The death of Yasser Arafat- jihad terrorisms’ modern godfather- has been accompanied by a rash of optimistic assessments regarding the prospects for a resolution of the longstanding Arab-Israeli conflict. These comments by former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, are representative of such thinking:

Though Arafat’s death will create emotional upheaval for Palestinians and the risk of a violent struggle to fill the void, it may also create circumstances that make the emergence of a new era possible.

For those of us who long desperately to share former Ambassador Ross’ optimism, the living historical legacy of more than 13 centuries of jihad in Palestine provides a sobering perspective.

Jihad War: A Uniquely Islamic Institution

Jacques Ellul ¹, the late philosopher and theologian, emphasized in his foreward to Les Chretientes d’Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmitude. VII^e – XX^e siecle, (1991) how contemporary historiography whitewashed the basic realities of jihad war:

In a major encyclopedia, one reads phrases such as: ‘Islam expanded in the eighth or ninth centuries…’; ‘This or that country passed into Muslim hands…’ But care is taken not to say how Islam expanded, how countries ‘passed into [Muslim] hands’…Indeed, it would seem as if events happened by themselves, through a miraculous or amicable operation…Regarding this expansion, little is said about jihad. And yet it all happened through war!

…the jihad is an institution, and not an event, that is to say it is a part of the normal functioning of the Muslim world…The conquered populations change status (they become dhimmis), and the shari’a tends to be put into effect integrally, overthrowing the former law of the country. The conquered territories do not simply change ‘owners’.

Writing over six decades ago, Professor Arthur Jeffery described the continuum from jihad, to what has become known as dhimmitude- the sociopolitical status of those indigenous non-Muslim peoples vanquished by jihad campaigns:

..[Muhammad] did at least propose that all Arabia should be the land of Allah and planned vigorous measures to insure that within its borders the religion of Allah should be supreme. Communities of the People of the Book [Book= Bible; thus referring primarily to Jews and Christians] might remain within the land, but they must be in subjection….deriving their rights from the supreme Muslim community, not from any recognized rights of their own. As [they] did not accept this without struggle, it had to be forced on them, and that meant war. But war in the cause of Allah is Holy War, and so even in the Prophet’s lifetime we have the question of Jihad… ²

Richard Bell, in his authoritative1937 translation and exegesis of the Qur’an ³ demonstrates that Sura (chapter) 9, “…is a chapter of war proclamations…”,and verses Q.9.29 to Q.9-35, specifically,

…form in effect a proclamation of war against Jews and Christians, and probably belong to the year IX [9-years after the Hijra] when an expedition was designed for the North which would involve war with Christians and possibly also with Jews.⁴

Jeffery belittled as “the sheerest sophistry”attempts

…made in some circles in modern days to explain away all the Prophet’s warlike expeditions as defensive wars, or to interpret the doctrine of Jihad as merely a bloodless striving in missionary zeal for the spread of Islam…The early Arabic sources quite plainly and frankly describe the expeditions as military expeditions, and it would never have occurred to anyone at that day to interpret them as anything else…To the folk of his day there would thus be nothing strange in Muhammad, as the head of the community of those who served Allah, taking the sword to extend the kingdom of Allah, and taking measures to insure the subjection of all who lived within the borders of what he made the kingdom of Allah…⁵

Thirty years later, Maxime Rodinson warned, more broadly that

…The anti-colonial left, whether Christian or not, often goes so far as to sanctify Islam and the contemporary ideologies of the Muslim world… Understanding has given away to apologetics pure and simple…⁶

The prescient critiques of Jeffery and Rodinson anticipated the state of contemporary scholarship on jihad. Two salient examples of this current apologetic trend will suffice.

Khaled Abou El Fadl, a Professor of Law at UCLA, writing in 2002, maintained categorically,

…Islamic tradition does not have a notion of holy war. Jihad simply means to strive hard or struggle in pursuit of a just cause…Holy war (al-harb al-muqaddasah) is not an expression used by the Qur’anic text or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology war is never holy; it is either justified or not… ⁷

El Fadl’s recent contention cannot be supported on either theological-juridical, or historical grounds, and in fact contradicts the conclusion of an earlier essay he wrote. Specifically, El Fadl wrote the following in 1999:

There is no doubt that Muslim jurists do equate just war with religious war (jihad) [parenthetical insertion of the word jihad by El Fadl himself] ⁸

His footnote for this quote cites the classical Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya, as well as two pre-eminent modern scholars of jihad, Professors Majid Khadduri, and Rudolph Peters.

Khadduri and Peters authoritative assessments are summarized below. Majid Khadurri wrote the following in 1955:

Thus the jihad may be regarded as Islam’s instrument for carrying out its ultimate objective by turning all people into believers, if not in the prophethood of Muhammad (as in the case of the dhimmis), at least in the belief of God. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have declared ‘some of my people will continue to fight victoriously for the sake of the truth until the last one of them will combat the anti-Christ.’ Until that moment is reached the jihad, in one form or another will remain as a permanent obligation upon the entire Muslim community. It follows that the existence of a dar al-harb is ultimately outlawed under the Islamic jural order; that the dar al-Islam is permanently under jihad obligation until the dar al-harb is reduced to non-existence; and that any community accepting certain disabilities- must submit to Islamic rule and reside in the dar al-Islam or be bound as clients to the Muslim community. The universality of Islam, in its all embracing creed, is imposed…as a continuous process of warfare, psychological and political, if not strictly military.⁹

And Rudolph Peters wrote this in 1995:

The doctrine of the jihad, as laid down in the works on Islamic law, developed out of the Koranic prescriptions and the example of the Prophet and the first caliphs, which is recorded in the hadith. The crux of the doctrine is the existence of one single Islamic state, ruling the entire umma. It is the duty of the umma to expand the territory of this state in order to bring as many people under its rule as possible. The ultimate aim is to bring the whole earth under the sway of Islam and to extirpate unbelief: ‘Fight them until there is no persecution (or seduction) and the religion is God’s (entirely)’ [K. 2:193 and 8:39]. Expansionist jihad is a collective duty (fard ‘ala al-kifaya), which is fulfilled if a sufficient number of people take part in it. If this is not the case, the whole umma is sinning…The most important function of the doctrine of jihad is that it mobilizes and motivates Muslims to take part in wars against unbelievers, as it is considered to be a fulfillment of a religious duty. The motivation is strongly fed by the idea that those who are killed on the battlefield, called martyrs (shahid, plural shuhada), will go directly to Paradise. At the occasion of wars fought against unbelievers, religious texts would circulate, replete with Koranic verses and hadiths extolling the merits of fighting a jihad and vividly describing the reward waiting in the hereafter for those slain during the fighting.¹⁰

Professor John Esposito is the doyen of contemporary academic apologists for Islam. His writings regarding expansionist military jihad simply ignore voluminous, but inconvenient historical data. For example, he provides this ahistorical characterization of the entire period between the initial Islamic jihad conquests, in the fourth decade of the 7^th century C. E., and the first Crusade, in 1099 C.E.:

Five centuries of peaceful coexistence elapsed before political events and an imperial-papal power play led to centuries-long series of so-called holy wars that pitted Christendom against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust.”¹¹

Recently, Bat Ye’or analyzed Esposito’s summary assessment of the first millennium of jihad conquests. Bat Ye’or notes how Esposito completely, “…ignores the concepts of jihad and dar al-harb…”¹², and she highlights the “thematic structure” of Esposito’s selective overview, typical of the prevailing modern apologetic genre:

…historical negationism, consisting of suppressing or sketching in a page or a paragraph, one thousand years of jihad which is presented as a peaceful conquest, generally welcomed by the vanquished populations; the omission of Christian and, in particular, Muslim sources describing the actual methods of these conquests: pillage, enslavement, deportation, massacres, and so on; the mythical historical conversion of “centuries” of “peaceful coexistence”, masking the processes which transformed majorities into minorities, constantly at risk of extinction; an obligatory self-incrimination for the Crusades…¹³

The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the great Muslim historian al-Tabari’s recording of the recommendation given by Umar b. al-Khattab to the commander of the troops he sent to al-Basrah (636 C.E.), during the conquest of Iraq. Umar (the second “Rightly Guided Caliph”) reportedly said:

Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, (This is to say, accept their conversion as genuine and refrain from fighting them) but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. (Qur’an 9:29) If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency. Fear God with regard to what you have been entrusted.” ¹⁴

Jihad was pursued century after century, because jihad, which means “to strive in the path of Allah,” embodied an ideology and a jurisdiction. Both were formally conceived by Muslim jurisconsults and theologians from the 8^th to 9^th centuries onward, based on their interpretation of Qur’anic verses ¹⁵ (for e.g., 9:5,6; 9:29; 4:76-79; 2: 214-15; 8:39-42), and long chapters in the Traditions (i.e., “hadith”, acts and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, especially those recorded by al-Bukhari [d. 869] ¹⁶ and Muslim [d. 874] ¹⁷). The consensus on the nature of jihad from all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi’i), and seminal Shi’ite clerics, is clear. Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), jurist (Maliki), renowned philosopher, historian, and sociologist, summarized these consensus opinions from five centuries of prior Muslim jurisprudence with regard to the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad:

In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force… The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense… Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations. ¹⁸

Indeed, even al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the famous theologian, philosopher, and paragon of mystical Sufism, (who, as noted by the great scholar of Islam W.M. Watt, has been “…acclaimed in both the East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad…” ¹⁹), wrote the following about jihad:

…one must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year…one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them…If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book – Jews and Christians, typically] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked…One may cut down their trees…One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide…they may steal as much food as they need… ²⁰

By the time of the classical Muslim historian al-Tabari’s death in 923, jihad wars had expanded the Muslim empire from the Iberian peninsula to the Indian subcontinent. Subsequent Muslim conquests continued in Asia, as well as on Christian eastern European lands. The Christian kingdoms of Armenia, Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Albania, in addition to parts of Poland and Hungary, were also conquered and Islamized. When the Muslim armies were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683, over a millennium of jihad had transpired ²¹. These tremendous military successes spawned a triumphalist jihad literature. Muslim historians recorded in detail the number of infidels slain or enslaved, the cities and villages which were pillaged, and the lands, treasure, and movable goods seized. Christian (Coptic, Armenian, Jacobite, Greek, Slav, etc.), as well as Hebrew sources, and even the scant Hindu and Buddhist writings which survived the ravages of the Muslim conquests, independently validate this narrative, and complement the Muslim perspective by providing testimonies of the suffering of the non-Muslim victims of jihad wars ²².

From Jihad to Dhimmitude

In The Laws of Islamic Governance²³ al-Mawardi (d. 1058), a renowned jurist of Baghdad, examined the regulations pertaining to the lands and infidel (i.e., non-Muslim) populations subjugated by jihad. This is the origin of the system of dhimmitude. The native infidel population had to recognize Islamic ownership of their land, submit to Islamic law, and accept payment of the poll tax (jizya). al-Mawardi highlights the most significant aspect of this consensus view of the jizya in classical Islamic jurisprudence: the critical connection between jihad and payment of the jizya. He notes that “The enemy makes a payment in return for peace and reconciliation.” Al-Mawardi then distinguishes two cases: (I) Payment is made immediately and is treated like booty, however “it does, however, not prevent a jihad being carried out against them in the future.”. (II). Payment is made yearly and will “constitute an ongoing tribute by which their security is established”. Reconciliation and security last as long as the payment is made. If the payment ceases, then the jihad resumes. A treaty of reconciliation may be renewable, but must not exceed 10 years. In the chapter “The Division of the Fay and the Ghaneemah” (booty), al- Mawardi examines the regulations pertaining to the land taken from the infidels. With regard to land taken through treaty, specifically, he indicates two possibilities: either the infidels convert or they pay the jizya and their life and belongings are protected. And the nature of such “protection” is clarified in this definition of jizya by the seminal Arabic lexicographer, E.W. Lane, based on a careful analysis of the etymology of the term:

“The tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim government whereby they ratify the compact that assures them protection, as though it were compensation for not being slain” ²⁴

Another important aspect of the jizya is the widely upheld view of the classical schools of Islamic jurisprudence about the deliberately humiliating imposition and procurement of this

tax ²⁵. Here is a discussion of the ceremonial for collection of the jizya by the 13^th century Shafi’i jurist an-Nawawi:

…The infidel who wishes to pay his poll tax must be treated with disdain by the collector: the collector remains seated and the infidel remains standing in front of him, his head bowed and his back bent. The infidel personally must place the money on the scales, while the collector holds him by the beard, and strikes him on both cheeks… ²⁶

A remarkable account from 1894 by an Italian Jew traveling in Morocco, demonstrates the humiliating conditions under which the jizya was still being collected within the modern era:

The kaid Uwida and the kadi Mawlay Mustafa had mounted their tent today near the Mellah [Jewish ghetto] gate and had summoned the Jews in order to collect from them the poll tax [jizya] which they are obliged to pay the sultan. They had me summoned also. I first inquired whether those who were European-protected subjects had to pay this tax. Having learned that a great many of them had already paid it, I wished to do likewise. After having remitted the amount of the tax to the two officials, I received from the kadi’s guard two blows in the back of the neck. Addressing the kadi and the kaid, I said” ‘Know that I am an Italian protected subject.’ Whereupon the kadi said to his guard: ‘Remove the kerchief covering his head and strike him strongly; he can then go and complain wherever he wants.’ The guards hastily obeyed and struck me once again more violently. This public mistreatment of a European-protected subject demonstrates to all the Arabs that they can, with impunity, mistreat the Jews.” ²⁷

The “contract of the “jizya”, or “dhimma” encompassed other obligatory and recommended obligations for the conquered non-Muslim “dhimmi” peoples. ²⁸Collectively, these “obligations” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims- Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists- subjugated by jihad. Some of the more salient features of dhimmitude include: the prohibition of arms for the vanquished non-Muslims (dhimmis), and of church bells; restrictions concerning the building and restoration of churches, synagogues, and temples; inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims with regard to taxes and penal law; the refusal of dhimmi testimony by Muslim courts; a requirement that Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims, including Zoroastrians and Hindus, wear special clothes; and the overall humiliation and abasement of non-Muslims. It is important to note that these regulations and attitudes were institutionalized as permanent features of the sacred Islamic law, or Shari’a. Again, the writings of the much lionized Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali highlight how the institution of dhimmitude was simply a normative, and prominent feature of the Shari’a:

…the dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle…Jews, Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya [poll tax on non-Muslims]…on offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the mandible]… They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells…their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle[-work] is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an identifying] patch [on their clothing], even women, and even in the [public] baths…[dhimmis] must hold their tongue….²⁹ (Emphasis added.)

The Great Jihad and the Muslim Conquest of Palestine

September 622 C.E. marks a defining event in Islam- the hijra. Muhammad and a coterie of followers (the Muhajirun), persecuted by fellow Banu Quraysh tribesmen who rejected Muhammad’s authenticity as a divine messenger, fled from Mecca to Yathrib, later known as Al-Medina (Medina). Professor Moshe Gil notes that Muslim sources described Yathrib as having been a Jewish city founded by a Palestinian diaspora population which had survived the revolt against the Romans. ³⁰ Distinct from the nomadic Arab tribes, the Jews of the north Arabian peninsula were highly productive oasis farmers. These Jews were eventually joined by itinerant Arab tribes from southern Arabia who settled adjacent to them and transitioned to a sedentary existence.

Following Muhammad’s arrival, he created a “new order”, as described by Gil:

…establishing a covenant between the tribes which imposed its authority on every clan and its members, [which] soon enabled him to attack the Jews and eventually wipe out the Jewish population of the town. Some were banned from the towns, others were executed, and their property-plantations, fields, and houses- was distributed by Muhammad among his followers, who were destitute refugees from Mecca. He also used the former property of the Jews to establish a war fund, setting up a well-equipped army corps of cavalry troops the likes of which had never before been seen on the Arabian peninsula. Muhammad evidently believed in the capacity of this army, imbued with fiery religious belief, to perform great and sensational feats of valor.³¹

Richard Bell summarized Muhammad’s final interactions with the Jews and Christians of Medina, and northern Arabia. His analyses, based upon the sacred Muslim texts (i.e, Qur’an, hadith, and sira), authoritative Qur’anic commentaries, and the narratives of Muslim chroniclers of early Islam, also underscored the theological basis for the “Great Jihad”:

His relations with the Jews form a part of all biographies of Muhammad, for they worked out to a bitter and savage conclusion in the course of his first few years residence in Medina…Shortly after the Battle of Badr a Jewish tribe, the Bani Qainuqa, were deprived of their goods, and expelled from Medina. The Bani Nadir were similarly expelled some two years later, and finally the Bani Quraiza were besieged, and, after capitulation at discretion, were slaughtered, their goods confiscated, their women and children enslaved. This bitter hostility was no doubt due to the annoyance which the opposition of the Jews caused him…in Muhammad’s mind there also rankled the old feeling that the Jews had misled him in regard to what the Revelation contained, and having discovered that Jesus had been a prophet to the Bani Isra’il whom the Jews had rejected, he may have in his own mind justified his harsh dealing with them by the reflection that they were renegades who had already more than once rejected the Divine message…But when Muhammad’s power began to spread in Arabia his attitude towards the Christians soon began to cool. Any real alliance or even peaceful accommodation was indeed impossible from the first. Muhammad complains (Q.2:113/114) that neither Jews nor Christians will be satisfied with him until he follows their milla or type of religion. It was just as impossible for him to make concessions…Thus the relationship with the Christians ended as that with the Jews ended- in war…We know that before the end of his life Muhammad was in conflict with Christian populations in the north of Arabia, and even within the confines of the Roman [Byzantine] Empire. What would have happened if he had lived we do not know. But probably the policy which Abu Bakr carried on was the policy of Muhammad himself. There could have been no real compromise. He regarded himself as vicegerent of God upon earth. The true religion could only be Islam as he laid it down, and acceptance of it meant acceptance of his divinely inspired authority…The Hijra and the execution of the Divine vengeance upon the unbelievers of Mecca had given the immediate occasion for the organization of such a warlike community. The victory of Badr confirmed it. This is what it had grown to, a menace to whatever came in its way. Muhammad could bide his time, but he was not the man to depart from a project which had once taken hold of his mind as involved in his prophetic mission and authority. He might look with favor upon much in Christianity, but unless Christians were prepared to accept his dictation as to what the true religion was, conflict was inevitable, and there could have been no real peace while he lived.” ³²

Only limited forays- razzias (raids)- against Byzantine civilization in Palestine occurred during Muhammad’s lifetime. ³³ Within two years of Muhammad’s death, however, Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, launched the Great Jihad. ³⁴ The ensuing three decades witnessed Islamdom’s most spectacular expansion, as Muslim armies subdued the entire Arabian peninsula, and conquered territories which had been in Greco-Roman possession since the reign of Alexander the Great.³⁵ Despite Greek domination and Hellenization of these lands for over nine centuries (largely unaltered by the intervening Roman conquest), in less than two centuries, as Constantelos has observed,

…both Hellenism and Christianity were eliminated as major ethnic, religious, and cultural forces in the Near East, save in Asia Minor and Cyprus. ³⁶

Gil, in his monumental analysis A History of Palestine, 634-1099, emphasizes the singular centrality that Palestine occupied in the mind of its pre-Islamic Jewish inhabitants, who referred to the land as “al-Sham”. Indeed, as Gil observes, the sizable Jewish population in Palestine (who formed a majority of its inhabitants, when grouped with the Samaritans) at the dawn of the Arab Muslim conquest were “…the direct descendants of the generations of Jews who had lived there since the days of Joshua bin Nun, in other words for some 2000 years…”. ³⁷ He also explodes the ahistorical thesis of scholars who,

…perceive an ethnic motivation behind the [jihad] conquests. They see Arabs everywhere: even the Canaanites and the Philistines were Arabs, according to their theories. This applies to an even greater degree to the population of Palestine and Syria in the seventh century, who were certainly Semites. Thus, according to their claims, the conquering Arab forces in the course of their battles, actually encountered their own people or at least members of their own race who spoke the same language…This is of course a very distorted view: Semitism is not a race and only relates to a sphere of language. The populations met along the route of battle, living in cities or the country side, were not Arabs and did not speak Arabic. We do know of Bedouin tribes at that time who inhabited the borderlands and the southern desert of Palestine, west of the Euphrates (Hira) in the Syrian desert, Palmyra, and elsewhere. But the cultivated inner regions and the cities were inhabited by Jews and Christians who spoke Aramaic. They did not sense any special ties to the Bedouin; if anything it was the contrary. Their proximity and the danger of an invasion from that quarter disturbed their peace of mind and this is amply reflected both in the writings of the Church Fathers and in Talmudic sources. ³⁸

Gil concludes that views of the jihad conquest of Palestine expressed in the sources from the vanquished, indigenous non-Muslim populations,

…reflect the attitude of the towns and villages in Palestine quite accurately; the attitude of a sedentary population, of farmers and craftsmen, toward nomads whose source of income is the camel and who frequently attack the towns, pillage and slaughter the inhabitants, and endanger the lives of the wayfarer. These sources completely contradict the argument…to the effect that the villagers and townsmen in Palestine accepted the invasion of those tribes bearing the banner of Islam with open arms of their so-called racial affinity. ³⁹

Bat Ye’or summarizes the Arab Muslim conquest of Palestine as follows:

…the whole Gaza region up to Cesarea was sacked and devastated in the campaign of 634. Four thousand Jewish, Christian, and Samaritan peasants who defended their land were massacred. The villages of the Negev were pillaged…Towns such as Jerusalem, Gaza, Jaffa, Cesarea, Nablus, and Beth Shean were isolated and closed their gates. In his sermon on Christmas day 634, the patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, lamented…that the Christians were being forcibly kept in Jerusalem: ‘…chained and nailed by fear of the Saracens,’ whose ‘savage, barbarous and bloody sword’ kept them locked up in the town…Sophronius, in his sermon on the Day of the Epiphany 636, bewailed the destruction of the churches and monasteries, the sacked towns, the fields laid waste, the villages burned down by the nomads who were overrunning the country. In a letter the same year to Sergius, the patriarch of Constantinople, he mentions the ravages wrought by the Arabs. Thousands of people perished in 639, victims of the famine and plague that resulted from these destructions. ⁴⁰

According to [the Muslim chronicler] Baladhuri (d. 892 C.E.), 40,000 Jews lived in Caesarea alone at the Arab conquest, after which all trace of them is lost… ⁴¹

Gil further elaborates on the initial wave of jihad conquests, and details the lasting destruction they wrought:

…at the time of the conquest, Palestine was inhabited by Jews and Christians….The Arab tribes were to be found in the border areas, in keeping with arrangements made with the Byzantine rulers….one can assume that the local population suffered immensely during the course of the war [i.e., jihad conquests] and it is very likely that many villages were destroyed and uprooted in the frontier regions, and that the lot of these local populations was very bitter indeed. It appears that the period of the conquest was also that of the destruction of the synagogues and churches of the Byzantine era, remnants of which have been unearthed in our own time and are still being discovered. The assumption is based both on what is said in a few Christian sources…and on Muslim sources describing ‘Umar’s [Umar b. al-Khattab] visits to al-Sham. There is no doubt that one of the main purposes of these visits was to establish order and put an end to the devastation and slaughter of the local population…Towns in the western strip and the central strip (the region of the red sand hills and the swamps) in the Sharon, decreased from fifty-eight to seventeen ! It is estimated that the erosion of the soil from the western slopes of the Judaean mountains reached – as a result of the agricultural uprooting during the Muslim period – the gigantic extent of 2,000 to 4,000 cubic meters….We find direct evidence of the destruction of agriculture and the desertion of the villages in the fact that the papyri of Nessana are completely discontinued after the year 700. One can assume that at the time the inhabitants abandoned the place, evidently because of the inter-tribal warfare among the Arabs which completely undermined the internal security of the area. ⁴²

An archaeological analysis by Naphtali Lewis emphasizes that the distress of the inhabitants was exacerbated after the year 700. Conditions became unbearable, due to the general political situation and worsening attitudes toward the dhimmis, rendering the Negev a wasteland.

It was precisely at this period in the Caliphate of Abd-al-Malik and his sons (685-743 C.E.) that the Arab state embarked on a new, nationalistic policy. The official records of Islam began to be kept in Arabic…and non-Arabs began to be eliminated from government service. With this Arabization of rule came increasing fiscal burdens for the Christians-burdens which they could now no longer escape by conversion to Islam…[This] may well have rendered life impossible for the villagers of the Negev, who had already before…had occasion to complain of fiscal oppression. In the period of their prosperity…the production of the Negev villages was supplemented by financial assistance from the Byzantine Emperors, in the form of stipends and emoluments paid the military settlers; in the first half-century of Arab rule, which terminated this positive support but otherwise changed conditions little, life could apparently still be sustained- and where life is even barely bearable people are generally reluctant to leave their homes; but when the government changed its policy and began to make conditions as a result become increasingly difficult, life in the southern desert became impossible and the Negev villages disappeared…growing Arab strength…drove out the Negev inhabitants; the weakness of central authority in the area would result from the growing depopulation and relapse into nomadism. ⁴³

Finally, Gil has translated these observations by the 10^th century Karaite commentator Yefet b. ‘Ali expressing awareness of the fact that there was great destruction in Palestine and that there were places which remained uninhabited, while there were other places to which people returned and settled:

…the places which were completely destroyed so that no memory of them remains, like Samaria…and the second…are the places which have been destroyed and ruined, but despite this there are guards and people living there, such as Hebron and others…⁴⁴

*

Palestinian Authority (PA) Undersecretary for Awqaf [Religious Endowment], Sheik Yussef Salamah, representing the PA at a May 1999 “Inter-Cultural Conference,” in Tehran, praised the 7th century system of Ahl Al-Dhimma (i.e, the system of dhimmitude, applied [primarily] to Christians and Jews conquered by jihad wars), as the proper paradigm for relations between Muslims and Christians today. He maintained,

“Islam respected people of (other) religions and did not hurt them.” ⁴⁵

Palestinian Authority employee, Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Madhi reiterated these sentiments with regard to Jews during a Friday sermon broadcasted live on June 6, 2001 on PA TV, from the Sheik ‘Ijlin Mosque in Gaza:

We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a Dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as Dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as Dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah.⁴⁶

These hagiographic contemporary Muslim pronouncements on the dhimmis existence in Palestine under Islamic rule, even during an early, so-called “Golden Age” period of Islamic rule, are inconsistent with historical reality.

Moshe Gil’s detailed analysis of the initial four and one-half centuries of Muslim dominion in Palestine following the jihad conquests is based upon a rich profusion of data from Muslim, Christian, and Jewish sources. He captures the stark, unromantic reality of Muslim ruled Palestine during this era which included-the initial jihad conquest and establishment of Arab Muslim rule, from 634 to 661; Umayyad-Damascene rule, from 661 until 750; Abbasid-Baghdadian rule, from 750 through 878; Turco-Egyptian rule- Tulunids and Ikshidids- from 878 until 970- “interrupted” by Abbasid-Baghdadian rule again, between 905 and 930; nearly two generations of war including numerous participants, the dominant party being the Fatimids, from 970 through 1030; just over 40-years of Fatimid-Egyptian rule, between 1030 and 1071; and a generation of (Seljuq) Turkish (or “Turcoman”) rule encompassing most of Palestine, from 1071 until 1099.⁴⁷

Dramatic persecution, directed specifically at Christians, included executions for refusing to apostasize to Islam during the first two decades of the 8^th century, under the reigns of Abd al-Malik, his son Sulayman, and Umar b. Abd al-Aziz. Georgian, Greek, Syriac, and Armenian sources report both prominent individual and group executions (for eg., sixty-three out of seventy Christian pilgrims from Iconium in Asia Minor were executed by the Arab governor of Caesarea, barring seven who apostasized to Islam, and sixty Christian pilgrims from Amorion were crucified in Jerusalem). ⁴⁸

The Abbasids moved the capital city from Damascus (seat of the Umayyad Empire) to Baghdad, absorbed much of the Syrian and Persian culture, as well as Persian methods of governance, and ushered in a putative “Golden Age.” Gil and Bat Ye’or offer revealing assessments of this “Golden Age” dhimmitude and its adverse impact on the conquered, indigenous Jews and Christians of Palestine. Under early Abbasid rule (approximately 750-755 C.E., perhaps during the reign Abul Abbas Abdullah al-Saffah) Greek sources report orders demanding the removal of crosses over Churches, bans on Church services and teaching of the scriptures, the eviction of monks from their monasteries, and excessive taxation. ⁴⁹ Gil notes that in 772 C.E., when Caliph al-Mansur visited Jerusalem,

..he ordered a special mark should be stamped on the hands of the Christians and the Jews. Many Christians fled to Byzantium.⁵⁰

The following decade witnessed persistent acts of persecution as well. These details are provided by Gil:

One source tells of a Muslim who converted to Christianity and became a monk, and renamed Christophorous. He was beheaded on 14 April 789. At around the same time, evidently, there was an Arab attack on the monastery of St. Theodosius, near Bethlehem. The monastery was pillaged, many of the monks were slaughtered and some escaped. The attackers also destroyed two churches near that monastery. A Church source tells about the suffering endured by the monasteries in the Judean mountains during the inter-tribal warfare which broke out in 796…While Bet Guvrin was being abandoned by its inhabitants, who were falling captive to the Arabs, assaults were being made in Ascalon, Gaza, and other localities. Everywhere there was pillage and destruction. ⁵¹

Bat Ye’or elucidates the fiscal oppression inherent in eighth century Palestine which devastated the dhimmi Jewish and Christian peasantry: “Over-taxed and tortured by the tax collectors, the villagers fled into hiding or emigrated into towns.”⁵² She quotes from a detailed chronicle of an eighth century monk, completed in 774: ‘The men scattered, they became wanderers everywhere; the fields were laid waste, the countryside pillaged; the people went from one land to another’. ⁵³

The Greek chronicler Theophanes (as summarized by Gil) provides a contemporary description of the chaotic events which transpired after the death of the caliph Harun al-Rashid in 809 C.E., and the ensuing fratricidal war which erupted between the brothers al-Amin and al-Ma’mun.

According to him [Theophanes] these events caused the Christians an enormous amount of suffering. Many churches and monasteries in Jerusalem and its environs were abandoned, such as those of Sts Cyriac, Theodosius, Chariton, Euthymius, and Mar Saba. Four years later, in 813, the disturbances broke out anew and many Christians, both monks and laity, fled from Palestine to Cyprus and Constantinople, where they found refuge from the Arabs’ terrible persecution in those days of anarchy and civil war. Palestine was the scene of violence, rape, and murder.⁵⁴

Perhaps the clearest outward manifestations of the inferiority and humiliation of the dhimmis were the prohibitions regarding their dress “codes”, and the demands that distinguishing signs be placed on the entrances of dhimmi houses. During the Abbasid caliphates of Harun al-Rashid (786-809) and al-Mutawwakil (847-861), Jews and Christians were required to wear yellow (as patches attached to their garments, or hats).⁵⁵ Later, to differentiate further between Christians and Jews, the Christians were required to wear blue. In 850, consistent with Qur’anic verses associating them with Satan and Hell ⁵⁶, al-Mutawwakil decreed that Jews and Christians attach wooden images of devils to the doors of their homes to distinguish them from the homes of Muslims. Bat Ye’or summarizes the oppression of the dhimmis throughout the Abbasid empire under al- Mutawwakil as “..a wave of religious persecution, forced conversions, and the elimination of churches and synagogues…” ⁵⁷

Paroxysms of violent persecution erupted yet again in October-November 923 C.E. according to the patriarch of Alexandria, Sa’id b. Bitriq, as well as two Muslim chroniclers [summarized by Gil]:

…the Muslims attacked…in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (26 March 937) and set fire to the southern gates of Constantine’s church and to half of the exedra, whereupon the Church of the Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection collapsed…According to al-Makin and al-Maqrizi, the Church of the Resurrection and the Church of the Calvary were also robbed of their treasures…It seems at the same time the Muslims attacked in Ascalon again. According to Yahya b. Sa’id, the assault was made on ‘the great church there, known by the name of Mary the Green. They destroyed it and robbed it of all its contents and then set fire to it’…The bishop of Ascalon then left for Baghdad to get permission to rebuild the church, but he did not succeed. The church was left in ruins, for the Muslims who lived in Ascalon agreed amongst themselves that they would not allow it to be built again. As to the bishop, he never returned to Ascalon and remained in Ramla until his death.⁵⁸

During the early 11^th century period of al-Hakim’s reign, religious assaults and hostility intensified. As Gil notes,

…the destruction of the churches at the Holy Sepulchre [1009 C.E.] marked the beginning of a whole series of acts of oppression against the Christian population, which according to reliable sources, extended to coercion to convert to Islam.⁵⁹

Yahya b. Sa’id’s description of the events surrounding the destruction of the Churches of the Holy Sepulchre is summarized by Gil:

They dismantled the Church of the Resurrection to its very foundations, apart from what could not be destroyed or pulled up, and they also destroyed the Golgotha and the Church of St Constantine and all that they contained, as well as the sacred grave stones. They even tried to dig up the graves and wipe out all traces of their existence. Indeed they broke and uprooted most of them. They also laid waste to a convent in the neighborhood…The authorities took all the other property belonging to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its pious foundations and all its furnishings and treasures.⁶⁰

Citing both Muslim (al-Quda’i, Ibn Khallikan, and Ibn Al-Athir) and non-Muslim (Bar Hebraeus) sources, Gil also describes the edicts al-Hakim imposed upon the Christians and Jews beginning in August 1011 C.E.:

They were ordered to wear black turbans. The Christians had to wear a cross the length of a cubit and weighing five ratls around their necks around their necks; the Jews were obliged to wear a block of wood of similar weight…they had to wear some distinguishing mark in the bath-houses, and finally al-Hakim decided that there were to be separate bath-houses for their use…Ibn Al-Athir conveys…that al-Hakim ordered (after the destruction of the Chucrh of the Resurrection in Jerusalem…) that all the churches in the realm be destroyed, and this was done, and that the Jews and Christians were then to accept Islam, or emigrate to Byzantine lands. They were also obliged to wear special distinguishing signs. Many converted…Bar Hebraeus speaks of thousands of churches which were destroyed in the Fatimid kingdom at that time; the decree regarding the wearing of the cross around the neck was also, he says, a means of pressuring the Christians to convert. The wooden block the Jews were obliged to wear, had to be in the shape of a calf, as a reminder of the golden calf…⁶¹

In a separate, focused analysis of the conditions of the dhimmis of Jerusalem, Gil concludes that during the early through the mid 11^th century, the Jews suffered both economically and physically:

Economic conditions in Jerusalem were rather harsh, and the yeshiva often issued urgent appeals for aid. Besides, there were frequent acts of oppression on the part of the Muslim authorities. Very often special heavy taxes were imposed, which aggravated the already precarious situation of both the yeshiva and the Jewish population of Jerusalem. It must be remembered that taxation in Jerusalem was probably different from that found in other parts of the Muslim world. It seems that Jews there had to pay a comprehensive lump sum for the whole Jewish population of the city, regardless of its numbers. When the population decreased as a result of wars and Bedouin upheavals, the burden on each individual became heavier. In such situations the yeshiva was forced to borrow money, against heavy interest, from wealthy Muslims. When the time of repayment arrived, Jewish notables were in danger of being imprisoned, as the yeshiva was not in a position to accumulate the funds it had to return. In some cases people were actually incarcerated and it took a great deal of effort to collect the funds necessary for their release. An example is the letter written by Abraham, the son and main assistant of Solomon b. Yehuda, head of the yeshiva, to the sons of Mevasser, a family of parnasim of Fustat, asking them to keep their promise to send the aid in time to pay the kharaj.⁶²

Muslim Turcoman rule of Palestine for the nearly three decades just prior to the Crusades (1071-1099 C.E.) was characterized by such unrelenting warfare and devastation, that an imminent “End of Days” atmosphere was engendered. ⁶³ For example, Gil describes one of Atsiz b. Awaq’s jihad campaigns in Syro-Palestine at around 1077 C.E.:

Then Atsiz advanced on Jerusalem from Damascus, placed the city under siege, and promised its inhabitants the aman; on this basis, the inhabitants opened the gates of the city to him. Atsiz prevailed over Jerusalem, completely ignoring his promise of aman, and went on a rampage. He slaughtered 3,000 people there…He also conducted campaigns of annihilation against Ramla, until all its people had fled, and against Gaza, where he murdered the entire population. He likewise massacred people in al-‘Arish and elsewhere and wrought endless havoc in Damascus, where only 3,000 of the original 500,000 inhabitants had remained, due to starvation and scarcity. Jaffa, too, was attacked, and its governor…fled from the town to Tyre, together with all the city’s inhabitants, while the walls of Jaffa were destroyed on Atsiz’ orders.⁶⁴

A contemporary Russian chronicle cited by Gil indicates that the Turcomans, “…destroyed and desolated the cities and the villages from Antioch to Jerusalem. They murdered, took captive, pillaged, set on fire; they destroyed churches and monasteries”.⁶⁵

Gil notes that these observations are confirmed by Geniza documents, describing how, “…the Turcoman occupation denoted terrible calamities, such as the taking captive of the people of Ramla, the cutting off of roads, the obduracy of the commanders, the aura of anxiety and panic, and so on.” ⁶⁶ He continues, “We do not know what Atsiz’ attitude was to the Jewish population in 1078, during the cruel suppression of the uprisings and the destruction of towns, but the fact that from this date onwards, we barely find letters from Palestine (apart from Ascalon and Caesarea) in the Geniza documents, speaks for itself.” ⁶⁷

A contemporary poem by Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph, believed to be a descendant of the Geonim, an illustrious family of Palestinian Jews of priestly descent, speaks of destruction and ruin, the burning of harvests, the razing of plantations, the desecration of cemeteries, and acts of violence, slaughter, and plunder:

They were a strange and cruel people, girt with garments of many colors,/Armed and officered-chiefs among ‘the terrible ones’-/And capped with helmets, black and red,/With bow and spear and full quivers;/And they trumpet like elephants, and roar as the roaring ocean,/To terrify, to frighten those who oppose them,/

And they are wicked men and sinners, madmen, not sane,/ And they laid waste the cities, and they were made desolate/And they rejoiced in their hearts, hoping to inherit./

He [God] also remembered what they had done to the people of Jerusalem,/ That they had besieged them twice in two years,/ And burned the heaped corn and destroyed the places,/ And cut down the trees and trampled upon the vineyards,/And surrounded the city upon the high mountains,/And despoiled the graves and threw out the bones,/And built palaces, to protect themselves against the heat,/And erected an altar to slay upon it the abominations;/And the men and the women ride upon the walls, Crying unto the God of gods, to quiet the great anger,/ Standing the whole night, banishing sleep,/While the enemy destroy, evening and morning,/And break down the whole earth, and lay bare the ground,/ And stand on the highways, intending to slay like Cain,/ And cut off the ears, and also the nose,/And rob the garments, leaving them stand naked,/ And also roar like lions, and roar like young lions;/ They do not resemble men, they are like beasts,/ And also harlots and adulterers, and they inflame themselves with males,/ They are bad and wicked and spiteful as Sodomites./ And they impoverished the sons of nobles, and starved the delicately bred./ And all the people of the city went out and cried in the field,/ And covered their lips, silent in their pains,/ And they had no mercy on widows, and pitied not the orphans.⁶⁸

Gil concludes that as a result of the Turcoman jihad,

Palestine was drawn into a whirlpool of anarchy and insecurity, of internal wars among the Turks themselves and between them (generally in collaboration with the Arab tribes) and the Fatimids. Here and there, in one or another area, a delicate state of balance was arrived at for a few years. By and large, however, the Turcoman period, which lasted less than thirty years, was one of slaughter and vandalism, of economic hardship and the uprooting of populations. Terrible suffering, eviction and wandering, was the par­ticular lot of the Jewish population, and chiefly its leadership, the Pal­estinian yeshiva.⁶⁹

Gil offers this sobering overall assessment from his extensive, copiously documented analysis of the initial period of Muslim rule of Palestine, from 634 to 1099 C.E.:

These facts do not call for much interpretation; together they simply form a picture of almost unceasing insecurity, of endless rebellions and wars, of upheavals and instability…⁷⁰

The brutal nature of the Crusader’s conquest of Palestine, particularly of the major cities, beginning in 1098/99 C.E., has been copiously documented. ⁷¹ However, the devastation wrought by both Crusader conquest and rule (through the last decades of the 13^th century) cannot reasonably be claimed to have approached, let alone somehow “exceeded”, what transpired during the first four and one-half centuries of Muslim jihad conquests, endless internecine struggles for Muslim dominance, and imposition of dhimmitude. As Emmanuel Sivan has observed, regarding Crusader dominion,

…practical considerations appear to have outweighed religious fanaticism and, when it came to the peasantry, the ‘infidel children of the devil’ in the villages were spared. It was clear to the Crusaders that they were themselves too few to dispense with the labor of local …farmers in cultivating the soil.⁷²

Moreover, we cannot ignore the testimony of Isaac b. Samuel of Acre (1270-1350 C.E.), one of the most outstanding Kabbalists of his time. Conversant with Islamic theology and often using Arabic in his exegesis, Isaac nevertheless believed that it was preferable to live under the yoke of Christendom rather than that of Islamdom. Acre was taken from the Crusaders by the Mamelukes in 1291 in a very brutal jihad conquest described by Runciman:

Soon the Moslem soldiers penetrated right through the city, slaying everyone, old men, women and children alike. A few lucky citizens who stayed in their houses were taken alive and sold as slaves, but not many were spared. No one could tell the number of those that perished…Some prisoners were freed and returned to Europe after nine or ten years of captivity…Many women and children disappeared for ever into the harems of Mameluk emirs. Owing to the plentiful supply the price of a girl dropped to a drachma a piece in the slave market at Damascus. But the number of Christians that were slain was greater still…As soon as Acre was in his power, the Sultan (al-Ashraf Khalil) set about its systematic destruction…The houses and bazaars were pillaged, then burned; the buildings (of the Orders) and the fortified towers and castles were dismantled; the city walls were left to disintegrate. When the German pilgrim, Ludolf of Suchem passed by some forty years later, only a few peasants lived amongst the ruins of the once splendid capital…⁷³

Accordingly, despite the precept to dwell in the Holy Land, Isaac b. Samuel fled to Italy and thence to Christian Spain, where he wrote:

The word ziz in Arabic is derogatory, for when they wish to say in that tongue, ‘Strike him upon the head,’ ‘Give him a blow upon the neck,’ they say zazzhu (‘hit him’)…Indeed, on account of our sins they strike upon the head the children of Israel who dwell in their lands and they thus extort money from them by force. For they say in their tongue, mal al-yahudi mubah, ‘it is lawful to take money of the Jews.’ For, in the eyes of the Muslims, the children of Israel are as open to abuse as an unprotected field. Even in their law and statutes they rule that the testimony of a Muslim is always to be believed against that of a Jew. For this reason our rabbis of blessed memory have said, ‘Rather beneath the yoke of Edom [Christendom] than that of Ishmael.’ They plead for mercy before the Holy One, Blessed be He, saying, ‘Master of the World, either let us live beneath Thy shadow or else beneath that of the children of Edom’ (a Talmudic verse) ⁷⁴

Following the interlude of Crusader dominion over Palestine (1099 to 1291 C.E.), Muslim rule was restored under the Mamluks. Professor C. E. Bosworth characterizes the repercussions for the dhimmi Christian and Jewish communities in Egypt and Syro-Palestine due to efforts by the Mamluk Sultans [1250-1516, C.E.] “…to keep alight the spirit of jihad and the feelings of Muslim xenophobia.”, as follows:

All through the Mamluk period, Muslim feeling was whipped up by popular preachers, by fatwas against the lawfulness of employing dhimmis in public offices, and by books and tracts from scholars of such eminence as Ibn Taymiyya. Persecutions and massacres mounted, with peaks of violence in such years as 700/1301, 721/1321 and 755/1354; discriminatory laws against dhimmis were revived; efforts were made to reduce the …proportion of Copts in official positions; and churches and monasteries were closed or destroyed. It was often only necessary for the state to give a lead and then let popular feeling do the rest. One might in this connection cite the destruction of the Zuhri church in old Cairo in 721/1321, which an-Nasir Nasir ad-Din Muhammad b. Qala’un did not pull down outright, but left high and dry by excavating around it, until a fanatical mob finished off the job by deliberately destroying the church. The tribunals of qadis, whose primary concern was with Muslim heterodoxy, not infrequently dealt in a draconian manner with the back-sliding Christian renegades and some Christians and Jews. From the later Sultanat of Muhammad b. Qala’un (709-41/1309-40, his third and longest reign), [H. Laoust] dates the real ruin of Coptic Christianity as a force in the mainstream of Egyptian life. Conversions to Islam, always a steady trickle, now became a flood, and even in regions like Upper Egypt, which adjoined the Christian region of Nubia and had long been a Coptic stronghold, became majority Muslim. The Jews were less obvious targets for Muslim wrath, being numerically weaker and unsupported by powerful external nations of the same faith; nevertheless, Muslim historical sources and the Geniza documents…have amply shown that the lot of the Jews of Egypt at this time was hard indeed.⁷⁵

Although episodes of violent anarchy diminished during the period of Ottoman suzerainty (beginning in 1516-1517 C.E. ), the degrading conditions of the indigenous Jews and Christians living under the shari’a’s jurisdiction remained unchanged for centuries. For example, Samuel b. Ishaq Uceda, a major Kab­balist from Safed at the end of the 16^th century, refers in his commentary on The Lamentations of Jeremiah, to the situation of the Jews in the Land of Israel (Palestine):

‘The princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!’ …Perhaps this is an allusion to the situation that prevails in our times, for there is no town in the [Ottoman] empire in which the Jews are subjected to such heavy taxes and dues as in the Land of Israel, and particularly in Jerusalem. Were it not for the funds sent by the com­munities in Exile, no Jew could survive here on account of the numer­ous taxes, as the prophet said in connection with the ‘princess of the provinces’: ‘They hunt our steps, that we cannot go into our own streets’…The nations humiliate us to such an extent that we are not allowed to walk in the streets. The Jew is obliged to step aside in order to let the Gentile [Muslim] pass first. And if the Jew does not turn aside of his own will, he is forced to do so. This law is particularly enforced in Jerusalem, more so than in other localities. For this reason the text specifies ‘…in our own streets,’ that is, those of Jerusalem.⁷⁶

A century later Canon Antoine Morison ⁷⁷, from Bar-le-Duc in France, while traveling in the Levant in 1698, observed that the Jews in Jerusalem are “there in misery and under the most cruel and shameful slavery”, and although a large community, they were subjected to extortion. Similar contemporary observations regarding the plight of both Palestinian Jews and Christians were made by the Polish Jew, Gedaliah of Siemiatyce (d. 1716), who, braving numerous perils, came to Jerusalem in 1700. These appalling conditions, recorded in his book, Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, forced him to return to Europe in order to raise funds for the Jews of Jerusalem:

We [Jews] were obliged to give a large sum of money to the Muslim authorities in Jerusalem in order to be allowed to build a new syna­gogue. Although the old synagogue was small and we only wanted to enlarge it very slightly, it was forbidden under Islamic law to modify the least part…. In addition to the expenses in bribes destined to win the favor of the Muslims, each male was obliged to pay an annual poll tax of two pieces of gold to the sultan. The rich man was not obliged to give more, but the poor man could not give less. Every year, gener­ally during the festival of the Passover, an official from Constantino­ple would arrive in Jerusalem. He who did not have the means to pay the tax was thrown into prison and the Jewish community was obliged to redeem him. The official remained in Jerusalem for about two months and consequently, during that period, the poor people would hide wherever they could, but if ever they were caught, they would be redeemed by community funds. The official sent his soldiers throughout the streets to control the papers of the passers-by, for a certificate was provided to those who had already paid the tax. If anyone was found without his certificate, he had to present himself before the official with the required sum, otherwise he was impris­oned until such time as he could be redeemed.

The Christians are also obliged to pay the poll-tax…during the week, the paupers dared not show themselves outside…in their wickedness, the [Muslim]soldiers would go to the synagogues, waiting by the doors, requesting the certificate of payment from the congregants who emerged…

No Jew or Christian is allowed to ride a horse, but a donkey is permitted, for [in the eyes of Muslims] Christians and Jews are in­ferior beings…The Muslims do not allow any member of another faith-unless he converts to their religion-entry to the Temple [Mount] area, for they claim that no other religion is sufficiently pure to enter this holy spot. They never weary of claiming that, although God had originally chosen the people of Israel, He had since abandoned them on account of their iniquity in order to choose the Muslims…

In the Land of Israel, no member of any other religion besides Islam may wear the color green, even if it is a thread [of cotton] like that with which we decorate our prayer shawls. If a Muslim perceives it, that could bring trouble. Similarly, it is not permitted to wear a green or white turban. On the Sabbath, however, we wear white tur­bans, on the crown of which we place a piece of cloth of another color as a distinguishing mark. The Christians are not allowed to wear a turban, but they wear a hat instead, as is customary in Poland. Moreover, the Muslim law requires that each religious denomination wear its specific garment so that each people may be distinguished from another. This distinction also applies to footwear. Indeed, the Jews wear shoes of a dark blue color, whereas Christians wear red shoes. No one can use green, for this color is worn solely by Muslims. The latter are very hostile toward Jews and inflict upon them vexations in the streets of the city…the common folk perse­cute the Jews, for we are forbidden to defend ourselves against the Turks or the Arabs. If an Arab strikes a Jew, he [the Jew] must ap­pease him but dare not rebuke him, for fear that he may be struck even harder, which they [the Arabs] do without the slightest scruple. This is the way the Oriental Jews react, for they are accustomed to this treatment, whereas the European Jews, who are not yet accustomed to suffer being assaulted by the Arabs, insult them in return.

Even the Christians are subjected to these vexations. If a Jew offends a Muslim, the latter strikes him a brutal blow with his shoe in order to demean him, without anyone’s being able to prevent him from doing it. The Christians fall victim to the same treatment and they suffer as much as the Jews, except that the former are very rich by reason of the subsidies that they receive from abroad, and they use this money to bribe the Arabs. As for the Jews, they do not possess much money with which to oil the palms of the Muslims, and conse­quently they are subject to much greater suffering. ⁷⁸

Professor Moshe Maoz has summarized the conditions of those Jews and Christians living under Ottoman rule within their indigenous homeland of (Syro-) Palestine, as follows:

…the position of the Jews was in many ways precarious. Like their Christian fellow subjects, the Jews were inferior citizens in the Muslim-Ottoman state which was based on the principle of Muslim superiority. They were regarded as state protégés (dhimmis) and had to pay a special poll tax (jizya) for that protection and as a sign of their inferior status. Their testimony was not accepted in the courts of justice, and in cases of the murder of a Jew or Christian by a Muslim, the latter was usually not condemned to death. In addition, Jews as well as Christians were normally not acceptable for appointments to the highest administrative posts; they were forbidden to carry arms (thus, to serve in the army), to ride horses in towns or to wear Muslim dress. They were also not usually allowed to build or repair places of worship and were often subjected to oppression, extortion and violence by both the local authorities and the Muslim population. The Jews in Ottoman Palestine and Syria lived under such ambivalent and precarious conditions for a number of centuries… ⁷⁹

And these prevailing conditions for Jews did not improve in a consistent or substantive manner even after the mid 19^th century treaties imposed by the European powers on the weakened Ottoman Empire included provisions for the Tanzimat reforms. These reforms were designed to end the discriminatory laws of dhimmitude for both Jews and Christians, living under the Ottoman Shari’a. European consuls endeavored to maintain compliance with at least two cardinal principles central to any meaningful implementation of these reforms: respect for the life and property of non-Muslims; and the right for Christians and Jews to provide evidence in Islamic courts when a Muslim was a party. Unfortunately, these efforts to replace the concept of Muslim superiority over “infidels”, with the principle of equal rights, failed. For example, the Scottish clerics A. A. Bonar and R. M. McCheyne, who visited Palestine in 1839 to inquire into the condition of the Jews there, published these observations in their A Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839 (Edinburgh, 1842):

There is none of the sacred places over which the Moslem’s keep so jealous a watch as the tomb of Abraham…travellers in general being forbidden to approach even the door of the Mosque [built by the conquering Muslims over the tomb of Abraham]…The Jews at present are permitted only to look through a hole near the entrance, and to pray with their face toward the grave of Abraham…the synagogues of Jerusalem…are six in number, all of them small and poorly furnished, and four of them under one roof…The reading desk is little else than an elevated part of the floor, enclosed with a wooden railing…We were much impressed with the melancholy aspect of the Jews in Jerusalem. The meanness of their dress, their pale faces, and timid expression, all seem to betoken great wretchedness…We found all the Jews here [in Safed] living in a state of great alarm…the Bedouins were every day threatening an attack to plunder the town…We observed how poorly clad most of the Jews seemed to be, and were told that they had buried under ground all their valuable clothes, their money, and other precious things. It was easy to read their deep anxiety in the very expression of their countenances…And all this in their own land!⁸⁰

Almost two decades later, British Jerusalem Consul James Finn, reported (November 8, 1858) that the treacherous conditions for non-Muslims in Palestine had not improved, despite a second iteration of Ottoman “reforms” in 1856:

In continuing to report concerning the apprehensions of Christians from revival of fanaticism on the part of the Mahometans, I have…to state that daily accounts are given to me of insults in the streets offered to Christians and Jews, accompanied by acts of violence…the sufferers are afraid, if natives, to report them to Turkish authorities, inasmuch as notwithstanding the hatti-humayoon [i.e., the Tanzimat Reforms imposed on Turkey by the European Powers to abrogate basic Shari’a-prescribed discrimination against non-Muslims] as far as I have learned, there is no clear case yet known of a Christian’s evidence being accepted in a court of justice, or in a civil tribunal (Medjlis) against a Moslem…even in matters of important personages the same evils occur…Only a few days ago his Beatitude the Greek Patriarch was returning through the streets from the Cadi’s Court of Judgment (having perhaps paid a visit to the new cadi), preceded by his cavasses and dragoman, but had to pass through a gauntlet of curses hurled at his religion, his prayers, his fathers, etc…This in Jerusalem, where Christian Consuls have flags flying, including the Russians…The occurrence is rather one indicating the tone of public mind, than one to deal with by punishment of offenders, which could scarcely be done…⁸¹

*

In his comprehensive study of the Jews of Palestine during the 19^th century, Professor Tudor Parfitt made these summary observations:

Inside the towns, Jews and other dhimmis were frequently attacked, wounded, and even killed by local Muslims and Turkish soldiers. Such attacks were frequently for trivial reasons: Wilson [in British Foreign Office correspondence] recalled having met a Jew who had been badly wounded by a Turkish soldier for not having instantly dismounted when ordered to give up his donkey to a soldier of the Sultan. Many Jews were killed for less. On occasion the authorities attempted to get some form of redress but this was by no means always the case: the Turkish authorities themselves were sometimes responsible for beating Jews to death for some unproven charge. After one such occasion [British Consul] Young remarked: ‘I must say I am sorry and surprised that the Governor could have acted so savage a part- for certainly what I have seen of him I should have thought him superior to such wanton inhumanity- but it was a Jew- without friends or protection- it serves to show well that it is not without reason that the poor Jew, even in the nineteenth century, lives from day to day in terror of his life’. ⁸²

…In fact, it took some time [i.e., at least a decade after the 1839 reforms] before these courts did accept dhimmi testimony in Palestine. The fact that Jews were represented on the meclis [provincial legal council] did not contribute a great deal to the amelioration of the legal position of the Jews: the Jewish representatives were tolerated grudgingly and were humiliated and intimidated to the point that they were afraid to offer any opposition to the Muslim representatives. In addition the constitution of the meclis was in no sense fairly representative of the population. In Jerusalem in the 1870s the meclis consisted of four Muslims, three Christians and only one Jew- at a time when Jews constituted over half the population of the city…Some years after the promulgation of the hatt-i-serif [Tanzimat reform edicts] Binyamin [note: from “Eight Years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855”, p.44] was still able to write of the Jews- ‘they are entirely destitute of every legal protection’…Perhaps even more to the point, the courts were biased against the Jews and even when a case was heard in a properly assembled court where dhimmi testimony was admissible the court would still almost invariably rule against the Jews. It should be noted that a non-dhimmi [eg., foreign] Jew was still not permitted to appear and witness in either the mahkama [specific Muslim council] or the meclis. ⁸³

During World War I in Palestine, the embattled Young Turk government actually began deporting the Jews of Tel Aviv in the spring of 1917 – an ominous parallel to the genocidal deportations of the Armenian dhimmi communities throughout Anatolia. Indeed, as related by Yair Auron,

“…Fear of the Turkish actions was bound up with alarm that the Turks might do to the Jewish community in Palestine, or at least to the Zionist elements within it, what they had done to the Armenians. This concern was expressed in additional evidence from the early days of the war, from which we can conclude that the Armenian tragedy was known in the Yishuv [Jewish community in Palestine].” ⁸⁴

Auron cites a Reuters press release regarding the deportation which states that,

“ on April 1 [1917] an order was given to deport all the Jews from Tel Aviv, including citizens of the Central Powers, within forty-eight hours. A week before, three hundred Jews were expelled from Jerusalem: Jamal Pasha [one of the triumvirate of Young Turk supreme leaders, Minister of the Navy, and commander of the Fourth Army in the Levant] declared that their fate would be that of the Armenians; eight thousand deportees from Tel Aviv were not allowed to take any provisions with them, and after the expulsion their houses were looted by Bedouin mobs; two Yemenite Jews who tried to oppose the looting were hung at the entrance to Tel Aviv so that all might see, and other Jews were found dead in the Dunes around Tel Aviv.” ⁸⁵

Although Auron remains neutral as to why the looming slaughter of the Jews of Palestine did not occur, he cites a very tenable hypothesis put forth at that time in a journal of the British Zionist movement suggested that the advance of the British army (from immediately adjacent Egypt) and its potential willingness

..to hold the military and Turkish authorities directly responsible for a policy of slaughter and destruction of the Jews” may have averted this disaster. ⁸⁶

Ultimately, enforced abrogation of the laws and social practices of dhimmitude required the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, which only occurred during the European Mandate period following World War I. Remarkably soon afterwards, however,( i.e., within two years of the abrogation of the Shari’a!) by 1920, Musa Kazem el-Husseini, former governor of Jaffa during the final years of the Ottoman rule, and president of the Arab (primarily Muslim) Palestinian Congress, demanded restoration of the Shari’a in a letter to the British High Commissioner, Herbert Samuels:

No individual or Government has any right to represent the country in legislating laws because the country is better acquainted with its own needs and because laws, as Jurists state, are the reflection of the people’s spirit and because [Ottoman] Turkey has drafted such laws as suit our customs. This was done relying upon the Shari’a (Religious Law), in force in Arabic territories, that is engraved in the very hearts of the Arabs and has been assimilated in their customs and that has been applied …in the modern [Arab] states…We therefore ask the British government…that it should respect these laws [i.e., the Shari’a]…that were in force under the Turkish regime…⁸⁷

Subsequently, a strong Arab Muslim irredentist current promulgated the forcible restoration of dhimmitude via jihad. Shai Lachman outlines the two parallel processes which accompanied this transition, and culminated in the widespread violence of 1936-39:

The Muslim-Christian Associations gradually declined and disappeared in the course of the (nineteen) thirties, giving way to new communal formations focusing on the idea of defending Muslim holy places in Palestine and on mobilizing the Arab people for the coming struggle by means of Islamic symbols. Such were the Young Men’s Muslim Associations (Jam’iyyat al-shubban al-muslimin), which, towards the end of the twenties began forming on a strictly communal basis and which included in their program pronounced anti-Jewish propaganda. ⁸⁸

Two prominent Muslim personalities Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam, and Hajj Amin el-Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, embodied this trend. And both these leaders relied upon the ideology of jihad, with its virulent anti-infidel (i.e., anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, and anti-Western) incitement, to garner popular support.

(Sheikh) Izz al-Din al-Qassam (1871 or 1882-1935) was an Al-Azhar-trained cleric who studied under Muhammad Abdu, a well-known Muslim thinker. Al-Qassam was reportedly a participant in anti-British activities during his sojourn in Cairo. Assisted by Ottoman authorities, he later organized an anti-Italian campaign from Syria, i.e., “He called the people to jihad”, when Italy invaded Libya in 1912. By early 1921, al-Qassam moved to Palestine, settling in Haifa, where he was shortly afterward appointed imam of the al-Istiqlal mosque (January 1922). A persuasive orator and preacher, al-Qassam soon gathered around him a coterie of dedicated followers. Just prior to the 1929 riots and anti-Jewish pogroms, al-Qassam had secured three critically influential positions which allowed him to disseminate his militant ideology- imam, Shari’a Register of the northern (Palestinian) area, and prominent Young Men’s Muslim Association member. ⁸⁹

Lachman has summarized the main motifs and consequences of al-Qassam’s doctrine:

Al-Qassam’s Weltanschauung was wholly rooted in Islam, which constituted the nexus of all his ideas and deeds. Al-Qassam was an orthodox Muslim, whose supreme ideal was to fulfill the precepts of his faith and do the Creator’s will, and whose conviction it was that Islam must be defended and its orthodox form preserved. This was to be accomplished by defending Islam internally against infidelity and heresy; and politically against external enemies, namely the West- with which Islam was in political and ideological conflict- and the Zionist enterprise…In his sermons [following his mentor, Muhammad Abdu], he preached for…a return to the principles and values of the original…faith…in the spirit of the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence…manifested, inter alia, in a pronounced xenophobic and anti-Jewish militant stance. He preached the preservation of the country’s Muslim-Arab character and urged an uncompromising and intensified struggle against the British Mandate and the Jewish National Home in Palestine. Palestine could be freed from the danger of Jewish domination, he believed, not by sporadic protests, demonstrations, or riots which were soon forgotten, but by an organized and methodical armed struggle. In his sermons he often quoted verses from the Qur’an referring to jihad, linking them with topical matters and his own political ideas. ⁹⁰

Al-Qassam actually put his preaching into practice…After the 1929 riots, al-Qassam intensified his anti-Jewish agitation. He justified on religious grounds the excesses committed during the riots, and in 1930, even managed to obtain a fatwa from the Mufti of Damascus, Sheikh Badr al-Din al-Taji al-Hasani, authorizing the use of violence against the British and the Jews. He made a practice of reading this fatwa in mosques and in secret meetings with his disciples and followers…in the early 1930s [al-Qassam] proceeded to establish a secret association, called ‘The Black Hand’ (al-kaff al-aswad), whose aim was to kill Jews and generally to terrorize the Jewish population in the North. ⁹¹

This description of the clandestine organization al-Qassam formed sounds distressingly similar to contemporary Muslim terrorist groups operating in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza:

…in some ways [it] resembled a dervish order; its members grew their beards wild, called themselves ‘sheikhs’, and upon initiation to the secret society, took a stringent religious oath before al-Qassam to guard closely its secrets and to devote their lives to the war against the Jews. At meetings held in mosques and secret places around Haifa, al-Qassam would preach to the society’s members to prepare themselves for the eventual jihad and self-sacrifice. They were also trained in the use of arms. As one of the Qassamite leaders recalls: ‘…The meetings would commence with religious instruction by the Sheikh, who would then turn to preaching for the jihad. Finally, the [rifle instructor] would take each member of the audience in turn and teach him the handling of the rifle.’…in the Jenin mountains…at nightfall they would go into villages, or would build fires and continue prayer by their light. They imagined themselves as the mujahidun of Muhammad’s days and later periods, who consecrated themselves to the Holy War. ⁹²

Between 1921 and al-Qassam’s death in 1935, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el-Husseini, and the Sheikh appear to have cooperated, overall, due to their shared goals. Describing their relationship as “…quite complex and uneven…”, Lachman, for example, concludes:

During the (nineteen) twenties, both were on good terms, their understanding probably based on identity of views and mutual esteem. It was then that al-Qassam was appointed imam of the al-Istiqlal mosque and sharia register- appointments which required the Mufti’s prior consent and approval and were financed by the awqaf administration. The cooperation may well have increased as a result of the 1929 riots. One source claims that al-Qassam’s men took an active part in the bloody riots…Later towards the mid-1930s, there was a falling out between the two men. The reason for this is unknown, but it seems to have been closely related to al-Qassam’s independent activity…As long as the terrorist activity was directed only at Jewish targets, the Mufti saw nothing wrong with this. On the contrary, it fell in line with his won anti-Jewish policy; he secretly encouraged it and apparently extended financial aid to al-Qassam and his organization.⁹³

Al-Qassam and his devoted followers committed various acts of jihad terror targeting Jewish civilians in northern Palestine from 1931 through 1935. On November 20, 1935, al-Qassam was surrounded by British police in a cave near Jenin, and killed along with three of his henchmen. Concealed within the folds of al-Qassam’s turban, a talisman was discovered containing the following verses:

O God save me from the terrible armory of the infidel

O God let your religion win and go victorious

O God protect me in my coming adventure ⁹⁴

The slain Sheikh and his comrades were lauded as holy warriors for the fatherland, and his funeral procession departing from Haifa for the Muslim cemetery at Balad al-Shaykh,

…became an impressive national demonstration. Shops and schools closed and thousands of persons walked behind the biers, which were draped with flags and national emblems. Sheikh Yunis al-Khatib said: ‘Dear and sainted friend, I heard you preaching from this lectern, leaning on your sword; now that you have left us you have become, by God, a greater preacher than you ever were in your lifetime.’ Several policemen were wounded when the mob began stoning the police during the burial ceremony.⁹⁵

In the immediate aftermath of his death,

Virtually overnight, Izz al-Din al-Qassam became the object of a full-fledged cult. The bearded Sheikh’s picture appeared in all the Arabic-language papers, accompanied by banner headlines and inflammatory articles; memorial prayers were held in mosques throughout the country. He was proclaimed a martyr who had sacrificed himself for the fatherland, his grave at Balad al-Shaykh became a place of pilgrimage, and his deeds were extolled as an illustrious example to be followed by all. In addition, a countrywide fund-raising campaign was launched in aid of families of the fallen, and leading Arab lawyers volunteered to defend the members of the [surviving] band who were put on trial.⁹⁶

Al-Qassam’s followers were at the vanguard of the 1936-39 Arab revolt, engaging in multiple acts of murderous jihad terror against Palestinian Jews, the British, and Christian Arabs.⁹⁷ Anti-Christian leaflets were apparently distributed in Haifa by Qassamite operatives accusing the Christians of secession and treason. Qassamites also murdered Michel Mitri, the Christian President of the Jaffa Arab Worker;’s Association. ⁹⁸ Ultimately, the Qassamite movement devolved into an organ of nihilistic violence:

As their strength grew…they gradually threw off all sense of responsibility. Qassamite terror was particularly bloodthirsty. From an organization committed to fight the Jews and the British, the Qassamites became one of the most anarchical and destructive forces ever to arise in the Palestinian Arab community. Their campaign of terror and the indiscriminate murders they committed contributed heavily to the rebellion’s disintegration from within, and caused the accumulation of a terrible blood debt in the Arab community…⁹⁹

Lachman described the living legacy of al-Qassam and the Qassamites in 1982, his observations being perhaps even more valid at present, given the unfettered jihadism so prevalent among the Palestinian Arab masses, and the ascendancy of contemporary terrorist organizations such as Hamas (with its al-Qassam “brigades” and rockets), and Islamic Jihad:

…the Qassamite myth has not died, and continues to be revered to this very day. Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam’s deeds and personality are highly extolled by the Palestinian fedayeen organizations, including the most radical leftist and secular ones such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (Habash)…Publications of the Palestinian organizations describe him as the pioneer of the Palestinian armed struggle (al-Fatah dubs him ‘the first commander of the Palestinian Revolution’), as a model of personal sacrifice and endeavor…and as one who, by his very deeds ignited the torch of the ‘heroic revolt of 1936-1939’…Up to this day, military units named after Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam may be found in almost all Palestinian organizations. Al-Qassam’s major contribution to the Palestinian armed struggle was clearly defined by Leila Khaled. ‘The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’, she wrote, ‘begins where Qassam left off: his generation started the revolution; my generation intends to finish it’¹⁰⁰

Hajj Amin el-Husseini was appointed Mufti of Jerusalem by the British High Commissioner, in May 1921, a title he retained, following the Ottoman practice, for the remainder of his life. ¹⁰¹ Throughout his public career, the Mufti relied upon traditional Qur’anic anti-Jewish motifs to arouse the Arab street. For example, during the incitement which led to the 1929 Arab revolt in Palestine, he called for combating and slaughtering “the Jews”, not merely Zionists. In fact, most of the Jewish victims of the 1929 Arab revolt were Jews from the centuries old dhimmi communities (for eg., in Hebron), as opposed to recent settlers identified with the Zionist movement. ¹⁰² With the ascent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, the Mufti and his coterie intensified their anti-Semitic activities to secure support from Hitler’s Germany (and later Bosnian Muslims, as well as the overall Arab Muslim world), for a jihad to annihilate the Jews of Palestine. Following his expulsion from Palestine by the British, the Mufti fomented a brutal anti-Jewish pogrom in Baghdad (1941), concurrent with his failed effort to install a pro-Nazi Iraqi government.¹⁰³ Escaping to Europe after this unsuccessful coup attempt, the Mufti spent the remainder of World War II in Germany and Italy. From this sanctuary, he provided active support for the Germans by recruiting Bosnian Muslims, in addition to Muslim minorities from the Caucasus, for dedicated Nazi SS units. ¹⁰⁴ The Mufti’s objectives for these recruits, and Muslims in general, were made explicit during his multiple wartime radio broadcasts from Berlin, heard throughout the Arab world: an international campaign of genocide against the Jews. For example, during his March 1, 1944 broadcast he stated: “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion.” ¹⁰⁵

Hajj Amin made an especially important contribution to the German war effort in Yugoslovia where the Bosnian Muslim SS units he recruited (in particular the Handzar Division) brutally suppressed local Nazi resistance movements. The Mufti’s pamphlet entitled, “Islam and the Jews”, was published by the Nazis in Croatian and German for distribution during the war to these Bosnian Muslim SS units. ¹⁰⁶ This hateful propaganda served to incite the slaughter of Jews, and (Serb) Christians as well. Indeed, the Bosnian Muslim Handzar SS Division was responsible for the destruction of whole Bosnian Jewish and Serbian communities, including the massacre of Jews and Serbs, and the deportation of survivors to Auschwitz for extermination. However, these heinous crimes, for which the Mufti bears direct responsibility, had only a limited impact on the overall destruction of European Jewry when compared with his nefarious wartime campaign to prevent Jewish emigration from Europe to Palestine. Jan Wanner, in his 1986 analysis of the Mufti’s collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II, concluded,

…the darkest aspect of the Mufti’s activities in the final stage of the war was undoubtedly his personal share in the extermination of Europe’s Jewish population. On May 17, 1943, he wrote a personal letter to Ribbentrop, asking him to prevent the transfer of 4500 Bulgarian Jews, 4000 of them children, to Palestine. In May and June of the same year, he sent a number of letters to the governments of Bulgaria, Italy, Rumania, and Hungary, with the request not to permit even individual Jewish emigration and to allow the transfer of Jews to Poland where, he claimed they would be ‘under active supervision’. The trials of Eichmann’s henchmen, including Dieter Wislicency who was executed in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, confirmed that this was not an isolated act by the Mufti. ¹⁰⁷

Invoking the personal support of such prominent Nazis as Himmler and Eichmann¹⁰⁸, the Mufti’s relentless hectoring of German, Rumanian, and Hungarian government officials caused the cancellation of an estimated 480,000 exit visas which had been granted to Jews (80,000 from Rumania, and 400,000 from Hungary). As a result, these hapless individuals were deported to Polish concentration camps. A United Nations Assembly document presented in 1947 which contained the Mufti’s June 28, 1943 letter to the Hungarian Foreign Minister requesting the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Poland, includes this stark, telling annotation: “As a Sequel to This Request 400,000 Jews Were Subsequently Killed”. The Mufti escaped to the Middle East after the war to avoid capture and possible prosecution for war crimes.

The Mufti was unrelenting in his espousal of a virulent Judeophobic hatred as the focal tenet of his ideology in the aftermath of World War II, and the creation of the State of Israel. The esteemed journalist and writer David Pryce-Jones elucidated the pre-eminent status of anti-Semitism in the Mufti’s bitter legacy:

These, then, were the images and preconceptions to which Hajj Amin could appeal once he became the leading Palestinian power holder. In memoirs written at the end of his life, when the bankruptcy of these images and preconceptions was starkly visible, he was still speaking of the Jews as ‘..notorious for perfidy and falsification and distortion and cruelty of which the noble Koran provides the strongest testimony against them..’. His hatred for Jews was instinctive, tribal; he wished to cut them down, declaring to their face, ‘..Nothing but the sword will decide the future of this country..’. That this came true amid calamity and ruin was Hajj Amin’s memorial to posterity.¹⁰⁹

Pryce-Jones insights underscore the profound impact of the Mufti’s personal convictions and hateful messages on the development of Arab and Palestinian political culture in the latter half of the 20^th century, to the present. It is undeniable that the Mufti’s virulent anti-Semitism continues to influence Arab policy toward Israel. Not surprisingly, Yasser Arafat, beginning at the age of 16, worked for the Mufti performing terrorist operations. Arafat always characterized the Mufti as his primary spiritual and political mentor.

Yasser Arafat orchestrated a relentless campaign of four decades of brutal jihad terrorism against the Jewish State, beginning in the early 1960s ¹¹⁰, until his recent death, interspersed with a bloody jihad (during the mid 1970s and early 1980s) against the Christians of Lebanon. ¹¹¹ Chameleon-like, Arafat adopted a thin veneer of so-called “secular radicalism”, particularly during the late 1960s and 1970s. Sober analysis reveals, however, that shorn of these superficial secular trappings, Arafat’s core ideology remained quintessentially Islamic, i.e., rooted in jihad, throughout his career as a terrorist leader. This argument is supported by voluminous evidence. Arafat’s initial organized acts of jihad terrorism, border raids ¹¹², mimicked the celebrated ghazi forays of Islam’s early jihadists. Historian Charles Emmanuel Dufourcq described this phenomenon as it pertained to Muslim penetration into medieval North Africa, and Europe:

It is not difficult to understand that such expeditions sowed terror. The historian al-Maqqari, who wrote in seventeenth-century Tlemcen in Algeria, explains that the panic created by the Arab horsemen and sailors, at the time of the Muslim expansion in the zones that saw those raids and landings, facilitated the later conquest, if that was decided on: ‘Allah,’ he says, ‘thus instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not dare to go and fight the conquerors; they only approached them as suppliants, to beg for peace.’¹¹³

Upon Khomeini’s ascension to power in Iran, Arafat immediately cabled the Ayatollah relaying these shared jihadist sentiments (February 13, 1979):

I pray Allah to guide your step along the path of faith and Holy War (Jihad) in Iran, continuing the combat until we arrive at the walls of Jerusalem, where we shall raise the flags of our two revolutions. ¹¹⁴

And even after the Oslo accords, literally within a week of signing the specific Gaza-Jericho agreements, Arafat issued a brazen pronouncement (at a meeting of South African Muslim leaders) reflecting his unchanged jihadist views:

The jihad will continue and Jerusalem is not for the Palestinian people alone…It is for the entire Muslim umma. You are responsible for Palestine and Jerusalem before me…No, it is not their capital, it is our capital. ¹¹⁵

During the final decade of his life Arafat reiterated these sentiments on numerous occasions, and acted upon them, orchestrating an escalating campaign of jihad terrorism which culminated in the perverse orgy of Islamikaze ¹¹⁶ violence that lead to Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield military operations in the West Bank two days after the Netanya Passover massacre on March 27, 2002. ¹¹⁷

Moreover, throughout Arafat’s tenure as the major Palestinian Arab leader, his efforts to destroy Israel and replace it with an Arab Muslim sharia-based entity were integrated into the larger Islamic umma’s jihad against the Jewish State, as declared repeatedly in official conference pronouncements from various clerical or political organizations of the Muslim (both Arab and non-Arab) nations. The excerpts below are prominent examples of these formal statements, issued unabashedly at various Arab Muslim or Islamic fora, between 1968 and 2003, by prominent Muslim religious leaders and politicians:

From Cairo, 1968, The Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research:¹¹⁸

Jihad is legislated in order to be one of the means of propagating Islam. Consequently Non-Muslims ought to embrace Islam either willingly or through wisdom and good advice or unwillingly through fight and Jihad…It is unlawful to give up Jihad and adopt peace and weakness instead of it, unless the purpose of giving up Jihad is for preparation, whenever there is something weak among Muslims, and their opponents are, on the other hand, strong…War is the basis of the relationship between Muslims and their opponents unless there are justifiable reason for peace, such as adopting Islam or making an agreement with them to keep peaceful. [Shaikh Abdullah Ghoshah, Chief Judge of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan]

Your honorable conference has been an Arab, Islamic and patriotic necessity in view of the present circumstances in which the Arabs and Muslims face the most serious difficulties. All Muslims expect you to expound Allah’s decree concerning the Palestine cause, to proclaim that decree, in all clarity, throughout the Arab and Muslim world. We do not think this decree absolves any Muslim or Arab from Jihad (Holy War) which has now become a duty incumbent upon the Arabs and Muslims to liberate the land, preserve honor, retaliate for [lost] dignity, restore the Aqsa Mosque, the church of Resurrection, and to purge the birthplace of prophecy, the seat of revelation, the meeting-place of Prophets, the starting-point of Isra, and the scenes of the holy spirit, from the hands of Zionism – the enemy of man, of truth, of justice, and the enemy of Allah…The well-balanced judgement frankly expressed with firm conviction is the first stop on the road of victory. The hoped-for judgment is that of Muslim Scholars who draw their conclusions from the Book of Allah, and the Summa of His prophet. May Allah guard your meeting, and guide your steps! May your decisive word rise to the occasion and enlighten the Arab and Muslim world, so that it may be a battle-cry, urging millions of Muslims and Arabs on to the field of Jihad, which will lead us to the place that once was ours…Muslims who are distant from the battle-field of Palestine, such as the Algerians, the Moroccans, all the Africans, Saudi Arabia people, Yemeni people, the Indians, Iraqi people, the Russians, and the Europeans are indeed sinful if they do not hasten to offer all possible means to achieve success and gain victory in the Islamic battle against their enemies and the enemies of their religion. Particularly, this battle is not a mete combat between two parties but it is a battle between two religions (namely, it is a religious battle). Zionism in fact represents a very perilous cancer, aiming at domineering the Arab countries and the whole Islamic world. [Sheikh Hassan Khalid, Mufti of the Republic of Lebanon]

Throughout the long ages of Muslim history, the Jews had been quite powerless under the rule of Islam. But in Modern times the Colonialist Powers could put into effect their designs. Once Muslim Jurisprudence had been discarded as a rule of life, the Jews could establish a State of their own in the heart of the Muslim World, to defy Muslims, and to gain victory over the Arabs in three consecutive battles…Hence present-day Muslims should never treat with them for peace, since it has been proved beyond doubt that they [the Jews] are a mere gang of robbers and criminals, to whom trust, faith and conscience mean nothing…Our return to (the true teachings of) Islam would restore to the Muslin Community its vital principles, the force of which would realized endurance and steadfastness, confidence, and will, courage and faith. Thus could be established the equitable power that would be a factor in promoting peace and prosperity for the world at large…There would be built up inside the World of Islam armament plants, so that Muslims might be in no need of importing them from enemy countries, which would certainly make a band on such exports for fear of their possible use against them. [Sheikh Abdu-Hamid Attiyah Al-Dibani, Rector of the Islamic University of Libya].

From the Fez Islamic Conference, 1980:¹¹⁹

His Majesty King Hassan II of Morocco, in his address said the significance of Jihad, in Islam, did not lie in religious wars or crusades. Rather it was strategic political and military action, and psychological warfare, which, if employed by the Islamic Umma, would ensure victory over the enemy. He said that Islam was subject only to God Almighty, and to reason, and that the recent Zionist decision had greatly affected the Islamic world; for Islam, and the noble ethics of the Prophet, had taught us to curb our wrath unless Allah’s sanctities were desecrated, and was there a greater desecration than that against Al Quds Al Sharif the First Qibla and Third Haram.

His Majesty, in the name of the Islamic Group, emphasized to the Palestinian brethren that they alone were not the only ones to suffer the loss of Al Quds: the whole Islamic world has suffered the loss also, and will restore the Holy City with them; for Al Quds was not a trust to the Palestinians along, but a trust to every single Muslim, man or woman.

H.E. Habib Chatti, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference

He said this Extraordinary Session must define the areas of mobilizing all the potentials of the Islamic Umma so that Jihad would enter its practical phase in a manner much more effective than at present, and the will of the people will bear fruit, especially that we had won over to our side world public opinion through the serous positions we adopted and our determination to pursue our confrontation with Israel, the expansionist entity that has usurped the rights if the Islamic Umma.

[Resolution] 23. TO DECLARE the commitment of the Islamic states to holy “Jihad,” with its wide-ranging humanitarian dimensions, as it constitutes steadfastness in the face of Zionist enemy on all military, political, economic, information and cultural fronts.

From the Mecca Islamic Summit Conference, 1981: ¹²⁰

The undertaking by all Islamic countries of psychological mobilization through their various official, semi-official, and popular mass media, of their people for Jihad to liberate Al-Quds…Ensuring military coordination among the front-line states and the Palestine Liberation Organization, on the one hand, and the Islamic States on the other, to ensure full utilization of the potentialities of the Islamic States in the service of the military effort; and setting up a military office in the Islamic Secretariat to be responsible for such coordination, in agreement with the Committee on Al-Quds…

Resolution No.2/3.P (IS) on the Cause of Palestine and the Middle East: Considering that the Liberation of Al-Quds and its restoration to Arab sovereignty, as well as the liberation of the holy places from Zionist occupation, are a pre-requisite to the Jihad that all Islamic States must wage, each according to its means….

Resolution No.5/3-P (IS)- Declaration of Holy Jihad:

Taking these facts into consideration, the Kinds, Emirs, and Presidents of Islamic States, meeting at this Conference and in this holy land, studied this situation and concluded that it could no longer be tolerated that the forthcoming stage should be devoted to effective action to vindicate right and deter wrong-doing; and have unanimously.

Decided: To declare holy Jihad, as the duty of every Muslim, many or woman, ordained by the Shariah and glorious traditions of Islam; To call upon all Muslims, living inside or outside Islamic countries, to discharge this duty by contributing each according to his capacity in the case of Allah Almighty, Islamic brotherhood, and righteousness; To specify that Islamic states, in declaring Holy Jihad to save Al-Quds al-Sharif, in support of the Palestinian people, and to secure withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, wish to explain to the world that Holy Jihad is an Islamic concept which may not be misinterpreted or misconstrued, and that the practical measures to put into effect would be in accordance with that concept and by incessant consultations among Islamic states.

From the Putrajaya Islamic Summit, 2003, Speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathier Mohammad at the opening of the 10^th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference on Oct 16, 2003:¹²¹

To begin with, the governments of all the Muslim countries can close ranks and have a common stand if not on all issues, at least on some major ones, such as on Palestine. We are all Muslims…Over the centuries the ummah and the Muslim civilization became so weak that at one time there was not a single Muslim country which was not colonized or hegemonized by the Europeans…The Europeans could do what they liked with Muslim territories. It is not surprising that they should excise Muslim land to create the state of Israel to solve their Jewish problem. Divided, the Muslims could do nothing effective to stop the Balfour and Zionist transgression… We are now 1.3 billion strong. We have the biggest oil reserve in the world. We have great wealth. We are not as ignorant as the Jahilliah who embraced Islam. We are familiar with the workings of the world’s economy and finances. We control 50 out of the 180 countries in the world…We need guns and rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships…We may want to recreate the first century of the Hijrah, the way of life in those times, in order to practice what we think to be the true Islamic way of life….1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategize and then to counter-attack. As Muslims, we must seek guidance from the Al-Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. Surely the 23 years’ struggle of the Prophet can provide us with some guidance as to what we can and should do…We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them…We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains also…Of late because of their power and their apparent success they have become arrogant. And arrogant people, like angry people will make mistakes, will forget to think. They are already beginning to make mistakes. And they will make more mistakes. There may be windows of opportunity for us now and in the future.

*

Conclusion

After more than thirteen centuries of almost uninterrupted jihad in historical Palestine, it is not surprising that the finalized constitution for the proposed Palestinian Arab state declares all aspects of Palestinian state law to be subservient to the Shari’a, ¹²² while contemporary Palestinian Authority religious intelligentsia, as represented by Sheikh Salamah and Sheikh Al-Madhi, openly support restoration of the oppressive system of dhimmitude within a Muslim dominated Israel, as well.¹²³ An appropriate assessment of such anachronistic, discriminatory views was provided by the Catholic Archbishop of the Galilee, Butrus Al-Mu’alem, who, in a June 1999 statement dismissed the notion of modern “dhimmis” submitting to Muslims:

It is strange to me that there remains such backwardness in our society; while humans have already reached space, the stars, and the moon… there are still those who amuse themselves with fossilized notions. ¹²⁴

A strange notion for our modern times, certainly, but very real, ominous, and sobering.

Notes

^1. Jacques Ellul. Foreward to Les Chretientes d’Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmitude. VII^e – XX^e siecle, 1991. Pp. 18-19.

^2. Arthur Jeffery. “The Political Importance of Islam”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 1, 1942, p. 386.

^3. Richard Bell, The Qur’an. Vol. 1, Edinburgh, 1937

^4. Richard Bell, The Qur’an. p.171.

⁵ Arthur Jeffery, “The Political Importance of Islam”, p. 386. Three decades earlier, W.R.W. Gardner (in, “Jihad”, Moslem World, Vol. 2, 1912, pp. 348-349; 350; 354-355) had debunked, at length, similar apologetics written by Sheikh Muhammad Rida, Chiragh Ali, and others, observing,

There is undoubtedly a feeling, if not a belief among many Westerners that a Moslem regards it as a duty binding on him in accordance with the literal command of the Koran, to kill any and every believer whom he may meet once jihad has been proclaimed. Sheikh Rida acknowledges that this conception of the duty of a Moslem during jihad may have been in the past, and may even now be common among the ignorant or less educated Moslems, but he says that much of this feeling has been the result of mixing with foreigners (non-Moslems), who have had the mistaken idea of what Moslems mean by jihad, and that this mistaken idea of these non-Moslems has crept into Moslem minds, and has thus given apparent support to the belief that this is really a Mohammedan conception of one’s duty in jihad. Let us note here that it is because this conception of the duty of a ‘believer’ in time of jihad is, as a matter of fact the common belief of the ignorant Moslems (as the Sheikh admits, and for practical purposes it matters not how it arose), and because the ignorant Moslems form the greater part of the population in any Mohammedan land, that the non-Moslem subjects and residents in any land under Moslem rule have come to fear the word ‘jihad’, and to appeal to the more enlightened to be careful in their use of it. For they know that however it may be used by educated writers, the common people understand by it, attack on non-Moslems, and believe that it is their duty to destroy as many as possible of these unbelievers. Further, they know well how easy it is for an ignorant mob to get out of hand, especially when, rightly or wrongly, it believes that any action which has as its object the glory of God and the better establishment of the true religion, would be looked upon by those in authority with a lenient eye, if not with actual sympathy…For the question of what jihad is cannot be settled by reference alone to the etymology of the word jihad. The Koran plainly teaches in many passages, notwithstanding claims put forward by Chiragh Ali, the duty of fighting for the faith or ‘in the way of God’, by using the word qatala, and El Zamakhshary…says, ‘Fighting in the way of God is jihad for the glorifying of his word and the strengthening of the Religion’. And whatever may be the etymological meaning of the word jihad, there can be no gainsaying the fact that it is sometimes used in the Koran in the sense of warlike actions, a warfare for the sake of the Faith…Is war for the extension of Islamic rule also jihad? In considering this point, not much light is to be got from the writings of the more recent Moslem authors, such as those we have quoted. They simply deny that it is a principle of Islam that jihad may include wars of aggression. By denying this, they do not prove anything…For what we are considering is, what Mohammedanism is and has been- that is, what orthodox Mohammedanism teaches concerning jihad, founding its doctrine on a certain definite interpretation of those passages in the Koran which speak of jihad. Until the newer conceptions, as to what the Koran teaches as to the duty of the believer towards non-believers, have spread further and have more generally leavened the mass of Moslem belief and opinion, it is the older and orthodox standpoint on this question which must be regarded by non-Moslems as representing Mohammedan teaching and as guiding Mohammedan action. We may sympathize strongly with the newer ideas…we may hope that those who advance these ideas may succeed in having them generally accepted by Mohammedans; but … it is the older and narrower orthodox conception of Muhammad’s teaching alone, which we can as yet regard as representing the views and practice of Islam with regard to jihad on this question of aggressive war. And the words of …Chiragh Ali are such that we need not spend any time in trying to prove that orthodox Mohammedanism believes and teaches that, according to the Koran, it is the nature of jihad to be aggressive. Let us quote his words again: ‘The Mohammedan Common Law is wrong on this point when it allows unbelievers to be attacked without provocation.’ We take then as proved, the statement that Mohammedan Common Law allows unbelievers to be attacked without provocation…

^6. Maxime Rodinson, “The Western Image and Western Studies of Islam”, in The Legacy of Islam, edited by Joseph Schacht with C.E. Bosworth, London, 1974, p. 59.

^7. Khaled Abou El Fadl, “The Place of Tolerance in Islam” title essay, in The Place of Tolerance in Islam (Boston, MA.: Beacon Press, 2002), p. 19.

^8. Khaled Abou El Fadl, “The rules of killing at war: an inquiry into classical sources”, Muslim World 1999; Vol. 89 (number 2), pp.144-157.

^9. Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore, MD.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955), Pp. 63-64.

^10. Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton, NJ.: Markus Wiener, 1996), Pp.3,5.

^11. John Esposito, Islam The Straight Path, New York, 1994.

^12. Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Translated by Miriam Kochan and David Littman, (Cranbury, NJ.: Associated University Presses, 2001, p. 314

^13. Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, p. 315-16.

^14. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari (Ta’rikh al rusul wa’l-muluk), vol. 12, The Battle of Qadissiyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine, translated by Yohanan Friedman, (Albany, NY.: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 167.

^15. The Noble Qur’an http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/

^16. Translation of Sahih Bukhari http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/

^17. Translation of Sahih Muslim

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/

^18. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqudimmah. An Introduction to History, Translated by Franz Rosenthal. (New York, NY.: Pantheon, 1958, vol. 1), p. 473.

^19. Watt, W.M. [Translator]. The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali, Oxford, England, 1953, p. 13.

^20. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111). Kitab al-Wagiz fi fiqh madhab al-imam al-Safi’i, Beirut, 1979, pp. 186, 190-91; 199-200; 202-203. [English translation by Dr. Michael Schub.]

^21.Harry W. Hazard, Atlas of Islamic History, Princeton University Press, 1951.

^22. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari (Ta’rikh al rusul wa’l-muluk), vol. 12; vol. 13, The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt. Translated by G.H.A. Juynboll, (Albany, NY.: State University of New York Press, 1989); Al-Baladhuri, The Origins of the Islamic State (Kitah Futuh al-Buldan), translated by Philip K. Hitti, (Piscataway, NJ.: Georgias Press, 2002); Al-Kufi, The Chachnãmah, Part I: Giving the Mussulman period from the Arab conquest to the beginning of the reign of the Kalhorahs, translated by Mirza Kalichbeg Fredunbeg, (Delhi Reprint, 1979); Elliott and Dowson, A History of India As Told by Its Own Historians, Vols. 1-8, 1867-1877, (reissued Delhi Reprint, 2001); Kanhadade Prabandha, translated, introduced and annotated by V.S. Bhatnagar, New Delhi, 1991; Biography of Dharmasvamin (Chag lotsava Chos-rje-dpal), a Tibetan Pilgrim, English translation by G. Roerich, Patna, 1959; Mary Boyce, “Chapter Ten- Under the Caliphs”, pp. 145-162, in Zoroastrians-Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, (Routledge, London), 2001; A.E. Vacalopoulos, Origins of the Greek Nation-The Byzantine Period, 1204-1461, New Brunswick, N.J., 1970; Speros Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor, (Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 1971); K.S. Lal, The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (New Delhi.: Aditya Prakashan, 1992); Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 -1099, Translated by Ethel Broido, (Cambridge.: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, Translated by Miriam Kochan and David Littman, (Cranbury, NJ.: Associated University Presses, 1996)

^23. Al- Mawardi, The Laws of Islamic Governance [al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah], (London, United Kingdom.: Ta-Ha, 1996, pp. 60; 77-78; 200-201.

^24. E. W. Lane, ‘An Arabic-English Lexicon’ (London, 1865), Book I Part II, Jizya, p. 422.

^25. Jadunath Sarkar, “The Islamic State Church in India”, Pp. 283-318, in History of Aurangzib, Vol. 3, (Longmans Green and Co., London) 1929; S.D. Goitein, “Evidence on the Muslim Poll Tax from Non-Muslim Sources” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1963; Vol. 6, Pp. 278-295; Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, Translated by David Maisel, Paul Fenton, and David Littman. (Cranbury, NJ.: Associated University Presses, 1985, Pp. 53-54; The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, Pp. 77-79; Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Pp. 65-71.

^26. Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude, p. 70.

^27. Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude, p. 70-71.

^28. Al- Mawardi, The Laws of Islamic Governance, p. 211; Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, p. 169; Lal, The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India, p. 237.

^29. Al-Ghazali (d. 1111). Kitab al-Wagiz fi fiqh madhab al-imam al-Safi’i, Beirut, 1979, pp. 186, 190-91; 199-200; 202-203. [English translation by Dr. Michael Schub.]

^30. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, translated by Ethel Broido, Cambridge and New York, 1992, p. 11.

^31. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 11

^32. Richard Bell, The Origin of Islam in its Christian Environment, London, 1926, Pp. 134-135; 151; 159-161.

^33. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, Pp. 22-31.

^34. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, Pp. 32-43.

^35. Demetrios Constantelos, “Greek Christian and Other Accounts of the Moslem Conquests of the Near East”, in Christian Hellenism: Essays and Studies in Continuity and Change, New Rochelle, N.Y., A.D. Caratzas, 1998, p. 125.

^36. Demetrios Constantelos, “Greek Christian and Other Accounts of the Moslem Conquests”, p. 126.

^37. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 2.

^38. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, Pp. 14-15.

^39. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 20.

^40. Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, p. 44.

^41. Bat Ye’or, “Islam and the Dhimmis”, The Jerusalem Quarterly, 1987, Vol. 42, p. 85.

^42. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, Pp. 61, 169.

^43. Naphtali Lewis, “New Light on the Negev in Ancient Times”, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1948, Vol. 80, Pp. 116-117.

^44. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p 170.

^45. MEMRI, “Muslim-Christian Tensions in the Israeli-Arab Community”, August 2, 1999, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP4199

^46. MEMRI, “A Friday Sermon on PA TV: … We Must Educate our Children on the Love of Jihad…’ ”, July 11, 2001, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP24001

^47. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, Pp. 420-21.

^48. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 473.

^49. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 473.

^50. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 473.

^51. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 474.

^52. Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, p. 74.

^53. Chronique de Denys de Tell-Mahre, translated from the Syriac by Jean-Baptiste Chabot (Paris, 1895), part 4, p. 112 [English translation in: Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, p. 74.]

^54. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 474-75.

^55. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 159

^56. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p.159; Q16:63– “By God, We (also) sent (Our apostles) to peoples before thee; but Satan made, (to the wicked) their own acts seem alluring: he is also their patron today, but they shall have a most grievous penalty”;Q5:72-“They do blaspheme who say: ‘Allah is Christ the son of Mary.’ But said Christ: ‘O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’ Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help.”Q58:19– “The devil hath engrossed them and so hath caused them to forget remembrance of Allah. They are the devil’s party. Lo! is it not the devil’s party who will be the losers?”

^57. Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, p. 84.

⁵⁸. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 475-76.

⁵⁹. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 375.

^60. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 373.

^61. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 376.

^62. Moshe Gil, “Dhimmi Donations and Foundations for Jerusalem (638-1099)”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 37, 1984, pp. 166-167.

^63. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 415.

^64. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 412.

^65. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 415.

^66. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 416.

^67. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 416.

^68. Julius Greenstone, in his essay, “The Turcoman Defeat at Cairo” The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 22, 1906, pp. 144-175, provides a translation of this poem [excerpted, pp. 164-165] by Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph [believed to be a descendant of the Geonim, an illustrious family of Palestinian Jews of priestly descent], which includes the poet’s recollection of the previous Turcoman conquest of Jerusalem during the eighth decade of the 11^th century. Greenstone comments [p. 152], “As appears from the poem, the conquest of Jerusalem by Atsiz was very sorely felt by the Jews. The author dwell at great length on the cruelties perpetrated against the inhabitants of the city…”

^69. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 420.

^70. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, Pp. 420-21.

^71. For example, Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades- Vol. 1- The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Cambridge, 1951, Pp. 286-87; Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, p. 827 notes, “The Christians violated their promise to the inhabitants that they would be left alive, and slaughtered some 20,000 to 30,000 people, a number which may be an exaggeration…”

^72. Emmanuel Sivan, “Palestine During the Crusades”, in A History of the Holy Land, edited by Michael Avi-Yonah, Continuum, New York, 2001, p. 244.

^73. Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades- Vol. 3-The Kingdom of Acre, Cambridge, 1955, Pp. 419-21.

^74. Isaac b. Samuel of Acre. Osar Hayyim (Treasure Store of Life) (Hebrew). Ms. Gunzburg 775 fol. 27b. Lenin State Library, Moscow. [English translation in, Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, Pp. 352-54.

^75. C.E. Bosworth, “Christian and Jewish Dignitaries in Mamluk Egypt and Syria: Qalqashandi’s Information on Their Hierarchy, Titulature, and Appointment (I)”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 3, 1972, Pp. 65-66.

^76. Samuel b. Ishaq Uceda, Lehem dim’ah (The Bread of Tears) (Hebrew). Venice, 1606. [English translation in, Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, Pp. 354.

^77. Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude, p. 318.

^78. Gedaliah of Siemiatyc, Sha’alu Shelom Yerushalayim (Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem), (Hebrew), Berlin, 1716. [English translation in, Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, Pp. 377-80.]

^79. Moshe Maoz, “Changes in the Position of the Jewish Communities of Palestine and Syria in the Mid-Nineteenth Century”, in Moshe Maoz (Editor), Studies on Palestine During the Ottoman Period, The Magnes Press, 1975, p. 142.

^80. A. A. Bonar and R. M. McCheyne, A Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839 (Edinburgh, 1842), Pp. 180-81, 273.

^81. James Finn, British Consul, Report from Jerusalem, November 8, 1858, cited in, Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, Pp. 252-53.

^82. Tudor Parfitt, The Jews of Palestine, 1800-1882 The Boydell Press, 1987, p. 168.

^83. Tudor Parfitt, The Jews of Palestine, Pp. 172-73.

^84. Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference, Transaction Publishers, 2000, p. 75.

^85. Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference, p. 77.

^86. Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference, Pp. 82-83.

^87. Musa Kazem el-Husseini, (President Palestinian Arab Congress), to High Commissioner for Palestine, December 10, 1920 (Translated January 2, 1921), Israel State Archives, R.G. 2, Box 10, File 244.

^88. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39: The Case of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam and His Movement”, in Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and Israel, edited by Elie Kedourie and Sylvia G. Haim, Frank Cass, London, 1982, p. 55.

^89. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, Pp. 59-61.

^90. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, Pp. 61-62.

^91. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, Pp. 61, 63.

^92. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, Pp. 64, 71.

^93. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, p. 76.

^94. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, p. 71.

^95. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, p. 72.

^96. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, p.72.

^97. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, Pp. 78-86.

^98. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, Pp. 96-97.

^99. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, Pp. 87-88.

^100. Shai Lachman, “Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine 1929-39”, p. 88.

^101. Joseph B. Schechtman, The Mufti and The Fuehrer, New York, 1965; Zvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti Haj Amin Al-Hussaini, translated by David Harvey, Frank Cass, 1993.

^102. Yossef Bodansky, Islamic Antisemitism as a Political Instrument, Houston, 1999, p. 29.

^103. Joseph B. Schechtman, The Mufti and The Fuehrer, Pp. 114-15.

^104. Jennie Lebel, Hajj Amin ve Berlin (Hajj Amin and Berlin), Tel Aviv, 1996.

^105. Joseph B. Schechtman, The Mufti and The Fuehrer, Pp. 151.

^106. Jennie Lebel, Hajj Amin ve Berlin (Hajj Amin and Berlin), pp. 140-42; Jan Wanner, in, “Amin al-Husayni and Germany’s Arab Policy in the Period 1939-1945”, Archiv Orientalni Vol. 54, 1986, p. 244, observes, “His appeals…addressed to the Bosnian Muslims were…close in many respects to the argumentation used by contemporary Islamic fundamentalists…the Mufti viewed only as a new interpretation of the traditional concept of the Islamic community (umma) sharing with Nazism common enemies”

^107. Jan Wanner, “Amin al-Husayni and Germany’s Arab Policy”, p. 243

^108. Joseph B. Schechtman, The Mufti and The Fuehrer, Pp. 152-63.

^109. David Pryce-Jones, The Closed Circle, New York, 1989, p. 191.

^110. Efraim Karsh, Arafat’s War, New York, 2003.

^111. Walid Phares, Lebanese Christian Nationalism, Boulder, CO, 1995; Farid El-Khazen, The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon- 1967-1976, Cambridge, 2000.

^112. Michael Oren, Six Days of War- June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Oxford, 2002,, p.1

^113. Charles Emmanuel Dufourcq, La Vie Quotidienne dans l’Europe Medievale sous Domination Arabe, Paris, 1978, p. 20.

^114. Bat Ye’or, “Aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict”, Wiener Library Bulletin, Vol. 32, 1979, p. 68.

^115. Efraim Karsh, Arafat’s War, p. 117.

^116. Raphael Israeli, Islamikaze- Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology, Frank Cass, London, 2003.

^117. Efraim Karsh, Arafat’s War, p. 233.

^118. All excerpts from, Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, Pp.391-94.

^119. All excerpts from, Bat Ye’or, Eurabia- The Euro-Arab Axis (Galleys), Cranbury, NJ.: Associated University Presses, 2005, Pp. 275-76; 280.

^120. All excerpts from, Bat Ye’or, Eurabia- The Euro-Arab Axis (Galleys), Cranbury, NJ.: Associated University Presses, 2005, Pp. 288-90; 295.

^121. All excerpts from, Bat Ye’or, Eurabia- The Euro-Arab Axis (Galleys), Cranbury, NJ.: Associated University Presses, 2005, Pp. 314-19.

^122. Bedein, David. “A Not So Merry Christmas in the Holy Land” FrontPageMagazine.com December 26, 2003 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11477

^123. MEMRI, “Muslim-Christian Tensions in the Israeli-Arab Community”, August 2, 1999, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP4199 ; MEMRI, “A Friday Sermon on PA TV: … We Must Educate our Children on the Love of Jihad…’ ”, July 11, 2001, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP24001

^124. MEMRI, “Muslim-Christian Tensions in the Israeli-Arab Community”.