Muslims Blame and Jews Remember
Biblical legend tells us that a long time ago (1500 to 1200 B.C.) a certain Pharaoh of Egypt did a terrible thing to all the firstborn of the Hebrews: he had them thrown into the Nile. Whether one accepts the Exodus story as really happening or not (the written version as we know it was most likely composed around 450 B.C.), it is indisputable that Jews did not take it personally. They never went back to Egypt to kill Egyptians for payback nor do you ever hear Jews urging each other to kill Egyptians for long ago enslaving the Israelites.
Jews have lived continuously in Egypt since 650 B.C. In 1922 there were almost 80,000 Jews in Egypt living peacefully as they have always done. Today there are fewer than a hundred [Wiki].
587-586 B.C. the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar invades Jerusalem and destroys the city and the First Temple [Westmont College]. Babylon is located in what we today call Iraq. You will never hear a Jew urging his fellow Jews to kill Iraqis wherever we find them for destroying the Holy City and the Second Temple and carrying off the Jewish people into captivity.
Jews have lived continuously in the area of present-day Iraq since 586 B.C. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities [Wiki]. In 1948, there were approximately 150,000 Jews in Iraq, living peacefully as they have always done. In 2003, there were 100 left.
In 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Tens of thousands of Jews were crucified, many nailed in ridiculous postures to amuse the Roman soldiers. You will never hear a Jew urging his fellow Jews to kill Romans wherever we find them.
Jews have lived continuously in Italy for over 2000 years and despite the persecutions and expulsions and the Holocaust a small community of around 45,000 Jews remains in Italy today [Wiki].
When Jews recall these events during their holy days, it is to remember that bad things happened but that we persevered and we endured. No one is urged to find a gentile and kill, enslave or convert him.
Muslims Blame Infidels
As to how Muslims recall past events, here is a short list of past indignities:
- Christians invaded Muslim lands during the Crusades and so Christians living today must be made to pay.
- Moorish rule in Spain ended in 1492 with the expulsion of Muslims. Muslims never forgot that indignity and so it is no accident that Spain had a bloody Islamic terror attack, despite the fact that Spain is one of the most Islam-friendly nations on Earth.
lonewhacko, 15 Mar 2004, The "Andalus syndrome"
... for Ahmed [Cambridge professor Akbar S. Ahmed] the ideal model of an Islamic society is Muslim Spain. Which, incidentally, he seems to want back. It was Ahmed who coined the term "Andalus syndrome" to describe the "sense of injustice, of loss, of the cruelty of the world" that results from the realization that Islam does not now control every single scrap of territory it once seized. Needless to say, what Ahmed is expressing is not the human condition but a kind of irredentism peculiar to Islam. (And perhaps universal to it, if we're to judge from the disproportionate anguish that the very existence of Israel seems to occasion.) For all Osama Bin Laden's moaning about the Crusader impulse, it has probably been eight centuries since a Christian last wept over Islam's subjugation of the historically Christian lands of Syria, Anatolia, and North Africa...
- European and American infidels destroyed the Ottoman Empire in 1920 and so present day citizens of those entities must be killed, enslaved or subdued
NRO, 8 Oct 2001, Bin Laden’s Vision Thing
Osama bin Laden's statement Sunday after the first Allied air strikes was mostly what one would expect, the usual denunciations of the United States and "the chief infidel Bush," but did contain two curious passages: "Our nation has undergone more than 80 years of this humiliation..."; and: "When the sword reached America after 80 years..." Eighty years? 1921? Is he saying that this whole thing is Warren G. Harding's fault?
Bin Laden is talking about the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres imposed on the Turks after World War One, which detached their Arab provinces and spelled the end of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans had ruled the region for 600 years or so, and brought varying degrees of political harmony under the Sultanate and religious unity under the Caliphate. The 1920 treaty did away with the political order, and the Caliphate was banned by Kemal Ataturk in 1924.
It should be noted that for Muslims there is no history before Mohammed and after Mohammed there are only indignities suffered by Muslims at the hands of infidels whose living descendants are to be killed, subdued, or converted.
There is nothing wrong in remembering past offenses; certainly Jews recall historical abuses during Passover or Purim, but significantly what they do not do is blame anyone, what is celebrated instead is deliverance from evil: there are no fatwas against non-Jews.
Islam is alleged to have followed in the tradition of Judaism and Christianity; indeed, Moses and Jesus are considered prophets. However Muslims did not learn from Jews the sanctity of life nor from Christians mercy and forgiveness.
Muslims have to stop blaming the world for their ignorance and poverty when the cause of their misery is in fact Islam itself. Arabs, if they were Christians or Jews, would be one of the cleverest, wisest, and prosperous of peoples on this globe. Non-Muslim Hindus (those living in India) are an innovative force in the world. Muslim Hindus (those living in Pakistan) have barely progressed since partition of India.
I admire Arabs, Hindus, and other peoples and races for their contributions to civilization. I do not admire Arabs, Hindus and others who remain Muslim and sit in the dark blaming infidels for the darkness.
