Madrid and New York
Given the threat that Islamic extremism presents to the world, the interfaith conference the Saudi monarch has convened at Madrid bears close watching. Abdullah's message of Islam as a religion of moderation and tolerance seems commendable. Those in attendance were cut from every religious cloth imaginable. Our Joseph Goldstein has the particulars on page one.
Yet there's reason to believe that the word "tolerance," as used by Abdullah in Madrid, means something a bit different than what we mean in New York. In a passage of the propaganda passed out before the conference sent out in an effort to entice non-Muslim religious leaders to attend, a notion of tolerance emerges that we don't mind saying seems to us a bit intolerant.
"The Madinah society established by Prophet Muhammad ... in Madina was the best model for positive coexistence among followers of various religions," the conference literature text states. Now, in the pluralistic society of Muhammad's Medina, non-Muslims were taxed on the basis of their status as non-Muslims and lacked the same property rights as their Muslim neighbors. For the Saudis today to trumpet that as the "best model for positive coexistence" is unlikely to resonate positively for anybody who is not Muslim.
Even worse, the discriminatory taxation and unequal rights of Muhammad's Medina look downright appealing for a non-Muslim when compared to the modern day kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Today Christians and Jews and others are forbidden from worshipping in public. The kingdom would look far more inviting to non-Muslims if religious freedom could be obtained just by paying an official tax.
Maybe Abdullah can have his next conference in New York, which offers yet another model besides Medina's. Here, Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and atheists all pay the same high taxes, regardless of their religion. After seeing the way the various faiths flourish in the freedom of America, we'd wager the king would be hard pressed to explain how Muhammad's Medina was a better "model for positive coexistence."
