Silouan, when you were a Muslim, reading the Quran and hadith and sunna made you love Jews and Christians? was it the teachings or you as a person? because in my experience, the more one gets involved in islamic teaching, the more the hatred to Jews and Christians so am interested in your perspective, and i will not quote the hateful Quranic verses, i will quote the behavior of Umar bil Al-Khattab in his treaty with the Christians of Sham, for example.
In all honesty, I always loved people and in general have a kind heart. But at the same time I was never taught by anyone knowledgeable of Islam to hate Jews or Christians. But at the same time there are some anti-Jewish and anti-Christians among Muslims, but I can honestly say it has nothing to do with the teachings of Islam. It is more related to the actions of past and current Jewish and Christians people. I believe the following has created the hatred in the heart of some Muslims.
- Colonization and Slavery created by Christian nations.
- Western support of Islamic dictators in Muslim countries.
- Explotation of Western Oil Companies.
- The Occupation of the Israelis in Palestine and the unconditional support for them by the West.
All of these past and currect oppressions created by the West on Muslim nations has created this hatred in the heart of some Muslims.
In Islam, there is Traditional Sunni Islam and a protestant Islam, but it is not called Protestant Islam, but since you are Christian, it is the best way to characterized them so you can understand why they don’t represent the true teachings of Islam.
Islam is a very vast tradition with many teachings, which can sometimes seem contradictory. These protestant Muslim in modern times have used every verse or hadith that appears hateful to justify their anger, and completely ignore the verses and hadith that oppose such rage.
Historically speaking, Muhammad taught two schools of thought, a Christian school of thought and a Jewish school of thought. The Christian school of thought, is when Muhammad did not have a nation and was not in any power, this was during the Meccan phrase of his like, 13 years, in which love, peace and God were the essential teachings. Then you have the Jewish school of thought, which is when Muhammad was establishing a nation, this is when the Muslims started establishing Jewish like legal rulings. This was during the Medinan phase.
Islam is suppose to be middle path between Christianity and Judaism. But the problem with Islam is that it more resembles Judaism than Christianity, and this is because the Jewish phase was the last school that was taught, and not much of the Christian phase (as I call it) has been recorded, except that it has been emerged.
In my opinion, the Jewish legal system is just as harsh as Islam.
Comparing Islam and Christianity, to be fair to the Muslims, Jesus never established a nation, so we do not know what kind of legal system he would have establised. Because before Muhammad established an Islamic nation, prior to going to Medinah, his peaceful teachings were very much like Jesus.
However Christians have established nations after Jesus, and there were just as cruel if not more so, than some Islamic Nations. Christians both Catholics and Protestants, supported Slavery and Colonization. Many non-Christians died at the hands of Christians, both in the countries they lived in, and when Christianity spread by the sword, through colonization, the inquistion. Look at all the American Indians that Christians killed. Christianity does not have a beautiful history, to say the least. In fact it was one of the things which almost caused me not to study it. One of my ex-Muslim friends who isn’t Christian, mentioned the problematic history of the Muslims, but also mentioned the problematic history of the Christians, and he would say that they are quite identical, he said now that Christianity has conquered most of the world through death and killing, it now want to display itself as a peaceful religion.
And that my friend is a good point.
Because of the Christian history, I often comtemplated becoming a Buddhist or a Hindu.
I wanted to end this, that my previous Islamic teachers have never taught me to hate Christans or Jews. In fact Hamza Yusuf who I love and admire even to this day has stated the Habib Umar, who is probably one of the greatest living Islamic teaches has taught that,
we must always think non-Muslims are better than us (ie Muslims).
Do you think that these rules put by Umar to ensure humiliation and disgrace stem from love or hatred? because i have no doubt that many Muslims are loving people, but is the Islamic ideology that of love?
In all honesty, I am quite disturbed by what Umar has stated. At the same time I don’t want to judge Umar and say whether it is based on love or hate, because I have not done research on this praticular issue. To understand the Islamic position on Jiziya, I would have to look at all four schools of Islamic Law as well, as well as what the leading scholars of Islam have stated about it and how it was implemented by Islamic nations of the past.
I have to be fair and not judge them until I have researched this issue.
in Christ,
Silouan