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A QIBLA CHRISTMAS
PART I
All Scripture references
are to the King James Version (KJV) unless stated otherwise.
‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will
toward men.’
Luke 2: 14
THE
CITY OF BRADFORD receives an average of 34
inches of rain a year. Once a thriving mill town, its wet climate was ideal for
spinning and weaving the wool that clothed Britain. These mills gave work to
hundreds of immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India when the British
government introduced a voucher system for members of the Commonwealth in the
1960s. The city now has the second largest Muslim population in Britain.
Nestled
among the green valleys of the Pennines, all routes out of Bradford lead
uphill. A short walk from the modernised centre reveals some of Bradford’s old
character, where the occasional cobbled side street leads to an old mill, the
thickset, smoke-stained stonework of which supports a towering chimney. Come
winter, when the wind off the moors gathers up the snow in drifts, Bradford’s Victorian
aspect offers a perfect setting for the ‘Christmas Carol’.
Dickens’
novella is credited with helping to revive Christmas celebrations in England.
The publication of the book in 1843 coincided with the growing popularity of
the Christmas tree, introduced into Britain by Prince Albert, the consort of
Queen Victoria. Even before the story of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, gifts and
public charity had been a staple of the season’s celebrations. The polarisation
of human motives that Dickens portrayed in Ebenezer Scrooge became a popular
spur to enter into the Christmas spirit, and ever since Scrooge has
become a byword for those who would not.
The
trappings of today’s Christmas celebrations are a hybrid selection of customs
from different ages. Some – like the evergreen holly, fir tree and mistletoe –
pre-date the Christian era and are nature’s emblems of immortality. They have
become a dressing for the nativity scene, carol services and greetings cards,
the season’s most prominent religious icons.
The Christmas
traditions of feasting and the giving of presents are not in themselves
exceptional; they are an almost universal accompaniment to holy-day
celebrations of all ages. In spite of the marketing hyperbole, the Christian
finds a rare occasion on this day in the calendar when many, regardless of
belief, make a determined effort to show goodwill to all men, and to exchange
gifts with one another in remembrance of Christ’s birth.
The
Moslem ‘Christmas’
Of course
religious celebrations are not unique to Christianity. A common response of
Muslims when asked about the festival of Eid is that it is ‘like’
Christmas, although the date for Eid migrates through a lunar year. There are
other notable differences: many Muslims are keen to preserve Eid from becoming a
commercial brand like its Christian counterpart. The tinselled publicity and
ubiquitous seasonal cliché, stamped on everything from the supermarket shelves
to the television, dissolve the religious sublimity of why Jesus was in the
manger.
In
contrast to the Christian holiday, Islam remains jealous of Eid’s religious
purity. Those guided by the Qur’an wish to guard its sanctity and keep it free
from those secular influences that would debase it. The festival marks the end
of Ramadan, a month of obligatory prayer and fasting. During Eid many come
together to share a meal and – as with Christmas – to exchange gifts.
But holy
days are not the only junctions at which Christianity and Islam converge.
Qibla
The
holiest site in Islam is Kaaba. It is found within the Masjid-Al-Haram mosque
at Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Muslims are exhorted by the Qur’an to face toward Kaaba
when they pray. This direction is known as Qibla. Similarly, it is
common for churches in Britain to be orientated towards the East; the altar and
the stained-glass window behind it are situated on the side which faces
Jerusalem. So, during church services Christians are geographically aligned
when they pray. However, true alignment requires more than architectural
tradition.
The first
Parliament of the World’s Religions was held in Chicago in 1893. A chief
objective of the event, in the words of the Rev. J. H. Barrows when promoting
the Parliament, was ‘the unity of the religions’. The movement continues to
this day, though any drive towards a unity of belief has been moderated and its
purpose is now ‘to promote inter-religious harmony, rather than unity’.[fn1] The
reconciliation of the many disparate creeds has proved too difficult, and
proselytising is no longer on the agenda. The common denominator on which all
of the Parliament’s member religions agree is the second commandment,
epitomised by Jesus: to love one’s neighbour as oneself (Matthew 22: 39).
This
simple creed of goodwill is so widely accepted that even atheists and theists
can unite behind it. But even this universal maxim does not ensure uniformity
of behaviour among the world’s religions. And the second commandment is
overruled by the first – a supreme love towards God – and the Divine will is
discerned differently by each religion. The Christian has the Bible, the Muslim
the Qur’an, but within these two groups, there are varying practices and
interpretations, all derived from their respective scriptures. The clashes of
faith which result cause the secular observer to blame religion in general – a
convenient peg on which to hang the blame for the world’s woes.
Crusades
The first
Crusade began in France in the winter of 1095. From a dais on a hillside in
Auvergne, before a large crowd, Pope Urban II called upon all Christians to
fight for the deliverance of Jerusalem. His words stirred the emotions and men
jostled to the fore to join up. History is not clear whether the pope was
concerned more with Jerusalem’s holy sites, or with the deterioration of
Christian values in France. The words of his speech show that he was not
ignorant of the troubles at home:
Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private
warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels . . . . Let those who
for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been
fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against
the barbarians.[fn2]
Inspired
by a vision taken from the book of Revelation, many saw Jerusalem as the city
from heaven, where Christ beckoned the faithful to receive their eternal
reward. Framed in holy language, the fight for Jerusalem was presented to the
people as following in the footsteps of Christ, and taking up the Cross.
The clergy adeptly garnered public opinion with promises of forgiveness of sins
and sainthood for the participants.
The ranks
of those enlisting in the ‘War of the Cross’ spread throughout the Latin
Church; historians number the crusaders in thousands. This was an army of
volunteers that accepted rich and poor alike. The departure of men to foreign
parts and the possibility of their never returning had a deep and profound
effect on the families and communities they left behind. One was the pacifying
of domestic troubles.
The war
with the Turks became a dominating and defining event of the Middle Ages. In
proportion as the Crusade was championed as the most worthy and noble of
causes, so the Turks and their religion were demonised and exaggerated as the
most barbarous of infidels.
Under the
influence of these two opposite themes, a love for Christendom and a hatred of
the Turks, the dissenting peasant was transformed into a valiant Christian
soldier. He was no longer an underdog, tied to poverty and drudgery, but a
combatant in a holy war, a war for the defence of his eternal hope and one rung
above the nation of infidels on the ladder to heaven. The Crusade preserved
Christendom, not through the deaths of Turkish soldiers, but by a distraction
from the injustice and poverty of feudalism.
Crusades
in Modern Garb
Nearly
one thousand years after the first Crusade, events in the twenty-first century
are couched in terms evocative of a new holy war. The ubiquitous ‘war on
terror’ and the so-called ‘clash of civilisations’ are often used to describe
the various collisions of Christian and Islamic ideology. The cruelty and
naivety of the eleventh-century campaign may be lacking from today’s cultural
conflict, but the mediaeval motives do still survive in our refined and
enlightened society.
Terrorists,
in Muslim guise, have shaken the Christian nations. Out of the shock arise the
questions Why us? and Why them? The loss of civil liberties
consequent on encroaching anti-terror laws, and the related military campaigns
in foreign lands have caused the West to attempt to define itself – what,
exactly, does it stand for? What are its own ‘values’?
Islam,
then, has become the focal point of an American and European ‘identity crisis’.
Debates on
radio and television portray Western nations as champions of civil rights,
freedom of speech and the emancipation of women, while simultaneously pointing
out the Islamic nations of, say, Iran and the Sudan, as examples of oppressive
governments, state-run media, and societies rife with oppression of women.
Hue
and Cry
Newspaper
headlines gave front page coverage to the London Tube bombings and the disaster
of September 11, while the civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to have
been purposefully glossed over. Political parties of the ‘far right’ stir up
fears of a new wave of an ‘Islamisation’ that will bring with it the loss of
established Christian traditions. Out of this media storm comes a cry that
Christendom is falling, that Christians are under attack. And so the call goes
forth, if indirectly, to rally round the Cross. The tumult has stirred many
thinking Christians to reconsider their own politics – decisions that press
down hard on the conscience.
But this
characterising by the media of terrorism and the looming threat of Islamisation
is a distraction from the real struggle of Christians in the modern world: how
to conform their lives to the Gospel and to bear witness to the truth.
To Be Continued
________________
NOTES
Citations to Web pages are correct as of the dates
retrieved, but sites may expire or be moved.
[fn1] The
Council for a Parliament of World Religions
gives a history of the movement on its website, which can be found here: <http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/index.cfm?n=1&sn=4> (retrieved 11
January 2011).
[fn2] August C. Krey, The First Crusade (Princeton University Press, 1921), 30. The speech of Pope Urban II is given using four separate accounts by different men. The quotation is taken from Chapter 1, page 30, at the top.
<http://www.archive.org/stream/firstcrusadeacco00kreyuoft#page/30/mode/2up>
(retrieved 11 January 2011).
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Article copyright January 2011 by
ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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