Abstract: It’s been three years since the horrifying events of September 11, 2001. The whole world is still experiencing its aftershocks with no end in sight. But on a more individual basis, soon after that fateful day many people began forming considerably different views of the world they live in than they had before. Personally, as a non-religious, secular Canadian of Egyptian-Muslim background, I changed my own perspectives on several fronts. In particular, my normally disinterested understanding of the relation between a religion’s teachings and the conduct of its followers turned into great curiosity. Article:

or the first time ever I began to look at how certain aspects of a religion, any religion, influence its followers, either positively or negatively.

My main focus of interest was how a religion affected the way its followers treated the followers of other religions. After all, I never heard a preacher of any of the so-called great religions preach that all religions are equal, compared to how easily they usually preach that all races are equal, for example.

The number of times I’ve heard certain televangelists insult Islam explicitly or implicitly, and extol the virtues of Christianity, putting it above all other faiths!

Whilst living in Egypt for nearly four decades, I never heard a Muslim preacher insult Christianity in any manner explicit or implicit. It would be totally condemnable and unacceptable, and we shall see why in Part Three of this series. But they also never, ever preached that all religions are equal. To them Islam was and is the final revelation of the God of Abraham, and therefore the religion all humanity ought to follow.

Since no amount of "tolerance" or compromise can bring a traditional clergy-man around to declare all religions equal, this obstacle still poisons global understanding to a great extent. Even from the days of ancient Egypt, Pharaohs chiselled temple walls to erase the images of gods of previous Pharaohs. They often even destroyed whole temples and all other signs of the previous gods whom they replaced with their own.

So when it comes to which god to worship, how, and through whom, each person’s religion is the one and only. In religion and gods we are not all equal, "we" are the best, whoever "we" is.

Since that is the case with religion, then one of the most reliable ways to judge what any religion is truly like toward other human beings, is through its most difficult aspect, how it influences the way its followers treat those from other religions under diverse situations and circumstances.

But how do we assess a religion on that criterion, do we look at its teachings on that matter, do we look at what its holy books advise on it, do we look at the example of its prophets and their attitudes towards non- believers, or what? I guess the reader will already have formulated the obvious answer: we can realistically assess a religion on that matter only through the facts on the ground, the actual behaviour of the followers of a religion toward others.

In other words, no single issue - holy books, holy verses, life style of prophets - can be indicative of how a religion affects the conduct of its followers. It is the holistic effect of a religion as demonstrated by how its followers actually treat others that gives us a true picture of its workings. And one robust way to investigate that is through its history.

History provides an exhaustive, concrete written record of how diverse religious traditions treated others across the ages under various circumstances and situations, and across regions of the world. Such a record can give us a true picture of what a religion is all about in that respect. It would certainly tell us much more about the holistic nature of that religion than any amount of analysis of its teachings and holy books.

Once we establish how well or badly it performed on that point - how it treated those of other religions - then perhaps we could start searching its holy books, teachings, or whatever, for the possible reasons behind it. That would undoubtedly be the harder task.

The first part is basically reading the history of a religion across time and space. That is fairly straightforward and could be easily applied to any religion that has a written history. So the question then is how did Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and other followers of religions of humanity fare in their treatment of followers of other faiths over the ages? Focus on Islam In looking for an answer to 9/11 in Islam, the focus of the western media was specifically on The Qur'an (aka The Koran) - the Islamic holy book - and particular "verses" in it, something I found trivial from the start. For one thing, I knew the answer lay in politics rather than religion. Second, I read the Old Testament in its entirety years ago and was horrified by what I read. But like most ancient books it did not surprise me, and it had no relation in my mind to what I expected of Jews, or how I viewed the Jews I knew or did not know. I had read little of the New Testament back then, but still there was enough in what I had read that was very unflattering. So religious texts were not where I believed the answer lay, if indeed we expected to find an answer in religion at all.

The debates I watched on American television, and analyses I read in the media after 9/11, rather than reasoned argument, were often full of hate and venom hurled at Islam. Every argument the haters made was easily refutable and served to open my eyes further as to how wrong they were. In fact, their arguments could be easily turned against them, and often applied to them alone rather than to Islam at all.

Initially, just after 9/11, my interest - like everyone else’s - focussed on Islam. But watching such haters ply their hatemongering trade inevitably forced me into making comparisons with Christianity (and to a lesser extent, Judaism).

The revelations my search led me to regarding the three monotheistic religions - were staggering and sobering. However, in this analysis, I will focus mainly on Islam, with comparisons only where they are unavoidable.

The data that eventually interested me the most and were the most revealing dealt with Islam and Muslims post the 9/11 tragedy up to this day. But that begs first investigating the history of Islam across the some 1300 years that came before those last three years. Centuries of Evidence One can simply begin by stating that across 1300 years of various Islamic empires, which at times stretched from one end of the Old World to the other, Christians and Jews lived under conditions that were rarely, if ever, enjoyed by minorities under the rule of others. Even the Ottoman Turks, known for their ruthlessness in war, did not try to eliminate Christianity in the Balkan nations they ruled for several centuries.

The inhabitants of the region emerged from that extended period of Muslim rule as Christian as ever, their holy places, monasteries, churches and shrines intact and secure. The Balkans In that example, we see Christian peoples under four hundred years of absolute Islamic rule, when no NATO, no America, no power could have stopped Muslims from doing as they wished with their conquered subjects, and yet they never forced those Christian populations -which were totally at their mercy- to convert to Islam. Neither did they exterminate them nor ethnically cleanse them or even place them in concentration camps or relegate them to reservations. Any of those options they could have easily carried out with impunity back then, yet they never did any of that. That reality is not only in written records, but in the real live evidence of millions of thriving Balkan Christians.

If Islam truly commands its followers to kill all "infidel", as Islam haters would have us believe, those lands would have all long been European Islamic nations today. Serbs would not be worrying at this time about their sacred monasteries being damaged during the Kosovo war, they would have long been razed to the ground, and they, the Serbs, long either exterminated or converted to Islam.

None of the Ottoman Islamic rulers, who came and went over the four hundred year period did that. That's why Greeks, Macedonians, Serbs, Bulgarians and others remained Christian, alive and well after centuries living under absolute Islamic rule.

In four entire centuries, not just four decades, no Nazi-minded Islamic ruler happened along and butchered them all, forced them to leave, or even forced them to convert to Islam. Mind you, one cannot overemphasize the fact that this was all long before human rights declarations, Geneva conventions, United Nations organizations, NATO, American military might, or any of that.

Some may argue that perhaps such admirable Islamic rule was just a fluke or only confined to that region, even for four hundred years, hard as that may be to imagine, while in other regions or other times, other Muslim rulers were massacring Christians and Jews, forcing them to convert, expelling them, etc., so let us explore further . . . EGYPT A quick look across the regions and ages where Islam ruled in the world will produce the exact same results. In Egypt, which was the seat of several Islamic empires during some 13 centuries of Islamic rule, there are now a reported eight to ten million Christians living there, the original descendants of the great ancient Egyptians. For well over one thousand years they were not exterminated, ethnically cleansed, or forced to convert to Islam by the many Islamic rulers that came and went there. They still thrive in Egypt today, where they now, quite rightly, demand a greater share in running the affairs of the country.

But had Islam, or The Qur'an, truly commanded Muslims to kill non-Muslims there wouldn’t have been one Christian or Jew left in Egypt by the 8th century, let alone millions of them in the 20thcentury. Christians in Egypt continued to live under Islamic rule across the centuries, century in century out, keeping their own churches and monasteries across the land,and worshipping in peace. They even maintained their own Egyptian Christian (Coptic) Pope.

There were some limited restrictions on them, as well as some conflicts of interest, where Christians had to follow certain Islamic rules, much like Muslims have to follow Canadian law, even if it conflicts with their own belief system.

And every once in a while a deviant ruler would come along and commit some wrongs against them, but never anything like extermination, ethnic cleansing or concentration camps such as some peoples have committed against others.

Not only that, but such aberrant rulers often practised their idiosyncrasies against all their subjects, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

So there we have the Balkans where some 400 years of Islamic rule left Christians in their millions thriving as Christians. And then we have Egypt where Islamic rule continued for over 1300 years, and yet the Christians there too emerged as Christians in their millions. The same in Iraq, where Christians - the descendants of the Assyrians - and Jews lived under several great Islamic empires. Ditto, Lebanon and Syria whose Christian and Jewish populations are and were, respectively, sizable. The Holy Land But let’s look at a very significant region of the Islamic world which also remained under Islamic rule for centuries, and which had large numbers of Christians and Jews living all side by side with Muslims under Muslim rule in peace and harmony. The Holy Land.

In the Holy Land, despite the massacre of Muslims and Jews, and the desecration of mosques and synagogues by the Christian Crusaders when they took Jerusalem, when Muslims retook it, Christians and their holy sites were protected and revered, and continue that way to this day. Those holy sites and churches that so many Christian pilgrims from around the world visit nowadays are there, not thanks to NATO, America, or Israel, but thanks to the humanitarian, kind, merciful nature of Islam and its followers.

Think of it, for hundreds of years the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were under absolute Muslim rule. Those Muslims whom we are told are ordered to kill all "infidel", those Muslims whom we so facilely call haters of infidels, protected those churches and many other Christian holy sites and let Christians (and Jews) in the Holy Land live in peace and security under their rule.

How many people know that to this day the key to the Church of the Nativity is held by a Muslim family, appointed by the many Christian denominations there because they could not agree on which one of them would hold that honour! Every morning the Muslim key-keeper opens the church doors for Christians to enter.

Christian and Jewish places of worship would have long been razed to the ground if indeed Islam commanded any such thing.

So Muslims are ordered to kill the infidel, are they really? Only a total racist, or a total ignoramus could take such ludicrous accusations seriously.

Hateful, bigoted individuals in the west, look at some bomb that exploded yesterday and explain it, not in terms of the complex recent political conflicts that led a few persons or groups to commit such violence, but in terms of the religion of those who committed the violence. How lowly is that? If anything, it reveals more about the accusers than about the religion they are trying to bash. Spain's Al Andalus (Andalusia) But for yet more evidence one can travel to the extreme western borders of Islamic empire, Spain. There, during the 400 to 800 years of Islamic rule in what is now Spain and Portugal, called back then by the Arabs, Al Andalus, not only did Jews and Christians live alongside Muslims in total harmony and prosperity, but Christians from the rest of Europe actually chose to flee their lands and go live under Islamic rule where they found they could enjoy more humane and just governance, and much greater enlightenment than under their own Christian-European rulers.

When Al Andalus finally fell to the Christian armies after 800 years - with few exceptions - prosperous, overwhelmingly unprejudiced Islamic rule, Muslims and Jews were persecuted and eventually forced to either convert to Christianity or leave (many were murdered even after they converted). The same took place in what was then the formative stages of Portugal. Numerous Jews who fled The Inquisition took refuge in Muslim lands, right up to the seat of the Caliph, the supreme Muslim ruler of the Ottoman empire, in Constantinople (Istanbul). There, along with Christian Armenians and other non-Muslim minorities, they often held high positions in the Islamic government.

The Islamic rulers could have simply done the compassionate, charitable thing and let them live there in peace and security under their protection, where they could worship as they please. But to go beyond that and actually appoint them to high positions in the Muslim ruler’s court, while they were still Christians and Jews, says a lot about Islam’s nature. And that was not in some aspiring multicultural society in modern times, where the rules of "democracy" or "affirmative action" demand or dictate that minorities be represented, that was at a time when minorities were being "Inquisitioned" in other lands. The Indian Subcontinent At the other end of the Islamic world we'll find even more remarkable evidence. In the Indian subcontinent and surrounding region rose a good number of Islamic dynasties for hundreds of years, almost all of which were an example of tolerance and acceptance. Hindus who came under Islamic rule were generally not forced to convert, and indeed in some instances Islamic rulers actually adopted Hindu traditions and incorporated them within their own Islamic traditions.

In fact, the closeness of Muslim rulers in India to their Hindu subjects is demonstrated through one of the rare exceptions of a deviant Muslim ruler, the infamous Tamerlane (Timur Lank), who came from a Mongol tribe in Central Asia that had newly adopted Islam.

Tamerlane waged war on the Muslim rulers of India because he viewed them as being too integrated with Hindus. And as mentioned earlier, such aberrant Muslim leaders often carried out their wrongs against both non-Muslims and Muslims alike.

Tamerlane actually slaughtered tens of thousands, perhaps some two hundred thousand Muslims from India to Turkey over the years of his rampages in the region, in an expression of his own deranged mind.

When he went to punish the moderate progressive Muslim rulers of India (the bright and shining counterparts of Islamic rule in Spain and the Middle East), he destroyed their empires and razed their cities to the ground, including the city of Delhi, killing Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist alike. Naturally, there is no way one can attribute his conduct to Islam at all. He was a barbarian who sought any excuse to slaughter and massacre anyone and everyone, irrespective of religion! Travelling the Muslim World Still another significant reality. For centuries Christian explorers, travellers, and visitors have plied the Arab and Muslim lands in safety and security, finding assistance and hospitality from the people they met. Their stories fill the literature. At worst some may have been accosted by common bandits and thieves who exist in every land. Many such visitors chose to live in Muslim lands for extended periods of time, doing archaeological work or exploring without coming to harm.

Western tourists have visited ancient archaeological ruins in the region for ages. We hardly ever heard or read that they were made to feel unwelcome or hated, nor that they were attacked by the populace or rejected in any manner. The historical record of foreigners in Muslim lands is a bright and shining one to this moment. So there we have it. Jews, Christians and Hindus under absolute Islamic rule for hundreds of years and not exterminated anywhere, and Europeans welcomed in Muslim lands over the centuries.

That is compelling evidence that Islam never told Muslims to kill non-Muslims, no matter how hard we try to misinterpret or creatively interpret it. It is a lie and the proof is in 1300 years of pudding.

And once more, a reminder that what makes the above Islamic record all the more remarkable is that it took place long before human rights conventions, United Nations resolutions, international law, NATO, or what have you.

The kind of belief system Muslims follow was evidently way ahead of its times in human rights, compassion and mercy toward others, which is what brought about such spectacularly kind Islamic nations and peoples across the ages. Exceptions Prove the Rule Unquestionably, as mentioned earlier there were the exceptions here and there across the centuries, when wrongs were committed by deviant Islamic rulers somewhere or the other against Christians, Jews, or others.

In modern times, while Iran officially recognizes Christianity, Judaism, and even Zoroastrianism as official religions in the Islamic state, it does not extend that acceptance to yet another religion - Baha’ism - because it is a recent religion which its followers believe was inspired by God in an Iranian-Muslim, and as such implies apostasy. Based on that, Iran, and other Muslim nations, severely persecute Baha’is and often deny them human rights, something totally unacceptable.

But we have to look at the overall trend across variables such as time, geographical regions, Islamic leaders, different Islamic empires etc. as a whole, not generalise from the particular deeds of some deviant character here or there, or some very specific events that led to specific atrocities somewhere, sometime in 1300 years.

In 13 centuries, across such a large swath of the globe and so many empires and rulers, cultures, lands and peoples, the rarity of those exceptions, if anything, proves the rule.

Indeed, the only balanced method to assess how a religion treats those who are different is by looking at it longitudinally across time and space. We cannot look at one or two years, one or two rulers, one or two wars, or one or two regions selectively and in isolation, and then draw conclusions. We have to look at all the available evidence and data if we are to reach intellectually and academically acceptable general conclusions.

For Islam and Muslims - across time, Islamic rulers, empires, situations, geographical regions and cultures - the evidence of history unequivocally points to a compassionate, humane, gentle, charitable religion beyond what human rights conventions prescribed centuries later, a religion accepting of non-Muslims far beyond the simple tolerance much touted in our western societies nowadays.

We shall investigate how and what in Islam instills such values and attitudes in Muslims in Part Three. But next time we will look at the evidence of the past three years, post 9/11.

This article was originally published in Cross Cultures Magazine in Volume 10 - Issue 1 - 2004. Unauthorized copying, distribution or other usage without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited.