June
19, 2002, 9:10 a.m. Jihad
Conquests
Islamism today.
By Bat Ye’or
and Andrew Bostom
he
ideology of jihad was formulated by Muslim jurists and scholars, including
such luminaries as Averroes and Ibn Khaldun, from the 8th century onward.
A recent Harvard commencement speech notwithstanding, these voluminous
writings establish unequivocally the notion of jihad as a war of conquest.
For example, Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) stated, "..the holy war is a religious
duty, because of the universality of the Muslim mission and the obligation
to convert everyone to Islam either by persuasion or by force...".
Jihad conquests were brutal, imperialist advances that spurred waves of
Arab and Turkish Muslims to expropriate a vast expanse of lands, and subdue
millions of indigenous peoples, across three continents — Asia, Africa,
and Europe. Moreover, jihad ideology ultimately regulated the relations
of Muslims with non-Muslims. The contemporary relevance of this ideology
is also clear, and disturbing. Professor John Esposito, director of the
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, recently
identified Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, as one of the most influential contemporary
Muslim thinkers. Sheikh al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric and the spiritual
leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, reaches an enormous audience during
his regular appearances on Al Jazeera. During a January 9, 1998 interview,
Sheikh al-Qaradawi observed that Islamic law divided the People of the
Book — Jews and Christians — into three categories: 1) non-Muslims
in the lands of war; 2) non-Muslims in lands of temporary truce; 3) non-Muslims
protected by Islamic law, that is to say, the dhimmis.
The sheikh had thus
summarized the theory of jihad in a few words. Now, as we see from countless
calls for jihad and daily world events, this ideology still impregnates
current thinking and conduct. Jihad as such, is a genocidal war, since
it orders men to be massacred and women and children to be enslaved, if
there is resistance. In the Southern Sudan, the ugly living embodiment
of the jihad war ideology is visible with the enslavement of the wives
and children of Christian and Animist rebels by Muslim agents of the Khartoum
government. Unfortunately, although many Muslims do not adhere to this
ideology, formal rejection of its precepts by the major Islamic clerics
at Al-Azhar University in Egypt, or in Saudi Arabia, has not occurred.
Historically, non-Muslims
conquered by jihad wars were governed by the laws of "dhimmitude."
As opposed to flimsy notions of "tolerance" and "protection,"
dhimmitude was the actual sociopolitical, and economic status of these
vanquished peoples (dhimmis), including Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians,
Hindus, and Buddhists. Unfortunately, this "tolerance" and "protection"
was afforded only upon submission to Islamic domination by a "Pact"
— or Dhimma — which imposed degrading and discriminatory regulations.
The main principles of dhimmitude are: (i) the inequality of rights in
all domains between Muslims and dhimmis; (ii) the social and economic
discrimination against the dhimmis; (iii) the humiliation and vulnerability
of the dhimmis. Numerous documents from both Islamic sources and the dhimmi
peoples, establish the origins and aims of these nefarious regulations,
including their contemporary incarnations (for example, in Iran, Egypt,
the Sudan, Pakistan, and of course in Saudi Arabia, and under the Taliban
in Afghanistan).
Every society and
religion has developed its own form of fanaticism, particularly during
periods of expansion, or internal unrest. In the Judeo-Christian societies,
however, the separation of politics and religion — sometimes, it
is true, entirely theoretical — has permitted intolerance and oppression
to be challenged. The men who fought for the abolition of slavery and
the emancipation of the Jews were Christians. Jews and Christians struggled
side by side for the recognition of human rights. A similar progressive
movement has yet to appear in the Muslim world, which has never acknowledged
the oppressed dhimmi, or recognized that the degradation of the dhimmi
represents a crime against humanity. The Muslim intelligentsia has failed
to condemn both jihad as a genocidal war, and dhimmitude as a dehumanizing
institution, which together resulted in imperialism, slavery, and the
deportation of populations, whose historical and cultural patrimony were
totally destroyed. If Muslims continue to avoid meaningful self-criticism
of their own history of jihad and dhimmitude, it will be impossible for
Islam to accept non-Muslims as full equals, and past prejudices will continue
to be rampant.
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he
ideology of jihad was formulated by Muslim jurists and scholars, including
such luminaries as Averroes and Ibn Khaldun, from the 8th century onward.
A recent Harvard commencement speech notwithstanding, these voluminous
writings establish unequivocally the notion of jihad as a war of conquest.
For example, Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) stated, "..the holy war is a religious
duty, because of the universality of the Muslim mission and the obligation
to convert everyone to Islam either by persuasion or by force...".
Jihad conquests were brutal, imperialist advances that spurred waves of
Arab and Turkish Muslims to expropriate a vast expanse of lands, and subdue
millions of indigenous peoples, across three continents — Asia, Africa,
and Europe. Moreover, jihad ideology ultimately regulated the relations
of Muslims with non-Muslims. The contemporary relevance of this ideology
is also clear, and disturbing. Professor John Esposito, director of the
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, recently
identified Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, as one of the most influential contemporary
Muslim thinkers. Sheikh al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric and the spiritual
leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, reaches an enormous audience during
his regular appearances on Al Jazeera. During a January 9, 1998 interview,
Sheikh al-Qaradawi observed that Islamic law divided the People of the
Book — Jews and Christians — into three categories: 1) non-Muslims
in the lands of war; 2) non-Muslims in lands of temporary truce; 3) non-Muslims
protected by Islamic law, that is to say, the dhimmis. 
