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Posted on 10/15/2001 3:51:39 PM PDT by BenF

When the Fourth Lateran Council met under the aegis of Pope Innocent III in the year 1215, it resolved that henceforth Jews (and Moslems) would be differentiated by a special badge to be prominently displayed on their outer clothing. The size and colours of the degrading mark were left to the discretion of local governors and states.

This degradation was not unique. Christianity had been pre-empted by Islam, which enacted similar legislation as early as the eighth century and was codified in the 11th century. Known as the Covenant (or Pact)of 'Umar, and generally attributed to 'Umar II (717-740), it comprised a series of regulations (including distinctive clothing and badge), designed to separate Moslems from non-Moslems and guard the superiority of the former through the humiliation of the latter.

In his book Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, Israel Abrahams suggests that "The badge was perhaps derived by Innocent III from the Mohammedans." However, according to historian Jacob Marcus in his Jews in the Medieval World, at least six of the Covenant of 'Umar's regulations were taken from earlier Byzantine Christian laws against infidels, while Louis Gardet, a Catholic theologian and respected orientalist, proved further that ideas crossed borders long before the days of modern media. In l954 he wrote that "If Islam did not invent the ghettos, it can be said that it was the first to institutionalise them. (The rules established by medieval Christian princes, in particular those of the Popes for the ghetto of Rome,are often copies of Muslim prescriptions relating to dhimmis...)."

To better understand the roots of discrimination in traditional Islam, it is necessary to return to its founder, Muhammad, keeping in mind that in the Middle East, history is not only the past, but also serves an an indicator of all that is happening in the present. It is difficult but essential for Westerners to understand that this is a region which looks backwards rather than ahead.

Islamic history made its debut in the seventh century in the Arabian Peninsula, or Saudi Arabia as we know it today. By that time, many influential and long-established Jewish tribes dwelt throughout Arabia. In fact, Jews had lived in this region at least a thousand years before the birth of Islam. Muhammad, its founder, greatly admired the "People of the Book" (as Islam was to designate them, as well as Christians). He was impressed by the knowledge that they had already received divine revelation in the Scriptures. This resulted in his initially adopting many Jewish traditions and practices. Admiration turned into hostility when the Jews of Medina refused to accept the new faith. Mohammad had presented himself in the Arabian Peninsula as the culmination of prophetic history. He therefore believed that those who were already part of it - the People of the Book - would readily accept his teachings and revelations and become integrated into his new polity. He assumed that Jews in particular would recognise real prophesy. However, he actually presented them with a new religion, albeit one which bore a resemblance to some basic features of Judaism. The Jews refused to acknowledge the prophetic claims of Mohammad and thus caused his first great disappointment. The Jews paid dearly for what Islam recorded as their early "treachery". At this initial stage - between 625 and 627 - Mohammad and his followers madewar on the opposing Jewish tribes, completely exterminating one of them (the Banu Quariza), while two others -the Banu Nadhir and Banu Qainuqa - were driven out of the Peninsula.

In 628, the Muslims attacked the Jewish oasis of Khaibar, where the precedent was set for relations between Muslim authority and a conquered non-Moslem people: the Jews of Khaibar were allowed to retain their land but had to pay a 50% tribute. This finds expression in the Koranic injunction: "Make war upon those who have been given the Scripture...until they pay, being brought low" (Sura IX, 29). Gustave von Grunebaum put it succinctly in his seminal work, Eastern Jewry Under Islam - Reflections on Medieval Anti-Judaism: "Their personal safety and personal property are guaranteed to them at the price of permanent inequality." He noted that "It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognised intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscation, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms."

There were indeed periods of Jewish flowering, as attested by the Cairo Genizah, which has provided us with a rich record of intellectual and economic development. Unfortunately, this was the exception rather than the rule. It was the system of assuring Islamic superiority, reinforced by subsequent legislation, becoming the Covenant of 'Umar, that ruled supreme. It established the dhimma (protected people) system for minorities. To quote John Laffin in The Dagger of Islam:

"Originally the dhimma was the treaty concluded between Muhammad and those he subdued. They were tolerant pacts, and in theory the dhimmis were guaranteed their lives and property, as well as their religious liberty, provided they did not transgress any of the dhimma's stipulations. But soon the dhimma became a codified system of legal tyranny which defined [more accurately] the status of the dhimmis. They had to pay the jizya (poll tax) symbolising their subjection to Islam, and also higher commercial taxes than were paid by Muslims. Ownership of their land passed to the Muslim community, and to have the right to cultivate it, they had to pay another tax. The construction of new churches [or synagogues]or the restoration of old ones, as well as the use of religious objects...was forbidden. Dhimmis had to live in separate areas in inferior homes. Marriage or sexual intercourse with a Muslim woman and blasphemy against Islam were punishable by death...,dhimmis were not allowed to testify in court against a Muslim and could exercise no authority over him.

"Dhimmis had to go unarmed, at great risk to their lives, while numerous decrees regulated the colour and shape of their clothes.... Easily recognised, they were then humiliated in the street.... Horses and camels were reserved for Muslims,the dhimmis being allowed only to ride donkeys....

"All this was particularly galling to the Coptic Christians, who were the descendants of the early Christians.... As they considered themselves the 'original Egyptians', the Copts were distressed to be relegated to second-class citizenship in their own land." Coptic uprisings spread all over Egypt between 725 and 830. It was a brave effort to avoid the burden of dhimmitude, which they subsequently had to shoulder, except for a considerable number forced to convert to Islam. Right up to the present, the Copts remain the victims of attacks on their quarters and villages.

This is part of the dhimmi condition which, in turn, can only be fully understood in the context of jihad. This view was voiced by Bat Ye'or, an Egyptian Jewess residing in Switzerland who has spent many years doing in-depth research and publishing the sources and results of the dhimmi condition. During the course of a l994 lecture at Lund University in Sweden, Bat Ye'or noted inter alia that: "[It] is the holy war waged by Muslims in order to impose the government of God - Allah - everywhere and on the whole of humanity. The right to rule belongs only to the umma - the Islamic community of Allah - because it is elected above all others (Koran III,106: "You are the best nation ever brought forth to men"). It allows what is good, forbids what is wrong and possesses the divine revelation transmitted by Muhammad, the apostle of God and his last messenger. Islam is God's religion (Koran III,l7).... Sometimes jihad is exercised by the pen, sometimes by speech (that is, by Islamic propaganda), at other times by money (corruption), and, of course, whenever possible, by arms: terrorism, guerrilla and open warfare.... The whole region of infidels is called dar al-Harb - the Realm of War - because all acts of war are allowed there...."

Bat-Yeor further explains that, according to Moslem doctrine, the whole non-Muslim world is the target: all the infidels that constitute the world of disbelief, which is considered one sole entity (a point made in Article 22 of the l988 Covenant of the Palestinian Hamas movement). The war between dar al-Islam - the Realm of Islam - and the Realm of War is an eternal one as long as non-Islamic belief exists (Koran, II, 189). There can be peace treaties for as long as ten years or a cease-fire -- a situation of neither peace or war which allows co-existence -- when Muslims are not sure of gaining victory through warfare.

Sources on dhimmis and dhimmitude abound (and the foregoing text presents only a fraction of them). One can cite the extensive literature on jihad by Muslim historians describing conquests and the process of Islamisation, particularly of Christian lands. Then there are the sources of the dhimmi peoples themselves; accounts by itinerant travellers and reports of foreign consuls, as well as the volumes produced by expert Orientalists in Western universities. Why then is there so much ignorance and what is its outcome?

As far as Christianity is concerned, it has ceased to be a factor of importance in the Middle East. Its last power-base in Lebanon has been eroded by internecine strife and Syrian Moslem occupation. Some thirteen per cent of the Middle East population was Christian a century ago. Today, they account for a mere two per cent, their once considerable numbers drained by forced Islamisation and emigration. There is now a very large diaspora of former Middle Eastern Christians in North and South America, as well as in other Western countries. Some are organised, but not sufficiently to assure that their plight and that of their co-religionists still in the Middle East be occasionally aired by the Western media. Additionally, since the middle of the 20th century, a pro-Arab lobby sympathising with Arab nationalism has developed in academia and government circles in the US and Western Europe. For instance, the US State Deparment has simply rejected the existence of non-Arab, particularly non-Muslim, ethnic groups in the Middle East, so their voice is unheard.

As for the Jews, the second half of the 20th century witnessed the almost total dissolution of their most ancient diaspora. It was spread over a land mass larger than Europe or the USA. Its virtual disappearance left its impress neither on the contemporary annals of the Jewish people nor on the consciousness of the free world.Just as the extent of the tragic Jewish exodus from Arab countries was not grasped, neither was the historic dimension of the fact that the majority of these exiles found a safe haven in the nascent Jewish state (to which they subsequently contributed largely). What happened to trigger the transfer of whole communities? Arab violence came largely in the wake of the withdrawal of the colonial powers. They, whatever their sins, had largely rescinded the discriminating dhimmi legislation. With their exit, the full fury of pent-up Arab nationalism against dhimmis was vented on the Jews (and on some indigenous Christian groups). Pogroms preceded the establishment of Israel, starting from the Farhud in Bagdad on Shavuoth, 1941 when 175 Jews were killed, a thousand injured, Jewish property looted and 900 Jewish houses destroyed and breaking out again in l946 and l948. The scourge of loot and murder struck the Jews of Libya in l945 and l948; Aden in l947, Allepo in 1945 (including the looting of the Great Synagogue),in l947 and 48 and Damascus in Syria in l938, 1945 and1949. Muslim riots hit Cairo in l945 and l948, and while the worst violence in North Africa occurred when Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria gained independence from the French in the fifties, the Jews of Oudjda and Djerada in Morocco had a foretaste of things to come in June of l948 when 43 Jews were killed and over l50 wounded. To quote the last president of the Jewish communities of Tripolitania (Libya): "We were obliged to leave the country with twenty pounds sterling and one piece of hand luggage, leaving behind all our property,our houses, our furniture, our offices and our businesses - and 2300 years of history."

No Arab country was innocent of abuses. Yet the media was not greatly moved: not a single Arab or breast-beating human rights activist expressed sorrow at Moslem injustice to Jews.

What of the Jews themselves? Israel is the only non-Moslem state in the Middle East. It is the only sovereign state known to this writer that has returned to aggressor states land they lost during four major wars of aggression launched (in the words of Arab leaders) to wipe out the Jewish state. Israel's rulers compounded this damage to the country's sovereignty when, in true dhimmi tradition, they handed guns to the Moslem Palestinian "police" to "defend" Jews from attack by Moslem terrorists. The results could have been predicted. Many had to wait for the outbreak of hostilities that have continued since Rosh Hashana 5761 (September 2000).

Dhimmis were not supposed to disturb Muslims, so they had to hold their religious services in silence. Though lamentation at funerals is an Eastern custom, it was forbiden to dhimmis, who had to bear their sorrow in silence

So pervasive has this silence become, that even former dhimmis now living outside the Realm of Islam, remain people of silence, instead of warning of the dangers inherent in dhimmitude and jihad.

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