Iraq: Death Comes for the Archbishop

The Archbishop has been murdered. Christians are being systematically run out of Iraq. Those who are left are being forced to pay ransom on their own lives.

Open your throat and submit to the Jizya, Christians.

From Andrew Bostom:


The New York Times (June 26, 2008) has published a somber account of the recent murder of Iraqi Archbishop Rahho, and how the Iraqi Christian population has been subjected to the full recrudescence of dhimmitude, punctuated by the re-application of the jizya—the Koranic (Koran 9:29) poll tax on non-Muslims, whose etymology, as per the seminal Arabic lexicographer, E.W. Lane, belies its origins: “the tax paid in lieu of being slain.”

Here is a classical formulation of the jizya—the cornerstone of the repressive system of jihad-imposed dhimmitude—from, coincidentally, a seminal Baghdadian jurist, al-Mawardi (d. 1058). In his monumental The Laws of Islamic Governance, al-Mawardi examined the regulations pertaining to the lands and infidel populations subjugated by jihad. This is the origin of the system of dhimmitude.

The native infidel “dhimmi” (which derives from both the word for “pact”, and also “guilt”—guilty of religious errors) population had to recognize Islamic ownership of their land, submit to Islamic law, and accept payment of the Koranic poll tax (jizya)—the tax paid in lieu of being slain—based on Koran 9:29. Al- Mawardi notes that “The enemy makes a payment in return for peace and reconciliation… Reconciliation and security last as long as the pavment is made. If the pavment ceases, then the jihad resumes.”

The “contract of the jizya”, or “dhimma” encompassed other obligatory and recommended obligations for the conquered non-Muslim “dhimmi” peoples. Collectively, these “obligations” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims—Jews, Christians, [as well as Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists]-subjugated by jihad.


Some of the more salient features of dhimmitude include: the prohibition of arms for the vanquished dhimmis, and of church bells; restrictions concerning the building and restoration of churches, synagogues, and temples; 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, Christians, and other non-Muslims, including Zoroastrians and Hindus, wear special clothes; and the overall humiliation and abasement of non-Muslims.


It is important to note that these regulations and attitudes were institutionalized as permanent features of the sacred Islamic law, or Shari’ a. The writings of the much lionized Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali (d. 1111) highlight how the institution of dhimmitude was simply a normative, and prominent feature of the Shari’a:

…the dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle.. .Jews, Christians,
and Majians must pay the jizya [poll tax on non-Muslims]…on offering up the
jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard
and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the
mandible]… They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church
bells…their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that
is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only
if the saddle-work is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road.
They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an identifying] patch [on their clothing], even
women, and even in the [public] baths…[dhimmis] must hold their tongue.

The practical consequences of such a discriminatory system were summarized in A.S. Tritton’s 1930 The Caliphs and their Non-Muslim Subjects, a pioneering treatise on the status of the dhimmis:

…[C]aliphs destroyed churches to obtain materials for their buildings, and the
mob was always ready to pillage churches and monasteries…dhimmis…always lived on
sufferance, exposed to the caprices of the ruler and the passions of the mob…in
later times..[t]hey were much more liable to suffer from the violence of the
crowd, and the popular fanaticism was accompanied by an increasing strictness
among the educated. The spiritual isolation of Islam was accomplished. The world
was divided into two classes, Muslims and others, and only Islam counted…Indeed
the general feeling was that the leavings of the Muslims were good enough for
the dhimmis.

S.D. Goitein, in essays published three to four decades later (i.e., 1963, and 1970), highlighted the economic and other adverse social consequences of both the jizya itself, and the attendant regulations of the system of dhimmitude:

..consideration [of] the immense extent of poverty and privation
experienced by the masses, and in particular, their persistent lack of cash,
which turned the ’season of the tax’ into one of horror, dread, and misery.

An Islamic state was part of or coincided with dar al-Islam, the
House of Islam. Its treasury was mal al-muslumin, the money of the Muslims.

Christians and Jews were not citizens of the state, not even second class
citizens. They were outsiders under the protection of the Muslim state, a status
characterized by the term dhimma, for which protection they had to pay a poll
tax specific to them.

They were also exposed to a great number of discriminatory
and humiliating laws…As it lies in the very nature of such restrictions, soon
additional humiliations were added, and before the second century of Islam was
out, a complete body of legislation in this matter was in existence…In times and
places in which they became too oppressive they lead to the dwindling or even
complete extinction of the minorities.

Go read the whole thing.