Faith Protection Quotes
If they … attack your religion with disapproval and criticism, then fight the leaders of disbelief …
This quotation is used by some Islamic fundamentalists to justify attacks on people who criticize or disapprove of Islam. They see this as an instruction from the Prophet. The same quotation is used by critics of fundamentalist interpretations to show that literal interpretations eliminate any kind of criticism and provides no freedom of speech.
This sura has been in great controversy throughout the Muslim Empires. In part it separates many of the Arab cultures from the Ottomans. The latter had an organized meritocracy whereby Jews, Christians and other “heathens” of exceptional talent were sought out for advisory and leadership positions. In part this was justified as requiring that the Caliph and the Sultans had the power of life and death over their key appointees, hence they had to be slaves and other suras prohibited Muslims holding other Muslims in slavery. Even in modern times some Muslim countries have had key non-Islamic appointees and others would not. In historical practice, the Ottoman Empire utilized far more Christians and Jews that those societies involved Muslims until relatively recent historical times.
Pen name: Jack Nipps. Leland was a Baptist evangelist who had worked with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to secure Freedom of Conscience in Virginia. Many people think that ideas such as this are the views of irreligious men and women, but Leland was a devout, evangelical Baptist and Baptists suffered discrimination in early Colonial America. Freedom of conscience was essential for all religions who were not in the local majority. Tolerance essential. See 43,065.
This was the second liberal constitution in the world following on the heels of United States Constitution upon which some of this constitution is based. See {585394}. This particular clause is noteworthy for its internal contradiction regarding freedom of religion. After making it illegal to convert any Catholic to any other religion, the constitution goes on to establish freedom of religion. So one was guaranteed the right to practice one’s own religion but if the religion advocated evangelizing and converting others, that part of religious freedom was banned when targeting Roman Catholics.
