In his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, Robert Spencer entitles chapter four “Islam: Religion of Intolerance.” On p.47 he summarizes the chapter in three points, as follows:
*Islamic law mandates second-class status for Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims in Islamic society.
*These laws have never been abrogated or revised by any authority.
*The idea that Jews fared better in Islamic lands than in Christian Europe is false. [1]
This article will rebut the last point. (A follow up article will refute the first two.) Before we begin, a clarification of Spencer’s line of argumentation is in order. He dedicates page after page to describe how oppressive Islamic rule has been towards infidels, in order to bash the Muslims (and Islam) over the head with. Of course, Spencer’s line of argumentation would be nullified if it were pointed out that Western Christianity–of which he is a self-proclaimed defender of–was even more oppressive towards infidels. That is why he states his third point above, and argues that “the Muslim laws were much harsher for Jews than those of Christendom” [2] and that “in Christian lands there was the idea, however imperfect, of the equality of dignity and rights for all people.” [3]
This is my rebuttal of his argument.
Preface:
Ahl al-Dhimma (dhimmi for short) translates to “the protected people” and was the historical word used to refer to non-Muslim peoples (such as Jews and Christians) living under Islamic rule. Arabist ideologues and Muslim apologists perpetuate the myth that the Islamic world was an idyllic “interfaith utopia” which epitomized religious tolerance; some seem to go as far as to claim that dhimmis “had it better” than Muslims under Islamic rule.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, anti-Islam ideologues argue that not only did Muslims historically persecute dhimmis, but that nonbelievers in the Islamic Orient were treated much worse than their counterparts were in the contemporaneous Christian Europe of the Middle Ages. To bolster this claim, one anti-Islam “researcher” by the pseudonym of Bat Ye’or coined the concept of “dhimmitude.” A counter-myth is now propagated on various websites, blogs and forums, namely that Islamic rule over non-Muslims had been characterized by an unparalleled brutality and wickedness. The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies calls out Bat Ye’or by name:
[One must] explain acts of Islamic oppression that did occur, without exaggerating them selectively into a ‘countermyth of Islamic persecution,’ as recent revisionism has done (e.g. Bat Ye’or 1985). [4]
These two sides (proponents of the interfaith utopia theory on the one hand and the Islamic persecution myth on the other hand) peddle their diametrically opposed paradigms, selectively quoting from various sources in order to “prove” their side. Of course, the truth lies in between this myth and counter-myth: dhimmis did not live under an idyllic interfaith utopia under Islamic rule–far from it: discrimination against nonbelievers was a prevalent phenomenon. Dhimmis were clearly treated as second-class citizens.
On the other hand, the counter-myth is equally dishonest and fails to contextualize the situation of dhimmis in the Islamic Orient with that of their counterparts in Christian Europe. We are always reminded by anti-Islam ideologues of the dhimmitude, a catch-all phrase which has caught on very well in recent times; the term is used as a stick to beat Muslims over the head with, as well as one to incite feelings of paranoia and xenophobia. This article will however recount what they–perhaps in their ignorance and zeal–have neglected to mention: there was in fact a direct corollary to the dhimmitude in the Christian West. It too has a catchy name: the Christian belief in the Perpetual Servitude of infidels, a concept which was in fact much more oppressive than the so-called dhimmitude.
Mark R. Cohen, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, is arguably considered to be the world’s leading scholar of Jews living in the Middle Ages under Islamic rule. He decided to write a book that contrasted the treatment of Jews living in the Islamic Orient with their counterparts in the Christian West. This book, Under Crescent and Cross, is the first of its kind, as it analytically compares the treatment of Jewish dhimmis (pejoratively called dhimmitude by ideologues) with that of the Perpetua Servitudo (Perpetual Servitude) of Jewish infidels. Cohen’s magnum opus is remarkably balanced, neutral, and analytical: it rejects both myth and counter-myth, but concludes that while dhimmis were certainly not living under any sort of interfaith utopia, they did have better living conditions than nonbelievers in the Christian West. This article will use Professor Cohen’s book as a general template, but will cite other sources as well in order to cater to the online environment, taking into consideration the “internet chatter” and tailoring the arguments accordingly.
For furthur reading, please visit:
http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/11/the-churchs-doctrine-of-perpetual-servitude-was-worse-than-dhimmitude/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+loonwatch+%28loonwatch.com%29
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