Faith Coexistence Quotes
Muslims had engaged in violent demonstrations to insist on more Sharia law and the curtailment of behavior that the Muslim Mullahs determined to be contrary to Sharia and Islam. In Nigeria Muslim violence and intimidation had at the time already caused one of the Nigerian states to adopt Sharia instead of civil law. Many Muslims continued the violence in order to spread the adoption of Islamic law. In most counties, there were threats of law enforcement crackdowns to curtail the Muslim violence and attacks on Christians and other religions. In Nigeria however, the Christians under Akinola’s leadership made this not so subtle veiled threat to retaliate. It seems to have worked in the short run although the religious tensions remained very high and no one knew whether or not religious violence or even war would break out.
Historically, when Christian Europe was torturing and butchering people over differences of religious opinion, Islam was for the time, in most places, a model of tolerance. Suhrawardy died before Islam degenerated into an intolerance that almost rivaled in brutality that of the Christians centuries ago. And while his statement about the invention and initiation of brutal intolerance is correct, he would be shocked at the behavior of 21st century Iran, Pakistan and some other Islamic nations who from a traditional Islamic perspective had degenerated.
