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Date Posted: 02:33:44 02/21/07 Wed
Author: DR. KAMRAN SATTAR BALOCH
Subject: OPEN CONTROVERSIES ADDRESSED

ABOUT ISLAM AND VIOLENCE



Through the great French newspaper “Le Monde”, delivered on Sunday 17th and Monday 18th 2006, I’ve read Pope Benedict VI remarks, which added fuel to the fire of the existing hot relations between the West and Islam, during this month of September already incendiary.

I realized that such remarks, that angered Moslems all around the World, were extracted from a Conference the Supreme Pontiff had conducted at Rastibone University, on the issues of faith and reason, in the framework of a dialogue between cultures and civilizations.



After having carefully read that large extract, I realized that the Pope’s remarks called for objections based on reason and discursive arguments, instead of demonstrations of indignation and anger.

The Pope started from a controversy raised between Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologue (a scholar, according to the Pope) and a Persian well-read person on the topic of “Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both”.

In adopting the same attitude of that unknown Persian, I am going to address to the illustrious and cultured Pope, some objections that would certainly give evidence that the erudition of that supposed famous Emperor and that of himself did not go far from their religion and their culture and they both ignore Islam and its teachings, which cannot possible any intercultural dialogue.



Therefore, I am going to present, following the same way the Pope did, the statements that seem to be more controversial for me.



The Pope referred to a text, which was, according to him, probably transcribed by the Emperor, during Constantinople siege, between 1394 and 1402, and edited by Professor Theodore KHOURY.



From that dialogue on “all aspects of faith contained in the Bible and the Quran” and “the relationship between the three laws or three orders of live: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Quran”, the Pope have chosen to consider only “one point of view hardly marginal in the construction of the dialogue as a whole”.



That point of view, arbitrarily and deliberately chosen by the Pope, was extracted from the seventh controversy and related to the word “JIHAD”.

Apart form that revealing restriction, the Pope refused, due to reductionism and schematization, to consider the preferential treatment the Quran granted to the People of the Book (Jews and Christians), which differed far from that one for unbelievers. He shared the views of his terrible Emperor, who uttered abrupt and injurious words to our poor Persian, in connecting religion and violence: “Show me what Mohamed have brought new. You will only find bad and inhumane things, such as the right to defend by sword the faith he was preaching”.



I am going to raise my first controversy. Did the Pope think that such wide-open and injurious way is the most appropriate and cultured one, and most relevant to introduce a debate on “faith and reason” in a perspective of a dialogue between cultures? Neither the logics of the discourse, nor the ethics of responsibility support such approach.



To object and come back to the real debate, i.e. to the orders of life: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, let me quote these Quranic verses that defined for all Moslems the ethics of dialogue that must prevail between the latter and the People of the Book, the followers of the Old Testament and the New Testament:



“And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury): But say “We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which come down to you; Our God and your God is One; and it is to Him We bow (in Islam)”. (The Holy Quran: Chapter 29, the Spider, verse 46).



Furthermore, the Quran prescribed to the Prophet Mohamed and to all Moslems to seek for a consensus with Jews and Christians:



“Say: O People of the Book! Come to common terms as between us and you: that we worship none but God; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from ourselves, lords and patrons other than God….” (The Holy Quran: Chapter 3, The Family of Imran, verse 64).



Beyond Jews and Christians, the Quran prescribed an ethics of communication for all Moslems, excluding injury and impoliteness, but based on wisdom and reason:



“Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance”. (The Holy Quran, Chapter 16: the Bee, verse 125)



You cannot find neither in what you call the Bible, nor in the Old Testament, nor in the New Testament, such peremptory prescriptions that impose respect and consideration to other religions. I challenge you to show me only one verse in the Torah or in the Gospels, which teach such ethics of dialogue, respectful to other people.

The author of the present article has in vain sought in the Ancient Books a similar attitude based on reason, and stipulated several times in the Quran.

On the contrary, we can read in the Old Testament, in the Book of Numbers and Deuteronomy, the following passages, worth of unprecedented warlike violence:



“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying:

Avenge the children of Israel of the Mid-i-an-ites afterward shalt thou be gathered unto they people.

And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Mid-i-an-ites, and avenge the Lord of Mid-i-an.



They used arms against Mad-i-an, according to the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses. They killed all men and the kings of Mad-i-an, Evi, Requem, Tsour, Hour and Reba, five Mad-i-an kings. They also killed by sword Balaam, the son of Beor.



The women of Mad-i-an, together with their kids, were the captives of the children of Israel. The latter spoiled the beeves, asses, and flocks of the mad-i-an-ites.



Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known by lying with him (The Holy Bible, Number; 13: 17).



Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean; nevertheless, it shall be purified with the water of separation, and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water (The Holy Bible, Number; 13: 23).



The same implacable and pitiless discourse is founded in Deuteronomy, 12.



These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye lives upon the earth.

Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree.

And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place (The Holy Bible, Deuteronomy, 12: 1-3).



Even though Islam did not accept idolatry and polytheism, however you cannot find anywhere in the Quran such incitement to the extermination of people and their gods.

The Prophet Mohamed had taken control over the KAABA and had destroyed about three hundred gods, in avoiding any kind of bloodshed and gratuitousness.



In fact, we cannot find in the Gospels such warlike and violent discourse; however it did not prevent Christians from committing the most important massacres all around the world.

Indians were exterminated; Blacks were reduced to slavery, and to colonial servitude in the name of the Lord.



The most murderous world wars in the history of humankind have taken place in the Christian West. It is in the same Christian West where had taken place, the Hitler Nazism and the rationally organized extermination of Jews who, for many centuries ago, were living in peace and security in Moslem empires.



Let us recall a fact to illustrate the gap between Jesus teachings and the behavior of some Christians.

On 27th November 1095, Pope Urban had launched an armed crusade in order to free Jerusalem, conquered by Moslems since the 7th century.

On 11th December 1098, the army arrived at Maara, and at Syria as well, three days’ walking from Antioch.

At dawn time, the Franks smashed in the gates of Maara, and a slaughter occurred. Men, women, children, and old people were killed by swords.

Raoul de Caen, a Frank columnist, mentioned the following: “Ours were burning the adult pagans in pans, fixing the children on spits and devouring them totally grilled”. Another witness, Albert d’Aix, confirmed: “Ours did not feel repugnant for eating not only the killed Turks and Saracen, but also the dogs”. (1)



We must stop from accusing Islam of adopting a warlike message or being a religion of violence.

If we consider the original texts and history, such accusations could not prevail, due to lack of objective arguments.

The Quran is nowadays available online and everybody can access it through his or her mother tongue.

We cannot find in the Quran a verse that incites to hate or violence, nor to extermination of other believers.

In the same token, in analyzing the universal history of all civilizations, we can conclude that Islam can be regarded as being among the least violent in its expansion and conquests, even though some gaps can be noted between the Quranic precepts and the behaviors of some Moslems.



My second objection is focused on the old Christian opinion that considers Islam as a religion that imposes the faith not by reason, but by constraint and violence, the JIHAD.



The Pope mentioned that “the terrible” Emperor Manuel II certainly knew that in the Holy Quran, Chapter 2, the Heifer: 256, it is written: “let there be no compulsion in religion”. And the Pope immediately mentioned, without any objective argument, but by invoking unknown experts’ views, that that verse was extracted from a text dated when Mohamed started to preach whereby he did not get any power and was threatened. The Emperor “naturally knew also the provisions adopted later, found in the Quran, and related to the holy war”.



In a nutshell, according to the Pope, Mohamed did only preach tolerance at the beginning of his predication, when the battles of wills were not favorable for him. And while becoming stronger, he rather preached the violence and the constraint.

This opinion as well as the first one did not match with the reality.



All known experts of the Quran, Muslims or no-Muslims, knew that the above-mentioned verse stipulating that there is no compulsion in religion was revealed in the Medina era, meaning the second phase of the revelation.



I am not going to quote the references from Islamic exegesis, which could be regarded as biased or false, but rather the Western Orientalism.



Regis Blachere has written that: “The verses revealed during the ten years Medina apostolate can be found in the twenty-four Chapters of different lengths and disseminated in the Vulgate. The longest Chapters are founded at the beginning of the Vulgate (Chapters 2 to 5) while others such as Chapters LXI or XCVIII are located in the middle or at the end”. (2)



The late Professor Barque of the College of France, the last who translated the Quran into French, noted in the introduction of Chapter 2, where the concerned verse was extracted, the following words that speak for themselves:



“The longest Chapter of the Quran is unanimously recognized by the tradition as being the first revelation in Medina. However, its reference to the fasting month of Ramadan, and the impeachment of the pilgrimage by Mecca inhabitants, would seem that the revelation was given later”. (3)



This gives a clear indication that the verse guaranteeing the freedom of conscience and condemning all forms of constraint as far as faith is concerned, did not date at the beginning of the revelation, but was revealed in Medina where, soon after the emigration of Mohamed, Muslims had formed a strong community, not only capable of defending themselves, but also being able to impose their laws. The principle of this verse inspired the Messenger of ALLAH in the elaboration of the constitution of the city that guaranteed to all (Muslims, Jews, and Christians) the citizenship and the freedom of worship



Furthermore, in Chapter 5, the Table Spread, inventoried among the last revealed verses, we can find the principles of tolerance, dialogue, peaceful coexistence between religious communities (Muslims, Jews, and Christians), which are not found neither in the Torah, nor in the Gospels. In fact, the teachings from the verses 43 to 50, strongly recommend every community to go back to its source and faith, to enter into a healthy competition between different communities in realizing welfare on earth and to postpone the divergences to the hereafter:



“……To each among you have We prescribed a law and an open way. If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His Plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to God; it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute (The Holy Quran, Chapter 5, The Table Spread: 48).



Some of these references are enough to refute that, the opinion on Islam tolerance, stipulated in the verse quoted by the Pope, was situational and opportunist.



There is an intangible principle that Islam must promote whatever the context and the nature of battle of wills. There is no change in the word of God.



Thus, thinking that Islam is imposing the faith by using the constraint and the sword, bears witness of an ignorance of the Quranic message, the tradition of the Prophet Mohamed, and the objective story of Islam.



God Almighty always recalls his messenger that he is only in charge of faithfully transmitting His message. “There is no duty for the Messenger except for communicating clearly the message of God”.



And during his twenty-five years of apostolate, the Messenger of God did limit his function to the faithful transmission of God revelation, taking into consideration that he cannot oblige people to believe in God. And when the time comes to leave this world, the unique question he asked to his companions was “Did I faithfully transmit the message of God?”



Thus, we object to the Pope and to all who assimilate the JIHAD to the holy war, i.e. recourse to violence in order to impose the faith and Islamic law, the reason why Mohamed did the war and the reasons why Islam had initiated a military conquest.



The war effort is a form of JIHAD which etymologically means a spiritual, moral, intellectual, and physical combat that every Muslim must undertake against him or herself, and against the enemies of God, not for imposing his or her faith but to get the right to enjoy it, and the obligation to defend it.



The theme of JIHAD goes across the revelation in a recurrent manner. Only one reference is enough to give evidence that JIHAD is not synonymous to holy war. The reference can be found at the end of Chapter “The Pilgrimage” where the real JIHAD is defined by the attitude of Prophet Abraham, consisting of preaching a pure monotheism, and being a model of virtue before the humankind:



And strive in His cause as ye ought to strive (with sincerity and under discipline), He has chosen you, and has imposed no difficulties on you in religion; it is the cult of your father Abraham, it is He Who has named you Muslims, both before and in this (revelation); that the Apostle may be a witness for you, and ye be witness for mankind! So establish regular Prayer, give regular Charity, and hold fast to God! He is your Protector- The best to protect and the best to help! (The Holy Quran, Chapter XXII, the Pilgrimage, verse: 78).



Such commitment to enjoy his or her spirituality, to implement his or her law, to bear witness of his or her faithfulness to God, is interior and exterior move, a moral and physical, individual and collective attitude. But, the commitment is not a warlike move in order to impose Islamic religion.



The theme of Islamic JIHAD is a complex paradigm which cannot be covered in this article.

A more profound study is needed to define its emergence, its formulation, and its interpretation during the course of the history, the revelation and Islamic story.



In any case, the JIHAD did not infer the impossibility of Islam doctrine to reconcile the reason and the faith.



I am presenting hereafter my third objection.



After having condemned the forced conversion that characterized Islam, the Pope welcomed “the interior mutual closeness between Biblical faith and the philosophical questioning of Greek thought”, just to prove that “Christianity, despite its Eastern origin and development, had found in Europe the link for its decisive hallmark”.



What the Pope did not mention -and that everybody knows, is that the junction between Christianity and the Greek philosophy is made possible by Muslims originating from Andalusia.

Distinguished Western authors had denounced the sickness of Western history consisting of denying the fundamental role played by Arabic-Muslim authors in the transmission of the Hellenic philosophical heritage to Europe during the Middle Age.

I will recall two of them who had written brilliant reference works in order to correct that scandalous European amnesia that denied the role of Muslims authors of Spain in the rebirth of the West and the construction of a modern European conscience.



The first author, Juan Vernet, in his book “What the culture owes to Arabs of Spain, had systematically inventoried what the European culture had taken from the rational thought of Spanish Muslims. He mentioned in his prologue:



“Let us clarify right away that the word “Arab” does not mean an ethnic group, or a religion, but rather a language, used by Arabs, Persians, Turks, Jews, Spaniards, during the Middle Age, as a medium in the transmission of knowledge in all its diversity from the Antiquity-classical or eastern-to the Muslim world. Islam did elaborate them again, added decisive inputs and value, …….from the Arabs, they migrated to the West thanks to Latin translation and other Roman languages and led to the majestic scientific deployment of the Renaissance”. (4)



The second author, Sigrid Hunke, has written a fascinating reference work, with an eloquent title “God Sun shines in the West”, and has undertaken, with a sense of duty, to remind the cultural debt of the modern West to the Muslim civilization:



“Is it still too early to pay tribute to a people, we do not, for religious extremism, recognize the right to an objective and equitable judgment, systematically deny the remarkable achievements, mask and sneak off the essential contribution to our civilization? The nature of the relations between the West and the Arabic World, from the proclamation of Islam up to now, shows in an exemplary way, the extent to which feelings and passions can influence the way story is written. It was understandable during that period of time that any heterodox influence was regarded as undesirable and dangerous; but, such point of view, prevailing all the Middle Age long, should not prevail nowadays. Therefore, without any doubt, some uneasiness that derived from our religion, most of the time unconsciously and deeply rooted in our minds, shortened our views, and made us uncomfortable towards people victim of a certain propaganda campaign, defining them as incendiaries, idolatrous, and wizards. (5)



The Pope, in his conference on “the plenitude of the unique reason”, should depart from any prejudice of the Christian Middle Age era, and recognize the unquestionable and remarkable contribution of the Islamic thought in the junction between Christian faith and the Greek reason. Instead of quoting that shortsighted Christian Prince, he should invoke Prince Frederic II, Emperor of the Roman holy empire and the Prince of Muslims Al-Kamil, sovereign of believers.

On 18th February 1229, the two above-mentioned enlightened princes of the Western and the Easter world negotiated, without bloodshed, the statute of Jerusalem, in order to prevent any massacres which used to accompany the conquests and re-conquests of Jerusalem.



If Fredric II and Al-Kamil succeeded in overcoming the religious and cultural obstacles, the prejudice and secular hates, it is because both of them were opened-minded persons who can meet, discuss and understand each other.

If they both challenged the logics of barbarization and mutual exclusion, took into consideration good sense and reason, (practical and universal) to promote a culture of peace, and peaceful coexistence; it is because they were neither dogmatic nor ethnocentric.

Sigrid Hunke, who was relating the event, taught us that Frederic II, the XIII century Norman Emperor, was bestowed upon a cosmopolite education in Parma city, characterized by a religious and cultural diversity, derived from the coexistence between Christians and Muslims.

Let us quote the author of God Sun shines in the West:



“It is the life itself that holds the young king’s hand to the public squares of Palermo, the mosques, the churches, the synagogues, the stores, the shopping centers, the streets, not only did he learn the diverse languages of his heterogeneous people but also he discovered and compared them, their customs and religions. He could speak nine languages among them Arabic, he was speaking Arabic as fluently as his mother tongue. He was making calculations in Arabic and learning from Muslim traders and Imams, the refined art of conducting debates and controversies on God and the world”. (6)



Why the Pope, in the framework of dialogue between cultures, instead of recalling the above-mentioned exemplarity of dialogue between the Christian West and the Muslim East, had chosen to quote Manuel II Paleologue, the Byzantine Emperor, whose words are obscure and full of hate, whose discourse belongs to the denigration and slander era of the Middle Age polemists and the XXI century journalists who enjoy denigrating and barbarizing Islam. Either the Pope ignores that history or he knows that Frederic II was excommunicated by the then Pope who did not tolerate the latter to negotiate with a Muslim the statute of Jerusalem and accused him of being a “traitor, a profaner, a son of Satan, an Ante-Christ”. (7)



In both cases, Pope Benedict VI is indefensible. If you want to promote dialogue between cultures, by reason, you don’t have the right to recall preconceived ideas and prejudice.

When you represent a community of more than one billion people and make a judgment to another community of the same demographic proportions, you must weigh your words, and invoke positive and constructive statements.

When you speak in a context as trouble as that one we are living in, in which the risks of conflagration between communities are very high, you must take into consideration what Max Weber termed as “the ethics of responsibility”.

When you want to promote dialogue between cultures, you have no right to know yourself and to ignore the others.



I wish I could make more objections against other Papal statements, and in particular, as far as the relationship between the reason and the faith in Christianity and Islam is concerned. But the constraints of these pages did not allow it.



I wish I could try to give evidence, with references from the Quran, the Hadith and in quoting other Muslim authors like Ghazali and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) that in Islam, reconciling the faith and the reason, the head and the heart, is a doctrinal demand.



In this blessed month of Ramadan, during which the ultimate message of God was revealed to the last Prophet, I would like to end my objections in addressing Islamic greetings to all believers and to all people committed into peace, together with expressing the wish for the realization of a world of dialogue between human beings, for the peace of all human beings.







Mamadou Habib KEBE

Professor of Literature

Researcher in Religious Sciences

Saint-Louis

SENEGAL

Email: makebe@yahoo.fr





Bibliography



1. Tinco (Henri). “Quand le Pape Urbain et l’Ermite Pierre s’en vont

en guerre ». in Le Monde du samedi 17 juillet

1989, p. 12

2. Blachere (Regis). Le Coran. PUF. 1ere edition, 1966, 10eme edition

1994, p. 49

3. Berque (Jacques). Essai de traduction du Coran. Editions Albin

Michel, 1995, p.25

4. Vernet (Juan). Ce que la culture doit aux arabes d’Espagne.

Editions Actes Sud, 1985, p.13

5. Hunke (Sigrid) Le Soleil d’Allah brille sur l’Occident. Editions Albin

Michel, 1963, p.9

6. Ibid, p.269

7 Ibid, p.271

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