–Europe's Tolerance May Soon End

MOHAMMED: The West’s New Inquisition Against Islam
By Jahangir Mohammed

In this article, Jahangir Mohammed traces the spirit and tradition of The Inquisition, a peculiarly European and Christian form of intolerance, which it is argued has been revived today. Islam is once again the target of the politics and policies of this new Inquisition launched by the West, aided by Muslim puppet regimes.

Western commentators and intellectuals like to boast of Europe’s tradition of tolerance, freedom of expression and religion. One wonders which history books these enlightened individuals, read to enable them to come such a conclusion. The accusations of violence levelled against Islam, also tend to blind the Judeo-Christian West to their own legacy of violence around the world. Of course, those in power usually tend to write their own history and create their own image. That should not preclude Muslims from investigating the historical validity of such statements.

It is a fact however, that in Europe nowhere have large communities of people who have held differing faiths and beliefs to those accepted as Christian or the Established faith, survived without pogroms to wipe them out. [i] And whilst western civilization declares itself to be Judeo-Christian, even the Jews were subject to waves of persecution in the West, so much so that they felt that they could never be accepted in Europe, and needed their own State, a view that Western politicians endorsed.

Compare this with Muslim rule in the past, where large communities of Christians, Jews, Hindus, and those of other faiths not only co-existed but also flourished. Nor was there any widespread attempt to eliminate, assimilate, control, persecute, impose leadership, or otherwise interfere with the practice of other faiths. Under the Islamic system of Dhimma, other communities were allowed to retain their own leadership and religious structures. When Jews and Christians were persecuted in Europe, they found refuge in Islamic lands and when non-establishment communities of Christians were being persecuted as in Spain, they called on Muslims to come to their aid.

Contrast this, with the widespread history of Crusade and Inquisition in the West. Today, the West is once again in the grip of its historical Crusader zeal, with openly declared aims and strategies of reforming Islam. In light of today’s global policies targeting Muslims, which have been developed primarily by white European Christians and Jews, it is fitting for us to examine Europe’s historical record of intolerance. When we do so, we find that one of the worst brands of European intolerance - the Inquisition, has returned to haunt Muslims.

The institution of Inquisition was and is particularly Christian, and European. When Inquisition is mentioned, most people tend recall the persecution and forced conversion of Muslims and Jews in Spain. However, there have been a number of Inquisitions and most of the early ones were not aimed at Muslims. So we need to understand the history and tradition of Inquisition, within Christian Europe to grasp its contemporary significance. In order to do this, some background to the original development of Christianity is necessary.

The tradition of Inquisition in Europe, has both Roman and Christian roots, i.e. an alliance between secular and religious authorities. In the early history, of Christianity there was no uniform set of beliefs or practices. There were many competing sects all professing to be followers of Jesus offering differing interpretations of his life and personality. Most schools of thought did not accept that Jesus had been crucified, died, was resurrected, or God taking a human form (they were Unitarians rather than Trinitarians). Although these sects had all kinds of beliefs that would be alien to Islam, on the personality of Jesus their views were similar to the teachings of the Quran.

Some of the more influential of these sects, had at the core of their beliefs amongst other things that:-

• Jesus was an emissary of God.

• The New Testament was not a real source of God’s knowledge.

• They possessed the real knowledge of God (Gnosis means knowledge)

• Jesus did not die on the cross, but had created an illusion that he was killed (in some Gnostic traditions Jesus is replaced Simon of Cyrene)

• They rejected the idea of “apostolic succession” which led to the creation of the Institutions of Church and Papacy.

• Revelation from God does not require a central authority or priesthood for a relationship between man and his creator.

These many schools of thought were present at the time the Holy Quran was revealed, and continued well into the Middle Ages. A combination of the above beliefs was central to most, including the Cathars and Bogomils. [ii] Hence they are all generally classed as Gnostics and were declared Heretics.[iii]

One early view, developed primarily from the teachings of Saint Paul, the only person declared an Apostle but who never had any contact with Jesus. It was largely the opinions and teachings of St. Paul that led to the creation of what we call Christianity today.

For Paul, everything centred on Jesus being Son of God, and not his sayings and doings. Paul’s views deviated from almost everything Jesus taught and also from his own Jewish origins. Jewish scriptures based on the Old Testament were monotheistic and the acceptance of God becoming Man was considered a blasphemy. It appears, that Paul’s ideas were shaped more by Greek mythology, which represented the dominant religious ideas of the time and had been adopted by the ruling Roman Empire. In these ideas Gods often took a human form (Gods often fought each other and died – deicide, and were resurrected). Paul went further, and declared that the laws and rules of the Old Testament, that were particularly unpalatable to the secular Romans, were suspended, since salvation and judgement was no longer based on ones individual actions, but through the grace of God, through his Son Jesus Christ. This license for complete freedom is at the heart of Western religious, social and political thought today.

It is likely that Paul’s innovations were introduced in an attempt to make Christianity more acceptable to the Roman’s, since the initial spread of Christianity was confined to Jews, and the Romans particularly detested Jewish rules and regulations. In this attempt to widen the appeal of his ideas outside Jewish circles Paul was successful, and his view of Christianity spread within the Empire. However, there still persisted many Christian schools of thought.

As the number of Christians of all sects began to grow within Rome, and as many were against emperor worship and rule, they came to be perceived as a threat to Roman rule, and were persecuted. This strategy of suppression did not work, and numbers of Christians in the ranks of officials of the empire also grew. Eventually, after much reflection, the Emperor Constantine decided to adopt a new strategy; to co-opt the Christians into the system rather than attempt to wipe them out. Paul’s Christianity was declared the official State religion.[iv] Thus was born the Roman Catholic (universal) Church. For the Church this relationship with State was also beneficial as it meant that on the back of State power its version of Christianity prevailed and flourished. This marriage of Church with Secular State, meant that the State now became defender of the official faith and the Church became upholder of man made laws and rulers (Emperors and Kings and later man made ideologies and systems). [v]

Despite this, differences within Christianity remained and the State intervened. The State in collusion with the Roman Catholic Church called the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and adopted the Nicene Creed (the views of Paul on Jesus) as the only acceptable view of Christianity (Constantine is said to have embraced Christianity).

After Niceaea, all other interpretations of Jesus and his teachings, were declared illegitimate - a Heresy. Only the Church’s views were considered legitimate and orthodox. From that moment began attempts to eliminate Heretics and burn all other books and writings that contradicted the official view. This included the destruction of gospels that were more accurate in their account of the life of Jesus than those adopted by the Official Church (which were not eyewitness). This tradition of eliminating all other the beliefs (Christian and later non-Christian) first occurred through unorganised effort, but eventually through organised violence or forced conversion, via the institutions of Inquisition and Crusade. It also involved eradicating any evidence of alternative interpretations, views and knowledge through book burning, a particularly Christian and European policy. The blame for the Crusades and Inquisition is often labelled at the door of the Church, and therefore religion, by western commentators (and why Islam should have to carry the can for behaviour of the Church, is something I fail to comprehend). However in reality, both the Established Faith in league with rulers and the Sate were complicit.

There were a number of organised Inquisitions against Heretics by the Established Church. The first of these was the Medieval Inquisition against the Cathars in South France, established in 1184. By the end of the 13th Century the Inquisition operated in nearly all lands under the Pope’s remit. Although officially only Christians could be Heretics, the Inquisition found ways of dealing with atheists, blasphemers, witches and Jews and Muslims too. The Spanish Inquisition was by far the most intense and comprehensive in eliminating Muslims, Jews and other Christians. It started in 1478 and lasted for some 300 years. The Roman Inquisition was a third variation; from 1542 it targeted the growth of Protestantism and the ideas of the Reformation. Although the determination of Heretics was carried out by the Church’s office of Inquisition, the State was required to carry out the sentence. After the growth of Protestantism, the intolerance of Official Christianity led to Catholics and Protestants persecuting and killing each other in States where each was dominant. The Inquisition successfully eliminated all those other Christian groups that did not believe in Jesus as God, and many other beliefs.

Western historians also tend to portray the 14th and 15th century Renaissance and the Reformation as a period that marked the decline of religion, the rise of secularism and hence the end of religious persecution, and forced conversion of those with other views and faiths. However, western secularism and almost all western persecuting and exploitative ideologies (capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, nationalism, colonialism, apartheid, Zionism, secularism) have emanated from the Judeo Christian political tradition highlighted above, i.e. a mutually convenient fusion of religion with secular state. Hence we find that such traditions in reality continued in both Europe and those nations that were colonised. These traditions of censorship, and elimination of alternative culture or competing views to the dominant ruling ideology and its officially recognised faith, continued post renaissance.

So for example when Columbus and the Europeans went to the New World, the tradition of Inquisition was exported with the occupiers, and indigenous beliefs systems and cultures were all but eliminated. When the occupiers went to the Americas and Australia, they eliminated alternative beliefs and cultures. African slavery to the West arrived at the same time as the Renaissance and continued long after. African slaves were totally stripped of their religious beliefs and forced to accept Christianity. When the Europeans went to colonise the rest of the world, they purposely set out to eliminate the beliefs systems of others. The supposedly secular French, went to the extent of forcing an alien language and dress codes upon another people with the sole aim of detaching a people from their religious heritage, in places like Algeria.[vi] The British adopted a more sophisticated approach but with the same aim. Wherever these European invaders went, they did so in partnership with their Official religion, Catholicism or Protestantism.[vii] So we find for example where the British ruled in Sudan and Nigeria, the Anglican Church was built and converted people on the back of State power. Where Catholic Europeans colonised others, Catholicism was forced upon the natives in league with the State power.

This tradition of intolerance continued, and has been a permanent feature of the post renaissance period. The rallying calls of western humanism “Liberty, Fraternity, Brotherhood” and the Rights of Man were seldom applied to people of other beliefs or skin colour. With the rise of secular fascism and communism the Nazis proceeded to burn Jews, gypsies, and others via the holocaust and earlier traditions such as burning books, continued. The Communists, although declaring all religion to be “the opium of the people”, marked out Muslims for particular, attention. They proved very adept at censoring all alternative ideas and beliefs. Even those that subscribed to communist views in Western Europe were subject to the McCarthyism and witch-hunts.

In the 1990’s in Bosnia we saw the rise of intolerance targeting Muslims again, secular Serbian and Russian nationalists allied to Christianity once more. The Russians today continue with the policy of forcing their values on Muslims in Muslim lands, under Russian occupation.

Today, the spirit of Crusade and Inquisition has been revived in the West, and there are many similarities with the methods and policies of past inquisitions. Once again Islam is the target.

In the past, Paulician Christianity and European imperialism were established through violence. Today also the West has started a new Crusade to convert the Muslim world by force to a set of man made doctrines- democracy and secularism. As in the past, a deviant group of Christians and Jews (Zionist Christians and Jews) have teamed up with a secular empire (the US) in an attempt to eliminate those that do not share their view or submit to the rule of a worldly power. Just as Constantine “converted “ to Paul’s brand of Christianity, so too Bush and Blair have “converted” to the beliefs of Zionist Jews and Zionist Christians. The new empire and faith have declared the heretics to be anyone who does not share their world-view and stands in opposition to it. First Muslims and then will come the time for all others who resist. The spirit of Crusade and Inquisition pervades the Empire, with even the Liberals and those on the left, declaring that Islam and Muslims are in need of reform and declaring the Extremists as heretics, mainly without even hearing their views.

Similar attempts are now being made to co-opt Muslim groups that have embraced some of the ideas of the secular state (such as democracy, power sharing, a Fiqh for minorities, political integration). States throughout Europe (France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are now creating Establishment Muslim bodies, to shape a deviant Islam in the image of the West.

Once blessed by the State, those Muslims go on to declare the official view of Islam, and both pronounce everyone else as Heretics. In today’s language the Establishment Islam is known as Moderate Islam, and the Heretics are called extremists, fringe groups, terrorists, unrepresentative of Islam etc. The latter tend to be those Muslims that see Islam as a comprehensive ideology rather than a religion.

With the help of the State and the media, the “Heretics” are identified and singled out. As in previous Inquisitions, they are presented as a threat to society and dismissed as not representing the true Islam of the Moderates. The State, Official Muslims and the Media, collude to ridicule, dismiss and distort the opinions, views and personalities of the Heretics. In today’s environment, the threat must represent a real danger rather than a set of beliefs, so the bogey of terrorism is manufactured and maintained with ludicrous James Bond style plots.

Prior to the launch of the Spanish Inquisition, and to force Muslims to convert to Christianity, their freedoms and rights were restricted and diminished so it was impossible to live as Muslims. They had to convert and practice secretly or leave for North Africa. Today, restrictive laws are beginning to have the same effect. Those that can’t take the heat, are leaving, albeit it at a small scale. Others are changing their Muslims names so they can get jobs. Yet others are changing the names of their businesses and organisations so that they are not a target of the State. Others still, refuse to display any outward sign of their religiosity in order to survive the hate and hostility that now afflicts the West.

One of the earliest Inquisition restrictions was to make Muslims and Jews wear distinctive garments, so they were easily recognisable. Today, the British Government seeks to introduce ID cards, ostensibly to protect people from terrorists, but the underlying purpose is to be able to identify Muslims, especially the ones they suspect of being extremists.

The Spanish authorities could seize the property and person of a Muslim and restrict their trade. Today, property and wealth of Muslim charities, organisations, individuals and businesses are confiscated under the excuse of funding terrorism.

Eventually, huge walled compounds, with only one entrance were built to surround Muslim and Jewish areas. This was to restrict their access to Christians. These were called Judeirar’s and Moreriar’s. Today the Jewish State operates a similar policy of the Wall against Palestinians.

Once the Muslims and Jews were forced to convert and practice their religion in secret, the Inquisition was formally launched (by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478). Since they were now officially Christians, Muslims could be declared heretics and eliminated. The same happens to day. Once Muslims have converted to the official faith, Moderate Islam, the Establishment searches for any evidence that they are really Heretics. This was wonderfully illustrated by the Media Trial of the Moderate Sheikh Yusuf-Al-Qardawi, despite the protestations of his followers, that he was the genuine article and not like those real heretical extremists.

In 1481, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand appointed the infamous Thomas De Torquemada to oversee the investigation and punishment of Jews and Muslims who claimed to have converted. Torquemada, produced his 28 Articles on how to identify a Heresy and what to do, for fellow Inquisitors. In subsequent years he would add new Articles. Today, there are many Torquemada’s with their equivalent Articles on how to determine Heretics. US High Priest John Ashcroft with his Patriot Act asking Americans to spy on their fellow Muslims, and report any suspicious behaviour, and restricting rights and freedoms. There is British ex Lay Preacher David Blunkett with his Terrorism Laws, which he extends with religious fervour almost every year, so the circle of those considered Heretics can be widened. He plans to extend these laws to include “those on the fringes” of, or committing acts “preparatory to terrorism”. He even plans to outlaw those Heretics who “incite religious hatred” and curb freedom of association for them, and ban their organisations as has already happened in Denmark and Germany. In France, there is the head of the fanatical Christian sect known as Secularists, Nicholas Sarkozy. He has advanced plans to totally eliminate non-official Islam. In France wearing the Hijab is considered one of the most serious Heresies, even though the image of a Hijab clad Mary, whom the Christian French consider to be mother of God, adorns many of their homes and institutions.

Throughout the West, the spirit of Inquisition and the search for Heretics is gaining momentum. The Inquisitors placed people in Muslim areas to inform them what was going on. Today, throughout the West, Muslims are being watched. Mosques are under surveillance, students at Universities observed, phones, internet and emails monitored, bank transactions checked, The tradition of eliminating any alternative voices or opinion has returned. Where once books were confiscated and burned, today literature, websites, video, books can all be used as evidence of Extremism and reason for prosecution, or banning. The authors of these works, either Imams or scholars or organisations, are prosecuted, locked up, deported or removed from their mosques. The State is actively seeking to control Mosques and install Imams of the Official Faith.

Today, just like under the Inquisition, suspicion was considered sufficient evidence of guilt. [viii] The accused were taken away and denied any access to and lawyers. The family would not be told what was happening and were denied access. Those arrested could disappear for week’s months and years, without trial. The evidence was gathered secretly and through torture, as today. The accused were not told what the evidence was against them, nor could they call or question accusers or witnesses. The accused were forced through torture to repent, and even when they did were not believed, leading often to a sentence of death at the stake. We find such conditions in American run concentration camps around the world today, for example, Guantanamo, and in Belmarsh in Britain. Thousands were arrested in the United States itself after 911, and held without charge.

A key feature of the Inquisition was something called self-denunciation and reporting of others that were suspected of being Heretics. The accused was asked not only to denounce himself as a heretic, but also to denounce and report others. Since the identity of the denouncer was withheld, nobody could defend themselves. Soon everyone was denouncing and reporting each other, including family members. Today, Muslims are habitually asked to denounce the extremists, disassociate themselves from them and even report those they suspect of being involved in extremist/terrorist activities. Any media report must contain the mandatory denunciation and disassociation from the Extremists by a Moderate - “their views do not represent the Muslims” or “they are a fringe group”. The Inquisitors would go to a Muslim area and ask people to report suspected heretics. Today Official Muslim groups send out letters to all mosques asking Muslims to report suspected terrorists. These groups of Muslims aligned with the authorities existed under the Inquisition too, they were known as Muddajjin by the Muslims (domesticated, tamed, in total darkness). Such Muslims foolishly believed that by collaborating with the State they could save themselves. Today, they issue booklets called “rights and responsibilities”, such groups and Muslims thought that they had rights under the Spanish authorities too. Not a single treaty was honoured. Nor has the West honoured the vast majority of treaties with indigenous people wherever they went.

Anyone seeing those terrible pictures of the humiliation and torture of Muslims in Abu Ghraib prison would rightly be shocked. Those images, mirror drawings and paintings of prisoners being interrogated by the Inquisition. Prisoners were almost always stripped naked, tied, humiliated and tortured until they confessed to being a heretic. Extra-ordinary forms of torture ranging from hanging, stretching and suspending captives on pyramids through various bodily orifices, were used. One wonders if those that forced Iraqi prisoners to form a naked human pyramid knew that they were enacting scenes from the Inquisition? What was evident then and now, from the torture of Muslims in Guantanamo, Bagram, Iraq and elsewhere, is the intense hatred of Islam of those carrying out the interrogations.

Once those interrogated had confessed, some were issued with the edicts of grace and a public procession was held, Auto De Fae. This was a procession to show of those that had been saved and accepted the error of their ways. In today’s world, the Media parades those that have adopted Moderate Islam as a message to others as if to say “you see these people they have adopted our beliefs and values”.

Today’s Crusade and Inquisition, have the same objectives as in the past, the desire to eliminate any views that seek to preserve even the semblance of God’s revelation to man. Such views are considered inimical to the interests of secular powers and those religious authorities (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) that have a vested interest in preserving their power base, privileges and deviant version of Gods real message. Just as St. Paul wanted to develop a relationship with the Empire and Secular State, so too today, there are Muslims that want have a formal relationship between Islam and Secular State, to further their version of Islam, power base and authority. What is interesting is that Secular States that talk of separation of religion from State have developed that relationship, in France, Britain, the US and elsewhere. It suits their purpose to create an Islam that is not based one what God wants, but what the Empire needs. What is different today, is that the rulers of Muslim lands are also engaged in that Inquisition.

The lesson for us is that those who have deviated from God’s truth, will adopt the methods of the Inquisition to preserve themselves, because falsehood fears freedom of religion and tolerance of other beliefs. Truth on the other hand has no fear of falsehood and embraces freedom of religion, knowledge and tolerance towards others. Islam never feared the knowledge, beliefs or presence of others in its midst, and its confidence lifted Europeans from the Dark Ages of suppression and oppression. It is high time Muslims developed the confidence to play that historical role once more, before the West steeps once again into the Dark Ages. That role can only be played if we are independent of the Secular Empire and not a branch of it, and in that role we will find many allies amongst those of other beliefs.

Jahangir Mohammed, is Director for the Centre for Muslim Affairs, an independent think tank on Muslim Affairs. This is the fourth in a series of articles intended to provide an understanding of Democracy from an independent Islamic perspective, and stimulate debate and free thinking.c-m-a@fsmail.net. www.prisonersofwest.com  is a website dedicated to exposing the persecution of Muslims and the withering away of their rights and freedoms.