Friday, 30 October 2020

Peoples Of A Closed Book

Anyone deemed to be 'People of the Book' (Non Muslims, but who were following a monotheistic Abrahamic religion, that is older than Islam - But there are no hard and fast rules on this), and living in an Islamic nation, usually under Sharia Law, were given a number of rights ...

People Of The Book - May Not Share The Same God Or Beliefs
People Of The Book - May Not Share The Same God Or Beliefs ......

.... These rights were limited, casting them as dhimmi, a position not dissimilar to women and slaves in that they had restricted rights, and for the dhimmi this included such things as the right to freely practice their faith in private, and to receive state protection (sort of). 

However in return, they had a legal responsibility to make payment of a special tax called jizya ("tribute") in place of the zakat (charity) that Muslims paid. Most non Muslims in the West came under Muslim Rule in Spain (where the Muslims were eventually expelled), and Asia Minor (Turkey) and the Balkans. These last two areas were part of the Ottoman Empire, which had conquered the Christian Byzantine Empires lands. The social structure of the Ottomans, was to serve as an example of how non-Muslims were treated under Muslim rulers.

Muslims see People of the Book as having had divine guidance from God to man, but that guidance has been incomplete or somehow corrupted, and can include all Christians, all the Children of Israel (including Jews, Karaites and *Samaritans), and Sabians (although this list can be disputed as we now see). Non followers technically have no rights, except those that the local 'caliph' may grant them. Islam's Prophet practised this idea when he was in Mecca before the flight .... he later returned from Medina, and it was a rather different story.

Zoroastrianism Was Once The Dominant Religion Of Iran
Zoroastrianism Was Once The Dominant Religion Of Iran
Despite Its 'Protected' Status Its Virtually Eradicated ....

However this dhimmi status exemption from outright persecution, has expanded or contracted depending upon local conditions ... for instance the Zoroastrians who once lived in Iran and elsewhere in the region (and is one of the worlds oldest religions), where it was the native religion, are only recognised in Iran as being 'a people of the book'. They are mostly gone now - protection or no protection, but were included because the Arab conquest of Iran might have failed, if they hadn't recognised Zoroastrianism, as a stop gap measure to prevent uprisings.

But others, for example Buddhists and Hindus, have not necessarily been granted the protection of dhimmitude when under Muslim rule, except where they vastly outnumber the invaders e.g. The Hindus of what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh are almost gone (converted, fled or killed), and the remainder are treated as Kaffirs, and often attacked. Whereas Islamic scholars in India 'accepted' that the polytheist Hindus were suddenly 'People of the Book' (particularly after Britain overthrew the rule of the Muslim Mughals), but even before then, Muslim rulers were usually willing to consider Hindus as people of the book, after some forced conversions just stirred up rebellions, and also perhaps unsurprisingly, given that they were always outnumbered 10 to 1 by the Hindus.

Buddhism in Asia doesn't get afforded this same status from Islam anywhere, and so very few if any Buddhists openly live in Muslim majority countries .... Afghanistan was a Buddhist state before the Arab invasions, and now it most assuredly is not.

This disregard for other faiths is entirely consistent with the way Islam has spread - pliant in its beliefs when outnumbered, and often violent in its suppression of other faiths when in the ascendency. So while the Christians and Jews in theory are 'protected' (as they pay the extra taxes imposed for this armed protection), in reality this was not always the case (see the Greeks of Constantinople, or Armenian's under the Turks).

So why am I writing about this? Well, it seemed to me that the rise and fall of the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq was a microcosm of the reason why the rise of Islam in countries that are not traditionally Muslim, has so many people spooked. We saw what happened to those groups deemed to not be Muslim, nor people of the book (or even when they were - the Christians of Syria and Iraq all were attacked).  

Thousands Of Yazidi Women Were Sold As Slaves By ISIS
Thousands Of Yazidi Women Were Sold As Slaves By ISIS ....

The Mandaeans and Yazidis were killed and their women gang raped and sold as slaves, because in the theology of the Sunni Muslims, they are apostate Muslims and not followers of the book (who are usually just told to pay jizya, convert, or face death), so their only option if they weren't killed outright, was conversion or death.

For women prisoners, rape and forced marriage is actually accepted as 'conversion' in this culture, hence the fact that both ISIS and Boko Haram take non-Muslim girl prisoners to hand over as 'conquest brides' for their fighters. Boko Haram has taken nearly a 1,000 non-Muslim girls and women, and according to reports several hundred Yazidis girls were taken by ISIS as 'slaves' ... oh what a life of fun for those 'western' Muslims, who popped over for a bit of recreational Jihad, murder, genocide and rape.

Whether many in the the West likes this truth or not, the fact is that this treatment of non Muslims by ISIS or Boko Haram, is entirely consistent with mainstream current Islamic teaching and practice, right from when it first started its path of conquest in the 7th Century.

So while those Imams in the West like to tell us that this is extreme behaviour, its exactly what Islamic conquest has been about since it first started. Are not the recent random attacks by so called 'Muslim patrols', the illegal schools ideology, and voting frauds, in the UK, not just all aspects of this same idea that once 'Muslims' take an area, its their rules not others that are to be enforced.

Muslims are obligated to adhere to the law of the land in which they live, and the observance of any religious laws that run contrary to the laws of the land such as polygamy should be prevented by the non Muslims, even if someone tried to implement them.

However they have to be caught to be stopped, so Muslim religious 'marriages' - the nikah' take place without a civil registration marriage, and a recent survey found that its possible that as many as 60 per cent of Muslim women (in the survey commissioned by True Vision Aire), did not have a civil marriage, meaning they were not legally married in English Law. This lack of legal protection, and inability to force the males to register the marriages, even when the women knew that it wasn't legal, leads to the rise of informal Sharia councils in the UK .... to the general detriment of the women, and the general advantage of the men.

It should be noted, that with marriages and respecting British law, other British South Asian groups, such as the Hindus are perfectly able to follow the laws regarding marriages, and register their marriages civilly, as well as registering their places of worship for marriages under the approved building scheme as well, if they so wish.

Reality and not wishful thinking should be our watchword ... we ignore or concede primacy to this sort of conquest behaviour at our very peril .... peaceful assimilation, can change very quickly as the demographics change the balance of Western societies ... the next census in March 2021, could well indicate the way the wind blows.

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