The Word or the Sword? Christianity and Islam Meet in Hyde Park
by Mark Durie, Middle East Forum:
Last Sunday, on a rainy London day, Christian street preacher Hatun Tash was stabbed twice, an attacker’s blade striking her once in the forehead above her right eye and then on her wrist as she put her arms up to defend herself. This took place at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park.
[…] To be a Christian preacher to Muslims is no easy or light calling. Over the years Tash has been threatened with death and beaten, her bones broken. She has even been arrested by the London police.
The contest between Islam and Christianity is an ancient one. In the past several factors have favoured Islam’s successes against Christianity. One is Islam’s self-confident replacement theology, which sees itself as the rightful inheritor of Judaism and Christianity. Another factor is Islam’s inbuilt anti-Christian apologetic: the Qur’an has more to say about why Christianity is wrong that it does about Islam’s five pillars, so ordinary Muslims are taught objections to Christianity as part of the core of their faith. Another factor is the demeaning dhimma system, which subjugated Christians and other non-Muslims under Islamic rule, creating powerful social and economic incentives for the conquered to switch to the religion of their conquerors. The legacy of this system continues today. For example in Pakistan, whenever non-Muslims convert to Islam this is publicly celebrated, but when Muslims become Christians their lives are in danger from former friends, family and the authorities.
The Qur’an advocates two different responses to opposition. Early on it counseled excellence in disputation: “Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful instruction, and discuss with them using a more excellent way.” (Sura 16:125). Later, however, the Qur’an called for violence, “fight them until there is no more fitna” (e.g. Sura 8:39, Sura 2:193) and “fitna is worse than killing” (Sura 2:217, 191). The word fitna originally meant ‘trial’ or ‘test’, but Muslim scholars came to interpret it more broadly to include even the mere existence of disbelief in or opposition to Islamic teachings.
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