anders said:
Dear Shield,
Your opinions and mine differ widely. In some cases.
I am glad that I this time am fully on your side. I must confess that I was not aware that the Wahhabites still are so violent.
As to history and violence, the Crusaders never gave any alternatives, but just butchered along, while Islam always offered conversion to Islam as an alternative to death. And yes, I love to think of the times when Christians, Jews and Moslems could live together in harmony, for example on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Anders
You know, we as Muslims have a problem within Islam called WAHHABISM, those fanatical Muslims ( tiny minority ) have hijacked Islam and claimed monopoly over it, you either agree with them or you are infidel ( even if you are Muslim ), Bin laden and his terrorist gang are devout wahhabis.
Throughout the History of Islam, Muslims showed amazing tolerance towards non muslims, I can give so many examples, let me quote you from the Arab-American Roman Catholic website:
If we believe the testimony of Salman ben Yeruham, A Karaite Jewish author, writing about A.D. 950, the Muslims granted the Jews access to Jerusalem and its holy sites. Salman wrote:
"As it is known, Jerusalem remained under the rule of the Rum [the Byzantines] for more than 500 years, during which they [the Jews] were not able to enter Jerusalem. Anyone who was discovered entering was killed. When by the mercy of the God of Israel the Rum departed from us and the kingdom of Ishmael [the Arabs] appeared, the Jews were granted permission to enter and reside there."
During the reign of Saladin this traditional Islamic tolerance continued. Conversely, when the Crusaders entered Jerusalem, they burned the Jews in their synagogue.
From 1099 to 1189, Jews were not allowed to live in the city. But with the Muslim repossession of Jerusalem, Jews were allowed to return.
The Spanish poet Yehuda al-Harizi, who was in Jerusalem in 1207, described the significance for the Jews of the recovery of Jerusalem by Saladin:
[ In A.D. 1190] God aroused the spirit of the prince of the Ishmaelites [Saladin], a prudent and courageous man, who came with his entire army, besieged Jerusalem, took it and had it proclaimed throughout the country that he would receive and accept the entire race of Ephraim, wherever they came from. And so we came from all comers of the world to take up residence here. We now live here in the shadow of peace.
Further testament to Saladin's tolerance comes from
the eminent German Jewish historian of the Nineteenth Century, Heinrich Graetz. In his Geschichte der Juden [History of the Jews], vol. 11, published in 1853, he states that the Sultan, "opened the whole kingdom to the persecuted Jews, so they came to it, seeking security and finding justice.'' [l7]
At about the same time that Jews were fleeing from Spain and seeking refuge in Arab lands and elsewhere (15th and 16th Centuries), the Ottoman Empire opened its doors to them and gave them refuge. The prominent Jewish banker Don Joseph Nasi, a refugee from Portugal, was made advisor to Sultan Suleiman who showered the emigre with honors.
There are a number of statements from prominent Jews expressing gratitude to the Ottomans for their generous treatment of fugitive Jews. In his History of the Jews, A. L. Sachar, a former president of Brandeis University, noted:
"Jews had found refuge in the Ottoman dominions for many decades before the expulsion from Spain. During the fifteenth-century persecutions in Germany, thousands had fled eastward and had been well received in the Turkish provinces. Life was secure and the morrow could be greeted without terror''
There were no degrading badges and no oppressive residential or trade restrictions. The Jews were liable only to a negligible poll-tax, which all non-Moslems paid. The hospitality of the Turkish rulers was a godsend to the victims of Spanish and Portuguese bigotry."
In Palestine the small Jewish community was augmented by immigrants who fled the Spanish Inquisition and were given refuge in Jerusalem and Safed.
David dei Rossi, a Jewish Italian who visited Jerusalem in the 16th Century, commented on Jewish life in the city: "Here we are not in exile as in our own country [Italy]. Here . . . those appointed over the customs and tolls are Jews. There are no special Jewish taxes.''[l9] The same optimism was echoed by Solomon ben Hayyim Meinstrel of Ludenburg, a visitor in the Holy Land in 1607:
"The Gentiles who dwell on the soil of Israel . . . hold the graves of our holy masters in great reverence, as well as the synagogues, and they kindle lights at the graves of the saints and vow to supply the synagogues with oil."
Professor A. Cohen of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in a fine study of Jewish life in Sixteenth Century Jerusalem, based on the registers of the shari'a court, stresses the positive attitude of the Ottoman authorities toward the Jews. He emphasizes that fiscal restrictions imposed by the shari'a were not applied in accordance with the letter of the law, and that not all Jews of Jerusalem who owed the jizya tax paid it. Those who did were expected to pay the lowest official rate.
He adds that the entire supervisory mechanism governing the implementation of the religious law was often slanted in favor of the Jews and accepted the testimony of Jewish litigants and witnesses in contradiction of the accepted notion that their testimonies were inadmissible.
In conclusion, Cohen says that an autonomous Jewish life in Jerusalem was encouraged and protected by Muslim rulers.
The tolerance depicted in the previous quotes was due, for the most part , to the spirit of Islam and its attitude toward "the people of the Book," i.e. Jews and Christians and also to the reverence of Islam for the city of Jerusalem-al-Quds. Islam held in high esteem the ancient prophets and their messages. Jerusalem itself was considered holy because it was the abode of the prophets. Hence, it was made the first qibla (direction of prayer) for the Muslims, and the Prophet Muhammad visited it in his miraculous night-journey, al-Isra'.
Source: The Arab-American Roman Catholic Community
http://www.al-bushra.org/jerusalem1/jerhist.htm
