Last week I wrote in this corner warning of the growing tensions between Muslims and Christians around the world at a fearful level that could eventually end in a Third World War. The column commented on the significant article the veteran British writer Robert Fisk recently published in The Independent newspaper under the title of “Exodus. The changing map of the Middle East”. Fisk's article as well as my comment were penned days before the terrorist assault on a Catholic church in Baghdad by a terrorist group affiliated to al-Qaeda with the aim of scaring the Iraqi Christians out of their country. The tragic event has come as prompt and tragic evidence of this fear of a general exodus of Eastern Christians from the Middle East. Similarly, it reflects my honest apprehensions that the growing tensions between Muslims and Christians in the region and the whole world might lead us into a vicious circle of violence and war, which could devour all the great fruits of human civilisation. Contemplating causes of the ongoing tensions between followers of the two divine religions, one might go back to the time of the Crusaders. Others could attribute it to a US plot to create a Muslim movement in Afghanistan to resist the Soviet occupation in late 20th century. Another group of thinkers might go back to the 19th century, when the European countries started occupying parts of the Muslim world, looting their natural resources and hampering their development. Meanwhile, I personally believe that the current conflict is mainly attributable to a deep ignorance of each other's culture, tradition and religion. It is also ascribable to the insistence of the developed world on forcing its culture and life style on the rest of the world, even if this means forcing Muslim countries to follow the line of Europe and distance religion (the Church) from political, cultural, economic and even social aspects of life. So we have started to hear hackneyed slogans such as separating religion and politics, religion is the opium of nations (after Karl Marx), the secular State is the only guarantee for protecting minorities' rights of citizenship, etc. While doing so, the Western Christian thinkers and those from the Muslim world who have adopted their theory are committing a grave mistake, when dealing with Muslim culture and religion in the same way as they did with that of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. First of all, the mosque for the Muslims is not parallel to the church for the Christians in medieval times. Muslims do not head to the mosque or even the Holy Kaa'ba in Mecca seeking forgiveness or indulgence from the sheikh or the preacher, but they go there and bow to Allah and ask for His forgiveness and help. In Islam, there is no mediation between people and their God and the only role of the Muslim sheikhs and preachers is to teach the nation the teachings of Islam, the Sunna (traditions) of their Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) and help them correctly recite and learn the Holy Qur'an. Even the Muslim Mufti, the highest religious authority in Egypt, who issues fatwas (religious edicts) to the people on different issues, cannot force the people to follow a fatwa. Even when religious leaders differ in their opinions over certain question, the Muslims are free to follow any of the given views. According to the advice of the Prophet Mohamed, Muslims can consult their hearts to decide what is right for them when the specialised religious scholars differ in their opinion over any issue. In contrast, Christians should follow the command of their Church, and if one dared to oppose the opinion of the Pope he would be defrocked if a priest or be excommunicated. For their entire life, an excommunicant would be deprived of the right to pray at any of the churches they were ousted from and, if they died, their body would not receive the appropriate prayer within the church walls. So it was quite natural to see Christians in the West and even in our region revolt at the authority of the Church on their life and its interference in all aspects of living in a way that curbed European scientific progress in the Middle Ages. Accordingly, it was in Europe's interests to revolt against the Church and its mediaeval theories. All the same, the Christians had neither announced their apostasy nor denied the presence of God; they had not defamed Jesus nor called for burning the New and the Old Testament. Instead, they desired to minimise the authority of the Church and to enjoy freedom of thought and innovation, the same essence of the Islamic religion on which the great Islamic civilisation was built and flourished for long centuries. Therefore, the modern Christian world has no right to come today and tarnish the Islamic religion, symbols, book and prophet and consider it as part of freedom of expression, opposing any call for issuing an international law or even a UN resolution opposing the “defamation of religions”. This contentious issue reflects a deep ignorance of one another's culture. The Muslim world seeks to codify general opposition to the defamation of all religions with the aim of defusing tensions, and hatred being stoked between Muslims and Christians because of some irresponsible acts and insults made by some Western Christians against Islam. At the same time, the West opposes such a law of protection with the claim of protecting freedom of expression, even if this includes apparently insulting one of the divine religions. Some Western secularists allege that thanks to those regarded as renegades, such as Martin Luther, Voltaire, Galileo and Francis Bacon the Church stopped selling indulgences and the world made spectacular scientific progress. This might be true of the condition of the Church in the Middle Ages. Besides, those great thinkers and scientists were not defaming Christianity as a religion, Jesus and Virgin Mary. This cannot be compared to some present-day Westerners, who insist on insulting the Prophet of Islam in some shameful cartoons or threatening to burn copies of the Holy Qur'an, claiming it promotes terrorism and violence then admitting to never having read the holy book. Besides, those Western Christian thinkers and scientists when they criticised the Catholic Church hadn't announced their conversion to another religion. They were trying to modify and correct some wrong practices of their religious institution. This was totally different from the attempt of some Western Christians to distort the image of Islam as a faith in such a way as to trigger anger and hatred between followers of the two religions to a level threatening world peace.
