By BrigGen (Retd) Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi, PhD
The recorded history of our planet for several thousand years has seen dawn of three major divine religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each faith showed remarkable progression of individuals’ exclusive penchant for spiritual journey whosoever sought for it at different stages of life and history that belonged to their inner-self. However all religions stretch across the spectrum of ones life to the domains that are also inclusive of societies. Here lies exactly the juncture when religions became the tools of coercion and exploitive forces, particularly towards minorities. Karen Armstrong aptly captured the thesis hubris when she remarked, “They (leaders) fight with members of other faiths, who seem to challenge their claim to a monopoly of absolute truth; they also persecute their co-religionists…. Very often priests, rabbis, imams and shamans are just as consumed by worldly ambitions as regular politicians. But all this is generally seen as an abuse of a sacred ideal.”
While the West addressed the threatening menace of plunder and persecutions of medieval age in the name of religion by separating Church from State, Muslims were ordained to enforce their religion, revealed as a complete code of life and successfully demonstrated by the last Prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him:pbuh) and his early companions. Yet all the faiths followers strayed at one stage of the history or the other, particularly during the expanding and contracting phenomenon of empires since 18th Century onwards. The minorities like Christians, Jews and Muslims bore the brunt of massive genocides during action-reaction syndrome when Russian, Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires were contesting Europe-Eurasian arena. The urge of the empires to impose their mythical homogenized cultural, religious and racial order tempted them to commit mass atrocities on their own or captured minorities. By the end of Second World War, millions had perished until Europe-Eurasia emerged from the debris of prolonged but relatively recent conflagration raging since the beginning of the 20th Century. Thereafter the West committed itself to uphold values like respect for human rights, freedom of speech and religious tolerance.
Islam, an epitome of these values as well as main contributor to the Western Renaissance, lost the pace. It was the brilliant charter of Islam that prompted even Mr. Richard Nixon to speak for Muslims when he advised the West, “Just as knowledge from the East helped trigger the ‘Renaissance’ in the West, the time has come for the West to contribute to a renaissance of the Muslim world.” Benevolent essence of Islam fell victim to corrupt political ambitions of its rulers, pushing it to the vortex of crises. Within the design of conduct of international relations, it is a strange paradox that Muslim countries’ governments, friendly towards the Western powers simmer with antagonistic wave despite the latters’ remarkably tolerant policies. Sane people are at loss to comprehend when millions of Muslims draw succor from their fat economies and seeking the Western countries’ citizenship makes a prime nostalgia for them, yet we do not miss any opportunity to target Christain minority in some Muslim countries like Egypt, Nigeria, Iraq, Indonesia and Pakistan. It is also true that Muslims grievances are growing manifold in the wake of rampant regional wars and territorial occupation disputes the world over but among the galaxy of nations, the resolution of the simmering conflicts has to be sought through means recognised by international laws. During U.S. Vice President Mr. Joe Biden’s recent visit to Pakistan, his emphasis that the West does not grudge Islam which is a fast expanding religion in America, is a precursor to the massive awareness permeating through the West. Even the U.S. is being advised to desist from ideological expansive designs of which she is being suspected by some of her antagonists.
On the contrary, Islam that means ‘peace’ has been hijacked by a fraction of radicals and criminals who kill fellow Muslims and minority civilians, women and children, bomb mosques, churches and kidnap people to raise money for sustaining ‘fitna’ that has won Islam universally several titles like millitant Islam, radical Islam, political Islam and barbarian Islam though it is eternally lustrous and glorious which recognizes no other brand. All titles being attributed to it are retaliatory symptoms for which, we ourselves are to blame. Qur’an and authentic ‘hadith’ treatises are laden by the holy verses and narrations that exemplify Islam as the religion which herladed peace, grace, dignity, honour and fraternity among its ardent faithfuls as well as followers of the Abrahamic religions of common ancestry. Holy Quran, being the latest divine revelation to our last Holy Prophet, not only recognizes Bible and Torah but encumbers us, the Muslims, to have faith in them being the divine books, its Prophets and respect their followers.
Recent wave of bombing Christians’ churches and their mass celebration of religious rituals has dented the inter-faiths harmony irreparably. Such violence that struck Indonesian, Nigerian, Iraqi, Pakistani and Egyptian Christians at intervals, has become a matter of grave concern, triggering a serious debate not only among Christians but also among (silent) Muslim majority that stands subdued by the specter of becoming hostage to a misled minority of the religious fanatics. It was this feeling that inspired venerable Shiekh of Jamia al-Azhar to condemn instantly the car-bombing of the Coptic Christians’ church at the dawn of new year in the port city of Alexandria in Egypt, terming it as an odious crime. The Church Priest, whom the Shiekh rushed to meet, advised the mourners to stay calm, reminding them that we, the followers of religions of Abraham are brothers and no one could divide us. Egyptian President also condemned the attack. Within days, an Egyptian court sentenced a murderer to death who had killed three Coptic Christians and a policeman during a shoot out a year earlier on January 6, 2010 in southern Egypt. While such sporadic but violent crimes against the civilian citizens of minorities in Muslim world gravely jeopardise the future sustenance of millions of Muslims earning thier bread and butter in the West, some like Dr.Hubertus Hoffmann express anguish, raising convincing questions to challenge such crimes not through the Christian holy scriptures but emphatically through the verses of Holy Quran that are difficult to refute. Referring to the compassion and tolerance towards other faith by our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), he befittingly mentions about a delegation of the Christians of Najran visiting Medina, when the Prophet lodged them too in the mosque and permitted them to hold their prayers on one side of the mosque with Muslims on the other side. In this mosque, dialogues between Christians and Muslims were conducted with freedom, respect and tolerance. Would it happen today though compliance of Quran and ‘Sunnah’ is mandatory for all of us and any of our acts to the contrary would render us to be the grievous sinners?
Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann who is a witness to the miseries wrought on the Muslims of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan(FATA) and even Palestine for decades as collateral losses, always takes the principled stand from high moral ground on these issues, would have ordinarily not waxed, had threat to the faiths were not really colossal. He draws our attention to Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) Charter of Privileges granted to the monks of St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai. It reads "This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far: we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day."
The charter authenticity could never be in doubt and the Prophets’ companions ensured its implementation from all the angles of interpretation even when the Caliph happened to be the victim. Umar ibne al Khatab (may Allah be pleased with him), the second caliph of great virtues and an icon of Islam, after having been fatally stabbed by a minority-assassin did not have any worry except about the possible breach of the Prophet’s pledge, given to the minorities, as a reactionary commotion and revenge seeking craze by the grieved faithfuls. He preempted an ugly situation through a historic personal example. His message for the Caliph-to-be from the death-bed was, “I urge him to take care of those non-Muslims who are under the protection of Allah and His Apostle (pbuh), in that he should observe the convention agreed upon with them and fight on their behalf (to secure their safety) and he should not overtax them beyond their capability” (Sahih al Bukhari, Hadith: 4.287).”
It becomes imperative therefore, for the ‘silent majority’ of Muslims to act and compensate for the huge strategic deficit while abiding by true spirit of Islam so that glorious Islam shines the way as it did during the Holy Prophet’s era. We would thus achieve greater inter-faiths and intra-faith harmony among the subjects of the state(s).
(Article is also available at 'Modern Diplomacy', www.presscode.gr)
(The writer is a member of WSN International Advisory Board and author of a book, “The New Great Game: Oil and Gas Politics in Central Eurasia” by Dr. Makni (his acronym): makni49@hotmail.com)
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