Anti-Semetism and Islam

The name of thread may be a bit confusing since arabs are a semetic people aswell but in this thread Im writing about the jews.
Anyway.. I became tired of hearing how all the arabs are soo anti jew and horrible towards jews so I decided to tell the other side of the story (as usual ^^).

I dare to say that there has not existed a people who have been treating the jews as good as the muslims. When the jews were expelled by the christians from all of europe it was the muslims in Spain who accepted them. Acually.. they lived there about 700 years in peace together, with christians aswell. This continued until queen Isabella (known mostly for her sponsoring Columbos) destroyed the peace treaty with the muslims, proclaiming that all jews and muslims had to either become christian or get out! When this eventually happend it made 20 000 jews emmigrate from the lands they had lived in for so long. The situation of the muslims was even worse, they killed ever person who even seemed to be a bit islamic - like for instance if they took a bath on friday. I was in Damascus last year and I will if God wants to return this year, while I was there I saw great churchs going back long before the muslims came there but I kindly wonder what happend to the 10 000 mosques in Spain : )

They(jews) seeked refuge with the people of Marocko after being expelled from Spain and they were not denied. When the great caliph and companion of the prophet, Umar went to Jerusalem after its conquest the first issue he gave was to clean up the garbage the christians had dumped on the sacred place of the jews. Jews were once again allowed to enter the blessed land of Jerusalem (until the "christians" decided to come back and burn down their houses and throw them out again). Once again.. when the christians persecuted the jews they were accepted by the people of Turkey.

There is this interesting narration from the prophet(peace and blessing of Allah be upon him), he had a wife who had been jewish and converted to islam one day she told him someone had called her a jew in order to tease her. He told her to go back to this person and tell them that "my father is Aron, my uncle Moses and my husband is Muhammed". Showing that she should not feel ashamed of her great lineage and the Quran often speaks directly towards the jews, calling them by the name of their great father.

O Children of Israel! Remember My favor which I bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the `Alamin (nations) 2.47

Anyway.. History is funny. How the muslims today are portrayed as a barabaric people(some of that is due to their own fault) even though you will fail to find a people(a goverment) who have been more accepting of other religions in history.

 

I know this is all true, but I must say the muslims in the netherlands aren't being very friendly to jews. There are lots of anti-semetic incidents including muslims here. I don't want to conclude that this has to do with Islam as a religion but Turkish and Maroccan people are very anti-semitic here. In Amsterdam, par example, rabbi's are being harrassed when they go to the synagogue and everything. I recently read an interview where some muslim youngster said things like 'all Dutch are jews' and they didn't mean that friendly.

 

Yea I know your prolly 100% right. Today is different than yesterday... but what islam teaches and what muslim people do is two different things just like what christians have done may not always coincide with christianity.

Lets also remember that the muslims have been subjeced to enormous opression in Palestine, one cant deny that and I remember a poet who lived during ww2 who said: "that to those whom evil is done will evil do themselves" or someting like that and there is some meaning in that. I remember a saying of Hamza Yusus, the famous american muslim scholor who said once that he believed contrary to other views that islam is what still holds the middle east in tact and I can support him on this one. Even though the place is boiling, from what Ive seen from it the attitude from the majority is still restrained by the teachings of islam. If Europe were to face what these people have been facing(same opression/conflict and poverty) I seriously think WW3 would of started.

 

If anything is "funny" it is this absurd claim! In another thread, you readily admitted that Islam condones the execution of apostates:

http://hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52171

 

I'm glad you're here cabdirazzag, I've learned more about Islam from some of your posts than I ever learned in history class.

Sadly, the message I remember being taught in school was that Muslims from the begining were a fanatical distant offshoot of Judiasm that were bent on conquering the world and killing anyone who didn't believe as they did.

I wonder if our schools are still teaching this.

 

But did they ever force people with the sword to become muslims like another group were very found of doing(I wont call them christians because they wernt really following christianity). Did they slaughter to such an extent that some ethnics groups were wiped out? Did they start a holocast against jews claiming its Gods order, did they ever EVER touch any churches or were they left alone?

For instance, the peace treaty the famous companion Khalid signed with the christians of Damascus were:

"This is what Khalid ibn al-Walid would grant to the inhabitants of Damascus if he enters therein: he promises to give them security for their lives, property and churches. Their city wall shall not be demolished, neither shall any Muslim be quartered in their houses. Thereunto we give them the pact of Allah and the protection of His Prophet, the caliphs and the believers..."

Can you honestly tell me that the christians ever accepted another way of thinking in their countries or were even the scientist slaughtered for scientific examinations? Now this is among the reasons why science spread with arabs since the muslims were called to reflect about the creation in the Quran, I remember reading an article by the greatest science magazine here in Sweden which was named "Islam founded modern science" and if you study the history of science, you will have a difficult time not agreeing that it was indeed muslims who layed the important grounds for mathmetic, chemistry, medicine and astronomy aswell as keeping all the greek manuscripts from being destroyed by building great libraries and universities.

 

Thank you. Perhaps you should try reading the famous histroy book: "The lies my history teacher told me" youl be suprised of all euphism and wrongs some schools have been teaching about history in general. I wonder what history books from 500 years from now -if people exist that is- would say about this period of time?

The most funniest thing Ive heard of what when they told us that Columbus discovered that the world was round.. like people didnt know that LONG TIME before him? Very Odd.. the first globe was even found in the first university in Cairo and my teacher also said that he was first to find the place. Huh? The Vikings were there, the chinese were there so whats up?
One interesting thing by the way is that this journey was done the same year Spain became christian and if Im not mistakig I heard Columbus was a jew who had to change his name though Im not sure on that one and wernt the crew of the boat muslim slaves?

 

also he didnt even "half-discover america" either..he "discovered" the West Indes [which is politically incorrect, as it is not india]

 

As I noted on the thread I cited in my previous post, such crimes are clearly contrary to the teachings of Christ. Both Christianity and Islam have plenty of bad examples to point to. My point is that the Koran itself espouses violence against apostates.

First, Hitler was an occultist, not a Christian. The Discovery Channel ran an excellent report on this a few years ago:

http://shopping.discovery.com/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10000&catalogId=10000&langId=-1&productId=11874&partnumber=621631

Second, Muslim fanatics have oppressed plenty of Jews and Christians in recent decades.

See http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/christianscience.shtml.

 

There's a big contreversy over whether or not Columbus employed Muslim sailors on his expidition, his navagator in particular. you'll get a different story depending on who you talk to.

One thing though; There are alot of Muslim scholars saying that the Muslims in Portegal and Spain had making trips to the new world from as early as the late CE 700s. which falls in line with a report from some early european traders in North America who claimed to have run into tribes speaking Portugese.

 

I've only read part of the Quran, and I admit I don't know as much as I probably should about the historical relationship between Jews and Muslims- the situation in Israel, of course I know about that, but there were Jews and Muslims before Israel, and obviously, there are Jews and Muslims outside of Israel.

Most of what I know is from personal experience- I'm Jewish, and I've known a lot of Muslims growing up. I've never had an issue with Anti-Semetism. Muslim students in my high school, especially ones who moved here from the middle east, mostly hung out with eachother. Some of them were very friendly, and would talk to you if you were nice to them. Some of them ignored people. In other words, they were normal high school students.

But most people knew I was Jewish (seeing that I used to wear my star of david necklace everywhere), and the only anti-semitism I've ever recieved was from a person who was an Athiest. And he didn't even do anything that bad, he just made rude comments.

So at least I've never had any problems.

 

Not to mention the indigenous that had been hanging out there for some time.

People had known the world was round since at least ancient Greece.

 

At first Islam was supportive of Jews. Muslims have their holy day on friday because then it would start on the same day as the Jewish shabbat. And muslims at first prayed in the direction of Jerusalem.

 

If you wanted to convert from Islam to Judaism in a Muslim country, you'd be marked for death.

 

Exacly drumminmama, they are extremist and the prophet(peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) said concerning such: "Beware of Extremism in your religion as people before you were destroyed themselves because of their extremism".
Im acually suprised how some people use nationlistic racism which is strongly forbidden in islam and I dont know what to say when we see people shout "Down with America" or "May Gods curse be upon americans", now I ask, are they cursing the 60 year old woman who is working as a human sheild in iraq? Are they cursing the thousands of americans who hate injustice in what ever form it comes?

I dont really know what to say other than may Allah(may he be exalted) destroy ignorance with knowledge. The idea of seeing a nation with different people in it as one unit of evil is a question indeed. I remember a poet who said concerning the idea of "the bad killing the good" that eventually (if this was the case) there wouldnt be no human being left in the word since "the good of the bad are seen as the bad of the good" thus I reject Bushs statement your either with us or against us.

He is going against the very principles the united states was based on, and I hate the tyranny of the old goverment of iraq as much as the tyrani of those who removed this goverment.

Allah does not forbid you to deal justly and kindly with those who fought not against you on account of religion nor drove you out of your homes. Verily, Allah loves those who deal with equity[60.8]

 

Because Christians have never done anything like that.

 

As I said, this clearly contradicts the teaching of Christ, but not Mohammed!

 

Yes. Christians are not to tolerate heresy in their ranks, but heretics should be expelled, not killed!