Tolerance in Islam
Al-Risala (English), April 1987, p. 32
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
Tolerance in Islam
1987 4 April 32 Tolerance in Islam (236) Commenting on the ‘History of Science’ in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1984, the editor acknowledges that when Islamic culture was at its zenith, West European culture was at its lowest ebb.
The conquests made by the Prophet’s followers began in the 7th century A.D. and by the 10th century, Arabic was the literary language of nations stretching from Persia to Spain. Arab conquerors generally brought peace and prosperity to the countries they settled in. One manifestation of this was the way the library of Cordoba in Spain began to flourish. It had 500,000 books at a time when scarcely 5,000 existed north of the Pyrenees.
The Muslims, moreover, were tolerant of the other monotheistic faiths, making it possible for Jews to rise to high positions in Islamic lands at a time when they were scarcely permitted to survive in Europe (16/368).
Musa Ibn Maimun (1135-1204), one of the great Jewish scholars, and well versed in Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic (now a dead language) and Arabic, was so highly regarded amongst the Jews that they compared him to the prophet Moses. They claimed that from Moses to Musa no equal of the latter had been born.
Born in Cordoba he later went to Spain where he was appointed special physician to Salahuddin Ayyubi, the ruler of Egypt. In spite of Musa being a Jew, Salahudin Ayyubi spared no effort to raise him to an exalted position in the land.
