December
6, 2002, 9:55 a.m. A
Wahhabism Problem
Misleading historical
negationism.
By Andrew G.
Bostom
n
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.
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