How Was The Qur'anic Doctrine Announced To the World? (9)

HOW WAS THE QUR’ANIC DOCTRINE

ANNOUNCED TO THE WORLD?

The Qur’anic principle which legally determines the relation of the Muslim community to other nations and religions is generally called “tolerance”. However, this naming may be considered unrealistic in certain aspects, because: 1-The peoples who do not adopt the creed of Islam but submit peacefully to its civil law, are not only tolerated but also respected. Their persons, their properties, their religions and customs are protected. Islam undertakes to assure these liberties and to guarantee equal protection to every person لهم مالنا وعليهم ماعلينا. 2 - As for those who do not accept the creed or the law of Islam, the Qur’an does request from them an inoffensive attitude to secure for themselves in return the most generous treatment founded altogether on justice and beneficence, “Allâh 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, Allâh loves those who deal with equity.” (LX, 8).

However, when incredulity directs its shot against the faith for persecuting and annihilating it, will it be conceivable that the religion will sit with folded arms and look passively on its own extermination?

The first Muslims lived the two experiences early on and noticed, in the favour of faith itself, that nothing is as good as the exchange of ideas in peace and in liberty. Also, it is said that, during the truce of Hudaibya, due to the opening of the frontiers between the two opposite zones, the number of those who converted to Islam exceeded by far that of all the preceding years. Nevertheless, whoever pretends that he has discovered another aim in that struggle is requested to give us an approximate number of the proselytes won by Islam due to severe means.

We can certainly suppose some errors committed, however unavoidable, in the periods of confusion. We can even suspect some deviation of intention from the following generations. Yet, let us first listen to a confession of one contemporary critic who did not declare himself in favour of the Islamic regime: “In spite of the official obstacles put in the way of conversion, there was conversion by mass (p. 217). Never did the Arabs, in all the ardour for their new faith, seek to extinguish in the blood any rival religion (P. 207). As opposed to the Christians and the Manichaeans ^[1], a Caliph never resorted to persecution” (p. 208).

The miseries deplored during the Islamic conquests were so little and the operations were so rapid that we sometimes have the impression that the doorways were already semi-open before the conquerors who had just to push ahead. This rapidity, the establishment of the order and the reign of justice which immediately followed, saved plenty of human and material losses. While the Protestant Reform which had amended only some articles of Christianity cost Europe far more deplorable pains and mournings.

Any artificial construction, if it lives for a moment depending on an acquired force tends to break up as soon as the unusual factors which contributed to its construction disappear. However now, what do we see after the elapse of fourteen centuries and the cessation of the Islamic expansion? Although this institution propagated among people of different races, languages, colours and climates from China to Morocco and from Lithuania to Mozambique, and was exposed throughout history to all the agents of interior and exterior destruction, its religious and moral structure remains solid. Thus, we may affirm with certainty that it has never happened since the beginning of Hejira that a Muslim converted to another religion.[2] In addition, Muslims are less willing to abandon their belief than the followers of any other religion. Isn't it contrary to psychological interpretations to attribute this indefectible attachment to a sort of an atavistic conduct whose origin was a simple constraint exerted on their very early ancestors and whose remembrance is still kept engraved in their cerebral structure? Consequently, it is inevitable to admit the existence of certain intrinsic qualities which have permitted Islam such an extension and such a fixation in spite of its very distant origin.