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Flashbacks of the Inquisition and unpleasant analogies

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Zainab_M
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« on: November 30, 2006, 03:14:08 am »

The Inquisition began in Europe in the 13th century and lasted for almost 700 years.  It was a reign of brutal terror and intolerance by the Roman Catholic Church  toward the Jews and Muslims, but mostly against many of their fellow Christians whom they saw as "heretics" drifting away from the Christian faith.
 
One of the first steps taken by the Inquisitors was to destroy all books of interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.  By the 16th century the Jews were not allowed to own any Hebrew writings except the Torah (termed as the Old Testament by the Christians). 
 
In the 14th century, the Jews in Italy (those who survived the murderous Spanish Inquisition and escaped to Italy) were forced to live in closed ghettos as per the dictates of the Roman Catholic Church.  These Jews were ordered to wear yellow bonnets to distinguish them from others. They were not allowed to mix with the Christian population, not allowed to own property and required to attend sermons asking them to convert.  They were permitted to work on the fields from morning to sunset when they were required to report to the church authorities who would take them back to their various ghettos where they would be kept locked till morning.  This was their daily schedule for the next 300 years enforced by the office of the Inquisition.
 
In other parts of Europe there were numerous incidents where the papal police took young children from well-to-do Jewish homes away from the arms of their parents to be raised in accordance with strict Christian doctrines within the premises of the papacy.  These children seldom or never saw their parents again.  A few who did, were given the permission to do so after they came of age .. and by that time they were well adjusted into the Christian faith.
 
However, there were many Christian religious leaders and commoners who strongly disapproved the values of the Catholic Church.  The Church's authoritarianism and extravagant lifestyle of its clergy were particularly distasteful to many.  But despite the tyranny, the people were helpless at the hands of the powerful Catholic Church.  Anyone who tried to challenge the authority of the Church was hunted down and silenced.  The church called such people "heretics."  In reality however, these so-called "heretics" did firmly believe in the Almighty God and the Divine Scriptures.  They only disapproved of the Church's self-designated power and the widespread abuse of this power through unjust policies. 
 
'Knowledge' was the enemy of the Roman Catholic Church.  The papacy was particularly at loggerheads with the University of Venice, and with various religious personalities in Venice and Germany.  These religious personalities preached the ideology that every individual was entitled to reach out to God for confessions and forgiveness without the intercession of the Church.  This angered the Church greatly.  Moreover, the members of the Vatican were extremely displeased with the academic excellence and intellectual freedom among the students at the University of Venice.  Biology or the study of anatomy involving lectures to students with dissections of bodies was termed as the work of the devil by the Church.  Many Venetian students and priests were arrested, brought before the tribunal conducted by senior members of the Catholic Church and sentenced to death in the most horrendous ways.  The commonest methods of execution were burning at the stake, burning in containers of boiling oil and turpentine, and being quartered. 
 
There were some renowned publishing houses in Venice where textbooks for universities written by various scholars were published.  These books clashed with the values of the Church and thus, had to be kept hidden.  If any such books got into the hands of the inquisitors, would mean endless trouble for the poor publisher.
 
It was because of this gross intolerance and the reign of terror unleashed by the Church for hundreds of years throughout Europe that eventually made is necessary to separate the Church from the State, a decision taken for the first time by Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 19th century. In other words, the dire need to separate the Church from the State was itself a glaring evidence of the intolerance of medieval Christianity.  Napoleon was a staunch opponent of the Chruch's power. After his conquest of Spain and Italy, the brutal Inquisition was put to a halt. Napoleon abolished the Church's power and crowned himself emperor.  All files of the Inquisition were sent to Paris.  Though lots of these files went missing on the way, more than 100,000 volumes were reported to have arrived in France.  Subsequently, Napoleon was also looked upon as their saviour by the Jews.  He abolished their ghettos, allowed them to move freely and permitted them to remove their yellow bonnets. 

However, there was a brief resurgence of the Inquisition after Bonaparte's defeat at Waterloo in 1815 when the dark ages of the Inquisition returned with a vengeance and lasted for the next 4 decades.  Many of those who supported the French rule were arrested, tried and executed. The archives in Paris were returned to Rome.  And the Jews were herded back to the ghettos.  

But fortunately the strength of the Italian Unification Movement (a process that unified the disparate states of the Italian peninsula into the single nation of Italy) that began at the end of Napoleon's rule gradually weakened the power of the papacy.  1870 was the year to remember by the victims of the Inquisition.  It was the year when the Italian army broke into Rome, the last city ruled by the Pope.  The Pope was left with no other choice but to retreat to the inner walls of the Vatican.  The reign of terror was finally over.
 
It is more than a little surprising that despite this shocking history, the office of the Pope still talks of "love, tolerance and forgiveness."  And indeed the Inquisition would still continue in some way or the other if stronger and more popular forces in Italy didn’t boot out the arrogant papacy during the 1800s.
 
Last but not least, as Muslims we need to draw some vital lessons from such horrific flashbacks. 

First, this should teach us the importance of adhering to the purity of the Glorious Quraan and our conscience, and shunning all those selfish and blasphemous innovations / laws that have gradually evolved out of human minds and plagued our Faith.

Human nature is inherently bent upon ruining the beauty of Divine guidance.  Needless to say, the Quraan does NOT permit acts like those of the Inquisition.  Neither does Allah allow us to separate His Quraanic dictates (both spiritual and practical) from our daily lives.  Besides, no Muslim rulers even at the best of times in Islamic history carried out such acts as were enforced at random by the "holy" office of the Inquisition. Thus, as Muslims, there is no need for us to separate our faith from the affairs of the state.  That would definitely be an incomplete approach toward adhering to the Muslim way of life. 

The political, legal and social era during the time of the Prophet (pbuh) and the four Caliphs (that stretched for approximately 40 years after the passing away of the Prophet) was perhaps the only period in history that constituted an impeccable example of the combination of religious and practical ethics as highlighted throughout the Quraan.  After this era began the downfall of ideologies among Muslim rulers.  The dynasties that followed adhered to the religious rituals of Islam but compromised greatly on the ethical dictates of honesty, justice and simplicity that were replaced with greed for power, extravagance, corruption and demoting the status of women.  All this made it necessary to deviate from the commandments of the Quraan and the authentic teachings of the beloved Prophet, resulting in concocted rules by Imams and rulers.  Unfortunately, a lot of this is presented in the form of 'Hadeeth' at present. As obvious to everyone, this ongoing culture of corrupt rulers and manipulative clergy stretches upto this day, and is much at its zenith. 

Frankly and to my dismay, I clearly see some striking and scary similarities between the minds of our present-day Muslim clergy and the ones in the Pope's office.  Here's what I mean.  The standard hallmarks of the Inquisition were:
 
1.  gross intolerance
2.  labelling those who didn't agree with the Church as "heretics" (or disbelievers)
3.  implementing and adhering to their own convenient laws, disregarding the Divine Book
4.  justifying torture and all other violations in the "honour and glory of Christ"
5.  looking upon education as "evil."
 
With some alterations, the basic mentality of the mainstream Muslim community today is quite the same as the first four points stated above.  In addition, the fifth point regarding education as "unnecessary" and a source of "vices and sins" particularly for females was vehemently implemented by the Talibans. Unfortunately this wasn't condemned by many Muslim communities as loudly as they should have.  Besides, practices such as killing of apostates, seclusion of women, misogynistic statements, stoning to death for adultery, reappearance of Imam Mahdi etc. are few of the many dictates and ideas that have been borrowed from the various altered versions of the New Testament by certain self-serving Muslim 'spiritualists'  (many of them being the writers of the Hadeeth from which evolves the Shariah/Fiqh/Hudud) approximately after the 10th century onward.  Such laws have nothing to do with the Glorious Quraan and nothing to do with the teachings of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
 
May Allah (The Highest) have mercy on us, protect us from evil, and grant us insight to discern between truth and falsehood.



- 'Secret Files of the Inquisition'- a preview of the 4-part television series on Vision TV
- A brief and comprehensive history of the Inquisition - excellent read
- 'The Inquisition' (from Wikipedia)
- 'Battle of Waterloo'   (from Wikipedia)
Secret Files of the Inquisition - historical mini-series docu drama
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Heba E. Husseyn
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« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2006, 04:45:00 am »

awesome article and well thought out.  i can understand those similarities u perceive, and also the human 'contributions' ruining the religion of Allah.  though upsetting, it's pretty much it. all messengers came with the same message from God, and all messengers also had the same set of opponents in every phase of history - opponents who came with the same mindset of bidah to ruin the original messages.  and ironically when a few conscientious ones try to raise their voices against this bidah, they're the ones who are accused for introducing the bidah. think of it, it actually means that nowadays according to the majority sticking to the Quraan alone is bidah -  whoof! i can hardly believe our deterioration.  May Allah have mercy.  real sad situation  cryin

btw i saw that 4 part tv series of the 'secret files of the inquisition.'  beautiful production.  i talked about it with some of my chrisitian friends at work.  one of them said that it was a jewish production (by david rabinovitch) so take it with a pinch of salt  Undecided  but personally i found the substance of that documentary quite in conformity with whatever i've read about the inquisition from other sources.  so i'd still advise everyone to watch it. 

thanks for this great posting zeynab
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« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2006, 11:55:25 pm »

The rejection of the sunnah is not something new. It was as a result of failed attempts started by some orientalists who studied Islam not to know the truth about it but studied it in order to learn how to fight it. Realizing the importance of the sunnah in the practical aspect of Islam, they made every possible attempt to discredit the hadiths. They failed in their attempt, however they were able to find some followers in the Indian subcontinent. Today's group that call themselves the followers of the "Quran" are carrying the seed those orientalists cultivated in the Indian subcontinent.

You cannot separate the sunnah from the Quran. Because most parts, the sunnah explains the Quran. The number one job of the prophet was to explain the Quran and the Message of Allah to the people, therefore, we cannot completely understand the Quran and the intention of the words in the Quran unless we go back to how the prophet (s.w.t) explained to the companions.

Bye the way, the sunnah consists moslty of the sayings, the actions (practice), and actions the prophet approved. Therefore the answer to your question, how the Muslims prayed during the life time of the prophet? is that the prophet was among them and he was the one leading the prayer when with them and he taught how to pray like he was taught by angel Jibril. He said pray as you see me praying. So the prophet taught the companions and they continued praying the way they learned from the prophet and they taught their children (tabi'een)
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« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2006, 02:50:50 am »

 salamem

Wecome to our forum, dear brother in Islam.  Thanks for your input.  I would also appreciate if you introduce yourself briefly at the 'Introduction' board.

Realizing the importance of the sunnah in the practical aspect of Islam, they made every possible attempt to discredit the hadiths. They failed in their attempt, however they were able to find some followers in the Indian subcontinent. Today's group that call themselves the followers of the "Quran" are carrying the seed those orientalists cultivated in the Indian subcontinent.

Well .. I would put it thus.  I agree Sunnah is important, but it goes without saying that it must be the true Sunnah of the Prophet (Salallah Alayhi Wasallam), NOT the "sunnah" of imam Bukhari etc. that's twisted and turned to dupe the naive believers. 

Besides, there's no "group" that rejects sunnah or hadeeth (though I hope there was).  You will only find a few individuals questioning hadeeth .. the ones who are a little brave to raise their voices.  Of course this doesn't mean that everyone in the mainstream agrees with Hadeeth.  It's just that they are too scared of the consequences of speaking up.  That's why I compared the culture introduce by our imams to the Catholic clergy of medieavel Europe.  Unfortunately the originals of the beloved Prophet's message has been lostwhere he (pbuh) had said to hold on to the Quraan.  Most importantly, Allah (The Most High) says in the Glorious Quraan to follow His commandments and not human concoctions .. and all those thousands of Hadeeth that keep creeping up in every generation since the last 1200 years are something for which Allah has certainly given us no warrant. 

Thirdly, I cannot speak for others who reject Hadeeth.  However, I question hadeeth on the basis of my own perception, which is .. I clearly see many ahadeeth as contradicting the Quraan blatantly and also clashing with the beloved Prophet's exemplary personality & character .  It also does not require a genius to figure out that many ahadeeth narrations are to appease the later time Muslim clergy and has nothing to do with portraying authentic sunnah. 


You cannot separate the sunnah from the Quran. Because most parts, the sunnah explains the Quran. The number one job of the prophet was to explain the Quran and the Message of Allah to the people, therefore, we cannot completely understand the Quran and the intention of the words in the Quran unless we go back to how the prophet (s.w.t) explained to the companions.

Yes u r right.  We cannot separate the Sunnah from the Quraan because the Quraan itself contains the Sunnah.  It has to be remembered (and it is a matter of common sense) that in the Quraan when Allah tells believers to follow the example of the Prophet in person, this refers to the Prophet's (pbuh) contemporaries or those living in his (pbuh) lifetime.  In order to follow the example of the Prophet (pbuh) after his passing away, we need to follow the Quraan.  We are not to blindly accept whatever narrations the imams and sheikhs bring us of their choice by conveniently attributing to the Prophet to give those narrations a leverage in public eyes. 

Thus, if we follow the Quraan we can be sure that we are following the Prophet.  But following the hadeeth is no gaurantee that we are following the Quraan nor the Prophet.


Bye the way, the sunnah consists moslty of the sayings, the actions (practice), and actions the prophet approved.

Yes brother, I have a very good idea of what Hadeeth is.  I've racked my brains studying it and trying to make some sense out of it for months.  I only ended up perceiving its manipulative strategy much more clearly than I expected.

Therefore the answer to your question, how the Muslims prayed during the life time of the prophet? is that the prophet was among them and he was the one leading the prayer when with them and he taught how to pray like he was taught by angel Jibril. He said pray as you see me praying. So the prophet taught the companions and they continued praying the way they learned from the prophet and they taught their children (tabi'een)

I presume u r responding to the post "Hadeeth and Salaah."  I agree with u.  That's exactly what I mentioned.  The Propeht taught salaah to the believers and was thus passed on from generation to generation.  Therefore, the department of Hadeeth has no right to take credit for it which is always does. Hadeeth adherents make it seem that if there was no hadeeth, Muslims today wouldn't know how to offer salaah.  That's rubbish.  In fact, its quite the opposite.  It is the Hadeeth that's stolen the method of salaah from the practical demonstrations of Muslims and then written it down. 
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