The Greek neurosis with Islam

Translation © Greeks Rethink

Source: Kathimerini (Newspaper in Greece)

Al Maamoun, one of the most enlightened leaders of history, requested of Leon 5th neither money nor land. But only permission to acquire a collection of scientific writings that were stored by the Byzantine Empire. The caliph of Baghdad, once Leon gave his permission, launched one of the biggest in history of civilisation translation. The result was the exact version of the Ancient Greek literature in Arabic. In that period (700-1000) there were more translations of Aristotle in Arabic than in all the European languages.

As Mr K.P. Romanas (Professor of Philosophy in University of Aegean) claims, “for the communion of the Medieval Islamic world a lot has been written in Europe but hardly anything in Greece (…)”. Even in Europe, who received the light of the Greek culture to a great extent from the Islam of the Arabs, the conscience of this debt has only recently started to register and increase (..). It is obvious that Hellenism which found its supposed continuation in Orthodoxy would only possibly acquire the same enemies as Orthodoxy.

In the middle ages (2050-1050) the most renowned Aristotelian philosopher in the West , mostly widely known today as  Averroes ( Abu-al-Walid Muhammad ibn-Ahmad ibn-Muhammad ibn-Rushd), was an Arab from Cordova. He and a few others famous thinkers are considered to a great degree as the forerunners of the Universities in Europe. Averroes was at his time opposed from all religions as one of the greatest heretics in history. It was not of no small significance to teach mortality of the soul as a result of its close dependence to the body.

But in the making of Modern Greek history there is  no Averroes or Avicenna (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina), but only Plython Gemistos ( his intervention is significant and is connected with the outbreak of Renaissance, but the fuel had already been accumulated by the Arabs of the 10th and 11th century). Somehow it determined our relationship with Islam. With half truths and always from “above”. from each authority with its interventions or the lack of them.

Greece has a unique feature compared to other European countries. It comprises the establishment of an “old” Muslim minority while in recent years it hosts also another “new” Muslim minority. Mr D Christopoulos (assistant professor in Panteion University) expresses how in Greece today “new” and “old” Islam co-exist.

One would expect that the existence of the “old” Islam would make things easier for the “new” Islam. However the new reality shows that in the collective social conscience Islam exists as close as to the stage of folklore. Engraved in Thrace is recorded as an act of a local matter. That’s why there the hijab, the 300 mosques and the Ottoman cuisine have been reported as “couleur locale”.

There might be no problem with the 300 mosques in Thrace, but there is a problem with the one mosque in Athens. Maybe the application of a small part of urban law of the shariah might not be a disturbance in Thrace, but in Athens the Muslims are excluded from all civil rights. For example in 2003 the then Internal Affairs Minister, Lampros Papadimas, decides that the entry in the registers of Thrace  for marriages solemnized in front of the Mufti of Thrace a) Muslim with non Muslima b) Greek national with foreigner c) Muslim with Muslim residing out of Thrace is not allowed .

In this way Constantine Tsitselikis, assistant professor of the University of Macedonia, observes, the possibility of the ceremony of Muslim marriages for out of Thrace residents is cancelled as they (the marriages) are not recognized under Muftia.

Here begins another dark story. The “new” Muslims of Athens (approx. 150,000 and 15,000 from the “old” Islam ) as they have not got the civil rights of the Greek people and having lived under the arrogance of the state, they will resort to legalize love, divorce , inheritance through Islam. Meeting the “old” in Thrace.

But since 2003 even this solution is forbidden and out of bounds. For obvious reasons the Greek state dreads the osmosis of the “two” Islam . So this fear justifies any guilt of their absolutely illegal decision.

They also have no right to death. To bury their own, they must either transport the body of the deceased to Thrace or to their own countries at a huge cost. The result: “They work to be buried and not to live”.

It goes without saying that the issue of coexistence with Islam does not seem simple or easy. But what we are witnessing these past days is the establishment of a social stigma against a religious group. Already treated unequally: by a group of religious rights (religious freedom), they are a group of collective target and monitoring as a matter of preventive security guarantee.

In this frame we watched a parade in the TV channels of some “unlikely presidents” of associations with just a stamp with “secret services accent”. And they «discover» foreign embassy forces by recognizing employees, but ultimately do not specify how they met them.