Islam on Islam

A Muslim cleric has, at last, given a response to the charge of Manuel II Paleologos that Islam has been spread by the sword. Dr. Yousef al-Qaradawi, of the University of Qatar, observes that “the wars Muslims waged” in the time of Muhammed and the first Caliphs, “were aimed to liberate the persecuted peoples of the region from the hegemony of the Roman and Persian Empires.”

“The notion of wiping out infidels has no ground in Islam as duality of belief and disbelief is one of the rules governing the world in the Qur’anic verses.” That is, according to the Qur’an, it is left to God himself to destroy all non-Muslim nations at the end of time.

The following web site also gives an answer to the charge, dating from 1999:

http://www.islamicvoice.com/august.99/zakir.htm

It makes the valid point that Christians and Jews, in conquered Muslim territories like Egypt and Lebanon, were not forced to convert. Significant Christian and Jewish communities remained, and remain. Muslims merely had tax advantages—a considerably more enlightened policy than Europe pursued towards Muslims at the time. Similarly, although India was mostly ruled by Muslims for several centuries, the Hindus were permitted to continue to observe their religion.

There is an anomaly here in Islam, to the Christian mind. Islam can be separated into two entities: a tradition of law and government, and a personal faith. The tradition of law and government has indeed been spread by the sword, and the Qur’an seems to demand that it be spread by the sword. This is reflected, obliquely, in Dr. al-Qaradawi’s comments about Islam saving the people of the Middle East from Roman and Persian oppression. If Islam in this sense is simply moral and God-sanctioned government, it goes more or less without saying that it is right to spread it by force. Compare the current American, and western, faith in democracy and human rights. By rights, all world governments ought, to Islam, to be run on Islamic principles.

But private faith is another matter. Under a Muslim government, Christians, Jews, and even Zoroastrians or Hindus, have usually been left to believe what they like.

Seeing this dual nature of Islam, it is possible to see how Islam can maintain, at the same time, that there is no compulsion in religion, and that every Muslim has a permanent obligation to wage Holy War against infidels.