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Hugh Fitzgerald: Ed Husain on the British Museum and “The True Face of Islam” (Part Two)

Jan 28, 2019 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

Coexistence was the hallmark of Muslim civilisations, from China to the Philippines, from Malaysia to Africa and the Middle East. It was not isolated to Muslim Spain. Jewish, Christian and Muslim bread stamps, a practice from Roman times, thrived in Muslim-controlled Egypt. The gallery has a sample of remarkable stone stamps from between 1000 and 1200. Paintings and tile works, engravings on flasks, works by Sephardi Jews and Armenian Christians, but also perfume carriers from 11th-century Ismailis and 19th-century paintings from Bahais, show the diversity that thrived within Islamic civilisations.

Not coexistence, but brutal conquest, was the “hallmark of Muslim civilisations.” Ed Husain carefully refrains from mentioning the conquest of Hindu India, by far the most significant Muslim conquest beyond the Middle East. It’s understandable. That Muslim subjugation of the Hindus extended over many centuries, and caused the deaths, over several centuries of Mughal rule, of between 70-80 million Hindus, and resulted in the conversion of tens of millions more who, by becoming Muslims, could escape the difficult conditions imposed on dhimmis. That hardly qualifies as “coexistence.” Husain says such “coexistence” was “not isolated in Muslim Spain.” It turns out that modern scholars have definitely put paid to the myth of that famed “convivencia” — coexistence — in Islamic Spain. Ed Husain might take time to read Dario Fernandez-Morera’s The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Muslims in Spain massacred Christians and Jews. Sometimes those doing the massacring were soldiers, and sometimes they were ordinary Muslims, their rage sparked by some supposed affront to Muslims, causing them to go on a killing spree against Unbelievers. In 807, 700 Christian notables — civilians — were killed by a Muslim army in Toledo. In 1066 in Granada, the Muslims turned on their Jewish neighbors overnight, killing 4,000, or almost all of those living in the city, because the Muslim emir had appointed a Jew, Joseph ibn Naghrela, to be his vizier. A Jew helping an emir to govern Muslims? That was intolerable. No one ordered the Muslims to kill the Jews; they were just doing what came naturally. Jews were also the victims of Christians. In 1391, a Christian mob in Seville killed 4,000 Jews, and in the same year another Christian mob killed 2,000 Jews in Cordoba. These were only the big massacres; there were many other smaller atrocities committed, by Muslims against Jews and Christians, and by Christians against Jews and Muslims. None, apparently, were committed by Jews, who were always on the receiving end. Some convivencia.

Ed Husain’s mention of the inclusion, in the British Museum exhibit of Islamic art, of artworks by Sephardi Jews, Armenian Christians, and Bahais — none of whom were Muslim, and all of whom were persecuted, and even murdered, by Muslims — is at least bizarre. These minorities created as they lived, defying the unfavorable conditions created by their Muslim overlords. Their achievements were attained in spite of, not because of, Muslim rule.

A powerful corrective awaits schools and teachers from across the country who visit the museum. Today’s insular Muslim community leaders may reject science and Darwin, oppose music as a tool of the devil, and cover their women for fear of love and lust. But from the 700s onwards, scientists and thinkers built on pre-Islamic advances in the study of astronomy and other sciences. Astrolabes, the name derived from the Greek astro labos or ‘star-taker’, were the computers of the time. A magnificent 13th-century astrolabe reminds us of the patronage of innovation in science and free thought by medieval Muslim rulers.

It’s not “today’s insular Muslim community leaders” who “reject science and Darwin.” It’s the Islamic clerics, and many ordinary Believers, too,  who insist that “evolution” is merely a “theory.” Muslim views on evolution vary, but those who refuse to accept evolution are hardly limited to a handful of “insular community leaders.” For many Muslims, “evolution” contradicts Qur’anic creationism and cannot be accepted. As for “music as a tool of the devil,” it is not “music” in general, not, for example, a cappella singing, but musical instruments that are haram, having been condemned by Mohammed in a hadith that Ed Husain fails to mention. He ought to have explained that the ban on “musical instruments” is not something that arose with “today’s insular Muslim community leaders,” but began 1,400 years ago.

The question of Muslims who “reject science” brings up two matters. First, many Muslims believe that the Qur’an contains all of knowledge, and that the advances of modern science can be located and teased out, by careful study, of the verses in the Qur’an. An absurdity, but tens of millions of Muslims believe that absurdity. Second, Islam itself encourages the habit of mental submission, and discourages the habit of free and skeptical inquiry, so necessary for the advancement of science. There seems to be a fear that once Muslims start exhibiting doubts in other areas, they might begin to question aspects of Islam itself. Two Western historians of science have studied at great length why science continued to evolve in the West but not in the Islamic world. Ed Husain might profitably consult Stanley Jaki and Professor Toby Huff to discover what it was about Islam that discouraged the advancement of science.

In mentioning the astrolabe, Husain obliquely suggests that it was  invented by Muslims: “A magnificent 13th-century astrolabe reminds us of the patronage of innovation in science and free thought by medieval Muslim rulers.” But the first astrolabe dates back to Hellenistic civilization, between 220 and 150 B.C., that is at least eight hundred years before Islam even appeared.

Musical instruments from various Muslim civilisations are evidence that music, with its diverse regional styles, was significant in religious and secular settings. Theatre, dance performances, divine remembrance or dhikr using music were all popular in mosques, town squares and at Sufi gatherings. Yet Islamic State, the Taleban, and other hardliners ban music today.

The mere fact that musical instruments from “various Muslim” peoples are on display does not tell us how “significant” instrumental music was “in religious and secular settings” among Muslims. We simply have no way of knowing how often such music was played, or where it was favored, and where deplored. We do know, however, that most church services have a musical component, and that there has never been an  equivalent “mosque music” since the beginning of Islam.

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Filed Under: Featured, Hugh Fitzgerald, Taqiyya, War is deceit Tagged With: Ed Husain


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Comments

  1. Deirdre Gates says

    Jan 28, 2019 at 11:13 am

    ‘Coexistence was the hallmark of Muslim civilisations, from China to the Philippines …’
    Because Islam requires a mass of Kuffar to parasitise.

    • gravenimage says

      Jan 28, 2019 at 6:16 pm

      *Spot on*, Deirdre.

    • BC says

      Jan 29, 2019 at 9:38 am

      How ridiculous to say the astrolabe was the computer of the time. The Astrolabe was only as useful to the user as a measuring tape it did not produce any results independently, calculate or connect people. It was no more a computer than is a magnetic compass

      • gravenimage says

        Feb 1, 2019 at 6:40 pm

        True. Even more importantly, the invention of the astrolabe *much* precedes Islam.

  2. No Muzzies Here says

    Jan 28, 2019 at 11:43 am

    A pile of stone “stamps” does not prove that Muslims provided a tolerant peaceful civilization to non-Muslims.

    It is disgusting to see how fools play games with facts so as to extend a warm welcoming embrace to the forthcoming subjugation to Islam.

  3. Walter Sieruk says

    Jan 28, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    The true face of Islam may be seen ,by all who are willing to see, In that is now termed “Radical Islamic Terrorism” , which is very much based on religion. The religion of Islam For Islam’s “holy book” the Qur ‘an [the Koran] instructs on the use of violence and killing for the advancement of Islam. As found in ,for example 2:191. 4:89. 5:33. 9:5,111,123. 47:4.

    Furthermore, it may be illustrated that if Islam is represented as a tree then the fruits then the fruits of that tree are the many brutal, violent and deadly jihad terror entities. Such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, al Shabaab , Hamas, Hezbollah, P.I.J. etc. With this statement, the Wisdom of the teachings of Jesus may, very much, apply to this subject. For Jesus taught “Ye do know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” After saying this Jesus told them what He told them when He said “By their fruit ye shall know them.”
    Matthew 7:16, 17, 18,.20. [K.J.V.]

    In conclusion, Islam is a corrupt tree and also a false religion, Proverbs 14:12. John 14:6. First John 2:22,23. 4:14,15. 5:12,13,20.

  4. dan christensen says

    Jan 28, 2019 at 1:28 pm

    “Coexistence was the hallmark of Muslim civilisations, from China to the Philippines, from Malaysia to Africa and…..”
    All peoples, from China to the Philippines, from Malaysia to Africa etc., also coexisted with human lice.
    Human louse, (Pediculus humanus), also called body louse, a common species of sucking louse in the family Pediculidae (suborder Anoplura, order Phthiraptera) that is found wherever human beings live, feeds on blood, and carrier of epidemic typhus and other louse-borne human diseases .

  5. Michael Copeland says

    Jan 28, 2019 at 1:40 pm

    Musical instruments? Ah yes.

    “Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong”
    “Righting the wrong by hand…… such as by breaking musical instruments”
    Manual of Islamic Law, “Reliance of the Traveller” q5.6

  6. gravenimage says

    Jan 28, 2019 at 5:27 pm

    Hugh Fitzgerald: Ed Husain on the British Museum and “The True Face of Islam” (Part Two)

    Coexistence was the hallmark of Muslim civilisations, from China to the Philippines, from Malaysia to Africa and the Middle East. It was not isolated to Muslim Spain…
    …………………

    Considering that this is a bald-faced lie about Spain under Muslim conquest, one can assume that other places were not apt to be any better…

  7. ace says

    Jan 28, 2019 at 5:30 pm

    The Muslim Conquerors Destroyed the Buddhism in India:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism_in_India#Turkish_Muslim_conquerors

    “The Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent was the first great iconoclastic invasion into South Asia.[79] By the end of twelfth century, Buddhism had mostly disappeared,[77][80] with the destruction of monasteries and stupas in medieval northwest and western India (now Pakistan and north India).[81]”

    (There’s more…)

  8. Bowen G says

    Feb 1, 2019 at 6:35 pm

    The Spectator has an interesting comment:
    The true face of Islam won’t be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but at the British Museum
    There, the new Islamic gallery, dazzles visitors and defies every certainty promoted by today’s hardline Muslim activists…
    and then
    The problem with British mosques
    Ed Husain is the author of The House of Islam: A Global History (Bloomsbury, 2018). The British Mosque: An Architectural and Social History by Shahed Saleem is published by Historic England.
    The incongruent architecture, cultural baggage and gender inequality must go – Ed Husain explains why British mosques need to adapt to the reality of the modern West

    • gravenimage says

      Feb 1, 2019 at 6:44 pm

      Yeah…good luck with that.

      I don’t care about the architecture that much, but that vicious “cultural baggage” and gender inequality are orthodox Islam, and will not change.

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