UNDERSTANDING ISLAM
by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Denver, Colorado
Yorktown Patriot, CO
Aug. 17, 2006
Over the past few decades, studies have shown again and again that
Americans tend to have a poor grasp of history. In fact, the scholar
Christopher Lasch once wrote that Americans love nostalgia, because
we see it as a form of entertainment. But we dislike real history,
because real historical facts are inconvenient. Yesterday helps
shape today. Real history places annoying obligations of truth on
our present and future, and gets in the way of re-inventing ourselves.
As a result, quipped a teacher friend, "history is whatever we say
it is, as long as we can get away with it."
I remembered her words recently as I read a news story. The story
reported an Islamic leader as suggesting that it was European
Christians, never Muslims, who tried to root out those who didn’t
agree with them.
Perhaps the reporter misunderstood the speaker. Perhaps the speaker
made an honest mistake. Both Muslims and Christians have committed
many sins against each other over the centuries. In the United States,
we have an opportunity to overcome that difficult history and learn
to live with each other in mutual acceptance. But respect can’t emerge
from falsehood.
Catholics who do know history may remember the following: Islam has
embraced armed military expansion for religious purposes since its
earliest decades. In contrast, Christianity struggled in its divided
attitudes toward military force and state power for its first 300
years. No "theology of Crusade" existed in Western Christian thought
until the 11th century. In fact, the Christian Byzantine Empire had
already been resisting Muslim expansion in the East for 400 years
before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade – as a defensive response
to generations of armed jihad.
Much of the modern Middle East was once heavily Christian. Muslim
armies changed that by imposing Islamic rule. Surviving Christian
communities have endured centuries of marginalization, discrimination,
violence, slavery and outright persecution – not always and not
everywhere; but as a constant, recurring and central theme of Muslim
domination.
That same Christian suffering continues down to the present. In the
early years of the 20th century, the Muslim Ottoman Empire murdered
more than 1 million Armenian Christians for ethnic, economic, but also
religious reasons. Many Turks and other Muslims continue to deny that
massive crime even today. Coptic Christians in Egypt – who, even after
13 centuries of Muslim prejudice and harassment, cling to the faith –
continue to experience systematic discrimination and violence at the
hands of Islamic militants.
Harassment and violence against Christians continue in many places
throughout the Islamic world, from Bangladesh, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan
and Iraq, to Nigeria, Indonesia and even Muslim-dominated areas of the
heavily Catholic Philippines. In Saudi Arabia, all public expressions
of Christian faith are forbidden. The on-going Christian flight from
Lebanon has helped to transform it, in just half a century, from a
majority Christian Arab nation to a majority Muslim population.
These are facts. The Muslim-Christian conflict is a very long one,
rooted in deep religious differences, and Muslims have their own long
list of real and perceived grievances. But especially in an era of
religiously inspired terrorism and war in the Middle East, peace is
not served by ignoring, subverting or rewriting history, but rather
by facing it humbly as it really happened and healing its wounds.
That requires honesty and repentance from both Christians and
Muslims. Comments like those reported in the recent news story I read –
claiming that historically, it was European Christians, never Muslims,
who tried to root out those who disagreed with them – are both false
and do nothing to help.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
