‘SO WHY CAN’T they all live in peace?’ my daughter asked 2 years ago when the last major eruption of violence occurred in Palestine.
As the current horror unfolds, we reminded ourselves of that discussion and our visit to Jerusalem 6 years ago when we witnessed first-hand the daily oppression that the Palestinians face.
When we look at history, we see that the only time that Palestine has ever experienced relative peace and security for all people was under Islamic rule.
Take the example of when Jerusalem was first opened at the time of the second Khalifah, Umar Ibn Al Khattab (ra) in 637CE.
He entered Jerusalem on foot, his head bowed in humility and love for the Holy Land. He was welcomed by Muslims, Christians and Jews. He was asked to pray inside the Church of the Resurrection (today better known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) but he refused; informing the Christian head Patriarch Sophronius that he feared that if he prayed in the church, then later Muslims might use this as an excuse to convert the church into a masjid. Rather he wanted the priests to have their church, so he prayed outside in the courtyard which remains today.
Umar (ra) wrote a message to all people that the Christians and Jews will remain safe, respected, and protected under Islamic governance. This message remains engraved on the wall outside this church in Jerusalem.
As they did with all other cities they opened to Islam, the Muslims wrote a treaty detailing the rights and privileges regarding the various people and the Muslims in Jerusalem. This treaty was signed by Umar (ra) and Patriarch Sophronius, along with some of the generals of the Muslim armies.
The text of the treaty read: ‘In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This is the assurance of safety which the servant of Allah, Umar, Ameer ul Mu’mineen, has given to the people of Jerusalem. He has given them an assurance of safety for themselves, for their property, their churches, their crosses, the sick and healthy of the city and all the rituals which belong to their religion. Their churches will not be inhabited by Muslims and will not be destroyed. Neither they, nor the land on which they stand, nor their cross, nor their property will be damaged. They will not be forcibly converted…’
We were true to our words for the next 462 years. When the Crusaders took over Jerusalem in 1099 CE, they killed thousands of Muslims and Jews and converted Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount into Christian shrines (rather similar to what happened in Muslim Spain years later).
Salahuddin liberated Jerusalem once again in 1187 CE. Rather than take revenge on the Christians for the bloodbath and desecration that was unleashed 88 years before, Salahuddin allowed the Christians safe passage to the coastal areas.
The justice of Islam was once again restored and continued in Palestine till the fall of the Ottoman Khilafah after the First World War when Britain took over.
From that point on we have only seen bloodshed and war in the region and the roots of today’s terrible crimes.
It was the British who facilitated the transfer of European Jews to Palestine, giving them land and rights at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian people. That early Jewish population was able to organise themselves into armed militias, stage terrorist attacks against the British, and then forcibly evict some 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland in the Nakba thus establishing the Zionist entity in 1948.
Now, over five million Palestinian refugees are estimated to be still displaced across refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Palestine’s neighbouring countries.
We have seen ongoing land grabs, apartheid and injustice with the current situation in Gaza akin to a second Nakba.
So, history shows us that only Islam can give everyone peace. This is because peace can only exist when there is justice and it is only Islam that establishes justice for all through its authority. Islam does not turn people into ‘us’ and ‘them’, rather all who live under Islam’s rule are citizens who have unchanging rights and responsibilities defined by Allah and His Messenger ﷺ and that are upheld.
It is the absence of this Islamic system today that has led to the barbarity and chaos that we see. And it is only its re-establishment that will bring back peace and security to all peoples in that region.
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