Muslim and Non Muslim Laws

Islamic law and non-Muslims

Some pro-Israeli opinion cite traditional interpretations of sharia (Islamic law) which requires, among other things, that Muslim territory encompass all land that was ever under Muslim control, as a source for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since the territory of Israel, prior to being the British Mandate of Palestine, was once part of the Ottoman caliphate, some Islamic clerics believe it is unlawful for any portion of it to remain 'usurped' by non-Muslims. By contrast, pro-Arab opinion points at the pronounced religious tolerance of the caliphates, where Christians and Jews coexisted "harmoniously" with Muslims and were granted limited self-autonomy. Resentment of Israeli Jews, this argument concludes, only emerged as a result from and after the rise of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine.

Pro-Israeli views, however, often dismiss this explanation with the argument that Muslim Arab hostility towards Israel is largely derived from the sharia dictation that Jews or Christians are not to be considered equal to Muslims. Pro-Arab commentator view this as running counter to the tradition of tolerance towards "People of the Book" in Islam. They also point towards the long tradition of Palestinian Christians in their resistance to Israel and its policies, including such noted figures as Edward Said and George Habash, and the various Palestinian secular movements such as the PLO itself. In turn pro-Israeli proponents refer to a declining Christian Palestinian population (along with those of most Arab Christians) as, at least in part, a product of Muslim hostility towards non-Muslims, in general. According to a report published in December 2001 by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies think tank.The Christian Exodus from the Middle East (http://www.defenddemocracy.org/usr_doc/Christian_Exodus.pdf), in December 1997 The Times noted: "Life in (PA ruled) Bethlehem has become insufferable for many members of the dwindling Christian minorities." The report also states that "Christians in the Palestinian territories have dropped from 15% of the Arab population in 1950 to just 2% today." Some Palestinian Christian are of the opinion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has led to the diminishment of their population[[8] (http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/hate_jews.html)][[9] (http://www.amconmag.com/2004_05_24/article.html)]. Ohers, like Abe Ata, a Palestinian Christian, are of the opinion that American Christians have "turned their backs" on them by supporting Israel [[10] (http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/112202/112202r.htm)]. The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, is recorded as being "intemperate in his attacks on Israel"[[11] (http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/hate_jews.html)]. Many Palestinian Christians have complained about Israel's treatment of them. One such complaint is that Israel does not give Palestinian Christians permission to visit holy places [12] (http://www.amin.org/eng/daoud_kuttab/2005/may20.html).

Traditionally, where Jews and Christians and other non-Muslims were under Muslim rule, they were considered dhimmi, or protected people. Historian Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University writes that the dhimma -- the "writ of protection," also called the Pact of Umar after Muhammad's successor, the second caliph Umar 'ib al-Khattab (643-44) -- was intended to embody Qur'anic sentiments toward Jews and Christians. The dhimmi communities were traditionally obliged to pay a poll tax known as the jizyah, and another tax called the kharaj, which was imposed by the Muslim conquerors on non-believers whose lands became part of the Muslim state. So long as they paid these taxes, writes Morris, the dhimmi were allowed to live on the land under Muslim protection and with limited self-autonomy, though following a later revisions of the Dhimmi status, some Muslim rulers began to dishonour those rules and traditions, at times, expeling these protected communities.

Under the writ, the dhimmi were not allowed to strike a Muslim or carry arms; were allowed to ride asses only, not horses or camels, and then only sidesaddled; were not allowed to build new houses of worship or repair old ones; and for brief periods, under particularly repressive regimes, even had to wear distinctive clothing. The historian Elie Kedourie described the attitude toward the dhimmi as one of "contemptuous tolerance." Muslims "treated the Dhimmi, and especially the Jews, as impure," writes Morris (2001). This opinion is disputed by the Muslim scholar, Muhammad Hamidullah, who writes in the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs that: "If Muslim residents in non-Muslim countries received the same treatment as Dhimmi in the Islamic regime, they would be more than satisfied; they would be grateful."

Citing accounts of a number of massacares by Muslims against Jews between 1033 until the 1940s, Morris write that, despite the dhimmi pact, Muslims rose up against Jewish communities since between they exhibited "[an]underlying attitude, that Jews were infidels and opponents of Islam, and necessarily inferior in the eyes of God, prevailed throughout Muslim lands down the ages (Morris 2001).

The status of the dhimmi, Morris notes, improved marginally with the rise of the Ottoman empire, especially when the Sublime Porte of 1856 declared that all Ottoman subjects were equal, but conditions worsened again when the empire collapsed. Morris gives as an example of the treatment of the dhimmi, the phenomenon of stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children, which, he says, amounted to a local custom in Yemen and Morocco. The Jewish dhimmi were forbidden, under pain of death, to defend themselves by striking the children. The Syrian delegate to the United Nations, Faris el-Khouri, told the U.N. in 1947 that: "Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world, (New York Times, February 19, 1947).

Scholars such as Hamidullah, respond that this represents an historically distorted understanding and interpertation of the dhimmi status. Moreover, they point that, at the event, it remains strictly limited to the realm of history, since currently no Muslim nation imposes these laws on its non-Muslim citizens (though Saudi Arabia does require all citizens to be Muslim). They also argue that Qur'anic passages regarding relations with non-Muslims are often taken