Vienna said:
Can you give some examples of Islamic Mercy and Tolerance?
Sure:
When the great leader and second Caliph after the prophet death, Omar, entered Jerusalem in the year 634, Islam guaranteed freedom of worship to all christians in the city. In fact, so careful was Umar in setting an example for his people that he not only went to a church to pray, he prayed outside in the courtyard, lest his followers after his death be tempted to convert the church into a mosque.
The Jews of Aleppo ( Aleppo is the city where I came from in Syria, the second largest and the commerical capital of Syria )
''The politics of the region depended on the rulers. With the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Rome, the Romans placed restrictions on Jews. These were lifted with the Arab conquest in 636 CE, when Islamic caliphates began ruling the region. From the seventh Century until the end of Ottoman rule, the Jewish community was self-governed. Self-government entitled the Jews to freedom of religion, a separate court system ruled by local rabbis to handle internal disputes, and military protection''
Source : Sarina Roffé is a career journalist and the author of Branching Out: The Kassin and Labaton Dynasties . She is a member of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc. of New York, and Brooklyn's Syrian Jewish community.
JEWISH GATES:
The tolerance of the Umayyad regime made Muslim Spain a refuge for Jews, and their numbers increased dramatically.
The real Jewish cultural revival began in the tenth century under Abd al-Rachman III (912–961CE), who assumed the title of caliph in 929 CE in Cordoba ( Spain ). At that time Cordoba was a center of both Arab and Jewish culture. This was the time of the political rise of the court physician Hisdai ibn Shaprut.
Source: The Jewish Gates
http://www.jewishgates.com/file.asp?File_ID=126
Colin Thubron, the British author, writes in his book Jerusalem, " In the early centuries, the Muslims were generally tolerant of the Jews and lived with them peacefully while Europe was steeped in persecution.''
Salman ben Yeruham, A Karaite
Jewish author, writing about A.D. 950,
the Muslims granted the Jews access to Jerusalem and its holy sites. Salman wrote:
"As it is known, Jerusalem remained under the rule of the Rum [the Byzantines] for more than 500 years, during which they [the Jews] were
not able to enter Jerusalem. Anyone who was discovered entering was
killed. When by the mercy of the God of Israel the Rum departed from us and the kingdom of Ishmael [the Arabs] appeared, the Jews were granted permission to enter and reside there."
During the reign of
Saladin this traditional Islamic tolerance continued. Conversely, when the Crusaders entered Jerusalem,
they burned the Jews in their synagogue.
From 1099 to 1189, Jews were not allowed to live in the city. But with the Muslim repossession of Jerusalem, Jews were allowed to return.
The Spanish poet Yehuda al-Harizi, who was in Jerusalem in 1207, described the significance for the Jews of the recovery of Jerusalem by Saladin:
[ In A.D. 1190] God aroused the spirit of the prince of the Ishmaelites [Saladin], a prudent and courageous man, who came with his entire army, besieged Jerusalem, took it and had it proclaimed throughout the country that he would receive and accept the entire race of Ephraim, wherever they came from. And so we came from all comers of the world to take up residence here. We now live here in the shadow of peace.
Further testament to
Saladin's tolerance comes from
the eminent German Jewish historian of the Nineteenth Century, Heinrich Graetz. In his Geschichte der Juden [
History of the Jews], vol. 11, published in 1853, he states that the Sultan, "
opened the whole kingdom to the persecuted Jews, so they came to it, seeking security and finding justice.''
At about the same time that Jews were fleeing from Spain and seeking refuge in Arab lands and elsewhere (15th and 16th Centuries),
the Ottoman Empire opened its doors to them and gave them refuge. The prominent Jewish banker Don Joseph Nasi, a refugee from Portugal, was made advisor to Sultan Suleiman who showered the emigre with honors.
There are a number of statements from prominent Jews expressing gratitude to the Ottomans for their generous treatment of fugitive Jews.
In his History of the Jews, A. L. Sachar, a former president of Brandeis University, noted:
"Jews had found refuge in the Ottoman dominions for many decades before the expulsion from Spain. During the fifteenth-century persecutions in Germany, thousands had fled eastward and had been well received in the Turkish provinces. Life was secure and the morrow could be greeted without terror.''
Source: Arab American Roman Catholic Community:
http://www.al-bushra.org/jerusalem1/jerhist.htm
Please Note that I always quote NON-MUSLIM sources.
