Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 14
14 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi ‘Today the Muslim world associates Western imperialism and Christian missionary work with the Crusades. They are not wrong to do so. When General Allenby arrived in Jerusalem in 1917, he an- nounced that the Crusades had been completed, and when the French arrived in Damascus their Commander marched up to Saladin’s tomb in the Great Mosque and cried: Nous revenons, Saladin! [We have returned Saladin!] The Christian missionary effort supported the colonialists, attempting to undermine traditional Muslim culture in the conquered countries. . . . . The colonialists would have argued that they were bringing progress and enlightenment, but the effort was informed with violence and contempt. ’ (p. 40). The brutality and savagery continued well into the 19th and 20th centuries. The pacification of Algeria, for example, took many years and any resistance was brutally put down in reprisal raids. The contemporary French historian M. Baudricourt gives us an idea of what one of those raids was like : ‘Our soldiers returning from the expedition were themselves ashamed. . . . . about 18,000 trees had been burnt; women, children and old men had been killed. The unfortunate women particularly ex- cited cupidity by the habit of wearing silver ear-rings, leg-rings and arm-rings. These rings have no catch like French bracelets. Fastened in youth to the limbs of girls they cannot be removed when they are grown up. To get them off our soldiers used to cut them off their limbs and leave them alive in a mutilated condition. ’ (La Guerre et le gouvernement de l’Algerie Paris, 1853, p. 160). ISL A M IC COM PA R ISON In sharp contrast, how different were the conquests of the Muslims. Nowhere were any barbaric acts of carnage or brutality reported when Muslims won battles. How different were the hu- mane teachings of the Holy Qur’an in the treatment of prisoners of war, and the teachings regarding the behaviour of the victors over the vanquished. And this has never been displayed any better than by the example of Muhammad(sa).