Guiscard wrote:Neoteny wrote:Simonov wrote:Neoteny wrote:ironically, since Muslims tend to have a distaste for Jews.
It's the other way round. Under muslim rule jews were never persecuted unlike what has been happening during last 50 or more years. I'd dislike too some one who took my land and is killing my people. Yes, i know things are more complicated but why can't u jews admit you're wrong? I also know i won't get anywhere with this discussion since i can see you're strongly biased.
Um... I'm not Jewish, and I hate all religions equally, so I'm not sure where that bias comes in. Jews have never been persecuted by Muslims? "Never" is such a strong word. Have you read the Qur'an? Mohammed himself is said to have slaughtered several Jewish tribes. And that's supposed to be the infallible word of god. Don't like Muslim sources? Here's a Jewish one.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Jews_in_Arab_lands_(gen).html
You'll have to copy and paste because I can't get the url tags to work for me today... so I just quoted it.
I may be biased, but you don't know what you're talking about. I realize that Muslim/Jewish relations aren't discussed in the bible, but things have happened in the last 2000 years or so. And Guiscard: I'm very disappointed in you.
Why? I'm a historian, primarily of the crusades. I've spent a lot of time studying the treatment of Jews by both Christians and Muslims. Although it is something of a generalisation, the Christian world treated Jews fairly abysmally whilst the Islamic world practiced a greater degree of toleration, and a lot of that was down to religious motivations. Upon the conquest of Jerusalem, the crusaders slaughtered the Jewish inhabitants. Richard the Lionheart, a romanticised English hero, declared he would have no Jews at his coronation and, indeed, when several Jewish leaders arrived to try and give him gifts and pay tribute he had them stripped, beaten and thrown out. This led to fairly major anti-Jewish pogroms in London and York. Martin Luther published a text entitled On Jews and Their Lies, which read 'base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth...devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine'...
Now I'm not saying that Islam was entirely innocent, there were certainly significant Jewish pogroms in Spain in the 11th century, but they were tolerated to a much greater degree than in western Europe. They were very rarely forced to convert, were generally allowed free practice of religion... intolerance of other religions is no more inherent to Islam than it is to Christianity.
Essentially, what I'm trying to illustrate is that the Islamic world had no particular issue with Judaism (indeed, Christianity had always suffered from more powerful anti-semitic sentiments) and that the current anti-semitic climate in the Arab and Persian world has much more to do with the (arguably) illegal operations of Israel. If the peoples who were allowed to settle in Isrsael and who then used military force to occupy and attempt to destroy the Muslim state already in existence had been, say, Buddhist then we'd get a great deal of anti-Buddhist sentiment in the Islamic world.
Muhammad fought many tribes, Pagan, Jewish... Islamic states and powers have fought amongst themselves for centuries... Does that make Muhammad anti-Islam as well?
As for your source, it seems to be rather general and biased. For example, the section of treatment of Dhimmi is pretty much wrong, and if not that certainly a gross generalisation. The imposition of distinctive clothing in Baghdad in the ninth century, for example, was a) Enforced very sparingly and b)the only documented case of this happening in the Islamic world at the time. It was certainly not general practice. I could elaborate on the rest of the points but you get my drift. Its a very biased source and not an accurate one whatsoever.
Meh, I'm not saying that my source wasn't biased, I noted that it was a Jewish source and used it to counter any Muslim bias from the Qur'an, and I didn't intend to say that the Jews were disliked more by Muslims than by any other people. Either way, the position of
dhimmis in the Muslim world have never been equal to that of a Muslim, and I would say that they were actively repressed. My main point is that Simonov said "Under muslim rule jews were never persecuted." This is flat-out wrong. Plus, I'm well aware of the xenophobic tendencies of religion; it's one of the characteristics that pushed me away the hardest.
You say the Islamic world has no issue with Jews. However, the Qur'an is taken as the direct word of god in Islam. Saying that it was written by man is blasphemy. And what god says, goes. Now, here are some quotes from the Qur'an, plus some Christian bashing as a bonus:
5.51: "Believers, do not take Jews or Christians as friends They are but one another's friends. If anyone of you takes them for his friends, then he is surely one of them. God will not guide evil-doers."
9.29, 30: "Declare war upon those to whom the Scriptures were revealed but believe neither in God nor the Last Day, and who do not forbid that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who refuse to acknowledge the true religion until they pay the poll-tax without reservation and are totally subjugated.
"The Jews claim that Ezra is a son of God, and the Christians say, 'the Messiah is a son of God.' Those are their claims which do indeed resemble the sayings of the Infidels of Old. May God do battle with them! How they are deluded!"
So sayeth the lord.
I will concede that, depending on the translation, the harshness can be reduced, and a google search will give both sides. I got these verses from
Why I Am Not A Muslim by Ibn Warraq. Guiscard, if you haven't already you should read it. He gives a review of Islamic scholarly inquiry and writes from the point of view of an ex-Muslim zealot. His resources are extensive, his logic convincing, and his past history is telling. My respect for scholarly inquiry leads me to take his side on most views. I highly recommend it.
EDIT: And I try to avoid the clusterfuck in Israel. It gives me a headache to think about it...