Distortions over history of Muslims

Re “The Muslim double standard,” Opinion, Dec. 5

Raymond Ibrahim sadly tells only one side of what has become a contested historical battle. Although it is true that various Islamic governments did wage wars of conquest, they often left their non-Christian minorities in a better state than they had been under the Western European and Byzantine Christian powers. The situation of the Jews in Spain and elsewhere in Christendom in the later Middle Ages was often dire, and just a few decades after the conquest of Constantinople that Ibrahim mentions in such a fatalistic and one-sided manner, the Jews were to be railroaded out of Spain and welcomed by the Ottomans to settle in their lands. It is this complexity that marks Ibrahim’s arguments as overly facile and serves to distort the frequently overlooked history of those who benefited from their place in the Ottoman Muslim world over many centuries.

DAVID SHASHA

Brooklyn, N.Y.

The writer is founder and director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage in New York.

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Ibrahim exaggerates the situation, yet does not go far enough. One can hardly complain about the fate of the Hagia Sophia, but one can complain strongly about the conditions of the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople, which is highly limited in the property that it can own. On the other hand, any traveler in Spain can see that the fate of Islamic sites in Cordoba and Seville parallels the fate of Justinian’s church. The Great Mosque of Cordoba, partially erected over an early Christian church, now contains in its vast hall the cathedral of the city. In Seville, the cathedral was erected at the site of the mosque, and the bell tower once served as a minaret. History is filled with injustices, few of which can be righted. But it is hardly worth the effort to repair something that, in the course of history, qualifies only as a minor league injustice.

DAVID HUDSON

Fresno