The New York Times would never dare tell you this, but the systematic discrimination Hindus face in Pakistan is in accord with a Qur’anic command:
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, and do not forbid what has been forbidden by Allah and his messenger, and do not acknowledge the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).
Asad, Daryabadi and other Western-oriented commentators maintain that the jizya was merely a tax for exemption for military service. Asad explains: “every able-bodied Muslim is obliged to take up arms in jihad (i.e., in a just war in God’s cause) whenever the freedom of his faith or the political safety of his community is imperiled. Since this is, primarily, a religious obligation, non-Muslim citizens, who do not subscribe to the ideology of Islam, cannot in fairness be expected to assume a similar burden.” But they pass in silence over the latter part of v. 29, which mandates the humiliation of non-Muslims. It mentions the People of the Book, that is, primarily Jews and Christians, but this status of dhimmitude was later extended to Hindus, as it was not practical to convert or kill them all.
In explaining how the Jews and Christians must “feel themselves subdued,” Ibn Kathir quotes a saying of Muhammad: “Do not initiate the Salam [greeting of peace] to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley.” He then goes on to outline the notorious (and almost certainly legendary) Pact of Umar, an agreement made, according to Islamic tradition, between the caliph Umar, who ruled the Muslims from 634 to 644, and a Christian community.
This Pact is worth close examination, because despite its slight historical value, it became the foundation for Islamic law regarding the treatment of the dhimmis. With remarkably little variation, throughout Islamic history whenever Islamic law was strictly enforced, this is generally how non-Muslims were treated. Working from the full text as Ibn Kathir has it, these are the conditions the Christians accept in return for “safety for ourselves, children, property and followers of our religion” — conditions that, according to Ibn Kathir, “ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace.” The Christians will not:
1. Build “a monastery, church, or a sanctuary for a monk”;
2. “Restore any place of worship that needs restoration”;
3. Use such places “for the purpose of enmity against Muslims”;
4. “Allow a spy against Muslims into our churches and homes or hide deceit [or betrayal] against Muslims”;
5. Imitate the Muslims’ “clothing, caps, turbans, sandals, hairstyles, speech, nicknames and title names”;
6. “Ride on saddles, hang swords on the shoulders, collect weapons of any kind or carry these weapons”;
7. “Encrypt our stamps in Arabic”
8. “Sell liquor” — Christians in Iraq in the last few years ran afoul of Muslims reasserting this rule;
9. “Teach our children the Qur’an”;
10. “Publicize practices of Shirk” — that is, associating partners with Allah, such as regarding Jesus as Son of God. In other words, Christian and other non-Muslim religious practice will be private, if not downright furtive;
11. Build “crosses on the outside of our churches and demonstrating them and our books in public in Muslim fairways and markets” — again, Christian worship must not be public, where Muslims can see it and become annoyed;
12. “Sound the bells in our churches, except discreetly, or raise our voices while reciting our holy books inside our churches in the presence of Muslims, nor raise our voices [with prayer] at our funerals, or light torches in funeral processions in the fairways of Muslims, or their markets”;
13. “Bury our dead next to Muslim dead”;
14. “Buy servants who were captured by Muslims”;
15. “Invite anyone to Shirk” — that is, proselytize, although the Christians also agree not to:
16. “Prevent any of our fellows from embracing Islam, if they choose to do so.” Thus the Christians can be the objects of proselytizing, but must not engage in it themselves;
17. “Beat any Muslim.”
Meanwhile, the Christians will:
1. Allow Muslims to rest “in our churches whether they come by day or night”;
2. “Open the doors [of our houses of worship] for the wayfarer and passerby”;
3. Provide board and food for “those Muslims who come as guests” for three days;
4. “Respect Muslims, move from the places we sit in if they choose to sit in them” — shades of Jim Crow;
5. “Have the front of our hair cut, wear our customary clothes wherever we are, wear belts around our waist” — these are so that a Muslim recognizes a non-Muslim as such and doesn’t make the mistake of greeting him with As-salaamu aleikum, “Peace be upon you,” which is the Muslim greeting for a fellow Muslim;
6. “Be guides for Muslims and refrain from breaching their privacy in their homes.”
The Christians swore: “If we break any of these promises that we set for your benefit against ourselves, then our Dhimmah (promise of protection) is broken and you are allowed to do with us what you are allowed of people of defiance and rebellion.”
The imperative to subjugate non-Muslims as mandated by Qur’an 9:29 and elaborated by this Pact remained part of Islamic law, and does to this day. In the nineteenth century the Western powers began to pressure the last Islamic empire, the Ottoman Empire, to abolish the dhimma. In Baghdad in the early nineteenth century, Sheikh Syed Mahmud Allusi (1802-1853), author of the noted commentary on the Qur’an Ruhul Ma’ani, complains that the Muslims have grown so weak that the dhimmis pay the jizya through agents, rather than delivering it themselves on foot. In his Tafsir Anwar al-Bayan, the twentieth-century Indian Mufti Muhammad Aashiq Ilahi Bulandshahri laments that “in today’s times, the system of Atonement (Jizya) is not practised at all by the Muslims. It is indeed unfortunate that not only are the Muslim States afraid to impose Atonement (Jizya) on the disbelievers (kuffar) living in their countries, but they grant them more rights than they grant the Muslims and respect them more. They fail to understand that Allah desires that the Muslims show no respect to any disbeliever (kafir) and that they should not accord any special rights to them.”
The influential twentieth century jihadist theorist Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) emphasizes that these rules should be revived, for “these verses are given as a general statement, and the order to fight the people of the earlier revelations until they pay the submission tax with a willing hand and are subdued is also of general import” (In the Shade of the Qur’an, Vol. VIII, p. 126).
Likewise the Pakistani jihadist writer and activist Syed Abul A’la Maududi (1903-1979) states that “the simple fact is that according to Islam, non-Muslims have been granted the freedom to stay outside the Islamic fold and to cling to their false, man-made, ways if they so wish.” That heads off any potential contradiction between his understanding of v. 29 and 2:256, “There is no compulsion in religion.” Maududi continues by declaring that the unbelievers “have, however, absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines. For if they are given such an opportunity, corruption and mischief will ensue. In such a situation the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life” (Towards Understanding the Qur’an, vol. III, p. 202).
Islamic apologists in the West today commonly assert that 9:29 commands warfare only against the Jews and Christians who fought against Muhammad, and no others. I wish that every Muslim believed that, but unfortunately that has never been the mainstream Islamic understanding of this verse. Indeed, if it had been, the Pact of Umar, which I detail above, would never have been made — for it was made after Muhammad’s death with Christians against whom he did not fight. That in itself, as well as the teachings of all the schools of Islamic law, illustrates that this verse was always understood as having a universal application.
This is why the Islamic State attempted to collect the jizya from the Christians of Mosul when it took the city in 2014.
“Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By,” by Maria Abi-Habib and Zia ur-Rehman, New York Times, August 4, 2020:
…Dozens of Hindu families converted in June in the Badin district of Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Video clips of the ceremony went viral across the country, delighting hard-line Muslims and weighing on Pakistan’s dwindling Hindu minority.
The mass ceremony was the latest in what is a growing number of such conversions to Pakistan’s majority Muslim faith in recent years — although precise data is scarce. Some of these conversions are voluntary, some not.
News outlets in India, Pakistan’s majority-Hindu neighbor and archrival, were quick to denounce the conversions as forced. But what is happening is more subtle. Desperation, religious and political leaders on both sides of the debate say, has often been the driving force behind their change of religion.
Treated as second-class citizens, the Hindus of Pakistan are often systemically discriminated against in every walk of life — housing, jobs, access to government welfare. While minorities have long been drawn to convert in order to join the majority and escape discrimination and sectarian violence, Hindu community leaders say that the recent uptick in conversions has also been motivated by newfound economic pressures.
“What we are seeking is social status, nothing else,” said Muhammad Aslam Sheikh, whose name was Sawan Bheel until June, when he converted in Badin with his family. The ceremony in Badin was notable for its size, involving just over 100 people.
“These conversions,” he added, “are becoming very common in poor Hindu communities.”…
Rethmann says
The regime practices systematic discrimination against the people.
elee says
Who ever let them set up this “Government” betrayed civilisation. Yes, I mean way back in 1948.
toomanyhobbies says
and they are not clarified as a CULT WHY?
J Morgan says
Really sad for the Hindus. Things are really bad for them in Pakistan.
CogitoErgoSum says
Verse 9:29 makes it clear that Muslims are to fight all disbelievers until even the “People of the Book” have submitted to Islam and are paying some form of tribute (Jizya) to the victorious Muslims. If Bukhari is to be believed (which Muslims do) the requirement for the People of the Book to submit the Jizya will come to an end only when the Muslim version of Jesus returns, abolishes the Jizya and then kills all the Christians and Jews (and now Hindus too) who fail to convert to Islam.
The idea that the Jizya was supposed to apply only to the Jews and Christians who fought against Muhammad while he was alive can not be supported unless there is evidence that Muhammad believed Jesus was going to return during Muhammad’s lifetime. To abolish the Jizya Jesus would have to be a prophet. Together with that revered position and Muhammad’s description of the return of Jesus as occurring at dawn with Jesus descending from Heaven while being upheld by two angels would also seem to me to make Jesus a much more impressive figure than Muhammad. The detail of Jesus’ hair being dripping wet with water was also added for some reason, perhaps something to do with baptism. At any rate this would be very impressive and would make Jesus an even greater prophet than Muhammad. But it did not happen during Muhammad’s lifetime and, if Muhammad believed that it would and was telling people that it would, that would be further evidence that Muhammad was a false prophet. So … Jesus did not return, has not yet returned and if you are a Muslim who wants to do as Allah says in the Koran, you should be fighting to make the People of the Book pay the Jizya. Or …. you could accept that Muhammad was a false prophet who was just making things up as he went along and see Islam for the lie that it is.
gravenimage says
Pakistan: Hindus convert to Islam to escape systematic discrimination they face in every aspect of life
……………..
Terrible. All the surviving Hindus–and Sikhs, and Christians in Pakistan should flee to India, which has offered them citizenship.
Ade Fegan says
“No compulsion on religion” ?
Nonsense ! .. Plenty big compulsion.
Muhammad only said that when he was young and before he had an army behind him and when he did have an army it was a VERY different story “You have your religion and I have mine” is effectively a lie, with about as much spiritual value as “mind your own business” or “I will say whatever you want to hear”
Khushi says
Hindus, Sikhs and Christians are not just discriminated against but are also actively persecuted for not converting to islam. Their daughters are kidnapped, married against their will and forcibly converted to islam.
When India passed a law, (CAA) offering citizenship to these persecuted religious minorities of pakistan and bangladesh, many Indian citizens (read muslims and ‘liberals’) vehemently protested against it questioning why are pakistani muslims not being offered citizenship?
This kindness to minority persons from religious persecution was turned on its head by referring to it as an anti-muslim law. Go figure. Why would muslims be persecuted in avowed muslim countries where muslims are a majority and all laws favour muslims?
Sadly, many city and state administrations of USA have passed resolutions against India for having passed this so-called anti-muslim law.
gravenimage says
As I have noted before, so glad to see this from India.
OLD GUY says
This is what will take place world wide if the muslim/islamic migration invasion is not STOPPED. Open borders is suicide to a countries society and culture.