Foundational Christianity vs Foundational Islam.

In May 2007 I was forwarded a comment and asked if I would like to respond to it. The comment and my response are set out below:

COMMENT.

” What remains glaringly obvious from historical analysis is that Christian Misbehavior stands in blatant contrast to its foundational teachings, but militant fundamentalist Islam is a direct and harmonious expression of foundational Islam.”

RESPONSE.

1. My first comment on this observation is that a miniscule minority among Muslims may believe that the atrocities being committed by them are in harmony with the teachings of Islam, while it is the overwhelming majority of Muslims [and not the West] who are the prime victims of such atrocities. And this majority believes that the interpretation and ideology being propagated and practiced by the militants is a blatant perversion of their faith. From Mr. Reizl’s comment I can only gather that in his understanding, the interpretation of the militant minority is the correct one and “foundational” to Islam, and that those of us who constitute the vast majority of Muslims stand “disharmoniously”outside the pale of its correct understanding.
2. The present-day militant interpretation of Islam is a comparatively recent phenomenon insofar as this has become a matter of practice by a few misguided fanatics. Thus, if Mr Reizl is correct, for fourteen hundred years, for half of which they were a leading power, the Muslims lived in darkness as far as “foundational Islam” was concerned and have only just fallen in harmony with it!! While, for the first three hundred years of their existence, when they were a humble and persecuted minority, the Christians lived in harmony with the teachings of Christ. But the moment Constatine converted to Christianity, and the Christians got into a position of power, their misbehavior immediately put itself into a position of “blatant contrast” to the teachings of Christ. This would suggest that when the Muslims were in a position of power and they could impact the destiny of a comparatively large part of humanity, they were relatively humane, though misguided [as per Mr Reizl] as to the central tenets of their faith. But with Christians “misguidance” came to guide them only when they attained the position of power!! Which of these two positions would be Mr Reizl’s rather be in?
3. The Quran, for better or worse, took its final shape and form very early on. But no one I know of has seen the first copy of the New Testament. Thus, it will always be very difficult to say which behavior, with the possibility of scriptures being altered along the way, was “foundational” to either creed, and which was not; or which stood in “harmony” with, or in “blatant contrast” to, this original foundation of the creed. However, it must be conceded that the foundation of Islam, in the form of its scripture, is likely to be more accurately preserved, than is Christianity. To determine therefore if the behavior of the militants is in harmony with the teachings of the Quran should be quite easy. To deny this and not see it, one would need deliberate mischief.
4. But all said and done, it is a futile exercise to debate the comparative merits and demerits of religious theory. What is more instructive is to subject to scrutiny, the actions of the proponents of various religions through history and see their impact on humanity. I will thus try and list here the greatest crimes against humanity. I will list only such crimes which were committed as a result of either the policy of the state or church, or of both, in cases where the perpetrators came from a sufficiently advanced stage of civilization, and the sheer scale of the atrocity or its after-effects cannot bear being ignored. I will not include in this list various wars, though certain atrocities committed during a war may be included. I will not include the wars of the Mongols and the Huns, because of the limitations I have imposed on myself, and for similar reasons, I will not include the Jewish conquest of Canaan. The following is my list of the greatest crimes ever committed against humanity.
   1. The Hindu Caste system, sponsored by the priesthood.
   2. The Crusades, sponsored by the church and backed by princes and kings.
   3. The near extermination of the natives of the Americas, in which state power was involved, and the church looked benignly on.
   4. The trans-Atlantic slave trade, which started with Portugal getting the license from the Pope himself and so, set the ball rolling!
   5. The Spanish and European Inquisition–sponsored by the church and backed by the state.
   6. The Thirty Years War, brought on by the Reformation, in which both the Church and State were involved.
   7. The Opium wars perpetrated on China. These were state sponsored and had the same devastating effect on China as the slave trade had on Africa.
   8. The Armenian genocide by Turkey, which was state sponsored.
   9. South African Apartheid and its cynical acceptance by the most “civilized” of states
   10. The atrocities committed by the Japanese during their brief era of Imperialism, of which the rape of Nanking is but one symbol.
   11. The crimes of Stalinist Russia, and particularly its solution to the “Nationalities’” question, and the Gulag system.
   12. The Holocaust. This was the apogee to the longest unbroken system of dehumanization and persecution in human history in which the church always led the way.
   13. The allied bombing of Dresden; the fire-bombing of more than fifty Japanese cities prior to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which had cynically been spared the fire-bombing specifically so as to keep two worthwhile targets for the atomic bombs, so that their effects could be studied!
   14. China’s Cultural Revolution and the effects of the Great Leap Forward.
   15. The defoliation of North Vietnam–and the effects of Agent Orange.
   16. The atrocities of the Pol Pot regime.
   17. The genocide in Rwanda and Congo, and the benign neglect of the powers that be.
5. This list may be stretched and lengthened endlessly, but if it is shortened to the top four or five crimes against humanity, the Muslims will be in danger of not making the list. This will not prove that the Muslims are any better than the rest of us, but what it will certainly prove is that they are no worse. And what this will further prove, more than anything else, is that men will do what they have to do despite the faith which they profess, and not because of it.

Therefore, it will do little good to see if a people have acted through history in ” harmony” with the fundamentals of their faith, or in “blatant contrast” to it. But what will always remain germane to this debate is how a people have wielded the power they possessed. The difference in the wielding of this power differentiates the barbaric from the civilized.

By this measure it is difficult to see how the emblem of barbarism could so facilely be hung around the neck of the Muslim, as is being attempted to be done.