Political Forum - View Single Post - Can Muslim citizens be loyal to a non-Muslim government?

concheet · #8 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bugalugs

What happens if you want to keep slaves like the Bible says you can, but you live in a Muslim country that has outlawed slavery? What are you going to do?

Though seriously - don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Christian or Jewish citzens cannot be loyal to a non-Christian/Judeao government. Of course they can. I'm just curious as to why you are so bigoted towards Muslims?

Those laws are archaic. I am not sure how long ago Jews outlawed slavery, but Christians outlawed it several centuries ago.

This from wiki (my bolds, notice it is sourced and footnoted):

Quote:

Twentieth Century suppression and outlawry

Unlike Western societies which in their opposition to slavery spawned anti-slavery movements whose numbers and enthusiasm often grew out of church groups, no such grass-roots organizations ever developed in Muslim societies. In Muslim politics the state unquestioningly accepted the teachings of Islam and applied them as law. Islam, by sanctioning slavery - however mild a form it generally took - also extended legitimacy to the nefarious traffic in slaves.[100]

Writing about 1862 the English traveller W.G. Palgrave says that in Arabia he constantly met with negro slaves in large numbers. The effects of concubinage were apparent in the number of persons of mixed race and the emancipation of slaves he found to be common.[101] Doughty, writing about 25 years later, made similar reports.[102]

Slavery was common in the East Indies until the end of the 19th Century. In Singapore in 1891 there was a regular trade in Chinese slaves by Muslim slaveowners, with girls and women used for concubinage.[103]

At Istanbul, the sale of black and Circassian women was conducted openly until the granting of the Constitution in 1908.[104]

It was in the early 20th century (post World War I) that slavery gradually became outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France.[4]

In 1925 slaves were still being bought and sold at Mecca in the ordinary way of trade.[105] The slave market there consisted of the offspring of local slaves as well as those imported from the Yemen, Africa, and Asia Minor.

By the Treaty of Jedda, May 1927 (art.7), concluded between the British Government and Ibn Sa'ud (King of Nejd and the Hijaz) it was finally agreed to suppress the slave trade in Saudi Arabia. Then by a decree issued in 1936 the importation of slaves into Saudi Arabia was prohibited unless it could be proved that they were slaves at that date.[106]

In 1953, sheikhs from Qatar attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II included slaves in their retinues, and they did so again on another visit five years later.[107]

It was not until 1962 that all slavery practice or trafficking in Saudi Arabia was prohibited.

By 1969 it could be observed that most Muslim states had abolished slavery although it existed in the deserts of Iraq bordering Arabia and it still flourished in Saudi Arabia, the Yemen and Oman.[108] Slavery was not formally abolished in Yemen and Oman until the following year.[109] The last nation to formally enact the abolition of slavery practice and slave trafficking was the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in 1981.[110]

Gordon describes the lack of homegrown Islamic abolition movements as owing much to the fact that it was deeply anchored in Islamic law. By legitimizing slavery and - by extension - traffic in slaves, Islam elevated those practices to an unassailable moral plain. As a result, in no part of the Muslim world was an ideological challenge ever mounted against slavery. The political and social system in Muslim society would have taken a dim view of such a challenge.[111]

Why am I so 'bigoted' toward the Muslims?
I am not bigoted against Muslims. Muslims are just people that follow a religion just like Christians, Hindus and Jews. I believe in co-existence. If the Muslims can do it, fine. I have no problem with that. I only have a problem with people who cannot or will not coexist (peacefully) with me.