Peace Tpofto, thank you for your contribution,
I guess we have to see a nuance here. There's chauvinism in assessing the others' beliefs and there's also racial discrimination like approach, which you trace back to Umar r.a. in Muslim History. But I think the former does not necessitate the latter. So we can deal with them seperately.
1) The worst thing to do in search of truth is to put reserves against it. People mostly seek to keep their status quo, but at the same time want to be saved and deserve Paradise. They do not want to make significant changes in their life. They dont want to leave their lifestyle, wealth, power etc. But in contrast, if they are really in desperate condition, accepting truth becomes easier. These we can call worldy motivations or reservers against truth. Chauvinism is one of such motivations in evaluating these issues. If you are on the winning side, or if you are plagued by the idea that your race is supurior, then you will be hesistant to accept those people's faith which you consider inferior.
Pragmatic philosophy inherent in the Western culture may also have effect on this. This philosophy says "any idea is true only if it works." So since Muslim people are in bad plight Islam cannot be the truth.
This is not exactly true indeed as it omits an integral part of the picture: the human. The ideas, beliefs are not magic wands. If humans incorporate them into their lives, then they can work accordingly.
2) About racial discrimination in Islamic history, many bring forth a text called the Pach of Umar from al Turtushi's book, Siraj al Muluk . There's lots of hyphe around it. Turtusi lived in the sixth century after the hegirah.
The text is problematic, firstly beacuse the restrictions seems self-imposed by Christians from the reading of the text. Secondly, if that is a treaty between Muslims and Christians, then the most important issue in such treaties is forgotten, that is gizyah tax.
In the earlier records (Taberi in the 3rd century) there's no mention of obligations of Christians or Jews but the guarantee given by Umar to them in return for gizyah.
Check this page by Arab American Christian Cummunity. http://www.al-bushra.org/holyland/chapeter2c.htm They claim that these restrictions were a fabrication by later Muslim jurists. Nevertheless we know that these restrictions were no imposed on them during most of Islamic history.
Regards,
Unite