His­to­ry

There are 1.2 bil­lion Mus­lims in the world, and Islam is the world’s fastest-grow­ing reli­gion. If the evil car­nage we wit­nessed on Sept. 11 were typ­i­cal of the faith, and Islam tru­ly inspired and jus­ti­fied such vio­lence, its growth and the increas­ing pres­ence of Mus­lims in both Europe and the U.S. would be a ter­ri­fy­ing prospect. For­tu­nate­ly, this is not the case.

In study­ing var­i­ous top­ics about Chris­tian­i­ty and Islam over the years I will nev­er for­get an arti­cle I came across on the top­ic of racism. It was called : ​“Chil­dren of a White God” and the author was Matthew C. Ogilvie. I remem­bered that the major­i­ty of slav­ery in the Unit­ed States had been jus­ti­fied by Chris­tians in the past, but cer­tain­ly, I thought, this was over. I thought this was just the igno­rance of poor­ly edu­cat­ed Chris­tians of old. But as I read the words in this mans essay, I began to real­ize that indeed, there were sev­er­al Chris­t­ian sects who taught racist the­olo­gies to this day, and such the­olo­gies result­ed in count­less acts of ter­ror­ism in the world.

The Ori­en­tal­ists and Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies have been par­rot­ing for some time the far­ci­cal notion that the Ottomon Caliphate was respon­si­ble for what is now…

The his­tor­i­cal dis­tor­tion per­pe­trat­ed on his­tor­i­cal think­ing by Thomas F. Mad­den is not a new fal­la­cious con­cept intro­duced by con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian revi­sion­ists but has been preva­lent since the emer­gence of Islam on world stage. For many cen­turies, the Chris­t­ian his­to­ri­ans and ori­en­tal­ists direct­ly pro­mul­gat­ed lies and fab­ri­ca­tions about Islam in order to instil prej­u­dice against the Mus­lims. And yet in the mod­ern age, Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist his­to­ri­ans still con­tin­ue to car­ry the flag and prop­a­gate indi­rect­ly their revi­sion­ist the­o­ries regard­ing Islam.

In Hans Kung’s address to this con­fer­ence he has once again proven him­self a pio­neer of inter­re­li­gious dia­logue. What he has been doing through­out most of his the­o­log­i­cal career, he was doing again-explor­ing new ter­ri­to­ry, rais­ing new ques­tions in the encounter of Chris­tian­i­ty with oth­er reli­gions. Although Kung made his great­est con­tri­bu­tion in the inner-Chris­t­ian, eccle­sial are­na, he has always real­ized-and increas­ing­ly so in more recent years-that Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy must be done in view of, and in dia­logue with, oth­er reli­gions. As he has said, Chris­tians must show an increas­ing­ly ​“greater broad-mind­ed­ness and open­ness” to oth­er faiths and learn to ​“reread their own his­to­ry of the­o­log­i­cal thought and faith” in view of oth­er tra­di­tions. As a long-time read­er of Kung’s writ­ings, and as a par­tic­i­pant with him in a Bud­dhist-Chris­t­ian con­fer­ence in Hawaii, Jan­u­ary 1984, I have wit­nessed how much his own broad-mind­ed­ness and open­ness to oth­er reli­gions has grown. He has been changed in the dialogue.

This is not the place to review the his­to­ry of Chris­t­ian-Mus­lim rela­tions. This his­to­ry may now be read in the eru­dite works of Nor­man Daniel. The read­ing is sad and ago­niz­ing. The con­clu­sion which may be safe­ly drawn from this his­to­ry is that Chris­tian­i­ty’s involve­ment with the Mus­lim World was so full of mis­un­der­stand­ing, prej­u­dice, and hos­til­i­ty that it has warped the West­ern Chris­tian’s will and con­scious­ness. ​“Would to God Chris­tian­i­ty had nev­er met Islam!” will rever­ber­ate in the mind of any stu­dent patient enough to peruse that history.

The mis­sion­ar­ies have pub­lished an arti­cle claim­ing that there is no sig­nif­i­cance between the holy city of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) with Islam, while at the same time dis­play­ing their Zion­ist ten­den­cies. We repub­lish an arti­cle from Israeli Watch which rebuts their fatu­ous claims and cements the rela­tion­ship between Islam and Al-Quds.

Ptole­my II, who became the ruler of Egypt after Alexan­der the Great in the third cen­tu­ry BC, was a great patron of learn­ing, and…

Edward W. Said (We do not nec­ces­sar­i­ly agree with every­thing that is said by the author ? Ed. ) The media have become obsessed with something…

The verse of Isra’ in the Qur’an is clear not liable to hes­i­ta­tion or reluc­tance in say­ing that Allah had caused His ser­vant to trav­el by night from Al-Masjid Al-Haram to Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa like you say ; I trav­eled by night from such and such place to such and such place. So, there is no room for hes­i­ta­tion and ask­ing whether this was with body or spir­it, or awake or dur­ing sleep. Also, it is inap­pro­pri­ate to dis­agree regard­ing the mean­ing of this night jour­ney or regard­ing the word ​‘Abd, i.e., ser­vant, and whether it refers to the spir­it, to the body or to both, as it has hap­pened between those claim­ing bod­i­ly Isra and oth­ers claim­ing spir­i­tu­al Isra.

Some ​“researcher” known as P. N. Oak has come up with some ludi­crous, puerile and absurd com­ments regard­ing Islam. His the­o­ry pos­tu­lat­ing the…

Excerpt­ed from Mad­i­nan Soci­ety At the Time of the Prophet, Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Pub­lish­ing House & IIIT, 1991 The date of the cam­paign The action against Banu…

Khay­bar is an agri­cul­tur­al oasis sit­u­at­ed approx­i­mate­ly 165 kilo­me­ters to the north of Mad­i­nah, at an alti­tude of 850 m above sea lev­el. It is the sec­ond largest Har­rah in Ara­bia, after the Har­rah Banu Sal­im. Khay­bar enjoys fer­tile land and abun­dant water, hence it was famous for hav­ing many palm trees, apart from the corn and fruits it pro­duced. For this rea­son it was known as the gar­den of the Hijaz, because of its fer­til­i­ty, impreg­nabil­i­ty, and live­stock. There was a mar­ket place in Khay­bar called Suq al Natah, which was guard­ed by the tribe of Ghatafan, who con­sid­ered Khay­bar to be with­in their bor­ders. Because of its eco­nom­ic posi­tion, many mer­chants and crafts­men lived there, and there was much mon­ey-chang­ing activity.

Excerpt­ed from Mad­i­nan Soci­ety At the Time of the Prophet, Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Pub­lish­ing House & IIIT, 1991 The date of the cam­paign Regard­ing the time of…

Akram Diya al Umari Excerpt­ed from Mad­i­nan Soci­ety At the Time of the Prophet, Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Pub­lish­ing House & IIIT, 1991 The date of the cam­paign Two…