Do you know what a dhimmi is?

Last year around this time, we posted a video titled The Dhimmi Contract along with an article titled Embracing Dhimmitude.

If you weren’t a reader then, take a moment to review the video, then read the post below from RenewAmerica.com.

By Victor Sharpe

Ask one hundred people in the United States what a dhimmi is and perhaps two or three might know. In Europe the number would be slightly higher because of latent memories of battles fought against invading Moslem armies over the span of hundreds of years.

We now have the specter of triumphant Islam building a giant mosque mere yards from Ground Zero in New York City where Islamic fanatics, in the name of Allah, destroyed the World Trade Center and the two magnificent towers. The mosque will rise to thirteen or more stories and overlook the blasted hole in the ground that was once a symbol of America’s freedom and technical ingenuity.

If this outrage is allowed to be built, it will not be a symbol of Muslim outreach to non-Moslems; it will be a sickening insult to the victims of Islamic barbarism and a tangible rallying cry to millions more jihadists who will see it as Islam’s victory over a vanquished United States of America. This then will be the 21st century revenge of resurgent Islam over those who centuries ago beat back the many previous Islamic invasions and attempted Muslim conquests of Europe.

In 732, Charles Martel led his Frankish forces at Tours to victory against an Islamic invasion of France, which nearly destroyed Christian Europe. Similarly, Islam was ousted from Spain in 1492 after an occupation of the Iberian Peninsula by the Moslems for hundreds of years.

In Italy, Islamic power was brought to an end when the heavy Turkish galleys were defeated by Venetian galleasses at the great naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. And the Moslem Ottoman power, which at its height again threatened Europe, was barely turned back at the gates of Vienna on 11 September 1683 by a coalition of European armies.

These were four major defeats by Europe of Islamic attempts of conquest and subjugation set against a history of victorious Moslem invasions and conquests that has been the hallmark of Islam since its founding in the seventh century.

But what of the peoples and nations that fell under Islamic occupation? For them the story was one of forced conversions to Islam, slavery, death, and the Islamic institution of dhimmitude.

This is the word that describes the parlous state of those who refused to convert to Islam and became the subjugated non-Muslims who were forced to accept a restrictive and humiliating subordination to a superior Islamic power and live as second-class citizens in order to avoid enslavement or death. These peoples and populations were known as dhimmis, and if such a status was not humiliating enough, a special tax or tribute, called the jizya, was imposed upon them and upon all dhimmis.

Dhimmitude is the direct outcome of jihad, which is the military conquest of non-Islamic territory mandated by Allah as a spiritual obligation for every individual Moslem and Moslem nation.

The building of mosques on or near the site of an Islamic victory against non-Moslems is a tangible expression of Islamic triumphalism.

The Al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem — built upon the very site of the two ancient Jewish Temples — is a stark example. The great Haggai Sophia church in Constantinople was converted into a mosque when the Ottoman Turks destroyed the city, renaming it Istanbul. Similarly, the Greek Catholic cathedral in Nicosia, Cyprus, was converted into a mosque when the Turks invaded northern Cyprus in 1974. They still remain in occupation. These are just three examples of the thousands of churches and synagogues converted into mosques over the centuries by victorious and triumphal Islam.

A non-Moslem community forced to accept dhimmitude is condemned to live in a system that will only protect it from jihad if it is subservient to the Moslem master. In return, it is guaranteed limited rights under a system of discriminations that it must accept, or face forced conversion, slavery, or death.

In the early years of the Islamic conquests, the “tribute” or jizya was paid as a yearly poll tax, which symbolized the subordination of the dhimmi. Later, the inferior status of Jews and Christians was reinforced through a series of regulations that governed the behavior of the dhimmi. Jews and Christians were awarded a different status than other faiths. They were considered to be under protection as ‘people of the book.’ People of non-monotheistic faiths, pagans, or atheists were simply to be exterminated.

According to Mitchell G. Bard, who has written extensively on the subject and produced the excellent rebuttal to Arab and pro-Arab propaganda in his book Myths and Facts writes: ” … dhimmis, on pain of death, were forbidden to mock or criticize the Koran, Islam or Muhammad, to proselytize among Moslems or to touch a Moslem woman (though a Moslem man could take a non-Moslem as a wife).”

Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices as that might offend the Moslems.

The dhimmi had to show public deference toward Moslems, always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Moslem, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase Moslem witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Moslem.

Dhimmis were also forced to wear distinctive clothing. In the ninth century, for example, Baghdad’s Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later by Nazi Germany.

By the twentieth century, the status of the dhimmi in Moslem lands had not significantly improved. H.E.W. Young, British Vice-Consul in Mosul, wrote in 1909:

“The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed.”

There’s much more, read it all via Do you know what a dhimmi is?

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