Is the festering Arab-Israel hostility a result of power politics in the Middle East or a legacy of history or both? How have anti-Semitism and Islamophobia endured for so long? In this vlog an attempt has been made to understand the equations between the three Abrahamic communities: Jews, Christians and Muslims. We will learn that over the centuries tolerance and intolerance among these major religious denominations have either coexisted or alternated. Persecutors and victims have frequently changed places. There have been no permanent villains. Yet, the mutual antagonism and suspicion remain to this day. Although the three faiths share common origins and beliefs, their theological differences have led to centuries of recurring conflict spanning the Middle East, Europe, and beyond.
The origins of tension can be traced back to the 7th century CE, when the new religion of Islam emerged in the Arabian Peninsula and spread rapidly through conquests across the Middle East and North Africa. At this time, these regions were largely inhabited by long-established Jewish and Christian communities with roots dating back centuries. As Muslims gained political and military control, Jews and Christians became marginalised under Muslim rule. One prominent early conflict arose surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. In the late 7th century, the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik constructed the Dome of the Rock shrine on the site, furthering Muslim dominance of the area. This aggravated Jewish people, who were prohibited from worshipping at their most sacred location. Overall, the Dome’s construction demonstrated the shifting religious power dynamics as the nascent Islamic empire expanded.
During the Middle Ages, discriminatory laws were enforced against Jews and Christians living under various Muslim rulers. As “dhimmis” or non-Muslim subjects, Jews and Christians faced extra taxation and restrictions on worship, dress codes, and public roles. Violent anti-Jewish massacres also occurred, such as under the Almohad dynasty in North Africa and Andalusia from around 1140 CE. While dhimmi status was not uniformly oppressive, and some tolerance was extended, many Jewish and Christian subjects felt reduced to second-class citizens. The Crusades mark a major flashpoint of violence between the three faiths from the 11th to 13th centuries. These military campaigns were launched by European Christians hoping to wrest control of the Holy Land from Muslim rule. Besides the explicitly religious motivations, the Crusades also stemmed from a desire for military conquest and economic gains. As Christian armies made their way to the Middle East, they conducted massacres of Jews in Europe and Muslims in the Holy Land. In the Iberian Peninsula, Jews suffered persecutions at the hands of both Muslims and Christians during the medieval Reconquista period. As Roman Catholic kingdoms like Castile, Aragon and Portugal waged war against Muslim states like the Almohad and Nasrid dynasties, Jews were associated with the enemy by both sides. Thousands were killed, forcibly converted, or banished from regions as cities changed hands.
In the late 15th century, momentous events caused turbulent change for Jews and Muslims in Spain and Portugal. First, in 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was established by Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella to root out heresy, often targeting Jews and Muslims who had converted to Christianity. Then in 1492, the same monarchs issued the Alhambra decree expelling all unconverted Jews from Spain. Finally, in 1502, King Manuel I declared Islam illegal in Portugal and forced almost all Muslims to convert or leave. These actions ended centuries of significant Jewish and Muslim presence on the Iberian Peninsula.
The Spanish Inquisition’s persecution of religious minorities helped inspire large-scale migration into the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Sultans welcomed displaced Jews and Muslims, although Christians still faced restrictions in the predominantly Muslim state. The Ottoman millet system granted limited autonomy to different religious communities. While not free from discrimination, the Ottoman Empire became a haven relative to the intolerance in contemporary Europe.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, European colonialism and imperialism contributed to rising tensions between Jews and Muslims in the Middle East. As European powers exerted influence across West Asia and North Africa, the Zionist movement emerged calling for establishment of a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine. While small numbers of Jews had persisted in the region for centuries, larger waves of immigrants arrived from Europe. This influx of Jewish settlers escalated conflicts with local Arab populations. The British government issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917 expressing support for a Jewish national home, further alarming Palestinians. Violence broke out in 1920, 1921, and 1929 over Jewish immigration and access to the Western Wall. Mounting divisions erupted into all-out war surrounding Israel’s establishment in 1948, generating an ongoing legacy of violence. Across the Muslim world, animosity toward Jews increased in tandem with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even where Jewish communities unrelated to Israel had existed for generations, they faced backlash. For example, the 1945 Anti-Jewish Riots in Tripolitania killed over 100 Libyan Jews. After Israel’s independence, Jews faced persecution and were pressured to flee Muslim-majority countries like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Since the foundation of Israel, tensions between Jews and Muslims beyond the Palestinian situation have remained pronounced. The Arab League enforced an economic boycott of Israel for decades, later eased after Egypt and Jordan forged peace accords. Israel has engaged in or supported wars and military operations against Muslim nations like Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. Extremist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have launched attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets.
Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has continually incited wider anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. Negative stereotyping of Jews is common in Arab media and school curriculums. Conspiracy theories about supposed Jewish world domination proliferate widely. Holocaust denial has become increasingly mainstream. Even Muslim communities with little direct interaction with Israel have been influenced by rampant anti-Semitism. At the same anti-Muslim sentiment has been encouraged through powerful media houses in the West and elsewhere. Islamophobia has become the buzzword of 21st century.
While historical conflicts amplified divisions between two faiths, Muslims have also come into conflict with Christians in modern times. As European imperial powers weakened in the mid-20th century, violence erupted against Christian minorities perceived as foreign agents in newly independent Muslim-majority countries. For example, hundreds of thousands of Christians fled Turkey during World War I-era genocides against Armenians and Assyrians.
Later conflicts surrounding decolonisation inflamed Muslim-Christian divisions. During Lebanon’s 15-year civil war starting in 1975, militias targeted Christian communities seen as European implants. In Egypt, after Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalist coup in 1952, Christians faced discrimination and even violence despite their ancient Coptic Church’s local roots. Under nationalist and Islamist governments alike, Egyptian Christians faced restrictions and attacks on churches down to the present day.
Since the late 20th century, persecution of Christian minorities has worsened amid rising religious extremism and sectarianism in the Muslim world. In countries like Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria, radical Islamist groups have carried out terrorist attacks and atrocities against Christian communities viewed as infidels. Conflicts in Sudan and Nigeria included genocidal violence against Christians by extremist militias and groups like Boko Haram.
Such contemporary cases demonstrate Christianity’s tenuous status in some Muslim societies, where secular dictatorships previously kept radicalism in check. While many Muslims espouse tolerant beliefs, extremist ideologies like militant Salafism threaten the stability and safety of Christian minorities, intensifying interfaith conflicts.
Beyond nations with Christian minorities, tensions revolving around Islam have also grown in traditionally Christian-majority Western countries in recent decades. High rates of Muslim immigration to Europe and America have been accompanied by difficulties assimilating and accommodating new diversity. Right-wing nationalist movements hostile to multiculturalism and Islam have gained traction in America and European nations like France, Germany, Poland and Hungary. Demagogues have exploited economic anxieties and fear of terrorism to demonise Muslim immigrants as national security threats or alien outsiders threatening Western culture.
Consequently, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry have become more mainstream in Western public discourse and politics. Hate crimes and mosque vandalism have risen, from hundreds of attacks annually in the U.S. to frequent incidents across Europe. You will be surprised though that Jews still face more religious hate crimes than Muslims in Europe and USA. However, anti-Muslim attacks have surged in recent years, showing how Western Islamophobia nourishes religious conflicts.
Looking back over history, the relationships between Jews, Christians, and Muslims have passed through periods of relative tolerance and cooperation as well as major phases of outright violence and persecution. Throughout the centuries, political struggles for power lie at the root of inter-communal bloodshed more so than theology alone. Yet religious identity has been deployed time and again to justify conflict.
And in recent decades, the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, catastrophic regional wars, and resurgence of religious extremism have deepened divisions between the three Abrahamic faiths. With globalisation bringing diverse religious communities into closer contact and conflict, hopefully humanistic principles and inclusive pluralism will overcome the darker cycles of history. More than ever, fostering genuine interfaith understanding is vital to transcending ingrained prejudices and finally writing new chapters of cooperation rather than animosity.
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