Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?
by Raymond
Ibrahim
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2009, pp. 3-12
http://www.meforum.org/2159/are-judaism-and-christianity-as-violent-as-islam
Medieval times:
The Crusades were violent and led to atrocities by the modern
world's standards under the banner of the cross and in the name of
Christianity. But the Crusades were a counterattack on Islam. Muslim
invasions and atrocities against Christians were on the rise in the
decades before the launch of the Crusades in
1096. |
"There is far
more violence in the Bible than in the Qur'an; the idea that Islam imposed
itself by the sword is a Western fiction, fabricated during the time of
the Crusades when, in fact, it was Western Christians who were fighting
brutal holy wars against Islam."[1] So
announces former nun and self-professed "freelance monotheist," Karen
Armstrong. This quote sums up the single most influential argument
currently serving to deflect the accusation that Islam is inherently
violent and intolerant: All monotheistic religions, proponents of such an
argument say, and not just Islam, have their fair share of violent and
intolerant scriptures, as well as bloody histories. Thus, whenever Islam's
sacred scriptures—the Qur'an first, followed by the reports on the words
and deeds of Muhammad (the Hadith)—are highlighted as demonstrative of the
religion's innate bellicosity, the immediate rejoinder is that other
scriptures, specifically those of Judeo-Christianity, are as riddled with
violent passages.
More often than not, this argument puts an end to any
discussion regarding whether violence and intolerance are unique to Islam.
Instead, the default answer becomes that it is not Islam per se but
rather Muslim grievance and frustration—ever exacerbated by economic,
political, and social factors—that lead to violence. That this view
comports perfectly with the secular West's "materialistic" epistemology
makes it all the more unquestioned.
Therefore, before condemning the Qur'an and the historical
words and deeds of Islam's prophet Muhammad for inciting violence and
intolerance, Jews are counseled to consider the historical atrocities
committed by their Hebrew forefathers as recorded in their own scriptures;
Christians are advised to consider the brutal cycle of violence their
forbears have committed in the name of their faith against both
non-Christians and fellow Christians. In other words, Jews and Christians
are reminded that those who live in glass houses should not be hurling
stones.
But is that really the case? Is the analogy with other
scriptures legitimate? Does Hebrew violence in the ancient era, and
Christian violence in the medieval era, compare to or explain away the
tenacity of Muslim violence in the modern era?
Violence in Jewish and Christian History
Along with Armstrong, any number of prominent writers,
historians, and theologians have championed this "relativist" view. For
instance, John Esposito, director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center
for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, wonders,
How come we keep on asking the same question, [about
violence in Islam,] and don't ask the same question about Christianity
and Judaism? Jews and Christians have engaged in acts of violence. All
of us have the transcendent and the dark side. … We have our own
theology of hate. In mainstream Christianity and Judaism, we tend to be
intolerant; we adhere to an exclusivist theology, of us versus them.[2]
An article by Pennsylvania State University humanities
professor Philip Jenkins, "Dark Passages," delineates this position most
fully. It aspires to show that the Bible is more violent than the
Qur'an:
[I]n terms of ordering violence and bloodshed, any
simplistic claim about the superiority of the Bible to the Koran would
be wildly wrong. In fact, the Bible overflows with "texts of terror," to
borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The
Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does
the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked
by more indiscriminate savagery. … If the founding text shapes the whole
religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation
as religions of savagery.[3]
Several anecdotes from the Bible as well as from
Judeo-Christian history illustrate Jenkins' point, but two in
particular—one supposedly representative of Judaism, the other of
Christianity—are regularly mentioned and therefore deserve closer
examination.
The military conquest of the land of Canaan by the Hebrews
in about 1200 B.C.E. is often characterized as "genocide" and has all but
become emblematic of biblical violence and intolerance. God told
Moses:
But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God
gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain
alive, but you shall utterly destroy them—the Hittite, Amorite,
Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite—just as the Lord your God has
commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their
abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against
the Lord your God.[4]
So Joshua [Moses' successor] conquered all the land: the
mountain country and the South and the lowland and the wilderness
slopes, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly
destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord, God of Israel had commanded.[5]
As for Christianity, since it is impossible to find New
Testament verses inciting violence, those who espouse the view that
Christianity is as violent as Islam rely on historical events such as the
Crusader wars waged by European Christians between the eleventh and
thirteenth centuries. The Crusades were in fact violent and led to
atrocities by the modern world's standards under the banner of the cross
and in the name of Christianity. After breaching the walls of Jerusalem in
1099, for example, the Crusaders reportedly slaughtered almost every
inhabitant of the Holy City. According to the medieval chronicle, the
Gesta Danorum, "the slaughter was so great that our men waded in
blood up to their ankles."[6]
In light of the above, as Armstrong, Esposito, Jenkins, and
others argue, why should Jews and Christians point to the Qur'an as
evidence of Islam's violence while ignoring their own scriptures and
history?
Bible versus Qur'an
The answer lies in the fact that such observations confuse
history and theology by conflating the temporal actions of men with what
are understood to be the immutable words of God. The fundamental error is
that Judeo-Christian history—which is violent—is being conflated with
Islamic theology—which commands violence. Of course, the three major
monotheistic religions have all had their share of violence and
intolerance towards the "other." Whether this violence is ordained by God
or whether warlike men merely wished it thus is the key question.
Old Testament violence is an interesting case in point. God
clearly ordered the Hebrews to annihilate the Canaanites and surrounding
peoples. Such violence is therefore an expression of God's will, for good
or ill. Regardless, all the historic violence committed by the Hebrews and
recorded in the Old Testament is just that—history. It happened; God
commanded it. But it revolved around a specific time and place and was
directed against a specific people. At no time did such violence go on to
become standardized or codified into Jewish law. In short, biblical
accounts of violence are descriptive, not prescriptive.
This is where Islamic violence is unique. Though similar to
the violence of the Old Testament—commanded by God and manifested in
history—certain aspects of Islamic violence and intolerance have become
standardized in Islamic law and apply at all times. Thus, while the
violence found in the Qur'an has a historical context, its ultimate
significance is theological. Consider the following Qur'anic verses,
better known as the "sword-verses":
Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the
idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and
lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and
perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way.[7]
Fight those who believe not in God and the Last Day, and
do not forbid what God and His Messenger have forbidden – such men as
practise not the religion of truth, being of those who have been given
the Book – until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been
humbled.[8]
As with Old Testament verses where God commanded the Hebrews
to attack and slay their neighbors, the sword-verses also have a
historical context. God first issued these commandments after the Muslims
under Muhammad's leadership had grown sufficiently strong to invade their
Christian and pagan neighbors. But unlike the bellicose verses and
anecdotes of the Old Testament, the sword-verses became fundamental to
Islam's subsequent relationship to both the "people of the book" (i.e.,
Jews and Christians) and the "pagans" (i.e., Hindus, Buddhists, animists,
etc.) and, in fact, set off the Islamic conquests, which changed the face
of the world forever. Based on Qur'an 9:5, for instance, Islamic law
mandates that pagans and polytheists must either convert to Islam or be
killed; simultaneously, Qur'an 9:29 is the primary source of Islam's
well-known discriminatory practices against conquered Christians and Jews
living under Islamic suzerainty.
In fact, based on the sword-verses as well as countless
other Qur'anic verses and oral traditions attributed to Muhammad, Islam's
learned officials, sheikhs, muftis, and imams throughout the ages have all
reached consensus—binding on the entire Muslim community—that Islam is to
be at perpetual war with the non-Muslim world until the former subsumes
the latter. Indeed, it is widely held by Muslim scholars that since the
sword-verses are among the final revelations on the topic of Islam's
relationship to non-Muslims, that they alone have abrogated some 200 of
the Qur'an's earlier and more tolerant verses, such as "no compulsion is
there in religion."[9] Famous Muslim
scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) admired in the West for his "progressive"
insights, also puts to rest the notion that jihad is defensive
warfare:
In the Muslim community, the holy war [jihad] is a
religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and
the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by
force ... The other religious groups did not have a universal mission,
and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for
purposes of defense ... They are merely required to establish their
religion among their own people. That is why the Israelites after Moses
and Joshua remained unconcerned with royal authority [e.g., a
caliphate]. Their only concern was to establish their religion [not
spread it to the nations] … But Islam is under obligation to gain power
over other nations.[10]
Modern authorities agree. The Encyclopaedia of
Islam's entry for "jihad" by Emile Tyan states that the "spread of
Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must
continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam …
Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad [warfare
to spread Islam] can be eliminated." Iraqi jurist Majid Khaduri
(1909-2007), after defining jihad as warfare, writes that "jihad … is
regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective
obligation of the whole Muslim community."[11] And, of course, Muslim legal manuals written in
Arabic are even more explicit.[12]
Qur'anic Language
When the Qur'an's violent verses are juxtaposed with their
Old Testament counterparts, they are especially distinct for using
language that transcends time and space, inciting believers to attack and
slay nonbelievers today no less than yesterday. God commanded the Hebrews
to kill Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and
Jebusites—all specific peoples rooted to a specific time and place. At no
time did God give an open-ended command for the Hebrews, and by extension
their Jewish descendants, to fight and kill gentiles. On the other hand,
though Islam's original enemies were, like Judaism's, historical (e.g.,
Christian Byzantines and Zoroastrian Persians), the Qur'an rarely singles
them out by their proper names. Instead, Muslims were (and are) commanded
to fight the people of the book—"until they pay the tribute out of hand
and have been humbled"[13] and to
"slay the idolaters wherever you find them."[14]
The two Arabic conjunctions "until" (hata) and
"wherever" (haythu) demonstrate the perpetual and ubiquitous nature
of these commandments: There are still "people of the book" who have yet
to be "utterly humbled" (especially in the Americas, Europe, and Israel)
and "pagans" to be slain "wherever" one looks (especially Asia and
sub-Saharan Africa). In fact, the salient feature of almost all of the
violent commandments in Islamic scriptures is their open-ended and generic
nature: "Fight them [non-Muslims] until there is no persecution and
the religion is God's entirely. [Emphasis added.]"[15] Also, in a well-attested tradition that appears in
the hadith collections, Muhammad proclaims:
I have been commanded to wage war against mankind
until they testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad
is the Messenger of God; and that they establish prostration prayer, and
pay the alms-tax [i.e., convert to Islam]. If they do so, their blood
and property are protected. [Emphasis added.][16]
This linguistic aspect is crucial to understanding
scriptural exegeses regarding violence. Again, it bears repeating that
neither Jewish nor Christian scriptures—the Old and New Testaments,
respectively—employ such perpetual, open-ended commandments. Despite all
this, Jenkins laments that
Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to
institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions
… all are in the Bible, and occur with a far greater frequency than in
the Qur'an. At every stage, we can argue what the passages in question
mean, and certainly whether they should have any relevance for later
ages. But the fact remains that the words are there, and their inclusion
in the scripture means that they are, literally, canonized, no less than
in the Muslim scripture.[17]
One wonders what Jenkins has in mind by the word
"canonized." If by canonized he means that such verses are considered part
of the canon of Judeo-Christian scripture, he is absolutely correct;
conversely, if by canonized he means or is trying to connote that these
verses have been implemented in the Judeo-Christian Weltanschauung,
he is absolutely wrong.
Yet one need not rely on purely exegetical and philological
arguments; both history and current events give the lie to Jenkins's
relativism. Whereas first-century Christianity spread via the blood of
martyrs, first-century Islam spread through violent conquest and
bloodshed. Indeed, from day one to the present—whenever it could—Islam
spread through conquest, as evinced by the fact that the majority of what
is now known as the Islamic world, or dar al-Islam, was conquered
by the sword of Islam. This is a historic fact, attested to by the most
authoritative Islamic historians. Even the Arabian peninsula, the "home"
of Islam, was subdued by great force and bloodshed, as evidenced by the
Ridda wars following Muhammad's death when tens of thousands of Arabs were
put to the sword by the first caliph Abu Bakr for abandoning Islam.
Muhammad's Role
Moreover, concerning the current default position which
purports to explain away Islamic violence—that the latter is a product of
Muslim frustration vis-à-vis political or economic oppression—one must
ask: What about all the oppressed Christians and Jews, not to mention
Hindus and Buddhists, of the world today? Where is their
religiously-garbed violence? The fact remains: Even though the Islamic
world has the lion's share of dramatic headlines—of violence, terrorism,
suicide-attacks, decapitations—it is certainly not the only region
in the world suffering under both internal and external pressures.
For instance, even though practically all of sub-Saharan
Africa is currently riddled with political corruption, oppression and
poverty, when it comes to violence, terrorism, and sheer chaos,
Somalia—which also happens to be the only sub-Saharan country that is
entirely Muslim—leads the pack. Moreover, those most responsible for
Somali violence and the enforcement of intolerant, draconian, legal
measures—the members of the jihadi group Al-Shabab (the youth)—articulate
and justify all their actions through an Islamist paradigm.
In Sudan, too, a jihadi-genocide against the Christian and
polytheistic peoples is currently being waged by Khartoum's Islamist
government and has left nearly a million "infidels" and "apostates" dead.
That the Organization of Islamic Conference has come to the defense of
Sudanese president Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who is wanted by the
International Criminal Court, is further telling of the Islamic body's
approval of violence toward both non-Muslims and those deemed not Muslim
enough.
Latin American and non-Muslim Asian countries also have
their fair share of oppressive, authoritarian regimes, poverty, and all
the rest that the Muslim world suffers. Yet, unlike the near daily
headlines emanating from the Islamic world, there are no records of
practicing Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus crashing explosives-laden
vehicles into the buildings of oppressive (e.g., Cuban or Chinese
communist) regimes, all the while waving their scriptures in hand and
screaming, "Jesus [or Buddha or Vishnu] is great!" Why?
There is one final aspect that is often overlooked—either
from ignorance or disingenuousness—by those who insist that violence and
intolerance is equivalent across the board for all religions. Aside from
the divine words of the Qur'an, Muhammad's pattern of behavior—his
sunna or "example"—is an extremely important source of legislation
in Islam. Muslims are exhorted to emulate Muhammad in all walks of life:
"You have had a good example in God's Messenger."[18] And Muhammad's pattern of conduct toward
non-Muslims is quite explicit.
Sarcastically arguing against the concept of moderate Islam,
for example, terrorist Osama bin Laden, who enjoys half the Arab-Islamic
world's support per an Al-Jazeera poll,[19] portrays the Prophet's sunna thusly:
"Moderation" is demonstrated by our prophet who did not
remain more than three months in Medina without raiding or sending a
raiding party into the lands of the infidels to beat down their
strongholds and seize their possessions, their lives, and their women.[20]
In fact, based on both the Qur'an and Muhammad's
sunna, pillaging and plundering infidels, enslaving their children,
and placing their women in concubinage is well founded.[21] And the concept of sunna—which is what 90
percent of the billion-plus Muslims, the Sunnis, are named
after—essentially asserts that anything performed or approved by Muhammad,
humanity's most perfect example, is applicable for Muslims today no less
than yesterday. This, of course, does not mean that Muslims in mass live
only to plunder and rape.
But it does mean that persons naturally inclined to such
activities, and who also happen to be Muslim, can—and do—quite easily
justify their actions by referring to the "Sunna of the Prophet"—the way
Al-Qaeda, for example, justified its attacks on 9/11 where innocents
including women and children were killed: Muhammad authorized his
followers to use catapults during their siege of the town of Ta'if in 630
C.E.—townspeople had refused to submit—though he was aware that women and
children were sheltered there. Also, when asked if it was permissible to
launch night raids or set fire to the fortifications of the infidels if
women and children were among them, the Prophet is said to have responded,
"They [women and children] are from among them [infidels]."[22]
Jewish and Christian Ways
Though law-centric and possibly legalistic, Judaism has no
such equivalent to the Sunna; the words and deeds of the patriarchs,
though described in the Old Testament, never went on to prescribe Jewish
law. Neither Abraham's "white-lies," nor Jacob's perfidy, nor Moses'
short-fuse, nor David's adultery, nor Solomon's philandering ever went on
to instruct Jews or Christians. They were understood as historical acts
perpetrated by fallible men who were more often than not punished by God
for their less than ideal behavior.
As for Christianity, much of the Old Testament law was
abrogated or fulfilled—depending on one's perspective—by Jesus. "Eye for
an eye" gave way to "turn the other cheek." Totally loving God and one's
neighbor became supreme law.[23]
Furthermore, Jesus' sunna—as in "What would Jesus do?"—is
characterized by passivity and altruism. The New Testament contains
absolutely no exhortations to violence.
Still, there are those who attempt to portray Jesus as
having a similarly militant ethos as Muhammad by quoting the verse where
the former—who "spoke to the multitudes in parables and without a parable
spoke not"[24]—said, "I come not to
bring peace but a sword."[25] But
based on the context of this statement, it is clear that Jesus was not
commanding violence against non-Christians but rather predicting that
strife will exist between Christians and their environment—a prediction
that was only too true as early Christians, far from taking up the sword,
passively perished by the sword in martyrdom as too often they still do in
the Muslim world. [26]
Others point to the violence predicted in the Book of
Revelation while, again, failing to discern that the entire account is
descriptive—not to mention clearly symbolic—and thus hardly prescriptive
for Christians. At any rate, how can one conscionably compare this handful
of New Testament verses that metaphorically mention the word "sword" to
the literally hundreds of Qur'anic injunctions and statements by Muhammad
that clearly command Muslims to take up a very real sword against
non-Muslims?
Undeterred, Jenkins bemoans the fact that, in the New
Testament, Jews "plan to stone Jesus, they plot to kill him; in turn,
Jesus calls them liars, children of the Devil."[27] It still remains to be seen if being called
"children of the Devil" is more offensive than being referred to as the
descendents of apes and pigs—the Qur'an's appellation for Jews.[28] Name calling aside, however, what
matters here is that, whereas the New Testament does not command
Christians to treat Jews as "children of the Devil," based on the Qur'an,
primarily 9:29, Islamic law obligates Muslims to subjugate Jews, indeed,
all non-Muslims.
Does this mean that no self-professed Christian can be
anti-Semitic? Of course not. But it does mean that Christian anti-Semites
are living oxymorons—for the simple reason that textually and
theologically, Christianity, far from teaching hatred or animosity,
unambiguously stresses love and forgiveness. Whether or not all Christians
follow such mandates is hardly the point; just as whether or not all
Muslims uphold the obligation of jihad is hardly the point. The only
question is, what do the religions command?
John Esposito is therefore right to assert that "Jews and
Christians have engaged in acts of violence." He is wrong, however, to
add, "We [Christians] have our own theology of hate." Nothing in the New
Testament teaches hate—certainly nothing to compare with Qur'anic
injunctions such as: "We [Muslims] disbelieve in you [non-Muslims], and
between us and you enmity has shown itself, and hatred for ever until you
believe in God alone."[29]
Reassessing the Crusades
And it is from here that one can best appreciate the
historic Crusades—events that have been thoroughly distorted by Islam's
many influential apologists. Karen Armstrong, for instance, has
practically made a career for herself by misrepresenting the Crusades,
writing, for example, that "the idea that Islam imposed itself by the
sword is a Western fiction, fabricated during the time of the Crusades
when, in fact, it was Western Christians who were fighting brutal holy
wars against Islam."[30] That a
former nun rabidly condemns the Crusades vis-à-vis anything Islam has done
makes her critique all the more marketable. Statements such as this ignore
the fact that from the beginnings of Islam, more than 400 years before the
Crusades, Christians have noted that Islam was spread by the sword.[31] Indeed, authoritative Muslim
historians writing centuries before the Crusades, such as Ahmad Ibn Yahya
al-Baladhuri (d. 892) and Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (838-923), make it
clear that Islam was spread by the sword.
The fact remains: The Crusades were a counterattack on
Islam—not an unprovoked assault as Armstrong and other revisionist
historians portray. Eminent historian Bernard Lewis puts it well,
Even the Christian crusade, often compared with the Muslim
jihad, was itself a delayed and limited response to the jihad and in
part also an imitation. But unlike the jihad, it was concerned primarily
with the defense or reconquest of threatened or lost Christian
territory. It was, with few exceptions, limited to the successful wars
for the recovery of southwest Europe, and the unsuccessful wars to
recover the Holy Land and to halt the Ottoman advance in the Balkans.
The Muslim jihad, in contrast, was perceived as unlimited, as a
religious obligation that would continue until all the world had either
adopted the Muslim faith or submitted to Muslim rule. … The object of
jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic law.[32]
Moreover, Muslim invasions and atrocities against Christians
were on the rise in the decades before the launch of the Crusades in 1096.
The Fatimid caliph Abu 'Ali Mansur Tariqu'l-Hakim (r. 996-1021) desecrated
and destroyed a number of important churches—such as the Church of St.
Mark in Egypt and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem—and
decreed even more oppressive than usual decrees against Christians and
Jews. Then, in 1071, the Seljuk Turks crushed the Byzantines in the
pivotal battle of Manzikert and, in effect, conquered a major chunk of
Byzantine Anatolia presaging the way for the eventual capture of
Constantinople centuries later.
It was against this backdrop that Pope Urban II (r.
1088-1099) called for the Crusades:
From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of
Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has
been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the
Persians [i.e., Muslim Turks] … has invaded the lands of those
Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it
has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it
has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the
churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own
religion.[33]
Even though Urban II's description is historically accurate,
the fact remains: However one interprets these wars—as offensive or
defensive, just or unjust—it is evident that they were not based on the
example of Jesus, who exhorted his followers to "love your enemies, bless
those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who
spitefully use you and persecute you."[34] Indeed, it took centuries of theological debate,
from Augustine to Aquinas, to rationalize defensive war—articulated as
"just war." Thus, it would seem that if anyone, it is the Crusaders—not
the jihadists—who have been less than faithful to their scriptures (from a
literal standpoint); or put conversely, it is the jihadists—not the
Crusaders—who have faithfully fulfilled their scriptures (also from a
literal stand point). Moreover, like the violent accounts of the Old
Testament, the Crusades are historic in nature and not manifestations of
any deeper scriptural truths.
In fact, far from suggesting anything intrinsic to
Christianity, the Crusades ironically better help explain Islam. For what
the Crusades demonstrated once and for all is that irrespective of
religious teachings—indeed, in the case of these so-called Christian
Crusades, despite them—man is often predisposed to violence. But this begs
the question: If this is how Christians behaved—who are commanded to love,
bless, and do good to their enemies who hate, curse, and persecute
them—how much more can be expected of Muslims who, while sharing the same
violent tendencies, are further commanded by the Deity to attack, kill,
and plunder nonbelievers?
Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle
East Forum and author of The Al Qaeda Reader (New York:
Doubleday, 2007).
[1] Andrea Bistrich, "Discovering
the common grounds of world religions," interview with Karen
Armstrong, Share International, Sept. 2007, pp. 19-22.
[2] C-SPAN2, June 5, 2004.
[3] Philip Jenkins, "Dark
Passages," The Boston Globe, Mar. 8, 2009.
[4] Deut. 20:16-18.
[5] Josh. 10:40.
[6]
"The
Fall of Jerusalem," Gesta Danorum, accessed Apr. 2, 2009.
[7] Qur. 9:5. All translations of Qur'anic
verses are drawn from A.J. Arberry, ed. The
Koran Interpreted: A Translation (New York: Touchstone,
1996).
[8] Qur. 9:29.
[9] Qur. 2:256.
[10] Ibn Khaldun, The Muqudimmah: An Introduction to
History, Franz Rosenthal, trans. (New York: Pantheon, 1958,) vol. 1,
p. 473.
[11] Majid Khadduri,
War and Peace in the Law of Islam (London: Oxford University Press,
1955), p. 60.
[12] See, for
instance, Ahmed Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi'l-Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya
Muqarina (Cairo: Al-Azhar University, 2003).
[13] Qur. 9:29.
[14] Qur. 9:5.
[15] Qur. 8:39.
[16] Ibn al-Hajjaj Muslim, Sahih Muslim, C9B1N31;
Muhammad Ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari (Lahore: Kazi,
1979), B2N24.
[17] Jenkins, "Dark_Passages."
[18] Qur. 33:21.
[19] "Al-Jazeera-Poll:
49% of Muslims Support Osama bin Laden," Sept. 7-10, 2006, accessed
Apr. 2, 2009.
[20] 'Abd al-Rahim
'Ali, Hilf al Irhab (Cairo: Markaz al-Mahrusa li 'n-Nashr wa
'l-Khidamat as-Sahafiya wa 'l-Ma'lumat, 2004).
[21] For example, Qur. 4:24, 4:92, 8:69, 24:33,
33:50.
[22] Sahih Muslim,
B19N4321; for English translation, see Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda
Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 140.
[23] Matt. 22:38-40.
[24] Matt. 13:34.
[25] Matt. 10:34.
[26] See, for instance, "Christian Persecution
Info," Christian Persecution Magazine, accessed Apr. 2,
2009.
[27] Jenkins, "Dark_Passages."
[28] Qur. 2:62-65, 5:59-60, 7:166.
[29] Qur. 60:4.
[30] Bistrich, "Discovering
the common grounds of world religions," pp. 19-22; For a critique of
Karen Armstrong's work, see "Karen
Armstrong," in Andrew Holt, ed. Crusades-Encyclopedia, Apr.
2005, accessed Apr. 6, 2009.
[31]
See, for example, the writings of Sophrinius, Jerusalem's patriarch during
the Muslim conquest of the Holy City, just years after the death of
Muhammad, or the chronicles of Theophane the Confessor.
[32] Bernard Lewis, The Middle East:
A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years (New York: Scribner, 1995), p.
233-4.
[33] "Speech
of Urban—Robert of Rheims," in Edward Peters, ed., The First
Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source
Materials (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), p.
27.
[34] Matt. 5:44. Related Topics: History, Islam, Jews and Judaism
Raymond
Ibrahim
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