Twin Cities Planet, Minnesota
June 1 2008

Christians in the Muslim World

by Elias Karmi, Engage Minnesota, 5/31/08 ¢

In recent years, much has been said in the media about Islam and
countries with Muslim majorities. At first, many reports were made
with conspicuous bias due to the public outrage at the events of
9/11. Slowly, more reports are being made with an extra effort at
being objective.

Minnesota Muslims are finding themselves voiceless, discussed,
defined, categorized, psychoanalyzed, talked at and talked about
without a serious attempt at inclusion. Muslims, and friends of
Muslims, would like to change this climate. Engage Minnesota is a blog
that begins that effort.

Still, certain aspects of the Muslim world are either being
misrepresented or simply left to the audience to guess.

One example of these aspects that are ambiguous or distorted is the
depiction of the experience of Christian minorities living in Muslim
countries. Most Americans perceive Muslim countries as either devoid
of Christians or perhaps having some Christians who hide their
religious identities for fear of persecution.

A clear view of history – from the early beginnings of Islam to the
present day – will help correct the above misconceptions. Muslims know
that in the seventh century, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
allowed a group of visiting Christians to pray in his mosque in
Medina, and the caliph Omar, the second Muslim caliph after the death
of the Prophet, granted the Christians of Jerusalem full rights to
live and worship and even helped repair their churches, which were
damaged due to neglect under Byzantine rule. Note that the actions of
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and for most Muslims the first
four caliphs after him, are viewed in Islam as sources of
jurisprudence (Islamic law, or Shari’ah). Coercively converting a
Christian convert was out of the question since it was explicitly
forbidden in the Qur’an (2:256).

Historians agree that Christians have always been allowed to worship
and build their churches on Muslim lands from Muhammad’s time to this
day*. In precolonial times, they were also allowed to live by their
own laws within their communities. If they wished not to use Shari’ah,
they were not compelled: That was a step ahead of the contemporary
American version of tolerance that maintains the Law of the Land over
minority communities. Knowing all of this makes Muslims view the
West’s repetitive descriptions – of Christians living in Muslim
countries as being persecuted and oppressed because of their religion
– as quite strange and unfounded.

Prominent Christian names in Islamic history

In Islamic history, famous Christian figures in high levels in the
Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates included poets and scientists. One of
them was Al Akhtal, a famous poet whose verses are taught to this day
in Arabic language curricula in schools in the Arab world. Al Akhtal
boasted his religion openly and expressed his contempt at Islam in his
poetry, right in front of caliphs, who would respond by giving him
money for the excellent linguistic quality of his poetry. This shows
that not only were Christians allowed to live and worship in Muslim
countries, but they were given quite a bit of freedom of speech, as
well.

In the 20th century, Arab Christians were instrumental in literature,
science, and politics. The writings of Jubran Khalil Jubran, Mikhail
Nu’aima, and Mai Ziyadah – are highly respected and are also taught in
Arabic language classes. Their books are easily found in most Muslim
households in Arab countries. Notable contemporary Christian political
figures include former Iraqi prime minister Tariq Aziz, former
Jordanian prime minister Kamel Abu Jaber, and former Egyptian foreign
minister Boutrus Boutros-Ghali.

After the Armenian massacre at the hands of the Turkish army,
Armenians fled to countries with Muslim majorities such as Lebanon,
Syria, Palestine, and Iraq and were welcomed as neighbors and even
given a part of Old Jerusalem, the third most holy Islamic ground.

Muslims seem to never have had a problem with Christianity itself, not
when they are told in the Qur’an that `You will find the nearest in
love to [you] to be those who say, `We are Christians” (Qur’an,
5:82). We need to see more historians and academics in the media who
counteract the well-propagandized premise that Islam is against
tolerance when Islam is actually the first system in human history to
include religious tolerance as part of the law. In times like these,
Westerners need to learn the historical relationship between Islam and
Christianity from a nonpartisan point of view.

-Elias Karmi, Burnsville, Minn.

*Note: Some countries with Muslim majorities have some restrictions on
religious freedoms, particularly the freedom to proselytize. See the
U.S. State Department’s 2007 report on religious freedom around the
world.

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