I have watched the Schindler’s list twice in my life. When I watched it for the first time, it was more than twenty years ago. The second time I watched it three years ago, with a critical eye. I like to look at films from the point of view of direction. I think that many people might do this. But normally in our part of the world, people just like to watch a movie normally.
I remember a scene where innocent people, men and women, were being brought into a huge room that is called a gas chamber. They are unaware of their terminal fate. They are brought in and the doors are closed. They are standing in that room while holding the long metallic bars that run over their heads, such as in buses and trains. They are mostly naked. And then some gas is opened into the huge room. People don’t know what is this meant for. The only thing is that it stifles their breathing initially. Eventually as they struggle to breath more fresh air, which is dwindling in the room every moment, their breathing gets heavy. They cough for a while. Slowly their grips on the metallic bars tend to loosen up. They cough vehemently. They start falling on the floor and they start dying.
I normally like to hide my fears. I mean if I could afford the opportunity, I wouldn’t ever want to come across as a scared person. There were a few other watchers in the room. As they starred at the LCD screen of my newly bought TV, I sat behind them with my legs folded as I watched the scene, aghast. This was one of the very horrible scenes I ever watched.
Jews and Christians have lived in Europe together for a good few centuries. I am really not sure what really led up to the holocaust. There are different stories. Antisemitism is a suitcase term that is normally blamed upon. But one thing is for sure that there is something terribly wrong with preaching models of various faiths that leads up to bigotry and organized violence.
People have to learn that they cannot coexist if they disrespect each other. Abusing another person’s religion is tantamount to abusing one’s own. This reminds me of a Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). While sitting once with his companions (RA) he said that no person should ever abuse their own parents. The companions asked in awe that how is it possible that person abuses his/her own parents. The Prophet said, that by abusing another person’s parents and they abuse his/her parents in return. My intention is not to revert to preaching. But this is a beautiful Hadith with a lot of wisdom in it.
My real intention was to write something a new episode of my Journey to Jerusalem articles. The crux of what I wrote was that when the early Muslims seized Jerusalem, and the country surrounding it, they took it from none other but the Roman empire. Secondly, they were tolerant to an extent that they respected the Holy sites of worship of Christians and Jews. Calpih Umar (RA) is the most noteworthy figure in all of this, as he brokered peace. For instance, I wrote that when the Bishop Sophronius requested him to pray inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, the calpih refused to do so. The rationale he presented was that if he, as the chief of Muslims, prayed in the perimeter of the Basilica on that day and occasion, later generations of Muslims would make it a precedent and convert the Basilica to a mosque. As I mentioned then, and I am reiterating, I have personally found this story extremely touching always. I literally found his foresight and concern for the Christian faith absolutely humbling. Muslims were supposed to uphold this tradition of inter-faith tolerance.
Religious tolerance is extremely important and cool. Without religious tolerance, well meaning people can loose faith in religious ideas. I had a friend from Sweden with whom I spent a good bit of time many years ago. We played badminton together and worked together as we were in the same lab. We had many conversations with each other. She was a nice girl too. Living in Europe for quite a while, I have always wondered why people are so nice. Out of habit, or let’s say naivete, I used to find it hard not to broach up a topic about religion. I asked her a few times why she wasn’t religious. Then she finally told me the primary reason she had no faith in faith. The primary reason for her was the possibility of barbarity of the religious folks. She particularly quoted the example of crusades that why did so many people have to fight and kill each other to triumph over one another.
I know that many well meaning Christians blame the crusaders for barbarity. To me even this shows their propensity for peace. But such stories of brutality have moved them away largely from their religion. And this was my purpose behind writing today’s post.
Contrary to the popular belief, Christians did not start the crusades. Christians of Europe were living well in the European continent when a Fatimid Calpih of Egypt destroyed the Basilica of Holy Sepulchre. This was a part of his larger campaign to destroy other places of worship of Christians across the country of Palestine. This was not supposed to happen. Muslims were not only supposed to respect this, they were supposed to protect this. After all, there are covenants of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself for the Muslims viz a viz the protection of religious sites of, especially, Christians. What the caliph did was an absolutely despicable act of ignorance and despotism. It was this event that brought Christians to the Holy land. Shocked Christians of Europe arrived there to avenge that.
Of course, even as the Western historical literature states that, the crusaders eventually turned to brutality too. Saladin rose as a result. And we know the rest of the story that crusades happened and Saladin drove Christians out of the country. After this, Saladin also rebuilt the Spelchre. I find this part of the story also very touching. And it is also due to this reason that I have immense respect for Saladin.
What is my purpose of writing all of this? I have had for a good few months on my agenda to write about this. Other matters of life prevented me from writing it. But Jerusalem is a very important matter. I think it is going to become the most important matter in years to come. Actually, sometimes I think that it has always been about Jerusalem. It is the center of gravity of our planet. There is a lot of prophecies about it in all Abrahamic faiths. And this is a place where Holy Prophets lived.
Take home messaged in this according to me are that:
- Muslims should always respect places of worship of other faiths. They should refrain from plundering other peoples’ property in all circumstances. Islam is a religion of peace. And peace should show from our conduct.
- Christians should not despise Christianity because of the possibility of brutality. It is not a brutal faith, as even some high profile scholars such as Bertrand Russell have noted.
- Religious preaching models of all faiths should teach their adherents that peace and respect run through a two-way street. What you throw at others you get it back.
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Journey to Jerusalem: A Muslim Mistake by Psyops Prime is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.