Recent months have led me to think a
lot about perspective. As I watch politicians use half-baked truths to justify
their agendas, it’s hard not to remember that every tale has two sides, or more.
I could go on a rant about US politics in the Middle East, but instead I’d like
to offer up a couple of entries about historical perspective.
The first entry is a story about a
minaret that sits on the southern edge of the courtyard of the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
I first heard about this minaret
while watching the documentary series Out of Egypt. In that series, a guide [Nimrod Luz] stands in the
courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and points out the minaret as it broadcasts
the call to prayer over the neighborhood. He explains to the series host,
“we’re in the middle of the most important Christian
site…you can take a
naïve approach and
say, “he’s just calling to prayer.”…[but] there’s no
mosque that actually needs
this here.
This is a challenge. This is saying,
“we are here, we are stronger than you,
our voice is
heard more than
your voice.”” … “I’m sure they [people in the church] know what
it’s all
about and they feel intimidated when he calls to prayer.”
It should be noted that this man
was serving as a general guide and commentator, he was not a representative of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Having grown up in a conservative
Muslim neighborhood of Damascus, the vitriol of this interpretation was
suspicious to me. In our neighborhood we had at least three mosques in a one-block
radius and probably close to a dozen within a kilometer. My Christian mother
and I particularly enjoyed the gentle tone of the early morning prayer call.
Generally, for Christians in
Damascus, hearing the Muslim call to prayer was not considered a confrontation
with Islam, but simply a call to prayer, which Christians were free to answer
within the context of their own religion. I think it is possible some Christians
in Jerusalem feel the same way.
 | ||
| A minaret on the west side of Umayyad Mosque (in Damascus, Syria), where Christians and Muslims shared the facility for roughly 50 years, and which is located in the old city where Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together for centuries. |
By contrast, the Muslim version of
the story of the minaret is everything but confrontational. In fact, it’s quite
romantic.
I first heard this story in the
documentary series East to West, and
have since found a couple of other versions. It goes something like this: In
637 C.E.(a.k.a. 637 A.D.), when the Patriarch Sophronius (a.k.a. St. Sophronius), ruler of Jerusalem,
surrendered the city to Caliph Omar I, he invited the caliph to visit the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. While the caliph was there the time for prayer
came. The patriarch invited the caliph to pray inside the church, but Caliph
Omar I refused. He feared that future generations of Muslims would venerate the
spot where he first prayed within the walls of Jerusalem. He thought there was
a risk they might claim the site for Islam and create a monument for Muslim
pilgrims. So, he went outside the church, and prayed there instead.
Caliph Omar I was correct. Muslims
considered him very important, they still do. He was a companion to the late
Prophet Muhammad, he was the second caliph ever to exist, and he was known for being a
just man. So, in 1193 C.E.(a.k.a. 1193 A.D.), a Muslim Sultan (Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din – one of
Saladin’s sons) built the Omar Mosque on the spot where Caliph Omar I had
prayed. The minaret in question is part of the Omar Mosque, which to this day is
used for prayer only.
These two views of a single minaret
are arguably opposites and each fueled by a specific view of Islam. Your view
of Muslims or Arabs would be deeply affected by whichever version you heard,
unless you had also heard the opposite version.
A couple of things that sway me in
the direction of the Muslim version of the story are:
a)
Under the Muslims, Jews, who had been exiled for centuries by the
Christian rulers
of Jerusalem, were allowed to return to their holy
city, and Christians were allowed
to stay, confirming the Muslim
commitment to religious tolerance portrayed
in the story.
b)
General Allenby’s official proclamation of marshal law upon taking
Jerusalem
from the Ottomans in 1917 C.E. indicates that the story
of Caliph Omar I was
known to him. He wrote:
“Guardians have been established at Bethlehem and on
Rachel’s
Tomb. The tomb
at Hebron has been placed under exclusive
Moslem control. The hereditary custodians
at the gate of the
Holy Sepulchre have been requested to take up their accustomed
duties in remembrance of the magnanimous act of the Caliph Omar
who
protected that church.”
Allenby’s reference even implies
there is more to the story than I have found so far. I’ll have to keep looking.
For now, I choose to like the idea of a church and a mosque being so close.
Perhaps that is because I am Damascene!
* * * * * * * * * * *
