WITH REFERENCE TO TREATMENT OF DISSENTERS WITHIN THE FOLD

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

3. WITH REFERENCE TO TREATMENT OF DISSENTERS WITHIN THE FOLD

In the age of Islam’s glory, religious fanaticism in respect of differences within the fold did exhibit itself there occasionally,^[1] as was natural in the case of a community for whom religion was the be-all and end-all of life. But it exhibited itself basically in the issuance of academic condemnatory-verdicts by the jurists, and went on a few occasions to the height of public burning of what was regarded as unorthodox religious literature. But the dimensions of mass barbarism and indescribable tortures which culminated in burning the dissenters at the stake forms the ‘pride’ of Christianity alone! 

 

Starting from the beginning of Christian political power, and then proceeding straight to Inquisition, we may project here very brief references just to give an idea of the brutality practised in respect of violation of the values of mercy and toleration in Christian history of the ages of Faith and Orthodoxy. 

 

With all his determined endeavour to minimise or explain away the evils that emerged in Christendom under the impact of the Church, Will Durant has been forced to say as follows (The Age of Faith, pp. 8, 46, 610, 735-784):

“… Once triumphant, the Church ceased to preach toleration…

“Constantius took theology more seriously than his father … ecclesiastics loyal to the Nicene Creed were removed from their churches, sometimes by the violence of mobs; for half a century it seemed that Christianity would be Unitarian, and abandon the divinity of Christ ^[2]… when Constantius ordered the replacement of the orthodox patriot Paul by the Arian Macedonius, a crowd of Paul’s supporters resisted the soldiery, and three thousand persons lost their lives. Probably more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in these two years (342-343) than by all the persecutions of Christians by pagans in the history of Rome. 

 

“… We hear of many heretics, but most of these admitted the basic tenets of the Christian creed…

“The Old Testament laid down a simple code for dealing with heretics: they were to be carefully examined; and if three reputable witnesses testified to their having ‘gone and served other gods’, the heretics were to be led out from the city and ‘stoned with stones till they die’ (Deut. 17:25) … According to the Gospel of St. John (15:6), Jesus accepted this tradition: ‘If anyone abide not in me he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither; and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth.’… 

 

“… The Templars … aroused the envy, fear, and wrath of King Philip IV the Fair … A tribunal of prelates and monks loyal to the King examined the prisoners; they denied the royal charges, and were put to the torture to induce them to confess. Some, suspended by the wrists, were repeatedly drawn up and suddenly let down; some had their bare feet held over flames; some had sharp splinters driven under their fingernails; some had a tooth wrenched out day after day; some had heavy weights hung from their genitals; some were slowly starved. In many cases all these devices were used, so that most of the prisoners, when examined again, were weak to the point of death. One showed the bones that had fallen from his roasted feet … Several of them died in Jail; some killed themselves; fifty-nine were burned at the stake (1310), protesting their innocence to the end… 

 

“The most powerful of the heretical sects was variously named Cathari … Bulgari … and Albigenses, from the French town of Albi, where they were especially numerous … Innocent … gave him (Arnaud, head of Cistercian monks) extraordinary powers to make Inquisition throughout France, and commissioned him to offer a plenary indulgence to the king and nobles of France for aid … Philip Augustus allowed many barons of his realm to enlist … the same plenary indulgence was promised as to those who took the cross for Palestine … When the crusaders approached Beziers (in their heresy-hunt) … scaled the walls, captured the town, and slew 20,000 men, women and children in indiscriminate massacre; even those who had sought asylum in the church … when Arnaud, the papal legate, was asked should Catholics be spared, he answered, ‘Kill them all, for God knows His Own’ … Simon de Montfort … For four years Simon continued his campaigns, devastating nearly all the territory…  

 

“… Compared with the persecution of heresy in Europe from 1227 to 1492, the persecution of Christians by Romans in the first three centuries after Christ was mild and humane procedure. Making every allowance required of an historian and permitted to a Christian, we must rank the Inquisition, along with the wars and persecutions of our time, as among the darkest blots on the record of mankind, revealing a ferocity unknown in any beast.”^[3]

 

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[1] This phenomenon should actually be traced to Jewish-Christian influence, which came through the very large number of converts from Judaism and Christianity, including the priests of those faiths, entering the fold in the very early days of Islamic history and forming a part of the Muslim community larger than that of the descendants of the original Muslims. As for Islam, it is committed to positive struggle for the triumph of Truth on the basis of sublime spiritual and moral principles and does not countenance the negative attitude of persecution.

[2] Mark the confession, in support of what the Qur’an has proclaimed, that the original monotheistic religion preached by Jesus was replaced with its paganised version by the Christian Church—and that through the force of arms ! In respect of paganisation, readers may also refer to pages 216, 217 in the foregoing.

[3] To quote Will Durant: Besides “burning at the stake”, which was the mode of killing the condemned persons (op. cit., p. 783), “the worst tragedies of the Inquisition were concealed in the dungeons rather than brought to light at the stake” (op. cit., p. 783). In crushing one dissident movement alone, i.e., the Albigensian ‘heresy’ one million men, women and children were massacred. (vide Newsweek, “Massacre of the Pure”).

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY ON MUSLIM CONQUESTS

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

B. CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY ON MUSLIM CONQUESTS

Says Will Durant ^[1] in The Age of Faith (pp. 187-190, 218-219, 227):

“Mohammed had appointed no successor to his power, but he had chosen Abu Bekr (573-624) to conduct the prayers in the Madina mosque … this mark of preference persuaded the Moslem leaders to elect Abu Bekr the first Caliph of Islam … Abu Bekr was … simple and abstemious, kindly but resolute; attending personally to details of administration and judgment, and never resting till justice was done; serving without pay till his people overruled his austerity; and then, in his will, returning to the new state the stipends it had paid him … the Moslem leaders were passionate disciples of Mohammed, prayed even more than they fought … The Arab troops were more rigorously disciplined and more ably led; they were inured to leadership … could fight on empty stomachs … ‘Be just’, ran Abu Bekr’s proclamation, ‘be valiant; die rather than yield; be merciful; slay neither old men, nor women, nor children. Destroy no fruit trees, grain, or cattle. Keep your word, even to your enemies. Molest not those religious persons who live retired from the world’ … 

Omar (the second Caliph) … Having beaten a Bedouin unjustly, he begged the Bedouin— in vain—to inflict an equal number of strokes upon him. He was a severe puritan, demanding strict virtue of every Moslem … Moslem historians tell us that he owned but one shirt and one mantle, patched and repatched; that he lived on barley bread and dates, and drank nothing but water; that he slept on a bed of palm leaves, hardly better than a hair shirt; and that his sole concern was the propagation of the faith by letters and by arms. When a Persian satrap came to pay homage to Omar he found the conqueror of the East asleep among beggars on the steps of the Madina mosque … The Patriarch Sophronius agreed to surrender Jerusalem if the Caliph would come in person to ratify the terms of capitulation. Omar consented, and traveled from Madina in stately simplicity, armed with a sack of corn, a bag of dates, a gourd of water, and a wooden dish … He received Sophronius with kindness and courtesy, imposed an easy tribute on the vanquished, and confirmed the Christians in the peaceful possession of all their shrines … Omar forbade the conquerors to buy or till land… 

 

“The Jews of the Near East had welcomed the Arabs as liberators … they stood on equal terms with Christians, were free once more to live and worship in Jerusalem, and prospered under Islam in Asia, Egypt, and Spain as never under Christian rule. Outside of Arabia the Christians of western Asia usually practised their religion unhindered; Syria remained predominantly Christian until the third Moslem century; in the reign of Mamun (813-33) we hear of 11,000 Christian churches in Islam—as well as hundreds of synagogues and fire temples. Christian festivals were freely and openly celebrated; Christian pilgrims came in safety to visit Christian shrines in Palestine; the Crusaders found large numbers of Christians in the Near East in the twelfth century; and Christian communities have survived there to this day. Christian heretics persecuted by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, or Antioch were now free and safe under a Moslem rule that found their disputes quite unintelligible. In the ninth century the Moslem governor of Antioch appointed a special guard to keep Christian sects from massacring one another at church. Monasteries and nunneries flourished … relations between the two religions were so genial that Christians wearing crosses on their breasts conversed in mosques with Moslem friends. The Mohammedan administrative bureaucracy had hundreds of Christian employees … Sergius, father of St. John of Damascus, was chief finance minister to Abd-al-Malik, and John himself, last of the Greek Fathers of the Church, headed the council that governed Damascus. The Christians of the East in general regarded Islamic rule as a lesser evil than that of the Byzantine government and Church. 

 

“Despite or because of this policy of tolerance in early Islam, the new faith won over to itself in time most of the Christians, nearly all the Zoroastrians and pagans, and many of the Jews, of Asia, Egypt, and North Africa … Gradually the non-Moslem populations adopted the Arabic language and dress, the laws and faith of the Koran. Where Hellenism, after a thousand years of mastery, had failed to take root, and Roman arms had left the native gods unconquered, and Byzantine orthodoxy had raised rebellious heresies, Mohammedanism had secured, almost without proselytism, not only belief and worship, but a tenacious fidelity that quite forgot the superseded gods. From China, Indonesia, and India through Persia, Syria, Arabia, and Egypt to Morocco and Spain, the Mohammedan faith touched the hearts and fancies of a hundred peoples, governed their morals and molded their lives, gave them consoling hopes and a strengthening pride … 

 

“… We must concede that the early Caliphs, from Abu Bekr to al-Mamun, gave successful organization to human life over a wide area, and may be counted among the ablest rulers in history. They might have devasted or confiscated everything, like the Mongols or the Magyars of the raiding Norse; instead they merely taxed. When Omar conquered Egypt he rejected the advice of Zobeir to divide the land among his followers, and the Caliph confirmed his judgment: ‘Leave it’, said Omar, ‘in the people’s hands to nurse and fructify’. Under the caliphal government lands were measured, records were systematically kept, roads and canals were multiplied or maintained, rivers were banked to prevent floods; Iraq, now half desert, was again a garden of Eden; Palestine, recently so rich in sand and stones, was fertile, wealthy, and populous … the caliphs gave reasonable protection to life and labor, kept career open to talent, promoted for three to six centuries the prosperity of areas never so prosperous again, and stimulated and supported such a flourishing of education, literature, science, philosophy, and art as made western Asia, for five centuries, the most civilized region in the world.”

 

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[1] It may be remembered here that, as a good Christian, Will Durant is always ready to attack and insult Islam and its promulgator on the flimsiest grounds.

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times