Clashes of What?

Dereje Hailu Kassa | 26 November 2007
(Originally posted on the then ethioquest.com ( 2003 )
2nd post On  Addis Tribune under  alias name Jobir Berisa)


Over a decade ago, at the beginning of the war in Bosnia, Harvard
Professor Samuel Huntington published a book entitled “The Clash of
Civilizations”. In which he  suggested that the third millennium would be
an era of great conflict between Judeo-Christian and Muslim civilizations.








Of course, not everyone agrees with his simplifications, stating the fact
that the heterogeneity of the society and a culture complexity specially
within the Western world make it impossible to come to such
conclusions.

Many others warn of the risks of associating the actions of  few
individuals and small groups with the whole religion.

That’s why Muslims, and for that matter many Christians, disagreed and
were outraged by derogatory statement made by Rev. Franklin Graham
when he called Islam “a very evil and wicked religion”, the way they
rejected and condemned Bin-Laden’s “fatwa”, which calls “killing of
Americans and their civilian and military allies” “ a religious duty for each
and every Muslim.

“Islam is one of the world’s great religions”, wrote a British historian,
Bernard Lewis. “Let me be explicit about what I, as a historian of
Islam who is not a Muslim Mean by that, Islam has brought comfort
and peace of mind, to countless millions of men and women. It has
given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has
taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of
different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a
great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and
useful lives and which by its achievement, enriched the whole world”.

However, some sort of antagonism, fanaticism and hate seems to plague
almost every religion and belief system. The radical Israeli settlers in the
Palestinian-occupied territories, the white supremacists who claim
Christian faith still exist here and there. The same goes for Islam with the
name Osama bin-Laden, al-Qaeda and affiliated groups doing the damage.

Students of comparative religion may agree that such intolerance and
confrontation has no actual religious bases. In fact far from it there are
more similarities than differences between the two major religions of the
world.

In order to explain what I mean by that, I chose to refer to a classic
example which I extracted from Arab news (web site) as Ethiopia stood
tall, as a land of righteousness.

It was five years since Archangel Gabriel had first come to the Prophet
Muhammad and, two years since the Prophet had spoken out in public
that the Muslims had to flee for their lives, harassed, abused and
threatened by the Meccans.

The Prophet advised them: “ it would be better for you to go to
Ethiopia. The king there is a  just  man and it is a friendly country.
Stay there until Allah makes it possible for you to return.”

After that he sent them, himself and his companions migrated to Medina.
In Islam this is called Hijra, the beginning of Islamic calendar.

Led by Ja’far ibn abi Talib, Ali’s brother and a cousin of the prophet, 118
of them, including the Prophet’s wife, crossed the Red Sea and arrived in
Ethiopia.

The Meccans, furious by the Muslim’s treatment in Ethiopia, decided to
send two men with gifts to the Ethiopian King in the hope of persuading
him to send the Muslims back for persecution. Unmoved by the Qurayshi
manipulative charges against Muslims, the angry King declared. “no, by
God, I will not give them up. Those who have come to ask for my
protection, who settled in my country, and who chose me rather than
others, shall not be betrayed. I will summon them and ask them about
what these two men have said. If the Muslims are as the Meccans say, I
will give them up and send them back to their own people, but if the
Meccans have lied, I will protect the Muslims."

The Meccans, who cunningly tried to win the argument, said to the king,
who was a Christian,”these people do not believe in Jesus in the same
way as you.”

The king wanted to know Ja’far’s response (who was speaking on
Muslims, behalf). He recited a surah (chapter) from the Quran which
tells the story of Jesus and his virgin mother Mary.























In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful:

Relate in the Book (The story of) Mary, When she withdrew From
her family To a place in the East. She placed a screen(To screen
herself) from them; Then We sent to her Our angel, and he
appeared Before her as a man In all respects. She said: "I seek
refuge From thee to (God) Most Gracious: (come not near) If thou
dost fear God."

He said: "Nay, I am only A messenger from thy Lord, (To
announce) to thee The gift of a holy son." She said: "How shall I
Have a son, seeing that No man has touched me, And I am not
unchaste?" He said: "So (it will be): Thy Lord saith, 'That is Easy
for me: and (We Wish) to appoint him As a sign unto men And a
Mercy from Us' : It is a matter (So) decreed."

So she conceived him, And she retired with him To a remote place.
" At length she brought The (babe)to her people, Carrying him (in
her arms). They said: " O Mary! Truly an amazing thing Hast thou
brought! " O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not A man of evil, nor
thy Mother a woman unchaste!"

But she pointed to the babe. They said: " How can we Talk to one
who is A child in the cradle?" He said: " I am indeed A servant of
God: He hath given me Revelation and me a prophet;

“And He hath made me Blessed wheresoever I be, And hath
enjoined on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live; " (He) hath
made me kind To my mother, and not Overbearing or miserable; "
So Peace is on me The day I was born, The day that I die, And the
day that I Shall be raised up To life (again)"! (Quran xix: 16-33)

when the king heard this, his eyes was filled with tears. Turning to his
advisers, he said, quote: “these words have surely come from god; there
is very little to separate the Muslims from the Christians. What both
Jesus and Muhammad, the messengers of Allah, have brought comes
from the same source.”

The Prophet held Ethiopians in great esteem and warned his followers
never to harm them.

The question arises why Ethiopia? Gamal Nkrumah in his article: A leap
of faith answers, " The Prophet could have chosen a safe haven for his
followers in any of Arabia’s other neighbors; modern-day Egypt,
Yemen, Syria, Iraq or Iran. Instead he chose Ethiopia, largely, it is
said, because of the righteous reputation of Ethiopia’s King, the Negus
or Al-Najashi….. his counsel proved to be wise. Iran, then known as
Persia, was a pagan country and the far-flung provinces of the
Byzantine empire… Egypt and Syria… were teetering on the verge of
rebellion. The copts of Egypt asked the Prophet to intervene on their
behalf and overthrow Byzantine rule. Ethiopia, in sharp contrast, was a
free and pietistic land ruled by a magnanimous monarch."

To add to that, its my personal believe that monotheism is the common
factor which unites Ethiopians in todays rather intolerant world. And
when I questioned the predicted “clashes of civilizations”, in a way I'm
trying to defy as an Ethiopian the threat against brotherhood and co-
existence between indigenous peoples. It reminds me of the two
symbolic examples in recent memory. As it was reported, when the
Mengistu's people set out to demolish St. Raguel's church in Addis
Ababa. It was the Muslims from the neighborhood who stood by their
Christian countrymen and fought hard for the rights of the Christians. On
different occasions this happened in 1995 under the current government
when Muslims were massacred in and around the Anwar Mosque, it was
the Christians from the same church who came out in large numbers in
Muslims’ defense.

God bless my poor people! I grew up listening to them: the Christians
reading from the OLD Testament the First of the Ten Commandments:
“thou shalt worship no other God”, the Muslims from the Koran: “There
is no deity worthy of worship except God”.  It sound the same to me, at
least a link.

Throughout the centuries they co-existed, peacefully, whenever they
face a threat, whether it be religious, cultural, civilization, so on and so
forth, it always happened to be of global nature. To be honest and
precise the only big threat today is the clashes of extremists.

Peace be unto you all!
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