The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> A little history from historians

A little history from historians
Posted by AssyrianMuslim (Guest) - Sunday, November 30 2008, 4:54:22 (CET)
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There is a book written by the prominent historian/scholar Thomas W Arnold who was also a Christian missionary worker in India. Is a well recognized historian and can not be accused of prejudices because he was also a Christian. From his book "The preaching of Islam" I will quote something very true.

"..of any organized attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion, we hear nothing. Had the caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action, they might have swept away Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella drove Islam out of Spain, or Louis XIV made Protestantism penal in France, or the Jews were kept out of England for 350 years. The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christiandom throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of Mohammedan [sic] governments towards them"
. Arnold, Sir Thomas W. THE PREACHING OF ISLAM, A HISTORY OF THE PROPAGATION OF THE MUSLIM FAITH, Westminister A. Constable & Co., London, 1896, p. 80.

Here is Dr Huston Smith

"…Muslims point to the long centuries during which in India, Spain, and the Near East, Christians, Jews, and Hindus lived quietly and in freedom under Muslim rule. Even under the worst caliphs, Christians and Jews held positions of influence and in general retained their religious freedom. The Christians, not Muslims, we are reminded, expelled the Jews in the fifteenth century from Spain where they had lived in freedom while the Muslims were in power. To press this example: Spain and Anatolia changed hands at about the same time — Christians expelled the Moors from Spain while Muslims conquered what is now Turkey. Every Muslim was driven from Spain, or put to the sword, or forced to convert, whereas the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church remains in Istanbul to this day. Indeed, if comparisons are the issue, Muslims consider Christianity’s record to be the darker of the two. Who was it, they ask, who preached the Crusades in the name of the Prince of Peace? Who instituted the inquisition, invented the rack and the stake as instruments of religion, and plunged Europe into its devastating wars of religion?"[5



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