Author: Andrew G. Bostom
Publication: National Review
Date: December 6, 2002
URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-bostom120602.asp
Misleading historical negationism.
In his recent writings on NRO (here
and here) and elsewhere, and in his new book, The Two Faces of Islam,
Stephen Schwartz appropriately draws the attention of policymakers and
the public at large to the dangerous, unsavory interactions between the
Saudi royal family, Wahhabi Islam, and international terrorism. Unfortunately,
however, Mr. Schwartz identifies Wahhabism as the source of all Islamic
terror and injustice. He does not mention that the twin institutionalized
scourges of Islam at the crux of the violent, nearly 1,400-year relationship
between Muslims and non-Muslims - i.e., jihad and dhimmitude - were already
well-elaborated by the 8th century, 1,000 years before Wahhabism arose
in the 18th century.
Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), perhaps the
preeminent Islamic scholar in history, summarized five centuries of prior
Muslim jurisprudence with regard to the uniquely Islamic institution of
jihad:
In the Muslim community, the holy
war 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... Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.
In "The Laws of Islamic Governance,"
al-Mawardi (d. 1058), a renowned jurist of Baghdad, examined the regulations
pertaining to the lands and infidel (i.e., non- Muslim) populations subjugated
by jihad. This is the origin of the system of dhimmitude. The native infidel
population had to recognize Islamic ownership of their land, submit to
Islamic law, and accept payment of the poll tax (jizya). Some of the more
salient features of dhimmitude include: the prohibition of arms for the
vanquished non-Muslims (dhimmis), and of church bells; restrictions concerning
the building and restoration of churches and synagogues; inequality between
Muslims and non-Muslims with regard to taxes and penal law; the refusal
of dhimmi testimony by Muslim courts; a requirement that Jews and Christians
wear special clothes; and their overall humiliation and abasement. Furthermore,
dhimmis, including those living under "enlightened" Turkish and Bosnian
Muslim domain, suffered, at periods, from slavery (i.e., harem slavery
for women, and the devshirme child levy for Balkan Christian males), abductions,
deportations, and massacres. During the modern era, between 1894-96, the
Ottoman Turks massacred over 200,000 (dhimmi) Christian Armenians, followed
by the first formal genocide of the 20th century, in 1915, at which time
they slaughtered an additional 600,000 to 800,000 Armenians. Contemporary
accounts from European diplomats confirm that these brutal massacres were
perpetrated in the context of a formal jihad against the Armenians who
had attempted to throw off the yoke of dhimmitude by seeking equal rights
and autonomy. For example, the Chief Dragoman (Turkish-speaking interpreter)
of the British embassy reported regarding the 1894-96 massacres:
.[The perpetrators] are guided in
their general action by the prescriptions of the Sheri [Sharia] Law. That
law prescribes that if the "rayah" [dhimmi] Christian attempts, by having
recourse to foreign powers, to overstep the limits of privileges allowed
them by their Mussulman [Muslim] masters, and free themselves from their
bondage, their lives and property are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy
of the Mussulmans. To the Turkish mind the Armenians had tried to overstep
those limits by appealing to foreign powers, especially England. They therefore
considered it their religious duty and a righteous thing to destroy and
seize the lives and properties of the Armenians."
The scholar Bat Yeor confirms this
reasoning, noting that the Armenian quest for reforms invalidated their
"legal status," which involved a "contract" (i.e., with their Muslim Turkish
rulers). This
.breach.restored to the umma [the
Muslim community] its initial right to kill the subjugated minority [the
dhimmis], [and] seize their property.
Schwartz extols the ecumenism and
tolerance of Sufi Islam. Sufism was derivative from Hinduism, in addition
to strains of mysticism borrowed from Judaism and Christianity. However,
Sufi Islam as practiced in the Indian subcontinent was quite intolerant
of Hinduism, as documented by the Indian scholar K. S. Lal (The Legacy
of Muslim Rule in India [1992], p. 237):
The Muslim Mushaikh [Sufi spiritual
leaders] were as keen on conversions as the Ulama, and contrary to general
belief, in place of being kind to the Hindus as saints would, they too
wished the Hindus to be accorded a second class citizenship if they were
not converted. Only one instance, that of Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangoh, need
be cited because he belonged to the Chishtia Silsila considered to be the
most tolerant of all Sufi groups. He wrote letters to the Sultan Sikandar
Lodi, Babur, and Humayun to re-invigorate the Shariat [Sharia] and reduce
the Hindus to payers of land tax and jizya. To Babur he wrote, "Extend
utmost patronage and protection to theologians and mystics... that they
should be maintained and subsidized by the state... No non-Muslim should
be given any office or employment in the Diwan of Islam... Furthermore,
in conformity with the principles of the Shariat they should be subjected
to all types of indignities and humiliations. They should be made to pay
the jizya...They should be disallowed from donning the dress of the Muslims
and should be forced to keep their Kufr [infidelity] concealed and not
to perform the ceremonies of their Kufr openly and freely. They should
not be allowed to consider themselves the equal to the Muslims."
Sadly, both Schwartz's recent NRO
contributions and his book reflect two persistent currents widespread among
the Muslim intelligentsia: historical negationism and silent hypocrisy.
To these two trends, Schwartz adds a third: misleading reductionism. If
we would only neutralize "Wahhabism," he claims - presumably by some combination
of military means, promoting the "true Islam," and perhaps having the world
switch to a hydrogen-based fuel economy - all Islamic terror and injustice
will disappear. But the reality is that, for nearly 1,400 years, across
three continents, from Portugal to India, non-Muslims have experienced
the horrors of the institutionalized jihad war ideology and its ugly corollary
institution, dhimmitude. Post hoc, internal disputes among Muslim scholars,
including Sufi scholars, about the theological "correctness" of "lesser"
versus "greater" jihad are meaningless to the millions of non-Muslim victims
of countless jihad wars: Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists.
What is important is that after well over a millennium, Muslims finally
acknowledge the suffering of these millions of victims of jihad wars, as
well as the oppressive governance imposed on non-Muslims by the laws of
dhimmitude. Thus far this brutal history has been completely denied, and
even celebrated, as "enlightened" conquest and rule.
Moreover, it is critical to understand
that there were never organized, mass progressive efforts within Islam
comparable to the philo-Semitic movement by European Christendom that lead
to the emancipation of European Jewry, or the European Judeo-Christian
movement that led to the abolition of slavery. Indeed, it took European
military (primarily naval) power to force Islamic governments, including
the Ottoman Empire, to end slavery at the end of the 19th century. Beginning
in the mid-19th century, treaties imposed by the European powers on the
weakened Ottoman Empire also included provisions for the so-called Tanzimat
reforms. These reforms were designed to end the discriminatory laws of
dhimmitude for Christians and Jews living under Muslim Ottoman governance.
European consuls endeavored to maintain compliance with at least two cardinal
principles: respect for the life and property of non-Muslims, and the right
for Christians and Jews to provide evidence in Islamic courts when a Muslim
was a party. Unfortunately, the effort to end the belief in Muslim superiority
over "infidels," and to establish equal rights, failed. Indeed, throughout
the Ottoman Empire, particularly within the Balkans, emancipation of the
dhimmi peoples provoked violent, bloody responses against any "infidels"
daring to claim equality with local Muslims. Enforced abrogation of the
laws of dhimmitude required the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire. This
finally happened only after the Balkan Wars of independence, and in the
European Mandate period after World War I.
Today, the Muslim intelligentsia
focus almost exclusively on debatable "human-rights violations" in the
disputed territories of Gaza, Judea, and Samaria, while ignoring the blatant
and indisputable atrocities committed by Muslims against non-Muslims throughout
the world. The most egregious examples include: the genocidal slaughter,
starvation, and enslavement of south Sudanese Christians and animists by
the Islamist Khartoum government forces; the mass murder of Indonesian
Christians by Muslim jihadists, with minimal preventive intervention by
the official Muslim Indonesian government; the imposition of sharia-sanctioned
discrimination and punishments, including mutilation, against non-Muslims
in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, and northern Nigeria; the brutal murders
of Copts during pogroms by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists,
as well as official Egyptian government- mandated social and political
discrimination against the Copts; murderous terrorist attacks and the return
of such heinous institutions as bonded labor, and punishment for "blasphemy,"
directed against Pakistani Christians by Pakistani Muslims.
There is a dire need for some courageous,
meaningful movement within Islam that would completely renounce both dhimmitude
and jihad against non- Muslims, openly acknowledging the horrific devastation
they have wrought for nearly 1,400 years. Nothing short of an Islamic Reformation
and Enlightenment may be required, to acknowledge non-Muslims as fully
equal human beings, and not "infidels" or "dhimmis." It is absurd and disingenuous
for Schwartz to pretend that Islam's problems are centered solely within
Wahhabism.
(Andrew Bostom, M.D., an associate
professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical School, has spent the
past 15 months researching the history of jihad and dhimmitude. He has
written for NRO previously, coauthor of a piece with dhimmi historian Bat
Yeor.)
