Interfaith conflict in the Middle East

Middle East a region torn by conflicts since the beginning of time, with a rich history and old civilizations impacted the structure of the Middle East. Many people think that interfaith conflicts in the Middle East is a contemporary trend which is a point of view proven to be wrong, the current interfaith conflicts among Islam and other religions as well, among Islamic doctrines themselves dated way back to 14 century ago, with the appearance of Islam as the new religion and applying new rules and laws that exclude other religions and treat them less equally to Muslims, then comes the historic conflict after 21 years of the death of Prophet Mohammed and by the assassination of the fourth Caliph Othman ben Affan and taking his murder as an excuse to change not only the political structure of the Islamic community but as well the religious environment.

Through this article I will try to present not only the historic background for the long lasting interfaith conflict in the Middle East but as well shade the historical impact on the current conflicts and what I believe the solutions for these conflicts.

The Arabian Peninsula. (Arabia) attained a high level of civilization and culture continuing from antiquity until the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E. In its southwestern part several developed states existed like the kingdom of Sheba, Ḥimyar and others; the northern part however was inhabited by a variety of peoples who, whenever circumstances were favorable, raided the countries of the Fertile Crescent, the peoples of Arabia were predominately polytheistic, and Mecca was the place of their most important sanctuary, the Ka’aba. Its ancient origins are unknown but, since all accessible deities were represented there, it was a place of annual pilgrimage for all tribes. At one time there were said to have been as many as three hundred and sixty idols in and around the Ka’aba. This, too, was under the control of the Quraysh, who wisely established a non-violent zone that was sacred or forbidden, radiating for twenty miles around the sanctuary, and made Mecca a place where any tribe could enter without fear and where they were free to practice both religion and commerce.

Like other pre-Axial societies, pre-Islamic Arabs beliefs involved a pantheon of accessible deities with whom people could communicate. They also believed in fate which helped them adapt to the high mortality rate. Above all of the lesser Gods was the one remote God, al-Lah – the God who was the same God worshipped by the Jews and Christians. He was beyond the reach of ordinary people. Lesser deities were represented in the Ka’aba and in shrines to their individual honor scattered throughout the peninsula. These gods would be prayed to for rain, children, health and the like and would intercede on their behalf to Allah – the God in times of dire need. This pre-Islamic attitude towards religion provided a framework that was open to ideas and interpretations.

Arabic historical literature and commentaries (which were written much later) contain many legends about the settlement of the Israelites and the Jews in Hejaz. One story dates this settlement as early as Moses' war against the Amalekites, while another relates that King David fought against the idol worshipers in Yathrib (Al-Medina). It is related that after the destruction of the First Temple, 80,000 priests who were saved made their way to Arabia and joined those who had settled there previously. Some inscriptions of Nabonidus, king of Babylon (555–539 B.C.E.) – several of which were discovered in 1956 – in which he described the establishment of his capital in Taymaʾ (552–542) from where he conducted his campaigns as far as Yathrib, combined with Nabonidus' Prayer (discovered among the Qumran (Dead Sea) and in which he mentions a Jewish priest and visionary from the Babylonian Diaspora who accompanied him, suggest that some of the Babylonian Jewish exiles settled with him in Taymaʾ and in Hejaz. Charles Torrey (The Jewish Foundation of Islam (1933), 10, 17–18) thinks that even before that time Jewish traders began to settle in the oases of Hejaz. However, definite confirmation of Jewish settlement here appears only with the advent of people who had distinctly Jewish names or were designated as Jews in Aramaic.[1]

From the other hand, Christian groups were established in Syria and Mesopotamia. In AD 313, the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal and it became accepted as the imperial religion by Rome. The First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, declared Christ to be both fully God and fully man and established belief in the Trinity which represented God as three in one: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Those who disagreed with this new orthodox position, Nestorians, Gnostics, and Arians for example, were excommunicated and declared heretics. Many fled from persecution, beyond the reach of the Byzantine Empire into the Persian and Arab worlds. Theirs was a proselytizing faith and as they spread throughout the Peninsula a number of tribes were converted. The Ghassanids, who wintered on the border of Byzantium, became the largest early Christian tribal community, the Nabateans another, and by the sixth century the Yemenite city of Najran was a center of Arab Christianity.

The distance from both empires enabled beliefs in the Arab Peninsula to evolve and flourish independently, especially in Mecca. According to Fred M. Donner, Professor of Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago, by the sixth century paganism was receding in the face of the gradual spread of monotheism. Hanifism arose in Mecca and spread throughout the Hejaz. Its members “turned away from” idolatry, seeking to follow the original monotheism of Abraham, before the establishment of either Judaism or Christianity. The Prophet Abraham, who is traditionally believed to have built the Ka’aba, is the ancestor of the Arabs, according to the Old Testament, and the ancestor of the Muslim believers through his faith, according to the Qur’an.[2]

The beginning of Islam started with the preaching of Prophet Mohammed who claimed to receive the inspiration of God; in his late 30s Prophet Mohammad took to regularly visiting a cave in Mount Hira, on the outskirts of Mecca, to seek solitude and contemplation. In 610, at the age of 40, Prophet Mohammad returned from one such visit telling his wife he had either gone mad or become a prophet, for he had been visited by an angel. The initially startled Khadija became his first convert. Prophet Mohammad reported that while in a trance-like state, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him and said "Proclaim!" But like Moses, Mohammed was a reluctant prophet. He replied, "I am not a proclaimer." The angel persisted, and the Prophet repeatedly resisted, until the angel finally overwhelmed Muhammad. After that prophet Mohammed started to ask close people to join him in his new journey and more and more people joined, the Qurashi community saw the danger of Mohammed message and started to fight it back by torturing the people who joined him which led to the flee of prophet Mohammed to Al-Medina until finally the two sides confronted in different battles that resulted to the takeover of Mecca and proclaim it as the center for the Islamic world and implemented new Islamic rules which favored Muslims majority, but it didn’t neglected the other religious minorities until the end of the rule of the fifth Caliph Ali ben Abi Taleb and with his death the whole structure of Islamic society changed to what we see today of conflicts with other religions by the concept of Jihad, and among itself by different divisions, sects and doctrines.

Less than one hundred years after Prophet Mohammad’s death in 632 the first Muslim historians began to write about his life. These were Mohammad ibn Ishaq (d. 767), Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Waqidi (d. c. 820); Mohammad ibn Sa’d (d. 845); and Abu Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923). These scholars reconstructed their narrative from oral traditions and early documents, and through their effort we know more about prophet Mohammad and the life of the Islamic ummah than we do any other Prophet. Nevertheless we need to keep in mind that the stories of Prophet Mohammad’s life and his sayings (Hadith) were written to satisfy contemporary norms and included miraculous and legendary stories that might be misinterpreted today and took out of context to serve certain groups or certain interests.

Going back to the days of the fifth Caliph Ali ben Abi Taleb, who was surrounded by lots of accusations, suspicions and hatred we can find the second rift that cracked the  Islamic nation from one united nation to all what we have today from differences and conflicts starting with the battle of Siffin 657 CE and then the new structure of the Islamic state led by Muawiyah ben Abi Sufyan who established the idea of using religion to serve political goals and which split the nation to different groups and doctrines conflictual not only among themselves but as well with other religions and minorities in the region which led in a way or the other to the current instability in the Middle East.

After reviewing the historical background, we can jump to the modern history from the beginning of the 19^th century which dated the first modern conflict in the region by the unification of Saudi Arabia as we know it today and which reflected a huge amount of the impact of the historical background by exposing the relatively new mentality of doctrines as a political tool. After that we can notice the conflicts within the Islamic nation very impacted by the doctrines idea starting with Great Syrian Revolt  during 1924- 1927 going by the Iraqi Shia revolts during 1935–1936 and Arab Revolt in Palestine during 1936 – 1939 until what we see today in the 21^st Century like the revolutions of Arab Spring which not only fueled by need for political reforms but as well by religious motivations like what happened in Bahrain and still happening in Syria and Iraq along with ongoing Israeli – Arab conflict.

We can see through reviewing the details of all these conflicts during the past two centuries that religion has played the major role in the Middle East politics, and was the engine of most of these conflicts which presented the current idea of Islam promoting violence and inequality among different groups, though Islam in reality is very just to its own people as much to other. There were mistakes made by Muslims; that is a fact but if we looked back to the days of prophet Mohammed and his successors we can find these mistakes at the minimal rate because religion was not used as a political tool but as a source of civil legislation that guarantees the freedoms and rights of the majority Muslims side by side the other religious minorities and non-religious minorities; an example of the success of Islam as a civil legislation was the demolishing of slavery in peaceful means which prove that religion can be used in the right way it can be very useful because it effects the behaviors of its adherents and can give them the right guidance toward stable, cooperative and effective communities.

Unfortunately, that was not the case after the death of prophet Mohammed and his successors, in the contrary things got worse and the period exploiting Islam to gain political power widespread among the region and impacted the life of all Middle Easterners in a way or the other which started to be obvious since the 9/11 and the terrorist attacks that not only changed the world as we knew but as well changed the life of every living Muslim and the way they perceived; extremism spread even more, terrorism got worse maybe not intensive as it was but we can see more people joining terrorists organizations like Al-Qaeda more than we saw before and most importantly, the gap between religions got wider despite the fact that people have more knowledge about other religions than what they used to have before 9/1,  but still radicalism got stronger as a reaction. Another example we can use is the Israeli – Arab conflict which lasted for over 50 years but still Arabs nor Israelis are willing to reach an agreement not because of their political agendas only but we cant’t denial the impact of religion on this conflict in particular, but then we have to ask the questions; were not Jews, Christians and Muslims living in Arabia peaceful before. So what changed now? The answer to this question will be equally easy and difficult, continuing using the Arab – Israeli conflict we can see the main difference between now (after 1948) and before; is the mix of politics with religion; yes Jews were able to live in Palestine before peacefully though generally they were not inhabitant of Palestine in that time but they were welcomed because they did not have a political-religious goals, in another word Jews were welcomed to live among Palestinians as long as they don’t claim the territory as theirs own but when they did we can see the natural reaction of the Palestinians as people and government along with the Arabs stand on this topic, which is clearly against the announcement of Israel as a country in the territory of Palestine, but as well we can notice that the refusal of Israel as a country from the Palestinian/Arab side is not purely political but fueled by the long hatred between Muslims and Jews which based on the long history of betray and distrust between both sides.

As a result for all what I mentioned through this article , we can see how religion played the main role in fueling the conflicts in the Middle East and shaped the relation of Muslims countries with the world, here we come to the main point of this article; if we can resolve this conflicts gradually and peacefully , the only way to achieve this result is through a democratic change, where the countries and government are built on a strong civil legislation base, with a secular system that guarantees the freedom of all people without discrimination but as well without excluding religion from the societies completely but more leaving religion for personal choice.

I think applying the Turkish experience in other countries through the region will not only help in conflict resolution but as well in the political, economic and social development of the countries because usually religions can create certain restrictions the stand in the way of development, When we review the Turkish experience we can see the characteristics of Islamic society but still not Islamic government, where secularism guarantee the freedom of all religious or non-religious and still manage to function well in the government leading to huge development and economic boom, as well giving Turkey the political lead in the region (from International view) as a positive example or success story from the Middle East. Another question should be asked, can this success story apply to all countries in the region? My answer would be no, adopting a secular system need the right ingredients which are not available in all the countries of the region, or at least not now; for example it will be hard to adopt secular system in Saudi, Kuwait, or Yemen during the short term but this might be possible in other countries in the gulf like UAE, Qatar, Bahrain or Oman and going beyond the Arabic Gulf we can see the secular system needed in countries like Syria, Lebanon and Iraq but as well, it will be a difficult task with existence of the Iranian influence over this countries. Furthermore, we can be optimistic about a secular system in Egypt, Tunisia but pretty pessimist about such scenario in Libya or Sudan.

To sum up, we can say there are some solutions for the conflicts in the Middle East but it needs a long journey through reforms, not only politically and economically but as well religiously and with great commitment from the international community to make this happen, by redirecting aids and funds for the right sectors which will help in developing the countries to develop and raise to the level where they can see the benefits of  equal system like the secular system and take off from there to developments of all sides.

Being locked in the cycle of religion only leads to backwardness and the people and the governments of Middle East need to understand and embrace the fact that secularism means the rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations to guarantee all citizens religious and non-religious equal economic, political and social rights despite their religion, race or sex, which eventually will lead to a better societies and will give all the right to practice whatever they believe in without causing harm to other people or state, and work together toward better international development and resolutions for all world conflicts.

Finally, I tried through this article to present a logical solution from my own point of view as a Middle Eastern Muslim myself, as well I tried to present aspects usually overlooked when we talk about Middle East conflicts from a global prospective and I tried to shade the impact of faith and religions on conflicts in this part of the world where I honestly believe, we can call them Interfaith conflicts and try to solve the from this common ground.