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Giuseppe De Rosa
ROMA – There is a conspicuous absence among the new cardinals
created on October 21 by John Paul II: Archbishop Michael Louis
Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious
Dialogue.
The current explanation is that Fitzgerald was not made cardinal
because of his excessively placid approach to Islam.
And it is true that, together with this exclusion, an article was
printed in “La Civiltà Cattolica” that contrasts markedly with
the matter of Fitzgerald’s rebuke.
“La Civiltà Cattolica,” edited by a group of Jesuits in Rome, is
a very special magazine. Every one of its articles is reviewed by the
Vatican secretary of state before publication. So the magazine
reflects his thought faithfully.
In its October 18 edition, “La Civiltà Cattolica” published a
strikingly severe article on the condition of Christians in Muslim
countries. The central thesis of the article is that “in all of its
history, Islam has shown a warlike and conquering face”; that “for
almost a thousand years, Europe lived under its constant threat”;
and that what remains of the Christian population in Islamic countries
is still subjected to “perpetual discrimination,” with episodes of
bloody persecution.
What follows is an ample extract from the article printed in “La
Civiltà Cattolica” no. 3680, October 18, 2003, and used here with
the kind permission of the magazine:
Christians in Islamic Countries
by Giuseppe De Rosa S.I.
How do Christians in Muslim-majority countries live? This question is appropriate,
as a lot is said about the Muslim immigrants in European countries
with Christian tradition but rarely it is talked about the condition
of the Christians who live in countries with Muslim majority.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN
ISLAMIC COUNTRIES:
We must
first highlight a seemingly rather curious fact: in all the countries
of North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco), before the
Muslim invasion and despite incursions by vandals, there were
blossoming Christian communities that contributed to the universal
Church great personalities, such as Tertullian; Saint Ciprian, bishop
of Carthage, martyred in 258; Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo; and
Saint Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe. But after the Arab conquest,
Christianity was absorbed by Islam to such an extent that today it has
a significant presence only in Egypt, with the Coptic Orthodox and
other tiny Christian minorities, which make up 7-10 percent of the
Egyptian population.
The same can be said of the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine,
Jordan, Mesopotamia), in which there were flourishing Christian areas
prior to the Islamic invasion, and where today there are only small
Christian communities, with the exception of Lebanon, where Christians
make up a significant part of the population.
As for present-day Turkey, this was in the first Christian centuries
the land in which Christianity bore its best fruits in the areas of
liturgy, theology, and monastic life. The invasion of the Seljuk Turks
and the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmet II (1453) lead to the
founding of the Ottoman empire and to the near destruction of
Christianity in the Anatolian peninsula. Thus today in Turkey
Christians number approximately 100,000, among whom are a small number
of Orthodox, who live around Phanar, the see of the ecumenical
patriarchate of Constantinople, who has the primacy of honor in the
Orthodox world and who holds communion with eight patriarchs and many
autocephalous Churches in both East and West, with approximately 180
million faithful.
In conclusion, we may state in historical terms that in all the places
where Islam imposed itself by military force, which has few historical
parallels for its rapidity and breadth, Christianity, which had been
extraordinarily vigorous and rooted for centuries, practically
disappeared or was reduced to tiny islands in an endless Islamic sea.
It is not easy to explain how that could have happened. [...]
In reality, the reduction of Christianity to a small minority was not
due to violent religious persecution, but to the conditions in which
Christians were forced to live in the organization of the Islamic
state. [...]
THE WARRIOR FACE OF ISLAM: “JIHAD”
According to Islamic law, the world is divided into three parts: dar
al-harb (the house of war), dar al-islam (the house of Islam), and dar
al-‘ahd (the house of accord); that is, the countries with which a
treaty was stipulated. [...]
As for the countries belonging to the “house of war,” Islamic
canon law recognizes no relations with them other than “holy war”
(jihad), which signifies an “effort” in the way of Allah and has
two meanings, both of which are equally essential and must not be
dissociated, as if one could exist without the other. In its primary
meaning, jihad indicates the “effort” that the Muslim must
undertake to be faithful to the precepts of the Koran and so improve
his “submission” (islam) to Allah; in the second, it indicates the
“effort” that the Muslim must undertake to “fight in the way of
Allah,” which means fighting against the infidels and spreading
Islam throughout the world. Jihad is a precept of the highest
importance, so much so that it is sometimes counted among the
fundamental precepts of Islam, as its sixth “pillar.”
Obedience to the precept of the “holy war” explains why the
history of Islam is one of unending warfare for the conquest of
infidel lands. [...] In particular, all of Islamic history is
dominated by the idea of the conquest of the Christian lands of
Western Europe and of the Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital was
Constantinople. Thus, through many centuries, Islam and Christianity
faced each other in terrible battles, which led on one side to the
conquest of Constantinople (1453), Bulgaria, and Greece, and on the
other, to the defeat of the Ottoman empire in the naval battle of
Lepanto (1571).
But the conquering spirit of Islam did not die after Lepanto. The
Islamic advance into Europe was definitively halted only in 1683, when
Vienna was liberated from the Ottoman siege by the Christian armies
under the command of John III Sobieski, the king of Poland. [...] In
reality, for almost a thousand years Europe was under constant threat
from Islam, which twice put its survival in serious danger.
Thus, in all of its history, Islam has shown a warlike face and a
conquering spirit for the glory of Allah. [...] against the
“idolaters” who must be given a choice: convert to Islam, or be
killed. [...] As for the “people of the Book” (Christians, Jews,
and “Sabeans”), Muslims must “fight them until their members pay
tribute, one by one, humiliated” (Koran, Sura 9:29). [...]
THE REGIME OF THE “DHIMMA”
According to Muslim law, Christians, Jews, and the followers of other
religions assimilated to Christianity and Judaism (the “Sabeans”)
who live in a Muslim state belong to an inferior social order, in
spite of their eventually belonging to the same race, language, and
descent. Islamic law does not recognize the concepts of nation and
citizenship, but only the umma, the one Islamic community, for which
reason a Muslim, as he is part of the umma, may live in any Islamic
country as he would in his homeland: he is subject to the same laws,
finds the same customs, and enjoys the same consideration.
But those belonging to the “people of the Book” are subject to the
dhimma, which is a kind of bilateral treaty consisting in the fact
that the Islamic state authorizes the “people of the Book” to
inhabit its lands, tolerates its religion, and guarantees the
“protection” of its persons and goods and its defense from
external enemies. Thus the “people of the Book” (Ahl al-Kitab)
becomes the “protected people” (Ahl al-dhimma). In exchange for
this “protection,” the “people of the Book” must pay a tax (jizya)
to the Islamic state, which is imposed only upon able-bodied free men,
excluding women, children, and the old and infirm, and pay a tribute,
called the haram, on the lands in its possession.
As for the freedom of worship, the dhimmi are prohibited only from
external manifestations of worship, such as the ringing of bells,
processions with the cross, solemn funerals, and the public sale of
religious objects or other articles prohibited for Muslims. A Muslim
man who marries a Christian or a Jew must leave her free to practice
her religion and also to consume the foods permitted by her religion,
even if they are forbidden for Muslims, such as pork or wine. The
dhimmi may maintain or repair the churches or synagogues they already
have, but, unless there is a treaty permitting them to own land, they
may not build new places of worship, because to do this they would
need to occupy Muslim land, which can never be ceded to anyone, having
become, through Muslim conquest, land “sacred” to Allah.
In Sura 9:29 the Koran affirms that the “people of the Book,”
apart from being constrained to pay the two taxes mentioned above,
must be placed under certain restrictions, such as dressing in a
special way and not being allowed to bear arms or ride on horseback.
Furthermore, the dhimmi may not serve in the army, be functionaries of
the state, be witnesses in trials between Muslims, take the daughters
of Muslims as their wives, be the guardians of underage Muslims, or
keep Muslim slaves. They may not inherit from Muslims, nor Muslims
from them, but legacies are permitted.
The release of the dhimma came about above all through conversion of
the “people of the Book” to islam; but Muslims, especially in the
early centuries, did not look favorably upon such conversions, because
they represented a grave loss to the treasury, which flourished in
direct proportion to the number of the dhimmi, who paid both the
personal tax and the land tax. The dissolution of dhimma status could
also take place through failure to observe the “treaty”; that is,
if the dhimmi took up arms against Muslims, refused to remain subject
or to pay tribute, abducted a Muslim woman, blasphemed or offended the
prophet Mohammed and the Islamic religion, or if they drew a Muslim
away from Islam, converting him to their own religion. According to
the gravity of each case, the penalty could be the confiscation of
goods, reduction to slavery, or death – unless the person who had
committed the crimes converted to Islam. In that case, all penalties
were waived.
CONSEQUENCE: THE EROSION OF CHRISTIANITY
It is evident that the condition of the dhimmi, prolonged through
centuries, has led slowly but inexorably to the near extinction of
Christianity in Muslim lands: the condition of civil inferiority,
which prevented Christians from attaining public offices, and the
condition of religious inferiority, which closed them in an
asphyxiated religious life and practice with no possibility of
development, put the Christians to the necessity of emigrating, or,
more frequently, to the temptation of converting to Islam. There was
also the fact that a Christian could not marry a Muslim woman without
converting to Islam, in part because her children had to be educated
in that faith. Furthermore, a Christian who became Muslim could
divorce very easily, whereas Christianity prohibited divorce. And
apart from all this, the Christians in Muslim territories were
seriously divided among themselves – and frequently even enemies –
because they belonged to Churches that were different by confession (Chalcedonian
and non-Chalcedonian Churches) and by rite (Syro-oriental, Antiochian,
Maronite, Coptic-Alexandrian, Armenian, Byzantine). Thus mutual
assistance was almost impossible.
The regime of the dhimma lasted for over a millennium, even if not
always and everywhere in the harsh form called “the conditions of
‘Umar,” according to which Christians not only did not have the
right to construct new churches and restore existing ones, even if
they fell into ruins (and, if they had the permission to construct
through the good will of the Muslim governor, the churches could not
be of large dimensions: the building must be more modest than all the
religious buildings around it); but the largest and most beautiful
churches had to be transformed into mosques. That transformation made
it impossible for the church-mosques ever to be restored to the
Christian community, because a place that has become a mosque cannot
be put to another use.
The consequence of the dhimma regime was the “erosion” of the
Christian communities and the conversion of many Christians to Islam
for economic, social, and political motives: to find a better job,
enjoy a better social status, participate in administrative,
political, and military life, and in order not to live in a condition
of perpetual discrimination.
In recent centuries, the dhimma system has undergone some
modifications, in part because the ideas of citizenship and the
equality of all citizens before the state have gained a foothold even
in Muslim countries. Nevertheless, in practice, the traditional
conception is still present. [...] The Christian, whether he wish it
or not, is brought back in spite of himself to the concept of the
dhimmi, even if the term no longer appears in the present-day laws of
a good number of Muslim-majority countries.
To understand the present condition of these Christians, we must refer
back to the history of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the Ottoman
empire of the 19th century, where the millet system was in force, the
tanzimat, “regulations” of a liberal character, were introduced.
[...] From the second half of the 19th century to the end of the first
World War, there was a “Reawakening” (Nahda) movement in the Arab
world, under Western influence, in the fields of literature, language,
and thought. Many intellectuals were conquered by liberal ideas.
On another front, the Christians created strong ties with the Western
powers – France and Great Britain in particular – which, after the
dissolution of the Ottoman empire, obtained the protectorate of the
countries that had belonged to the empire. This permitted the
Christians both greater civil and religious liberty and cultural
advancement. Moreover, during the first half of the 20th century
various political parties of nationalist and socialist, and thus
secularist, tendencies were born, such as the Ba’th, the Socialist
Party of the Arab Renewal, founded at the end of the 1930’s in
Damascus by Syrian professor Michel ‘Aflaz, a Greek Orthodox. In
1953 this party was united with the Syrian Popular Party, founded in
1932 by Antun Sa’ada, a Greek Orthodox from Lebanon. In brief,
political regimes inspired by the liberal and secular principles of
Western Europe rose up in various Islamic countries.
THE BIRTH OF RADICAL ISLAM
These events provoked a harsh reaction in the Islamic world, due to
fears that the secularist ideas and “corrupt” customs of the
Western world, identified with Christianity, would endanger the purity
of Islam and constitute a deadly threat to its very existence. This
reaction was fed by strong resentment against the Western powers,
which had dared to impose their political rule upon Islam, “the
greatest nation ever raised up by Allah among men” (Koran, s.
3:110), and against their customs “despised” by the “nation (umma)
that urges to goodness, promotes justice, and restrains iniquity”
(ibid, s. 3:104).
Thus was born “radical Islam,” which set itself up as the
interpreter of the frustrations of the Muslim masses. Hasan al Banna,
Sayyd Qutb, Abd al-Qadir ‘Uda in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood;
Abu l-A‘li al-Mawdudi in Pakistan, and the Ayatollah Khomeini in
Iran are its most significant witnesses, and their followers have
spread from Dakar to Kuala Lumpur. [...]
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF CHRISTIANS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
Radical Islam, which proposes that shari’a law be instituted in
every Islamic state, is gaining ground in many Muslim countries, in
which groups of Christians are also present. It is evident that the
institution of shari’a would render the lives of Christians rather
difficult, and their very existence would be constantly in danger.
This is the cause of the mass emigration of Christians from Islamic
countries to Western countries: Europe, the United States, Canada, and
Australia. [...] The estimated number of Arab Christians who have
emigrated from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and
Israel in the last decade hovers around three million, which is from
26.5 to 34.1 percent of the estimated number of Christians currently
living in the Middle East.
Furthermore, we must not underestimate grave recent actions against
Christians in some Muslim-majority countries. In Algeria, the bishop
of Orano, P. Claverie (1996), seven Trappist monks from Tibehirini
(1999), four White Fathers (1994), and six sisters from various
religious congregations have been brutally killed by Islamic
fundamentalists, although the murders were condemned by numerous
Muslim authorities. In Pakistan, which numbers 3,800,000 Christians
among a population of 156,000,000 (96 percent Muslim), on October 28,
2001, some Muslims entered the Church of St. Dominic in Bahawalpur and
gunned down 18 Christians. On May 6, 1998, Catholic bishop John Joseph
killed himself for protesting against the blasphemy law, which
punishes with death anyone who offends Mohammed, even only “by
speaking words, or by actions and through allusions, directly or
indirectly.” For example, by saying that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God, one offends Mohammed, who affirmed that Jesus is not the Son of
God, but his “servant.” With this kind of law, Christians are in
constant danger of death.
In Nigeria – where 13 states have introduced shari’a as state law
– several thousand Christians have been the victims of incidents.
Serious incidents are taking place in the south of the Philippines and
in Indonesia, which, with its 212 million inhabitants, is the most
populous Muslim country in the world, to the harm of the Christians of
Java, East Timor, and the Moluccas. But the most tragic situation –
and, unfortunately, forgotten by the Western world! – is that of
Sudan, where the North is Arab and Muslim, and the South black and
Christian, and in part, animist. Since the time of president G.M.
Nimeiry, there has been a state of civil war between the North, which
has proclaimed shari’a and intends to impose it with fierce violence
on the rest of the country, and the South, which aims to preserve and
defend its Christian identity. The North makes use of all of its
military power – financed by oil exports to the West – to destroy
Christian villages; prevent the arrival of humanitarian aid; kill the
cattle, which are the means of sustenance for many South Sudanese; and
carry out raids, for Christian girls in particular, who are brought to
the North, raped, and sold as slaves or concubines to rich, older
Sudanese men. According to the 2001 report of Amnesty International,
“at the end of 2000, the civil war, which started again in 1983, had
cost the lives of almost two million persons and had caused the forced
evacuation of 4,500,000 more. Tens of thousands of persons have been
compelled by terror to leave their homes in the upper Nile region,
which is rich in oil, after aerial bombardments, mass executions, and
torture.”
We must, finally, recall a fact that is often forgotten because Saudi
Arabia is the largest provider of oil to the Western world, and the
latter therefore has an interest in not disturbing relations with that
country. In reality, in Saudi Arabia, where wahhabism is in force, not
only is it impossible to build a church or even a tiny place of
worship, but any act of Christian worship or any sign of Christian
faith is severely prohibited with the harshest penalties. Thus about a
million Christians working in Saudi Arabia are deprived by violence of
any Christian practice or sign. They may participate in mass or in
other Christian practices – and even then with the serious danger of
losing their jobs – only on the property of the foreign oil
companies. And yet, Saudi Arabia spends billions of petrodollars, not
for the benefit of its poor citizens or of poor Muslims in other
Muslim countries, but to construct mosques and madrasas in Europe and
to finance the imams of the mosques in all the Western countries. We
recall that the Roman mosque of Monte Antenne, constructed on land
donated by the Italian government, was principally financed by Saudi
Arabia and was built to be the largest mosque in Europe, in the very
heart of Christianity.
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