Dhimmitude

Dhimmitude is the Islamic concept that non-Muslims who refuse to convert be “protected” and “tolerated” as third-class citizens. That is, they are allowed to live in the Islamic land as long as they pay the “jizya”, a repressive tax, and observe a list of restrictions on their freedom, which in effect makes them third-class citizens. D’himmitude is the Islamic alternative to Jihad and death or conversion to Islam. People who are forced to live thus in order to avoid execution are called dhimmis. According to Shariah: The Threat to America, The Report of Team B, "to live as a dhimmi is to have an inferior legal status under shariah, a codified condition as old as the first Islamic conquests of non-Islamic peoples. The Muslim-to-dhimmi relationship is, at best, a master-servant relationship..."

Basis in the Koran

The concept of dhimmitude is derived from the Koran in Sura 9:29, where it says, “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are of the People of the Book (that is, Christians or Jews), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

Basis in the life of Muhammad

According to Sahih Muslim, a collection of hadiths considered most reliable by Muslims, whenever Muhammed appointed a leader of his army or any of his detachments, he would exhort them to give those they fought three choices. They could accept Islam, or they could pay the Jizya. If not, they were to be fought and killed.

Origin of the term "dhimmitude"

Although the practice goes back to the beginning of the spread of Islam by invasion of conquering armies, the term dhimmitude is often credited to Bat Ye'or an Egyptian-born historian of Jewish heritage who experienced its hardships firsthand. She later became a British citizen when she married British historian and human right activist David Littman in 1959. However, Ye'or herself credited assassinated Lebanese president-elect Bachir Gemayel with coing the term. Previously the practice was called dhimmité in French and dhimmity in English. Ye'or began using the term because it called to mind servitude, a term she felt aptly described the practice.

Rules of dhimmitude

Historically, dhimmitude has involved a long list of restrictions, with some variance from place to place, in addition to the crippling Jizya tax. These restrictions typically include being forbidden to erect a church or monastery or to repair any such existing structure, to put a cross on the outside of the building or to ring a bell in it, to display crosses or religious books in markets, to raise their voices in prayer, being forbidden to testify in legal matters, to ride on saddles, to hang swords on their shoulders, to collect or carry any weapon, to encrypt stamps in Arabic, to sell liquor, to incite anyone against a Muslim, to strike a Muslim, to speak about Islam in a manner Muslims consider offensive, and being forced to board any Muslim who comes one's way for three days.

Dhimmitude also meant agreeing to “respect” Muslims by giving up one's seat to them and avoiding imitation of their clothing, sandals, hairstyles, speech, nicknames or title, and bearing insults in silence, thus making opposition to the rules unthinkable. Dhimmis must also have the front of the hair shaved and wear belts around the waist to make them easily identifiable . In effect, in many places dhimmitude meant there was no work and no income for dhimmis, at the same time they were being required to pay a tax for their Muslim rulers to “protect” them, that is, to refrain from executing them. This is the context in which Islamists can say there is freedom of religion or no coercion in Islam. One is not forced to convert to Islam. One can choose execution or try to live as a dhimmi.

If any of the conditions of dhimmitude were broken, the agreement of protection was invalidated, and the dhimmi must be executed.

Role of Dhimmitude in the Spread of Islam

This is the manner in which Islam spread through the Middle East and across North Africa soon after the death of its founder. Islam waged jihad against its neighbors, converted those who wanted to save their lives to Islam, and subjugated the others to dhimmitude.

Damaging results of dhimmitude

According to Robert Spencer, these regulations result in inferiorization and marginalization of subjugated peoples. Others have observed that historically, "dhimmis developed cross-cultural, cross-continental survival strategies that ensured survival not of the fittest, but rather of the most deferential--self-abasement as self preservation." For example, "since criticism of shariah was severely punished, dhimmis adopted a servile language and obsequious demeanor for fear of retaliation and for their self-preservation. In this struggle to survive were lost precious markers of the self: history and identity, truth and tradition. What was left were self-censoring societies, stunted by fear, compromised by fearfulness."