Muslim tolerance put to the test

• colonised our lands;
• divided our peoples and territories;
• helped the Jews to usurp the Arab territories in Palestine;
• invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and killed thousands of innocent Muslims; and
• humiliated Muslims in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and many other clandestine prison camps around the world.

All these are true and painful facts of history.

It is, however, a misery that we share with millions of people around the globe, both in the distant and near history, who suffered the same fate or sometimes worse in the hands of foreign oppressors. To cite but a few: the annihilation of the Red Indians in the Americas; the inhuman act of the slave trade of which Arabs had a big hand; the Jewish holocaust; and the apartheid system in South Africa. These were some of the worst crimes ever committed by a human being against his fellow human being.

Looking at the other side of the coin, however, we have to admit that Western countries:

• gave money and ammunition to the people of Afghanistan to help them liberate their country from Soviet occupation;
• saved the Muslim people of Bosnia and Albania from annihilation;
• went to the rescue of the Muslim people of Somalia to break the grip of warlords on the people's life, to feed the poor and treat the sick;
• despite their follies still extend the largest financial aid to the Palestinian people;
• generously and compassionately opened their pockets to help the millions of Muslim people whose lives and homes were devastated by Tsunami in Indonesia and other places;
• are still dispatching thousands of tons of food and medications to the drought affected people of East Africa, the majority of whom are Somali speaking people in the Horn of Africa; and
• Western humanitarian organisations are feeding, sheltering and treating the thousands of Muslim refugees of Darfur.

Finally, I would like to hear if anyone could tell me what the life of the Arab people in the oil rich Gulf countries would have been today without the West exploring and extracting oil and gas for them.

I may also mention that despite our acerbic rhetoric and collective bashing of the Western world, thousands of Muslim youths who are running away from harsh political realities and grinding economic conditions make their way to the West every year. Although they do not all find milk and honey in the promised land, and many of them live in squalid ghettos, the hard working ones who are ready to integrate and embrace the values of their host countries make a decent and dignified living.

It is worth mentioning that hundreds of militant clerics, who are known to be sworn enemies of Western life, sought refuge in the West to escape imminent beheadings in their own Muslim homelands. They were not only given free food, shelter, free education and nationality but they had also been allowed to build their own mosques and carry on their own religious missions, which they have unfortunately misused to produce armies of suicide bombers, instead of disseminating God's word of peace, love and brotherhood.

There is no doubt that the extremist groups that have hijacked Islam long ago have also hijacked the cartoon crisis; diverting it from being an issue of cultural ignorance to incite hatred and vengeful feelings among the illiterate Muslim masses. If only someone had told these mobs that the Prophet Mohammed and the great religion of Islam is more noble and deep in the hearts of millions than to be worried by cartoons.

If only someone had reminded them that the crusader armies of King Richard the Lion Heart could not tarnish the Muslims' love for their Prophet. A little cool contemplation on the history of Islam would have shown them that it was Prophet Mohammed who fought for freedom of speech when he was pleading to the non-Muslims to just listen to him when they were threatening him with sticks and stones. Mohammed was telling them there was no compulsion in Islam, proclaiming in God's words "Unto You Your Religion and Unto Me My Religion."

This is how Islam taught us that civilised debate and freedom of choice were more powerful than brute force. Hence, it is pathetic to see in the cartoon saga that Muslims have taken the position of the Quraishites, and instead of resorting to dialogue and judicial law suits, have instead turned to sticks and stones and economic boycotts of Danish goods. Muslims will definitely be the losers given the amount of aid extended by the West to the Muslim world.

One can compare the Prophet Mohammed's struggle for freedom of worship, in the early days of his call to Islam, with the West’s torturous and bloody journey to earn the freedom of speech it enjoys today. Freedom of speech is as sacred to Westerners as Islam is to us. Indeed it is freedom of speech and liberalism that allowed Islam and other cultures to flourish in Europe. The Norwegian editor of the online afrol News, Rainer Chr. Hennig, has eloquently put this in his recent editorial "Without criticism of religion and religious leaders, Europe would still be burning witches and killing Jews and Muslims. Demanding respect for Islam has been considered a blasphemy in Europe! European liberalists were called unfaithful by Church leaders when campaigning to stop slavery."

To sum up, I would say that living in a global village where millions of unfortunate human beings survive under the scourge of poverty, diseases and natural disasters; where millions of mothers watch their children become skeletons due to famine before they gasp their last breath, it is an insult to humanity and almost a blasphemous act by the erstwhile defenders of both camps to waste their energy and resources on such imbecilic endeavors.

I may take consolation here in remembering the prayers of the Prophet Mohammed when he was wounded in the Battle of Uhud. Some of his followers asked him to invoke God’s anger and revenge on the enemy, however, Mohammed took the moral path and prayed for them instead saying: "O God, forgive my people and guide them to truth, because they do not know."