The Intolerance
34. Mohammad never taught intolerance.
Those people are greatly mistaken who say, that “the one common duty laid upon the Faithful is to be the agents of God’s vengeance on those who believe not. These are to be slaughtered until they pay tribute, when they are allowed to go to Hell in their own way without further molestation.”185 Mohammad did not wage war against the Koreish and the Jews because they did not believe in his mission, nor because he was to be the instrument of God’s vengeance on them; on the contrary, he said, “He was no more than a warner.”
“The truth is from your Lord, let him then who will, believe; and let him who will, be an unbeliever.”186
“Let there be no compulsion in religion.”187 “Verily, they who believe, and the Jews, and the Sabeites, and the Christians, whoever of them believeth in God and in the last day, and doth what is right, on them shall come no fear, neither shall they be put to grief.”188 Even during active hostilities, those who did not believe were allowed to come and hear the preaching, and were then conveyed to their place of safety.189 Nor were the wars of Mohammad to exact tribute from the unbelievers. The tribute was only imposed upon those who had sought his protection, and even then they were exempted from other regular taxes which the Moslems paid to their Commonwealth.
On the contrary, as has already been shown, Mohammad merely took up arms in the instances of self-preservation. Had he neglected to defend himself after his settlement at Medina against the continued attacks of the Koreish and their allies, he with his followers would, in all probability, have been exterminated. They fought in defence of their lives as well as their moral and religious liberties.
35. In what sense the wars were religious wars.
In this sense the contest might be called a religious war, as the hostilities were commenced on religious grounds. Because the Koreish persecuted the Moslems, and expelled them for the reason that they had forsaken the religion of their forefathers, i.e., idolatry, and embraced the faith of Islam, the worship of One True God; but it was never a religious war in the sense of attacking the unbelievers aggressively to impose his own religion forcibly on them. How much is Sir W. Muir in the wrong, who says, that fighting was prescribed on religious grounds? “Hostilities,” he says, “indeed, were justified by the ‘expulsion’ of the believers from Mecca. But the main and true issue of the warfare was not disguised to be the victory of Islam. They were to fight ‘until the religion became the Lord’s alone.’”190
36. The alleged verses of intolerance explained.
The verses of the Koran referred to above are as follows:
186. “And fight for the cause of God against those who fight against you: but commit not the injustice of attacking them first: verily God loveth not the unjust.”
187. “And kill them wherever ye shall find them, and eject them from whatever place they have ejected you; for (fitnah) persecution or civil discord is worse than slaughter but attack them not at the sacred Mosque, until they attack you therein, but if they attack you, then slay them—Such is the recompense of the infidel!”
188. “But if they desist, then verily God is Gracious, Merciful.”
189. “And do battle against them until there be no more (fitnah) persecution or civil discord and the only worship be that of God: but if they desist, then let there be no hostility, save against wrong-doers.”—Sura, ii.
These verses generally, and the last one especially, show that the warfare was prescribed on the ground of self-preservation, and to secure peace, safety and religious liberty, to prevent (fitnah) persecution.
By preventing or removing the persecution (fitnah), the religion of the Moslems was to be free and pure from intolerance and compulsion to revert to idolatry, or in other words, to be the only or wholly of God. That is, when you are free and unpersecuted in your religion, and not forced to worship idols and renounce Islam, then your religion will be pure and free. You shall have no fear of being forced to join other gods with God.
The same verse is repeated in Chapter VIII.
39. “Say to the unbelievers: If they desist,191 what is now past shall be forgiven them, but if they return to it,192 they have already before them the doom of the former.”193
40. “Fight then against them till fitnah (civil strife or persecution) be at an end, and the religion be all of it God’s, and if they desist, verily God beholdeth what they do.”
This shows that the fighting prescribed here against the Koreish was only in the case of their not desisting, and it was only to prevent and suppress their fitnah, and when their intolerance and persecution was suppressed, or was no more, then the Moslem religion was to become all of it God’s. They were not forced to join any god with the true God.
37. Sir W. Muir quoted.
Sir W. Muir, in his last chapter on the person and character of Mohammad, observes in reviewing the Medina period: “Intolerance quickly took the place of freedom; force, of persuasion.”... “Slay the unbelievers wheresoever ye find them” was now the watchword of Islam:—“Fight in the ways of God until opposition be crushed, and the Religion becometh the Lord’s alone!”194 Here, Sir W. Muir plainly contradicts himself. He has already admitted at the 136th page of the fourth volume of his work that the course pursued by Mohammad at Medina was to leave the conversion of the people to be gradually accomplished without compulsion, and the same measure he intended to adopt at his triumphal entry into Mecca. His words are: “This movement obliged Mahomet to cut short of his stay at Mecca. Although the city had cheerfully accepted his supremacy, all its inhabitants had not yet embraced the new religion, or formally acknowledged his prophetic claim. Perhaps, he intended to follow the course he had pursued at Medina, and leave the conversion of the people to be gradually accomplished without compulsion.” This was at the end of the eighth year after the Hegira.
Mohammad died at the beginning of the eleventh year, then the question naturally comes up, when was that alleged change to intolerance, and how Sir W. Muir says, this change is traced from the period of Mohammad’s arrival at Medina? In the action taken in the fifth year of the Hegira against the Jewish tribe of Koreiza, who had treasoned against the city, Sir W. Muir admits that up to that period Mohammad did not profess to force men to join Islam, or to punish them for not embracing it. His words are: “The ostensible grounds upon which Mahomet proceeded were purely political, for as yet he did not profess to force men to join Islam, or to punish them for not embracing it.”195 In a foot-note he remarks: “He still continued to reiterate in his Revelations the axiom used at Mecca, ‘I am only a public preacher,’ as will be shown in the next chapter.” Further, Sir W. Muir, in his account of the first two years after Mohammad’s arrival at Medina, admits in a foot-note (p. 32, Vol. III), that “as yet we have no distinct development of the intention of Mahomet to impose his religion on others by force: it would have been dangerous in the present state of parties to advance this principle.”
38. Comment on the above quotation.
It will appear from the foregoing statements that in each of the three distinct periods of Mohammad’s sojourn in Medina, i.e., the first two years, the fifth year, and the eighth year, Sir W. Muir has himself admitted that Mohammad had no intention to impose his religion by force, and did not profess to force people to join Islam, or punish them for not embracing it, and that the conversion of the people at Medina was gradually accomplished without compulsion, and the same course he followed at his taking of Mecca. Then there is no room left for the uncalled for and self-contradictory remark of Sir W. Muir, that at Medina “Intolerance quickly took place of freedom; force, of persuasion.” Up to the end of the eighth year when Mecca was captured, there was admittedly no persecution or constraint put in requisition to enforce religion. Mohammad breathed his last early in the eleventh year. During the two years that intervened, the din of war had ceased to sound, deputations continued to reach the Prophet from all quarters of Arabia, and not a single instance of intolerance or compulsory adoption of faith is found on record.196
Mohammad, neither sooner, nor later, in his stay at Medina, swerved from the policy of forbearance and persuasion he himself had chalked out for the success of his mission. At Medina, he always preached his liberal profession of respect for other creeds, and reiterated assurances to the people that he was merely a preacher, and expressly gave out that compulsion in religion was out of question with him.
These are his revelations during the Medina period. “Verily, they who believe (Moslems), and they who follow the Jewish religion, and the Christians, and the Sabeites,—whoever believeth in God and the last day, and doeth that which is right, shall have their reward with their Lord: and fear shall not come upon them, neither shall they be grieved.”
Sura II, 59.
“And say to those who have been given the Scripture, and to the common folk, Do you surrender yourselves unto God? Then, if they become Moslems, are they guided aright; but if they turn away, then thy duty is only preaching and God’s eye is on his servants.”
Sura III, 19.
“The Apostle is only bound to preach: and God knoweth what ye bring to light, and what ye conceal.”
Sura V, 99.
“Say: Obey God and obey the Apostle. But if ye turn back, still the burden of his duty is on him only, and the burden of your duty rests on you. And if ye obey him, ye shall have guidance; But plain preaching is all that devolves upon the Apostle.”
Sura XXIV, 53.
“Let there be no compulsion in religion. Now is the right way made distinct from error; whoever therefore denieth Tâghoot,197 and believeth in God, hath taken hold on a strong handle that hath no flaw therein: And God is He who Heareth, Knoweth.”
Sura II, 237.
“Whoso obeyeth the Apostle, in so doing obeyeth God and as to those who turn back from thee, We have not sent thee to be their keeper.”
Sura IV, 82.
39. The object of Mohammad’s wars.
“Slay the unbelievers wherever ye find them” was never the watchword of Islam. It was only said in self-preservation and war of defence, and concerned only those who had taken up arms against the Moslems.
The verses—Suras II, 189; and VIII, 40—have been quoted above in paras. 17 and 37 (pp. 18, 21, 44 and 45), and they fully show by their context and scope that they only enjoined war against the Meccans, who used to come to war upon the Moslems. The object of making war is precisely set forth in these verses, and appears to mean that civil feuds and persecutions be at an end. But Sir W. Muir wrongly translates Fitnah as opposition. He himself has translated the meaning of the word in question as persecution, in Vol. II, p. 147, foot-note; in translating the tenth verse of the Sura LXXXV he writes: “Verily, they who persecute the believers, male and female, and repent themselves not.” The original word there is Fatanoo,198 from Fitnah. I do not know why he should put a twofold version on the same word occurring in the same book. (Suras II, 187; VIII, 40.)