An early Islamic "regulation" against proselytism in the Pact of Umar (7th cent.?) /Πρωτοϊσλαμικό "διάταγμα" κατά του προσηλυτισμού στο Σύμφωνο του Ουμάρ (7ος αι.;)

We heard from 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ghanam [died 78/697] as follows:

When Umar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, accorded a peace to the Christians of Syria, we wrote to him as follows:

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of God Umar [ibn al-Khattab], Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city. When you came against us, we asked you for safe-conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations toward you:

We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.

We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days.

We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy, nor bide him from the Muslims.

We shall not teach the Qur'an to our children.

We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.

We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.

We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the qalansuwa, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair. We shall not speak as they do, nor shall we adopt their kunyas.

We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our- persons.

We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.

We shall not sell fermented drinks.

We shall clip the fronts of our heads.

We shall always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and we shall bind the zunar round our waists

We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. We shall use only clappers in our churches very softly. We shall not raise our voices when following our dead. We shall not show lights on any of the roads of the Muslims or in their markets. We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.

We shall not take slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.

We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims.

 

(When I brought the letter to Umar, may God be pleased with him, he added, "We shall not strike a Muslim.")

We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the people of our community, and in return we receive safe-conduct.

If we in any way violate these undertakings for which we ourselves stand surety, we forfeit our covenant [dhimma], and we become liable to the penalties for contumacy and sedition.

Umar ibn al-Khittab replied: Sign what they ask, but add two clauses and impose them in addition to those which they have undertaken. They are: "They shall not buy anyone made prisoner by the Muslims," and "Whoever strikes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall forfeit the protection of this pact."

from Al-Turtushi, Siraj al-Muluk, pp. 229-230 [found in fordham.edu].

Γεώργιος Τραπεζούντιος: Σχετικά με τις σχέσεις χριστιανών & μουσουλμάνων / George of Trebizond: Concerning the relations between Christians & Muslims

Γεώργιος Τραπεζούντιος /
George of Trebizond (Georgius Trapezuntius),

Περί της αληθείας της των χριστιανών πίστεως /
On the Truth of the Christian Faith
135-157.

(Adel Théodore Khoury (ed./επιμ.),
De la vérité de la foi des chrétiens,
CIS Verlag, 1987,
p./σ. 78.
Revue des études byzantines, 1989, vol. 47, n° 1, pp. 267-268)

Το Κοράνιο & το δόγμα της Τριάδας /The Qurʼān & the doctrine of Trinity

Κοράνιον
μεταφρασθέν εκ του Αραβικού κειμένου
υπό Γεράσιμου Ι. Πεντάκη
Εν Αθήναις, 1886
[Ελληνικά/Greek, PDF]

 

Το Ιερό Κοράνιο
Translation of the Meanings
of The Noble Quran
in the Greek Language
[Ελληνικά/Greek, PDF]

sura / σούρα 4:169 (171) سورة

The religious life of Turkey during the 12th to 15th cent. / Η θρησκευτική ζωή στην Τουρκία κατά την περίοδο από τον 12ο ως τον 15ο αι.

As is well known, Anatolia, from before the Roman dominion and throughout it, was a region which had a very rich and varied panoply of pagan cults which had survived from ancient times and had roots stretching backover thousands of years. Affected by various outside influences, these cults had developed their own, particular forms. By the time the region was taken over by Byzantium, it had already been under the influence of Christianity for some considerable time. Despite this, the Orthodox faith,which became the official religion of the empire, was unable fully to penetrate the most remote corners of Anatolia over the first few hundred years of the empire’s existence. Even in the sixth century when Byzantium was at its height, Christianity was not able completely to overthrow the pagan cults but was only able to mask them. As true pagan cults worshipping various gods from former times continued to exist, even Christianity itself cannot be said to have been more for many ‘Christians’ than a basic and crude Trinity of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. These ‘Christians’ pursued their beliefs in their old gods and various saints who were either imagined or real people by adapting them to Christianity. It is known that the first Christian priests who carried out missionary activities in various parts of the empirewere only successful in making a new religion there by providing a new interpretation of the old beliefs and by making this interpretation acceptable. This approach produced various types of popular Christianity created from an amalgam of Christianity and pagan cults which continued to exist and to be practised.

One of these was that of the dualist churches which came into existence as a result of the influence of the Manichaeists. Having been declared heretics in the Zoroastrian Sassanid Empire, they had fled from Iran and taken refuge in Anatolia where they had, in appearance, become Christian. In its political struggle with Byzantium, Iran encouraged the propagation and spread of Zoroastrian propaganda in Anatolia. Followers of religions which appeared as a reaction to Zoroastrism, such as eastern Mazdaism and Manichaeism, were forced to flee from Iran into Anatolia where Christianity came forceably into contact with them. Over time and under the influence of these Iranian religions, new Christian sects with a dualist character based on the concepts of goodness and evil of the gods, such as Marcionism (‘Marika’ in Islamic hereseyographic  sources), and Paulicianism (‘Bavlakiyye’ and ‘Bayalika’ in Islamic hereseyographic sources) which was to play an important role in the emergence of Bogomilism and Tondrakism, emerged. These sects had a powerful influence on the Byzantine population (the Armenians and the Greeks), especially in the rural areas.

This amalgamation of religious ideas resulted gradually in the formation among the various ethnic-religious groups such as the Greeks, Armenians and Suriyanis in Anatolia of independent ‘heretical’ churches outside the Orthodox fold. At the same time, the Orthodox faith itself also underwent changes. In particular, new separatist sects such as the Jacobites and Nestorians appeared as a result of the influence of various old Greek and Hellenistic schools of philosophical thought. These were labelled ‘deviational’, heretical, by the Orthodox church and by the Byzantine administration which claimed control of it. Although the Byzantine government, faced with these separatist religious currents, took forceful measures to strengthen Orthodoxy, and, forcing the various ethnic groups in Anatolia to accept the church, sought to use the church as a means to ensure the compliance of the population, this policy produced the opposite effect and Anatolia instead became the setting for various religious struggles.

Thus, when the Turks began to settle in Anatolia in the eleventh century they encountered a highly heterogeneous religious environment. The regions of inner and eastern Anatolia were divided into the small churches we have described, which had arisen as a reaction to Orthodoxy and which, for various political, social, economic and cultural reasons, were spread among the ethnic groups, apart from the Greeks. A point which must be stressed here in particular is that this religious division played an important role in the easing of the Turkish conquests in Anatolia and in their diffusion, and, therefore, favourably assisted their settlement in the region. Let us once more stress that the local population, exasperated by the state’s attitudewhich opened the way to separation of religious views and crushed by high taxation, were not particularly willing to oppose the Turks.


* The Cambridge History of Turkey,
Vol./Τόμ. 1, Byzantium to Turkey, 1071–1453,
M. Kunt - K. Fleet (ed.),
Cambridge University Press, 2009,

pp./σσ. 381, 382.

«Διωγμοί» Xριστιανών στη Νιγηρία: Θρησκευτικοί ή φυλετικοί; /The "Persecutions" of Christians at Nigeria: Religious or racial?

 

 

 

«Hundreds slaughtered in Nigeria religious violence»

 

«Εκατοντάδες σφαγιάστηκαν σε περιστατικά θρησκευτικής βίας στη Νιγηρία»

—The Associated Press, March 8, 2010/8 Μαρτίου 2010. 

 

«Πολλοί έσπευσαν να χαρακτηρίσουν την πρόσφατη σφαγή των 500 χριστιανών στο κρατίδιο Πλατό της Νιγηρίας από ένοπλους μουσουλμάνους ως «πόλεμο των πολιτισμών» και διαμάχη με θρησκευτικά αίτια. Ωστόσο, η πραγματικότητα είναι μάλλον πιο σύνθετη».

 —Κυριακάτικη Ελευθεροτυπία, 14 Μαρτίου 2010, σ. 37, «Σφαγή στο όνομα της φυλής».