Month: November 2019

Defining Purgatory and
the Communion of Saints
All Souls Day (November 2) is a special day that the Church has given us to remind us about how important it is to offer prayers for those who have died in the arms of Jesus but have not yet reached the full glory of heaven. Transitioning from earthly life to full union with God in heaven is usually not instantaneous.
We call this transition “purgatory”. Since there is much confusion and misunderstanding about the Doctrine of Purgatory, I’m providing here a brief explanation.
The Afterlife: What does the Catholic Church teach?

1. We are all sinners. Even after we’ve been freed from Original Sin through baptism, we cannot become perfectly holy by our own efforts.
2. Because we are sinners, we would die separated from Holy God, except:
3. Jesus died in our place, taking our sins to the cross. Then he rose from the dead and wants us to join him in the resurrected life for all of eternity.
4. Those who accept this and seek forgiveness from sins will live eternally united to Jesus in heaven.
5. Those who understand this yet reject it will die full of sin, unable to enter heaven, opting for hell so as to avoid spending eternity with God.
6. Those who follow Christ but fail to seek forgiveness for all of their sins will still go to heaven, but in order to enter into the fullness of unity with God they must be purified — purged (thus the name “Purgatory”) — of everything that’s unholy.
   What is Purgatory?
   Jesus spoke of Purgatory every time he taught that sinners who belong to the kingdom of God will have to be “put into prison” until they’ve “paid the last penny” of their debt. Since the earliest years of Christianity, it’s been known that we cannot take our sins into heaven. Unrepented sins must be purged from us.
   Psalm 24 asks: “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?” (Think of heaven as “the mountain of the Lord”.) The scripture answers: “The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.” But how does one arrive at death’s door so pure? Receiving the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick moments before death can do it. Dying in martyrdom for Christ can do it. Working hard every moment of every day to be saintly might achieve it.
   The fact is, most of us don’t die completely pure.
   1 Cor. 15:51-57 points out that “that which is corruptible (our flesh-nature) must clothe itself with incorruptibility.” Purgatory is a process of purging ourselves from what was worldly so that we can fully enter into what is eternal.
   Purgatory comes from the Latin word for cleansing fire . Some people confuse this with the fires of hell. Think instead of the “fire of the Holy Spirit.” When we die believing in Jesus, we come into full contact with the Holy Spirit (the “Beatific Vision”). We are delivered from the limitations of our human brains, and suddenly we realize how unlike Christ we had been on Earth. Now completely aware of what was unholy in us — our persistent sinful habits and an insufficient desire to do penance — it deeply pains us to see the damage caused by our sins. This pain would last forever if God did not provide, in his great mercy, a cure.
   Purgatory is a gift of God’s mercy, not a punishment. He gives it to us because we want it. The fiery, purifying pain of purgatory is fueled by our yearning to live eternally in total, holy love. Because we long to be purified, purgatory is a gift from God to fulfill that longing.
   It is good that our regrets pain us to the core; it’s a fire that burns up our impurities. Fueled by our yearning to be united with the fullness of God’s holy love, this pain is intensified by the realization that we could have expiated our sins while on Earth, through the Sacraments, prayer, and good works.
   Saint Catherine of Genoa wrote that the desire for God is an ardent fire more consuming and painful than any earthly fire. Saints Thomas and Bonaventure held that the slightest fire of Purgatory is more painful than the greatest sufferings of this world. The reason is because, during our journey on Earth, we don’t really understand how great is God’s love and how much we’re missing by not loving others as he does.
   Does God’s mercy help those in Purgatory?
   God longs to reach all of us with his love, and so he expresses his love to those who are in Purgatory by consoling them. His compassion is infinite, and he offers it freely. This relieves their suffering, but only to the extent that they are open to it. The less they accepted his love before they died, the less they are ready to do so now. Likewise, the more purified they become, the more they open themselves to his mercy.
   Is there any joy in Purgatory?
   Yes! We must never focus only on the suffering of Purgatory and forget the joy. Pope Saint John Paul II liked to point out that purgatory is a place of joy. Let’s not forget that! Your departed loved ones who believed in Jesus are rejoicing in the Beatific Vision to the extent that they are ready to be united to it. They are rejoicing because they are free from evil and are totally with God, even if they are also still suffering from the agony of knowing how much damage they have done against God through their earthly sins.
   They prefer Purgatory over Earth because they are free from Satan’s attacks and the old temptations, and they are surrounded by other souls who are likewise free. They have no more enemies! As Wisdom 3:1 says, “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.” Wisdom chapter 3 goes on to say that we are chastised, but we will be greatly blessed. God purifies us the way gold is purified in the furnace. (This analogy of purification creates the notion of fire in Purgatory, though it’s not a literal flaming fire like we have here on Earth). We become “sacrificial offerings” that God takes to himself.
   In other words, in contrast to the tortures of hell, the pain of purgatory is really a blessing, not a torment.
   The terrifying descriptions of Purgatory that popular in some “revelations” today are exaggerations and are not founded in the teachings of the Church. Such punishment runs counter to God’s mercy and the incomparable dignity of those who have been redeemed by Christ.
   Can our loved ones who are in Purgatory pray for us?
   Learning about the sufferings of Purgatory should motivate us to purify our lives now. But this isn’t the only thing to know about Purgatory. Rejoice that your loved ones who have passed from earthly life are closer to God than ever before! They love you more than they did before. They can pray more powerfully than they could before. Of course they remember you and love you and pray for you!
   Blessed Antonio Rosmini said, “The fact that we have a body leads us to feel that we have lost entirely our loved ones the moment they are snatched away from our senses, being unable to see them, to hear them speak, or to speak to them; but, how much more sublime is the perception of the faith! Faith reassures us that the affections and the memories of the person who is no longer visible to our eyes have not perished; and that such a person is still thinking about us, loves us with a purer love, and is grateful for all the benefits received while in this world; and being nearer to the throne of grace and mercy, has more power to intercede in our favor.”
   How long does purification take?
   To understand the answer to this, we must suspend our concept of time. The after-life exists in eternity. Eternity dwells outside of our linear time. The past and the future are both now and yet not now. The suffering experienced by the souls in Purgatory cannot be measured by days or years, but by intensity. If we could watch a loved one journey through purification, it might seem to take years, but to our loved one, it might last but a moment and yet be extremely difficult to bear. Or it might last for a long time without the soul being aware of time’s passage.
   The process is one of peeling away the layers of spiritual scars, many of which, while on Earth, remained below the level of our consciousness. Everything in us is exposed. This might happen in an instant, which is why we say after near-death experiences, “My life flashed before my eyes.” But now our whole person must be penetrated with the light of Christ. As the purification progresses, our full personality emerges for the first time. We become the child of God that the Father had intended when he created us, with all of our talents, gifts and abilities to glorify the Holy Trinity.
   Can we help souls in Purgatory?
   Purgatory will exist until the second coming of Christ and his final judgment. Until that time, the souls there definitely need our help. No longer on Earth, they cannot rectify the damage that resulted from their sins. Their opportunities to make amends have passed. During their lives, they set the speed at which they now grow into the full experience of the Beatific Vision, but we can quicken their purification.
   Helping them is one of our responsibilities as part of the communion of saints, i.e., the community of all who are joined in Christ on Earth, in Purgatory and in Heaven. Since the action of any member affects all others, we can help the souls finish their purification.
   Pope Leo XIII wrote in his encyclical on the Eucharist, Mirae caritatis, on May 28, 1902:
   “The communion of saints is nothing else but a mutual sharing in help, satisfaction, prayer and other good works, a mutual communication among all the faithful, whether those who have reached Heaven, or who are in the cleansing fire, or who are still pilgrims on the way in this world. For all these are come together to form one living city whose head is Christ and whose law is love.”
   Because we are joined in the communion of saints, the Catholic liturgy always includes prayers for the souls in Purgatory. And the Church provides this prayer during the blessing of a cemetery: “We beseech You, Lord, grant to the souls of your faithful whose bodies rest here the forgiveness of all their sins.”
   Through Jesus and our love, we can perform on their behalf prayers, alms, fasting, sacrifices, deeds of penance, good works and other acts of piety. We can also offer up Masses, publicly and privately, in which we give them our love and commit them to Jesus’ love. Our love fills and animates these souls. The celebration of All Souls Day and the whole month of November is given over to this important ministry of the Church.
   Traditionally, the Church has placed more emphasis on helping those in Purgatory than we do today. We need to give importance to this ministry of intercession, and include praying for those we’ve never met. We need to make All Saints Day a bigger celebration than Halloween, and we need to attend Mass on All Souls Day for the sake of our loved ones who have died.
   Can we shorten our own time in Purgatory?
   Our daily goal should be to purify our lives and grow more deeply into the fullness of God ‘s love while we still have the Sacraments available to boost us. God should be no stranger to us. Neither should his Word, which is our guide to living a holy life. We dare not remain lazy about getting rid of unholy desires, worldly attitudes, unloving deeds, and ignorance about what God wants from us. The more we unite ourselves to his love now (through prayer, reconciliation, penance and purification), the less suffering we will endure in Purgatory.
   Can we avoid Purgatory?
   Purgatory is an “emergency” entry to Heaven for those who believe in the salvation offered by Christ but have wasted their time on Earth with activities and attitudes that are contrary to the Kingdom of God. There is a different door to choose, and we have the freedom to choose it!
   “You should not fear Purgatory because of the suffering there, but should instead ask that you not deserve to go there in order to please God, Who so reluctantly imposes this punishment. As soon as you try to please Him in everything and have an unshakable trust He purifies you every moment in His love and He lets no sin remain. And then you can be sure that you will not have to go to Purgatory.” ~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux
   Furthermore, she said: “[T]he Fire of Love is more sanctifying than is the fire of Purgatory….” If we live now in the state of continually striving to love more perfectly, i.e., to love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and to love others as ourselves (Luke 10:27), which Jesus tells us is the greatest commandment and it sums up all others, we are purified here on earth. Every day there are opportunities of suffering — when loving is difficult, forgiving others is necessary, and we can give ourselves unselfishly to the needs of others — and this purges us of unholiness right here and now.
   Going directly to Heaven, without the need for Purgatory, is a matter of trust. We cannot earn Heaven by our own merit through our good deeds, but good deeds are a result of real love (which is “perfect” love). In this love, we know the love of God and we know we can trust God. This keeps us close to him. We know, in trust, that Jesus walks with us daily, and so of course we can also trust that He will take us with Him straight to the Father at the moment we leave the world!
   In the Divine Mercy Prayer, we ask Jesus to “lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy.” Not: “Lead all souls through the fires of Purgatory….”
   Every day, do everything possible to stay close to Jesus, and you will die in His arms, and He will carry you directly to Heaven.
   What does Scripture say?
   In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love” (1 John 4:17-18) .
   The lives of all are to be revealed before the tribunal of Christ so that each one may receive his recompense, good or bad, according to his life in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10).
   The work of each will be made clear. The Day will disclose it. That day will make its appearance with fire, and fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If the building a man has raised on this foundation still stands, he will receive his recompense; if a man’s building burns, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as one fleeing through fire (1 Corinthians 3:13-15).
   “You worthless wretch! I canceled your entire debt when you pleaded with me. Should you not have dealt mercifully with your fellow servant?” Then in anger the master handed him over to the torturers until he paid back all that he owed (Matthew 18:32-34).
   Lose no time; settle with your opponent while on your way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to the guard, who will throw you into prison. I warn you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny
   (Matthew 5:25,26).
   The reason why Christ died for sins… was that he might lead you to God . . . It was in the spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:18,19).
   What do Saints say?
   “The Divine Essence is so pure — purer than the imagination can conceive — that the soul, finding in itself the slightest imperfection, would rather cast itself into a thousand hells than appear, so stained, in the presence of the Divine Majesty. Knowing, then, that Purgatory was intended for her cleansing, she throws herself therein, and finds there that great mercy, the removal of her stains.” (St. Catherine of Genoa, 15th century mystic)
   “I was talking with some souls who, while on their way from Purgatory to Heaven, stopped here to thank me because I remembered them in my Mass this morning.” (Padre Pio)
   “More souls of the dead from Purgatory than of the living climb this mountain to attend my Masses and seek my prayers.” (Padre Pio)
   “There is no peace to be compared with that of the souls in Purgatory, save that of the saints in Paradise, and this peace is ever augmented by the in-flowing of God into these souls, which increases in proportion as the impediments to it are removed.” (St. Catherine of Genoa)
   “The soul keeps rising ever higher and higher, stretching with its desire for heavenly things to those that are before, as the Apostle tells us [in Philippians 3:13] and, thus, it will always continue to soar ever higher. For, because of what it has already attained, the soul does not wish to abandon the heights that lie beyond it. And, thus, the soul moves ceaselessly upwards, always reviving its tension for its onward flight by means of the progress it has already realized.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa)
   “The ‘fire’ of purgatory is God’s love ‘burning’ the soul so that, at last, the soul is wholly aflame. It is the pain of wanting to be made totally worthy of One who is seen as infinitely lovable, the pain of desire for union that is now absolutely assured, but not yet fully tasted.” (St. Catherine of Genoa

The Help and Hope of the Souls in Purgatory
MAURA ROAN MCKEEGAN
One of the most beautiful and peaceful places in our town is an old cemetery. Since it is in walking distance from our house, I go there several times a week to clear my head and pray.
When I first began going, I treasured the quiet solitude. Over time, though, something deeper became part of my walks. Little by little, I started praying for the souls whose bodies were buried there, and I began to ask their prayers in return. Instead of being a place to get away from the world and be alone, the cemetery became a place where I felt surrounded and protected by friends. It still offered quiet peace, but it also offered a spiritual relationship that transcended the physical grounds.
A few weeks ago, while I was walking there, I had a new request for the holy souls. For the past several years, I’ve
written an article to honor the souls in purgatory each November. This year, I wanted to do it again, but I was struggling to find inspiration. I was exhausted and depleted, and my brain was in no condition to write. I could barely form a coherent sentence, let alone an article.
Still, I wanted to help these souls who have been so good to me, and so I offered them a bargain. First, I prayed for them, as I always do before I ask their prayers. Then, I told them that I wanted to write this article for them, but I couldn’t do it without their assistance. If they wanted me to write it, they needed to pray for me to receive the inspiration and the ability.
An Exchange of Love
Days later, a package arrived in the mail from my friend Suzie ( www.suzieandres.com ). She had come across a book, she said, that she wanted to send me. She just felt like this book was intended for me.
I opened the package and pulled out the book: The Amazing Secret of the Souls in Purgatory.
Suzie had known nothing of my bargain with the holy souls when she picked up this book. She’d found it deep in a stack of books at a Catholic book sale, and she almost put it back, but something compelled her to get it—and, soon after, to send it to me.
Truth be told, if I’d found this book in the stack myself, I probably would have been inclined to put it back, too. Nothing personal against this book, but for years, despite my devotion to the holy souls, I’ve generally steered clear of books about the topic of purgatory. I love reading stories about saints helping the holy souls, but I’ve avoided books about purgatory because of a bad experience I had with the first (and last) one I read.
It was about 15 years ago, and I was fervent in my faith, when I found a big book about purgatory and began to read it. The more I read, the more it scared the living daylights out of me. It described the pains of purgatory in great detail, in ways that terrified me.
That fear began to change my faith. Where I had once prayed out of love and devotion, I now found myself praying out of fear. I was terrified of purgatory, and I started trying to pray my way out of it, rattling off devotions like boxes on a checklist, hoping I would rack up enough to escape agony in the afterlife.
It took a long time to undo the damage that reading that book did to my soul. I finally reached a place where I prayed out of love again, and not fear. My walks in the cemetery had made me acutely aware of the holy souls, and I cherished the richness of their friendship. I knew they suffered, and I wanted to help them with prayers, especially since they are incapable of praying for themselves (they can only pray for others).
It was an exchange of love, for when I gave them my prayers, they gave me theirs. The Catechism (958) says that “our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.” It’s as if our prayers light a flame for the holy souls, and then the souls can use that very flame to light candles for us in return.
Maria Simma and the Holy Souls
Now, after all these years of avoiding books about purgatory, here I was opening one again. This one felt different, though. The first one I read was thick and dark. This one was small and bright. I looked at the title again, this time noticing the subtitle.
The Amazing Secret of the Souls in Purgatory: An Interview with Maria Simma.
I was not acquainted with Maria Simma before. But as I began to read, it soon became clear that she was the answer to my prayer. I had asked the holy souls for inspiration, and they sent her.
Maria, an Austrian born in 1915, had a great love for the souls in purgatory. At age 25, she began receiving visits from them. (Maria’s bishop encouraged her in this charism, and another book she wrote about her experiences received an imprimatur.)
The souls who visited her had one thing in common: They were in need of prayers. They especially requested Masses, but also Rosaries, Stations of the Cross, and other prayers to be said for them.
“We must do a great deal for the souls in purgatory,” Maria says, “for they help us in their turn.”
One story in this book tells of a woman who was particularly devoted to the poor souls, and at the hour of her death was attacked with fury by a demon. As she struggled excruciatingly against this darkness, a crowd of dazzlingly beautiful people appeared, and the demon fled. The unknown dazzling people consoled and encouraged her at the moment of death. When the woman asked who these people were, she learned that they were the souls that she had helped to enter heaven with her prayers. They had not forgotten her.
It is important, Maria says, never to judge or assume the state of a person’s soul after death. She tells of a man and a woman who died at practically the same moment. The woman died having an abortion, while the man was a churchgoer reputed to have lived a devout life. But the man spent much longer in purgatory than the woman, because he criticized and said many bad things about others, while the woman had experienced deep repentance and was very humble.
It is also important, Maria says, to pray for the souls of people we meet on earth, even if our prayer is only a brief one. One day, on a train, she met a man who “didn’t stop speaking evil of the Church, of priests, even of God.” She told him not to speak like that. When she left the train, she prayed: “Lord, do not let this soul be lost.” Years later, that man came to visit her from purgatory. He told her that he had come very close to hell, but her one simple prayer leaving the train that day had saved him.
Maria says that the souls in purgatory would not want to return to earth, for they have a new knowledge of God that is infinitely beyond ours. “It is the soul itself which wants to go to purgatory, in order to be pure before going to heaven,” she explains. “They want to purify themselves; they understand that it is necessary.”
The most efficient means to help the souls in purgatory is through the Mass, Maria says. But every single prayer helps, especially when we offer our own suffering for their sake. If we give our sufferings to Our Lady, she will use them to help the holy souls in the way that is best.
Maria says that Mary comes to see the souls often, “to console them and to tell them they have done many good things,” and that St. Michael and each soul’s guardian angel are also there “to relieve suffering and provide comfort. The souls can even see them.”
The blessings we extend to the holy souls are reciprocal. These “dear suffering friends,” as St. Margaret Mary called them, are the most faithful of intercessors, and their assistance is powerful and fast. I asked them for inspiration for this article, and they quickly arranged for me to receive a book that was both edifying and gentle for my tired mind.
In this book, I also found healing of an old wound. Maria’s description of purgatory offers the antidote to the fear I felt when reading the book that terrified me so long ago. Now I have new confidence that, although purgatory is a place of great suffering, it is not terror that reigns there—it is hope. Leave it to my dear suffering friends to bind up a wound that I didn’t realize was still there.
November Plenary Indulgence
Each November, the Church offers a special opportunity to assist the souls in Purgatory. From November 1-8, the faithful can gain a plenary indulgence for the souls in purgatory by visiting a cemetery and praying there for the dead.
In order to obtain the indulgence, a Catholic in the state of grace must have the intention to obtain it and fulfill the following conditions: (a) visit a cemetery and pray there for the dead, even if only mentally; (b) make a sacramental confession (a single confession, within about 20 days before or after, will suffice for all the indulgences a person obtains within that time period); (c) receive Holy Communion; (d) recite at least one Our Father and one Hail Mary for the Holy Father; and (e) be free from attachment to all sin, including venial. The indulgence becomes partial if the conditions are partially fulfilled.
A note about the last condition: Sometimes people wonder whether it is possible for them to be completely detached from venial sin. I believe the answer to this is found in Mark 10, when Jesus tells his disciples how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God, and they wonder who then can be saved.
“For human beings it is impossible, but not for God,” Jesus tells them. “All things are possible for God.”
Even if it would be impossible for us to be completely detached from sin, it is not impossible for God. As Matthew 7 reminds us, “Ask, and it will be given you;” for our Father in heaven gives “good things to those who ask him.” Let’s ask Him, then, for the grace to be detached from all sin, in order to obtain this indulgence as an act of charity for the souls in purgatory. He longs for these souls to be with him in heaven, and by His grace we can help them get there.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Muslim, Jews and Christians – Relations and Interactions
Mr. Gordon Newby
Key words:
Muslim, Jews, Christians, Interfaith relations, Qur’an , Byzantine , Monotheism, Sira , Ummayad, Ahl al-Kitab , Dhimmi , Ottoman, Sunna , Umma , Constitution of Medina, history, al Azhar, Bayt al-Hikma , Safavid, Vatican, Roman Catholic Church, Aramaic, Coptic
Download PDF version of the article
Table of Contents
Introduction
Muslims, Jews, and Christians: Relations and Interactions
The Foundational Period
The Early Centuries of Muslim History
The Medieval Period
The Modern Period
The Future
Introduction
Relations among Muslims, Jews, and Christians have been shaped not only by the theologies and beliefs of the three religions, but also, and often more strongly, by the historical circumstances in which they are found. As a result, history has become a foundation for religious understanding. In each historical phase, the definition of who was regarded as Muslim, Jewish, or Christian shifted, sometimes indicating only a religious identification, but more often indicating a particular social, economic, or political group.
While the tendency to place linguistic behaviour, religious identity, and cultural heritage under one, pure definition has existed for a very long time, our modern age with its ideology of nationalism is particularly prone to such a conflation. Ethnic identities have sometimes been conflated with religious identities by both outsiders and insiders, complicating the task of analyzing intergroup and intercommunal relations. For example, Muslims have often been equated with Arabs, effacing the existence of Christian and Jewish Arabs (i.e., members of those religions whose language is Arabic and who participate primarily in Arab culture), ignoring non-Arab Muslims who constitute the majority of Muslims in the world. In some instances, relations between Arabs and Israelis have been understood as Muslim-Jewish relations, ascribing aspects of Arab culture to the religion of Islam and Israeli culture to Judaism. This is similar to what happened during the Crusades, during which Christian Arabs were often charged with being identical to Muslims by the invading Europeans. While the cultures in which Islam predominates do not necessarily make sharp distinctions between the religious and secular aspects of the culture, such distinctions make the task of understanding the nature of relations among Muslims, Jews, and Christians easier, and therefore will be used as an analytic tool in this chapter.
Another important tool for analyzing Muslim-Jewish-Christian relations is the placement of ideas and behaviors in specific temporal and geographic con­texts. Visions of the past have had a strong influence on each of the religions, and none more strongly than Islam. Many Muslims have as keen an awareness of the events around the time of the Prophet as they do their own time. It is important for a practicing Muslim to know what the Prophet did in his relations with Jews and Christians as a means of shaping their own behav­ior toward them. The Qur’an and the
sunna of the Prophet are key guides for a Muslim in dealing with Jews and Christians, as they are in all areas of conduct. This same historical consciousness is also present among Jews and Christians, as each group makes claims for positions and status in Islamic societies. What is important to remember is that the historical in­teractions of Muslims, Jews, and Christians have resulted in each constituency being shaped, affected, and transformed by the others, such that it is difficult to imagine how each religion would be as it is without the presence and influence of the others.
The Foundational Period
When Prophet Muhammad was born in 570 CE , Arabia was deeply involved in the political, religious, and economic rivalries between the Byzantine and Sassanian Persian empires. Arabia was an important trade route for goods coming from the Far East and Africa and was strategically important for each empire’s defense. Arabs were recruited into the armies of both sides, providing horse and camel cavalries, and each empire had maintained Arab client states as buffers and bases of operation. Around fifty years earlier, the last Jewish kingdom in southern Arabia allied with the Persians and was defeated and replaced by a Christian Monophysite army from Abyssinia allied with Byzantium. According to early Muslim historians, this army, led by a general named Abraha, tried to invade Mecca in the year of Muhammad’s birth because the pagan Arabs had defiled one of the Christian churches in southern Arabia. Abraha and his forces were, however, defeated. Because the Abyssinians used war elephants for their attempted invasion, many think that this is the elephant referred to in the sura
titled al-Fil in the Qur’an: 105.
There were numerous Christian settlements throughout the southern and eastern parts of Arabia, but few in the Hijaz , the area of Muhammad’s birth. The Hijaz had numerous Jewish settlements, most of long standing, dating to at least the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. According to some scholars, the earliest Jewish presence in the Hijaz was at the time of Nabonidus, about 550 CE. The Jews in these settlements were merchants, farmers, vintners, smiths, and, in the desert, members of
Bedouin tribes. The most important Jewish-dominated city was Yathrib, known later as Medina, which featured prominently in Muhammad’s career. The Jews of the Hijaz seem to have been mostly independent, but we find evidence of their being allied with both Byzantium and the Persians. Some made the claim to be “kings” of the Hijaz, most probably meaning tax collectors for the Persians, and, for a variety of reasons, more Jews were loyal to Persian interests against those of the Byzantine Empire. Jews, as well as Christians, seem to have been engaged in attempting to convert the Arabian population to their religious and political views, often with some success. The loyalties of the Jews and Christians to one or the other of the two empires meant that choosing either Judaism or Christianity meant also choosing to ally with a superpower interested in dominating Arabia.
Arab sources report that, at the time of Muhammad’s birth, some Meccans had abandoned Arabian polytheism and had chosen monotheism. In Arabic these individuals were referred to as hanif in a Jewish, Christian, or nonsectarian form. From Qur’anic and other evidence, it is clear that Meccans were conversant with the general principles of Judaism and Christianity and knew many details of worship, practice, and belief. During Muhammad’s formative and early adult years, the character of his birth city, Mecca, was very cosmopolitan.
When Muhammad had his first revelation in 610 CE, his wife Khadija sought the advice of her cousin, Waraqa ibn Nawfal, a hanif , learned in Jewish and Christian scriptures. Muhammad eventually declared that he was a continuation of the prophetic traditions of Judaism and Christianity, claiming that he had been foretold in Jewish and Christian scripture. A central doctrine of Islam places Muhammad at the end of a chain of prophets from God, starting with Adam and embracing the major prophetic figures of Judaism and Christianity, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Denial of this central idea by Jews and Christians is said to be a result of the corruption of the sacred texts, either inadvertently or on purpose. This disparity of perspective underlies much of what Muslims believe about their Jewish and Christian forebears, and conditions Islamic triumphalist views about the validity of Islam against the partial falsity of the other two tradi­tions.
The Qur’an and the Sira (the traditional biography of Prophet Muhammad) present ambivalent attitudes toward Jews and Christians, reflecting the varied experience of Muhammad and the early Muslim community with Jews and Christians in Arabia. Christians are said to be nearest to Muslims in “love” (Qur’an 5:82), and yet Muslims are not to take Jews or Christians as “close allies or leaders” (Qur’an 5:51). The Qur’an often makes a distinction between the “Children of Israel” (i.e., Jews mentioned in the Bible) and members of the Jewish tribes in Arabia during Muhammad’s time. This distinction is also present in the Sira and other histories. Some Jews are represented as hostile to Muhammad and his mission, while others become allies with him. The Qur’anic revelations that Muhammad received in regard to Christians and Jews seemed to correspond to the degree of acceptance that he was awarded by these two communities. Initially, Muhammad sought their acceptance, but when the leaders of the Christian and Jewish communities rejected him as a false prophet, he received revelations that commanded him to distance himself from them. In the “Constitution of Medina,” which Muhammad negotiated with the Ansar , the Muhajjirun, and the Jews of Medina, Jews were included in the Umma , the community, and were allowed freedom of association and religion in return for the payment of an annual tax. This agreement and the subsequent treaties negotiated by Muhammad with the Jews of Tayma, and other cities in the Hijaz, establish the precedent of symbolically including “People of Scripture” (Ahl al-Kitab) in the Umma. As the armies of conquest encountered communities of Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, the model of Muhammad’s accommodating behavior extended the original notion to incorporate all these recipients of God’s revelation as Ahl al-Dhimma, or Dhimmi,
protected peoples. There were fewer Christians in the Hijaz than Jews, so Christians are featured less prominently in the political history of the es­tablishment of the Muslim community. Nevertheless, Muhammad had frequent contact with Christians from the southern areas of Najran and Ethiopia, disputing with them as he had with the Jews over matters of religious belief and practice. The traditions surrounding the sending of the Muslims to Ethiopia represent the ruler as seeing little difference between Islam and Christianity. The Qur’anic presentation of the life of Jesus and Christian belief shows that Muhammad and the early Muslims understood eastern Mediterranean Christian belief and practice, particularly if one ac­knowledges the importance of the “infancy” Gospels in Christian thought at the time. The Qur’an, however, denies the deity of Christ.
The death of Muhammad and the subsequent expansion of Islam out of Arabia brought about a definitive break with the Jewish and Christian Arab communities, so that subsequent relations were built on Jewish and Christian interactions with Muslims who knew the Prophet’s actions only as idealized history. During the first Islamic century, the period of the most rapid ex­pansion of Islam, social and religious structures were so fluid that it is hard to make generalisations. Jews and Christians were theoretically expelled from Arabia, or, at least, the Hijaz, but later evidence shows that Jews and Christians remained for centuries afterward. As late as the eighteenth century, for example, Jewish Bedouins roamed northwestern Arabia, and Christian Arabs were found in numerous settlements throughout Arabia.
The Early Centuries of Muslim History
The period of the first caliphs and the subsequent era of the Umayyads was a time in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians negotiated the new power arrangements. The parameters of
Dhimmi status were developed, and both head and land taxes were paid to the Muslim caliphs through representatives and not individually. For the Jews, the Resh Geluta or Exilarch was from the Rabbinic branch of Judaism, it became the dominant form, generally displacing other groups. Also, because Muslims expanded to include most of the world’s Jews in their polity, Rabbinic Judaism was able to develop its institutions within the context of the Islamic Umma. For the newly forming Islamic state, the loyalty of the Exilarch, and, by extension, the Jews, added legitimacy to Muslim claims to legitimate rule over its various non-Muslim populations. The interaction between Jews and Muslims thus produced profound effects on both Judaism and Islam.
Christians acted as physicians, architects, clerks, and advisors in the courts of the early caliphs. Greek and Coptic were the administrative languages for several centuries before Arabic became established enough to be the general medium of public discourse. Even the occasional uprisings against Muslim rule, as the Coptic uprisings of the early ninth century and the Jewish revolts against the Umayyads a century earlier, were local, over specific grievances, and not anti-Islamic as such. In fact, the Jewish revolt against the Umayyads, driven, it seems, by messianic visions, was sympathetic to early Shia views and attempts to overthrow the last Umayyad
caliph .
The first two Islamic centuries was a time of translating Christian and Jewish scripture into Arabic, along with a vast body of commentary, particularly on biblical figures. Qur’anic tafsir
(commentaries) became the repository of much Jewish and Christian tradition concerning such figures as Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Jesus, and others. The beginnings of Islamic theological speculation were stimulated by translations of Hellenistic thought from Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, and Syriac. One of the effects of this trend was to produce tension between those inclined toward greater cosmopolitanism of the intellectual and cultural heritage of Hellenism and those who felt that Islamic society should be centered only on the Qur’an and traditions from Muhammad, presaging the debates about the inclusion or exclusion of outside ideas. The resulting balance between religious and scientific learning became such a part of Islamic societies that even in periods of political fragmentation, Jews and Christians con­tributed along with Muslims to the intellectual and cultural life of the Islamic communities.
The Medieval Period
In the western Islamic lands of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, Jews, Christians, and Muslims com­bined in a society that is often described by later historians with the adjective “golden.” The areas of poetry, music, art, architecture, theology, exegesis, law, philosophy, medicine, pharmacology, and mysticism were shared among all the inhabitants of the Islamic courts and city-states at the same time that Muslim armies were locked in a losing struggle with the Christian armies of the Reconquista . In the eastern Mediterranean, similar symbiotic societies could be found. The universities of al-Azhar in Cairo and Cordoba in Spain, both founded in the tenth century, followed the older model of the Bayt al-Hikma in Baghdad, as places of shared learning among scholars from the three traditions. Both the concept of these types of institutions of learning, as well as the learning itself they produced, had profound influence on European institutions of higher education and European scientific advancement. Within the intellectual circles of the Islamic world, Jews contributed and participated in this civilization through contact with Muslim philosophers and theologians, just as Muslims had from contact with Christians earlier. In the areas of commerce, world trade was dominated by trading associations made up of Muslims, Jews, and Christians from Islamic lands.
The twin attacks on the Islamic world in the Middle Ages by the Crusaders from the West and the Mongols from the East transformed Muslim attitudes toward the Dhimmi , and also the attitudes of the Jews and Christians in Islamic lands toward their relations with Muslim polity. Many Islamic areas develop in accor­dance with an already existing tendency to organize society along military lines. This becomes particularly true in areas where Turkic peoples take over the lead­ing governmental and military roles. Converted by Sunni merchants and organised as military brotherhoods imbued with the spirit of military jihad,
the Turks became the defenders of the Islamic lands. In their vision of society, the influence of Christians, Jews, and non-Sunni Muslim groups was circumscribed and made more rigid, but it was not eliminated. Muslim religious scholars used depictions of Jews and Christians found in the foundation texts as cautionary models for Muslims, but actual communities of Jews and Christians were treated with strict adherence to legal precedent. The
Dhimmi had to wear distinctive clothing and badges to indicate their position in society, as did Muslims, as part of a general “uniform” indicating rank and status. Certain occupations became common for Jews and Christians, such as tanning, which was regarded as imparting ritual impurity to Muslims, and it became less common in this period to find Jews and Christians in the highest ranks of advisors to the rulers. Jews and Christians usually lived in separate quarters of cities, and, while they were inferior to Muslims in public and barred from riding horses or blocking the public way with religious processions, they lived autonomously with respect to their communal affairs. This autonomy, while somewhat protective of individuals, was to prove to have long-term consequences. Some Christian communities, caught in the middle of the conflict during the Crusades, actively expressed their loyalty to Rome and Constantinople and looked to the Crusaders as protectors of their interests. This association began a process of separation of some of these communities from the matrix of Muslim polity, and they became viewed as foreign by Muslims and themselves.
When Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain in 1492 CE, the majority of Jews chose to move to Islamic lands, the area of the Ottoman Empire in particular. The Iberian Jews were so numerous, well educated, and prosperous, that Iberian Jewish culture often supplanted that of the older Jewish communities, so that Sephardic became the general term for Jews living in Islamic lands. The trading and manufacturing skills and the capital of these immigrants to the Ottoman Empire provided much of the wealth for Ottoman expansion. Under the
Ottomans , Jewish and Christian communities achieved the greatest degree of autonomy. Through the millet
system, each community was distinct and responsible directly to the Sultan. The most famous intrusions into communal life occurred with the Ottoman institution of the Jannisary corps. Young Christian males were conscripted by the Ottoman military, trained as soldiers, converted to Islam, and placed in high positions in Ottoman administration. The process sometimes produced resentment among Christians, but some families actively sought to have a member chosen because of the possibilities of favours and preferential treatment later when the candidate assumed official duties.
The Modern Period
Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 is generally regarded as the beginning of the modern period of the history of the Islamic Middle East and the beginnings of Western colonialism that was to encompass most of the Islamic lands in Asia and Africa. In reality, it signified the decline of Muslim polities against the economic and technological rise of Western Europe. By the eighteenth century, most Muslims found themselves living in or dependent on one of the three great Muslim empires: the Ottoman, the Mughal, or the Safavid Empire. All three empires were agrarian and relied on peasant labour for wealth, military strength, and products for worldwide trade. As Western Europe underwent the technological transformation usually termed the Industrial Revolution, with the concomitant rise of capitalism, it also underwent a social and religious revolu­tion that placed great value on the individual and stressed individual effort and initiative. This reorganisation produced societies generally freed from family and clan constraints on labour allocation, rewards, and relations with governing powers such that the societies became more efficient in manufacturing and trading goods on the world market. In the worldwide competi­tion, major areas of the Islamic world became providers of raw or only partially manufactured goods for the industrialized West. When the West sold back the manufactured goods, which often drove superior local goods from the market, it also exposed the Muslim customers to the ideals of the reorganised, industrialised society: individualised human rights, democracy, secularism and secular law, universal education, science, nationalism, and the subordination of religion to the greater ideology of the nation-state. Western military and economic success proved attractive to many members of the Islamic states who sought to adopt Western ways as a means of securing part of this success.
In the Ottoman Empire, the British and French found Jews and Christians to be willing agents for their commercial activities, and the Ottomans, in turn, were pleased to employ the Dhimmi for these purposes as well. Many Jews and Christians sought to secure the benefits of Western societies for themselves and their offspring by asking for and getting Western protection, passports, and, in some instances, citizenship. The
Dhimmi often fell under the protection of the foreign powers. The increasing identification of Jews and Christians with non-Muslim powers served only to isolate these non-Muslims from the rest of Islamic society. Even in places where there was not an indigenous Jewish or Christian population to be exploited for economic gain, Western European powers arrived as colonialists with professedly Christian institutions, expectations, and ideologies. The British were able to separate Egypt from the Ottoman Empire and establish a protectorate in 1882, as they were able to put India under direct British rule in 1857. The French colonized Algeria in 1830 and Tunisia in 1881. The Dutch competed with the British for Southeast Asia, so that by the end of the nineteenth century, most Muslims were under Western political and legal influence. The secular legal systems devised in the West supplanted both Christian and Muslim customary and religious law, seriously challenging or eliminating the category of Dhimmi in those countries. The result was often a complete separation of Jews and Christians as groups from a relationship in law with Muslims.
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, resulting in the creation of a number of small nation-states, resulted in a further separation of non-Muslims from Muslims. The ideology of nationalism reduced religion to the status as one of the components of a nation-state ideology. Education became Western, technological, and secular, further reducing religion to peripheral status. By the eve of World War II, most Islamic countries were prepared to overthrow colonialism and establish nation-states. When this happened after World War II, constitutions were modeled after such countries as Switzerland, the United States, and France, usually guaranteeing freedom of religion but providing no particular safeguards for religious ex­pression. Other religious and ethnic groups also desired nation-states. Nominal Christian states were formed in the Balkans, and the state of Israel was formed in the formerly British mandate territory of Palestine. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 became a central focal point for Muslim-Jewish relations, which had steadily deteriorated since the end of World War I. The worsening conflicts in Palestine increased Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Arab states, where Jews were seen as both foreign and instruments of Western colonial designs. Within twenty years after the formation of the state of Israel, the majority of Jews living in Arab lands migrated to Israel, thus crystallizing the conflict in Palestine into a Jewish-Muslim conflict. Rulers in predominantly Muslim countries no longer had a constituent Jewish population. Jews were an abstract and hostile other, and Judaism, now increasingly identified with Zionism by Jews and non-Jews alike, was revalorized as the ever-present opposition to Muslims in Islamic history. This last notion, while having its roots in the foundation texts of Islam, was now abstracted in a way unlike any time in the past, and Jewish-Muslim relations took a new direction.
A common thread among many Islamic intellectuals concerned with the role and direction of Muslims in the postcolonial world is the role of the Jews in Islamic history. As mentioned above, the historical circumstances of a strong Jewish presence in the Hijaz during Muhammad’s time and the opposition of most of the Jewish tribes to Muhammad’s mission embedded nu­merous seemingly anti-Jewish statements into the early literature. For a few, in a quest to use the Islamic his­torical past to explain the present, the negative accounts of Judaism and Christianity became abstracted so as to conflate the past with the present Arab-Israeli and East-West conflicts; for example, biblical descriptions of Jews rebelling against God’s commands. Medinan Jewish opposition to the forming Muslim state and Israeli actions against Palestinians were read together as an eternal Jewish character, a view sometimes informed by Western anti-Semitic literature. The Egyptian intellectual, Sayyid Qutb ’s article “Our Struggle with the Jews,” is one example, as are the views expressed by leaders of the American Nation of Islam.
Other Muslim intellectuals read the same foundation texts with an emphasis on the special relationship between God and People of the Book. While deploring the problems in Palestine, they separate the Arab-Israeli conflict from discussions about Jews and Christians. Some at al-Azhar in Egypt cite the Qur’an and sunna to support peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, and Warith D. Muhammad, the son of Elijah Muhammad, in the United States has countered the anti-Jewish essentialist reading of the past with a Qur’anic-based message of mutual cooperation among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
The Future
As Islam spreads to new places in the world, more and more Muslims are living as minorities in non-Muslim lands. This, too, has proved to be an intellectual challenge. Some Muslim states and organisations have tried to revive a notion of Dhimmi in reverse, seeking to be the protectors of the rights of Muslims in non-Muslim countries, as, for example, the Muslim World League and the Islamic Call Society. Linked to these ideas is the notion of the da‘wa , or the invitation to Islam to non-Muslims. The situation of minority Muslim communities in Africa, North America, and Asia, many of whom express Islam in ways different from those in Muslim-majority countries where Islam and indigenous cultures are intermixed, is prompting a form of inter-Muslim ecumenism parallel to the willingness of Muslims to participate in the essentially ecumenical dialogues with Jews and Christians, the aims of which are understanding without attempts at conversion.
Discourse about Muslim-Jewish and Christian relations has been dominated in the first half-century by the problems of forming new group identities after the dissolution of colonialism. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities have all suffered from conflicts pitting one group against another. As with any conflict, this period has produced considerable polemic. It has also pro­duced positive calls for mutual respect and cooperation. The World Council of Churches has called for positive dialogue with Islam as part of its movement to reach out to people of all religions, and at the Vatican II Council, the Roman Catholic Church called on its members to esteem Muslims. Among synagogues in America, groups are expanding to promote Jewish-Muslim dialogue. As peace treaties are negotiated and conflicts are reduced to non-belligerency, members of all three religions find themselves in a position to build on the traditions of common heritage and common experience.
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