what do you think of present pope and his view of ISLAM(peace)?(PLEASE TRY TO READ MY DETAILS DOWN HERE)?

Question

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

There is no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

Why? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

The story about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Answer 1

EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAY IS TRUE .BUT LOOK AT YOUR COMMENTS BY OTHERS MOST OF THEM HAVE'NT EVEN READ IT AND JUST HAVE COMMENT ON YOU.PEOPLE DONT LIKE TO SEE,HEAR,READ THE "TRUTH"

Answer 2

Vatican City is an independent state since 1929.  The actual country name is The Holy See (State of the Vatican City).  The chief of state is the Pope.  I suspect the non-inclusion to the UN is because of the church/state spearation idea which is not a separate item inside Vatican City as the Church Officials run the City.  Hence the UN can not be seen as favoring one denomination over any others in the world. I don't get the question you make regarding the church heirarchy being ambassadors to the countries in which they reside? The way I view it is they come from the other countries but work in Vatican City however their home is still the country they came from.

Answer 3

I read your question in its entirety and I want to point out a few clear and obvious truths that you have completely ignored.

Truth #1: For all of human history, governments have used the religious beliefs of their people to maintain and/or expand their power base. A king who wanted to take over a neighboring land needed simply to say "God wills it!" This is true for any government in the world and any religion in the world.

Truth #2: In modern times, every religion on earth is subject to being corrupted by extremists. Muslim extremists are labeled "terrorists", Christian extremists are called "Ku Klux Klan". Regardless of what you call them, they focus exclusively on the most violent and barbaric passages of their religious texts to justify horrible actions against those they deem enemies.

Truth #3: The recent controversial speech of the Pope quoted an old text. They were not his original words. In any case, his message was that religions should not be in the business of using violence to bring people toward God. He chose a speech which singled out Muslims because any minimally observant person can see that violence is horribly and tragically prevalent in the Muslim world.

Answer 4

Do you always speak so much ? Well I wont read the entire text.
I was asking myself , who is spreading all this hatred, it it seems there is always some press in every little single part of the world to show us all what the little farmer in "Kashmir" is thinking about the Pope and vice versa. I think most of the atmosphere is "hand made" and not the reflection of what is really going on in the world !

Answer 5

An excellent lesson in history. I would have to study your comments to assure myself that they are all factual. They seem to be. Muslims of yesteryear were apparently different than those of today. Today we have Jihadists who are dedicated to the sword and conversion of everyone to the Islamic faith. In Mohammed's Koran he clearly talks about conversion to Islam and those who dedicate their lives to the cause will go to heaven.
I'll forget about the 72 virgins for now. Those who do not die in battle for Islam will also go to heaven but to a different heaven. This heaven is more like the Garden of Eden with beautiful flowers, streams, etc.
What a world!

Answer 6

I'm not sure what you're on about, but people around the world are getting very tired of the superiority complex shown by Muslims.

Answer 7

You're a liar. Where did you get that version of history, from your mosque? Because the history of Islam is ugly, violent, and bloody, you Muslims try continually to rewrite it.

Answer 8

the pope ONLY stated a fact!! islamic ppl just overreact ,take everything personally and they just wait for the second when someboy talks about their dear religion so they can have a reason to do more harm in this world!

Answer 9

One way or the other the vast majority of terrorist acts are commited by radical Muslims.

Answer 10

Assalamalaikum.

Finally, there are others who are finally speaking out and telling the whole truth and not a misguided Christian factoid.

Fellow truthseeker, there are very few of us, but we will be heard. Insh'Allah.

FYI Smiling Sam....check all historical accounts...it's Christianity who's bloodier and more atrocious. You can never deny that.

Allahu Akbar!!!