Page:A Moslem seeker after God - showing Islam at its best in the life and teaching of al-Ghazali, mystic and theologian of the eleventh century (IA moslemseekeraft00zwem).pdf/51



" The history of Christian communities," says Margoliouth, 1 " under Moslem rule cannot be ade quately written; the members of those communities had no opportunity of describing their condition safely, and the Moslems naturally devote little space to their concerns. Generally speaking, they seem to have been regarded as certain old Greek and Roman sages regarded women: as a necessary annoyance. Owing to their being unarmed their prosperity was always hazardous; and though it is true that this was the case with all the subjects of a despotic state under an irresponsible ruler, the non Moslem population was at the mercy of the mob as well as of the sovereign; they were likely scape goats whenever there was distress, and even in the best governed countries periods of distress fre quently arose."

There are darker shades in the treatment of Christians and in the moral condition of this period over which one might well draw the veil, but some of the chapters of Ghazali’s Ihya reflect such ter

and given by one Ahmad ibn Al Husain. " To place an infidel in authority over a Moslem would never enter the mind of one who had a sound heart. He who does so must either be a godless fellow or be ignorant of Moslem law and practice. He attempts to prove that a Dhimmi (i. e. Jew or Christian) is not even to be used as a .scribe, a money-changer, or a butcher; citing passages from the Koran and the Traditions" ("Festschrift Ignaz Goldziher von Carl Bezold," Strassburg, 1911, pp. 203-208). 1 " The Early Development of Mohammedanism," London,