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The Qur'an says: "God forbids you not, with
regards to those who fight you not for [your] faith nor drive you out of
your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them; for God loveth those
who are just." (Qur'an, 60:8)
It is one function of Islamic law to protect the privileged status of
minorities, and this is why non-Muslim places of worship have flourished
all over the Islamic world.
History provides many examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faiths:
when the caliph Omar entered
Jerusalem
in the year 634, Islam granted freedom of worship to all religious
communities in the city.
Islamic law also permits non-Muslim minorities to set up their own courts,
which implement family laws drawn up by the minorities themselves.
When the caliph Omar took
Jerusalem
from the Byzantines, he insisted on entering the city with only a small
number of his companions. Proclaiming to the inhabitants that their lives
and property were safe, and that their places of worship would never be
taken from them, he asked the Christian patriarch Sophronius to accompany
him on a visit to all the holy places.
The Patriarch invited him to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but
he preferred to pray outside its gates, saying that if he accepted, later
generations of Muslims might use his action as an excuse to turn it into a
mosque. |