Religious Segregation Quotes
This was a document prepared by the Caliph and presented to Christians in Syria to sign if they wanted peace and to be free from assault in Islamic lands. For centuries thereafter these, and variations of them, were conditions imposed on Christians and Jews in Islam lands. Some of these can be recognized as variants of conditions that American and other coalition troops were required to adhere to in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. By today’s standards this was highly discriminatory and a gross imposition on a minority. However at the time, this was one of the more liberal doctrines. Jews and Christians otherwise could live in Muslim lands, practice their religion, work there, live where they would, acquire property, practice professions, and even achieve high office. Jews and Christians rose to the highest ranks of Islamic government administrators including Prime Ministries. Their persons were safe from assault and derisions all provided they followed the Pact of Umar or its current version. In contrast Jewish and Muslim minorities in Christian nations were treated much more harshly. They could practice only a few occupation, were constantly under physical attack, were forced to live in ghettos, had their property seized, and in many cases were tortured and killed.
This sura has unfortunately been used by some Serbians and other Christians to justify ethnic cleansing against Muslims.
Ethnic cleansing was a basic component of early Islam. The contemporary seeming hysteria over American troops in Arab nations, has in addition to the usual problems of soldiers from another land this background. The same is true about the presence of Israel. From some points of view, the presence of Christians and Jew in the Middle East is wrong per se because it undermines the work and intention of the Prophet.
This quotation is often used as the antithesis of national pluralism. When India was partitioned, there were Muslims and Hindus both who subscribed to this view. The result was vicious interethnic slaughter and ethnic cleansing. However there was a large middle ground who did not accept this monocultural view of a nation. Many millions of Indian Muslims chose to stay in India as minorities and there were 200 million Muslims in India by the beginning of the 21st century. Modern India, is along with the United States, one of the leading ethnic and cultural pluralistic countries in the world. Pakistan was and still is totally monolithic. But it was India where Muslims have much more freedom than there Islamic brothers in Pakistan which although all Islamic constantly has better strife and killings over the degree of orthodoxy the State religion should take.
Two hundred years earlier, in Spain, the Christians had similar laws discriminating against Jews whose synagogues had to be smaller and shorter than any Christian church.
al-Mahalawi takes a classic Islamic viewpoint towards Muslim brutality and violent behavior. He does not condone it, but he understands the reasons which are always the fault of the victims or others but never that of the perpetrators of the cruelty and violence.
See {617160} for a similar legal opinion. The concern was that poor Muslims may desert their faith when they see how well-dressed the tolerated people, Christians and Jews, are. They might conclude that Christianity or Judaism is better at making people wealthy than was Islam. See {617162} for a Koranic support of the idea. The Western view of this is generally, that is what the marketplace of ideas is all about. In 21st century America, Jews and Mormons on the average were the wealthiest religious groups. The logic of al-Ramli is that Mormons and Jews—each only 6 percent of the population—should not be allowed to show their wealth, lest Roman Catholics for example—25 percent of the population—will convert from Catholicism to the other two religions. From a democratic point of view, the response should be, we so be it. That is their choice. But America is the living proof that the assumption of conversion and loss of faith is per se wrong. The Mormons and Jews are visibly more successful, yet there are very few Roman Catholics leaving their church and converting to the two wealthier religions. There are some, but not at any greater rate than people convert from “wealthier” religions.
The fact that God had created distinct races was sufficient for Fallwell and many other racist clerics to assume that this meant that they should not learn together in the same schoolroom—an interesting theological leap. It is ironic but religion has been one of the most positive forces helping to end slavery and legal discrimination in America. At the same time, religion has served as one of the must substantial justifications for slavery, racism and discrimination.
India was soon to be granted Independence by the Labor Government, much to the chagrin of Winston Churchill and other Conservative politicians who wanted to diminish the British Empire as little as possible. Jinnah, not wanting the majority Muslim areas of India to be part of a Hindu majority India, came up with this clever alternative. Britain would grant independence only to the Hindu parts of India and the remainder—Pakistan—would remain in the Empire as an autonomous colony. Many of the British politicians believed that that would be a constant friction in the Empire as many of the "Pakistanis" would then want their own independence and use the terror tactics to fight for it. Besides, the Conservatives did not have enough votes to stop Independence to all of India. Jinnah's efforts however were enough to lengthen the debate in the British Parliament thereby delaying independence for all of India and angering the pro-independence leaders throughout India. Jinnah, by then an autocrat, did this in secret, behind the backs of his own Muslim colleagues, many of whom had Independence as their highest priority.
