An Historical Overview of the Persecution of Christians under Islam.
by Bat Ye'or
http://mypage.bluewin.ch/ameland/LectureE3.html
To fully understand the present tragic situation of Christians in
Muslim lands, one must comprehend the ideological and historical
pattern that is conducive to violations of human rights, even though
this pattern does not seem to be a deliberate, monolithical,
anti-Christian policy. However, as this structure is integrated into
the corpus of Islamic law (the shari'a), it functions in those
countries that either apply the shari'a in full, or whose laws are
inspired by it.
The historical pattern of Muslim-Christian encounters developed soon
after the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. Muslim-Christian relations
were then regulated by two legal-theological systems: one based on
jihad, the other on the shari'a. A Jihad should not be compared to a
Crusade - or to any other war. The strategy and tactics of jihad are
minutely fixed by theological rules, which the calif or ruler,
wielding both spiritual and political power, must obey. The jihad
practiced now in Sudan is conducted according to its traditional
rules. One could affirm that all "jihad" groups today conform to these
decrees.
It is an historical fact that all the Muslims countries around the
southern and eastern Mediterranean were Christian lands before being
conquered, during a millenium of jihad under the banner of Islam.
Those vanquished populations - here I am referring only to Christians
and Jews - were then "protected," providing they submitted to the
Muslim ruler's conditions. Therefore, "protection" in the context of a
conquest is the consequence of a war, and this is a very important
notion.
In April 1992, for instance, religious leaders in Sudan's Southern
Kordofan region - who were "publicly supported at the highest
government level" - issued a fatwa, which stated: "An insurgent who
was previously a Muslim is now an apostate; and a non-Muslim is a
non-believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam, and
Islam has granted the freedom of killing both of them." This fatwa
appears in a 1995 Report to the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights by the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Sudan, Dr. Gaspar Biro.
(ECOSOC, E/CN.4/1996/62, para.97a) This religious text gives the
traditional definition of a harbi (someone living in the Dar al-harb,
the "region of war"), an infidel who has not been subjected by jihad,
and therefore whose life and property -according to classical texts of
Islamic jurists - is thus forfeited to any Muslim. (It also gives a
definition of an apostate who can be killed - the cases of Salman
Rushdie in 1989, Farag Foda in 1992, and Taslima
Nasreen in 1994 are other examples where the death sentence was
decreed)
Non-Muslims are protected only if they submit to Islamic domination
by a "Pact" - or Dhimma - which imposes degrading and discriminatory
regulations. In my books, I have provided documents from Islamic
sources and from the vanquished peoples, establishing a sort of
classification so that the origins, development and aims of these
regulations can be recognized when they are revived nowadays. I am
only referring to Christians and Jews, because they share the same
Islamic theological and legal category, referred to in the Koran as
"People of the Book" - the word "people" is in the singular. If they
accept to submit to a Muslim ruler, they then become "protected dhimmi
peoples" - tributaries, since their protection is linked to an
obligatory payment of a koranic poll-tax (the jizya) to the Islamic
community (the umma).
This protection is abolished: - if the dhimmis should rebel against
Islamic law; give allegiance to non-Muslim power; refuse to pay the
koranic jizya; entice a Muslim from his faith; harm a Muslim or his
property; commit blasphemy. Blasphemy includes denigration of the
Prophet Muhammad, the Koran, the Muslim faith, the shari'a by
suggesting that it has a defect, and by refusing the decision of the
ijma - which is the consensus of the Islamic community or umma (Koran
III: 106). The moment the "pact of protection" is abolished, the jihad
resumes, which means that the lives of the dhimmis and their property
are forfeited. Those Islamists in Egypt who kill and pillage Copts
consider that these Christians - or dhimmis - have forfeited their
"protection" because they do not pay the jizya.
In other words, this "protector-protected" relationship is typical of
a war-treaty between the conqueror and the vanquished, and this
situation remains valid for Islamists because it is fixed in
theological texts. But it should be emphasized that other texts in the
Koran stress religious tolerance and peaceful relations, which
frequently existed. Nonetheless, early jurists and theologians -
invoking the koranic principle of the "abrogation" of an earlier text
by a later one - have established an extremist doctrine of jihad,
which is a collective duty.
The protection system presents both positive and negative aspects: it
provide security and a mesure of religious autonomy. On the other
hand, dhimmis suffered many legal disabilities intended to reduce them
to a condition of humiliation and segregation. Those rules were
established as early as the 8th and 9th centuries by the founders of
the four schools of Islamic law: Hanafi, Malaki, Shafi'i and Hanbali.
The shari'a is a complete compendium of laws based on theological
sources, principally the Koran and hadiths - that is, the sayings and
acts of the Prophet. The shari'a comprises the legal status of the
dhimmis: what is permitted and what is forbidden to them. It sets the
pattern of the Muslims' social and political behavior toward dhimmis
and explains its theological, legal, and political motivations.
It is this comprehensive system, which lasted for up to thirteen
centuries, that I have analysed in my last book, The Decline of
Eastern Christianity under Islam, as the "civilization of dhimmitude."
Its archetype - the dehumanized dhimmi - has permeated Islamic
civilization, culture and thought and is being revived through the
Islamist resurgence and the return of the shari'a.
The main principles of "dhimmitude" are:
1) the inequality of rights in all domains between Muslims and
dhimmis;
2) the social and economic discrimination of the dhimmis;
3) the humiliation and vulnerability of the dhimmis.
Numerous laws were enacted over the centuries in order to implement
these principles which remained in practice throughout the 19th
century, and in some regions into the 20th century.
Arab-Islamic civilization developed in conquered Christian lands,
among Christian majorities which were eventually reduced to
minorities. The process of the Islamization of Christian societies
appears at all levels. It is part and parcel of the Christian
suffering embodied in laws, customs, behavior patterns, and prejudices
that were perpetuated during many centuries. Christianity could
survive in some countries like Egypt and the Balkans where their
situation was tolerable, but in other places they were wiped out
physically, expelled or forced to emigrate.
During the whole of the 19th century, European governments tried to
convince Muslim rulers - from Constantinople to North Africa - to
abolish the discriminations against dhimmis. This policy led to
reforms in the Ottoman Empire from 1839 - known as the Tanzimat - but
it was only in Egypt, under the strong rule of Mohammed Ali, that real
progress was made. Improvements in the Ottoman Empire and Persia,
imposed by Europe, were bitterly resented by the populace and
religious leaders.
European laws were introduced in the process of Turkish
modernization, and in some Arab countries, but it was only under
colonial rule that Christian and Jewish minorities were truly
liberated from centuries of opprobrium. Traditionalists however
resented the Westernization of their countries, the emancipation of
the dhimmis and the laws imported from infidel lands. The fight for
decolonization was also a struggle by the Islamists to re-establish
strict Islamic law.
Why is this persecution ignored by the Churches, governments and
media?
The 19th century - and even after World War I - was a traumatizing
period of genocidal slaughter of Christians, spreading from the
Balkans (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria) to Armenia, and to the Middle East.
In this context of death, the doctrine of an Islamic-Christian
symbiosis was conceived toward the end of the 19th century by Eastern
Christians as a desperate shield against terror and slavery. This
doctrine - which also inluded anti-Zionism - had many facets, both
political and religious. In the long term, its results were mostly
negative.
It is this doctrine - still professed today - that is responsible for
the general silence about the ongoing tragedy of Eastern Christians.
Any mention of jihad and of the persecutions of Christians by Muslims
was a taboo subject, because one could not denounce persecution and
simultaneously proclaim that an Islamic-Christian symbiosis has always
existed in the past and the present. It is in this cocoon of lies and
of a deliberatly imposed silence, solidly supported by the Churches,
governments and the medias - each for its own reasons - that
persecution of Christians could develop freely, during this century,
even until now, with little hindrance. Moreover, this doctrine also
blocked the memory of dhimmitude, leaving a vacuum of thirteen
centuries whose emptiness was filled with a myth that was useless as a
means to prevent the return of old prejudices and persecutions.
For this reason, dhimmitude - which covers several centuries of
Christian and Jewish history, and which is a comprehensive
civilization englobing legislation, customs, social behavior, and
prejudices - has never been analysed, nor publicly discussed. It is
this silence - for which academia in Europe and America bear much
responsibility - that allows the perpetuation of religious
discrimination and persecution today. There are many factors that
explain this silence of governements, Churches, acedemia, and the
media on such a tragic issue concerning persecuted Christians in the
Muslim world; they are interrelated and, although their motivations
are different, they have solidly cemented a wall of silence that has
buried the historical reality.
Proposals for redressing these violations of fundamental human rights:
I. To define the ways and means to end this tragedy:
1) Not to foster an anti-Islamic current which would be wrong, as the
vast majority of Muslims are themselves victims of Islamists in Iran,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, etc.
2) Christians must continue to live in their historical lands because
it is their right, and only they can transform traditional Muslim
mentalities. These dwindling communities should be encouraged to stay,
as their presence will signify that Muslims have accepted that Jews
and Christians also possess the right to life and dignity in their
ancient homelands - and not under a dhimmi protection, but with human
rights equal to those of Muslims. If they fail, it will be our loss in
the West too. Islamic countries that once had a Judeo-Christian
culture should not become monolithically Islamic - that is,
Christianrein, as they have become virtually Judenrein - through a
policy of ethnic cleansing that followed a long historical period of
discrimination.
3) If the human rights - and the minority rights - of Christians are
not respected in those countries that formerly had Christian
majorities, then the rights of all non-Muslims will be challenged by
the Islamists' resurgence. It is for Christians worldwide -
particularly in America and Europe, and for the international
community also - to assure that the human rights for all religious
minorities are respected worldwide.
II. We should realize that those populations are in grave danger and
that even Muslim governments cannot protect them from mob violence -
sometimes they pretend to be unable to do so, in order to stop foreign
pressure or public campaigns. We should also remember that, from the
late 1940s, the Jewish communities in the Arab-Muslim world - then
more than a million, now less than 1% of that number, under 10,000 and
fast dwindling - were the victims of persecution, terrorism, pillage,
and religious hatred that forced them to flee or emigrate. Christians
were left as the only non-Muslims on whom religious fanaticism and
hatred could be focused. Each Christian community tried to resist the
return of the old order, following the path of secularism or
communism.
The Islamists reproach Christians in their countries of:
1) being against the implementation of the shari'a;
2) demanding equal rights, basing themselves on International
Covenants;
3) seeking foreign help to achieve equality with fellow Muslim
citizens.
For the Islamists, these three accusations alone are tantamount to
rebellion. It was these same motives that had justified the first
great massacres of the Armenians a century ago in 1894-96, punished
for having rebelled and for claiming the reforms that were promised.
This is why dhimmis communities were always careful to proclaim their
enmity to Europe. An outward oppositon to Christian countries being
their life-saving shield against threats from their environment, they
have interiorized this animosity to the point that they often strive
for the triumph of Islam, some of them even becoming the best and most
perfect tools of Islamic propaganda and interests in Europe and
America. (The late Father Yoakim Moubarac and Georges Corm in France,
and Edward Said in America, are but three examples out of many.)
III. In order to avoid mistakes and be more effective, one has to
realize the difference of contexts between the campaign for Soviet
Jewry in the 1970s and 1980s, and the promotion of human rights for
Christians in Islamic lands today. The main difficulty arises because
the discrimination or persecution in some countries cannot be ascribed
to a deliberate government policy. It is rather a fact of
civilization: the traditional contempt for dhimmis - not so different
from that of African Americans in the past - and irritation because
they are outstepping their rights and must be obliged to return to
their former status.
Sometimes, however, it is imposed by the Islamists, and a weak
government doesn't dare to protect the Christians, fearing to become
even more unpopular, because anti-Western and anti-Christian
prejudices have imbued Muslim culture and society for centuries.
1) There are many ways to persecute Christians; some are by legal
means, like the laws concerning the building or the repair of
churches; others, by terror. A Christian can be killed, not because he
committed a crime, but simply because he belongs to a group of
infidels, who, allegedly, are in rebellion. Or for reasons of
"spectacle-terrorism" that can serve as a deterrent policy to fulfill
the terrorists' aims.
2) Another point concerns the use of a fatwa. If a fatwa is decreed
against an individual, any Muslim is authorized to kill him, and by so
doing he is the executor of what is considered the sentence of Allah.
IV. The problem is multifarious; it is not only religious but also
cultural. This aspect is more acute with Christian, than with Jewish,
communities because Muslims conquered Christian lands and civilization
that were then subjected to a deliberate policy of Arabization and
Islamization. Take, as an example, Christian pre-Islamic Coptic
history: language and culture are a neglected, if not a forbidden,
domain because it would imply that Muslim history had been
imperialistic. But culture and history are important elements of a
group's identity and there are many Muslims intellectuals who are
proud of Egypt's Pharaonic and Coptic past. It is the Islamists who
reject this past, as an infidel culture -a part of the jahaliyah, what
existed before Islam, considered taboo.
Therefore, I would also suggest further goals, such as:
1) Recovering "Memory," the long history of the dhimmi peoples, of
dhimmitude - the collective cultural patrimony of Jews and Christians
-for without their memory, and their history, peoples fade away and
die.
2) Preventing the destruction of Christians historical monuments,
either by local governments, or by UNESCO, as was done with Abu
Simbel, and other sites that now belong to the World's cultural
legacy.
V. Discussing "dhimmitude" in academia and elsewhere. This is a
Judeo-Christian historical patrimony and those whose heritage it is
are entitled to know about it. The discussion of dhimmitude with
Muslims, however, is fraught with difficulties. In the eyes of
Islamists, any criticism of Islamic law and history is assimilated to
a blasphemy. For a dhimmi, it is forbidden to imply that Islamic law
has a default, or to contradict the ijma, the consensus. Moreover, the
court testimony of a dhimmi against a Muslim is not accepted.
Therefore, as dhimmitude is the testimony of dhimmi history - of
Christians and Jews - under Islamic oppression, it would not be
considered valid in traditionalist circles. Besides, the unification
of religious and political power transfers the political domain into
the religious one, and therefore any criticism of Islamic civilization
may become, for Islamists and others, a blasphemy.
The case of Farag Foda, an Egyptian Muslim intellectual, who defended
the Copts and strongly criticized some Muslim religious authorities
was exemplary: he was assassinated in June 1992 after a fatwa. In
giving his testimony in an Egyptian court of law, the late Sheikh
Muhammad El-Ghazali implicitly justified his assassination on the
grounds of apostasy; he stated that anyone opposing the shari'a was an
apostate, and thus deserved death.
VI. Encourage Muslim intellectuals to strive in their own countries,
and in the West, for the defense of equal human rights for Christians
and others. The 1981 UNESCO Declaration on Islamic Human Rights and
that of Cairo in 1990, both conditional on the shari'a, are
insufficient.
VII. Creation of a team of experts and lawyers - and not apologists -
in order to discuss the problem, always stressing that the aim is not
to foster anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic feelings, but to create peace
and reconciliation between religions and peoples, without which the
next century will become a bloodbath and a clash of civilizations.
(END)
Bat Ye'or is the author of The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam
(1985/1996) and The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From
Jihad to Dhimmitude: 7th to 20th Century (1996) Both books published
by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses
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