MUSLIM DOGMA

The Holy Koran

Hadith: The resurrection of the dead will not come until the Muslims will war with the Jews and the Muslims will kill them; ... the trees and rocks will say, "O Muslim, O Abdullah, here is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."

Surah 111, v. 112. Ignominy shall be their portion [the Jews'] wheresoever they are found... They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them... because they disbelieve the revelations of Allah and slew the Prophets wrongfully... because they were rebellious and used to transgress.

Surah 11, v. 96, ibid. And thou wilt find them [the Jews] the greediest of mankind....

Surah II, v. 90, ibid Evil is that for which they sell their souls... For disbelievers is a terrible doom.

Surah III, v. 18 1, ibid., referring to the Jews of Medina. Taste ye [Jews] the punishment of burning.

Surah 111, v. 117-120: "They [the Jews] are the heirs of Hell.... They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is clear from what they say ... When evil befalls you they rejoice."

Surah IV, v. 56, ibid. Those who disbelieve Our revelations, We shall expose them to the fire. As often as their skins are consumed We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment.

Surah IV, v. 160, 161, ibid. Because of the wrongdoing of the Jews.... And of their taking usury ... and of their devouring people's wealth by false pretenses. We have prepared for those of them who disbelieve a painful doom.

Surah IV, v. 46, ibid. Allah hath cursed them [the Jews] for their disbelief.

Surah III, v. 117-120: They [the Jews] will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is clear from what they say, but more violent is the hatred which their breasts conceal.

Surah IV, v. 101 In truth the disbelievers are an open enemy to you.

Surah V, v. 62, 63, ibid .And thou seest [Jews and Christians] vying one with another in sin and transgression and their devouring of illicit gain. Verily evil is what they do. Why do not the rabbis and the priests forbid their evilspeaking and their devouring of illicit gain? .... evil is their handiwork.

Surah V, v. 51, ibid: O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends.

Surah V, v. 82, ibid: The most vehement of mankind in hostility [are] the Jews and the idolators.

Surah IX, v. 29 Fight against such of those [Jews and Christians] ... until they pay for the tribute readily, being brought low.

Surah IX, v. 30 Allah fighteth against them [the Jews]. How perverse they are!

Surah IX, v. 26-34 Believers, many are the rabbis and the monks who defraud men of their possessions... Proclaim a woeful punishment to those that hoard up gold and silver and do not spend it in Allah's cause.... their treasures shall be heated in the fire of Hell....

Surah V, v. 62-66, ibid They [the Jews] spread evil in the land ....

Surah II, v. 71-85, ibid [The Jews] knowingly perverted [the word of Allah], know of nothing except lies ... commit evil and become engrossed in sin.


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The Epistle to the Jews of Yemen

After the establishment of Islam there is animosity toward Islam and the Arabs in the writings of one Jewish sage, Maimonides. Maimonides had lived under Islam in Spain and later Egypt, and his animosity was also very well earned as it was simply a response to the humiliation and persecution he was subjected to as a Jew under Islam.

Maimonides' The Epistle to the Jews of Yemen was written in about 1172 in reply to inquiries by Jacob ben Netan'el al-Fayyumi, who headed the Jewish community in Yemen. At that time, the Jews of Yemen were experiencing a crisis-hardly unfamiliar to Maimonides-as they were being forced to convert to Islam, a campaign launched in about 1165 by 'Abd-al-Nabī ibn Mahdi. Maimonides provided the Yemenite Jewish communal leader with guidance, and what encouragement he could muster. The Epistle to the Jews of Yemen provides an unflinchingly honest view of what Maimonides thought of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, or "the Madman" as he calls him, and about Islam generally.

Maimonides writes: "You write that the rebel leader in Yemen decreed compulsory apostasy for the Jews by forcing the Jewish inhabitants of all the places he had subdued to desert the Jewish religion just as the Berbers had compelled them to do in Maghreb [i.e.Islamic West]. Verily, this news has broken our backs and has astounded and dumbfounded the whole of our community. And rightly so. For these are evil tidings, "and whosoever heareth of them, both his ears tingle (I Samuel 3:11)." Indeed our hearts are weakened, our minds are confused, and the powers of the body wasted because of the dire misfortunes which brought religious persecutions upon us from the two ends of the world, the East and the West, "so that the enemies were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side." (Joshua 8:22).

Maimonides makes clear that the unrelenting persecutions of the Jews by the Muslims is tantamount to forced conversion: "...the continuous persecutions will cause many to drift away from our faith, to have misgivings, or to go astray, because they witnessed our feebleness, and noted the triumph of our adversaries and their dominion over us..."

Maimonides highlights one of the presumptive reasons for Muslim hatred of Jews: "Inasmuch as the Muslims could not find a single proof in the entire Bible nor a reference or possible allusion to their prophet which they could utilize, they were compelled to accuse us saying, "You have altered the text of the Torah, and expunged every trace of the name of Mohammed therefrom." They could find nothing stronger than this ignominious argument."

Maimonides continues: "Remember, my co-religionists, that on account of the vast number of our sins, God has hurled us in the midst of this people, the Arabs, who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us, as Scripture has forewarned us, 'Our enemies themselves shall judge us' (Deuteronomy 32:31). Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase and hate us as much as they .... Although we were dishonored by them beyond human endurance, and had to put with their fabrications, yet we behaved like him who is depicted by the inspired writer, "But I am as a deaf man, I hear not, and I am as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth." (Psalms 38:14). Similarly our sages instructed us to bear the prevarications and preposterousness of Ishmael in silence. They found a cryptic allusion for this attitude in the names of his sons "Mishma, Dumah, and Massa" (Genesis 25:14), which was interpreted to mean, "Listen, be silent, and endure." (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, ad locum). We have acquiesced, both old and young, to inure ourselves to humiliation, as Isaiah instructed us "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair." (50:6). All this notwithstanding, we do not escape this continued maltreatment which well nigh crushes us. No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition, as David predicted, "I am all peace, but when I speak, they are for war." (Psalms 120:7). If, therefore, we start trouble and claim power from them absurdly and preposterously we certainly give ourselves up to destruction."
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The Status of Non-Muslim Minorities Under Islamic Rule

Dhimmitude: the Islamic system of governing populations conquered by jihad wars, encompassing all of the demographic, ethnic, and religious aspects of the political system. The word "dhimmitude" as a historical concept, was coined by Bat Ye'or in 1983 to describe the legal and social conditions of Jews and Christians subjected to Islamic rule. The word "dhimmitude" comes from dhimmi, an Arabic word meaning "protected". Dhimmi was the name applied by the Arab-Muslim conquerors to indigenous non-Muslim populations who surrendered by a treaty (dhimma) to Muslim domination. Islamic conquests expanded over vast territories in Africa, Europe and Asia, for over a millennium (638-1683). The Muslim empire incorporated numerous varied peoples which had their own religion, culture, language and civilization. For centuries, these indigenous, pre-Islamic peoples constituted the great majority of the population of the Islamic lands. Although these populations differed, they were ruled by the same type of laws, based on the shari'a.

This similarity, which includes also regional variations, has created a uniform civilization developed throughout the centuries by all non-Muslim indigenous people, who were vanquished by a jihad-war and governed by shari'a law. It is this civilization which is called dhimmitude. It is characterized by the different strategies developed by each dhimmi group to survive as non-Muslim entity in their Islamized countries. Dhimmitude is not exclusively concerned with Muslim history and civilization. Rather it investigates the history of those non-Muslim peoples conquered and colonized by jihad.

Dhimmitude encompasses the relationship of Muslims and non-Muslims at the theological, social, political and economical levels. It also incorporates the relationship between the numerous ethno-religious dhimmi groups and the type of mentality that they have developed out of their particular historical condition which lasted for centuries, even in some Muslim countries, till today.

Dhimmitude is an entire integrated system, based on Islamic theology. It cannot be judged from the circumstantial position of any one community, at a given time and in a given place. Dhimmitude must be appraised according to its laws and customs, irrespectively of circumstances and political contingencies.

For books by Bat Ye'or, see www.dhimmi.org
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Symposium: The Muslim Persecution of Christians
By: Jamie Glazov
Friday, October 10, 2003

Christian communities suffer terrible persecution in the Middle East. Should America be concerned? Jamie Glazov talks to Bat Ye'or, Walid Phares, Habib Malik and Paul Marshall.

The widespread persecution of Christians is an increasing phenomenon in the Islamic world. Aside from its obvious tragic and horrifying ingredients, what is the significance and meaning of this persecution? Why is it almost never mentioned in the Western media? How is it connected to the conflict between the West and militant Islam? Why should America be concerned?
To discuss these and other issues with Frontpage Symposium today, Frontpage Magazine welcomes:

Bat Ye'or, the author of three major books on dhimmis, jihad, and dhimmitude (www.dhimmitude.org and www.dhimmi.org). Her latest study is Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide (2002); see "Eurabia: The Road to Munich." National Review Online, October 9, 2002; "European Fears of the Gathering Jihad." FPM, Feb. 21 2003;

Paul Marshall, a Senior Fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom. He is the author and editor of twenty books, including Religious Freedom in the World: A Global Survey, and the best-selling Their Blood Cries Out. His latest books are Islam at the Crossroads (2002) and God and the Constitution: Christianity and American Politics (2002);

Habib Malik, who holds a doctorate in modern European intellectual history from Harvard and currently teaches history and cultural studies at the Lebanese American University in Lebanon. He has published a book on the early reception of Kierkegaard's thought and another book entitled Between Damascus and Jerusalem: Lebanon and Middle East Peace. He has also written widely in both English and Arabic on the Christians of Lebanon and the Middle East, on human rights in the region, and on Islam's relations with non-Muslim minority communities native to Muslim-majority countries; and

Walid Phares, Professor of Middle East Studies and Religious Conflict at Florida Atlantic University and a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He is an analyst with MSNBC and a board member of the Human Rights Coalition in the Muslim World. He testified to the US Senate on the "Christians in the Middle East: The policies of Ethnic Cleansing," (1997) and conducts congressional briefings on "Jihad and Human rights, " (1998-2003).
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Dhimmitude: Today

The text that introduces Dhimmitude: Today examines the condition of non-Muslims as stated by key contemporary Muslim jurists. Except for some changes due to modernization, their rulings are based on the legal ordinances established by the founders of Muslim jurisprudence. Hence the fundamentalist movement - presented as a radical movement that has hijacked the traditional tolerant Islam - is a restoration and a renovation of the classical doctrine of Islamic jurisprudence in regard to dhimmis (here Zimmis), that was applied until the 19th and 20th centuries.

In pre-modern times, dhimmis were judged by their own religious courts, except when a Muslim was involved; in this latter case, the Islamic law prevailed. But in the 20th century, Muslims and dhimmis are subjected to the same civic Islamic law. As the author stressed it below, dhimmis consider that this change has worsened their condition.

Rights of Non-Muslims in an Islamic State, by Samuel Shahid

Teaching Hatred in Saudi Arabia and Egypt: The UN Response, by David G. Littman

This historical overview summarizes the fate of the Christian indigenous peoples reduced to dhimmitude after the Islamization of their homeland. It is especially useful as it provides objective information on current events which are ignored by most of the media.

Middle East Christians: The Captive Nations, by Walid Phares (2.3MB PDF)

This study provides a perspicacious insight to the hadiths and to the Prophet Muhammad - Allah's Messenger - his teaching, life and perfect exemple as the basis of shari'a law.

Amina Lawal and the Islamic Shari'a, by Mark Durie, Quadrant, December 2002

Symposium: Islamic Anti-Semitism, by Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine.com, October 31, 2003

Symposium: The Muslim Persecution of Christians, by Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine.com, October 10, 2003

Section Index:

* Christian Anti-Zionism and Dhimmitude
* Dhimmitude Issues
* Georgetown University Incident, October 22, 2002
* Jihad Today
* News and Links
* Background Resources