"Muslim treatment of non-Muslims in Muslim countries"

Submitted by Lactantius Jr. (United Kingdom), May 12, 2008 at 09:58

To Samer,

Examination of Islamic doctrines and history is required, in order to understand the enduring phenomenon of the treatment by Muslims of non-Muslims, and which dates back to the origins of Islam. Here is what the Qur'an says about "befriending" non-Muslims, "O you who believe! Take not as (your) Bitanah (advisors, consultants, protectors, helpers, friends, etc.) those outside your religion (pagans, Jews, Christians, and hypocrites) since they will not fail to do their best to corrupt you. They desire to harm you severely. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their breasts conceal is far worse.

Indeed We have made plain to you the Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses) if you understand." Surah 3:118 (Hilali-Khan) And here is what it says specifically about Jews and Christians, "Thou wilt surely find the most hostile of men to the believers are the Jews and the idolaters; and thou wilt surely find the nearest of them in love to the believers are those who say ‘We are Christians'; that, because some of them are priests and monks, and they wax not proud." Surah 5:82 The Arabic writer Al-Jahiz (died AD 869), offers two primary explanations for this.

First was the "rancorous" relationship between the early Muslim community, exiles from Mecca, relocated among Jewish neighbours in Medina. "When the [Muslim] Emigrants [from Mecca] became the neighbours of the Jews [in Medina]...the Jews began to envy the Muslims the blessings of their new faith, and the union which resulted after dissension.

They proceeded to undermine the belief of our [i.e., the Muslim] masses, and to lead them astray. They aided our enemies and those envious of us. From mere misleading speech and stinging words they plunged into an open declaration of enmity, so that the Muslims mobilized their forces, exerting themselves morally and materially to banish the Jews and destroy them. Their strife became long-drawn and widespread, so that it worked itself up into a rage, and created yet greater animosity and more intensified rancour.

The Christians, however, because of their remoteness from Mecca and Medina, did not have to put up with religious controversies, and did not have occasion to stir up trouble, and be involved in war. That was the first cause of our dislike of the Jews, and our partiality toward the Christians." However, al-Jahiz then identifies as "the most potent cause" of this particular animus towards the Jews, the Qur'anic Surah 5:82 "Thou wilt surely find the most hostile of men to the believers are the Jews and the idolaters; and thou wilt surely find the nearest of them in love to the believers are those who say ‘We are Christians'; that, because some of them are priests and monks, and they wax not proud." Al-Jahiz's essay was actually an anti-Christian polemic, believed to have been commissioned by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil (d. AD 861), who inaugurated a literary campaign against the Christians. Al-Jahiz examines why the Muslim masses prefer the Christians to the Jews.

This empirical preference (although decried by the author) is acknowledged by al-Jahiz from the outset: "I shall begin to enumerate the causes which made the Christians more liked by the masses than the Magians [Zoroastrians], and made men consider them more sincere than the Jews, more endeared, less treacherous, less unbelieving, and less deserving of punishment. For all this there are manifold and evident causes." Saying that, "When the [Muslim] Emigrants [from Mecca] became the neighbors of the Jews [in Medina]...the Jews began to envy the Muslims the blessings of their new faith, and the union which resulted after dissension.

An article titled "Islam's Global War against Christianity" published by "American Thinker" on July 5th.2007at http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/islams_global_war_against_chri.html is introduced by the following words, "From Nigeria to Indonesia, Christians are under siege in virtually every single country in the Muslim world, the victims of countless acts of discrimination, depredation, brutality, and murder that are so widespread and systematic, that it can rightfully be called the new Holocaust.

This time, however, the perpetrators of this Holocaust aren't wearing swastikas, but kufi skull caps and hijabs. Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are subject to relentless attack, and teeter on the brink of extinction at the hands of the "Religion of Peace": Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank; Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in Iraq; Coptic Christians in Egypt; Evangelical and Orthodox Christians in Eastern Ethiopia and Eritrea; Armenian Orthodox Christians in Turkey; and Maronite Christians in Lebanon. Several of these communities date back to the beginning decades of Christianity and all have weathered wave after wave of Islamic persecution for centuries and more, but in the very near future some will simply cease to exist. In our lifetime, the only trace of their past existence will be in footnotes in history books (and probably only Western history books at that)……………………"

With this persecution being continuously reported by "The Barnabas Fund," who exist to support and encourage persecuted Christians. http://www.barnabasfund.org/ "Treated better than the Muslims themselves" you say Samer, you must think my head buttons up the back!!!

With kind regards and best wishes,

Lactantius Jr.

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