Copyright © 2010 by Chester B Cabalza. All Rights Reserved.
Today Islam has over a billion followers. It is the second largest monotheistic religion in the world after Christianity. It is no wonder that Islamic faith is spreading rapidly, and alarmingly, Muslim communities or umma are also apparent in many western societies of Europe and the United States. Because of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in New York and Washington, it unleashed so much alarm on security worldwide. Many countries of the international community single-handedly condemned the inhumane and violent acts of those accused Muslim groups. Thus, begun the witch-hunting of illustrious Osama bin Laden, multimillionaire and charismatic leader of the global terror group, Al Qaeda.
Because of prevalent fear to most westerners that same terrorist acts would happen in their homelands, their governments are scrupulously monitoring Muslim communities in their sovereign territories to safeguard national security. Imposing laws like no wearing of head scarf or any religious icons in any public places in France; the discrimination of many Muslim South Asians in the United Kingdom; and the blacklisting of suspicious Arabs and North Africans as terrorists in many American immigration offices.
These are some tangible discrimination against people of different color and ethnic groups. Those struggles have strongly led to further schism between the Christian West and some portions of the Islamic East. Although, there had been series of bombings in Spain, Russia and the United Kingdom, and including member-countries of the Influential Islamic Organization Conference (IOC) like Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and Indonesia, but this did not deter the Islamic faith, instead it only strengthened the umma or the Muslim community.
The Rapid Spread of Islam
The rapid spread of Islam can be traced back since its classical age. At that time, the First Four Caliphs were established from 632-661 BCE and the first caliphs ruled from Medina in Arabia (Martin, 1996:26). They were known among Sunni Muslims as the Rashidun, or “rightly guided” caliphs, because they had been companions of the Prophet. By the end of the period, Medina proved to be an impractical command post for the growing empire. Arab militias led by able commanders had conquered and begun to settle in Iran, Iraq and Egypt.
Then the Umayyad Caliphs (661-750 CE) assumed power under an Arab dynasty that ruled in Damascus, Syria. This was the period of the consolidation of Arab rule and gradual growth of Arabic culture and Arab influence over the still existing languages and institutions of previous civilizations (Martin, 1996:26). The Arabic Qu’ran played a key role in this development.
In the century following the death of Muhammed in 632 BCE, (Murphey, 2000:37), Islamic forces swept across North Africa and the rest of Arabia. The Islamized Moors of North Africa conquered Granada of Spain and were finally turned back in their advance into France at a battle near Tours in 732 CE. Muslim navies (Denny, 1994: 93) dominated vast stretches of the Mediterranean by that time, and southern shoreline, as well as the coast of Spain and the easternmost coasts, were under Muslim domination.
By the mid-eighth (mid-8th) century, the Islamic empire constituted the dominant power system across the arid zone from the Atlantic to the frontiers of India. This was the first western territory Islam had successfully occupied, and the crossing over into Europe of Muslim forces in that year was the result of long march across North Africa.
But Christians in the eleventh (11th) century planned to re-conquer Andalusia or the Iberian peninsula of Spain under the command of Charles Martel, in which the Crusades started to challenge the two great faiths. For the Christians, (Sardar, 1999:21) the crusades were a major movement against Islam, and they were also movement within Europe against enduring pockets of paganism and against heretics.
At that time, the Arab culture already flourished under the Spanish Muslims, later known as the ‘Moors’, in Granada in northern Spain, and became the melting pot between the Christendom and the Islamic world. In fact, the Moors had influenced Spain’s literature, philosophy, and architecture today, such as the ‘El Cid’ and the Spanish language itself bore witness to Islamic heritage, for it had served as a conduit of many Arabic words into western languages.
Philosophical exchanges between two great faiths and traditions were also apparent at that time. Islamic philosophy (Martin, 1996:122) looked back to al-Farabi as the Second Teacher. But the greatest Muslim philosopher in Islamic history was Ibn Sina (428/1037) or Avicenna. He produced a masterly synthesis of Greek and Islamic wisdom. In fact, (Sardar, 1999:22) the view of Islamic philosophy articulated strongly by Avicenna, that man can never have a direct audience with God, began to gain a small foothold in academic quarters of Christendom.
After the Ummayad caliphate fell in Damascus, another Arab family has risen - the Abbasids (750-1258 CE). In 750 CE, the seat of power shifted to Baghdad as its capital, also known as ‘the City of Peace’ at that time, along the banks of the Tigris River in Mesopotamia. The construction of the original city of Baghdad suggested that beyond its political and economic importance, it was intended to have special symbolic significance. The city was regarded by some as the “navel of the universe,” a designation that had been applied already to sacred cities such as Jerusalem (Martin, 1996:69). It has been suggested that the circular city of Baghdad was a “conscious attempt to relate meaningfully to the conquered world, by Islamizing forms and ideas of old.”
Under the Abbasid rule, Arab hegemony gave way to increasing influence from other elements within the Islamic population. It was also during this period in which classic schools of Islamic Law and theology flourished. As an evidence to the Abbasid Golden Age of scholarly success, (Sardar, 1999:24) a certain Florentine Ricoldo de Montecroce, perhaps a Venetian merchant or scholar, came to Baghdad in 1291 CE. He was totally blind to Muslim learning and intellectual achievements, which at that time presented the zenith of civilization. Out of his biases, his major concern was to attack Islam which he called lax and described Muslims as confused, mendacious, irrational, violent, obscure, and so on. Although, the Abbasid caliphate was indeed, a flourishing and sophisticated academic center.
But the feisty Mongol warriors ended the Classic Age of Islamic Empire under the institution of the caliphate. Originating from Siberia, the ‘barbaric Mongols’, described by western historians, invaded Arabia under the brilliant command of Genghis Khan but ironically, with just a few decades, many of the Mongol lords who occupied the ‘Abode of Islam’ would themselves became Muslims, and the general shape of Islamic civilization remained remarkably without the caliphate of its political symbol.
Fall of the Caliphates and Western Dominion
After the fall of the caliphate, westerners had tooted and perceived Islam negatively. Islam, as it was known as ‘the religion of the sword’ to the west, came into being with the rise of the Ottoman Empire (1412-1918 CE). The Muslims known to most Europeans after the sixteenth (16th) century were called Saracens. In fact, they were the Ottoman Turks, a Sunni Islamic empire. As the Ottoman Empire expanded its territories westward to Europe and spread Islam, (Sardar, 1999:2). Europeans perceived Muslims as unfathomable and exotic, and their places of origin as ‘erotic place where mysteries dwell and cruel and barbaric scenes are staged’. For Christendom which was the realm of the west at that time, Islam was the darker side of Europe. Many Christians at that epoch, deemed that the image of Muhammad as the bearer of the sword was an Antichrist and Islam as a sinister of conspiracy against Christianity.
During the Medieval period, Europe had been acutely aware of the superior learning of Muslim civilization, but they still regard the Ottomans, who were most often described as ‘tartars’ and ‘barbarians’. And Christian scholars like Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, called Muhammad as “an illiterate barbarian”. In the book Orientalism by Sardar, it suggested that, “In Christendom many think the Turks are devils, barbarians, and men of no faith and honesty…they are devout and charitable; very zealous of their religion…” (Sardar, 1999:32). Here, fanatical attachment was a major ingredient of stereotype. Furthermore Byron, an English poet wrote about the Turkish Tales in 1811, captivated the Turks as subjects of his poems with gratuitous violence, irrational vengeance, and cold-hearted barbarity which represented the darker side of Romanticism. Christian scholars also negatively wrote about the Turkish Harem, which was evidently cited by Sardar as a representative of the antithesis of all that the west deemed of sexuality at that time.
The Safavids of Persia (1500-1779 CE), with a Shi’i dynasty established their capital in Isfahan, then one of the most beautiful cities in Islamic world. They retained power until the mid-eighteenth (mid-18th) century, when they were overthrown by Muslim warlords from Afghanistan. While the Ottomans and Safavids were carrying out their empires (Martin, 1996:32), Turkish and Afghani warlords moved into India to establish the Islamic Empire of the Mughals (a form of the word Mongol) from 1526-1730 CE. Sunni in religious persuasion, the Mughal rulers made Delhi their capital and an example of an impressive royal palace patterned after Islamic influence was the Taj Mahal. The remarkable growth of Islam in India was not so much to the Sunni religious commitments of the rulers but rather to the Sufis or mystics, whose modes of piety were particularly at home in the Indian environment. As the bearer of the swords in spreading Islam, western historians like Tonybee used derogatory words in describing the Muslims, “the barbarians are played by the Turkish and Mongol hordes of Central Asia, and also the Berbers of North Africa and the Arab nomads of Arabia,” (Sardar, 1992:52). Out of Tonybee’s western biases, he did not cite the greatness of Ottoman Empire which massively acquired territories and converted many infidels.
When Islam reached India and Southeast Asia was still empowered by ‘Indianization’, many Indian merchants, Arab traders and missionaries transported Islam to maritime Southeast Asia (with Indonesia, being the largest Muslim country in the world today, after the fall of the last Indianized Majapahit Empire). Islam was introduced to Indonesia in thirteenth (13th) century and the Kingdom of Pasai (in northern Sumatra) converted to Islam. By fifteenth (15th) century, it incorporated most of Malaya and southern Philippines. By 1414 Parameswara, the last prince of Srivijaya converted to Islam and started the Sultanate of Malacca on Malay Peninsula (Murphey, 2000: 129-130). In fact, in Tomas Pires’ ethnography of Malacca, he described it as, “a cornucopia of riches, the greatest entrepot port in the world, and was seat of a Muslim Sultanate,” (Sardar, 1992:28).
The Place of Jihad in Islam
In as much as to understand Islam consciously, jihad known as the sixth Muslim pillar, has played an iconic role to the mission of most Islam faithful. The belief of submitting oneself to Allah as a supreme sacrifice has put the reputation of ‘Islam as a religion of the sword’. The Qu’ran (Murphey, 2000:37), sanctions holy war (jihad) against unbelievers, and the killings of infidel. Jihad may be waged by four means: the heart, the tongue, the hand, and only when those fail, the sword.
Jihad (Fisher 1990, Martin 1996, Adamec 2003) is considered to be the sixth Muslim Pillar. It means exertion of Allah’s service. An ‘effort in the way of God’ and it is believed that a Muslim who dies in jihad is a shahid or martyr and directly enters the paradise. More so, in Islamic doctrine about jihad, according to Adamec (2003), he believes that Muslim in battle, an enemy is given three choices: 1) accept Islam and enjoy rights of equality with Muslims; 2) submit and become a tribute paying subject with religious freedom and protection of one’s property; and 3) fight and leave the judgment of God, in which case a defeated enemy go to hell.
Qu’ranic Interpretation of Jihad
The importance of jihad based from Qu’ranic interpretation, is often illustrated by citing words of the Prophet uttered in one occasion when he had returned from Medina from a battle with the enemies of the new religion. He said, ‘we have returned from the lesser jihad to the great jihad.” The people said, “O Messenger of God, what jihad could be greater than struggling against the unbelievers with the sword?” he replied, “struggling against the enemy is your own breast.” Underlining this belief, these words have played the role of patriotic slogans everywhere. From my point of view, jihad is simply the complement of Islam, since Islam means ‘submission’, and submission demands struggle.
But among Muslim modernists in Turkey and Malaysia, they often quote Qu’ranic passage, “fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but do not commit aggression…(2:190)” to cease radical form of jihad around the world. This kind of jihad is called jihad akbar or “the great effort,” which is more important as it strives to achieve man’s personal perfection; and jihad within the umma addresses wrongs within the community of Muslims.
Historical Roots and Political Relevance
Perhaps with the use of the sword as a means of spreading Islam and converting the unbelievers, the west blatantly accused Muslims as barbaric and fanatical to their religion. This perception of westerners as apparently read in their literature and heard of from their stories, captured the idea of ‘Islam as a religion of the sword’. The historical roots of ‘Islam as a religion of the sword’, mesmerized the consciousness of the enemies, with vivid depiction that “the real Moors in the way they used to be rich and great, both terrifying and voluptuous, the ones that are to be found only in past history,” and “Muslim mood swung like a pendulum from fanatic zeal to desperation, from one extreme to another. Because of these extremes, Islamic civilization was self-destructive and on the verge of writing itself out of history. Islam now had nothing to offer except fanaticism, despotism…and Islam looms as a nigtmare…” (Sardar, 1999: 48-49).
But for Connerny (2001), he deems that unlike Christianity or Judaism, Islam's religious history is inseparable from its conquests - which is why the concept of jihad or holy war lives on today. He stresses that there is reason to believe that there is something inherent in the history and texts of the religion that leads to this behavior.
At the core of Islamic history is the fact of the unification of the tribes of Arabia into a powerful medieval military force, one that overran the waning power of the Byzantine Empire and the Persians in the Levant. Islam, from its inception, is a political as well as a religious movement, and the themes of religion, politics and law are inseparable in the Qu’ran and in Islam as a whole. In short, Islam does not have a religious history apart from its political history.
This is in distinction from Judaism and Christianity, in which the religious community both pre-dates and post-dates the existence of a Jewish or Christian political state. In Connerny’s insinuation, as a westerner, he perceives that jihad is not a secondary concept in the development of Islam, but something grafted on to the original religious message - rather it is the very origin of Islam, the sine qua non of the faith.
Current Western Perceptions on Islam
Today, the Judeo-Christians which represent the hegemonic power of the West have biases towards Islam and countries which embraced the religion that waged war with their enemies for so long in history in the name of religion. From the Crusades from eleventh (11th) to fourteenth (14th) centuries, to Arab – Israeli War in 1960’s, the Desert storm in 1980’s, to Afghanistan and Iraq War in this early millennium. These are major remnants of misunderstanding between the warring religions of Christianity and Islam. Indeed, in the evolution about the perception of ‘Islam as a religion of sword,’ it undermines the relationship of two great monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam, the first is identified with the west and the latter is recognized as part of the east which rupture complex connection and further cause schism and love-hate relation among its followers.
Because of discrimination imposed by western societies to pockets of umma in their territories, as well as to Islamic states, Muslims are turning to religion as a major cause of misunderstanding and use beliefs and traditions, jihad in the case of Muslim faith, to solve these complex problems. Huntington further argues that, Muslims in massive numbers are simultaneously turning to Islam as a source of identity, meaning, stability, legitimacy, development, power, and hope, epitomized in the slogan “Islam is solution”.
In fact, early in the Christian encounter with Islam, Muslims were interpreted by Christians in light of Genesis 16:1 and 21:12-14 as descendants of Abraham through Ishmael, his son through his concubine Hagar. In 735 CE, the identification of Muslims as descendants of Ishmael and Christians as the descendants of Isaac.
In the period between 1100 and 1500, Latin Christianity became more aware of the world of Islam than previously. The most positive contribution to this awareness was that made by Peter the Venerable (1094-1156 CE), then Abbot of Cluny, France. He commissioned the translation of the Qu’ran and other Muslim religious texts into Latin in eleventh (11th) century and marked the beginning of serious study of Islamic religion (Martin, 1996:34).
Today, the need for interfaith dialogue between the two religions begins with a sincere and righteous mission of respecting faith and traditions of both cultures. Both faith marks a constructive and destructive moments and events of human history, but what is essential is for the west to cease discrimination with the Muslims and Islamic east stop intimidating Christians. Hence, certain misconceptions would only lead to massive vengeance and misunderstanding, on both sides.
Conclusion
Islam has achieved its gall end goal of spreading the religion, and in a way it has won almost the entire world with over a billion followers and still counting, around the globe from different walks of life. From a small and emerging tribe of the Prophet Muhammad to prosperous caliphates and powerful empires which caught the attention of the western world – Muslims as the bearer of the sword has come their way. Its fierce use of the sword in spreading the faith has tainted the faith as a ‘religion of the sword’, which led the ‘others’ to perceive it that way. It has blossomed to a great Islamic civilization, at par with western achievements, and still asserting its significance in the world history today.
Contrary to the western beliefs and long-term memories of Muslims’ barbarism and fanaticism, disciples of Islam are in fact religious, believers of love and peace, and descendants of Abraham, from which Jews and Christians also regard as the common ancestor.
This continuous western reactions and misconception of Islam and to Muslims demonstrate the traditional ‘Orientalist’ perception which was initially discussed by Edward Zaid and reiterated by Ziauddin Sardar as a general discourse of western misconception and biases toward Islam and Muslims. This consciously affect their relations in the past, maybe at present times, or perhaps even in the future – the west will always behave and act based from these perceptions and will certainly judge Islam based from its successes and failures.
The misconception of the Christian west about Islam and the Muslims has a psychological affect in today’s international relations. The west will always have negative notions with archnemesis Muslims states, even before, when Islam was still starting to morph as a new religion. Consequently, more lives had been sacrificed in trying to mend differences, but still, many believers of these two great faiths are hoping to solve these complex problems of mistrust, disunity, and biases between the Christian west and the Islamic east.
Bibliography
Ademac, L., 2003. The A to Z of Islam, Subcontinent: Vision Books Pvt., Ltd.
Ayoob, M. (ed.), 1981. The Politics of Islamic Reassertion, London: Croom Helm.
Connerny, R., 2001. Is Islam a Religion of the Sword? Internet published paper.
Denny, F., 1994. An Introduction to Islam, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Second Edition.
Farmer, E., et. al., 1997. Comparative History in Asia, California: Addison-Wesley Publishing, Company, Inc.
Fisher, N., 1990. The Middle East: A History, New York: The Ohio State University Press.
Fukuyama, F., 2002. Today’s New Fascist, Newsweek Magazine, December 2001 – February.
Huntington, S., December 2001- February 2002. The Age of Muslim Wars, Newsweek Magazine.
Martin, R., 1996. Islamic Studies: A History of Religious Approach, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, Second Edition.
Murphey, R., 2000. A History of Asia, Michigan: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
Sardar, Z., 1999. Orientalism, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
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