Page 65 - A Call For Unity

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)

celebrated their religious festivities as they pleased. From
time to time, the Muslim leadership even attended them. A
letter by the Nestorian Patriarch Isho'yab III (650-60) reveals
the Muslim leaders' compassion and understanding toward
the People of the Book:
They [Abbasids] have not attacked the Christian religion, but
rather they have commended our faith, honored our priests... and
conferred benefits on churches and monasteries. 6

Benjamin of Tudela, a famous twelfth-century Jewish ex-
plorer who could not conceal his astonishment when he dis-
covered such attitudes in the Islamic world, expressed the im-
possibility of such religious understanding and pluralism in
Christian Europe. He also stated that Jews and Muslims
prayed together in holy places and at the tombs of holy peo-

ple; that mosques were built next to synagogues, and that dif-
ferent congregations celebrated each other's religious festivi-
ties. 7
These historical facts reveal that, contrary to much of
what we read today, Islam is a religion of peace and love.
Christians and Jews lived freely under Muslim rule and en-
joyed the freedoms of religious belief and thought.

The Tranquility the People of the Book

Experienced under Muslim Rule

Christians and Jews enjoyed the highest degree of free-
dom and love under Muslim rule. During the first few cen-
turies of the Christian era, Jews oppressed Christians; as the

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