The Holy War — Page 276
276 the innocent children that they died in the wars of Moses, it should be remembered that such is common in every epidemic. You have to accept that either Moses was acting under the commandment of God or, discarding this aside, say that the Torah is not the Word of God. You cannot simply hang in the middle. 3. The reason for this objection to your religion is because the con- dition of protection depends on faith. There was no appeasement with these seven nations; this statement of yours is wrong, and all their women were not kept, though occasionally the Children of Israel were permitted to save some and only those who had no one to protect them. And if they had not been permitted to be saved, this would not have been worse than their having been killed. 4. You have agreed that one who has permission to make peace, if he does it for the sake of faith, then some coercion would have to be acknowledged as being permitted. However, permission to make peace with these seven nations of the Philistines was never given nor was the payment of a Jizyah accepted from them, and they were put to the sword like unto an epidemic. So you cannot compare the teaching of the Quran with them and cannot say there was any similarity between the two. 5. You said that I implied that the Quranic teaching is to cheat and rob the innocent gentlefolk. My answer is that I never said any such thing and you must have misunderstood me. I certainly said that in the words 1 ۤاَل َهاَرْكِا يِف ِنْيِّدلا coercion that is referred to, could be thought to be of the type which some Muslims, seeing a gentleman who greets them with the greeting of peace, say to him that you only say this to deceive us, you are not a Muslim , and saying so they would kill him and rob him. This verse could be for such people: Do not 1. S u rah al-Baqarah, 2:257 [Publisher]