Violence in Islam and Christianity: A Comparison

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Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

This passage (Num 31: 17) refers to the aftermath of the war between the Israelite's and the Midianites. Again the issue is the preservation of the nation of Israel, and again there is an instructional message that we derive. Ambrose of Milan sums up both nicely:

How great a thing justice is can be gathered from the fact that there is no place, nor person, nor time, with which it has nothing to do. It must even be preserved in all dealings with enemies. For instance, if the day or the spot for a battle has been agreed upon with them, it would be considered an act against justice to occupy the spot beforehand, or to anticipate the time. For there is some difference whether one is overcome in some battle by a severe engagement, or by superior skill, or by a mere chance. But a deeper vengeance is taken on fiercer foes, and on those that are false as well as on those who have done greater wrongs, as was the case with the Midianites. For they had made many of the Jewish people to sin through their women; for which reason the anger of the Lord was poured out upon the people of our fathers. Thus it came about that Moses when victorious allowed none of them to live. On the other hand, Joshua did not attack the Gibeonites, who had tried the people of our fathers with guile rather than with war, but punished them by laying on them a law of bondage. Elisha again would not allow the king of Israel to slay the Syrians when he wished to do so. He had brought them into the city, when they were besieging him, after he had struck them with instantaneous blindness, so that they could not see where they were going, For he said: "Thou shall not smite those whom thou hast not taken captive with thy spear and with thy sword. Set before them bread and water, that they may eat and drink and return and go to their own home." Incited by their kind treatment they should show forth to the world the kindness they had received. "Thus" (we read) "there came no more the bands of Syria into the land of Israel." [Duties of the Clergy, 1.29.139]

In other words, the preservation of the nation of Israel and the immediate practical ramifications are coupled with the need for justice in war as well as in other dealings under the New Covenant. Once again, Islam has many passages dealing with the preservation of the followers of the prophet. What it is missing is the dispensation that occurs under the New Covenant. Islam is, in effect, still operating according to the Old Covenant -- and that, outside of the context of authentic revelatory tradition.

So, Israelites killed the Midinites by a command from God. This is a fact.

The second event related to Elisha is a “practice” of a leader rather than practicing a principal.

If, that is the case, in the Qur’an so many times Allah is mentioned as the Forgiver in many degrees.  Forgiving, as a practice, is not forbidden I quoted one verse before. Some other ones:

“O ye who believe! Truly, among your wives and your children are (some that are) enemies to yourselves: so beware of them! But if ye forgive and overlook, and cover up (their faults), verily Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (64;14) Qur’An.

“If you punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith you were afflicted. But if you endure patiently, indeed it is better for the patient. Endure you patiently. Your patience is not except through the help of Allah” (al-Nahl 16:126-127)

As a trait of true believers;

“Those who avoid major sins and acts of indecencies and when they are angry they forgive.” (al-Shura 42:37)

“The reward of the evil is the evil thereof, but whosoever forgives and makes amends, his reward is upon Allah.” (al-Shura 42:40)

“If you punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith you were afflicted. But if you endure patiently, indeed it is better for the patient. Endure you patiently. Your patience is not except through the help of Allah” (al-Nahl 16:126-127)

Again, what Ambrose of Milan tries to interpret from a text is written in Qur’An clearly. Simply put “If you retaliate you have the right to do so, If you forgive this is a better trait since Allah forgives as well.”

Again, which text is clearer (in case of a violent action is mentioned)?

The LORD is a man of war.

Ok, so this verse (Ex 15: 3) comes from the Song of Moses, which poetically praises God for delivering the Israelites from Egypt. I feel that the proper interpretation of this particular text is best expressed in the Septuagint. The author is using the traditional English derived from the Masoretic, which was a compilation of various earlier Hebrew manuscripts which didn't exert any substantial influence on Christianity until the fourth century -- when they did so, very gradually and only in the West, through the work of St. Jerome. The Septuagint was the version of the Old Testament used by the early Christian Church. In my translation, derived from the Septuagint, I have it thus:

"The Lord brings wars to nothing; the Lord is his name." [Ex 15: 3]

So I decided to take a stab at this -- even though my Greek leaves something to be desired -- with the aid of a lexicon. The original Greek, from the Septuagint is "kurios suntribōn polemous kurios onoma autō", which is indeed more literally translated in the Septuagint quotation above. The word "suntribōn", in the passage, refers to overcoming or bringing something to nothing. The point of the excerpt, thus, is that war is no obstacle to the Lord, that despite seemingly overwhelming odds the people of the Lord have triumphed. I am confident of the context thus established, but if anyone with a better knowledge of Greek would care to explain further, I'd love to read it. Anyway, there are certainly a plethora of examples in the Koran where Allah is said to fight with, for, and through those who serve him, so I don't think this particular quotation serves the author's stated point.

Now hold here, as long as there is an original text which is in Hebrew why take a translation of it?

The Hebrew word for “Of war” is MILCHAMAH (Milkhamah) strangely the same expression passes in Exodus 32:17 to describe the noise "OF WAR.” So your explanation by using the Septuagint is a fatal error. Your effort to interpret the word Milkhamah as “Brings war to nothing” is a very good example for what we said earlier about the basic principal of interpretation; you can’t bring a “4” out of a “T.”

At this point you should be aware that you gave me a very serious clue about your ethical inclination. You implied that you are very knowledgeable about this issue and made a lot of research. So I should assume that you knew this and deliberately used Septuagint to make your point. However, I will give you another chance to be more careful to get involved in an honest discussion. Manipulation is a killer of sincerity. Now, I want you to rethink which is more important; accepting the truth or win a debate? Apparently you are trying to do a debate instead of discussion and I will try to pull you in a discussion since I hate debates since they go no where. Yet, it is your call. I will not try it forever.

This is a fatal error because even without the Hebrew there is no reason to interpret the verse as “God brings war to nothing”. If we look up to later verses you may have tried to interpret it as “God brings the enemies to nothing” since it describes how the pharaoh was defeated. Yet still you could not have made your point about the violence issue. 

By the way, after checking the Hebrew meaning of the word I did not even look it up in the Septuagint, since I find it unnecessary.

For you to make some research about it the Hebrew of that verse is “Yahweh iysh milkhamah Yahweh shem.”