To,
The Editor,
Letters to the Editor Column
Subject: An Honest Jew's Views about Islam and Islamic History
I read with great interest the letter of Mr. Rizwan Yassin in Pakistani News paper daily Dawn titled "An Israeli’s rejoinder to Pope". (letter is given below) He has presented view of an honest Jew about Islam and Islamic History regarding tolerance of other faiths. Mr. Uri Avnery, an Israeli scholar and peace activist and once a Knesset member has proven beyond any shred of doubt that Islam is the most tolerant and peaceful religion and way of life. It is unfortunate that today with enormous power of media and very busy life of common people who have very little time to verify the truth; Islam had been branded by the Grave Global Terrorist as terrorist religion. With help of Hollywood and other internet and computer technology proofs are created day and night and night is made day and day a night! Once I had read an article in prestigious medical journal New England Journal of Medicine where a Jew had described how the Muslims gave faculty positions to the Jews in Muslim Spain in their then great medical institutions. Unfortunately in this age of deceptions, lies and tricks, agents are hired by anti Islamic forces that are given Muslim attires and the act of terrorism is created through their hands and then Islam and all Muslims are held hostage for a crime which they do not approve at all. Quran clearly says that Allah does not stop Muslims to have good relations with those Non Muslims who are not engaged actively in war against them. (Ref. Surah Al-Mumtahina) . In wars too, Allah does not allow Muslims to be unfair and do more damage than what the enemy had done to you. In Islam end does not justify means and neither every thing is kosher and halal in love and war. Muslims as a whole are not against Jews. They are against those Zionists who practice utter racism and commit state and several other forms of terrorism. We as Muslims appreciate the scholars like Mr. Uri Avnery who speak truth and do not create deceptions. As Quran clearly mentions that all people of Books are not alike, there are some who stand for truth.
With Kindest Regards,
Sincerely yours,
Prof. (Dr.) Anwar Ul Haque
116. St. 49 F 11/3 Islamabad 44000
Pakistan
Phone: 2293707, 2294099
An Israeli’s rejoinder to Pope
LET me share with Dawn readers an enlightened Israeli’s rejoinder to Pope Benedict for the nonsense he uttered against Islam.
The Israeli is Mr. Uri Avnery, a scholar and peace activist and once a Knesset member. In an article, Mr. Avnery first corrects the verse number which the pope quoted and then says, “The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: how did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years when they had the power to ‘spread the faith by the sword’?” For many centuries, he says, the Muslims ruled Greece. “Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone try to Islamize them? On the contrary Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christians”.
Then he points to a fact which perhaps most Pakistanis do not know. When the Crusaders invaded Palestine, the majority had remained Christian in spite of 400 years of Muslim rule. Then “in the name of gentle Jesus”, he says, the Crusaders “massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants”.
He adds: “There is no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule, the Jews of Spain enjoyed a boom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time.”
Then giving the names of some great Jewish poets and scholars, Mr. Avnery says, “In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, and scientists” and “Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was indeed the Golden Age. How would this have been possible had the Prophet decreed the ‘spreading of the faith by the sword’?” Then he refers to the re-conquest of Spain by Catholics and says: “The Jews and Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave”. Then he asks, “Where did the hundreds of thousands of Jews ... escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco...to Iraq, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire)… to Sudan. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition… and the terrible mass expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries up to the Holocaust”.
He asks, “Why?” and then he answers, “Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of ‘peoples of the book’. In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians.. .” Then he says something touching: “Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times ‘by the word’ to get them to abandon their faith”. The story about “spreading the faith by the sword”, he says “is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe” during the many wars with Muslims. He adds,” I suspect that the German pope, too, honestly believe in these fables…”
The Muslims too ruled India for a thousand years but chose to remain a minority rather than become a majority by persecuting the Hindus. Even Delhi had a non-Muslim majority till the fall of the Mughal Empire.
RIZWAN YASSIN
Karachi
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