We have grown accustomed to reading news items that depict Islamic fanatics at their worst. They seem to embody the very essence of what modern terrorism embraces.
We see them crashing commercial planes into the Twin Towers in New York; bombing the underground in a London subway; brutally killing a British soldier while walking innocently along a crowded street; holding hostages at gunpoint in a Sydney cafeteria; appearing as black-clad hooded figures triumphantly raising their guns and shouting ‘Allah is the greatest’ in front of a fluttering ISIS flag after decapitating a captive from the West.
In the famous lecture delivered at the University of Regensburg on September 12, 2006, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI quoted a remark about Islam made at the end of the 14th century by Manuel II Palaiologos, the Byzantine emperor: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhumane, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
The words quoted above were part of a long balanced speech by the Pope, considered by many as one of the most important papal statements on world affairs in recent times. The emperor’s words were, however, misinterpreted by the world’s media as being also the Pope’s own views on Islam, which he strongly denied.
There is, however, the other face of Islam: a moderate, kind, social conscious doctrine that allows other religions to thrive. This was the situation that prevailed in Syria, Iraq, Beirut and Egypt for hundreds of years, where large Christian communities thrived and practised their religion generally unimpaired.
In Syria, the Christians comprised about 6.5 per cent of the whole population while in Iraq they made up about three per cent of the population.
Economically the Christian communities were generally prosperous but they were also respected.
In Iraq, Tariq Aziz, a Christian, was the long-serving top spokesman during the regime of Sadam Hussein. In Egypt, the ancient Coptic Christian Church dates back to the third century and, at its peak, used to boast of very large numbers of adherents in that country. Some important Egyptian government leaders, even in recent times, were also Coptic. The Coptic Church of Egypt has been recognised by Rome since 1741.
The misfortune is that the moderates in Islam have now been pushed aside (or underground) by the more popular and energetic extremists who today far outnumber all others in these turbulent regions. As a result, Christianity in the region has been weakening seriously because of many factors but mainly owing to mass emigration of Christians from countries in the region because of rising persecution, forced conversions to Islam and the rise of political Islam intending to impose strict Islamic rules.
Why has this happened? The reasons are many and various.
Religion and politics have become strongly intertwined
What sticks out among all others is the West’s support and backing of Israel.
America, followed meekly by Europe, has become, in the eyes of many Muslims, the ‘Great Satan’. The derogatory epithet , which had been started by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in November 1979, has now become a generally-accepted term in describing America (and, indirectly, Europe) among Muslims worldwide.
Religion and politics have become strongly intertwined and one does not see an end to these difficult complications.
This should not be so.
One has to keep in mind that the veneration of Jesus by Muslims began during the lifetime of the prophet of Islam. It is true that Jesus is deemed by Islam to be a prophet rather the Son of God but he is also deemed very high in the Muslim concept of religious significance.
Jesus is considered by Muslims as second (among the 124,000 prophets recognised by Islam, including all those of the Old Testament) only to Muhammad and is, indeed, believed to be the precursor to the prophet himself.
Furthermore, Islam considers Mary a virgin and endorses the concept of the virgin birth. According to Islam, the virgin birth is not evidence of the divinity of Jesus but of his unique importance as a prophet and a messiah. Such is the very high esteem that Islam has of Christ and his mother. That is why, also, Christianity was allowed to thrive in many of the Islamic countries for so many centuries.
One, therefore, asks: with Christianity and Islam so intricately linked, why has this huge gap grown between the two foremost religions in the world?
True there was the time of the Crusades during the Middle Ages when papal-sanctioned military campaigns were undertaken by Catholic leaders in Europe to control access to the Holy Land, mainly against Islamic conquest. The 200-year struggle between the two great forces was to echo down the ages and leave indelible scars on both sides of the great divide.
Still, Jesus and his mother remain a focal point of both religions. Amid the intractable tensions of East and West could not a common ground be found with Jesus as the focus of the bridging argument? For this to happen, the initiative does not have to come from the politicians but from the leaders of religions.