Does Islam accept religious toleration?

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Now an opinion question for everybody:

In spite of the bad history between our religions, is it possible now for muslims, christians, and other religions to live peacefully together in a global economy? I realize there are many differences between religions, peoples, and nations. But is peace possible?
 
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JimG:
r.gonzales, thank you for your reply.
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no problem. 👍
 
Jim,
Sure, just as soon as I can celebrate Mass in Saudi Arabia without fear of death.
 
Stat,
Ah you have to go back in history. What about King Richard and the crusades? They were a response to Islamic aggression that is ongoing to this day. Look around the Islamic world this very day. Compare it to the US. Who has more freedom? Can I share my faith with someone in Egypt? No, if I do I go to jail. Under the taliban was there religious freedom? Nope. Where does slavery exist today? In Sudan, a Muslim country where black christians are enslaved. I don’t have to hunt back over the centuries. What happened way back then was after 700 years of trying to kick the Moors out of Spain. If it was so wonderful why did they fight so long and hard? Do we have to learn the same lessons?
 
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r.gonzales:
this is in the case where an advancing muslim army comes to a people of another land. they will send messengers to that land to inform them of the army’s advance. they then have the choice, either a) accept islam, b) surrender without fight, live under muslim rule and protection (which is what the word dhimmah means) where they would be allowed to maintain and practice their religion and not forced to accept islam or c) fight - and in the case of fighting, there is a prohibition from prophet muhammad from killing women, children and religious figures like monks and rabbis, and non-combatants in general.

#So you admit that Islam attacks and gives a choice of surrender or die. If you surrender you will be oppressed and had better not complain. Maybe we christians should do this to Muslims arround the world, sound fair?

if the country was ruled by muslims, then religious tolerence - meaning not forcing non-muslims to accept islam - should be adhered to, as Allah says, “there is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). the reason non-muslim citizens of a muslim ruled state are called “ahl adh-dhimmah (the people of protection)” is because the jizyah they pay ensures the protection of their blood, their families, wealth and land. as for those non-muslims who reside in the muslim lands to study, work or conduct business of some sort (basically, equivalent to those who would be on a student or work visa), there is no jizyah for them - in fact, there are no taxes to be taken from them whatsoever.

#No compulsion? Yeah, pay up, give us your daughters for our harems and your sons to be converted into Islamic soldiers, wear this special garb so we can know who to kick around. And if a Muslim converts…no compulsion to come back? It’s reconvert or die.

whoever from the muslims has chosen to live as citizens of a non-muslim country has basically agreed to abide by the laws of that land. and they are obligated to obey the laws of that land so long as they do not require that muslim to do something that is forbidden in islam - such as the law in france that bans girls from wearing the islamic hijaab in schools. it is forbidden for a girl/woman who has reached the age of menstruation to remove her hijaab (which is more than just the headscarf) in front of non-related men.

#So you obey the laws you like and agree with and no others. Good reason to boot you out. What if my religion says I should wear a cross and I go to Saudi Arabia? Stoned to death is what would happen. Muslims want rights they don’t give to others. No golden rule in Islam.
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I am an Assistant Scoutmaster for the troop sponsored by my Episcopal Parish. One of our members is from Iraq. He and his parents are Chaldean Catholics. He says that when his family lived in Iraq before the war the Chaldean Catholics were generally tolerated and could live their lives pretty much unmolested. If you recall Sadam Hussein’s Foreign Minister, his name escapes me at the moment, was a member of the Chaldean Catholic faith. Apparently he was fairly active in his faith. Active is different from devout and actions speak louder than words but his faith was not apparently that much of a hurdle in his progress through the ranks of his country’s government.

Historically as I understand it prior to the crusades the Moslem faith which was really in its infantcy compared to Juedism and to a lesser degree Christianity controled the Holy Lands. We have all heard in our history classes of how Christian Crusaders behaved in the Holy Lands and of the atrocities they committed in the name of Our Lord. Richard the Lion Hearted for instance with is cousin the King of France captured Acre and then decided to ransom off the 30,000 + Moslem residents. When Richard’s cousin decided he needed to head home Richard was concerned that his loving cousin might have designs on England so he got impatient and when the Ransom didn’t arrive quickly enough he decided he needed to head home as well but he couldn’t just let the Moslems go so he beheaded the entire town, men women and children. Not exactly one of Christianity’s best moments. Now don’t get the idea that the barbarity was all aimed at the Moslems. In fact I think it was during the First Crusade the Crusaders actually attacked and sacked several Christian cities pretty much committing all the foulest sins in the name of Christ against Christ’s own believers. Anyway to some degree my point is atrocity begats atrocity and such behavior on the part of one party tends to radicalize at least some of the people on the other side of the equation.

So back to the central question. One of the responses to the Crusades was to militarize some elements of Islam. Another response was to isolate some of the followers of Islam from any further contact with people of any other faith. That isolation tended to concentrate if you will various aspects of Islam and it tended also to create some degree of suspection of other faiths just as it has worked the same way within Christianity at least to some degree. The isolation prevented direct comparison and with comparison appreciation and eventually understanding. Islam seems to most non-islamic followers to be pretty one way but look at Christianity we are quite one way about a lot of things too. In Conservative Juedism if a Jewish boy or girl marries outside the faith that young person’s family considers him or her to be dead. When I was growing up in Alton, Ill. which had a very large Roman Catholic population I was told by the neighborhood kids I played with that their Priest at school had told them that anyone who was not Roman Catholic was going to hell. That’s pretty one way. I done mind telling you that this really bothered me. My family did not attend church at least not one that we belonged to. My Mother was opposed to organized religon. Religons were according to her founded by man and there is no such thing as perfection in anything by man made. Because of that lack of perfection she would not submit to any religous structure. My father had a different opinion but felt that that facet of our rearing was her perogative. Dad’s grandfather was a Bishop in the Methodist Church so he tended to claim to be Methodist. Bishop Preston Holt my great grand father hated Roman Catholics and he had a special hatred for Irish Roman Catholics. He was pretty one way and he preached pretty one way. My father however worked with a lot of Roman Catholics and came to know that they were not the fork tailed devils his grandfather seemed to think they were. He also learned that the Jewish people he worked with were pretty admirable people who not only took care of each other but also quite frequently reached out to help Christians who needed help. Our exposure to Moslems will I suspect teach us much the samething sure there are some really bad ones and there are some really superior Moslems. The point is we can’t justly judge people or faithes by the group but we have to take people and their faiths one person at a time. Martin Luther King said he had a dream that one day people would not be judged by the color of their skins but by the content of their character. Maybe it would be good to extend that dream to religons as well so that while there is a tolerance gap now maybe we can fill that gap with exerience and understanding and eventually maybe acceptance.
 
cestusdei, perhaps you should learn how to use the quote function porperly? :ehh:
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cestusdei:
So you admit that Islam attacks and gives a choice of surrender or die. If you surrender you will be oppressed and had better not complain. Maybe we christians should do this to Muslims arround the world, sound fair?
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it could be argued that america is already doing that. 😉 and it can also be argued that britain did that when they went through the ottoman empire and divided all the land into the various countries that exist today.
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cestusdei:
No compulsion? Yeah, pay up, give us your daughters for our harems and your sons to be converted into Islamic soldiers, wear this special garb so we can know who to kick around. And if a Muslim converts…no compulsion to come back? It’s reconvert or die.
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now, you’re just talking out of your butt.
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cestusdei:
So you obey the laws you like and agree with and no others. Good reason to boot you out. What if my religion says I should wear a cross and I go to Saudi Arabia? Stoned to death is what would happen. Muslims want rights they don’t give to others. No golden rule in Islam.
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no, i obey the laws that don’t entail me doing something forbidden in my religion. that means i even adhere to laws that i don’t want to, but must because it is not something forbidden in islam.

as for your idiotic claims that if you go to saudi wearing a cross you’d be stoned to death, there you go speaking out of your butt again.
 
Who cares of Rome which was built on blood of Muslims from Crusades

From pope Piu,to Pope Innocent 4 to others pope
All called for crusades and killing of infidels

Indonesia my far minded friend was never a muslim country
Country converted peacefully to Islam,and was never conquered like Pakistan or some other countries
Also in 1189 king of Maldives peacefully converted to Islam,and Maldives were never conquered by Muslims
Unlike Pizzaro and Inkas,who brought plague,killings and Christianity to South America
Muslims werent pillaging Indonesia,stealing their woman and killing the ‘‘natives’’

So,how many church planners,bible believers and other hardcore christians came to Indonesia,not to spread christianity

No,no no,i knew a Missionary once from Australia,who said we mostly bashed Islam when we came to the country,this country Gambia,then to spread the word and she was all saying that to me,because i pretended i was christian then
Many more cases then that,so you dont even have to believe me

Only in Papua you have some parts of Christianity

When you get some kind of fair share,per say having Muslim representatives in Usa,then give me a reasonable response

Only when you learn to be more tolerant,Senegal last example,and not to bash Islam

You just might achieve something
Or maybe now some other country is in ‘‘axis of evil’’

Since you couldnt convince me,a secular Muslim
Your task is doomed from the start

I will come to the forum
When you elect one Muslim senator in Usa
Knowing religious tolerance here,that would be ,let me guess

NEVER 😉
 
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Zoomie:
Historically as I understand it prior to the crusades the Moslem faith which was really in its infantcy compared to Juedism and to a lesser degree Christianity controled the Holy Lands. We have all heard in our history classes of how Christian Crusaders behaved in the Holy Lands and of the atrocities they committed in the name of Our Lord.

Sure, but the Crusades were a counter-attack in response to Islamic aggression. That doesn’t justify the atrocities the Crusaders committed (and Muslims committed atrocities too, but you are less likely to hear about them in textbooks these days). The Crusades turned out in the long run to be disastrous, but I can see how they appeared to be the right thing to do initially. Western Christians believed (rightly or wrongly–I think the accounts were greatly exaggerated at least) that the Muslims were committing horrendous atrocities against Christians in the Middle East. They saw themselves as defending their fellow Christians and driving back brutal aggressors.
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So back to the central question. One of the responses to the Crusades was to militarize some elements of Islam.

No, the militaristic aspect of Islam was present from the very beginning. Muhammad himself was a warlord (albeit one with far more of a conscience and an ideal than most warlords!). This is pure spin. The Turks (who dominated the Islamic world at the time of the Crusades and whose aggression provoked the Crusades) were a warrior people from Central Asia and Islam had done nothing to make them more peaceful.

Did Islam become even more militaristic after the Crusades? Maybe. But I’m not persuaded that they had much impact in that regard. The Mongol invasions of the 13th century and later had far more of an effect on the Islamic world, in my opinion (the brutalizing effect that the Mongols had wherever they went).

If the Crusades militarized anything, it was Christianity, not Islam.

Christianity has had (and still has) very serious problems with intolerance. But the fact is that, for good or evil, modern liberal democracy came out of Christian civilization, not Islamic. And Christianity has far more potential for criticizing its own militarism than Islam has shown so far.

Jesus did not wage war or own slaves. Muhammad did both. And thus, though Islam has historically been perhaps more effective in imposing moral limits on war and slavery than Christianity, it has so far found it more difficult to mount a fundamental criticism of these evils. I hope this does not remain the case.

In their premodern forms, Islam was in many respects more moderate and tolerant than Christianity. But Islam has found it much harder to change than Christianity, given the nature of Islamic law and tradition, which lays down very specific rules rooted in the cultural norms of the seventh-century Middle East.

Edwin
 
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Statistics:
When you get some kind of fair share,per say having Muslim representatives in Usa,then give me a reasonable response

I will come to the forum
When you elect one Muslim senator in Usa
Knowing religious tolerance here,that would be ,let me guess

NEVER 😉
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Barak Obama was born of a Muslim father, is Senator for Illinois. That is about as close as we will ever get.
 
Re - The Crusades turned out in the long run to be disastrous,

I am not an expert on history, but it appears that the Crusades did help the forces resisting Moslem attacks on Europe. They drew military power back from those fronts, much as our attacks in North Africa relieved the pressure on the Russians in WWII…
 
I don’t buy that argument, which we’ve had on this board before. The Muslims were divided at the time of the Crusades. Their attacks were directed against the Byzantine Empire, and one of the major effects of the Crusades was to weaken the Byzantine Empire (due to the Fourth Crusade). The Muslims were not and could not be a serious threat to Europe (except for piracy in the Mediterranean) until they conquered the Byzantines. It was in the interest of Western Christendom to shore up the Byzantines (and this was the original purpose of the Crusades, and their main justification from my point of view). I think it’s hard to deny that in the end they had the opposite effect. (True, the Muslims didn’t manage to go on the offensive against Byzantium in a serious way until the 14th century, but the Mongol invasions probably did at least as much to bring that about as the Crusades, and unlike the Crusades they didn’t weaken the Byzantines as well).

Furthermore, while I don’t buy the argument that the Crusades “militarized” Islam in some general way, they did worsen the lot of Middle Eastern Christians (though probably the alliance between many Middle Eastern Christians and the Mongols did them far more harm in the long run).

Edwin
 
At the battle of Hattin the crusader prisoners were given no chance at ransom. They were simply murdered. More of them then Richard killed. Any apologies from Muslims about that? Nope. That sums it up. They invade us, we fight back, and then they blame us for resisting. It’s a bit like blaming a woman for being raped. Same after 911. We return fire and are immediately blamed for fighting back.

R, you know that Muslims are killed for converting. In the USA they had a meeting of converts that had to hide their names due to fear. You also know that if I went to Saudi Arabia, wore a cross, and said hey let’s have Mass I would be in prison. Being an American they MIGHT not stone me, but if I were Bolivian I would be dead. That’s a fact.

There is religious freedom in the USA not in the Muslim world. The Chaldeans only survived by accepting dhimmitude. If they had demanded equal rights they would be around. Would I vote for a Muslim senator? I will say heck no. I frankly don’t trust Muslims. On the other hand what are the chances for a Christian President in Egypt or King in Saudi Arabia?
 
Well, I admit it doesn’t look hopeful. There was a piece on 60 Minutes tonight about a group of 13 American medical technicians from NYC who went to the remote areas of Pakistan to help earthquake victims. What struck me was that in this desperate situation nobody was talking religion. The American EMT’s were just there to help. The Muslim population wasn’t rejecting their help because they were infidels. It was just people helping people. Perhaps things would work out better if nobody worried about theology. Or at least, if they don’t let theology interfere with their humanity.
 
Frankly the Christians killed everyone inside when they conquered Jerusaleum. Everyone inside was murdered be it Christian, Muslim or Jew. Few people were spared, and those were civlilians not soldiers. Crusaders massacred civilians its different then soldiers and you have yet to show any sources for claim that Saladin killed all the crusader prisoners at Hattin, cestudai.
 
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Shadowcry:
Frankly the Christians killed everyone inside when they conquered Jerusaleum. Everyone inside was murdered be it Christian, Muslim or Jew. Few people were spared, and those were civlilians not soldiers. Crusaders massacred civilians its different then soldiers and you have yet to show any sources for claim that Saladin killed all the crusader prisoners at Hattin, cestudai.
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This has no bearing on wether Muslim nations are tolerant of other religions today.
 
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