|  Christianity wus born on Palestinian soil but spread towards present-day Syria & Iraq bcus of the Christian church's oppressive rule.
When our Prophet (may God bless him & grant him peace) bgan to teach Islam, ther were many Jewish & CHristian communities in southern Arabia.
Therefor, from the v.bginning of Islam, Muslims, Jews, & Christians maintaned a dialogue.
Wif the spread & strengthenin of Islam, the region's Jews & Christians came under Muslim rule. Relations based upon tolerance & mutual understanding continued, & various agreements made at the time of our Prophet (may God bless him & grant him peace) granted the Jewish & Christian communities certain priviliges that guaranteed their rights & existence.
The privileges granted to the monks of the St. Catherine Monastery at Mt.Simai r Xamples of this. THese documents guaranteed the legal, religious, & social rights of those Jews & Christians who came under Muslim rule or acknowledge Islam's sovereignty.
Probs were resolved by referring to these documents. For Xample, the history books mention that the Christians in Damascus presented the documents recording their privileges to Caliph Umar when thry encountered a prob & ask him to resolve the issue accordingly.
The caliphs who succeeded the Prophet (may God bless him & grant him peace) practiced God's justice according to the prophetic Sunnah.
In the conquered lands, both the nativ population & the new arrivals lived in peace & security. For Xample, Abu Bakr, the 1st caliph, gav the following command to his army b4 sendin them toward Syria:
*Stop, O people, that I may give you 10 rules to keep by heart: Do not commit treachery not depart from the right path. You must not mutilate, nor kill a child or an aged man or woman. Do not destroy a palm tree, nor burn it with fire, and do not cut any fruitful tree. You must not slay any of the flocks or herds or camels, save for your subsistence. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them to that to which they have devoted their lives. You are likely, likewise, to find people who will present to you meals of many kinds. You may eat, but do not forget to mention the name of God.
"O You who believe! Show integrity for the sake of God, bearing witness with justice. Do not let hatred for a people to incite you into not being just. Be just. That is closer to heedfulness. Have fear of God, God is aware of what you do."(Quran 5:8)
"God commands you to return to their owners the things you hold on trust and, when you judge between people, to judge with justice. How excellent is what God exhorts you to do! God is All-Hearing, All-Seeing." (Quran 4:58)
The rapid growth of Islam brought Byzantine-ruled Syria & Egypt, as well as Sassanid-ruled Iraq, under Muslim rule. Each of the regions had large Christian populations.
These Jews & Christians witnessed 1st hand the Muslims' justice & compassion. None of ém were asked or pressured to change their religions or traditions.
No practice or intervention that would hav altered the existing social order or unsettled them wus permitted. Various Christian sects that were being oppressed by Rome or Byzantium actually preferred Muslim rule.
The Western historian Philip K. Hitti writes:
*Under the stimulus of Islam, the East now awoke and reasserted itself after a milennium of Western domination. Moreover, the tribute exacted by the new conquerors [Muslims] wus even less than that exacted by the old, and the conquered could now pursue their religious practices with more freedom and less interference.*
According to Princeton scholar & author Samuel Moffet:
*Under the patriarchal caliphs and all through the turbulent years of the civil wars, apart from killings and horrors to be expected in any war, treatment of Christians in the [Muslim] conquered territories of Persia and Byzantine Syria proved to be remarkably generous.*
When Xamining the social & religious lives under Islamic rule, the followin picture emerges:
On Islamic territory, true freedon of religion existed. No 1 wus forced to change his or her religion, & communities that rebelled & came back later under d authority of Islam were given the same rights as b4.
D Islamic authority, save for a few Xceptions, neva intervened in d election of patriarchs or the appointment of religious authority, & guaranteed not to intervene by signing various agreements.
These communities continued to speak their own languages in their private lives as well as in their religious lives. For instance, the Nestorians who left the Byzantine church chose to leave their Greek language also for the Suryani (Assyrian) language, and were free to do so.
In the Christian & Jewish schools, religious education continued freely, & monasteries & other institutions that educated the community's future religious leaders preserved their autonomous status.
Likewise, the sanctuaries of other religious denominations were protected by the Muslim authorities. During the conquest, places of worship were neva harmed, for synagogues & churched were guaranteed protection by agreements made with the People of the Book from the time of the Prophet (may God bless him & grant him peace)
In agreements dating back to the initial period of Islam clauses allowed Muslims to stay in monasteries while traveling.
This shows the Muslims sought to develop a dialogue based on mutual respect with the People of the Book. Moreover, these communities were also permitted to rebuild derelict churches or build new synagogues & churches when they wished.
For instance, the St.Sergius monastery outside Madain wus destroyed by Patriarch Mar Emme (644-647 CE) but rebuilt at the time of caliph Uthman.
Many such Xamples can b cited:
Uqba, the governor of Egypt, helped build a monastery for the Nestorians; during Mu'awiya's reign a church in Edessa wus renovated, & the Marcos church wus commissioned in Alexandria.
The fact that churches & synagogues in Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, & Iraq still remain is an indicator of the Muslim's respect for other divinely revealed religions.
Another example of Muslim tolerance is the Monastery of Mt.Sinai, one of the Christianity's important pilgrimage sites.
The source of the Muslim's tolerance in the Quran's morality, which says:
"...if God had not driven some people back by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God's name is mentioned much, would have been pulled down and destroyed. God will certainly help those who help him... (Quran 22:40)
The People of the Book were free to celebrate their festivities as part of their religious tradition in their places of worship as they wished, & Muslim leaders often joined these celebrations.
The Nestorian Patriarch Isho'yab III (650-60 CE) wrote a letter to the Bishop of Persia following the Muslim conquest that voices the MUslim leadership's compassion & tolerance toward the People of the Book from a Christian perspective:
The Arabs to whom God has given at this time the government of the world...do not persecute the Christian religion. Indeed they favor it, honor our priests and the saints of the Lord and confer benefits on churches and monasteries.
Bsides these freedoms & respect, the justice & fairness with which these non-Muslim communities were treated is remarkable too.
The Muslim leaders' sense of justice was renowned, and many Christians brought their cases to the Islamic courts even though they had their own courts.
@ 1 time, the number of Christians using Islamic courts reached such high numbers that the Nestorian patriarch Mar Timothee | (780-825 CE) issued a declaration warning Christians.
The People of the Book living in Muslim-ruled lands were not considered captives, but dhimmis, which gav ém a legal status: non-Muslim ppl who recognised Muslim authority paid a jizya tax.
In return, their lives & property were protected, they enjoyed freedom of thot & religion, were exempted from military service, & allowed to resolve their internal affairs by their own laws.
From time to tome, the jizya tax even returned to them. A majority of historians recognize the fact that the dhimmis lived under a tolerant & just system.
The renowned historian Bernard Lewis states:
-But by & large their [dhimmi's] position was infinitely superior to that of those communities who differed from the established church in western Europe in the same period. They enjoyed the free exercise of their religion. ... They were seldom called upon to suffer from martyrdom or exile for their beliefs.-
Our Prophet (may God bless him & grant him peace) said: "On the Day of Judgment I wil dispute with anyone who oppresses a person from among People of the COvenant [i.e., a Dhimmi], or infringes on his right, or puts a responsibility on which is beyond his strength, or takes something from him against his will."
Thereby, describing the correct attitude toward dhimmis. In line with this morality, Muslims considered it one of their important responsibilies to protect the non-Muslims under their authority.
During a war with the Byzantine army, our Prophet (may God bless him & grant him peace) ordered that the tax collected from non-Muslims b returned, for the Muslim army wus unable to protect them.
This is the type of morality that he taught Muslims. Another good example of compassion & considerations is Umar's words to an old dhimmi woman: "By God, we would not be fair if we take from him when he is young and disgrace him when he is old."
Taking the jizya only from non-Muslims is not unjust, bcus Muslims had to serve in the army; non-Muslims were exempt from military service.
For centuries, Muslims lived side by side with Jews & Christians in peace & security. Those Jews & Christians who lived in Muslim-ruled lands engaged in free trade & acquired property, chose their d
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