Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (5 page)
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Authors: Raymond Ibrahim
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To this day, mainstream Islamic jurisprudence holds that the Sword Verses have “abrogated, canceled, and replaced 124 verses that called for tolerance, compassion, and peace. ”
26
A year after proclaiming these anti-Christian verses, Muhammad was dead, revelations ceased, and the Islamic jihad against the surrounding infidels, most of whom were Christians, erupted from Arabia.
Jihad26
A year after proclaiming these anti-Christian verses, Muhammad was dead, revelations ceased, and the Islamic jihad against the surrounding infidels, most of whom were Christians, erupted from Arabia.
The first part of Koran 9:29 is an open-ended command—one not limited by time or space—to fight Christians and Jews. The second part of the verse explains when this fighting is to cease: when Christians and Jews either convert to Islam or “pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.”
The idea of fighting non-Muslims until they pay tribute is foundational to Islam—and hardly limited to the Koran. In a well-known canonical hadith, Muhammad commanded his jihadis to invade the realms of the infidels and order the latter to convert to Islam: “If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.”
27
In another canonical hadith Muhammad proclaims: “I have been commanded to wage war against mankind until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and that they establish prostration-prayer, and pay the alms-tax [that is, until they become Muslims]. If they do so, their blood and property are protected.”
28
There are literally hundreds of similar Islamic texts enjoining Muslims to fight non-Muslims until the latter either convert or pay tribute and live in submission.
27
In another canonical hadith Muhammad proclaims: “I have been commanded to wage war against mankind until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and that they establish prostration-prayer, and pay the alms-tax [that is, until they become Muslims]. If they do so, their blood and property are protected.”
28
There are literally hundreds of similar Islamic texts enjoining Muslims to fight non-Muslims until the latter either convert or pay tribute and live in submission.
Because of these texts, Islam’s ulema—its scholars, sheikhs, clerics, and muftis, past and present—have agreed that Islam is to be at perpetual war with the non-Muslim world until its inhabitants submit. As Muslim scholar, philosopher, and historian Ibn Khaldun once wrote,
In the Muslim community, the holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.... The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense.... They are merely required to establish their religion among their own people....
But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.
[Emphasis added.]
29
The authoritative scholar of Sharia law Majid Khaduri (1909–2007) agrees. He has written that jihad—defined as warfare to subjugate the non-Muslim world—“is regarded by all [Muslim] jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community.”
30
Islamic legal manuals written in Arabic are even more explicit.
31
30
Islamic legal manuals written in Arabic are even more explicit.
31
Before the era of political correctness set in, modern Western authorities unequivocally agreed. The
Encyclopaedia of Islam
’s entry for “jihad” explains that the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general.... Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam.... Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated.”
Tribute and SubmissionEncyclopaedia of Islam
’s entry for “jihad” explains that the “spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general.... Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam.... Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated.”
As Koran 9:29 puts it, the jihad concludes when the People of the Book “pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued”—that is, when they pay tribute and live under Islamic subjugation. Partly because it was more profitable to subjugate infidels than to slaughter them all, even those religious groups that were not originally deemed People of the Book, such as Hindus, were eventually offered the option of paying jizya and living in subjugation.
While “jizya” is often translated as “tribute,” the root meaning of the word is to “repay” or “recompense,” basically to “compensate” for something. According to the
Hans Wehr Dictionary
, the standard Arabic-English dictionary, jizya is something that “takes the place” of something else, or “serves instead.” Simply put, conquered non-Muslims were to purchase their lives, which were otherwise forfeit to their Muslim conquerors, with money. Some jurists spell this out, writing that “their lives and their possessions are only protected by reason of payment of jizya.”
32
Western apologists often call jizya “protection money,” which it was—though protection, not from outsiders, as is often implied, but from surrounding Muslims, which, unless the jizya, the “compensation,” was paid, deemed the life of the infidel forfeit. In the medieval era, Christians traveling in Muslim lands sometimes had to wear their jizya-receipts around their necks to prove that their lives had been ransomed, or risk being slain as non-paying infidels.
33
Hans Wehr Dictionary
, the standard Arabic-English dictionary, jizya is something that “takes the place” of something else, or “serves instead.” Simply put, conquered non-Muslims were to purchase their lives, which were otherwise forfeit to their Muslim conquerors, with money. Some jurists spell this out, writing that “their lives and their possessions are only protected by reason of payment of jizya.”
32
Western apologists often call jizya “protection money,” which it was—though protection, not from outsiders, as is often implied, but from surrounding Muslims, which, unless the jizya, the “compensation,” was paid, deemed the life of the infidel forfeit. In the medieval era, Christians traveling in Muslim lands sometimes had to wear their jizya-receipts around their necks to prove that their lives had been ransomed, or risk being slain as non-paying infidels.
33
Yet the matter does not end here. Koran 9:29 does not just specify that the conquered non-Muslims must pay the jizya but that they pay it “with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The Arabic word translated as “subdued” here is “saghirun,” which comes from a root that, according to the
Hans Wehr Dictionary
, means: “to be lowly, submissive, servile, humble”; “contemptible, servile,” to “fawn, cringe, grovel”; “low, lowly, despised, contemptible; humiliated, meek, dejected; submissive, servile, subject.” Thus to treat people as
saghirun
is “to belittle, deride, ridicule, debase, demean” them. (According to
Hans Wehr
, the root word originally meant to physically “diminish, decrease, wane, dwindle,” and the use of this word likely implied that the impoverishment of subjugated non-Muslims would “diminish, decrease, wane, and dwindle” their wealth and strength—which it certainly did.)
Hans Wehr Dictionary
, means: “to be lowly, submissive, servile, humble”; “contemptible, servile,” to “fawn, cringe, grovel”; “low, lowly, despised, contemptible; humiliated, meek, dejected; submissive, servile, subject.” Thus to treat people as
saghirun
is “to belittle, deride, ridicule, debase, demean” them. (According to
Hans Wehr
, the root word originally meant to physically “diminish, decrease, wane, dwindle,” and the use of this word likely implied that the impoverishment of subjugated non-Muslims would “diminish, decrease, wane, and dwindle” their wealth and strength—which it certainly did.)
This, then, is how the Koran—which Muslims hold to be the literal word of Allah—commands Muslims to make their defeated non-Muslim opponents feel. These are the images that come to the minds of Arabic readers of the Koran—much more graphic than the usual English translation “subdued.”
The theme of non-Muslim degradation appears regularly in the commentaries of Islam’s authorities. According to the
Medieval Islamic Civilization Encyclopedia
, Muslim “jurists came to view certain repressive and humiliating aspects of dhimma as de rigueur. Dhimmis were required to pay the jizya publicly, in broad daylight, with hands turned palm upward, and to receive a smart smack on the forehead or the nape of the neck from the collection officer.” Some of Islam’s jurists mandated a number of other humiliating rituals at the time of jizya payment, including that the presiding Muslim official slap, choke, and in some cases pull the beard of the paying dhimmi, who might even be required to approach the official on all fours, like an animal.
34
Medieval Islamic Civilization Encyclopedia
, Muslim “jurists came to view certain repressive and humiliating aspects of dhimma as de rigueur. Dhimmis were required to pay the jizya publicly, in broad daylight, with hands turned palm upward, and to receive a smart smack on the forehead or the nape of the neck from the collection officer.” Some of Islam’s jurists mandated a number of other humiliating rituals at the time of jizya payment, including that the presiding Muslim official slap, choke, and in some cases pull the beard of the paying dhimmi, who might even be required to approach the official on all fours, like an animal.
34
While other verses make clear that infidels are to be despised (see Koran 3: 100, 110–112, 118–120), Koran 9:29 is the cornerstone in the edifice of the systematic humiliation of non-Muslims. Consider Ibn Kathir’s exegesis of this verse, a mainstream interpretation:
Allah said, “until they pay the jizya,” if they do not choose to embrace Islam, “with willing submission,” that is, in defeat and subservience, “and feel themselves subdued,” that is, disgraced, humiliated, and belittled. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the dhimmis or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced, and humiliated. Sahih Muslim [a canonical hadith collection] recorded from Abu Hurraira that the Prophet said, “Do not initiate the Salam [peace greeting] to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley.” This is why the Leader of the Faithful, [the second caliph] Omar bin al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well-known conditions be met by the Christians, conditions that ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace.
35
Ibn Kathir did well to name Caliph Omar in the context of the subjugation of dhimmis (based on a word meaning “to find fault in” or “to affix blame to”), the status of those who still refuse to convert willingly to Islam. Whereas Koran 9:29 gives divine sanction to fighting Christians and Jews until they agree to pay tribute and live in submission, the so-called
The Conditions of Omar
(also known as the
Pact of Omar
) lays out in detail exactly how they are to feel themselves subdued.
The Conditions of Omar
(also known as the
Pact of Omar
) lays out in detail exactly how they are to feel themselves subdued.
Named after the second caliph, Omar bin al-Khattab who reigned from 634–644,
The Conditions of Omar
was purportedly agreed upon between the caliph and a community of Christians conquered by invading Muslims (possibly in Jerusalem under the Patriarch Sophronius). The
Conditions
was likely redacted under other caliphs, most notably Omar ibn Abdulaziz, who ruled from 717–720. Western scholars have doubts about the authorship of the
Conditions
—later Muslims jurists actually may have compiled the document.
The Conditions of Omar
was purportedly agreed upon between the caliph and a community of Christians conquered by invading Muslims (possibly in Jerusalem under the Patriarch Sophronius). The
Conditions
was likely redacted under other caliphs, most notably Omar ibn Abdulaziz, who ruled from 717–720. Western scholars have doubts about the authorship of the
Conditions
—later Muslims jurists actually may have compiled the document.
But in regard to the historicity of
The Conditions of Omar
—or any other question concerning the history of Islam—Western scholarship is purely academic. In the real world, specifically the Islamic world, what mainstream Islam teaches and what Muslims believe are what matter. And Islamic teaching makes
The Conditions of Omar
the canonical text for the treatment of Christians under Islam.
The Conditions of Omar
—or any other question concerning the history of Islam—Western scholarship is purely academic. In the real world, specifically the Islamic world, what mainstream Islam teaches and what Muslims believe are what matter. And Islamic teaching makes
The Conditions of Omar
the canonical text for the treatment of Christians under Islam.
Regardless of the actual origins of the
Conditions
, Muslim tradition holds that it originates with Omar I, the second of the four righteous caliphs, whose position in Sunni Islam is second only to that of Muhammad. Accordingly it is the foundational text on the treatment of dhimmis.
The Conditions of Omar
has unquestioned authority among Sunni Islam’s mainstream scholars such as Ibn Hazm, al-Tartushi, Ibn Qudama, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Asakir, Ibn Kathir, al-Hindi, and Ali Ajin.
36
Conditions
, Muslim tradition holds that it originates with Omar I, the second of the four righteous caliphs, whose position in Sunni Islam is second only to that of Muhammad. Accordingly it is the foundational text on the treatment of dhimmis.
The Conditions of Omar
has unquestioned authority among Sunni Islam’s mainstream scholars such as Ibn Hazm, al-Tartushi, Ibn Qudama, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Asakir, Ibn Kathir, al-Hindi, and Ali Ajin.
36
The fourteenth-century Ibn Qayyim, who wrote the most comprehensive and referenced work concerning the treatment of dhimmis, aptly titled, in translation,
Rulings Concerning Dhimmis
, spends much time examining the
Conditions
, saying that “the fame of these Conditions are such that they need no documentation: for the imams have accepted them, mentioned them in their books, and used them in their arguments; the Conditions of Omar are still constantly on their tongues and in their books. And the caliphs after him also enforced them.”
37
Likewise, the eighth-century jurist Abu Yusuf said the
Conditions
must “stand till the day of resurrection” because they are in agreement with the Koran and the hadith literature.
Rulings Concerning Dhimmis
, spends much time examining the
Conditions
, saying that “the fame of these Conditions are such that they need no documentation: for the imams have accepted them, mentioned them in their books, and used them in their arguments; the Conditions of Omar are still constantly on their tongues and in their books. And the caliphs after him also enforced them.”
37
Likewise, the eighth-century jurist Abu Yusuf said the
Conditions
must “stand till the day of resurrection” because they are in agreement with the Koran and the hadith literature.
There are different versions of the text of
The Conditions of Omar
, but they vary only slightly. The complete text of one of the most authoritative versions of the
Conditions
—the first one Ibn Qayyim reproduced in his book—follows below. As in most versions, the conquered Christians appear to be speaking:
The Conditions of Omar
, but they vary only slightly. The complete text of one of the most authoritative versions of the
Conditions
—the first one Ibn Qayyim reproduced in his book—follows below. As in most versions, the conquered Christians appear to be speaking:
When you came to our countries, we asked you for safety for ourselves and the people of our community, upon which we imposed the following conditions on ourselves for you:Not to build a church in our city—nor a monastery, convent, or monk’s cell in the surrounding areas—and not to repair those that fall in ruins or are in Muslim quarters;Not to prevent Muslims from lodging in our churches, by day or night, and to keep their doors wide open for [Muslim] passersby and travelers;Not to harbor in them [churches, monasteries] or our homes a spy, nor conceal any deceits from Muslims;Not to clang our cymbals except lightly and from the innermost recesses of our churches;Not to display a cross on them [churches], nor raise our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near Muslims;Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims;Not to congregate in the open for Easter or Palm Sunday, nor lift our voices [in lamentation] for our dead nor show our firelights with them near the market places of the Muslims;Not to bring near to them [Muslims] pigs or alcohol;Not to display any signs of polytheism, nor make our religion appealing, nor call or proselytize anyone to it;Not to take anything of [or “be involved with”] the slave conquered by the Muslims;Not to prevent any of our relatives who wish to enter into Islam;To distinguish ourselves wherever we are and not to resemble Muslims in dress—whether in headgear, turbans, sandals, hair-parting, or modes of transportation;Not to speak like them [Muslims], nor adopt their surnames;To clip our foreheads and not part our forelocks;To tighten our zunanir [a type of belt] around our waists and not to engrave our signet rings in Arabic nor ride on saddles;Not to possess or bear any arms whatsoever, nor gird ourselves with swords;To honor the Muslims, show them the way, and rise up from our seats if they wish to sit down;Not to come upon them in their homes, nor teach our children the Koran;None of us shall do business with a Muslim unless the Muslim commands it;To host every traveling Muslim for three days and feed him adequately;We guarantee all this to you upon ourselves, our descendants, our spouses, and our neighbors, and if we change or contradict these conditions imposed upon ourselves in order to receive safety, we forfeit our dhimma [covenant], and we become liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who resist and cause sedition.
38
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