Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziah
Language: English | Format: PDF | Pages: 344 | Size: 7 MB
In
his book Islam and the west Norman Daniel wrote: People seem to take it
for granted that alien society is dangerous, if not hostile, and the
spasmodic outbreaks of warfare between Islam and Christendom throughout
history has been one manifestation of this. Apparently, under the
pressure of their own sense of danger, Whether real or not, beliefs take
shape in men’s minds. By misapprehension and misrepresentation, a
notion of ideas and beliefs of one society can pass into the accepted
myth of another society in a form so distorted that its relation to the
original facts is sometimes barely discernible. Doctrines that are the
expression of the spiritual outlook of an enemy are interpreted
ungenerously and with prejudice and even the facts are modified to suit
the interpretation. This process began among the Greeks whom the Arab
armies conquered when they occupied Syria… St John of Dainascus, born
fifty years after the Hijrah (precedented) The severe attitude of
condemning whatever Muslims believe in. In this Byzantine polemic, the
Anatrope, Niceta of Byzantium does not even try to understand the Qur’an
before refuting it. It follows that the God of Muhammad is really a
devil. Enemies of Islam, whatever their motives, will always exploit
much the same facts, as recently did Salman Rushdies Satanic Verses. As
they (Christians) resented the doctrines of Islam and saw them in the
light of their own misconceptions, they inevitably deformed them.
Anti-Islamic polemic inhibited any possible empathy with Muslims. The
main attack on Islam was already determined in the thirteenth century.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziah, a contemporary to the outcome of these polemics
against Islam, the Age of Decline, did not restrict himself from
delivering tit-for-tat replies, and sometimes he went overboard in some
of his descriptions equally demeaning the Christians and the Jews.
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