Sunday, December 18, 2011

Ibrahim in Jihad Watch: "The Specter of Jizya Returns to Egypt"

Middle East ForumMiddle East Forum

Promoting American Interests

Facebook Twitter RSS Join Mailing List

Follow the Middle East Forum

MEF Home | Research & Writings | Middle East Quarterly | MEF @ Facebook | MEF @ Twitter | Donate

Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area.

The Specter of Jizya Returns to Egypt

by Raymond Ibrahim
Jihad Watch
December 15, 2011

http://www.meforum.org/3132/egypt-jizya

Be the first of your friends to like this.

In Egypt, calls for jizya—the tribute doctrinally demanded and historically collected from conquered infidels—are increasing day by day, by those who wish to be true to the words of Koran 9:29:

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid that which Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor follow the religion of truth [Islam], from the People of the Book [Christians and Jews], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves utterly subdued.

Accordingly, days ago, Ahmed Imran—a candidate of Egypt's Salafi party, the "Party of Light," which won some 20% of votes in recent elections—called for the return of jizya (which was abolished under colonial pressure in the mid 19th century). Sounding like a Western apologist of Islamic supremacism, he distorted history and spoke of jizya in glowing terms: "I say to those who fear that we might govern, that it was the Muslims who liberated the Copts from Roman slaughter and that Copts are obligated to pay the jizya, and it will only be half a dinar, taken from the rich and given to their poor."

Earlier, Abu Shadi, another Salafi leader—though not one running for office, and so extra candid—announced that Egypt's Christians must either convert to Islam, pay jizya and assume inferior status, or die.

Nor is the return of jizya limited to Salafi discourse. Running for Egypt's presidency, Hazem Abu Ismael, a former Muslim Brotherhood member still affiliated with the group, said he would impose jizya on the Copts.

And Dr. Mohamed Saad Katatni—the secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party which won 40% of the votes—reportedly said that Copts would not pay jizya now, implying that the idea of collecting tribute from subdued "dhimmi" Copts is very much alive among the Brotherhood, only dormant till a more opportune moment (naturally, the Brotherhood later denied he said such a thing).

Moreover, increasing numbers of attacks on Christians in Egypt revolve around extorting jizya. For instance, last summer a priest was almost "killed at the hands of the Salafis because of his refusal to pay them jizya money…. [T]he church's priest had declared that the Copts would not pay jizya, in any way, shape, or form. This is what caused the Salafis to want to banish him from the region, so they could collect jizya from the Copts."

Here, then, is another truism: Wherever and whenever there are calls to return to "true Islam"—whether by 9th century Ibn Hanbal, 14th century Ibn Taymiyya, 18th century Abdul Wahhab, or 21st century Salafis, and the countless no-names in between—it is the surrounding non-Muslims who will always be first to suffer; first, in the words of Koran 9:29, to "pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission, and feel themselves utterly subdued."

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Related Topics: Anti-Christianism, Dhimmitude, Egypt | Raymond Ibrahim This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.


To subscribe to the MEF mailing lists, go to http://www.meforum.org/list_subscribe.php

The Middle East Forum

No comments:

Post a Comment