Response to TWC Weekly; "Tolerance in Islam"

[Decemvir]

Quite an interesting article that I enjoyed reading. The English (and French) have been concerned with the Middle East for quite a long time, due to its proximity and "otherness", and as such it did not surprise me that an Englishman would write about the beliefs of Muslims/Islam. I was surprised that the article did not have the Orientalist tinge in it that most writers of that time would have. This is not to say that Marmaduke Pickthall does not have an agenda in his writing of this article (but then all authors have an agenda) but it is refreshing to read something written (originating in the West in the early 20th century) on Islam that isn't laced with racism and paternalism.
I found Pickthall's article very interesting especially his juxtaposition of the ways in which Christians and Muslims treated those not of their own faith during the Middle Ages in both Spain and Jerusalem.

When the Crusaders took Jerusalem they massacred the Eastern Christians with the Muslims indiscriminately, and while they ruled in Palestine the Eastern Christians, such of them as did not accompany the retreating Muslim army, were deprived of all the privileges which Islam secured to them and were treated as a sort of outcasts.

Under the Khulafa-ur-Rashidin and the Umayyads, the true Islamic attitude was maintained, and it continued to a much later period under the Umayyad rule in Spain. In those days it was no uncommon thing for Muslims and Christian to use the same places of worship. I could point to a dozen buildings in Syria which tradition says were thus conjointly used; and I have seen at Lud (Lydda), in the plain of Sharon, a Church of St. George and a mosque under the same roof with only a partition wall between.

I do wonder though, does Pickthall feel that contemporary Muslims have lost their feelings of tolerance because of the Crusaders' actions during the seige of Jerusalem?
Another passage that I found interesting was this one:

The Western Christians, till the arrival of the Encyclopaedists in the eighteenth century, did not know and did not care to know, what the Muslim believed, nor did the Western Christian seek to know the views of Eastern Christians with regard to them.

To a large extent, I believe that this attitude is still prevelant among many Westerners today. Pickthall wrote this article in the early 20th century, I think that mindset applies to his era and ours as well.

I'd like to discuss this further...to be continued.

[Legiondude]

delete this post

[Ahiga]

I do wonder though, does Pickthall feel that contemporary Muslims have lost their feelings of tolerance because of the Crusaders' actions during the seige of Jerusalem?
Another passage that I found interesting was this one:

I don't feel that way myself, though I am not Pickthall.

Muslims of today would likely be a lot more infuriated towards intolerance by the creation of the state of Israel and the potential feeling of having a history of being treated as 'little brother' to europe, in the occupation by european powers, to the situation which has progressed to more contemporary times.

The crusades of the past are simply just a context for them to lull themselves into believing this has been a perpetual thing, and the actions of today are a modern attempt of the crusade.

Does seem a good read, though.

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

Muslims have had all sorts of leaders - just like Christians. They're seen everyone from the Pious Caliphs, Saladin and Akbar the Great to Tamerlane and Mahmud of Ghazni. However, it is generally accepted that minorities under Muslim rule at that time were treated better than the miniroties in Europe.

[MasterAdnin]

I have read things like this all the time. Like stated above, it says that when the Christians took the city, they massacred everyone, but when the Muslims took a city, they let the populace survive and live. Now it is odd that the roles are changed, but still, the west continues to bomb cities and kill civilians, even though they are the more "enlightened" ones.

Adnan

[Ahiga]

I have read things like this all the time. Like stated above, it says that when the Christians took the city, they massacred everyone, but when the Muslims took a city, they let the populace survive and live. Now it is odd that the roles are changed, but still, the west continues to bomb cities and kill civilians, even though they are the more "enlightened" ones.

Adnan

Eh. Neither of us are truly enlightened in the lofty sense, but we are more enlightened than they were back then. Looting is not an accepted practice, for one.

[Kino]

Deleted by user.

[MasterAdnin]

There were good generals like Saladin, he I hear for the most part was fair and that's rare.

There were bad muslim generals too. They massacred whole cities just like some crusaders. It's not about being enlightened it's the being human, it takes an incredibily strong person to hold an army together and not let them take
out their aggression and stress of waiting for months sieging a city.

Also besides going to war in the first place. If you are talking about Iraq, the U.S army goes to extraordinary lengths to not kill civilians. It is a big deal when it happens. There are leaflets warning the civilians before, billions of dollars going into smart technology. There will never be a perfect war though, but we are trying.

It's not fair to say what you just said.

Yes, neither of us are enlightened, but both sides did have their good and bad Generals, but more or less, the Muslims spared Christians and Jews.

I know that the U.S., we, go to extrordinary lengths to not kill civilians, but the fact of the matter is we do, and there are alternitives to bombing the crap out of cities.

Adnan

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Moved to here

[AngryTitusPullo]

Yes, neither of us are enlightened, but both sides did have their good and bad Generals, but more or less, the Muslims spared Christians and Jews.

I know that the U.S., we, go to extrordinary lengths to not kill civilians, but the fact of the matter is we do, and there are alternitives to bombing the crap out of cities.

Adnan

I agree, and not just Iraq but if we go back a few decades, say Vietnam. Death toll:

American 55,000
Vietnameese 1,000,000

How many of those Vietnamese are VC or NVA ?

I'm not accusing or anything but I somehow believed that Caucasian race (which not dominated the west and US) do look down upon other races, especially non-white race. They can go certain extend to save a whale than to actually care about human life. Is it because non-whites are less human in their eyes ?

The 9/11 or the London bombing recently was a tragedy and sadly it happened. But the aftermath as what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq is much worse. However that's no tragedy. It's collateral, eventhough most who dies maybe wouldn't even know the US exist.

[Decemvir]

There were good generals like Saladin, he I hear for the most part was fair and that's rare.
There were bad muslim generals too. They massacred whole cities just like some crusaders. It's not about being enlightened it's the being human, it takes an incredibily strong person to hold an army together and not let them take
out their aggression and stress of waiting for months sieging a city.

Yes, I also agree that some Muslim (not necessarily Arab) generals were just as inhuman in their treatment of prisoners during the Crusades. However I believe the point that Pickthall wanted to impress upon his readers was that Islam tended (as a general rule, obviously there were exceptions) to be, at that time, more accepting of Christianity than Christianity was towards Islam. Medieval Spain would be a perfect example of how, under Muslim rule, Christians and Jews were allowed to continue practicing their religion. Or another good example, which Pickthall uses as an example is this one:

I can give you one curious instance of a capitulation, typical of several others. Three hundred years ago, the Franciscan friars were the only Western European missionaries to be found in the Muslim Empire. There was a terrible epidemic of plague, and those Franciscans worked devotedly, tending the sick and helping to bury the dead of all communities. In gratitude for this great service, the Turkish government decreed that all property of the Franciscans should be free of customs duty for ever.

I cannot imagine the same thing occuring within a Christian kingdom of the same period.
Some of this can be attributed to Islam not being a proselytizing religion, which is deeply ingrained within Christianity. So Christianity tends to struggle with accepting other religions.
I don't believe that Pickthall was attempting to portray Islam as greater than Christianity. Instead I think he wished to bring to light the tolerance that Islam once embraced. He looked back on that time with longing and hoped for it to return. For he felt that tolerance is a strong asset of any religion or nation. I would agree with his sentiment.

[RZZZA]

Ohhhh....This kind of thread is my idea of a wet dream.

[AngryTitusPullo]

This is another from Pickthall which I found here .

This is may favourite parts and I quote :

The Western Christians called the Muslims pagans, paynims, even idolaters - there are plenty of books in which they are described as worshiping an idol called Mahomet or Mahound, and in the accounts of the conquest of Granada there are even descriptions of the monstrous idols which they were alleged to worship - whereas the Muslims knew what Christianity was, and in what respects it differed from Islam. If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension. I quote a learned French author:

“Every poet in Christendom considered a Mohammedan to be an infidel, and an idolater, and his gods to be three; mentioned in order, they were: Mahomet or Mahound or Mohammad, Opolane and the third Termogond. It was said that when in Spain the Christians overpowered the Mohammadans and drove them as far as the gates of the city of Saragossa, the Mohammadans went back and broke their idols.

“A Christian poet of the period says that Opolane the “god” of the Mohammadans, which was kept there in a den was awfully belabored and abused by the Mohammadans, who, binding it hand and foot, crucified it on a pillar, trampled it under their feet and broke it to pieces by beating it with sticks; that their second god Mahound they threw in a pit and caused to be torn to pieces by pigs and dogs, and that never were gods so ignominiously treated; but that afterwards the Mohammadans repented of their sins, and once more reinstated their gods for the accustomed worship, and that when the Emperor Charles entered the city of Saragossa he had every mosque in the city searched and had "Muhammad" and all their Gods broken with iron hammers.”

That was the kind of "history" on which the populace in Western Europe used to be fed. Those were the ideas which inspired the rank and file of the crusader in their attacks on the most civilized peoples of those days. Christendom regarded the outside world as damned eternally, and Islam did not. There were good and tender-hearted men in Christendom who thought it sad that any people should be damned eternally, and wished to save them by the only way they knew - conversion to the Christian faith.