These are my notes.
Muhamad and the Jews
edit"Some young Jews started teasing her...A Muslim who happened to be by sprang forward and killed the goldsmith. The Jews fell on the Muslim and killed him. The quarrel was on."
Reference: Rodinson, Maxime. Mohammed. Translated by Anne Carter. Published: Allen Lane the Penguin Press/Fletcher & Son Ltd, 1971, Great Britain. Page(s): 172-3
"Ibn Sa'd, while dealing with the Ghazwa of Banu Qainuqua remarked: ' When the Battle of Badr took place the Jews manifested their malevolence and their spirit of revolt and retracted from their plighted word.'"
"The Jews killed the Muslim in return. The Prophet was informed, he went to them and said, 'Fear God, lest wrath of God should fall upon you as it did upon the people at Badr'...The Jews having violated their treaty and virtually declared war, the Prophet was forced to resort to force."
Reference: Nomani, Shibli. Sirat-un-Nabi. Translated by M. Bakhsh Budyani. Published by Idarah-I-Adbiyat-I Delli, 1979. Page(s):90-1
"...Muhammad regarded that as casus belli, and collected a force to beseige the clan. There were doubtless some negotiations..."
Reference: Watt, Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Published by University Press, Oxford in 1956. Page(s): 209.
"...Banu Qaynuqa were the first of the Jews who broke their pact and fought in the period between the battles of Badr and Uhud."
"...men present began pestering her to uncover her face...one of the Muslim men attacked and killed the goldsmith, who was a Jew. The Jews then siezed the Muslim and killed him...The Muslims were enraged, and so enmity arose between them and Banu Qaynuqa."
Reference: Kathir, Ibn. Al-Sira al-Nabwiyah, Volume III. Translated by Professor Trevor Le Gassick, Reviewed by Dr. Muneer Fareed. Copyright 2000, The Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization*. ISBN: 9781859641446. Page(s):2-3
- The board of this organization includes many, including Professor al-Qurdawi, Director, Sira and Sunna Research Centre, University of Qatar.
- "According to Islamic legal theory, dhimmi status was applied equally to Jews, Christian, Zorastrians and members of a few other religions...Islamic legal sources, unlike Christian sources, which talk pejoratively about the status of Jews specifically, have relatively little to say specifically about Jews. Islamic legal sources refer to dhimmis in general. Jews generally were not, atleast in thoery, singled out."
- "For most of the fourteen hundred some years of the Arab-Jewish encounter, Arabs were not in fact antisemitic in the sense in which the word is used in the book....In Islam, the Christian testament has no place; Muslim children are not raised on stories of Jewish deicide; there is no theological tradition of anti-semitism...It is noteworthy that Islam, unlike Christianity, did not retain in its sacred canon the Hebrew Bible - the Old Testament - and no clash of interpretations between Judaism and Islam could therefore arise."
- "But generally speaking, during much of the history of the contact between Jew and Muslim, the two peoples habituated themselves to one another, and much of the harshness that we have come to expect from these kinds of vexing regulations either simply did not emerge."
- "The first period, that of so-called Classical Islam, consisted of the first seven or eight centuries of Muslim history...The position of Jews, as of toher minorities, varied enormously during these centuries, but an important point must be noted: even at their worst, anti-Jewish persecutions did not have the distinctive characteristics of Christian antisemitism...Antisemitic activity of sever nature - violent persectuion, forced conversion, banishment - was rare during this first period."
Reference: Chanes, Jerome A (2004). Antisemitism. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Pages 41-5. Chanes has taught at Barnard and Stern Colleges and in Yeshiva University's graduate divisions and is senior research fellow at the Center for Jewish History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
- "The Moslem rulers, on the whole, proved humane masters...A partnership of sorts developed between Moslem authorities and Jewish subjects, and Jews eventually gained admission into the highest circles of power and wealth in the empire...The Hebrew Exilarch was granted prestige and privelege in secular affairs, and the caliphate extended full relgiious authorities to the Gaonim (heads of Jewish academies). In Palestine it seems the Jewish population fared equally well. A thriviing school rose in Tiberius, where, it is beleived, the great liturgies of Judaism had their first flowering. There, too, developed the vocalization of the Scriptures (the Masorah). The Sanhedrin again deliberated the affairs of the community . the greates strifeendured by the Jews of the "homeland" was occasioned by repeated Byzantine incursions, which carried death and ruin in their wake."
Reference: Gade, Richard E (1981). A Historical survey of Anti-Semitism. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
- "The Jewish tribes not only refused to accept him but they taunted and mocked him, charging him with ignorance and imposture, and even conspired against him with his enemies, after having sworn friendship and peace."
- "There was ample authority for such treatment of the adherents of other montothiestic faiths in the Koran and in the traditions of the Prophet. 'There is no compulsion in religion,' declares the holy book of Islam, and in the hadith Mohammed is reported to have stated: 'He who wrongs a Jew or a Christian will have myself as his indicter on the Day of Judgement.' The only exception of this tolerant attitude was Omar II who reigned from 717 to 720..."
- "Of real antisemitism of an all-embracing character one hears ver little in the early history of Islam."
- "The first of these was the comparitive tolerance on the part of Islam of other monthiestic faiths. The second was the abscence in Muslim society of a strongly centralized church such as existed in the Christian world. Thirdly, the Jews were never charged by Islam, as they have been by Christianity, with having caused the death of its founder. the fourth reason for the friendlier relationship may have been the racial kinship between the Jews and people which produced Islam. The fifth was undoubtedly the fact that the Islamic sphere of influence contained too many heterogenous elements to be able to afford to be totalitarian."
Reference: Pinson, Koppel S; Rosenblatt, Samuel (1946). Essays on Antisemitism. New York: The Comet Press. Pages 112-119.
Pinson was the professor of History at Queens College.
Other
edit"It [Qur'an] elevates the woman to the status of the twin-half man, - equal to him spiritually, morally and legally (IV:1; XXXIII:35 etc.)." vol. i, pg. 257 "As regards respect for human dignity, it is, in the Qur'anic view, the birthright of every human being." "In their basic human nature and status, therefore, they [men and women] are united in the bond of humanity:- they are one and the same, and even in their functions they stand out as complimentaries and not negation of one another. Consequently both possess equal human dignity." vol. i, pg. 163
Reference: Dr. Muhammad Fazl-ur-Rahman Ansari (1975). The Qur'anic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society. Karachi: World Federation of Islamic Missions.
Maulana Dr. Muhammad Fazl-ur-Rahman Ansari holds a Doctorate in Philosophy from Aligarh University. He has been the professor of Philosophy of Religion, Moral Philosophy, Comparitive Religion and Islamic Studies at the Acdemy of Islamic Studies at Quetta, and University of Karachi. He has also guided research in Comparative Religion, psychology and Philosophy at Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies, and was the Director of Research at the University of Karachi. He was the president of World Federation of Islamic Missions at the time of publishing the book.
- "The explanation given by one of the most influential Muslim scholar-activists of the twentieth century, the founder of Jamaat-i-Islami party ... Maududi."
Reference:Ahmed, Akbar S. (2002). Islam Today. New York: I.B.Tauris. pp. 24–5. ISBN 1-86064-257-8. Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and Professor of International Affairs, American Unviersity, Washington D.C. He has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard University nad at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
- "Abu al-Ala Maududi (d.1979), the founder of the most important Islamic party in the Indian subcontinent, the Jama'at-i Islami, began al-Jihad fi al-Islam (Jihad in Islam) in 1926 ...The complete work was first published in 1930 to wide acclaim from Indian Muslim Intellectuals[5]...Because their [Maududi, Hamidullah, and al-Zuhayli] works are pioneering and innovative, they have significantly influenced generations of students and are well known beyond their natice cultural context...These three authors are also significant in that they represent the general direction of Islamic thinking on issues of war and peace...Each assumes need for critical reevaluation of medieval literature, and each performs in effect ijtihad..."
Reference:*Brockopp, Jonathan E. (2003). Islamic Ethics of Life. Columbia: University of South California Press. pp. 130–1. ISBN 1-57003-471-0. {{cite book}}
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Ref[5]:From the publisher's preface to the book at Lahore:Idara tarjuman al-Quran, 1988.
Brockdropp is an associate professor of religious studies at Pennsylvania State Unviersity, and holds graduate degrees from Yale University. Hashmi is associate professor of international relation at Mount Holyoke College. He is editor of Islamic Political ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism and Conflict' (Princeton University Press, 2002).
- "The biographies of men like Mawlana Mawdudi... are not only essential to historical investigation into contemporary Islamic thought and action but critical to undertanding it...His writings were prolific...Maududi is without doubt the most influential of contemporary Islamic revivalist thinkers.[1] His views have influenced revivalism from Morocco to Malaysia, leaving their mark on thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb and on events such as the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, and have influenced the spread of Islamic revivalism in Central Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Asia.[2]"
Reference: *Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza (1996). Mawdudi and the making of Islamic Revivalism. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 0-19-509695-9. Edited by Cynthia Read[1], one of the staff at Oxford University Press.
Ref[1]: Said Amr Arjomand, "The Emergence of Islamic Political Ideologies," in James A. Beckford and Thomas Luckmann, eds., The Changing Face of Religion (London, 1989), pp 111-112.
Ref[2]: far too many to be listed by me. But here are some: Philip Lewis, Islamic Britain:religion, Politics and Identity among British Muslims (London, 1994), pp 102-112; Abdelwahab El-Affedni, "the Long Marhc from Lahore to Khartoum: Beyond the 'Muslim Reformation,'" British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin 17.2 (1990): 138-9; Oliver Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 2nd ed. (New York, 1990), pp. 68-70; Said Amr Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York, 1988), p. 107; and Zainah Anwar, Islamic Fundementalism in Malaysia, 2nd ed. (Kuala Lumpur, 1989).
- "...influential Muslim intellectuals ...Abu al-A'la Maududi, Sayyid Qutb..."; "...Maududi's writings have been extremely influential throughout the Muslim World and among Muslims living in the West.[61]"
Reference: :*Farouki, Suha Taji (2004). Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century. New York: I.B.Taurus. pp. 7, 75. ISBN 1-85043-425-5. {{cite book}}
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Suha Taji-farouki is a lecturer in Modern Islam at the Institute of Arab and Islmaic Studies, University of Exeter and research Associate at the Institute of Islamili Studies, London. Nafi teaches History and Islmaic Studies at the Muslim College and Birkbeck College. Shepard was the Associate Professor of religious Studies at the Unvieristy of Cantebury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Islam and slavery
edit- "Opposition to slavery did not begin as a result of Western influence, as is so often assumed, for the Druzes abolished slavery in the eleventh century. However, they were such a heterodox Isma'ili sect as to have little or no impact on the wider community. They were in any case confined to the mountains of Greater Syria.
- More striking, albeit less radical, were notable reforms in the 'gunpowder empires' that arose from the sixteenth century. At best, in the case of Akbar, Mughal emperor of India from 1556 to 1605, there was a possibility that slavery might have withered away, if his reforms had been continued. At worst, the questioning of forms of enslavement and slave use, from Timbuktu to Sulawesi, became part of a tradition that later reformers could draw upon.
- The emergence of fully-fledged Islamic abolitionism from the 1870s was no mere response to Western pressure. Reformers of various kinds returned to the original texts of the faith, especially the Qur'an, as part of a broader movement of revival and renewal. Rather to their surprise, they discovered that the foundations for slavery in holy writ were extremely shaky, not to say non-existent. The Qur'an nowhere explicitly allowed the making of any new slaves by anybody save the Prophet himself, and called repeatedly for the manumission of existing slaves. The Hadith literature was scarcely more supportive of slavery, and many reformers queried the authenticity of some of these traditions. The entire edifice of slavery, accounting for a third of the compendium of holy law most used in Inner and South Asia, was found to be built on a cumulative set of dubious exegetical
exercises."
Reference: William Gervase Clarence-Smith. "Islam and Slavery" (Document). The London School of Economics and Political Science. {{cite document}}
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Professor William Gervase Clarence-Smith teaches Global History, Islam, slavery, diasporas at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He is also the head of the Department of History there. His work Islam and the Abolition of Slavery, was published by the Oxford University Press in 2006.