Well, historically, Christians have killed far more people in the effort to spread Christianity than Muslims have.** The Christian Crusaders killed many, many Muslims, and even Eastern Orthodox residents of the areas they travelled through on their way to the Holy Land during the Crusades. During the THird Crusaded, they did nothing but slaughter Christians in Constantinople. The Spanish killed and enslaved lots of Native American in the conquest of the New World and other Colonial areas.**
ON the other hand, the spread of Islam was relatively bloodless by comparison,** Muslim soldiers were under orders to kill no one but soldiers. Non-Combatants were protected Homes were not to be destroyed, crops for those living in thesareas conquered were to be spared. Priest, monks and other holy men were to be treated with respect, as were the places of worship. And largely they were. Rather than kill Christians and Jews, they were allowed to keep their faiths and conversion was not forced under pain of death.** Compare that to the way most of Europe and Russia was converted.One king decided to convert, and all of his subjects were converted in a mass baptism, of be killed.
Undervthe Islamic Caliphate Christians and Jews were considered separate nations. Only Muslims were subject to Muslim laws. The Christian and Jewish nations were allowed to elect thie own leadership councils who would administer the laws of both faiths. While non muslims were charged a tax for the priviledge of keeping thie religion, they were not forced or even allowed to serve in the military. The tax was used in part to assist in the upkeep of religious places of worship, and adminstered by the respective councils. The rest was used for other public works in Christian and Jewish areas, as well as protection from attack by large bands of thiefs and despoilers.
In fact, after a while conversion toIslam by Christian and Jews was discouraged,** as they were a large source of the Caliphates tax revenues.Killing Christians nad Jews would be killing the goose that laid the golgen eggs in the minds of Muslim Rulers.
IN fact, many Christians and Jews served in high places in government during under Islamic rule. Many served even as Vizier, which was the equivalent of Prime Minister under the Caliphate. Again, no Jews or Muslims served in high government positions before the modern era of Westernn Civilization.
No such treatment was accorded to Muslims or Jews in Christian lands during the same period,
The modern muslim “terrorists” can be viewd in the same light as the Jewish “Zealots” spoken of in the New Testement. They were zelous for God, Zelous for the Holy City of Jerusalem, and they felth that the Roman presence in their holiest place was blasphmous. So goes it for Al Qaeda and other Islamic Fundamentlists, they are zelous for Allah, their God , who theyt equate with the same got the Jews were zelous for. They are zelous to pretect the sanctity of their holy cities, Mecca and Medina, and by extension, Saudi Arabia, adn they feel that the presence of westerners in their holy places, including the client kings who rule Saudi Arabia, supported by the west, and by extension, Christians. Those who westernize Saudi Arabia are looked at by the Fundamentalist Muslims the way that the hellenizing Romanswere viewed by the Jews of Jesus’s time. They spread an ungodly civilization in Gods holy land. THe Saudi Rulers who westrernize Islamic lands are viewd much like Herod was by the Jews.Very few Muslims ascribe to this extreme view.
To condemn their faith for the behavior of a very tiny group of Muslims is extremely wrong and disapproved of by the Church and in the Catechism, where other faiths are viewd not to be false, but to be incomplete.
Given the rather violent history of the Catholic Church, other faiths ask the same question of trees and fruit. Is that a correct view of the Holy Church? Of course not.
To condemnd Islam as a violent religion is to ignore history and its lessons.
