DHIMMI

Islam touts the fact that Christians and Jews can live together with Islam . While this is true, there is the question of defining "live together". Yes, the infidel can continue to live within the sphere of Islam.  Down through the ages, from the very beginning of Islam, conquered and vanquished people have co-existed with Islam.  An examination of the system of dhimmitude will help to explain the conditions of co-existence.

A dhimma is a person (an unbeliever, infidel) who has come under the domination of Islam but has been allowed to live, even though the goal of Islam is to have all conquered peoples accept Allah as their one and only true God.  Dhimmitude is the codification of living situations that exist for the dhimmi.  The best example and explanation of the conditions under which dhimmi live, co-exist with Islam, is the edict that was promulgated by Umar ibn Khattab, who was a caliph from AD 634-644.  Christians at that time made a pact with the caliph.

We made a condition on ourselves that we will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church or a sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship the needs restoration nor use any of them for the purpose of enmity against Muslims.

(This of course allowed Islamic authorities to seize churches whenever they wanted.  Since testimony of Christians was discounted and disallowed in many cases it was enough for a Muslim simply to charge that a church was being used to foment "enmity against Muslims" and then seize it.)

The agreement also mandates a number of humiliating regulations to make sure the dhimmis "feel themselves subdued" in accordance with Koran 9:29.  Christians also promised:

            We will not...prevent any of our fellows from embracing Islam, if they choose to do so.  We will respect Muslims, move from places we sit in if they choose to sit in them.  We will not imitate their clothing, caps, turbans, sandals, hairstyles, speech, nicknames or ride on saddles, hang swords on the shoulders, collect weapons of any kind or carry those weapons.  We will not encrypt our stamps in Arabic or sell liquor.  We will have the front of out hair cut, wear our customary clothes wherever we are, wear belts around our waist, refrain from erecting crosses on the outside of our churches and demonstrating them and our books in public in Muslim fairways and markets.  We will not sound the bells in our churches, except discreetly, or raise out voices while reciting our holy books inside our churches in the presence of Muslims.

There is one more of many other things about dhimmitude.  All dhimmi are required to pay a tax, called the jizya.  There is no set amount and it usually is exorbitant.  Also, in some Islamic countries it was required that the jizya be immediately available for payment upon demand.  Failure to pay the jizya resulted in beatings.  (from a missionary's book by Napier Malcolm in 1905 about  his stay in the Persian town of Yezd.)

The early Islamic conquerors were not necessarily interested in converting the  conquered to Islam, but were instead more concerned with the amount of tribute to be extracted from the vanquished, and for a protracted period of time.  This helped to maintain the life style Islam had come to realize.  Booty , tribute and taxes on the vanquished (dhimmi) provided the necessary funds.

There is much more on this subject .  The interested person can find out more in "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades" by Robert Spencer.  The above about dhimma was extracted from that book and also from "The Islamic Imperialism" by Efrain Karsh.

The more we know about our friendly enemies, the better our ability to fight the battles and win.