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

The prohibition of riba in the Gospel of Jesus

THE PROHIBITION OF RIBA IN THE QUR’AN AND SUNNAH

THE PROHIBITION OF RIBA IN THE GOSPEL OP JESUS

Christians should he cautious in their denunciation of Jewish money-lending on interest since 'people who live in glass houses should not throw stones"! The Gospel of Jesus (s) according to St. Matthew contains evidence of precisely the same rewriting of the Word of God as it pertains to the prohibition of riba. After all Jesus had clearly challenged Deuteronomy and had directed the Jews to & return to the non-usurious path when he declared;

No, you must love your enemies and help them, and you must lend to them without hoping for any return [i.e. on your investment); and your reward shall he great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind even to the ungrateful and the evil.

(Gospel of St. Luke:-6:35)

Now here is a story which a truly evil-being invented and placed in the Gospel of Jesus (s):

The case is that of a man going abroad, who summoned his servants and handed over his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two and to another one, each got according to his capacity. Then the man went abroad.

The servant who got the five talents went at once and traded with them, making another five talents. Similarly the servant who got the two talents made another two. But the servant who got the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

Long afterwards the master of those servants came back and set tied accounts with them. Then the servant who got the five talents came forward, bringing five more; he said, 'You handed me five talents, sir; here I have gained another five’. His master said to him, ‘Capital you excellent and trusty servant! You have been trusty in charge of a small sum: I will put you in charge of a large sum. Come and share your master’s feast.' Then the servant with the two talents came forward. He said, ‘You handed me two talents, sir; here I have gained another two.' His master said to him. ’Capital, you excellent and trusty servant! You have been trusty in charge of a small sum; I will put you in charge of a large sum. Come and share your master’s feast’. Then the servant who got the one talent came forward. He said, 'I knew you were a hard man, sir, reaping where you never sowed and gathering where you never winnowed. So I was afraid, I went and hid your talent in the earth. There’s your money!' His master said to him in reply. ‘You rascal you idle servant! You knew, did you, that I map where I never sowed and gather where I never winnowed! Well then, you should have handed my money to the exchangers (bankers) and I would have gotten my capital with interest (i.e. riba) when I came back. . . . .

(Matthew - 25:14-27)

And yet the same Gospel of St. Matthew narrated an incident in which Jesus (s) rented with total fury in riba. While it was not riba in the form of interest, as in the above, it was still riba since it was "business by deception" in which people were being cheated of their wealth;

And Jesus into the temple of God (i.e. masjid al-aqsa) and cast out all of them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers (who were ripping-off the people through riba) . . . and said unto them: It is written, My house shall be called the home of prayer: but you have made it a den of thieves.

(Gospel of St. Matthew:- 21:12-3)

There were two kinds of coins in use at that time. The first secular Roman coins, could not be used in the Temple because of the graven images of the Roman Emperor on the coins; the second sacred coins could be used because they were specially minted without any graven images. The money-changers were cheating the people in the exchange of secular for sacred coins and vice- versa and this was riba!

Had the Jews accepted the Qur’an as the Word of Allah the Most High, they would have corrected themselves and desisted from lending money on interest. But they did not. So long as Jews lived under Muslim rule. i.e. within Dar al-Islam, the opportunity never arose for them to engage in riba with all its attendant mischief. But when Muslim rule over Spain came to an end Jews had to flee persecution. Many of them fled to other parts of Europe and thus lived amidst Christians. It was in this setting that Jewish money-lending on interest re-emerged, actively encouraged by Christians. And it created such serious ethical problems that no less a literary giant than William Shakespeare devoted an entire play, ‘Merchant of Venice’ to the vice of usurious Jewish money-lending (in the event that it was indeed Shakespeare who wrote 'Merchant of Venice’).

It is instructive to note that the dominant forces at work behind the scenes in the French Revolution were forces which sought to remove all obstacles preventing the emergence of a fully riba-based economy in Europe. And yet, despite the above story planted by evil hands in the Gospel to justify riba, the greatest of all such obstacles was the Roman Catholic Church, hence the dominant anti-clerical and militarily secular characteristic of the revolution. The victory against the Church led to full blown riba all over Europe.

The French Revolution and the American Revolution which preceded it, were events so momentous in religious, political and economic history that it was as if an iron curtain (built by Dhul Qarnain) was breached and two very evil forces (ya’jooj and ma’jooj) were let loose in the world. The evil of ya’jooj and ma’jooj was the greatest possible evil. Firstly they created the secular State with its claim to sovereignty. That was shirk! And the second was riba and next to shirk, riba was the greatest evil in the world!

The Jews had made capital of every opportunity for lending money on interest and engaging in other forms of riba in Europe. But this had led, time and again, to their expulsion from nearly every European country. The French Revolution put an end to this continuous assault on Jews for their economic crimes. Now they had unprecedented freedom. But this led to such unprecedented economic crimes against the German peoples that it was responsible for the Jewish holocaust which was unleashed by Hitler on the soil of Europe. It also paved the way for the emergence of today’s Western Capitalist economy which is based on riba. Riba then produced a world order based on the economic exploitation of humanity with an international political system which supported and protected the system of economic exploitation.

In a revelation located immediately after the revelation which promulgated the fast of Ramadan and which therefore came down in the month of Shaban in the year 2Hijri, Allah the Moss High, warned the Muslims against the economic behavior for which He had just condemned the Jews;

And do not (through riba and other forms of fraudulent transactions) wrongfully acquire the wealth of others, nor employ legal artifices with a view to devouring sinfully and knowingly, anything that by right belongs to others.

(Qur’an: al-Baqarah. - 2:188)

This is precisely what many Jews did and have been doing; ever since the Torah was rewritten. In fact the situation has become much worse with Jews charging interest from other Jews as well. In the Modem Commentary on the Torah, edited by W. Gunther Plaut, the editor comments on this aspect of the subject of the prohibition of riba: The sentiment against taking interest from one's people persisted into post-Biblical days and was in fact expanded by the Rabbis. A person retraining from charging it was praised as one who had accepted the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. In time, however, legal subterfuges were approved that permitted interest-taking, in order to accommodate changed economic conditions.

As a consequence of the changes which have taken place a situation has arisen which according to Gunther Plaut: . . . (is) a total reversal of the original intent of the Torah . . .

Again in Surah an-Nisa, the same Surah in which Allah the Most High, revealed the wickedness of those Jews who changed the Torah to modify the prohibition against riba, Allah the Most High, again warns the Muslims:

Oh you who believe! Do not devour one another's possessions wrongfully (through riba and other forms of fraudulent transactions). Rather let there be amongst you trade based on mutual goodwill. And do not kill (or destroy) yourselves (through cheating people of their property). Verify Allah has been most Merciful to you.

And as for any who does this with malicious intent and a will to do wrong - soon shall We cast them into the fine, for this is indeed easy for Allah .

(Qur’an: al-Nisa: 4:29-30)

The lesson from these revelations was quite instructive. The alternative to riba is trade which is conducted on the basis of mutual goodwill. Trade can never engender mutual goodwill when it is exploitative - when it is always a rip off! A Society which embraces riba in its economy will lose that business culture of mutual goodwill and will instead, witness such a corruption of economic life as would result in the collapse of values and the emergence of grave social discards.

Grave social diseases in turn lead to violence and such societies and civilizations self-destruct. Allah the Most High, warns of such a fate when He says:

...soon shall We cast them into the fire and this is indeed easy for Us.

(Qur’an: al Nisa 4:30)

Source: IMRAN N. HOSEIN

to be continued . . . . 

The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) by Imran Hosein

The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) (Q&A) by Imran Hosein