16.3 Dhimmitude
My daughter was taught lessons in 8th grade from a textbook called World History by McDougal
and Littell. That textbook had the following paragraph.
"Many of the people conquered by the Muslims accepted Islam. Some found
the message of Islam appealing. Others liked the fact that by becoming
Muslims they avoided paying a tax put only on non-Muslims. But the Quran
prevented Muslims from coercing others to accept the religion. Muslim
rulers allowed people to follow whatever beliefs they chose."
Lets think about that for a minute. If Muslims are forcing you to pay a
special tax and telling you that if you become a Muslim you don't have to pay
that tax they are coercing you into becoming a Muslim. Are they allowing
you to live as a tax paying infidel because of benevolence and compassion or because they
want your money? If you're dead you don't earn money and there is no money
to tax.
The Koran says there is no compulsion in religion in
chapter 2, verse 256. In order to understand that verse and verse 257 after
it we need to know what Shaitan means. A Shaitan is an evil spirit that
persuades people and Jinns to sin by whispering in their hearts. Although
invisible to humans Shaitans are ugly and grotesque creatures created from fire.
We also need to know that conquered people who don't convert to Islam are
required by Islamic law to pay a special tax called the Jizya. If they
don't pay the tax Islam commands Muslims to kill them. If Dhimmis rebel
against Islamic oppression Muslims are commanded to kill them. That's why
horrible things like the
Armenian genocide
happened. It wasn't just because Muslims were oppressing infidels it was
because they are commanded by their religion to kill infidels who rebel against
oppression.
[2.256]
There is no compulsion in religion; truly the right way has become clearly
distinct from error; therefore, whoever disbelieves in the Shaitan and believes
in Allah he indeed has laid hold on the firmest handle, which shall not break
off, and Allah is Hearing, Knowing.
[2.257]
Allah is the guardian of those who believe. He brings them out of the darkness
into the light; and (as to) those who disbelieve, their guardians are Shaitans
who take them out of the light into the darkness; they are the inmates of the
fire, in it they shall abide.
The entire message of these two sentences is yes there is no compulsion in
religion but disbelievers are evil and doomed to hell. The Islamic concept
of "No compulsion in religion" means
don't kill the infidel if they pay exhorbitant taxes but humiliate them, make
them suffer and treat them as the evil inferior beings that they are so that
they will convert. That
is exactly what many Muslims have done throughout history. You can read about
that in detail in Robert Spencer's book "The
History of Jihad".
The book The
History of Jihad tells about the endless wars the Muslims waged on
non-Muslims through history and the massive numbers of people they killed or
enslaved. When bad things happened to Muslims they sometimes decided it
was because they weren't persecuting the Dhimmis enough which they believed
Allah had commanded them to do. Then they'd treat the Dhimmis even more
severely than they had before. In addition to Muslim armies making war on
European countries, Muslim pirates raided European shores and abducted and
enslaved Europeans. Robert Spencer wrote the following about a raid that
took place in July 1625 in England.
In July 1625, a twenty-ship contingent of pirates from Morocco arrived in
Mount's Bay in Southern England.
Bursting into the local parish church during a service, they captured
sixty men, women, and children from the terrified congregation and took them
back to Morocco, to live a life of slavery. At Looe, they took eighty more
and set the town ablaze. In a series of similar raids, they took two
hundred people as slaves and seized twenty-seven British ships as well.
During another raid soon after that, they seized Lundy Island and made it
their base, raising the flag of Islam. More slave raids followed.
The English could do little in response as Francis Stuart,, a veteran mariner
whom the Duke of Buckingham had sent to get rid of the pirates, said of his
foes, "They are better sailers than the English ships. By the end of 1625,
the English had lost a thousand ships to the pirates, and the warriors of jihad
from Morocco had gained a thousand English slaves.
One of these slaves, Robert Adams, who was ransomed and returned to
England, recounted that as a slave in Morocco he had been given only "a littell
coarse bread and water," and lived in "a dungion under ground, wher some 150 or
200 of us lay, altogether, having no comforte of the light, but a littell hole."
Adams recounted that he was "every day beaten to make me turn Turk," that is,
convert to Islam.
Sounds like compulsion to me. Although the Koran says there is no
compulsion in religion a lot of women are forced to convert to Islam in modern
day Pakistan.
At least 700 Christian
girls in Pakistan are kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam each year. Large
number of Hindu girls are forced
to convert as well. The family of Farah Hatim, one girl who was
kidnapped, said that she was constantly being drugged and was in
danger of her life.
That also happened to a Pakistani woman named Arifa Alfred.
Catholic Culture reported
that:
A Pakistani Christian woman who was abducted in 2009
has escaped from her captor.
After Arifa Alfred, 27, was drugged and kidnapped in central Pakistan, she
awoke and was shown papers stating that she had converted to Islam and
married her captor.
A 12-year-old
Christian girl was kidnapped
in Pakistan by a man who then falsified marriage documents with her. He
beat her because she refused to convert to Islam. She managed to escape to her family but police warned her parents
that it would be better for them to hand over the girl to her 'legal' husband or
a criminal case would be filed against them. As a result of their
complaint, the Christian family has gone into hiding because the terrorist group
that the kidnapper is a member of, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, is looking for them.
Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Christian woman who was
convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court and sentenced to death.
Christian minister Shahbaz
Bhatti and Pakistani government politician Salmaan
Taseer were both killed for opposing the blasphemy laws.
Asia narrated her story to her husband while in prison which was published as a
book called Blasphemy.
In the book, Mrs Bibi describes how
she ended up in this desperate situation on June 14, 2009
after going fruit-picking in the blazing sun.
Dripping with sweat as midday approached, she decided
to head towards a well for a drink of water.
After pulling up a bucketful of water she used an old
metal cup resting on the side of the well. But just seconds
later she heard groans and noises from behind her.
One of the fruit pickers — who was also one of her
neighbours — suddenly shouted that she cannot drink the
water because it is forbidden by God.
The woman shouted out, telling all of the fruit
pickers that the water in the well had been dirtied because
Mrs Bibi drank from their cup.
After being told by the angry fruit-pickers to convert
to Islam to redeem herself, Mrs Bibi decided to stand up to
the crowd and defend Christianity.
Defending Christianity is blasphemy.
Asia's daughters with a picture of their mother
Pamela Geller interviewed Asia
who told her that:
The Christians specially in the villages are living the worst life. They are
mistreated, abused and framed for false cases, as they cannot afford to
fight for their rights.
Dr. Andrew Bostom is one of the foremost non-Muslim experts on
Islam. He has written several major works on Islam including
The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History and
Shariah versus Freedom: the Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism. What
makes Dr. Bostom even more impressive is that in addition to being a scholar on
Islam and an author, he is also a practicing physician,
He speaks about Dhimmitude in the video below. Once an infidel was
conquered by Muslims he becomes a Dhimmi. A Dhimmi is a second class
citizen who has to pay a special tax to the Muslims but that's not all. You can
find out more by listening to Dr. Bostom's talk below.
In order to persecute Dhimmis the Muslims needed a way to distinguish them from
Muslims so they required them to wear patches. Robert
Spencer in his book The History of Jihad wrote that:
In the 9th century, a qadi (Shariah court judge) "compielled the dhimmis to wear
upon their shoulder a patch of white cloth that bore the image of an ape [for
the Jews] and a pig [for the Christians] and to nail unto their doors a board
bearing the sign of a monkey.
In 850 the caliph al-Mutawakkil required that dhimmis wear honey colored hoods
and girdles and that wooden images of devils be nailed to the doors of dhimmi
houses. He forbade employment of dhimmis in any position of authority
where they could tell Muslims what to do.
Click Here to Take Quiz and Earn Points
The Armenians were conquered by the Muslims.
The Muslims killed over 600,000 Armenians. If it wasn't for one man
the Muslims would have killed hundreds of thousands more. Who was he
and how did he save them?
Click Here to Find Out
