Today when we think of
jews and muslims,we think of isreal and its antagonism with muslim arab
states,There is a great perception among people today that jews and christians
have been cordial to each other,while
Muslim and Jews are historical and natural enemies…Today when we think of an
islamic caliphate,we imagine al-baghdad,anjem choudhary and ISIS and its
barbaric treatment of minorties and beheading of innocent people,however when
we look at history,we find that it was not always like that and jews and other
minorities were treated much better in islamic world than in christian
europe.There was one such period where for the first time in history Jews were
treated almost as equals with other members of the society,when for the first
time jews were accepted in society and jewish economic,religious and cultural
life blossemed.,that age started from 712 AD when Arab Muslim Moors conqured Iberian
peninsula(Al-Andalus) and ended with grenada massacare of 1066.
Before the moorish
rule, spain was ruled by Visigoth Christian rulers under whom jews were
severely persucated and they lived in the fringes of the society with hardly
any freedom of religion,however in muslim spain the dawn of tolerance enabled
jews to thrive in all fields and this age is called as “golden age of Jewish
culture”. Thus with the assistance and partnership of Jewish people the Moorish
arabs established one of the most prosperous civilization in Cordoba called
Al-andalus which surpassed any contemperory civilization of europe.due its
prosperity and better treatment of jews,jews from all across the christian
world(where they were considered as a heretical sect in compared to catholic
sect) flocked in al-andalus.
In A Short History of the Jewish People, Scheindlin writes,
“most of
the Jews in the world were now inhabitants of a single Islamic empire
stretching from the Indus River in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west,
including Spain. This development brought the Jews of Palestine, Egypt, and
Spain nearly instant relief from the persecutions, harassment, and humiliation
that they endured under hostile Christian rule. It also brought them, for the
first time since the beginning of the Diaspora, into a single cultural,
economic, and political system. Both these new conditions would enable them to
flourish and to create the most successful Jewish Diaspora community of
premodern times.”
By middle of 8th
century ad Jews occupied high posts in the caliphate of cordoba and jewish
philosophers,scientists,poets,astronomers ,mathematician and rabbinical
scholars produced extensive and rich scientific,cultural and religious
works.During abdel rehman,s tenure the court physician was a jew called hasdai
ibn saput,he was also the de-facto vizier and foreighn minister of the sultan
and during his tenure moses ben enoch was appointed as chief rabbi of cordoba
and thus Al-andalus become the chief centre of toranic jewish literature.
This golden age
continued uninterreuptdly for 300 years,howerver by early 11th
century when the caliphate began to grew weaker,the condition of jews
detriotated and in 1066 grenada massacare happened,which was the first major
persucation under the islamic caliphate.howeven later muslim dynasties like almorvids and almohdes who were more orthodox and
purinitical. Not-withstanding the rare persuctions the condition of jews under
them also were still better than in other christian empires.The jews presence
in iberian peninsula continued till 1492 when there were forcibly expelled or
converted by the edict of expulsion by Christian Spain and Christian Portugal.
Relevance of golden age for
contemperory jewish-muslim relations and world peace
The above example
proves that jews and muslims were not natural or historical enemies,infact
during most of the medieval historical period they were close allies,even
during the crusade wars muslims and jews fought together against christian
extremists.The reason for this close relation is that musims have much more in
common with the jews than with any other religion.Both of them are Abramanical
faith i.e they consider Abraham or hazrat Ibrahim as early prophet and staunchly monotheist religions,both consider moses or musa as an important
prophet,both practice male circumcision,kosher(jewish meat) is halaal for the
muslims,both have tradition of wearing skull caps and growing bear,while Christianity maintains that that Jesus is divine incarnation of god and
therefore equal in standing to god,but islam and judaism consider this non-sensical
and believe god cannot reincarnate,however for islam Jesus is still one of the
greatest and holy prophet but but judaism jesus is a failed or a false prophet.
We need to understand
one thing that there was hardly any anti-Semitic feelings in the islamic world before
the birth of isreal and there was hardly any anti-muslim feelings among the
jews before the birth of zionism.Both Islamism and Zionism are political
ideologies which uses religion to pursue its secular goal of world
domination,it has no real basis in religion and religion should not be held
responsible for the deeds and works of believer of these ideology.Thus
antagonism between jews and muslims are a modern day phenomenon which is based
on political competition rather than religion.
The recent attacks on
charlie hebdo office by islamic fanatics and the barbarities of ISIS led to this perception that It is Islam which
is the source of all this fanaticism,but I have always believed that if islam
would have been the source of world trouble,if it would have been a violent and
fanatical religion,1.6 billion people in 53 countries would have not been its
adherent,if it would have been a violent religion there would have not remained
4 million Coptic christian and 1 billion hindus in arab world and India, eventhough both were under islamic rule for about thousand year.
ISIS are not representative
of an islamic caliphate,it should learn from the Abbasid caliphate,ummayyid
caliphate,and arab moorish rule in spain,where minorities were not only
protected but given equal opportunity like other citizens of the state,where
there was liberty of thought and expression,In those caliphates there were islamic
school of thoughts like "mutazils" which interpreted quran and islam in the realm
of rationality and logic,in those caliphates there were philosophers like
ibn-al aribi and ghazali who developed the concept of unity of being and unity
of god,in that caliphate there were mathematician like al-khawarzmi.The works
and barbarity of ISIS have demolished all the good work done by previous
caliphates during last 1300 years,ISIS and al-quida are extremist thugs who
are cherry-picking certain verses from Quran and using it without understanding
the context on which those verses were written to justify its heinous deeds and
to achieve its secular objectives of power…
The muslim community
have a major role to play in rejecting the ideology of ISIS and not just rejecting
but also speaking strongly aganst it in media and press,There should be more
protest movement in islamic world against the crimes of ISIS,moderate Muslims
have a responsibility as a believer in Islam as an ambassador of true islam to
make non-muslims understand this that ISIS have no relation with Islam and
in-fact it has killed more muslims than non-muslims,they need to tell people what
islam stands for.i have written this blog to make people specially non-muslims
aware that islamic caliphate historically does not meant barbarism and jews and
muslims were close partners throught-out history,my intention of writing the blog
is to make people understand that terrorism and islam is a modern day
phenomenon and it has modern-day causes for its birth,we need to weed out those
causes to control islamic extremism which has unfortunately became a menane for
world peace and harmony.I would like to conclude with Noam Chomsky (the great
jewish philosopher and political commentator),s quote that if in early 20th
century muslims would have been ruling over Europe there would have been 6
million more jews alive in the world today……
.
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