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Life of Prophet Muhammad and the Birth of Jihad2007 who happened to be in the prohibited zone near Medina. 38 The intolerant teachings of Islam havetransformed such an amazingly tolerant and civilized people of the seventh-century Arabia into such a fanaticand murderous lot. Not only the Arabs, but Muslims anywhere in the world today carry forward the legacy ofIslam with similar intolerance and bigotry. And Muhammad used to call those highly tolerant and civilizedpeople of the seventh-century Mecca cruel, wicked and wretched as do Muslims of our time.Even today, Muslims in many Islamic countries kill those who openly leave Islam, despite the factthat all Muslim countries have signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the U.N. charter, whichguarantees one’s right to change one’s belief as one chooses. But the Pagans of the seventh-century Meccanever caused any harm either to Muhammad or to those dozens of free citizens of Mecca, who had convertedto his creed. Evidently, Muslims of today are much more intolerant, cruel and uncivilized as compared tothose Quraysh Pagans of Mecca.Exemplary tolerance of MeccansThe society of Mecca at the time of Muhammad was definitely backward and unsophisticated than the moreadvanced and civilized societies of Persia, Syria, Egypt, and India. The people of Mecca were also a deeplyreligious community. However, it is tolerance, harmony and accommodation—not intolerance, hatred andviolence—toward people of different faiths that characterized those allegedly barbarian people. For example,although the Ka’ba was their venerated House of God and the heart of their religious devotion, they neverconsidered it solely of their own. Instead, they had allowed all the religious sects of the region andneighboring countries—Southern Arabia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria and other places afar—to place theirreligious symbols and idols in the sanctuary of the sacred shrine. 39 Since Mecca was an important center oftrades and frequent stopover for merchants from far off lands, the Meccans were accommodative of thespiritual needs of those foreign merchants. They housed the idols and religious symbols of the foreigners inthe Ka’ba, enabling them to perform their religious devotions while in Mecca. These ancient idols fromvarious lands and faiths had formed circles of 360 monolithic figures in the sanctuary of the Ka’ba. Eveneffigies of Abraham and Ishmael and of Mary with the infant Jesus were housed in the Ka’ba, representingthe Jewish and Christian faiths. When Muhammad conquered Mecca, he ordered the destruction of the idolshoused in the sanctuary. According to Turkish Muslim historian Emel Esin, Muhammad allowed thedespoiling of the effigy of Abraham and Ishmael but protected that of Mary and Jesus by covering it with hishands. 40 The Quraysh hosted the Jewish and Christian symbols in the Ka’ba despite the fact that Christiansand Jews perennially rebuked the Pagans for their idolatrous practices. The Syrian merchants werepropagating Christianity in Mecca at the time of Muhammad without facing any hostility from the Quraysh. 41Indeed, a number of Quraysh had converted to Christianity—the prominent amongst them were Waraqa ibnNaufal and Othman ibn Huwayrith—who enjoyed respected and privileged position in Mecca (see below).Despite Muhammad’s intense hatred and insult of the Quraysh’s religion, Muslims were permitted toenter the Ka’ba for performing pilgrimage therein as already cited. Even the Hindus of India, who worshippeda different set of idols, had access into the sacred Ka’ba. Indian merchants brought the idol monolith ofgoddess al-Manat from the Ka’ba, which had disappeared from the shrine, to Somnath (India), where itbecame a popular deity. The pious Muslim conqueror Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni—determined to wipe out theremaining vestige of idolatry of the Ka’ba—attacked Somnath in 1024 for destroying that idol. In trying toprotect their revered idol, some 50,000 Hindus perished. 4238. Globe and Mail (Canada), Gunmen slay 3 Frenchmen in Saudi Arabia, 26 Feb 200739. Walker, p. 4440. Esin E (1963) Mecca the Blessed, Medina the Radiant, Elek, London, p. 10941. Tagher J (1998) Christians in Muslim Egypt: A Historical Study of the Relations Between Copts and Muslims from640 to 1922, Trs. Makar RN, Oros Verlag, Altenberge, p. 1642. Sharma SS (2004) Caliphs and Sultans: Religious Ideology and Political Praxis, Rupa & Co, New Delhi, p. 144–4518