This required jihad ('struggle') for right living. Seventh century Arabia was a country of warring clans which may explain some harsh phrases in the Qur'an, but they are always followed by injunctions like "if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them." War is only permissible in self-defence and is always evil.
Southern Spain was, for hundreds of years, a Muslim country that preserved civilisation in Europe and embraced thriving Christian and Jewish communities. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella made their first conquest. Muslims and Jews were forcibly converted, massacred or expelled and many Jews fled to the Ottoman Empire where they were welcomed. Western histories gloss over the barbarities of the Christian invasions and crusades. But the tables turned. Western modernism eventually won and the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Just as the West's consumerism and weapons of mass destruction do not sit easily with the Sermon on the Mount, al-Qa'eda's terrorism does not sit easily with Islam. But the social and egalitarian aspects of Islam's five pillars may help us to understand why it is the fastest growing religion in the world.
In Santar�ém, Portugal, the mosque, after 700 years of disuse, is being restored along with the synagogue and the monastery of Sao Francisco. Might they again experience the intellectual and cultural dynamism that was once there?
The Battle for God
Karen Armstrong 2001
