the ceilings,
and broke the marble floors to pieces, putting ordinary stones in their places.
They scraped
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down
the ornaments on the walls. They tried to pull down the pillars, in which they
were partly successful. They whitewashed the pillars that survived the
destruction. Hundreds of the pillars were pulled down and made a huge heap of
marble on the ground. Most of the twenty entrances were closed with walls built
with stones. As a final act of barbarism, they decided to convert the mosque
into a church, in 929 [1523 C.E.]. They applied to the time’s emperor of Spain
and Germany, Carlos V [Charles Quint (906-966 [1500-1558])], for permission to
do so. Charles Quint first refused to give the permission. Yet the bigoted
cardinals importuned him persistently, defending that it was a religious
precept that had to be carried out. Ahead of them all was the cardinal Alonso
Maurique, who had much clout, and who had already coaxed an approval from the
Pope. Seeing that the Pope also was for the conversion of the mosque into a
church, Charles Quint succumbed to the ecclesiastical cabal. It was decided
that conversion into a church necessitated the demolition of many other
pillars. So the number of the pillars that remained in the mosque was reduced
to eight hundred and twelve, which means that at least six hundred of those
valuable marble pillars were demolished. The church that was built impersonated
an unsightly shape of the cross, with dimentions 52 to 12, in the middle of the
mosque. When Charles Quint went to Cordova and saw the church, he felt so
grieved that he castigated the cardinals, saying, ‘This primitive sight fills
me with remorse over having given you the permission to do the conversion. Had
I known that you would devastate that beautiful work of art which did not have
an equal on the earth, I would not have given you my approval, and I would have
punished you all. This ugly church that you have constructed is no more than a
run-of-the-mill building that you can see anywhere. But it is impossible to
build another mosque as magnificent as the one you have demolished.’ Today,
visitors to that gorgeous building feel deep admiration for the beauty and
greatness of that grand work of the Islamic architecture across all the
vandalisms, sneer piteously at the dwarf-like church in the middle, and vent
their grievances on the vulgarity that truncated such a magnificent masterpiece
into that pitiable shack.” This is the end of our paraphrase from Spaneien.
The passage you have read above
was written by a group of Christians among whom there were priests. It is the
plain truth. Here you are: See who forced others to change their religion, who
burned and plundered religious temples, and who perpetrated cruelty. The name
of the mosque in Cordoba is the ‘La Mezquita Church’. This word, ‘mezquita’, is
a borrowing from the (Arabic) word ‘mesjîd’, (which means a place where Muslims
prostrate themselves during the performance of [the prayer called] namâz, or
salât. Hence, mosque. That means to say that the building still carries the
name of mesjîd,
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and the visitors who come to see it look on it not as a church,
but as a great and majestic masterpiece of the Islamic civilization.
Abd-ur-Reshîd Ibrâhîm Efendi [d. 1944, in
Japan] states as follows in the chapter about ‘The British Enmity Against
Islam’ in the second volume of his book ’Âlam-i-Islâm,
which was printed in Istanbul in 1328 [1910 C.E.]: “The primary aim of the
British is the abrogation of the Khilâfat-i-Islâmiyya (Islamic Caliphate). The
Crimean War, which was a result of their insidiously provocative policy and during
which they purposely supported the Turks, was one of the stages in their plans
for annihilating the institution of caliphate. The Treaty of Paris is a blatant
disclosure of their stratagem. [Also, the propositions they made during the
peace negotiations in Lausanne reveal their hostility.] All the disasters that
befell on the Turks throughout history are of British origin, regardless of the
cloak used to disguise the real purpose. British policy is based on the
annihilation of Islam. This policy proceeds from their fears from Islam. In
order to mislead Muslims, they exploit dishonest mercenaries. They represent
them as Islamic scholars, as heroes. The gist of our words is this: the most
formidable enemies of Islam lurk under British identity.” Brian William
Jennings, an American jurist and politician, is famous for his books,
conferences, and membership of the House of Representatives in the American
Congress between 1891 and 1895. Between 1913 and 1915 he was the Foreign
Secretary of U.S.A. He died in 1925. He enlarges on
the British enmity towards Islam, their barbarities and cruelties in his book The British Domination
in India.
The wildest and the most monstrous examples
of the Christian cruelties and persecutions towards Muslims were perpetrated by
the British in India. It is stated as follows in the book As-sawrat-ul-Hindiyya,
which means ‘The Indian Revolution’, by Allâma Fadl-i-Haqq Khayr-âbâdî, a great
Islamic scholar in India, and also in its commentary entitled Al-yawâqît-ul-mihriyya,
written by Mawlânâ Ghulâm Mihr ’Alî and printed in India in 1384 [1964 C.E.]:
“As the first stage, in 1008 [1600 C.E.], the British received Ekber Shâh’s
approval to open trade centers in the Calcutta city of India. During the reign
of Shâh-i-Âlam, they bought land areas in Calcutta, and brought troops for the
protection of those areas. Later the permission was developed into a privilege
that they could enjoy throughout India as a reward for their successful medical
treatment of Sultân Ferruh Sîr Shâh. Infiltrating Delhi during the time of
Shâh-i-Âlam II, they seized the executive power and began to perpetrate
cruelty. In the meantime, the Wahhâbîs living in India stigmatized the Sunnî,
Hanafî and Sôfî Sultân Bahadir Shâh II as a heretic, a vilification which gradually
developed into calling him an unbeliever. Supported by those slanderers, by the
unbelievers called Hindus, and especially by the perfidious vizier Ahsanullah
Khân, the British troops entered
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Delhi.
They raided houses and shops, plundering goods and money. They put many people
to the sword, women and children alike. It was impossible to find water to
drink. They arrested the very old Shâh and his household, who had sheltered in
the mausoleum of Humâyűn Shâh, and drove them towards the fortress with their
hands tied behind them. On the way, Patriarch Hudson had the Shâh’s three sons
stripped of their clothes, leaving only their underwears on them, and martyred
them by shooting bullets into their chests. He drank from their blood and had
the corpses hanged on the entrance of the fortress. The following day he took
their heads to the British commander Henry Bernard. Then, boiling the heads in
water, he took the soup to the Shâh and his wife. The hungry pair spooned the
soup into their mouths at once. Yet they could not chew or swallow it, although
they did not know what kind of meat it was. They took the contents out of their
mouths and put them on the ground. Hudson, the villainous priest, mocked them,
saying, ‘Why don’t you eat it? It is delicious soup. I had it cooked from your
sons’ flesh.’ Then they exiled the Sultân, his wife and other close relatives
to the city of Rangoon[1] and
imprisoned them there.” The Sultân passed away in the dungeon, in 1279. In
Delhi they martyred thirty thousand Muslims, three thousand of them by shooting
and twenty-seven thousand by slaughtering. The only survivors were those who
escaped at night. In the other towns and villages as well, innumerable Muslims
were slain by Christians, who burned historical works of art, loaded peerless
and invaluable pieces of jewelry on ships, and sailed them to London. Allâma
Fadl-i-Haqq was martyred in a dungeon on the Endomen island in 1278 [1861
C.E.].
It is stated as follows on the
back of the sheet dated 28 Dec. 1994 of the calendar issued by the Turkish
daily newspaper Türkiye: “During the British reign of India, seventy Muslims
were shot to death in the city of Amir on the pretext that a British girl
riding a bicycle had been jeered at. When the (British) governor was asked what
the reason for that heavy punishment was, he answered, ‘A British girl is more
valuable than their gods.’ ” A picture that appeared on the 31 Dec. 1994 issue
of the Turkish daily newspaper Türkiye illustrated a Bosnian girl lying in
blood on the street and a Serbian soldier standing in a gale of laughter by her
side. The subtitle said, “The seven-year-old Nermin, slain by the Christian
barbarians in Sarajevo in Nov. 1994.”
When the Russians invaded
Afghanistan in 1400 [1979 C.E.] and began to play havoc with the country,
destroying the Islamic works of art and martyring the Muslims, they first
martyred the great scholar and Walî Ibrâhîm Mujaddidî, his wife and daughters,
and his hundred
---------------------------------
[1] The former name for Yangon, the capital city of Myanmar (Burma).
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and twenty-one disciples by shooting them. The British, again, were
the cause of that barbarous massacre. For, when Hitler, the chancellor of Nazi
Germany, defeated the Russian armies and was about to enter Moscow in 1945, he
announced to the British and American authorities on the radio his wish to
annihilate the Russians, saying, “I admit the defeat. I shall surrender to you.
But let me go on with my war. Let me rout the Russian army and save the entire
world from the nuisance called communism.” Churchill, the British premier,
refused his request. The American and British forces continued to support the
Russians and did not enter Berlin before the Russians arrived. It was their
policy whereby the Russians continued to be a nuisance for the world.
We do not intend to make a list
of the various barbarisms perpetrated by Christians or to enlarge on them.
History teems with innumerable acts of cruelty. The tribunals termed
Inquisition, the carnage called Saint Bartholomew and many other massacres
perpetrated in the name of religion are the blatant examples of the inconceivable
cruelties which Christians displayed against Christians of other sects and
against people of other religions. None of the Muslim rulers or commanders or
statesmen ever had recourse to the cruelties approximating to those perpetrated
by Christians or deigned to cloak such cruelties under religious causes or
provoked the Muslim world against Christians. Islam never approves of cruelty
towards any creature. All Muslim religious authorities dissuaded Muslims from
cruelty. Here is a small example for you:
It is stated as follows in the eighth
edition of Fazlaka-i-Târih-i-’Uthmânî (A Summary of the
Ottoman History), and also in the third edition, in 1325 [1907 C.E.], of Târih-i-Dawlat-i-’Uthmâniyya
(A History of the Ottoman State), by Abd-ur-Rahmân ˝eref Bey,
director of the Maktab-i-Sultânî (The Sultan’s School): “Sünbül Agha, a retired
Agha of Dâr-us-sa’âda, was sailing to Egypt, when his ship was attacked by the
Maltese pirates, who martyred the Agha during the attack. The troops landing on
Morea (Peloponnesus) from Venetian ships slaughtered thousands of Muslims,
children and women alike. The eighteenth Ottoman Pâdishâh, Sultân Ibrâhîm, was
an extremely compassionate person. He grieved deeply over the barbarity
perpetrated by Christians. In 1056 [1646 C.E.] he issued a firman commanding
retaliation against the Christian guests living under the Ottoman
administration, [which meant slaughtering them,] for the Muslims massacred.
Abu-s-Sa’îd Efendi ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’, the time’s Shaikh-ul-Islâm (The
Chief of Religious Affairs), taking along the Bostancýbaţý
(Commander of the Imperial Guards) with him, entered the presence of the
Pâdishâh (Ottoman Empire). He said that the decree meant unjust homicide, which
in turn was incompatible with the Islamic religion. Being strongly adherent to
the
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Holy
Book of Allâhu ta’âlâ, which was a common
quality of all the Ottoman Sultâns, Sultân Ibrâhîm ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ took
the advice and rescinded his decree.”
Shems-ud-dîn Sâmî Bey [d. 1322
(1904 C.E.)] states as follows in Qâműs ul-a’lâm: “Sultân Ibrâhîm had well-proportioned stature and figure, and a
beautiful face with lovely eyes. He was well-known for his tender and generous
personality.” Such was the Islamic religion. While the Muslim men of religion
were saving Christians from death, Christian popes, patriarchs and priests were
calling the entire world to kill Muslims. Despite this obvious fact, these
shameless people have the face to allege that Islam is a religion of barbarity,
and by quoting Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ as having said, ‘And unto him that smiteth
thee on the one cheek offer also the other; ...” (Luke: 6-29), a piece of
advice that they flouted throughout history, they do not spare the blushes of
their co-religionists.
[Misguiding Muslims’ children with lies and
slanders and with promises pertaining to money and position, the British and
their Jewish collaborators demolished the Muslim Ottoman state. They
popularized irreligiousness and spread it as a fashion among younger
generations. They rationalized women’s going out without properly covering
themselves in a manner prescribed by Islam, indecencies, alcohol parties,
immoralities, and irreligiosness by calling them modern life styles. They
annihilated Islamic scholars and Islamic knowledge. British spies and masonic
agents disguised themselves as men of religion and ruined Islam’s beautiful
ethical entity and its original system of religious practices. Islam was gone
in essence, although it survived in name. In the time of the Party of Union,
even the legislators, beys and pashas became enemies of Islam. They passed laws
destructive of Islam. Adherence to one’s religion and belief was represented as
a misdemeanour. Numbers of Muslims were hanged and butchered. Pious acts such
as promulgating Islam’s commandments and avoiding Islam’s prohibitions were
stigmatized as separatism. Those who performed emr-i-ma’rűf, i.e. who taught
the true essence of Islam, were called enemies of the regime. Al-hamd-u-lillah
(may praise and gratitude be to Allah)! The Christian aggressions have come to
an end. The Islamic sun is shining again in our blessed country, (Turkey). The
enemy’s lies and treacheries have come to light. True religious teachings are
being written freely. Today every Muslim has to show gratitude for this freedom
and do his best to learn the true essence of our sacred religion for whose sake
our ancestors sacrificed their lives. If we do not teach our religion to our
children and discipline them to adapt themselves to the Sharî’at (way of life
prescribed by Islam), the enemies lying in wait and the idiots bought by them
will resume their aggressions and begin to deceive our children. All the
peoples of Europe and America believe in rising
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after
death, in the existence of Paradise and Hell. Every week they fill their
churches and synagogues. Their school curricula contains compulsory religious
lessons. If a person says that Europeans and Americans are wise, modern and
civilized and boastingly imitates them in lying, drinking, indecency and
fornication, on the one hand, and does not believe as they do, on the other, is
not he a liar? We Muslims say that Christians are ignorant, idiotic, and
regressive. For they divinize Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and his blessed mother. They
idolize him, worship him, and thus become polytheists. Among them there are people
who work compatibly with the Sharî’at of Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ in their
worldly affairs. These people attain the blessings of Allâhu
ta’âlâ, living in comfort and peace. However, because they do not
believe in that exalted Prophet and in his Sharî’at,
they shall suffer the eternal fire of Hell.]
Now, in order to show you how a
true Muslim should behave, we shall translate a letter of our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa
sallam’:
The letter which our master the Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’
had written (by his secretary) addresses to all Muslims and reads as follows:
[The original copy of the letter exists on the thirtieth page of the first
volume of Majmű’a-i--Munshaa-tus-salâtîn, by
Feridun Bey.]
“This letter has been written to
inform of the promise that Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’, the son of
Abdullah, has made to all Christians. Janâb-i-Haqq has given the good news that
He has sent him as His compassion, and has assigned to him the task of
safekeeping the deposit entrusted to mankind. This Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu
’alaihi wa sallam’ has had this letter recorded for the purpose of documenting
the promise he has given to all non-Muslims.
“If anyone acts contrary to this promise,
whether he be a sultan or else, he will have revolted against Janâb-i-Haqq and
derided His religion, and will therefore deserve His condemnation. If a
Christian priest or tourist is fasting with the intention of worship in a
mountain, in a valley, in a desert, in a verdure, in a low place or in the sand,
I, on behalf of myself, my friends and acquaintances and all my nation, have
revoked all sorts of obligation from them. They are under my protection. I have
forgiven them all sorts of taxes that they have had to pay as a requirement of
the agreements that we made with other Christians. They may not pay jizya or
kharâj, or they may give as much as they wish. Do not force or oppress them. Do
not depose their religious leaders. Do not evict them from their temples. Do
not prevent them from travelling. Do not demolish any part of their monasteries
or churches. Do not confiscate things from their churches or use them in
Muslims’ mosques. Whoever does not obey this will have disobeyed the command of
Allah and His Messenger and will
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therefore
be sinful. Do not impose such taxes as jizya
or gharâmat on those people who do
not trade but are always busy over worshipping, no matter where they are. I
will preserve their debts on sea or land, in the east or in the west. They are
under my protection. I have granted them immunity. Do not impose (the taxes
called) kharâj and ’ushr [tithe] for the crops of those who live in mountains
and are busy with worship. Do not allot a share for the Bayt-ul-mâl [the State
Treasury] out of their crops. For, their agriculture is intended only for
subsistence, not for making profit. When you need men for Jihâd (Holy War), do
not resort to them. If it is necessary to impose jizya [income tax] (on them),
do not take more than twelve dirhams yearly, however rich they may be and however
much property they may have. They are not to be taxed with troubles or burdens.
If there should be an argument with them, they shall be treated only with pity,
kindness and compassion. Always protect them under your wings of mercy and
compassion. Whereever they are, do not maltreat Christian women married to
Muslim men. Do not prevent them from going to their church and doing the
worships prescribed by their religion. Whoever disobeys or acts contrary to
this commandment of Allâhu ta’âlâ will have
revolted against the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ
and His Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’.
They shall be helped to repair their churches. This agreement shall be valid
and shall remain unchanged till the end of the world, and no one shall be
allowed to act contrary to it.”
This agreement was written down
by ’Alî ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’ in the Masjîd-i-sa’âdat in Medina on the third day
of the month of Muharram in the second year of the Hijra. The signatures
affixed are:
Muhammad bin ’Abdullah
‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’.
Abű Bakr bin Ebî Kuhâfa, ’Umar
bin Hattâb, ’Uthmân bin Affân, ’Alî bin Ebî Tâlib, Abű Hurayra, ’Abdullah bin
Mes’űd, ’Abbâs bin ’Abd-ul-muttalib, Fadl bin ’Abbâs, Zubayr bin Awwâm, Talha
bin ’Abdullah, Sa’d bin Mu’âz, Sa’d bin Ubâda, Thâbit bin Qays, Zayd bin
Thâbit, Hâris bin Thâbit, ’Abdullah bin ’Umar, ’Ammar bin Yâsir ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’anhum ajma’în’.
As is seen, our exalted Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’
commands that people of other religions should be treated with utmost mercy and
kindness and Christian churches should not be harmed or demolished.
Now let us read the translation
of the Immunity which ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’, who is alleged to have destroyed
four thousand churches, granted to the people of Elijah during his caliphate.
The name of Ilyâs ‘alaihis-salâm’ is known as ‘Elijah’ among Christians.
Likewise, they call Jerusalem ‘Ilyâ (Elijah)’.
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“Herein is the letter of
immunity granted by ’Umar ul-Fârűq ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’anh’, the Emîr of Muslims, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and
has been written so as to comprehend their existence, their lives, churches,
children, the invalid ones as well as the healthy ones, and all other people;
as follows:
“Muslims shall not intrude into
their churches, demolish any part of their churches, appropriate even a tiniest
piece of their property, or use any sort of enforcement to make them change
their religion or modes of worship or convert to Islam. No Muslim shall give
them the smallest harm. If they want to leave their hometown by their own
accord, their lives, property and chastity shall be protected till they have
reached their destination. If they want to stay here they shall be in total
security. Only they shall pay the jizya [income tax] which is incumbent upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem. If some of the people of Jerusalem and Byzantines
want to leave here together with their families and portable property and
evacuate their churches and other places of worship, their lives, churches,
travel expenses and possessions shall be protected till they reach their
destinations: The aliens shall not be taxed at all till harvest, no matter
whether they stay here or go away.”
Signature:
Muslims’ Khalîfa ’Umar bin
Hattâb
Witnesses:
Khâlid bin Welîd
’Abd-ur-Rahmân bin ’Awf
’Amr ibn-il ’Âs
Mu’âwiya bin Ebî Sufyân
’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’ attended the siege of Jerusalem with his
blessed presence. Christians accepted to pay the jizya and went under the
protection of Muslims. They handed the keys of Jerusalem to ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu
’anh’ himself. Thus they were freed from the heavy taxations, persecutions,
torments, oppressions and cruelties of their own state, Byzantium. Soon they
saw the justice and mercy in Muslims, whom they had been looking on as enemies.
They realized that Islam was a religion commanding goodness and beauty and
guiding people to happiness pertaining to this world and the next. Without the
least compulsion or threatening, they accepted Islam in large groups which were
mostly the size of a quarter of a town.
A close
examination of the two documents provided above will show you once again that
the true Muslims, the true religious guides showed great toleration towards all
the other religions, helped
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Christians and Jews, and even
repaired their churches and temples, how much less to force them to convert to
Islam or destroy their temples. Were not there any Muslims who maltreated
Christians? Perhaps, there were some. Yet they were only a small number of
ignorant people who were unaware of the commandments of our religion. Those
people did so in consequence upon their sensuous indulgences, and were
chastised by other Muslims. No Muslim with common sense and with sufficient
knowledge of the commandments of Islam followed them. Those people, who were
Muslims only in name, persecuted not only Christians but also Muslims. Their
misdemeanour has nothing to do with Islam. Allâhu
ta’âlâ declares in the hundred and sixty-eighth âyat of Nisâ Sűra of the
Qur’ân al-kerîm: “Those
who reject Faith and do wrong,-Allah will not forgive them, nor guide them to
any way.”(4-168)
If explanations of the Qur’ân al-kerîm are examined, it will
be seen that Allâhu ta’âlâ commands (Muslims) always to treat other people with mercy,
compassion and forgiveness, to forgive those who harmed you, always to smile
benignly and to speak softly, to be patient, and to prefer amity in social
relations. It is written in the annals of the world that our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’
always recommended amity and offered a compassionate hand even to those who
were opposed to him.
Because Christian priests shut
their eyes to truth, represent Islam as a religion of barbarism, and educate
young Christians with this fallacy, the trepidation which those poor Christians
feel during their first visit to Muslim countries change to astonishment upon
learning the fact. We shall give a few examples. The following are passages
paraphrased from books written on this subject by Christians. It is written as
follows in a book entitled Letters from Constantinople, written by Ms. Georgina Max Müller, who had lived in Istanbul,
and published in 1315 [1897 C.E.]:
“When we were in school, we were taught that
Muslims were uncultivated people and that the Turks, especially, were
altogether ruthless barbarians. That preconception was so deeply-rooted in my
sub-conscience that I cannot describe the horror and the dismay I felt when I
heard that my son, a civil servant in the Foreign Ministry, was assigned a duty
in Istanbul. On the contrary, the days I spent in Istanbul were the happiest
days of my life. After my son went to Istanbul, my husband Prof. Müller and I
decided to visit him. My husband was a universally famous person doing research
in historical events. He did not share my fears concerning the Turks, and
wanted to pursue some research in those historical places. Throughout my
preparations for the journey I shivered with the phobia ingrained in me. How
were those savage Muslims going to behave towards us? At
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last
we arrived in Istanbul. The first impression we had of Istanbul was its
graceful scenery, which had an emollient effect on us. The real astonishment,
however, came with the Muslims that we contacted for the first time. They were
extremely polite, ultimately decorous, and utterly civilized people. As we
strolled along the crowded streets of Istanbul, visited mosques, observed the
Byzantine works of art forsaken in remote places, no thought of fear or danger
occurred to us. All the people we met were extremely friendly towards us. They
always offered us facility. That we were of another religion, let alone
arousing antagonistic feelings, did not even make any difference to them. They
showed the other religions the same respect as they did to their own religion.
As I saw these, I felt burning indignation towards those who had given us that
wrong information and education. Quite contrary to the fallacies withwhich we
had been schooled, they did not hate Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’, but they believed in
him as another Prophet. They did not interfere
with or make fun of our religious rites. They respected us as human beings. In
contrast to our looking on Muslims as Godless followers of the devil, they did
not utter even a slightly unpleasant word about our religion.
“The axiom, ‘Civilizations cannot
be brought together with Islam,’ which had been inculcated to us, should have
been an excessively inflated form of a tiny seed of truth. That seed of truth
is that Muslims are staunchly adherent to their customs and traditions and
therefore reject some dirty customs that run counter to their conventions and
which western people cherish in the name of civilization. However, it takes
only a little more discerning to realize that these things are mere
trivialities that have nothing to do with civilization.
“The Turks are extremely staunch to their
conventions and to Islam’s beautiful ethical principles. They always observe
these values in arranging their daily lives. As far as I am concerned, the
Turks are the best Muslims. When I compare them with those Muslims that I met
in Iran and in Arabia, I see that they have the merit of true Muslims much more
than the others do. It gives you a great pleasure to see the heartfelt
sincerity with which the Turks perform their Islamic duties, and consequently
you feel yourself closer to them, have deeper sympathy and respect for them. In
the streets, in the fields, gardens and orchards, in market places and shops,
you can see people of all classes and professions, soldiers, porters and
beggars alike, kneeling down and prostrating themselves, or saying their
prayers with their hands extended. All these performances are never intended
for ostentation. A Muslim with true belief returns to his work as soon as he
gets through with his prayer, which takes quite a short time. Muslims hold fast
to the ethical principles written in the Qur’ân
al-kerîm. One thing we should never forget is that these
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beautiful
ethical principles have preserved their pristine purity for thirteen and a half
centuries, without undergoing an iota of change. Most of these facts are not
known in a European capital city. What makes today’s Muslims to be looked on as
enemies of civilization is the Europeans’ ignorance of these beautiful ethical
principles put by Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’. On the other hand, they do not seem
to have heard about that great Prophet’s ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’ utterance,
which reads as follows: ‘I am none but a human being. When I communicate to you
acommandment of Allâhu ta’âlâ, accept it immediately. However, when I say something from
myself about worldly affairs, it is not a commandment of Allâhu ta’âlâ. I say it asa human
being.’ There have been great improvements in scientific information
since the time of Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’. The Islamic religion commands that
the techniques used in those days should be modified so as to suit the new
conditions. If this modification is managed in conformity with the
ever-changing requirements of the time, the Islamic religion will not suffer
any erosion, and it will always hold the limelight as a civilized religion.
“The Turks are so faultless in their
benignancy towards the votaries of other religions that many of the state’s
scientific and technical positions are occupied by Christian experts today.
Then, why don’t we consider religious knowledge and science on separate
platforms? As a matter of fact, we should not forget that in the west religious
and scientific matters were separated from each other afterwards and it was
with considerable difficulty that Christian priests were curbed from exploiting
the religion in their political machinations. It was not a smooth business that
Christians realized the evils of exploiting the religion in worldly
occupations. Yes, the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ
cannot be changed. The principles of worship, justice and morals communicated
have to be maintained. For instance, the Church of Scotland declared that it
would be sinful to play the organ in a church and announced that those who
allowed the organ in their church would go to Hell. This reaction of the church
shows that it would be wrong to attenuate the solemnity of the religious
matters with scientific instruments that are used for worldly pleasures. On the
other hand, the Ottoman counterparts of the European hidebound conservatives
resisted against scientific and cultural renovations, rejected every new
scientific discovery by saying that it was ‘a devilish contrivance’, and thus
slandered the Islamic religion. In the course of time, Muslims will certainly
rid themselves of these ignorant bigots.
“Europeans consider themselves as cruel and
truculent people. However, all the stories told for the purpose of
demonstrating their so-called cruelties come from mediaeval sources. Now let us
put our hand on our heart and do some conscientious reasoning: Did not
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Europeans
perpetrate cruelties in the Middle Ages? In my opinion, we Europeans were rough
barbarians in those years. Our history teems with blatant examples of cruelty
and torture. The Qur’ân al-kerîm, on the other
hand, commands that prisoners of war should be treated well and priests, old
people, women and children should not be hurt even during process of a battle.
There were some Muslim commanders who violated these restrictions enjoined by
the Qur’ân al-kerîm. Yet they were people who
had not read the Qur’ân al-kerîm and who had
learned religious knowledge from ignorant tutors. It will be very useful to
have the Qur’ân al-kerîm translated and
explained in all religions. However, I think some more time is needed for the
realization of that task. For, in all Muslim countries it is considered sinful
to use any language except Arabic in religious practices. Some years ago a
Muslim in Madras in India was condemned because he had recited a couple of
Koranic verses in Hindi instead of in Arabic in a mosque. [For it was done not
as an explanation of the Qur’ân but in the name of reciting the Qur’ân.] The Qur’ân al-kerîm is an extremely civilized and logical
religious book. Some Muslims who do not understand the Qur’ân
al-kerîm become playthings in the hands of fanatics who impose on them
their personal absurd ideas and heretical beliefs. However, the Islamic
scholars who study the Qur’ân al-kerîm see the
fact that their religion is an extremely useful one and that the wrong indoctrinations
being spread in some places are quite contrary to the Qur’ân
al-kerîm. I assert openly that no other two religions are as identical
in essence as ISLAM and CHRISTIANITY. These two religions are brothers. They
are like the children of the same pair of parents. They have been inspired from
the same soul.” [The lady author of the book says so and thinks so under the
influence of the fallacies inculcated into her during her childhood. The fact
is quite the other way round. The Qur’ân al-kerîm
has been translated into a number of languages and explained in various
languages. It would be wrong, however, to look on these translations and
explanations as the Qur’ân al-kerîm itself or to
recite them in acts of worship such as namâz.]
The letter paraphrased above divulges
various facts. Islam never prohibits to translate the Qur’ân
al-kerîm into other languages or to explain it in other languages. What
Islam prohibits is to mistranslate the Qur’ân al-kerîm
into, let alone other languages, Arabic itself, be it done for insidious and
perfidious purposes or as a result of ignorance. Our Prophet
‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ stated, “A person who translates the Qur’an al-kerîm in
accordance with his personal understanding will become a disbeliever.”
If everyone explains it as he understands it, there will appear erroneous
explanations as many as the number of the heads, turning the Islamic religion
into a crowd of inconsistencies and contradictions like today’s Christianity.
Our
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Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ explained
the entire Qur’ân al-kerîm to his Sahâba. He
communited the murâd-i-ilâhî (what Allâhu ta’âlâ
meant) to them. The Sahâba taught these meanings to the Tâbi’în, who in their
turn wrote them in their books. There are thousands of books of tafsîr
(explanations of the Qur’ân al-kerîm) written.
Numbers of tafsîrs in Persian and in Turkish and thousands of religious books
were written. One of the tafsîrs in Persian is Mawâhib-i-aliyya,
which was written in the city of Hirât by Huseyn Wâ’iz Kâshifî ‘rahima-hullâhu
ta’âlâ’ [d. 910 (1505 C.E.), in Hirât], three and a half centuries before the
birth of this lady. The Ottoman Sultâns and scholars stated that his tafsîr was
very valuable, and translated it into Turkish, giving it the title Mawâkib.
The person condemned in Madras was a heretic, an insidious enemy of Islam whose
real purpose was to defile the Islamic religion. He was condemned because he
attempted to give wrong, heretical meanings to the Qur’ân
al-kerîm. Those who condemned him were great Islamic scholars who had
written religious books in the Persian and Hindi languages.
Now let us turn our attention to
the reflections of another foreign lady on this subject. The following excerpts
have been paraphrased from Twenty-Six Years on the Bosphorus, written by a British lady, named Ms. Dorina L. Neave, who lived in
Istanbul between 1881 and 1907 [1325 A.H.].
After praising Muslims for their
politeness and giving a few examples of the open-mindedness that they show to
the votaries of other religions, Ms. Neave also dwells on some culpabilities
and criticizes them. Please read what she says:
“There is a religious rite
observed in the name of Muharram[1] here. I have been staying for years in Istanbul, and I have never
gone to see that religious rite. The people who went to see them tell us that
those Muslim rites are extremely severe and dreadfully wild. People who perform
those rites come forward with the upper parts of their bodies naked, shout the
names of Hasan and Huseyn, (the names of the Prophet’s two blessed grandsons,) and hit their naked bodies vehemently
with the heavy chains they hold in their hands, which makes them bloody all
over.”
Ms. Neave writes as follows
about a rite of Rufâ’îs which her acquaintances attended: “As my friends told
me, dervishes, [or Rufâ’îs,] naked down to their bellies and yelling, make a
line, saying the (expression called) Shahâdat aloud and rocking their bodies
backwards and forwards. Then, accelerating their movements gradually, shouting
wild cries and yells in a sort of ecstacy or a fit of epilepsy, they spring in
the air until they lose consciousness.
---------------------------------
[1] The first Islamic month.
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Meanwhile, they stab themselves repeatedly with the knives they
are holding in their hands, so much so that some of them fall down on the floor,
their bodies bleeding all over. On the other hand, some Turkish women who
believe that these men are fully blessed and sacred in this state of ecstacy
bring their invalid children with them and throw the poor creatures under the
men’s feet so that they should recover from their illnesses. For they believe
that if these Rufâ’îs trample the children under their feet during their
ecstacy the children will get rid of all their illnesses. I think that the
crazy men trample the children to death, thus ridding them of their illnesses.
How can people hold such beliefs? The cries of the Rufâ’îs in their convent,
accompanied by the smells of onions and garlics suffusing the entire convent,
make the visitors sick. After telling me all these, my friends added, ‘These
eccentricities reminded us of the savageries of the middle ages. We have not
seen such primitive behaviour in any other place. The terrible and horrendous
sight made us sick.’ ”
Now let us carry on our
examination of the two different texts. To a certain point Ms. Müller is right
and seems to have studied Islam fairly well. Ms. Neave, however, is quite
wrong. She associates with Islam the rite of Muharram, which has nothing to do
with Islam and which was invented by ignorant people, and the rite of Rufâ’î,
which, again, has no share from Islam, and concludes that this religion is wild
and primitive. These rites were invented after Hadrat Ahmad Rufâ’î [d. 578
(1183 C.E.), in Egypt] and by religiously ignorant people. It is a mistake made
by most Europeans to waste their long stay in an Islamic country and insult it
on account of a few pieces of hearsay without inquiring into the matter,
instead of utilizing all those years going around and observing the scientific
and religious lessons taught in the hundreds of madrasas and the prayers of
namâz which hundreds of thousands of Muslims make ablution and perform in
perfect physical and spiritual cleanliness and with deep pious reverence in
mosques. It is rooted in Christian bigotry and an enmity against Islam.
Ms. Georgina Müller’s suggestions, i.e.
translating the Qur’ân and not exploiting the religion for worldly advantages,
are only two of the many Islamic requirements always preached by true religious
scholars and applied by governments who followed them. Owing to the books
written by the scholars of Ahl as-sunna ‘rahima-humullâhu ta’âlâ’, the heretics
belonging to the seventy-two aberrant groups, which were foretold by our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’, and the
stupid rites fabricated by false and subversive sufis for the purpose of
demolishing Islam from within have been disassociated from the Islamic
religion. These great scholars announce to the entire world that the beastly
rites called the rites of Muharram and the rites concocted and practised by the
heretics called Rufâ’îs have nothing to
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do
with Islam. Rites of this sort were prohibited by Muslim states. As it is
written in various books, such as in Fatâwâ-i-hadîthiyya,
in the final part of the two hundred and sixty-sixth letter in Mektűbât,
in Hadîqa
and in Berîqa,
there is a fatwâ[1] stating
that such rites are harâm (forbidden by Islam).
Islam is not based on games,
music, magic, or feats of skill. Ahmad ibni Kemâl Efendi ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ
[d. 940 (1534 C.E.)], one of the great scholars who occupied the rank of
Shaikh-ul-Islâm (Chief of Religious Affairs) in the Ottoman State, makes the
following observation in his book Al-Munîra: “What
is principally incumbent on a shaikh (a spiritual leader) and on his murîds
(disciples) is to adapt themselves to the Sharî’at, which consists of the
commandments and prohibitions of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ stated, ‘If you see a person
flying in the air or walking onthe surface of the sea or putting pieces of fire
into hismouth and swallowing them, and yet if his words anddeeds are
incompatible with the Sharî’at, know him as amagician, a liar, and a heretic
misguiding people!’ ” The true Islamic religion
communicated by the scholars of Ahl as-Sunna ‘rahima-humullâhu ta’âlâ’ is far
from all sorts of superstition and responsive to common sense. Islam’s Holy
Book is the Qur’ân al-kerîm. The Qur’ân al-kerîm commands that only Allâhu ta’âlâ should be worshipped and teaches that the manner of this worship
is prescribed by Him, alone. They are the most elegant, the most dignified, the
most salutary acts of worship which befit a slave best. According to the
teaching of the Qur’ân al-kerîm, all Muslims are equal in the view of Allâhu ta’âlâ. The only grounds whereon a
Muslim can have superiority on another are taqwâ and knowledge. Taqwâ means to
fear Allâhu ta’âlâ. The
thirteenth âyat of Hujurât Sűra of the Qur’ân
al-kerîm purports, “The most valuable and the most virtuous of you
in theview of Allâhu ta’âlâ is the one who fears Allâhu ta’âlâ most.” Compulsion in converting people to Islam takes place only as a prohibition in the Qur’ân al-kerîm. Jihâd (Holy War) is
made to communicate Islam, not to make people Believers. Qur’ân al-kerîm commands always to show
mercy and compassion to people. People who flout these commandments have no
ties with Islam.
There are still passages
containing the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ in today’s Holy Bible. These passages, like the Qur’ân al-kerîm, advise to treat people
with compassion. The Islamic scholars acknowledge that the Pentateuchal and
Biblical passages that are in agreement with the Qur’ân
al-kerîm are the Words of Allâhu ta’âlâ.
---------------------------------
[1] An explanation given by an Islamic
scholar as an answer to Muslims’ questions. The sources whereon the fatwâ is
based have to be appended to it.
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Nasrâniyyat, the original form of Christianity, was a religion
commanding belief in the Unity of Allah. The dogma of Trinity, or Tripartite
Godhead, was the result of misinterpretation which provided opportune material
forJews to play upon in their activities to demolish Nasrâniyyat. Îsâ
‘alaihis-salâm’ advised, “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer
also the other; ..,” (Luke: 6-29) and invoked a blessing on his persecuters,
saying, “... Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. ...” (ibid:
23-34) While both religions communicate mercy and compassion, and while both of
them are based on patience and goodwill, why is all this enmity and cruelty
against each other through the centuries? These savageries and cruelties are
unilateral, and they have always been perpetrated by Christians, who
acknowledge this fact.
The aforesaid horrendous events
have been derived from literature written by Christian priests and Christian
historians. There might be some justification for scepticism if we had obtained
this information from books written by Islamic scholars. How long did these cruelties
against Muslims continue? Let us refer to foreign sources to see how long these
cruelties and the tribunals called Inquisition continued. According to European
sources, the tribunals of Inquisition continued for six long centuries, from
578 [1183 C.E.] to 1222 [1807 C.E.], and in those hideous tribunals, which had
branches in Italy, in Spain and in France, an untold number of people were
unjustly slaughtered, burned, or tortured to death either in the name of
religion or for the sake of priests’ personal interests or because they had
propounded new ideas.
The Jewish and Muslim populations in Spain
suffered from those tribunals until their complete extirpation was
accomplished, whereupon the Spanish King Ferdinand V [d. 922 (1516 C.E.)], who
had sentenced his own son to death in these tribunals, voiced his pride by
saying, “There are no Muslims or other irreligious people left in Spain now.”
The tribunals of Inquisition, which stigmatized all sorts of scientific
improvements and technical inventions as sinful, annihilated not only the
votaries of other religions, but also all the illuminated members of the
society.
Even Gallilee was sued in the court of
Inquisition for his declaration that the earth was a round planet rotating and
revolving, a fact which he had learned from the Muslims, and it was only his
own official retraction that saved his head. The tribunals of Inquisition were
supervised by members of the church, all the proceedings were conducted in
strict secrecy, and the sittings and hearings were held behind the scenes. The
Inquisition is a shame for the history of humanity, particularly for
Christianity. Napoleon Bonaparte had to overcome a series of severe
difficulties to abrogate Inquisition in
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Spain
in 1222 [1807 C.E.]. Some time later the ferocious tribunals arose again, and
sank in the pages of history in 1250 [1834 C.E.]. Although there is not a
precisely known number of the death sentences pronounced by the myriad
tribunals of Inquisition, that it is beyond millions is doubtless. As a matter
of fact, saying that a small court of Inquisition in Spain alone sentenced
twenty-eight thousand people to death would be enough of a standard whereby to
make at least a rough guess of the number of the executions imposed by those
highly numerous tribunals. Is-haq Efendi of Harput ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’, in
his book Diyâ-ul-qulűb, gives an estimate of the number of
the (religious) transgressions, persecutions, and massacres perpetrated by
Christians against Muslims and Jews, by Catholics against Protestants, and by
Protestants against Catholics. Accordingly, the total number of the people who
lost their lives during the crusades, in the battles fought for the
annihilation of non-Christians during the reign of Emperor Theophilus and his
wife Theodora, in the mass-executions carried out upon the command of the Pope
Gregorius VII, in the massacres perpetrated in order to Christianize people by
force, during the mass-butchery of the Muslim and Jewish populations living
under the Andalusian state in Spain, during the blood-baths which Catholics
perpetrated for the extirpation of Protestants, first on the night known as
Saint Bartholomew and later in Ireland, in the bloody pogrom of Catholics
organized and commanded by the British Queen Elizabeth, and in other similar
carnages, amounts to twenty-five million, which is a fact written by Christian
historians.
The mass-slaughters perpetrated
by the Russians various times, e.g. in Central Asia in 1321 [1903 C.E.], during
the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, all over the world after the First World War,
and especially in Afghanistan in 1406 [1986 C.E.], compound that number
several-fold.
The aforesaid documentaries,
most of which have been borrowed from Christian sources, reveal the following
facts:
1- Islam has never been a
religion of savagery, and Muslims have never transgressed against Christians,
none the least for bloody purposes. On the contrary, Muslims have protected
Christians whenever they needed protection.
2- In contrast, Christians have
provoked one another against Muslims and Jews, against their co-religionists
belonging to other sects, perpetrated all sorts of persecution and barbarism
against them, and turned the religion of Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ into mere
savagery.
Whatsoever the motives in the
minds of those people who manipulated those barbarisms, be they personal
interests, patriotic
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fantasies, plundering intentions, feelings of grudge and
vengeance, which have nothing to do with religion, or be they sheer religious
purposes, the outcome was the lives of innocent people.
Religion means THE WAY WHICH ALLÂHU TA’ÂLÂ APPROVES, which equips with pure moral
qualities, which commands mercy and compassion, obedience towards elders and
seniors and affection towards younger people and juniors, which guides people
to truth, and which it is a grave sin to exploit for personel advantages. It is
a desecration of religion to use it as a tool for political advantages or other
harmful purposes and interests or to provoke some ignorant people in the name
of religion. This is the most wicked sin in the view of Allâhu ta’âlâ, the Most Forgiving and the Most Compassionate. Can a
pope or a cardinal who gathers people for the purpose of having Muslims
slaughtered at the cost of violating his own holy book be said to be a
religious man? What is Islamic in the demeanour of those bigots who incite
Muslims against their Pâdishâh and statesmen by clamouring that “The people are
losing their religion”? Al-hamd-u-lillâh (May praise and gratitude be to Allah)
that today’s society hardly holds any idiots ignorant enough for the religious
and scientific impostors to misguide. Today, owing to improved communicative
facilities and the high speed in transportation, young Christians and Muslims
learn each other’s religion, visit each other’s country, meet one another and
make friends. Now Christians also see the fact that Islam is not a barbarous
religion and realize that the two religions are essentially identical.
Many Christians today state that
they feel deep sorrow at the Christian cruelties they read about in history,
that they no longer agree with those ignorant people, and that they know Islam
as the most civilized religion and true Muslims as mature, civilized,
well-behaved and affable people. In fact, they give the necessary answers to
any remarks contrary to these facts. Let us pray so that people will know
religion as RELIGION, so that they will not impudently use it for sordid
personal purposes, and so that they will cooperate, struggle against
irreligious Communists and endeavour for the liberation and rights of those
nations who have fallen victim to their talons and people who have been moaning
under their persecutions! May Allâhu ta’âlâ bless the entire humanity with the honour of Islam, which is the
only true religion in His view, and with the fortune of perfect obedience to
Him. Âmîn.
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