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Raymond Ibrahim: Islamic Jizya — ‘Protection’ from Whom?

Aug 1, 2014 11:39 am By Raymond Ibrahim

Egypt-Christians-APIs jizya—the money non-Muslims historically paid their Muslim conquerors—meant to buy them “protection,” including from outside enemies, as modern Western academics maintain?  Or was it simply extortion money meant to buy non-Muslims their lives, as Islam’s scriptures mandate?

The word jizya appears in Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued(emphasis added).”

In the hadith, the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad, regularly calls on Muslims to demand jizya of non-Muslims:  “If they refuse to accept Islam,” said the Islamic prophet, “demand from them the jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay jizya, seek Allah’s help and fight them.”

Keeping the above in mind, consider the following July 18 report from Reuters:

Islamist insurgents have issued an ultimatum to northern Iraq’s dwindling Christian population to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death, according to a statement distributed in the militant-controlled city of Mosul….

It said Christians who wanted to remain in the “caliphate” that the Islamic State declared this month in parts of Iraq and Syria must agree to abide by terms of a “dhimma” contract—a historic practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy known as “jizya.”

“We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract – involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword,” the announcement said.

“After this date [July 19], there is nothing between us and them but the sword,” it said.

The Nineveh decree echoes one that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the former name for the Islamic State, issued in the Syrian city of Raqqa in February, demanding that Christians pay the jizya levy in gold and curb displays of their faith in return for protection.

Note how straightforward the Islamic State’s words are—jizya, conversion, or death—compared to the language of Reuters, which twice invokes the concept of “protection” without explaining from whom:  1) “a historic practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy known as “jizya”; 2) “demanding that Christians pay the jizya levy in gold and curb displays of their faith in return for protection.”

Reuters doesn’t bother to clarify this notion of “protection,” but rather leaves it vague, implying that the protection Christians receive is against some random elements.

The reason for this obfuscation is that Mideast academics in the West have been whitewashing the meaning of jizya for decades.  After all, the concept of jizya is one of the most ironclad proofs that Islam is innately intolerant of non-Muslims.

A very typical Western definition for jizya can be found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The Muslim rulers tolerated the dhimmis [conquered non-Muslims] and allowed them to practice their religion. In return for protection [from whom?] and as a mark of their submission, the dhimmis were required to pay a special poll tax known as the jizya.”

Other academics have gone so far as to claim that non-Muslims paid jizya to buy Muslim protection against outside forces.  Consider the following excerpt from John Esposito, director of the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.  It essentially makes the idea of being subjugated to Islamic overlords and paying them tribute appear as an enviable position for non-Muslim minorities:

In many ways, local populations [Christians, Jews, and others] found Muslim rule more flexible and tolerant than that of Byzantium and Persia. Religious communities were free to practice their faith to worship and be governed by their religious leaders and laws in such areas as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In exchange, they were required to pay tribute, a poll tax (jizya) that entitled them to Muslim protection from outside aggression and exempted them from military service. Thus, they were called the “protected ones” (dhimmi). In effect, this often meant lower taxes, greater local autonomy (emphasis added) …

The idea that jizya was extracted in order to buy “Muslim protection from outside aggression” is an outright lie—one that, as the equivocal tone of the aforementioned Reuters report indicates, has taken root in the West.

Equally false is Esposito’s assertion that jizya was paid to “exempt them from military service”—as if conquering Muslims would even want or allow their despised “infidel” subjects to fight alongside them in the name of jihad without first converting to Islam.

The root meaning of the Arabic word “jizya” is simply to “repay” or “recompense,” basically to “compensate” for something.  According to the Hans Wehr Dictionary, the standard Arabic-English dictionary, jizya is something that “takes the place” of something else, or “serves instead.”

Simply put, conquered non-Muslims were to purchase their lives, which were otherwise forfeit to their Muslim conquerors, with money. Instead of taking their lives, they took their money.  As one medieval jurist succinctly puts it, “their lives and their possessions are only protected by reason of payment of jizya” (Crucified Again, p. 22).

So jizya was, and is indeed, protection money—though protection, not from outsiders, as Esposito and others claim, but from surrounding Muslims themselves.  Whether it’s the first caliphate from over a millennium ago or whether it’s the newest caliphate, the Islamic State, Muslim overlords continue to deem the lives of their non-Muslim subjects forfeit unless they purchase it, ransom it with money.

There is nothing humane, reasonable, or admirable about demands for jizya from conquered non-Muslim minorities, as the academics claim. Jizya is simply extortion money. Its purpose has always been to provide non-Muslims with protection from Muslims: pay up, or else become one of us and convert to Islam, or else die.

And it is commanded in both the Koran and Hadith, the twin pillars of Islam.

In short, jizya is an ugly fact of Islam—one that, distort as they may, the academics can’t whitewash away, even as the world stands idly by watching its resumption in the twenty-first century.

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Filed Under: dhimmitude, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh)


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Comments

  1. Jay Boo says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 11:46 am

    Shahada (profession of faith) says there is no God but the God of Islam
    Islam defines itself not by what it offers, but by first condemning all other paths as false.
    Instead of simply claiming it is the only path, it belligerently begins on the negative.
    It is like a sales person criticizing the competition to divert attention from inspection.
    Buyer beware. (ask tough questions, but of course that is not allowed) beyond credulity!

  2. Jay Boo says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 11:51 am

    Muslims even dare to call Jesus one of their own prophets; and yet,

    Islam’s greatest sin “just happens” to be associated with being a Christian. (How convenient)
    Islam not only denies the divinity of Jesus, it even pairs this belief to its most serious sin. This from a religion that routinely condones or overlooks “Honor” killings, even of children.
    When dogma demons are deployed, you know well, who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
    Coincidentally, Satan’s greatest failure on Easter Sunday is also denied.
    Islam specifically denies The Crucifixion and The RESURECTION of Jesus.
    Pride and Envy; this fruit of Islam’s rotted tree of is a bitter one indeed.
    Islam’s ideology VIOLENTLY rejects true peace.
    Instead it weaves heaven’s paradise by parading honor deeds, with a dutiful prayer display flaunted five times a day and calls of faith that “God is great.”
    But, lacking this very same faith many Muslims offer to “help” God, just in case.

    They insult and kill “in God’s name” even for Islam’s lesser sins.
    Yet, to partner with God is supposedly Islam’s GREATEST SIN.
    Pride is a hellish pit full of such hypocrites. Be thankful they don’t pray ten times a day.
    Duplicity of bowing to God while serving…( )
    Islamist liars: Don’t hate them, just hate what they do and hold them accountable.
    Muhammad’s self-serving acknowledgement of Jesus as an EARLIER prophet was shameless.
    Muhammad even adopted customs of the Jews of Medina then slaughtered them as infidels.
    He cut a faith alliance with pagans of Mecca then explained he was tricked by satanic verse.
    — It is easy for vanity to say God is great and forget that God is GOOD —
    It‘s time to purify spiritually, to cleanse, to purge narcissistic trash and squalor of its violence.
    The world knows Islam’s paradise is still nothing but an intolerant self-esteem Ponzi scheme.

    “Know them by their fruit.” Islam’s greatest enemy is TRUTH.

  3. Jay Boo says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 12:40 pm

    Islamic ideology is bigotry and is incompatible with human decency.

    Deeds and Grace
    DEEDS Resisting sin, with initial success. Pride, so expecting God to be impressed
    Resenting others who had sacrificed less a seductive danger lurks without rest
    Never enough, for those who are so sin obsessed
    hidden desire grows stronger when only repressed
    Flaunting good deeds with the intention to invest
    collecting earthly praise with self-righteous interest
    Lost in their self-made mess
    all others they gladly detest
    A godlike delusion will always infest
    a judging mind with thoughts possessed
    As former good deeds nonetheless,
    become sins when violently professed
    GRACE Surrendering to God, needing less Humility knows it is undeservedly blessed
    Accepting others, believing God knows best a clear path then opens to a fresh awareness
    From each sincere prayer request
    revealed temptations tempt with less success
    Trusting God alone knows faith’s true manifest
    only with God’s guidance may we know what is best
    Saved from our vain excess
    Pride of sin’s conquest is put to rest
    Better a heavenly solution accessed
    with a key born in humble request
    Enabled by a simple willingness
    to accept God’s grace by answering, yes

    Long ago it was written: “Whatever we chose to think about eventually controls us.”

  4. EYESOPEN says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 12:53 pm

    Paying the jizya was just that – extortion. Think the worst of the Chicago gangs of the 1920s and 1930s. There really is no difference.

    • duh_swami says

      Aug 1, 2014 at 4:05 pm

      You win a prize…It used to be called ‘The protection racket’. As long as you paid you were protected from the jizya collectors. If you refused, they withdraw your protection, from them.

  5. Mary_Gonzales says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 1:05 pm

    five times a day, muslim told the world that there is no god but allah, meanwhile, whole world make their own english translation that god is allah. allah is not god. allah is allah, it cannot be translated.

    This earth is going to collapse, and the stupid leftist help it faster.
    Leftist is worse than devil

  6. DJ says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 1:24 pm

    Call it what they may, it is nothing but extortion. No different than what the “mobs” in this country were doing (always have done, always will do) a century ago. It is illegal, to say the least, and is tolerated/endorsed by vile-hearted people.

  7. Mirren10 says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 2:11 pm

    ”The idea that jizya was extracted in order to buy “Muslim protection from outside aggression” is an outright lie—one that, as the equivocal tone of the aforementioned Reuters report indicates, has taken root in the West”

    Exactly.

    And the same, in essence, as the protection rackets of the Mafia (themselves probably rooted in islam). ”Nice little restaurant you’ve got there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it.”

  8. Silvia says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    Jizya is not only a way to rob innocent people of their hard earned money which is what muslims have been doing for 1400 years (and in a way, stealing other people’s lands is just that too) but I think its mostly a way to subjugate people and to humiliate them (not to mention terrorize them). It’s telling people they are inferior to you because they have to pay YOU (or else….).

  9. Beagle says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 3:29 pm

    The only upside to living through this era of history is that, for once, it’s better to be old than young. As bad as things are now, it appears they are going to get a lot worse for a long time before getting better.

    Systematically lying about Islam, thus disarming the targeted non-Muslim populations, is going to exact an horrific price in blood in the subsequent decades, or possibly centuries. I see it as a complete failure of all our major institutions: education, media, government, and religions other than Islam.

  10. apran says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 6:14 pm

    Islam also claims giving protection to women, therefore they implement the sharia. But to protect the women from whom? None other than from the muslims themselves.

    So basically, Islam creates rapist, molesters, pedophiles, there their women need protection.

  11. Angemon says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 6:20 pm

    In many ways, local populations [Christians, Jews, and others] found Muslim rule more flexible and tolerant than that of Byzantium and Persia. Religious communities were free to practice their faith to worship and be governed by their religious leaders and laws in such areas as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In exchange, they were required to pay tribute, a poll tax (jizya) that entitled them to Muslim protection from outside aggression and exempted them from military service. Thus, they were called the “protected ones” (dhimmi). In effect, this often meant lower taxes, greater local autonomy

    The islamic mouthpiece, Esposito, should be kicked in the teeth, flogged with a dead rat and sent to live as a christian under ISIS. “Free to practice their faith to worship”? Were Christians allowed to ring church bells? Well, that wouldn’t be an issue once all the churches collapsed, since Christians weren’t allowed to build new churches or repair existing ones. “Entitled them to Muslim protection from outside aggression”? What “outside aggression”? Other muslims? Were Christians free to say “No thanks, I’d rather not pay the jizya and take my chances”? “Exempted them from military service”? What a load of bull. Christians weren’t allowed to bear arms because if slaves are allowed to bear arms then slavery won’t last long, will it? “In effect, this often meant lower taxes”? So, paying an extra tax means “lower taxes”? If paying the jyzia meant paying lower taxes and being exempt from military service then muslims would have become jews and christians, not the other way around. And Esposito conveniently leaves out the conditions of the pact of umar.

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/05/uk-muslim-leader-muslims-should-humiliate-christians-so-theyll-convert-to-islam

    • bernie says

      Aug 1, 2014 at 9:40 pm

      Even though dhimmis were exempt from military service or giving money to specific Muslim charities, the jizyah was/is still oppressive, and dhimmis had to pay at least several times more tax money than their Muslim counterparts.

    • SpiritOf1683 says

      Aug 2, 2014 at 5:11 pm

      Or better still, Esposito should have a kippot glued to his head and be parachuted into Mecca during the Hajj.

  12. Lynne Newington says

    Aug 1, 2014 at 7:35 pm

    An interesting thought and the ancestral link between the Jews and the Muslims, brings to mind the financial bargaining for lives during Hitlers regime and the Holocaust and he was Catholic as were many.
    A terrible thought and nothing new

    • Nan says

      Aug 2, 2014 at 11:04 am

      Hitler was a lapsed Catholic. Don’t try to smear Catholicism by connecting it with his atheist regime. Under ordinary circumstances, Sts Maximilian Kolbe and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross would not have been martryred; both were killed in concentration camps, Max because he offered his life in the place of a family man when 10 random prisoners were to be starved to death due to an escape attempt. The saint gave comfort to all and died last. The former Edith Stein was sent to the concentration camp due to her conversion from Judaism; they didn’t care that she was Catholic, it was more important that she had been Jewish. Note also that many priests were tortured and killed at Auschwitz; they were first treated like pampered poodles so the rest of the prisoners wouldn’t trust them, then sent to join the rest. One of the experiments was to send them out into sub-zero temperatures to see how long it took to die of hypothermia.

      Note also that the Catholic Church did not condone Hitler’s activities and in fact Ven. Pius XII saved over 800,000 by allowing priests to issue baptism certificates forged so jews could travel to safety, and opening convents, monasteries, churches, the vatican and his own summer home to shelter jews – he is credited for saving most of Rome’s jews when Mussolini targeted them. Please ignore the cold-war era soviet lies about him and check out contemporary accounts praising him for his work. When bombs hit Rome, the servant of god went out to help.

      • Allan says

        Aug 2, 2014 at 2:59 pm

        Nan try reading the book “convert or die” by Edmond Paris or ” the Vatican’s holocaust” by Avro Manhattan the Roman Catholic church where/are no saints when it comes to persecuting people over their faith history is littered with the Vatican’s crimes against humanity.

        • Western Canadian says

          Aug 2, 2014 at 10:49 pm

          I am hardly a lover of the RC church, but you are just an ignorant, hate filled bigot.

      • Woflgang says

        Aug 30, 2014 at 10:00 pm

        Nan you must be a RC apologist, the RC Church persecuted and hated both believers and Jews for centuries,open your eyes and wake up, read Fox’s book of Martyrs…….don’t get me started on their BS of praying to the virgin Mary, the one saving grace is that they are nowhere near as vile as the scum goat f!@#$$%^& Jihadists.

    • Western Canadian says

      Aug 2, 2014 at 11:35 pm

      hitler was absolutely NOT a catholic or any variation of a Christian, he hated Christianity, banned Christian displays, forbade german armed forces members from attending church, and planned to replace the church symbols with a sword and copy of mein kamph…. He also was chummy with muslim jew haters…. Anyone claiming hitler was anything but a anti-western church hate monger, is a fool. By deliberate choice.

  13. Uncle Vladdi says

    Aug 2, 2014 at 7:00 pm

    So the REUTARDS pretend the jizya (extortion/protection racket “tax”) “exempted them from military service,” do they?

    And yet in sharia, dhimmis aren’t allowed to own even the most basic self-defense weapons, have no standing whatsoever in islamic law (they can’t testify against any muslims in court) and must feed and house any random muslims who drop by.

    And the averagw rate of the jizya was 50%.

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