Government As A Criminal Gang
GOVERNMENT AS A CRIMINAL GANG
A careful and detailed reading of history shows the following fact about political organization. Big or small, societies are dominated by powerful individuals who will not hesitate to impose their will on others whatever it takes. When their power or way to power is not threatened such a man may be as civil and kind as any other. But if he thinks that he is threatened politically then his will is his law and what is more he will not hesitate to act in all three capacities, the lawmaker, the judge and the executioner. In fact we do not have to go to formal politics to discern the existence of this type of person who nowadays come more in female form then in the past. The media reports are that there are many women politicians, managers and business executives who, not to be outdone by their male rivals take the male hormone testesterone. Soon they lose their feminine caution and emotional vulnerability and cock up like other males and can snarl and browbeat almost as well. Even their voices thicken a bit, which is to be expected by all biological standards. Equally there are men who take the female hormone oestrogen and lose hair and grow breasts for their private reasons. The fact is that, in certain combinatioins with other biochemical factors testesterone means hardiness and aggression and that is what most founders of kingdoms are made of.
Skipping the tribal society and beginning from monarchy we note extraordinarily powerful, strong-willed and politically very ambitious persons attempting to capture a throne for themselves. Perhaps the greatest monarch ever (in a total and successful control sense) namely Genghis Khan (nee Temuchin) the Mongol emperor of the 13th century, is the typical empire builder. Of humble if noblish origin he distinguished himself early as a politically motivated fighter who quickly recruited and subdued an increasing number of subordinates from among the already warlike Mongol tribes. Within a decade of his adolescent debut in war-making he had established himself as th undisputed leader of all Mongols who called their warlords khans and therefore called Temuchin Genghis Khan which means the Great King. Despite his phenomenal ruthlessness and brutality when he thought his power was being threatened he was the justest and kindest of men once fully obeyed and loyally served. And that is what exactly makes and has been making truly successful kings throughout history. And it is easy to see why. A king is not alone in being politically terribly ambitious and selfish. Many others are always in existence and eye him covetously and will not waste any credible opportunity to despatch and replace him. So, any reigning absolute monarch must be always on his guard and act quickly if without enough evidence to fininish off in the bud any attempt to replace him on the throne even when the suspected or proven bidder is his dearest son. Thus the greatest of all Ottoman and European kings sultan Suleiman (16th century) felt he had to and did despatch his three sons in succession to keep his throne. So and even worse did many Persian, Roman and Greek emperors before and after him. Apparently given the selfishness necessary to make one a king and the ruthlessness to keep it no other alternative could be available to any kings who exterminated their rivals whoever they were.
But if we think that only absolute monarchs can commit such arbitrary atrocities we are badly mistaken. All players to top authority as they see it are and must be equally arbitrary and ruthless if they want to attain and then keep their prize. So, it was no wonder when president Nixon had his cronies burgle the offices of his rivals the Democratic Party in Washington in order to espy on their secret policies and tactics for winning the next elections. Such illegal and unscrupulous acts are always on the agenda of all power aspirants as well as holders and they will not hesitate to use them if they calculate they can get away with it. Each has his cronies who stick to him for their share of power under his leadership. In fact Machiavelli, the Renaisance era political observer and adviser, has long since laid the bones bare of the workings of politics and the practice of government which has never been disputed seriously since. Politics is indeed a dirty game and can only be played by players who are prepared to dirty their hands as much as it takes.
And concept of politics should not be confined to government as we normally understand it; it also extends to all power bases and positions from inter-family squabbles to the relations of the personnel in a company. Even academicians are up to their necks in it and members are promoted or destroyed by political (power-sharing) jockeyings in all colleges and universities. Can you imagine, in many charities (repeat, non profit making, no salaries paying charities) the members thrive on factionalism and intrigue which do not stop even after a group win the elections. Soon afterwards great and heady politicking fly about, tempers may flare up until the portfolios are shared. If and when an incompatibility of aims and ambitions comes to the fore then those involved may resort to dirty tricks to inconvenience if not discredit their rivals. At times relations can deteriorate to a low level where espionage and burglary of the premises to find or plant incriminating evidence may be attempted. The reasons can be too much ambition and pathological suspicion but in fact may also be crassly mercenary. Charities sometimes hold sizeable funds granted them for their activities and pocketing some of it on the part of the more thievish members is always a tempting possibility. In a Muslim country for example how the Religious Endowment Funds (Awqaf) was plundered by their ‘honorary’ officers has always been persistent public gossip. In fact the Ottoman annals are full of reports of corruption in all departments and at all levels of government and administration including honorary (unpaid) trusteeships. No too honest member in any of power structures mentioned so far can survive too long in them but must be eliminated by the less scrupulous and more ambitious.
CONCLUSION
True almost to a literal degree to the famous Darwinist principle of the Survival of the Fittest the coarser members of any human grouping find it irresistible to ignore any rules of behaviour and conduct applying to any situation in which their interests are at stake and act arbitrarily and unscrupulously if they think they stand a good chance to get away with it. The more refined souls cannot easily bring themselves to offend their conscientious values and indulge their lusts including the lust for power and therefore face poor prospects in climbing any power ladders on offer. Because of this coincidence of true piety and lowness in worldly life all prophets and scriptures praised the person who is both pious and humble in life and warned those who chased their lusts and fought over worldly power.
This of course does not mean that no saint can ever attain top power or less.
All rules have their exceptions and as the dictum goes ‘exceptions only prove the rule’. There has been some truly pious leaders in all ages and places but that should be seen as a special dispensation by the Creator Who, for His Wise Reasons saw to it that that particular favourite servant of His take the reigns of power to set an example so that others cannot protest their helplessness against their lusts. King and prophet Solomon’s reign is legendary for its wisdom and justice and the perfect example of leadership in every sense is provided by none other than the Messenger of Allah our master Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sellem. Among his khalifas Umar RA stand out as the most proven second example of such pious success since his predecessor Abu Bakr as Siddiq RA ruled for only two years in a less complicated context while both Uthman RA and Ali RA fell on hard times with circumstances beyond their control. But that a Godly rule is possible has been proven. Even far lesser figures has proven that nearly perfect rules are within the grasp of mortals that we are. Against the incredibly beastly records of the Roman emperors like Nero and Caligula we have those of Augustus and then Marcus Aurelius in whose times the empire was at its justest and most civilised. The ottomans had perhaps their best times under their earlier sultans like Orkhan and Murad I but to the end of Suleiman’s reign the Ottoman empire was the justest and most humane of all states in the whole world.
In conclusion we may ruefully observe that power sharing is perhaps the most dangerous and dirtiest of all human social activities and far more often than not only the most intelligent and most unscrupulous (both traits together) can win the battles to higher and higher echelons of power. Often only heartbreak if not total and comprehensive disaster awaits the pious and the conscientious in it. Accordingly spiritually serious Muslims should better shun power sharing competitions and satisfy their souls by pursuing other ways to other forms of success and personal fulfilment. And what better success than winning Allah’s pleasure and nearness. Amen.
WHY FUNDAMENTALISM IS NOT ISLAM AND TERROR NOT JEHAD
INTRODUCTION
We are living in very dangerous times featuring more than at any time in recent history a religious hysteria among a minority of Muslims which in some cases is flowing over into organised terrorism. The fact that such Muslims form a tiny minority among the Muslim communities they are the members of does not mean that they can pose no great danger to communal, national and international peace. They can and did a lot of mischief and damage already and look very likely to take the matters to crazier and more atrocious extents. As a humble Muslim qualified scholar and Islamic historian I am humbly composing this brief essay to warn both the culprits and their intended victims of the error and dangers of this phenomenon of fundamentalist surge among Muslims and the terrorist inclinations of some members of this fundamentalist club.
WHAT DOES FUNDAMENTALISM MEAN AND ITS OCCURRENCE IN MAJOR RELIGIONS
Fundamentalism is a mental inadequacy from which a minority of religious people suffer. A fundamentalist takes religious teachings in holy books and other books based on holy books too literally and narrow-mindedly thereby missing the spirit of universal loving mercy and charity at the bottom of each major religion. Their image of the religion they profess is a caricature of the real thing and like all caricatures exaggerates some features at the expense of others. To see how caricaturisation can falsify the object caricaturised we may try ask a caricaturist to draw a caricature of a very handsome person. Because he must distort the features of the person in order to caricaturise him the resulting picture will be anything but handsome: that is exactly what fundamentalist Christians, Muslims or Jews can and do only have an ugly image of their respective faiths which image however is very attractive to themselves.
With this ugly image as their inspiration each then starts on a path of selfishness, pride, arrogance, hate and belligerence which may eventually grow into terrorism. Incidentally we must observe that all kinds of systematised belief systems outside religions do also have the same problem and same risk of fanaticism and terrorism. Both nationalism and socialism and their hybrid national socialism have produced their fanatics and terrorists as a result of which the last century has seen the bloodiest and most barbaric acts of the whole recorded history. Remember the Nazi, Communist and more recently the Yugoslav atrocities. It took the more reasonable part of the world a lot of painful, costly and bloody efforts to bring these systematised mass hysteric movements to an end.
Before these modern bad ideologies the ‘credit’ of systematic trouble went to major religions. For example the Crusades were fought for the possession of the holy sites of Christianity which were already accessible to all Christian pilgrims from all over the world. These wars’ true nature was soon exposed as one of massive and indiscriminate bloodshed and plunder all the way from the Christian Western Europe to the Holy Land and that from the word go: on the way many Crusaders first savaged the Western Jews and so-called Christian heretics, invaded and plundered the Eastern Roman lands which also were Christian and once in Jerusalem put to the sword all Muslims, Christians and Jews and to torch many of most of their immovable property and founded a kingdom which functioned as a centre of trouble-making in the Middle East for a couple of centuries.
Crusaders were fundamentalist Christians and acted accordingly. The true Christian spirit taught and demonstrated by that most sweet and kind Christ was nowhere to be seen. A similar bloody-minded fundamentalism was also shown by the Christian conquistadores of the South America. Lastly, some Muslim conquests were similarly devoid of true Islamic humanity, a practice the Prophet of Islam would never sanction. The cause in each case was a mistaken or deliberate caricaturisation of the institution of jehad whose actual purpose was removing injustice and corruption from the face as large parts of the earth as possible. Islam was a spiritualising and civilising project but in the hands of fallible men it could not always remain on course as a fast spreading faith. This failure to live up to its any moral standards appears to be the fate of all religions (and any well-meaning secular ideologies) and some active members of all major religions have proven equally fallible in their behaviour.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM (BEHAVIOUR DICTATED BY A CARICAURE OF ISLAM PRODUCED BY SOME DEFECTIVE OR SICK-MINDED ‘MUSLIMS’)
Could you believe it, fundamentalism began as early as at the Prophet’s (sws) own time and what is more he was the first victim of it? When the Prophet (sws), camping with his small band of would-be pilgrims at Hudaibia plain overlooking Mecca was trying to fix a face-saving truce with his arch enemies the pagan Meccans who threatened war if Muslims proceeded with their pilgrim’s visit of the Holy Mosque almost all his companions almost accused him of showing un-Islamic weakness against the pagans! Basically only AbU Bakr, his closest friend and saintliest companion could keep his cool and unperturbed faith. In the end the Prophet prevailed, an apparently humiliating truce was signed and the would-be combatants went their separate ways. Yet, this act on the part of the Prophet was almost immediately not only fully approved by Revelation from God but God promised that it was a prelude to a great and final victory over all the anti-Islamic forces in Arabia. This came to pass within a mere two years as exactly predicted. The Mecca fell to the Prophet (sws) without bloodshed, he forgave the Meccans most magnanimously and they converted to Islam en mass within hours. Incidentally God explained His Messengers ‘climb-down’ at Hudaibia as God’s Will to protect some numerous semi-secret Muslims residing among the Meccan pagan majority; in any ensuing melee they could be massacred by the pagans or trodden underfoot in the heat of the street battles.
Was this better or the slightly postponed but bloodless conquest of Mecca? The trouble with the companions of the Prophet at Hudaibia was that they were reading Islam’s message too literally as a result of which they demanded battle whatever the risk and expected victory whatever the odds. The Prophet was not such literalist and fundamentalist but had the subtle mind and supple spirituality, having always his ear and heart tuned to God!
I am not saying these to criticise the companions of the Prophet (sws). Given that nobody can ever be perfect they are to be excused for the confusion and doubt they felt when faced by a real politik diplomatic exercise by the extremely wise and Divinely inspired Prophet. Umar was genuinely upset, Ali was downcast and only Abu Bakr was totally unperturbed and could say “Don’t worry, he is God’s messenger and is doing as God wishes”. The happy thing is that the companions did not rebel, kept patience with the jolt they had and were rewarded as a result. The Sura (Qur’anic chapter) ‘al Fath’/the Opening/Conquest/Breakthrough (all three meanings valid) came down on the Prophet’s party’s way back and all explanations and promises contained therein were entirely vindicated and fulfilled soon enough. Now compare this slight discomfiture yet obedience to authority on the part of the companions of the Prophet (sws) and the rebellious, accusing and destructive habits of some later Muslim groups who venomously criticised, condemned and fought bloodily against Muslim rulers in later centuries of Islam and even went as far as treating fellow Muslims who did not think like themselves but peacefully if not always comfortably obeyed their rulers while praying both for patience and improvement in their rulers. The trial of Hudabia was not the Prophet’s last shaking experience. After his last and victorious battle against the non-Meccan, desert pagans at Hunain, the division of the spoils among the combatants gave him other headaches and at one point one recent and yet crude convert almost tore the Prophet’s (sws) garment accusing him point blank of not being pious and just enough in his allocations. “Who will be just if not God’s messenger” he had to protest.
If that is what happened even to the most perfect of God’s servants is it a wonder that some thick-headed and stone-hearted Muslims are criticising and quarrelling with almost everyone outside their ideological camp hating and seeing as fair game all non-Muslims and only a bit less vehemently feeling the same against Muslims, ruler or ruled, who would not agree with them and meet their misguided expectations and ultimatums?
At the expense of repeating ourselves it we must observe that it was not only Muslims who produced fundamentalist scum but all major faiths have had theirs. The spiritual ancestors of today’s snarling and warlike Muslim fundamentalists were the Kharijites who first served under Ali and then turning against him quite unjustly branded him an infidel (can you imagine!) and eventually assassinated him. This fundamentalist (literal, narrow and bloody-minded) sect continues to this day under various reincarnations and today’s various all-criticising, all-excommunicating and all-warlike Muslim organisations whether legal or illegal bear the very same genes.
Before we conclude this analysis of theirs we may give some description of a typical Kharijite organisation and its members. They begin with organised indoctrination of as many children as the may get from as young age as possible. Under a total or partial boarding school arrangement the children are compressed into mental moulds until they harden in their mental structures and dynamics and become almost humanoid robots. Surprisingly and cleverly they are taught extreme good manners like gracious monks but inside they are conditioned only to live and day for their group interests and look down on the rest of humanity, including fellow Muslims as lost souls worthy of disposal unless converted to their sect, which is not too often of course. They are so full of disdain and hatred for others that even the Satan would improve its performance of malice and treason by learning from them.
True to all pious habits of arrogant fanatics they see no reason to observe any laws of government or of morality in favour of those not their members. Muslim or not they not only feel free to cheat and exploit the outsiders and heartily approve of robbing them. These traits are exact replicas of the habits of the ancient Kharijites and no less!
Given the above facts lessons may now be extracted for both Muslims and non-Muslims facing the fundamentalist threat.
The lesson for Muslims is this: Do not be deceived by whatever verse, chapter and hadith a fundamentalist quotes to support his claims. There are profounder and more thorough scholars among mainstream, reasonable, peaceful Muslim majority who can easily rubbish fundamentalist claims. Yes, the fundamentalist are very dangerous and therefore potential murderers under all circumstances but they cannot stand up indefinitely to a well-informed and spiritually mature majority. In the long run all Kharijite groups were defeated and their modern reincarnations shall also be. Khariji preacher are frequently amateur, self-styled scholars whose only merits are big mouths with fiercely eloquent tongues and their blood-seeing eyes which are intended to scare to death their opponents. Otherwise they can be any kind of pious crooks, money-grabbers and cheaters of law and may have fabulous wealth few if any may know about, wealth made from cheating in one form or another. One brand of them, namely the Karamita who flourished during Abbasid times, routinely raided Muslim towns or quarters or the caravans of pilgrims to Mecca and even the Mecca itself during pilgrimage time and both killed and robbed the Muslims concerned as much as they could. The reason was these Muslims for them were only infidels and their blood and property were fair game and even mandatory to shed and rob!
True Islam is about peace and justice and rarely for war and all these dispensations are left to legitimate or at least de facto governments ruling over Muslims. Muslims are equally required to obey a non-Muslim government in case they choose to live or are forced to live under that non-Muslim government. The reason is that Islam discourages unwinnable battles whether against a non-Muslim or Muslim opponent. By unwinnable we mean a war not too likely to be won or won only at such expense that the victory will only be a Pyrrhic one, i.e. the winners much worse ruined than the losers. The Prophet (sws), accordingly, never sought let alone itch for battle and never took on an enemy of objective superior strength if he could avoid it. At both the Badr and the Uhud battles the Prophet (sws) was not the initiator of the hostilities but was cornered by the enemy while at the conquest of Mecca when he was the superior force he took all precautions to capture the prize as bloodlessly as possible which he did. God’s enemies the Satanic Kharijites on the other hand did not hesitate to take on any opponent however suicidal their attempt may look and lost as many times as much bloodily as they won. As such they more looked like the Marxist guerrillas of recent history than Islam’s heroes under Islam’s ultimate leader the Prophet (sws).
THE TYPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLGY OF THE FUNDAMENTALISM
As already pointed out a fundamentalist suffers from a rigid narrowness of mind and an inability to see what is metaphorically meant in a religious statement and the consequent adherence to a literal understanding. For example, both Jewish and Christian fundamentalists have been notorious for their unrealistic expectation that their resepective Messiahs will arise and lead them to world domination, in fact an ideal society of their pious without any one else remaining alive to share the earth with them. That such a promise is metaphorically meant can be deduced from the Qur’an which similarly promises the inheritance of the earth exclusively to the believers. To see this point we may read the following verses together: “We had written in Zabur (Psalms of David) after the Reminder (Torah) ‘Indeed My good servants shall inherit the earth’”. Then “Those who used to be pious are despatched to Paradise in groups. When they arrive its gates are opened to them and its guardians say ‘Peace be on you, you have done well, therefore enter ye therein to remain forever. They (the entrants) say ‘Praise be to Allah who kept His promise to us and made us inherit the earth, we will settle in there as we like’. How good is the reward for the good people” (39: 73- 74).
Yes, a lesser promise await the better servants of God here and now: “Allah promised to those among you who believe and do good works that He will establish them in the land as He had established those (believers) who came before them and will establish the religion He chose for them with pleasure (to be the winning faith) and will exchange their any previous period of fear to one of safety…” (24: 55)
Lastly, that this world will never belong to a single community, however godly they may be, but will always be home to many differing and warring groups is proven by the verse “Had thy Lord willed He could make all mankind a single community, (the fact is that) they will never cease to be differing opponents except those who Thy Lord showed mercy to (a group of true and pious believers): It is (exactly) for this He created them; the Word of thy Lord (to the effect that) ‘I will fill the Hell with men and demons all’ came (has to come) to pass (11: 118- 119)
Despite all such and only very many more Divine statements the fundamentalist sticks with his simplistic or rather childish cosmology, caricaturised history and unrealistic expectations and because of two facts, namely that he is not mature (and is unprepared to mature up) and cannot wait the unrealistic outcomes to arrive in their own time as he sees it he wants to effect a premature birth by a Caesarian section followed by putting the child in an incubator and make it grow rapidly by various medical tricks. A contemporary fundamentalist, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, is unable to learn any lessons from history and often is not knowledgeable in it to begin with. He either does not know or thinking wishfully ignores all the past failures of fundamentalist expectations and almost insanely believes that his kind in his generation, by trying hard and skilfully enough, can bring down the expected saviour and with him wipe out all humanity from the face of the earth except the members of his sect who will then have a paradise to savour here on this earth. Christian fundamentalists make also the glorious provision that their earthy paradisical kingdom will last a thousand years and even lions and wolves shall graze instead of eating up lambs and cows.
Such millennial or eschatological promises may feature in holy scriptures but they can only be interpreted metaphorically: one the one hand they may be intended to convey a sense of the afterlife in terms of a totally peaceful and mutually loving coexistence of all creatures or they may be intended to paint an idealised picture of a society ruled entirely by true and full piety in which some citizens who might have acted like wolves and lions will settle down to a life of lambs and therefore get along excellently well with people who are like lambs in temperament. That this is to a certain extent possible is proven by the early social successes of both Jesus Christ and Muhammad (blessings and peace of Allah be on them).
The early disciples of both messengers of Allah basically attained such humanity and civility and could hope for a vaster society similarly humanised. Naturally it was not to be; as both Jesus (S) Muhammad (S) fearfully prophesised exapansion of their respective societies had to admit lesser souls on the one hand and the delicious opportunities had to increase with the growth of the society of believers. In the case of Christianity it was the sharing of high positions in the church while in the case of Muslims it was the high political offices which helped the Satan wreck the Islamic community at an ever accelerating speed. Lastly, anytime a fundamentalist project succeeded the so created community rapidly deteriorated into a leader-worshipping dictatorship and an insatiable war machine. Eventually all came to a sad end and any surviving fundamentalist societies have been reduced to secretive brotherhoods living from day to day in a sea of humanity who does not take them seriously but let them be with contempt and occasional amusement, a humanity towards which they feel as perpetual outsiders. Yet until this sad settling down happens all fundamentalist groups leave behind them a trail of madness and destruction.
The madness is not the innocent madness of a naïve but essentially well-meaning, humane believer believing in something palpably untrue, like aliens from Mars or supermen directing the world from the depth of a given volcano. The madness of a fundamentalist is satanic: he or she hates like hell and wants to punish like hell all who do not share his or her vision.
The destruction a fundamentalist group leaves behind makes a record of both internal and external terror. The deified or almost deified leader applies an iron discipline within the group and may also unconscionably abuse any member to an incredible degree or have the member terribly persecuted by the other members. In some American sects we have only very many reports of sexual abuse, financial corruption and ruthless control of any member suspected of defection sometime down the line.
In the case of Islamic fundamentalist groupings abuses are often not as bad as above but they are never potentially too far away: the trouble is rooted in the idealisation of the leader and a consequent sense of being the very highest elites among Muslim groupings. This sense of elitism prevents group members from appreciating anything offered by other Muslims or Muslim groups whom they look down on as forgivable inferiors. From all Qur’anic and Hadith evidence such attitudes are signs of some Satanic infestation. In one hadith we have the Prophet (sws) saying “It is enough as a sin that one Muslim looks down on another”. In other words, one of the fundamental prejudices of a fundamentalist group is self-congratulation whose extended mirror image is other-contempt. It is as if the Prophet (S) did not say “Do not engage in disputes, do not nurture hostilities but be brothers o servants of Allah”. Any inevitable disagreements among Muslim groups should not lead any of them to judge and condemn any other unless that party is in explicit breach of some universally held Islamic truth or sanction- a truth like the finality of prophethood in Muhammad (sws) or the obligatory status of prayer and fasting for example.
Unfortunately most fundamentalist groups want to hang other Muslims for far less ‘offences’, an ‘offence’ like attending a secular school or for a woman not adopting the niqab/face veil. They forget that Islam is a religion of ease, toleration, often kind indulging of some errants with mild rebukes and in general an avoidance of judging others unless one is a formally and officially appointed judge is presented by a case of an alleged spiritual or legal offence.
We conclude this essay with a very revealing hadith from the Darling of Allah (S):
“Yassiroo wa la tu’assiroo, bash-shiroo wa la tunaffiroo”, i.e., “Make easy and do not make difficult, give good news with smiling faces and do not inspire hate”. Amen.
THE PROOFS OF THE TRUE FAITH SUNNI-SUFI ISLAM
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PRESENT INTER-FAITH DIALOGUE
BACKGROUND
For some time now and in the wake of 9/11 (the bombing of New York twin towers) there has been an effort to bring together the representatives of various major religions together in an attempt to bridge the psychological gaps separating them and occasionally setting them against each other. This is called ‘interfaith dialogue. Of course at the present the only joiners are Muslims, Christians and Jews and the only trigger is the extreme politicisation of Islam with an emphatic militant element which uses armed violence to attain its aims. In other words the whole project is about taming and eliminating any militancy among Muslims whose main grievance is the creation of and support for Israel by the West, especially be USA. Christians and Jews are implicitly exonerated and are just condescending to Muslims for the purposes just mentioned which boil down to accepting Israel and making a genuine peace with it. I personally have nothing against Jews more than I would have towards any people who made a conquest of lands belonging to others for centuries which others did not offend the conquerors to deserve being conquered and evicted. All nations have at times been guilty of conquests as the modern Israelis have been; white Americans, both North and South, conquered and largely not only evicted but almost also exterminated the great majority of the native Americans while all major Western European nations have been guilty of imperialism and colonialism until recently.
This does not mean, as far as I am concerned, that all conquests are wrong. Some are not wrong; instead they are positively good. Like what?
Like civilised people conquering savages with minimum violence if at all, with a view to civilise them. Like a nation more based on justice and humanity conquering another based more on injustice and inhumanity. Why the late Yugoslavia was bombed to subjection recently? Because it was degenerating into a Serbian racist supremacist regime and was massacring its non-Serbian citizens. Why Muslims, in the best instances, were conquering their pagan or Christian neighbours? Because they had to spread Islam so as to establish the regime of equality and enlightenment to them which Islam taught. Were not occasional abuses committed? They surely were: all human beings being imperfect nothing they attempt with the best intentions in the world will be hundred percent free from some mistakes and at times culpabilities. In their turn and previous to both Christians and Muslims, Jews had made conquests about which the Old Testament sings a lot of praises. Christians after becoming the official religion of Rome also conquered large tracts of Europe, Middle East and Africa. Lately they conquered the Americas as bloodily as anybody else. But the present culprit is seen as Muslims and the cause of their mischief their religion Islam. Both are unjust. Nobody has blood-free hands but all must learn from the mistakes they made and also learn to live, according to the circumstances, side by side as faith communities (like in the UK) or camp and country to camp and country like Muslim Turkey with its neighbour Christian Greece.
Lastly I recently watched on the TV an almost plenary meeting of the Sunni and Alawi notables of Turkey purporting to identify the causes of mutual grievances and hammer out a peaceful modus vivendi. All such inter-faith and inter-sect attempts at resolving disputes and achieving peaceful co-existence are commendable. My aim in this article is not discussing the desirability of such attempts; they are not only desirable but mandatory since we have the example of nobody less than our beloved Prophet Muhammad (may Allah’s peace and blessings be on him) trying the very same with both his Jewish and Christian neighbours. My aim is showing that mainstream (Sunni) Islam has always had the moral high ground in both reconciliation attempts and inevitable confrontations. Let us then see how.
ISLAM’S INTER-FAITH DIALOGUE WITH JEWS AND CHRISTIANS
Even a cursory reading of the Qur’an will show to any well-meaning reader that it never tires of appealing to Jews and Christians to preferably embrace it or at least tolerate and show good will and choose to live at peace with it. I believe nothing could be fairer. In fact we find in it the best formula for peaceful and mutually respectful and cooperative co-existence between the three sister faiths sharing so many beliefs, values and scriptural materials. For example, Christians accept the Torah on top of their Gospels while Muslims accept all three main scriptures as Divinely inspired, namely the Torah, the Gospel and the Qur’an. That is not a bad common ground, is it?
To smooth the way to a common ground Allah says:
“O People of the Bible (Jews and Christians)! Come to a common word between us and yourselves to the effect that we all do not worship except God, we do not associate (in Divinity) with Him anything, some of us do not take some others among us as worshipful lords alongside God. If they refuse then say (to them)“Witness! We are those who submit (to this understanding of a right path) (3: 64).
What is proposed here in just a few words has no parallel or precedent in history of religion. One man of God is proposing to the followers of other older men of God to agree in a few brilliant, liberating and equalising principles, namely, they all submit to a purely Unitarian theology, avoid deifying fellow human beings however pious and learned they may be and shun raising such people to almost divine status like an absolute monarch, a pope or a patriarch which should be revered and obeyed almost like a god. All these present extremely abusive opportunities for the recipients of such honour and obeisance as all history showed. Priesthood has always been an institution of abuse, for man is weak and is easily tempted if magnified and revered too much. All should be equal at the bottom and only well- and self-deserved merits should distinguish one believer from another in a totally natural way and not in any way in an artificial way, like declaring and installing one a pope or patriarch over others with imperial honours and imperious powers.
To demonstrate this point our Prophet (sws) led an extremely humble life and a degree of mixing and sociability possible only among humble, totally unpretentious equals. He was even prepared to be retaliated against for any hurt or harm he might be accused of by his companions and said so repeatedly. Overall, he lived like their poorest and behaved like their most generous, tolerant and bravest. Anything given him by way of either public property or gift would hardly see the next day but be diverted to somebody in need. As his cousin and son-in-law Ali said he had seen none like the Messenger of Allah (sws) before or after. He was both handsome in a manly way beyond comparison and extremely lovable after a first impression of being nobly formidable. As his most competent describer Ali put it, anyone who first saw him would tremble with a strange reverent fear but once spoken to by him fall in love with him instantly.
Again Allah said through Gabriel through Muhammad (sws):
“Whatever He (God) revealed to Noah and to you (Muslims of Muhammad) and to Abraham and Moses and Jesus He instituted as religion for you… say to them (Jews and Christians o Muhammad) ‘I believed in what Allah sent down as Scripture and am commanded to judge justly among you. God is our Lord and your Lord, our deeds to us and your deeds to you- no argument between us, may Allah create unity between us; to Him is the return” (42:15).
How more welcoming, friendly and conciliatory could Muhammad (sws) be? What did he get in return? He only got what Jews gave to Jesus and Christians gave him what Jews had given to Jesus (pbuh). Is it not sadly true that history is made of repetitions?
Lastly, Muhammad (sws) did not even insist that Jews and Christians become Muslims and therefore his spiritual subjects although that was the ideal and could have diverted the world history into a much better course since. To this effect Allah inspired him to relate from Him All-Gracious:
“Those who have had faith from among the Jews and the Christians and the Sabeans and did good works shall have their reward from their Lord and there shall be neither fear nor shall they ever grieve (2: 62). Acceptance, appreciation, blank cheque!
Did our Jewish and Christian spiritual cousins ever adopt such a realistic, morally sound and pacifying attitude either towards us the Muslims or towards each other for that matter? I wish they had done so. Can they yet do it? I very much doubt but would like to hope.
This fact alone should be enough to prove that it has always been Muslim who showed such unprecedented acceptance and conciliation towards their elder sisters in faith while these two elder sisters could not even be equal to Cindrerella’s two elder sisters who were not at least enemies of each other. Should not Jews show more generosity of spirit to Christians and Muslims? Should not Christians show more generosity of spirit to Jews and Muslims as Muslims showed to them both?