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As we draw nearer the period of decadence in Islam we find complaints being raised about the treatment of Christians and Jews. In the first few centuries restrictions such as the interdiction against the ringing of church bells or the building of churches higher than the mosque, etc. were temporary occurrences under narrow-minded rulers such as 'Umar Ii or the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil, a "repulsive bigot, who knew well how to reconcile a wine-bibbing drunkard's life, immoderate sensuality and the encouraging of obscene literature with dogmatic orthodoxy". As proselytism and religious hatred began to emerge in Islam, the cause of oppression was mostly to be found in acts of violence by minor governors who, on account of the weakness of the central government, were not punished for their crimes. In connection with this, Becker's statement "that Christian influence was the first to call forth opposition against Christianity" is interesting. Becker is of the opinion that intolerance towards believers of other religions had never been so great in the Christian world as at that time, and that Christianity taught this attitude to Islam. This opinion is shared by the outstanding Islamic scholar Leone Caetani who wrote: "In the initial period the Arabs were not fanatical, but associated in an almost brotherly manner with their Christian Semitic cousins; but, however, after these had rapidly become Muslims too, they brought into the new religion that implacability, that blind hostility against the Byzantine faith in which they had previously left Eastern Christianity to languish." (163:1) footnote: Tolerance is the fruit of Enlightenment so reviled by the Church. Erhard put the question first in 1604: 'an diversae religiones in bene constituta republica tolerandae. In 1602 the jurist Burckhardt in his work 'De Autonomia' has answered in the negative the question whether "the freedom to choose among the different religions and faiths... should be granted and allowed by the Christian authorities". It was only when the Peace of Westphalia was signed that the various Christian confessions were equally tolerated. Frederick the Great, who was the first monarch to abolish torture from the very beginning of his reign and who, for his act alone, has earned the title "the Great", is the first authoritative representative of a policy of tolerance. From him comes the famous marginal note: "All religions must be tolerated and the state must only watch that none of them injures the other for, in this matter, each one must find salvation in his own way." In his treatise.. he writes: "False religious zeal is a tyrant that depopulates the provinces; tolerance is a loving mother who cares for them and promotes their prosperity." Tolerance has gradually been enforced since 1848
(163:2)
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